A law to censor expression

I feel bad about an upcoming law. A few of my thoughts related to the law are given below:

• I do not believe opinion/art/literature can hurt anybody by itself. People get hurt by their own choice. Hypocrites choose to see/read a picture/book, take offense at their own choice and then blame the picture/book. This law legalizes the nuisance that mischievous hypocrites create. You may refer to previous articles in this blog for specific instances of such mischiefs that happened in India. (Mischief is a soft word. May be I should use unethical, diabolical, evil)
• Bloggers may feel the brunt of this law. There is no security in numbers for a blogger. All it takes for any mischief-maker is to make an example of one blogger to silence a large chunk. Bloggers, without time/money at their disposal, will have to restrict themselves to humour pieces or non controversial eulogies.
• Main stream media(MSM) may not come to rescue as it does not make business sense. I have stopped watching television-news for past 9 years. The behaviour came naturally. I did not like the raised-tone of the anchors, the adbreaks and few other things. It is not that I have become disinterested in current affairs; reality is far from it. I moved to blogs where I am much more in control in reading/commenting/writing-my-own-stuff. There are many people like me. Now, due to the law, I will not be able to vent my feelings nor read others. The only option will be to go back to MSM.
• Chetan Kunte(blogger) vs NDTV has shown the ethical limits of MSMs. I am more disturbed by the deliberate silence of all the MSM-channels rather than the 'apology' itself. I believe a financial stakeholder in MSM stands to gain with this law.
• This law is not the biggest problem facing India. There are more important and pressing issues. However, this law must be opposed. It can sow the seeds of something much more sinister.
• On second thoughts, internet portals of MSM might face a drop in activity. I visit controversial news on rediff to read the talkbacks rather than main article. This law may impose a severe cutback on interesting talkback. So the hit-count of web-only-MSM might be impacted. I hope this may bring some of the MSMs to oppose the law.

A thought on election result analysis

This link describes best what I have been thinking about since 2009 loksabha election results were declared. That the government has higher stability is established fact. However, claiming that Indian voter consciously voted for stability is, at best, a hopeful theory.

Only bonded labours have right to strike

People who are not bonded-labours, do not have right to strike. Employment is a contract. If any party breaks it, redress should be sought legally. Any other option like strike is unethical and immoral.
That's the gist of what I want to say. If you want to read the same point with loads of fluorish, read on.

1. Striking work for a pay-hike is plain robbery. It is a blatant violation of the industry-owner's right to use his/their own money. If pay is less, employee should quit the job. If quitting job is not easy due to economic scenario, accept the fact that employer is doing a favour to the employee. One accepting favour is in no position to strike, morally speaking.
   
2. If employer has embezzled money or defaulted on salaries, take recourse to legal route. If judiciary/police does not work, fix those. Do not strike.
   
3. May be working class has won the right to strike after a long struggle. So what? Assume I start a long struggle for right-to-murder from this day on?
   
4. Strikes happen in developed world too. That does not lend any legality to strikes. Developed world people are wrong when they 'strike'.
   
5. Mahatma Gandhi called a general strike. He was wrong. I do not buy the argument that striking against foreign rule was okay. Every body joining the strike should have rather resigned from their job. Keeping the job and resorting to strike is opportunism of the worst kind. I respect Gandhi very much and I plan to dig into his autobiography to see how he could have rationalized such an action. Respecting Gandhi does not mean that I should agree with him.
   
6. I have seen elaborate articles in favour of strike. I could not find a single reasoning which can refute the argument I cited above. If you (the reader) have a reason for 'strikes', let me know. I have tried reading a pamphlet by W.R.Varadarajan at www.cpim.org. Its a lengthy article and I am still going through it. It is an article written with loads of conviction and lots of effort. It impresses me but does not convince, at least not yet. If you have gone through the same article and found something convincing for right-to-strike, let me know.
   

M F Hussein: Freedom of Expression

The hindus demanding M.F.Hussein's conviction/punishment are wrong. Hussein drew something on canvas and displayed them in closed door exhibitions. Unless one deliberately goes to the exhibition and sees the paintings, one can not feel offended. There is no way a person can be involuntarily made to see a picture. Hence those claiming to feel offended by Hussein are troublemakers and a nuisance. The troublemakers should be ruthlessly dealt with.

The above para is cut-paste from my earlier blog. I am getting repetetive but so are the troublemakers. The same 'sin' of curtailing freedom is happening in india repeatedly.

IPL-Cheerleaders, Indian-Media and 'These-politicians'

Regarding IPL cheerleading issue, many people are up against the politicians vilifying them as kill-joys, moral-police, people-with-muddled-priorities and what not. I disagree with these people.

