Horror in 'Lifestyle' Home

Badlapur : A 34 year old man hung himself to death after killing his two daughters, apparently because of economic problems.
Pavan Kumar Verma was a resident of Lokmanya Nagar area of Thane. He is said to have poisoned his daughters Komal and Minal - aged 6 and 9 - respectively in his new flat at Poddar Evergreens in Chamtoli area of Badlapur.
"It seems Pavan was unable to make ends meet. He was unemployed since last 8 months. He had to pay EMI of Rs. 15,000 to a bank, in addition to Rs. 14,000 tution fees of the convent school where his daughters studied", said Assisitant Police Inspector Dhananjay Pore of Kulgaon Police station, who is investigating the matter.
The police is said to have found a suicide note written by Pavan which says that he doesn't hold anyone responsible for his death and he's taking his girls along.The autopsy reports of bodies have been sent for furtherchemical analysis.
The wife and the mother of deceased are too distressed to talk.

IITB to hold 'Smart City Challange' at TechFest

Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s ‘100 smart cities’ idea has found
takers at the Indian Institute of
Technology Bombay. The premium
engineering institute has announced a
‘Smart City Challenge’ in partnership
with various government bodies, as part
of its annual ‘TechFest’. A prize of Rs 5
lakh awaits for the best set of the ideas.
Realising that it takes more than
engineers to build smart cities, the
project has been divided into five
domains, viz. Infrastructure, Trade and
Commerce, Healthcare, Design and
Aesthetics and Policy Making. Entries are
being sought from the professionals and
students belonging to different fields of
expertise. A panel of experts will provide
assistance to the participants.
The competition is being conducted in
two phases, according to TechFest
manager Ayush Bandil. In first phase,
preliminary ideas were invited on
various urban issues. Subsequently,
multi-disciplinary teams will be formed
out of the best responses in order to
design 10 smart cities. TechFest has
recieved around 700 entries.
The initiative is said to have been taken
up with the vision of bringing together
technology, government and the student
fraternity to make the cities more
efficient, sustainable and liveable. “PM
Modi has spoken about the need of new
smart cities. ‘Smart City Challenge’ is
such an initiative to engage the youth of
the country in the development of their
city and prosperity of its citizens”, said
Aman Mantri of TechFest.
The project is being implemented in
collaboration with CIDCO, MMRDA and
Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor
Development Corporation. The prize
money is sponsored by National
Campaign for People’s Right to
Information.
as published in Free Press Journal, 21 September 2014

A Newspaper to Thinking Person

I read The Indian Express. The strongest point about it is its integrity. The paper is seldom influenced by special interests or government pressure. It has never modified its mast-head for advertisers or carried advertisements masquerading as news items. It lives by its commitment to the “Journalism of Courage”. In-depth and gutsy coverage of the emergency, killing of IES officer Satyendra Dubey and Gujrat riots bear witness to it.

            Politics remains the mainstay of Express; and that includes politics in sports, local power structures and political economy. In a sense, this is what the fundamental responsibility of newspapers and other media is: to make the common man acquainted with the happenings in corridors of power and make the powerful accountable. This relentless pursuit of relevant political stories often results in the paper reporting important news stories before anyone else.

However, one will be disappointed if he buys newspaper to read local news. City news is one of the weaker sections of Express. It doesn’t help average Joe that there are few reports about local events, weather and traffic. The paper also lacks health stories, event listings, children and women’s space, science and technological updates, social trends and other aspects which have become staple of newspapers nowadays.   

            In general, The Indian Express possesses a sense of proportion and doesn’t get swayed by hype generated by a century of centuries or an Oscar win. The paper leans right, as reflected in its editorials. So there exists some degree of unfair biasness when it comes to selection of news stories and setting of discourse. It would help if it does away with its Tavleen Singhs and Surjit Bhallas.

            There’s a general apathy towards rural affairs when it comes to English language media in our country. Express has never ceased to report grass root news stories. In fact, there are more stories on human rights, women empowerment and activism in Express than any other paper on a given day. Its “From the field” supplementary page of farm reports is unique.

             The ‘International’ page is a weak point of The Indian Express. For a major paper like Express, it has no permanent foreign correspondent, except Yubaraj Ghimire in Nepal. To compensate for that, Syndicated news reports are carried from news agencies. These stories usually reflect the priorities and viewpoints of the West; which is not desirable.

            The Indian Express is antithesis of sensationalism and trivia. It’s a newspaper to thinking person. Unlike many of its contemporaries, it doesn’t use titillating images or misleading headlines to sell its copies. Even its sports and culture pages are full of intelligent reporting, instead of bland noise. E. P. Unny’s daily cartoon is thought provoking, too.

