Beyond Apocalypse: What next?

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2012 it is! Just a month left. Ever wondered if actually there is an apocalypse, what would happen? I was just thinking about the possibilities. Actually a little creepy to think about it, but it's a different experience. Takes you straight to the ground!

We do not know what is going to happen, weather the oceans are going to take over like the movie 2012, or everything is going to freeze like in the movie The Day After Tomorrow. We can also consider an all-volcano event, where the earth just erupts, from all sides, to let the heat out, or even an all-earthquake event, where we just have quakes or probably just a mixture of all the above. Seriously, the possibilities are endless. The humans have harmed the environment in so many different ways, we cannot imagine how nature plans to revert it and get back to normal.

So, whatever way the nature chooses, the real question is: Is it possible that no one, literally no human being survives? Well the probabilities are far too low of that happening. A lot of people may actually get through, somehow! Now when I say a lot of people, it is like saying .2 to .5% of the world population. This seems like a fair estimate. 

Let's say these people make it to the new world. What next? What would they do? How would they start a new life? Well, the questions are not at all rhetorical but filled with genuine concern. These people share great responsibility in that it would be these very people who lay down the foundations for the coming generations. It would be these people who have the power to choose right and wrong. Their decisions would greatly influence the lives of the next generations. The new generations would not have the slightest idea of how the world looked just a few years back. No body knows if there would be experts among these survivors. All we can assume that it would be a few common men and women who have felt and tasted the real world. It would be these select few people who share the responsibility of showing our next generations, at least a blurred, if not the exact picture of the actual world.

In spite of all the harm that the human race has done to the environment, we have made a great deal of progress in terms of science, technology, philosophy and various other fields. This must not be wasted! The coming generations should build up starting from where the past generation left off, rather than starting from scratch and reinventing the wheel. Some way has to be derived to preserve this information and knowledge. Unless this is done, we humans, would be straight back to the stone age, carving caves and lighting fires with flint-stones. The knowledge has to be preserved at any cost!

Of course there will be difficulties and challenges, and the early ages might actually have to go through a pseudo-stone age. The point is to preserve the knowledge, so that once the basic needs are taken care of, people could start on a known road rather than wandering about for solutions to each and every problem they encounter. Their predecessors spent days and nights working on techniques and developed concrete things that worked. The judgement day may destroy whatever has been developed but it must not be able to destroy the very research and thinking, that has gone into it.

Slowly and gradually, these people could also try to right the wrongs that their predecessors had committed. With the right knowledge and a few early precautions, probably we could last a few more centuries before the next apocalypse!

Comments, anyone?

To be or not to be: The Wistleblower!

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Whistle-blowing is an act best taken with a pinch of salt! Well, we would not say that some years ago when we did not have the examples of Manjunath Shanmugam and Satyendranath Dubey who lost their life trying to bring corruption to light. These were noble people, tried to do their best to fight corruption. They have certainly set an example before all of us. Alas, their assassination raises a serious doubt in the minds of people who otherwise would have contributed equally to the fight against corruption.

The point I am suggesting here is two fold. One, protect whistle-blowers. Two, a step ahead, encourage whistle-blowing. 

The first, one can say, is being taken up by the government of India. This is evident from the fact that we already have the Right To Information act in place. However, this is not sufficient and must be taken forward with protecting the whistle-blowers. The recent anti-corruption movement due to Anna Hazare has helped the corruption issue to gain priority. One can hardly ignore the importance of this movement in highlighting the issue among the government as well as the common man. 

Of course there's a whole another side to it: people are equally responsible for encouraging corruption. Given that both, the beneficiary as well as the benefactor are involved in the act of corruption, the role of a whistle-blower is hard to be observed! This is an everyday case in a metropolitan involving traffic cops, railway ticket examiners and the like. Of course, it's a win-win situation in that case. Who would blow the whistle? 

Well, imagine this situation: I am traveling, but have a reservation in waiting and do not have a confirmed seat yet. I meet the TTE and bribe him in order to get a berth. Later, after I have finished traveling, I report the incident to some vigilance office which is responsible for tackling corruption. I divulge the details of the incident, after which I am given back the bribe amount and given full immunity and protection. Meanwhile, the corrupt TTE is charged with corruption.

This is just one isolated example. But suppose that it were followed for some time, the corrupt officials would notice and would think twice before accepting any bribes. 

As we encourage whistle-blowing, we are in fact trying to bring more and more cases of corruption to light. The only requirement is of a vigilance body which can be relied upon. Such a body must fully contemplate the meaning of immunity and protection. In many of the cases the whistle-blower can be harmed in serious ways including the threat to one's life!

Finally, one might wonder why, if we have so many examples which highlight the need for a corruption handling body, do we have so many instances of corruption and why isn't the government so lazy in acting in that direction? Well, it just might be the case of a win-win situation here!

Food for thought: Local governments - Power to the people

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Recently I've been watching the series Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister. An absolutely brilliant British sitcom. Visit http://www.yes-minister.com/ for a feel of it.

Well, in one of the episodes it mentions a nice technique called local government for maintaining true democracy in a bureaucratic environment. The main point is to decentralize the power of government and hand it over to the local people. We do have local governments in India. We do have the panchayats and Municipalities, but the granularity is far too coarse. Need is to make it a lot finer, say, at most 800-1000 people under each administrator. This administrator would be elected by these 800-1000 people themselves and would be based on the credibility of the administrator and his past records rather than the political party he represents! This way, the administrators would work towards the actual welfare of the people, rather than wasting time in useless hollow political publicity. Publicity would be mouth to mouth as each member would know the administrator personally and whom they would be able to meet in person. As the people have the right to elect as well as vote out the administrator, the power truly remains with the people!

With a lot of corruption and misgovernment cases cropping up in India this can be looked upon as an option to help contribute towards the betterment of the nation.

Not that this idea is recent and has not been looked at previously, its just that may be we need to look at it with a fresh perspective and in today's context.

Just some food for thought. Comments, anyone?