A bunch of Indians are indeed worried about the cheerleading going on during cricket games. Giving a vent to their emotions and feelings, is definitely the job of politicians. I hate when people losely go on a rant about 'these politicians'. There are many media-articles/blogs, filled with rants against 'these politicians'. The rants may be justified in a few of the cases, but mostly the rants reflect clouding of logic by author/blogger's emotion.

IPL-cheerleaders and Freedom-Of-Expression

Freedom of expression should not be at the cost of somebody else's freedom of not-to-see the-expression. A bunch of indians are feeling uncomfortable watching the cheerleaders during IPL-matches. It is no good arguing "if cheerleaders offend, switch off TV" as it will shut off cricket too. I do not object to stopping of cheerleading.

So what about the freedom of those who wish to view the cheerleaders on TV? Surely, there can be many solutions although I can only think only of one now. It might seem funny, but it is an effective solution. Let us call it solution X. The solution is to have a private cheerleading session going on parallely with the game. On one TV channel transmit game+cheerleading, on another channel transmit vanilla cricket. My intention in this post is not to advertise the solution X. I only want to emphasize that there are many ways to guard freedom-of-expression of all concerned, even in seemingly contentious scenarios.

I feel irritated when comparison is drawn with bar-girl-issue and cheerleader-issue. Banning of bar-girls was a blatant case of violation of freedom-to-enjoy and freedom-to-earn. Bar-dancing happened in an access restricted area where it could not be forced on unwilling viewers. Every person in a bar knew what he will see. The people claiming to feel offended are nuisance. In India we had many such nuisances. See my earlier posts for a couple of more examples.

Taslima Nasreen; Bengali Lajja

Taslima has been virtually kicked out. Bengalis do not seem to mind. Any criticism of muslim fanatics who caused this ouster is always balanced with how-MF-Hussein-has-been-treated or how ungrateful-taslima-is. Not being able to condemn the ouster unconditionally seems like cowardice to me. Afraid of what? May be physical violence? May be afraid of being called communal? Shame!! We bengalees have bent down before muslim rioteers. I am so disturbed by these chain of events that I am finding it difficult to concentrate on my day to day work.

Shedding my narrow bengali perspective and donning the indian hat, as an Indian I feel a little less coward though. At least the indian government extended Taslima's visa, although the step proved more symbolical. However, Indian government does not understand/believe/appreciate freedom of expression. India is not a land of free-expression, at least not yet.

Audio-guides and tourist-spots in India

Indian historical sites or museums are not tourist friendly. A historical site or museum generally has a lot of exhibits spread over large area. Without a map/plan it is difficult to cover each exhibit. Sometimes the number of exhibits is overwhelming. In such cases a tourist likes to prioritize some and skip others. In India, at many places the exhibits are not properly described at location. In absence of the background information, the exhibit fails to excite. At some places (belur, halibidu) there are fantastic local guides but you wish there pace would have been slower.
There is an easy solution for the above problems. I believe it is a good business proposition too. The solution is audio-guide. It is not a novel solution. You can find audio-guides in many international tourist spots. A printed tourist guide or map may also serve the purpose but maps are costly and inflexible-towards-changes. Moreover a book can not compete with the superior experience provided by a nicely conducted audio guide. Here is what I feel audio guides can/should do:

1. Audio-guide helps tourist to navigate the whole place at her own pace.
2. It does not matter whether the exhibit-explaining-boards are missing.
3. Audio guide machines are costly. So leasing out the audio guide should be done against a high-amount-of-cash or essential documents like passport/driving license.
4. If audio-guide machines are not feasible, one may maintain mp3 of audio-guide content. This can be uploaded to personal mp3 players at a cost.
5. May be an arrangement can be made with telecom service providers to deliver content through mobile phone.
6. Let hundred audio-guide companies bloom with their own version of contents and interpretations. People will choose the one which agrees with their own bias.
7. The museums/historical-places frequently undergoes renovation and modification. This is helpful for the business idea as piracy of content runs the risk of getting outdated. Continuous update is necessary.
8. A good audio-guide session sounds like a quality programme shown in discovery/national-geographic. To prepare a good audio-guide content you need good history students, good media content creators. This means more job opportunities with scope of differentiation through quality.
9. The audio-guide industry at historical locations can come up with private enterprise. It need not be stalled due to lack of government help.

Unimportant bit:

Why this post find its way to 'oshanto mon'? This is because this audio-guide idea looks like a low-hanging-fruit to me which no one is picking. It can lead to good busines, good opportunities for students, good appreciation of history. Then why the hell nobody is latching on to it? If you like the idea, please spread it to your enterprising friends. If you see a major chink in the concept, do talk back to this post.