Ignoring him would've been the best way

This post is summary of few life lessons. Lessons that we the people and media of this nation don't seem to learn even when repeatedly encountered.

When was the last time someone changed his opinion because of your convincing argument against it? If you are among the world's top most elocutionist and honest in your self-assessment, you probably have changed opinions of less than 10% of people you tried changing opinion of. If you are an average man, number will be less than one in hundred. Lesson: Someone doesn't just his opinion just because you have few choice arguments against it. Specially not if person had opinion on the topic to begin with and was not on the fence. Changing someone's view points takes (at least) months of words and action combination (among other things).

Every action has cost and consequence. Every action is motivated by incentives. What did one want when one do something? Are you giving him the very same thing even though you claim not to? Lesson: Focus on the root motivation.

I try to keep this blog free from news-dependent posts to focus on ideas and not events and people. But I just have to say this: Asaram Ji, you've won. Public of this country played exactly as you wanted.

What did he want when he stated unreasonable opinion? What did reaction of public and media gave him?

Let's recap current version: He said obviously stupid thing to small gathering in small town in Rajasthan. People and media reacted, criticized, made fun of, and made him retract his argument. He was instantly famous all over India. From the above life lesson we can be sure that neither he nor his followers really changed their belief: those who agreed with him wouldn't change the view now and those who didn't don't need to change. What will be gained by wasting resource and money on him? Say, really, unto his heart, he changes his mind, so what? Is that's best use of hundreds of media hours, lakhs of man hours, and lakhs of rupees?

Let's imagine alternative history in case people weren't stupid. He said obviously stupid thing to small gathering in small town in Rajasthan. Some of his followers who agreed with him, nodded in agreement. Those who didn't, disagreed in heart, and probably decided to not continue to follow him. End of story.

Freedom of speech is a tough concept to understand. We instantly align with freedom when curb is placed on freedom of press or public expression. Yet, we need to understand that very same freedom implies such bad statements too. And we need to have them their way. Criticizing others for saying what you don't agree with doesn't go hand in hand with demanding freedom to say what you agree with, be it good or bad. And until we have that maturity, we don't really want the freedom per se, we just want freedom for us.

There have been, are and will be idiots in the world. A wise man learns to ignore them. Rest are idiots in different category.

The end of the beginning and the beginning of the end

Starting now, I am a family man.
And “uncle”.
And among set of people who have tasted proverbial laddoo.
And can empathize with, and not merely laugh at, marriage jokes.
And will live longer.

Starting now, I cannot sleep till noon.
Or skip meals.
Or not shave for days.
Or leave my room cluttered.
Or wear same shirt for fourth consecutive day.
Or ogle at beautiful ladies.
Or watch porn (as frequently).

And my wife is awesome (she is watching over).

Wish me luck. I am marr(i)ed!

1411

That’s the number you’ve been told about remaining number of tigers in India. Campaign is ubiquitous: on prime time TV, on print media, on bill boards. Cause is just: after all, conservation of any animal specie is worthy effort, let alone unique, majestic and royal creature as Royal Bengal Tiger of India. So, of course, you are supposed to join the roar.

I do wonder though if such expense of money on campaign is going to serve any useful purpose at all. Your writing blogs, SMSing friends and writing articles in media will help whom? Are poachers, illegal traders or users of goods made from tiger will suddenly change their heart because Mahender Singh Dhoni says so? Will politicians and forest officials will see light at the end of tunnel and gear their actions towards stricter punishment and speedy justice? Will China stop consuming soup of tiger’s private parts for increasing their fertility? If not, what is your roar going to do?

Even their website is not sure if you can help. It says 'you can help', so I went there looking how. It says “roar” and previous paragraphs tells me that impact of that is non-existence and unclear at best. It says “donate” which, naturally, will help promote this very campaign but which is not going to have any effect anyway since this is precisely what we are discussing now. It says “be informed” which is good but again a useless activity. I am well informed about severity of this issue and how is this going to help me or tigers? It says “speak up” which is another word for “roar” in ‘saveourtigers’ lingo. You see where am I going here? Website suggests us to “lead the change”. Now if you are kind of person who will kill tiger for money or wear that necklace of tiger bones, I am not sure if reading this website will change your mind. Supposing if it does, what fraction of market of tiger goods is from these kind of people? And, of course, if you are not this kind of person then you are already part of change, even if unconsciously. Having access to most strata of India society, I don’t see any of intended audience of this campaign consuming tiger anyway. Further advice given in the campaign is to “write, SMS, donate, spread the word” which we have seen is rehash of earlier.