            Express is one of the few papers which still have proper editorial and op-ed pages. It boasts of many excellent writers. Some of the articles remain too academic in nature, though. And often Mr. Shekhar Gupta occupies most of the space. Nevertheless, they remain the most readable pages of the paper.

A societal perspective on article 377

The debate on article 377 must be framed in terms of individual rights v/s societal well being. Take the example of drugs such as cocaine or marijuana. These items have been banned because they not only harm an individual’s health but also because their acceptance in society leads to overall decrease in productivity and efficiency, straining of social relations and surge in crime. In other words an individual may well be within his rights to indulge in drugs but he isn’t allowed to do so, for his action surely sets a trend which is detrimental for the society at large. Similar case can be made for homosexuality. Examples of instances of homosexuality in ancient South Asian literature notwithstanding, it’s the rapid urbanization, modernity and electronic media boom that has lead the spread and acceptance of homosexual relations. Otherwise we still abhor practices such as incest or bestiality (sex with animals), which are thankfully still illegal. For those of us who consider the traditional family system essential for proper uprising of children and a healthy society, legalization of homosexuality spells disaster. It means rise in sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS, denial of balanced fatherly / motherly care for children and rupture of social fabric. In the West rapid sexual freedom has resulted in innumerous social problems such as ever increasing divorce rates, teenage pregnancies, single mothers, adultery, dysfunctional families and subsequent rise in crimes. There are things humanity has always kept sacrosanct. Let’s keep them that way for our own well being.

"Attack that wasn't" - My piece in 'The Companion' magazine

I’m sorry, you don’t have beggar knocking on your door!

Few months back, while distributing invites for a social gathering in my city of Kalyan, an odd feeling struck me as I made my way from one housing society to another gated colony. The compulsory ritual of entering your name in society register and residents feigning ignorance about their immediate neighbours was too much for me. I started feeling privileged to have grown up in a mohalla, or mohallas to be precise, because growing up in a mohalla means not remaining confined to just one. For the benefit of my friends living in big housing societies, modern gated colonies or high rises who have no idea whatsoever of a mohalla or life in a mohalla, I shall give a glimpse.

In our mohallas we are woken up in the morning by rhythmic sounds of pawwalas, machhiwalas, bhangarwalas and beggars. As we step out of our doors we see life full in action: from shopkeepers opening their shops too sweeper doing her job; from labours on their duties to schoolchildren on their way to schools. We find ourselves in the mid of all this churnings. It rejuvenates us and fills us with fresh energy. Now just compare it with the sleepiness of housing complexes… Dreary!

Take the case of neighbours. Mohallas can loosely be translated as neighbourhoods –implicating thatmohallas are perhaps the only place where you find real neighbours. Not the ones who don’t even know the names of the people living adjacent to their houses, as I encountered recently. To us neighbours are more than people living in the immediate vicinity; they are simultaneously our friends, kith and kin and trustful companions. Many of us have a habit of handing over keys of our homes to neighbours when we set out for a journey. Some families are so close to each other that you don’t even need permission to enter each other’s homes. There’s hardly anything about your life and relations that your neighbours don’t know –of course the traditional Indian nosiness also plays a role in it. But you never feel lonely here.

We make our first friends not in school but in mohalla. And they remain fast friends entire our lives. One of the biggest advantages of mohallas is that most of the houses are in chawls or low rises. This physical closeness translates into closeness of hearts. It gives us a better opportunity to socialize. I’ve sweet memories of playing cricket, beyblade, marbles, hide-and-seek and what not in gully-mohallas of Old Kalyan. We even cultivated rivalry of a sort with guys from other mohallas. Today, while those of you in high rises are glued to your computer screens chatting on facebook we gather in front yard of someone’s place or nukkad to indulge in more human form of conversation.

On the other hand the life in high rises is bereft with a kind of isolation. And much of it has to do with the attitude of its inhabitants themselves. Gated colonies are being projected as dream homes. Today residents of these housing complexes feel safer that their houses are well secured and no one can enter their societies without running into the watchman. No beggar, hawker or company salesman to ‘disturb’ them. They don’t need to go to the market outside. Their food requirements are catered by the shops inside their colonies. Residents themselves like to live a cocooned life. They go to work early in the morning and return late in the evening without bothering about their neighbours or neighbourhood. Even on weekends they prefer watching TV in their homes to socializing. This makes me sometimes wonder as to why media and intellectuals call lower middle-class Muslims as ghettoized? I mean I find these people from the upper echelons of society living in these modern gated colonies more ghettoized!

