1. Progress

 

A beautiful quote from Bhagvad Gita

       I have come to recognize that true growth happens when we wish change for ourselves, and we have the energy and enthusiasm to actually act upon that wish. No one else in this world can help you take those steps forward in life.

      And yet, in most cases, the path we take is not straightforward, even when the road ahead is straight! Stuck in the cycle of habits, we vacillate between our old selves, and the better self we wish to discover and/or shape ourselves into. Here the mind is the tempter, luring us with short-term comfort, into our old ways.

     But if we are determined, and we persist, we can overrule the mind's excuses, and push ourselves into a level of greater capacity, awareness and satisfaction. And it will be worth the temporary pain. What a unique design life has!  

Happy 2022!

Wish you a wonderful 2022. It's hard to believe that it's been nearly 2 years since this whole COVID-19 fiasco began. Sorry for taking down pretty much most of my articles from the 2020-21 period, but looking back at it, I realized that sometimes as we grow, we need to take a pragmatic approach towards different issues, from religion to art, that cannot be boxed into a few ideas. And then I realized that perhaps my views were a little fixed in my subjective understanding of the world, rather than being absorptive of the broader perspective. So it was time for the old to go, and to begin afresh.

I most likely won't be writing this year either. But hope all of you are in good health and happiness. 

Tata!

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Love this dance!

Nuclear Power: A boon or a bane

Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and do useful work. Nuclear power stations work in pretty much the same way as fossil fuel-burning stations,  except that a "chain reaction" inside a nuclear reactor makes the heat instead. The video below shows the working of nuclear power plants.



In the early 20th century, it was discovered that radioactive elements release immense amounts of energy and soon the pursuit of nuclear energy for electricity generation began. Over the course of time this was made possible. USSR's Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant became the world's first nuclear power plant for electricity generation.


In the 1960s, the setting up of such plants came to be locally protested in many parts of the world. This soon became an issue of major public protest, reaching an intensity uncommon in 'technology' controversy history. The nuclear power conflict is an ongoing one.


But by 2005, nuclear power stations provided about 6.3% of the world's energy and 15% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 56.5% of nuclear generated electricity. There are about 436-9 nuclear reactors in the world.


A source of energy, which can be exploited on will, and which will never cause any damage to the environment and ecosystems, is just too good to be true. The recent Fukushima I nuclear accidents, the Chernobyl accident of 1986 and the Three Mile Island accident of 1979 are enough proof.

 

The Chernobyl accident, which is considered the worst nuclear power plant accident ever, occurred in Ukrain on the 26th of April 1986. It's cause was mainly engineering deficencies and technological faults (the safety systems were switched off when the accident occured). Though the death toll, due to the initial release is between 25-31, the number of deaths due to cancer and contamination is many hundreds of thousands. Now it is a ghost town, not habitable, but with many working reactors. This video gives a detailed account on the events. Follow this link to see the other parts. 

The Fukushima I nuclear accidents, were initially triggered by a tsunami that struck the Japanese coast. It wrecked the coast, but in addition, it set the nuclear reactors burning. Even in such an organised and technologically advanced country, the cooling systems failed to work and apart from the deaths caused by the tsunami, many workers have risked their lives, working in such plants. Even though, the number of direct deaths are less than that in the Chernobyl case, an even bigger earthquake is predicted to strike the very heart of Japan, Tokyo and the consequences are likely to be catastrophic and severe. 

So, while such a power source may be less polluting and damaging to the environment and cost effective, it adversely affects lives, not only of human beings. Managing nuclear waste is a major task most nuclear power using countries are not ready to face. 'Human kind cannot bear very much reality' - T.S. Elliot. While it may be an efficient   alternative source of energy, if we look a bit further into the future, we'd realize that it'll end up being a huge burden. 

Even if countries like America and France rely on nuclear energy more than any other country, where do they dump their wastes? In the less developed ones. 


If an effective and safe way to manage such wastes is discovered, nuclear energy may end up being the primary energy source. Time will tell if nuclear energy is a boon or a bane.

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Source: Various websites.

Equality in Democratic India

The Constitution of India, in it's preamble, resolves to secure to all it's citizens, equality of status and opportunity and since these terms have got a wide meaning, the concept of equality is not as simple as it appears.


In India, the concept of equality is mainly referred to in the context of disparities created by the caste system. The social inequality is manifested in a number of ways - the rich and the poor, landowners and landless labourers, capitalists and workers, educated and uneducated, employed and unemployed, men and women and modern and backward. In addition to this, there is internal inequality among the rich, workers of different strata and so on.

According to the author of the book 'Caste in a different mould', OBCs account for 41% of the population and their share of graduates in the total number of technical, managerial and other professions (White collar jobs) is similarly placed at 36%. This doesn't suggest a tremendous degree of deprivation in the access to education or job opportunities in the country. So this brings us to the important issue that groups of people can have real or imaginary notions of deprivation and inequality. The Supreme court has rightly judged that there is a 'creamy layer' among the OBCs in India.

Equality is an ideal accepted by all the enlightened and progressive societies and individuals but it's not a social reality.

The political development of this concept has been going on for the part 250 years. The two epoch making events, the American War of Independence (1776) and the French Revolution (1789) transferred the concept of equality from the religious and metaphysic level to politics. After the Industrial Revolution, the inequality in Europe acquired giant proportions and is a reaction to it, the philosophy of political - social - cultural equality started getting a modern shape. The concept of equality which had grown on the experiences of Europe and America, developed in India on the canvas of 'caste ridden' social reality that existed here. 
The equality envisaged by Gandhiji was based on compassion and was closer to the teachings of Jesus Christ.


The concept of equality accepted by our Constitution is mainly Western, i.e. based on what happened there. This transplant intended to eradicate the stringency of the caste system, its inequality and injustice doesn't appear to have taken root here. As a result, everyone has his/her own version of 'removal of inequality' to suit his/her own convenience.


The Marxist interpretation of 'true equality' will be established when the working class comes to power and exterminates the capitalist class. As we all know, Mao-Tse-Tung's cultural revolution to prove that no job is inferior or superior to the other, failed to bring about social equality. On the contrary, it brought about total anarchy.

The policy of reservation was put forward with a view of eliminating the caste-based inequalities in our society but 61 years of independence has proved that the poor are the poor, caste no bar, and poverty still remains colour blind. This seems to suggest that fixing the problem of educational backwardness among the disadvantaged is more important than resolving problems of income backwardness.

The struggle for equality is indeed very long and it isn't as easy as it appears to be. If the 'progressive Brahmins',  'the Dalit rebels', 'the communist revolutionaries' and others come to realise the tendency to make political capital of inequalities, then things will be much better. 

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Source: Various websites and the Hindu newspaper.

Every Man Is The Architect of His Own Future

Every man is not only the designer of his own future, but also the builder...

              

     Our past decisions, thoughts and actions are what makes us who we are and those combined with our present ones would definitely contribute to  who we become. Circumstances do play a major role in shaping our future.

         It would be rather foolish to give ourselves completely over to destiny. Rather, we should make our own destiny. Khalil Gibran once wrote 'Bread baked without love is bitter bread that feeds but half the hunger of a man'. Similarly, work done half-heartedly will half help us achieve our goals. We need to believe in ourselves and work whole-heartedly to achieve a desired result.

        We shouldn't completely give ourselves over to fate, at the same time, we need to remember that even the slightest turn of events could hinder our progress. Keeping both these points in mind, we should dedicate ourselves to what we strive to achieve, which as architects, would be our dream project.














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