What can be remotely considered useful is advice about being “responsible tourist” and example given is not to throw chips packet in national parks. How much impact will it have in improving 1411 number doesn’t require a genius. Hint: it won’t. It continues to say that we should “preserve natural resources”. Preaching to the choir?

What happened, if I can imagine, is this. World Wildlife Fund knows that this is worthy cause and Aircel joined with big sponsorship and now we have an organization which has lot of money but nothing to do with it. So they blow all in advertisement saying what they do (save the tigers) but that they don’t actually do (they just campaign). I am not good at these sort of things but I’d reckon that throwing all the money to bribe forest officials to catch poachers, lobbying politicians to change regulations, incentivizing local communities near forests to alternate livelihood and exposing China’s consumption to world at large will be better use of money than that expensive billboard shouting “1411”.

Related read: Only other blog raising this question, Humorous take on this (NSFW)

Balanced view

For an objective reporter writing a well researched article in intellectual journal, need to present facts and information in balanced format is important. It is important for him to provide both sides of an argument and positions for both for and against an issue lest he appears biased or judgmental. An intelligent reader in public discourse is expected to evaluate arguments by themselves and not be influenced by editorial leaning. This is specially true when article for consumption is written for wider audience which may include people on both sides of debate. Therefore, there is this need to balance discussion. However, real balancing can only take place if both views actually carry equal weight. In issues where one side of position is weaker than other, balancing turns into ridiculous tit-for-tat action where point of view of one side is immediately countered with opposite point of view even when they are not comparable at all thereby giving more proportional representation to weaker view.

With India-Pakistan discussion flaring again in domestic and international media, there are plethora of articles which try to balance Islamic terrorism with Hindu terrorism even when ratio of intensity of one to another is thousand is to one. Similar caricatured forced balancing takes place in many other spheres within India and elsewhere where need to find plausible opposing argument to stronger point of view obviates the more important need to maintain contextual usefulness and relative meaningfulness. It would have been great for me to cite news articles for this post but even if you keep this point of mind when reading and writing you will see such things at many places, specially when source of article is an organization which, for political reason, cannot side with the truth.

Such forced balancing also takes place in many Hollywood movies where blacks/whites and man/woman characters are kept in about equal number, specially in police force or medical profession. Need for political correctness and not appearing racists has taken such narrow view that if cast doesn't include black characters then producer/director is considered racist. Even comedy sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S was not spared this criticism. This happens to lesser extent in Bollywood but police or army characters almost always include Hindu/Muslim balance, though often it is part of the plot.

Media does it again

I, among many, had talked about lack of media ethics in reporting Bombay attacks last November. One of these news channel couldn't take criticism and slapped another blogger with legal notice. Here is full story with commentaries from Indian blogosphere. This isn't first time when a large corporate media has used its legal might to harass individual from expressing personal opinion. What I said earlier still holds and we continue to be party to blame if we patronize such media groups and channels. Those who lament lack of alternative need only look to print or online media or Doordarshan. As always, one must remember to take whatever information any media dishes out with plenty of salt.

[E]xpecting people to act on moral grounds by their own volition is model but not practical solution...[a]lternative is for us to boycott these channels and let them know why we do that.

Drab dresses

Here is was YouTube link (Edit: video removed) of A. R. Rahman winning Oscars Golden Globes and all those people who despised Oscar for its bias in selection will suddenly forget and rejoice because Indian film (if it can be called that) won. We are quick to lap up to anyone or anything with slightest of Indian connection be it Kalpana Chawala or Sanjay Gupta.

These are the awards where who dresses how is big talk and all I could think of looking at these is that a small poor Indian wedding is more colourful and lovely dressed than these millionaires in their boring blacks and whites. What a drab.

On related note, what on earth led to convention (in Britain prominently, but also in USA) that men must dress in similar looking black tuxedos while women dress in wide variety of gowns, skirts and dresses in all lovely colours (particularly noted in movie Titanic[imdb: 7.2/10]). And why the hell Indians are blindly copying West in discarding pink as colour not for men or holding hands as something men can't do? Even stricter compartmentalization among genders and stereotyping is supposed to strengthen what? A simple gestures of friends men touching each other is being frowned upon.

As I’ve always feared, seems like India can’t move forward and be progressive without avoiding the problems that come with it even when there are example to learn from in developed countries of the world.

