Speaking from Ivory Towers
When Al Gore was giving all his sermons on the environment, I certainly thought that he was speaking from Ivory Towers.
Read the following article:
Made me realise that he was actually speaking from one huge glass house, busy throwing stones at lesser mortals while he was actually building his own Ivory Tower!
And we thought that only Indian Politicians know anything about hypocrisy!!!
Regards,
N
I happened to read an interesting article by Prof. KS Jacob in the Hindu dated April 27, 2010 (Creating Wealth Without Justice). While the article is indeed thought provoking, I'm afraid that the points mentioned therein run counter to the very laws of nature.
Here are my thoughts on the subject:
Inequity in life is not only normal, but even desirable. It is actually an unwritten law of nature. All living beings, including humans, can't be born equal nor become equal. If a lion bothers about the unfairness of a zebra dying for the sake of filling its own stomach, the lion will starve to death. If the deer bothers about the hunger of the tiger, it will have to be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.
People will always be differentiated based on different parameters such as IQ, knowledge levels, skill levels, height, weight, physical disabilities, etc. It is impossible to treat all human beings as equals, nor is it feasible to ensure equal opportunities for all. That is the very essence of Gods creation.
Perplexing though the above statement might appear on the surface, allow me to elaborate:
· It is impossible for all of us to be born equal. There would be differences in physical abilities, IQ levels, wealth & income levels, country of origin, gender, etc.
· A vast majority of us are adequately selfish, tending to put self above family, family above friends, friends ahead of neighbours, known persons above unknown persons, etc. in most situations. Certainly, not too many of us would consider paying the tuition and hostel fees for IIT / IIM education to an acquaintance's niece as willingly as we would proffer the same to our own child who has got selected.
· The very same selfishness also makes us seek to live in a society (so as to enjoy the benefits of companionship, opportunity to be "one-up" on the other, to seek the services of other human beings to make things easier for oneself, etc.)
If we think through the above three irrefutable factors and take them to the logical conclusion, we'll realise that there is bound to be inequity in life.
Some obvious examples:
· At birth,
o One person is born the son of an Anil Ambani, and the other is born to a rickshaw puller from interior Orissa.
o One is born in
o The result: Obvious
· In a school or college,
o Some students score better marks than others due to factors of nature or nurture.
o On the day of the exam, one student suffers a headache, misses the school bus by a whisker, comes across a bad accident on the road en route, reaches the exam hall with a minute to spare. Another student (who is "equally bright, coming from an equally rich / educated / comfortable family background") meets a close pal who wishes him good luck, catches the school bus / auto in time, gets his favourite seat, reaches the exam hall with 15 minutes to spare.
o The result: Obvious
· On the road on New Year's eve - around midnight -
o A rich man's son, driving the latest Mercedes, bangs into a beggar sleeping on the pavement, and kills him instantly. Immediately he rushes home and informs his dad about it. The dad contacts the best lawyer in town right away, seeks advice on all the "right steps to be taken" and acts immediately.
o A poor man who has come to the city from his native village looking for work who is merely loitering around taking in the sights of the new surroundings is caught by the cop on "suspicious behaviour" and language problems ensure that he is not able to explain his presence outside the fancy restaurant at that hour!
o The result: Obvious
· World of Journalism -
o Prof. KS Jacob, with all his knowledge of his chosen field of work, linguistic skills, gift of the gab, position at CMS Vellore, etc. writes a nice, long article putting forth his views and sends it to "The Hindu" for publication
o Ms. XYZ, a "home-maker" with a reasonable degree of thinking ability, but without a command over the English language, writes an article on the IPL controversy in broken English, with poor grammar and sends it to "The Hindu" for publication
o Mr. PQR, a job-seeking graduate from a small town in UP, who barely has the IQ required to finish his degree after a delay of 4-5 years, just tries to send a brief letters to the editor, trying to express his views on an article that he read.
o The result: Obvious
One can go on and on with examples.
However, the fact of life is that inequity exists; Has always existed; Will continue to exist for as long as living beings roam around out here.
So, what can we do?