And look at its social cost: Your minimal socializing with the ones who live in your immediate neighbourhood doesn’t help in your evolution as a better human being. The one who doesn’t bother about those living near him can’t really be expected to have concern towards the entire society. Living in a mohalla, we could interact and empathies with people from all strata of society. In housing societies you are simply cut-off from the entire world. You lack ‘a human –humane interaction’ –to borrow Arundhati Roy’s phrase – with the less privileged of the society. You don’t have a beggar knocking on your doors so that you could appreciate poverty. The sounds of political rallies and other social churnings don’t reach you, making it unable for you to participate actively in public life. In ourmohallas it’s the neighbours who are first to respond and extend a helping hand in a situation of crisis. We find none of this sort happening in high rises. What we did find was, neighbours who were ignorant of a murder in their neighbourhood for a long time -until the stench arising from dead body grew too strong.

That’s why when I see high rises and modern housing societies being constructed in our mohallas it fills me with sadness. And I turn towards the virgin parts of city, full of chaos; but humanity too. The familiar sight of women haggling with hawkers and neighbours indulging in animated conversations lifts my spirits and I merrily ride through lanes and bylanes of the mohalla on my bicycle. It’s the air of mymohalla that I love!

Being Orphan

The other day I was talking to my younger sister, who studies in 9th standard, about her School life and sharing some of my experiences, too, as both of us had some time to kill. As she was informing me about her teachers, friend circle and classmates, she started telling me about this ‘weird’ classmate of hers whom she was not really interested befriending or for that matter talking to. That girl, I was told, was a bit ‘strange’ in many ways. Many of times she would talk ‘nonsense’ like living in the jungle bordering the city. Or as once, in the school, when she was asked why she was late, she started crying and mentioned about her encounter with a knife wielding man who beat her up on her way to School. She was said to be in a habit of stealing money from home. She would say conflicting things about her family members. She hardly had any friends.

Later in the talk it turned out that she was an orphan living with her poor grandma. Rumor has it that, my sister told, her mother was killed by her father who was consequentially sentenced to jail. The picture became complete. At this instance my mind jumped to one of my school friends who was also ‘weird’. Children would call him ‘scientist’ for the larger part of his ‘nonsense’ talk was about his future scientific invention plans. I don’t recall if there was anyone he could call a friend besides me. He was also an orphan, having lost his mother in an accident and his father left him and his sister at the mercy of his uncle.

I started thinking about the tragedy of children rendered parentless at tender age. We who are brought up in the comforting shade of our parents and warmth of family life tend to take our parents for granted. That sense of security, belonging, love and being cared that we so much enjoy is simply absent in the case of those orphans, resulting into unpleasant consequences. The relatives, however loving and caring, can never be substitute for the parents.

So when these kids see other kids with their parents, they feel terribly lonely. They find no one they could share their joys and sorrows and anxieties with. No one they could ask for guidance or goodies. For they know that those taking care of them are simply not their ‘own’. What’s more, if the departure of child from his parent(s) involves certain degree of violence or conflict, as in the case these two kids, then it has grave psychological effects on their tender minds.

Most often our parents are our gateway to the society. Especially when we’re young, people recognize us by our parents. That’s why the orphans, most of the times, live a detached life wherein they find solace and company in the world of their own fantasies. So you can’t really blame them for telling some of the stories of that world to their schoolmates. And this results in further alienation.

There’s one more aspect of their misery: insecurity. Even if your parents are poor you have a sense of financial security and support and an assurance that you won’t be abandoned or treated as a burden, which is not the case with orphans. Besides, whom do you think can they complain about irate bullies at school? Most of the times they don’t get those essential lessons of mannerisms and morality and vice and virtue. This combined with their unfulfilled aspirations and sense of insecurity makes them feel vulnerable and turns many of them into criminals.

Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) said, “Whoever caresses the head of an orphan (in affection), solely for the sake of Allah, a good deed will be written to his account for every hair over which he passed his hand”. The message is to never let an orphan feel lonely and assure him of parental support which he wants so desperately. Encourage kids to befriend such ‘weird’ boys and girls and keep them in close company instead of running away from them. Support them financially, if we can, without embarrassing them.

At a time when divorces are happening at an alarming rate, the no. of single mothers is increasing, babies are born to unmarried teens (most of whom lack proper care especially from paternal side) and homosexual couples are legally having kids we should, for the sake of well being of children, defend the traditional family system with full force. Statistics show that in Britain, where the rate of teen pregnancies is the highest and the family system is damaged beyond repair, a crime is committed every two minutes by youngsters. It is high time that we realize that parents are not just an invaluable gift of God but an essential need of child and fight all those social evils that deprive a child of one or both of them.

Musings: Engineers, Environment & Society

At a time when “Eco-friendliness” & “Going Green” is flavor of the season and engineers, especially from Civil branch, and builders are squabbling to project their next real estate endeavor as “Green” and technical journals are full of “Green Technologies” with yet new, and intricate, jargons doing rounds, I find myself a bit confused. Because, on the other hand, I find newspapers and TV full of glossy commercials, selling us the latest gas guzzling SUVs or CFC ejecting ACs, and government ads , boasting of new infrastructure projects and power plants – all recipes of environmental disaster. Big media houses and corporations which run campaigns about ‘Going Green’ scoff over activists protesting big infrastructure projects and environment ministry regulations, calling them “Green hurdles”! What’s happening on the earth?