CAT and Reservations

Of 2,38,665 people who applied to IIMA in CAT 2008, 38,417 (16.1% of total) were in reserved category (disabled, SC, ST, non-creamy OBC). Of 315 available seats, 121 (38.4% of total) were in reserved category. Of 3,776 people (1.58% of applications) who cleared minimum cut-off, 264 (0.69% of applications) were from reserved category, even after relaxed cut-off level by 8% percentage point or roughly 30% lower marks. Of 1,412 people (0.59% of applications) who were further pre-screened to be called for GD/PI, 252 (0.66% of applications, 17.85% of pre-screened total) were from reserved category, again with relaxed standards. Note that after two level of relaxed standards, roughly same fraction of reserved category people are called for GD/PI as general category. Also, note the fraction of applications from reserved category versus fraction of seats reserved. At interview stage, 11 disabled candidates are fighting for 9 seats (82% odds), 25 ST candidates for 24 seats (96%), 109 SC candidates for 47 seats (43%), 107 non-creamy OBC candidates for 41 seats (38%), and 1,160 general candidates for 194 seats (17%). At aggregate level, 0.097% of applicants secure a seat in general category while this figure is 0.315% for reserved applicants, a disparity of order of 3.2 times. [Source]

This is in numbers how much reservations are biased. They can make 38% seats for 16% people who would barely be able to fill disproportionately large quota even at generous helpings of relaxed standards. Reservations can get you a place, but they can’t make you smarter. At some level, mostly during academic grill or later in world at large, reservations stop and reality emerges, but not before many genuine candidates are sacrificed at the altar of short-term public appeasement. If only public and politicians would have wanted later rather than former…

Holier than thou Mumbai

It’s really not the time, I know. It will hurt, I know that too. But I have to get it off me because people will not be able to listen directly to me otherwise. If you are passionate about Mumbai, don’t read further. I don’t mean disrespect, but I have to tell this.

Attack on Mumbai was atrocious. It was devastating because it killed so many, because it went for so long thus emotionally draining us, and because it was ruthless in its implementation. I am as connected to Mumbai as most of non-Mumbaikar are: I’ve visited the city for a while, I know it as financial and entertainment capital, and I have enjoyed my stay there. However, lets not get carried away in holier than thou attitude toward Mumbai in our desperation, ignoring rest of the India. Emphasis: Mumbai is important, so is rest of India.

Suketu Mehta wonders what is so special about Mumbai that attracts terrorists? He concludes that open nature and entrepreneur spirit of Mumbai is unacceptable to destroyer of Indianness. It’s nice thing to say except that terrorist attacks have happened at many many other places too, not just Mumbai. They’ve happened too frequently in New Delhi too. A city is spirited and open nature by its people, and not by itself. All cities of India are very open and entrepreneur, everyone is welcome anywhere to try his luck. But most chose to come to Mumbai, because, obviously, and this is what Tim Harford implies in his book, cities support interconnections. So it’s true that Mumbai is city of dream but it is just because it is and not because no other city can be. It’s all historical, who settles where and who pulls whom next. Easier answer is terrorists chose Mumbai and other places because they think it will make good news and cause great harm. And they aren’t that fond of Mumbai as he would like to believe, which is, of course, a good thing.

Often after tragedy, there is talk about resilience of city. How Mumbai recovers so fast from disaster. Bluntly, it doesn’t. It is forced to. Could a person who supports his family hand to mouth afford to be afraid and sit at home? No, he will die of hunger if not terrorism. So does every other city. It’s same everywhere in India. Nothing special about Mumbai. It’s all special about people. Similarly there are so many articles saying that Mumbaikars are so helpful. They run towards disaster, not away from it. Of course, they do. So do people of other cities. It’s about people, silly. There are brave and helpful everywhere, so are there afraid and exploitative. Everywhere we can hear stories of courage of people giving shelter, food, transportation, saving lives after any natural or manmade disaster.

Can we just stop calling it “India’s 9/11”. For starters, lets get our own name and stop tagging to someone else’s branding. For next, what about hundreds of attacks earlier? Was London subway bombings called UK’s 9/11?