Some suggestions:
At an individual level,
At the societal level,
Keeping in mind the two points mentioned above, I can't think of any alternative to the "Capitalistic" model which would be better. It is better to have 100 loaves of bread to be shared by two persons in the ratio of 90:10 than to have 5 loaves of bread to be shared by two persons in the ratio of 60:40. Capitalism achieves the former, and most other systems end up making do with 5 loaves of spoilt bread.
I rest my case.
Regards,
N
Going on a holiday
Dear Friends,
Am going off on a longish holiday for 3-4 weeks. I'm unlikely to be blogging during this period.
Once I'm back, I'm sure that I'll be even more energized than ever, and will come up with many more useful and interesting posts.
Do check out from time to time, but certainly come back to this blog in the first week of December, 2009.
Bye for now!
Regards,
N
Female CEOs' Pay Nearly Half Of Their Male Counterparts In The
Wonder if any of you have similar figures for the Indian context.
My own (entirely baseless) suspicion is that things will be much worse in India.
Source: Got it from naukri.com - original source - Financial Express
Gender Bias or What? Female CEOs' Pay Nearly Half Of Their Male Counterparts In The US
According to a recent survey, female chief executives earned just 58% of what their male counterparts did in 2008, and their salary packages were slashed three times as much as their male peers. Corporate governance research firm, the Corporate Library said total realised compensation — which includes base salary, bonuses, perquisites, benefits, and the value realized on the exercise of options and vesting of other equity — declined by a median of 18.5% in 2008 for female CEOs. During the same time, the compensation of male CEOs fell 6.1%, the survey revealed. Top female chief executives' median base salary was $40,000 higher in comparison to that for male CEOs, but men's' discretionary bonuses were more than 3.5 times larger than those given to females, and men's perquisite payments were nearly twice the amount received by women, the survey said.
My (entirely baseless and uneducated) guess regarding the possible reasons:
Any comments?
Regards,
N
Firemen die inside a Lift
Had this not been a true life incident widely reported in the media, I'd have thought that it was perhaps an articicially created case study for Class X school children while discussing about subjects such as Fire Safety, Civic sense, etc.
God, is it not the most basic of lessons learnt by even school children that one is not supposed to take a Lift in a building which has caught a fire?
Here we have an instance where fire service personnel actually took a lift in while trying to approach the 14th floor of a building which was on fire!!
Very sincerely, I simply don't have the heart to pass any comments about the dead souls. However, their supervisors, trainers, etc. must certainly be taken to task.
Regards,
N
In a Rat Race, the winner still remains a Rat
I'm glad to forward a mail with no further additions of my own. The mail represents views that I've been espousing for a long while.
People have forgotten - at least lots of people have indeed forgotten - that they earn to live, and not the other way round.
Do recall that you need to Live!
Regards,
N
Hi Folks,
Here's a good one.
This was a speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlen at
the graduation ceremony of an American university where she was awarded an
Honorary PhD.
"I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don't
ever confuse the two, your life and your work. You will walk out of here
this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be
hundreds of people out there with your same degree: there will be thousands
of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only
person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your
entire life. Not just your life at a desk or your life on a bus or in a car
or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your
heart. Not just your bank accounts but also your soul.
People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easier to
write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is cold comfort on a
winter's night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you've
received your test results and they're not so good.
Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never
to let my work stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider
myself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am
a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what
they say. I am a good friend to my friends and them to me. Without them,
there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard
cut out. But I call them on the phone and I meet them for lunch. I would be
rotten, at best mediocre, at my job if those other things were not true.
You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are. So
here's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life, not a manic
pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger pay cheque, the larger house. Do
you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm
one afternoon or found a lump in your breast?
Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a
breeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed
hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls with concentration
when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first finger.
Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love
you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone.
Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous. And
realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business
taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to
spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beer and give it to
charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want
to do well. But if you do not do good too, then doing well will never be
enough.
It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes. It
is so easy to take for granted the colour of our kids' eyes, the way the
melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is
so easy to exist instead of to live.
I learned to live many years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the
destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is
the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world
and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and
utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had
learned. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the
fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the back yard with the sun on your face.
Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because if you
do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived".
Regards,
Antony Varghese
Regards,
N
Do take a look at Baydark.com
This is an interesting link:
Can't say that I agree with these views - Wonder the extent to which a black background is pleasing to the eye!
Regards,
N
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