Women Empowerment: a sexual hypocrisy

I apprehend if I have the expertise to discuss the issues mostly fit for the feminist, yet it is an attempt to summarize my experiences and contribute to the existing views. Women Empowerment as the term per se, has been hammering the Indian minds from the days of our struggle for freedom. Not to rule out that there have been initiatives during all stages of Indian History to establish the deserving position of women in the society, but changes gained velocity during (and after) the war of independence from the British. The movement is mostly remembered for the likes of Sarojini Naidu, Gandhi and Raja Ram Mohan Roy. That is the history...

Besides the History, the Culture makes India one of the few countries where a woman is worshiped in various forms and st-ages. When this part of the world was celebrating Christmas 2010, I was watching a program on DD Punjabi where Dr. Tandon(if I read the script correct), a lady of repute was talking about the current issues related to women such as dowry, female infanticide, foeticide, sex ratio, female illiteracy and so on. I quickly recalled a great movie Matrubhoomi which left fresh memories in my mind. The movie shows the future of several districts of India if the History and the Culture does not improve.

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Ethics in Mass Communication

Mass communication is a form of communication where the message is delivered to masses. To follow a code of conduct and self-regulation becomes imperative in mass communication because the sender of the message is most likely to be physically separated and detached from a large number of receivers.

Thus, the sender is practically unaware about the identities of the receivers. Despite this, the sender must bear the accountability of the effects of the message being delivered. This accountability has to be pro-active and not reactive. For example, a news channel should not say that if I violate the code of conduct then I am ready to pay fine but not ready to stop the violation. Here, I acknowledge that mass communication has different forms, but I will limit myself to a few news channels on television.

Recently, I have felt infuriated to see the ethics of mass communication being thrown to bonfire by the television news channels. To report a strange incident of a Baba in Haridwar, one news channel used the words that "Baba logon ko bewakoof bana raha hai" which translates to English as "Baba is fooling the public". If it is true, then the statements should come from the people who feel victimized. In the name of representing the voices of the people, the news channel is airing its views. Should not the news reader articulate before speaking that such statements may hurt a section of population?

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My needs and his needs

There maybe a couple of people each of us know, who sleep with empty stomachs in our society. As a welfare state, it is the duty of the Government to provide them the basic necessities. In the days of Kings, most rulers used to be generous enough to provide anything they wanted to their subjects. Many Kings have made excellent efforts in their days to provide a better life, better irrigation, better roads and better security to the citizens. The world believes that democracy is better than monarchy. This is because, there are various systems of check-and-balance in a democracy. What if all these systems come together in mutual interest to non-perform?

I elect my representative with my vote, but I cannot expect that my representative knows what are the issues or difficulties I am facing in my life. The Prime Minister will ignore my problems by saying that 'it is a problem of an individual'. Even if it is the problem of the whole village or a whole district, he will get away by saying that 'it is an isolated problem' which does not deserve an attention from his level. This means that his level stand only for the problems of 'common interest' or collective needs of the citizens. Now, for a state, the issue in a district becomes an issue of 'common interest' and for a Panchayat, the issue in a village becomes an 'issue of collective interest'. This has also become an example of the various structures' "coming together in mutual interest to non-perform." The ball of responsibilities keeps moving from one court to the other and the work is never completed.

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Administrative delay - Unchecked?

The veteran Indian singer Kishore Kumar sang in Amar Prem a song titled "Chingari koi bhadke..." wherein, all stanzas end with relevant and thoughtful rhetorical questions. These questions have lively implications in the current Political and Administrative scenario in our country. Unfortunately, the questions discussed in the Indian Parliament have also become 'rhetorical' to a significant extent. It is said that 'justice delayed is justice denied' but what about administrative delays?

There is no law dealing explicitly with the punishments for wrongs done due to administrative delays in India. The latest reported scam unearthed in the allocation of 2G spectrum costs the nation close to Rs. 1.76 lakh crore (US$ 390 billion). This is more than half of the country's current total Revenue Deficit (3.5 lakh crore). This is a gross loss of revenue to the Government. This colossal amount have inflated the kitties of corporate giants and sooner or later it is going to percolate to the people who are reeling under loss of jobs and high inflation in food prices (still above 8% at WPI). So, it should be no surprise to learn about tax-blows in the next quarter when the FM presents Budget 2011. Anyways, people have to bear this loss in the long term which happened primarily due to administrative delay. In other words, this could have been avoided to a great extent had the administration been acting in the 'collective interest of the nation'.

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