At these times, and earlier too during Mumbai floods, many people raise demands that Mumbai should be separate state. That Mumbai contributes disproportionately large portion of India’s taxes and doesn’t get equivalent grants in return. Two things disprove this stupid logic. First, it is power of state to collect taxes and use them irrespective of their origin. Hey, I never got as much money back for my development as much as I contributed in taxes. Second, Mumbai contributes to large taxes only because all rich people chose to live there, not because all money is coming from there. When ‘Om Shanti Om’ became hit, Indians across nation put money in the kitty, but because Shah Rukh Khan lives in Mumbai, he files taxes there. Mumbai didn’t contribute all money its own. When Reliance files its taxes from Mumbai, it is filing on all India revenue. And so on and so forth. Money is coming from all India and if Amir Khan shifts his home to Tripura next day, Mumbai’s contribution will drop instantaneously.

Here is an excellent piece arguing against common phrase that attack against Taj Mahal Palace Hotel was attack against India’s pride. Except uncalled for rich bashing, article is spot on in mentioning that CST is real icon of India (movies confirm that!) which has been least focussed upon in news.

I have nothing against Mumbai. It’s been on my mind last week as you can see from topics of this blog. But I just wish people of Mumbai stop looking down upon rest of us. It’s not that different from other cities as they come.

Need for coherent compensation structure

When a tragedy strikes in India, there is often offer of ex-gratia payment by government bodies. Tragedy can be fire, train/road accident, riot, terrorist attack, flood, killer spree, building collapse, earthquake, disease outbreak, tsunami, or any other disaster. Few things determine amount of compensation a dead, seriously injured and injured party gets. The most important of these is the size of news it makes. Other factors are number of people affected, class and creed of people affected, public outrage at the event, presence of competing tragic event to divert mind, and richness of government where tragedy happened. Who gives compensation, such as central government, state government or even private corporation also depends on these factors. I have seen no one raising any objections about this ever but it always shocks me, in very disappointing way, how same human life is valued differently in different context.

When a single young boy named Prince fell into a well, it was news for three whole days. He was promptly rescued with help of army and engineers and was given few lakhs of compensation and free life time education among other things. Soon after hundreds of farmers died in flood in Bihar. I don’t know if they got any compensation but if they did, it would have been customary one lakh per person. When Delhi blasts on eve of Diwali made news in Media, both central and state government rushed to offer substantial ex-gratia payment, unlike passengers of train accident in Kerala soon after which were offered nominal amount. Soldiers who died in fighting terrorists in Bombay got five times their salary every month until their child turns 21 from a private company Sahara, unlike soldier who died fighting routine intruders crossing the border from Pakistan or soldier who was skinned by Bangladesh. It may be discomforting to you to place monetary value on life of people, but it is more discomforting to me to place uneven value on life of same people in different situation.

Whenever I hear such news only thing that immediately crosses my mind is the thought process in mind of victim’s family. Was that fault of that poor couple that their son didn’t fall in the well, and hence lost plateful of goodies for lifetime? Was the soldier who died defending us on border less brave, or was he at fault that he didn’t get opportunities to fight terrorists in Bombay, which if he had, he would have been equally brave? Was victim of train accident to due to sloppy infrastructure on governments part or accident of nature any less unfortunate than victim of bomb blasts in Jaipur or any other place? I refuse to discriminate between lives lost doing same thing at different places just because they happened to be part of different events which affected public emotionally differently. Would your death mean more if you were alone to die versus you die along with hundred others? Does Marathi life becomes more valuable since Maharashtra is richer than Bihar?

I would like government to design a coherent national compensation structure which would take into account voluntary (such as soldier or police) and involuntary (such as bomb blast victim or train accident victim) element of death or injury but which would be independent of size of news, solidarity of public, and other irrelevant factors mentioned earlier. Every dead/injured should get similar compensation for given type of tragedy and that should be coded nationally rather than leaving it to whims of politicians at the moment. I don’t think there is any way to regulate what corporate do but I wish they would stop playing on emotion to discriminate lives of one versus another.

It is probably cruel to think so, but it is also very real. Maid in my house rued that people who were injured in blasts in Ajmer Shareef were given fifty thousand ex-gratia payment, a fortune for her. There would be some people who might wonder if they were unlucky not to have been injured and missed a windfall? After all, we hear people who sell their kidneys and blood for money in desperation. Of course, we hope that fraction of such desperate and poor population is less, and in any case, there is no way we can solve this problem and start giving payment based on had-it-been-me.

Less said about the corruption involved in really cashing the compensation the better. Amount of paperwork required to prove that your party really died or injured, and that you are really legal next of kin, apart from processing delays and mandatory cut in compensation for bribe at emotionally vulnerable moments is heart wrenching reality of Indian machinery.