When you dig deep into it – something we the engineers seldom do when it comes to economics and politics (All that boooring stuff, ya know!) – you’ll come to the conclusion that all this Green talk is a bit farcical. Either way the big corporations and politicians are trying their next trick to make big buck; environment be damned! Even when they are asserting their green credentials they are making an attempt to be in the good books of Activists/NGOs and make soft corner in the consumer heart. Keep watching them till they show their true colours – which certainly don’t include Green.

*

Much deliberation has led me to a conclusion which, I think, holds as much true for individuals as for organizations: Being Green isn’t about being fussy, it’s about being simple. Think it over. We may discuss the myriad technical ways to curb noise pollution, but don’t mind breaking all the barriers of Decibel during festivities. We may post wise little statements about preserving water on FB and make excellent presentations on rain water harvesting, but fail to follow simple guidelines of using water judiciously: Use bucket instead of shower; Keep water tap closed while brushing or shaving. We may bemoan over the spiraling fuel prices and express gloom over the future scenario with some of us giving serious thoughts to alternate energy or green energy, but riding a bicycle or using a public transport service, like bus, instead of bikes is below our standard.

Load sheddings and electric bills may bother us, but we aren’t at all bothered by tube lights left glowing and fans rotating for nobody at our homes and workplaces (Especially in the college, I’ve figured, the best way to ensure light and air our your head when you enter a room is to turn on all the switches on switchboard… Why bother your head about finding the correct one?). We may be concerned about the hole developing in Ozone layer and subsequent global warming and climate change, but will never figure out that CFCs responsible for it are mainly emanated from our ACs - a luxury at best which can be done away with. Yes, being green isn’t about being fussy, it’s about being simple, silly!

*

That brings us to the logic of introducing EVS as a subject in Engineering (and other gradation courses) – something we much fret about. Let’s go back to the basics. What’s the definition of Engineering? Is it anything other than utilizing natural resources for the benefit of humanity? And if the benefit of mankind is the ultimate goal, we should appreciate the fact that there already exists a perfectly engineered system put in place by the Almighty for our benefit. Look around you: Water cycle, mountains, your own body… Aren’t they marvels of flawless engineering? As engineers we can strive for the betterment of society using our God-given genius, but should take care that we don’t disturb the delicate balance of nature.

West and Veil

ISLAM v/s WEST or ISLAM v/s REST, isn't it what you're being told, the last decade was all about? Well, the fight(whatever it maybe) is getting more and more evident with west getting more & more confused and getting entangled in its own trap! None, explains it better than France's latest attempts to ban all covering Burqa on its territory. It seems that when all attempts of spreading bikini-culture by West are yielding nothing and on the contrast more & more Girls from West are opting for Burqa and Islam, west's frustration is becoming apparent. It forgot its own doctrine of personal and religious freedom and secularism while trying to ban Burqa in France and minarets in Switzerland. Mr. Obama and US who are much Vocal about so called Human rights violation in Iran, China, Korea chose to keep mum on these instances.But we as Muslims aren't worried. Rather we are amused, for Holy Quran says "They have their plans, Allah has his own. And Allah is the best of planners".

Kunduz Burning

The large scale civillian casualities in an air strike on fuel tanks hijacked by Taliban by NATO forces in Kunduz Afghanistan (click here to see full report) aren't first of its kind.Civilians have been victims of NATO forces’ atrocities right from the beginning of the war. This incident cleary shows that there isn't much difference between Obama and Bush Administration. Rather there have been more Drone attacks - which kill more civillians than millitants - after Obama assumed the office. Ironically, Obama has condemned the civilian casualities in Sri Lanka and Iran but has no issues over civilian causalities in Afghanistan. The thing is that, the war which is based on atrocity will yield nothing less than atrocities. Alleging Osama bin Laden as chief conspirator of 9/11 (there are videos suggesting that 9/11 is an inside work) attacks, Bush Administration asked Taliban to hand over Osama to them, without providing any proof. Failing which America bombed Afghanistan without bothering so as to who is dying. Is such an attack justifiable even if Taliban had provided shelter to a terrorist? 8 years on, NATO forces are still struggling to ‘defeat Taliban’ and ‘establish democracy’(which was never on their agenda!). Who gave America the right to uproot an establishment if it isn’t democratic or whatsoever? Opinion polls suggest that Afghans were happier in Taliban regime rather than in a ‘democratic’ establishment. It’s high time NATO forces are fighting in Afghanistan. They should live it for the betterment of Afghans.