Media ethics

Many people raised questions about unethical means media employed while reporting recent tragedy in Bombay. Not only were they unethical, insensitive, crude and sensational, they also hampered counterstrike and may have resulted in more lives lost. One would have excused if they were not aware of their own stupidity, which, of course, should not be the case, but their blatant violation even after Ministry of I&B sent them a decree clearly showed a lack of conscience on media’s part. A general appeal in private and mainstream media is for better treatment of information pertaining to such incidents. No one, so far, has offered any solution though.

As I have been repeatedly emphasizing on this blog, expecting people to act on moral grounds by their own volition is model but not practical solution. People and organizations are going to act based on (dis)incentives they have and not based on their own consciences, as much as we would like to have this in the world. I’ve been trying to think of what penalty we citizen can inflict to tilt balance of incentives in favour of more ethical media management. A government body which penalizes these channels either on grievance complaint or active monitoring is one way to go. However, recent attempts by Ministry in developing code of conduct have been vehemently opposed by media who would like us to believe that self-regulation is way to go. If only they had regulated self. Recently created News Broadcasters Association (NBA) in India has developed a set of non-binding guidelines which are obeyed in violations mostly. Since self-regulation failed miserably and is an oxymoron to me in the first place, Ministry can try to bring legislation to the effect. After all, why would media have problem with legal regulation if they really wanted to follow their own self-regulation, unless that was hogwash which it what it appears to be?

Alternative is for us to boycott these channels and let them know why we do that. I’ve been proponent of power of public in most cases in teaching lessons be it to corporate, government and private sector. But again, what we do says more than what we say, and people of India are not going to stop watching sensational news channels just because they claim they don’t like sensationalisation. If they really didn’t, would these profit driven media be stupid to serve that? More and more I think about it, more and more problems for which we like to blame politicians, government, corporate and lobbyists are because of what we do. A newspaper whose top five stories always comprise of glamour and sex is largest selling English daily in the world. Reality shows which show blatant humiliation and meanness gross highest TRPs every week. Doordarshan with its clean and unsensational news is least watch television channel among people who have access to cable. As much as anybody would like to think otherwise, because it is easy to blame others than look self-ward, we too have a blood on ours hands.

This and that

That killed 150+ and this killed 100+. That was done by violent outsiders and this was our own mismanagement. That will get lot of mention and this will be promptly ignored. But a life lost is life lost, no? Last time too when Delhi blasts happened, a train wreck in Kerala killed more. When Jaipur blasts happened, rampage in Jodhpur temple killed more. Who got more compensation (Delhi) and why (more dramatic) versus who should have got more compensation (Kerala) and why (direct government failure). Irony?

01/12/2008 11:50AM Edit: Sahara announces generous compensation to families of security persons. As much as I am happy with the move, I am also little dismayed. Did the soldier who was not deployed in Bombay but died in regular skirmish along border any less brave?

Bombay attacks

How do you fight an enemy who is not afraid of dying and instead covets death?
How do you yield or reason with with enemy whose only demand is world domination (khaliphate) and unconditional surrender of rest?
Is there a way out except wait to die?

Twitter search ‘Mumbai’ – Twitter BeakingNewsOn - Google Map Places of Attacks – Wikipedia entry – Indiamike updates – Contact Numbers

Congo

These images from Congo Crisis hurts my heart so bad that only solution seem to be to just forget. Indeed, world has. And at such moments I wonder if it’s worth just to take over a country and run it from inside instead of just sending help from outside. Which country would want to do that, and will that work? My next thought is immediate annihilation of the world, for that’s only sure shot way I see sufferings of people can be eliminated. We, humans, are not worth living if this is how we treat ourselves. Also see ‘if you think life is tough?’

Being bigger just got better

Supreme Court of Canada ruled that obese people should get two seats on airplanes for price of one. Court maintained that obesity is disability beyond one’s control and one-person-one-fair policy should be maintained. Their point is fair, though opposite side is fair too. Why should airline loss money for someone’s personal problem? Court has managed to fit obese person breadth wise but depth wise fitting is still up to individual!

Tiranga on Moon

As much as I’d love to be pleased by planting Indian National Flag on moon, hitting moon with metal probe painted with tricolour is not what I had in mind. So if you had vision of cloth/plastic flag fluttering on the moon (from vibration impact, not wind), I am sorry to disappoint you. ISRO informs that:

The Indian flag was painted on the sides of Moon Impact Probe (MIP), one of the 11 payloads of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, that successfully hit the lunar surface today at 20:31 hrs (8:31 pm) IST.

Cycle of no development

Times Online reports that roads without traffic rules may be safer.

Traffic lights, road signs and white lines would be removed from many high streets…question of who had priority would be left open deliberately, making drivers more cautious…pedestrians, cyclists and cars are encouraged to mingle…idea is to create space where there is mild anxiety among everyone so they all behave cautiously…creating an environment where it just doesn’t feel right to drive faster than 20mph…allow pedestrians to cross where they want…lights and other controls hamper instead of harness human nature, causing untold delay and harm.

It’s not India we are talking about, of course, but Britain. They are trying to be what we already are!

On legalizing live-in relationships

On recent move by Maharashtra government in response to this post:

I think that people enter into live-in relationship because they want flexibility and want to avoid hassles of marriage. Now getting benefits without getting responsibilities of marriage is clearly not fair. I accept law which can permit live-in relationships to be certified so coupled can book hotel room or rent a house and fight domestic abuse which is simply law against violence, but maintenance law for live-in relationship is like “chit bhi meri pat bhi meri” (heads I win, tails you lose) for ‘other’ woman. And in such cases we seem to forget that ‘other’ woman has choice, and entered into live-in relationship and avoided marriage knowing what it means and what it doesn’t.

To put simply, I don’t agree.

One eye veil

Who said religious fanatics are stupid. You need stroke of genius to to come up with something like this:

A Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia has called on women to wear a full veil, or niqab, that reveals only one eye. Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive.

Amit Varma has an apt response.

Auctioning virginity

After designer babies, surrogate motherhood, this was inevitable in capitalistic society and free-market mechanism. Actually it is not much difference than age old prostitution, what is different is promotion of said act. When we espouse the idea, we must bear the consequences, for there is no half-hearted support for freedom of choice and free market. Any half-measure will struggle to define boundaries and will lead to hijacking by special interest groups.

When Netherland made prostitution legal, it got more control over underground market; could better control trafficking, violence against women and spread of sexual diseases; and was able to raise funds through taxes. However, when business became legal, advertising too became legal. In one alarming case a woman's unemployment benefits were revoked after she refused to work in brothel. If I recall the incident correctly, law required that state provide two opportunities for employment to unemployed and if they don't take any of them, they will not be entitled to unemployment benefits. Sounds fair, after all, when you don't want to work, why should government pay you for free. Except in her case, she was offered prostitution job from database of unemployed available to all business, including brothels, now legal.

See my reflections on related subject on progress of society here (in Hindi).

Bludgeoned to death

News of Graziano India’s CEO’s death by irate fired workers leaves me seething and shocked. You wouldn’t expect to die in job as executive, not until now.

This thing is wrong from so many angles. It's sign of sick mindset of people and mob mentality that excuses everything done in crowds. Killing someone for getting fired is weirdest thing to happen. And it's a serious blot on foreign industrial presence in India. Corruption, infrastructure, IPR regime aside, which company would want to come to employ these savages. I just wish these people are well publicized and nobody ever hires these goons.

Shamefully, such things are infrequent but recurring in India. Professor getting beaten to death for disciplining a student, women thrown acid for rejecting a love proposal, a policeman getting beaten to death when objecting to false weights at local vegetable market, person thrown out of train for asking his legitimate seat from occupiers, and so on. Killing brutally (and burning buses) seem to have become a natural way to solve problems. And why not? As long as mob does it, law is helpless and one can get away with anything from rape, murder, pillage and what not.

And what does our dishon’ble minister says? That firms should learn compassion dealing with workers. Right, what about these workers learning some humanness first. He wants workers to be organized. Some people never learn lessons. Kill a CEO now and be sure that in next 20 years no new jobs will be created then those savages can roam with with their pride and hunger on the street.

I sometime wonder if there is a possibility to use high resolution satellite imagery to identify and convict criminals in mob violence and vandalism. As far as I know, ISRO does have this resolution and capability, and most mob violence are in open. People engage in these precisely because they know they can get away lost in crowd. And I suspect that people who engage in religious riots are not just driven by religious hatred, they seek this anonymous opportunity to loot and plunder shops and houses, rape women, throw stones and kerosene bombs, and in some sick sense of way have fun. If every person who torched, or helped torch, a bus would have to pay ten lakh to replace it, I doubt anger will hold any longer.

Edit: To my surprise, if Digg readership is to be believed, Americans are supporting this act, mostly in frustration with current Wall Street crisis.