Republic Day

Every year the 26^th of January is celebrated as the Republic Day in India. Today is India's 58^th Republic Day. While India gained political independence from the British empire on August 15, 1947; we formally adopted a democratic constitution and became a Republic on January 26, 1950. There is a curious bit of history behind this date. The Indian constitution was drafted by the Constituent Assembly, which was the body of elected representatives that governed India since independence. The Constituent Assembly passed the Indian Constitution on November 26, 1949. January 26 was deliberately chosen as the formal date of adoption of the constitution because it was on that day in 1930 that the Indian National Congress had symbolically declared "Poorna Swaraja" - complete independence- from Britain.

In some ways the Republic Day is more important than Independence day in my opinion. It was on this day that we chose the path we would take as a nation. We committed ourselves to the ideals of a liberal democracy. We chose to become a nation governed by laws - not men. Half a century later much remains to be done to fully achieve a true democracy in India. Politics in India is still dominated by caste equations, religion based vote banks and by parties which - while participating in the democratic process - are themselves highly un-democratic and governed by "supremos" and "high commands". When we adopted the constitution, we decided that India would be a "Sovereign Socialist Democratic Republic". The word "Secular" was added to that list later in 1976. Most of the socialist policies implemented since independence have been counter-productive and have posed a great impediment to progress in India. After India began dismantling some of those policies in the 1990s, India has seen significant economic growth. Secularism too has a long way to go in India.

During this period India has fought five defensive wars against it's neighbours (1947, 1962, 1965, 1971, 1999). There were internal threats as well. Pakistan has waged a proxy war with India by fostering and sponsoring terrorists in Kashmir. There was also the separatist militancy in Punjab in the 1980's and early 1990's. Regional threats such as the ULFA separatists in Assam continue to operate even today. The 18 months from 1975-77, when Indira Gandhi declared national emergency and suspended civil liberties, was perhaps the only time when India came close to wavering from the democratic path. In spite of all these threats and shortcomings, India has managed to remain a democratic country. This I believe is a significant achievement. The fact that we have managed to hang together as a democratic country in spite of the multitude of differences in our country is in my opinion a huge asset for India. It is common nowadays to compare India's progress to that of China's in every aspect. Some believe that political freedom in India will prove to be a great benefit for India vis-a-vis China in the long term. I tend to agree with that line thought to a certain extent. Economic and political freedom go hand in hand. China's economic prosperity with the lack of political liberties is bound to create a clash. While China has the challenge of managing that clash in the future, the challenge for India is to bring the benefits of democracy and economic liberty to her poorest citizens.

Republic Day for me also evokes fond memories from my childhood. We used to go to school dressed in a clean uniform early in the morning for the flag hoisting ceremony. The best part for me used to be the sweets distributed at the end of the ceremony. Then I used to run back home to watch the Republic Day parade on the TV. The Republic Day parade on Rajpath in Delhi is celebrated to honor the war heroes and display the military might and cultural treasures of India. It is a great sight to watch the columns of soldiers marching in perfect harmony. The tableaux from various states follow the military parade and display the motley cultural traditions in India.

Today as India continues to grow economically at a spectacular rate, let us all renew our commitment to democracy and work to fully realize the democratic values that are enshrined in our constitution.

Jai Hind!

Technorati Tags: India, Republic Day

FSM sighted

Blessed be!

His Noodliness - The Flying Spaghetti Monster - has been sighted blessing a Volvo in the parking lot in front of our building.

Since my first post about His Noodliness, the Church of the FSM has grown widely. The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has recently been published in book form - you know - like the Good Book. The followers of the church or "Pastafarians" believe that the world was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster and that the increase in global average temperature in the recent decades is due to a decrease in the number of pirates.

If you are interested in seeing more photos of FSM sightings you can visit this Flickr group. There are some great pictures there. Here is one that I particularly liked taken by Yoshi...

You see something like this and you can't but help believe that the world truly must have been created by the super intelligent Flying Spaghetti Monster!

Technorati Tags: FSM, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Pastafarianism, Religion

Check It Out: The Library Thing

The Library Thing is one of the most useful finds on the internet for me. For a long time I was looking for some kind of software to catalog all my books. After a good amount of searching on the WWW I found the Book Collector, which is a stand alone desktop application in which you can catalog your book collection. I used it for a while... in fact I entered all my books into the database (including my Marathi books). The software was good, it had features like entering books by their ISBN, classifying books by genre etc. However after a motherboard and hard drive crash I lost the whole database (and learned a good lesson about backing up data).

Things were in that state for a while even after I installed a new motherboard and formatted my hard drive. Then while browsing through some book reviews, I came across a link to The Library Thing. It is an online community of bibliophiles which allows you to catalog your book collection. But it is much more than that. You can...

• enter books into your database by simply entering the ISBN
• tag your books
• write and share reviews for books you have read
• discuss books and related topic on the online groups
• search for books similar to the ones you have read
• share your library on your blog or website through blog widgets

... and much much more.

The service is totally free, but the free account lets you enter only up to 200 books. The yearly membership is $10 and lifetime membership is $25. So far I have really enjoyed the service and I recommend it to anyone who loves books. Although I am still using the free membership I am thinking seriously about the lifetime membership!

Also check out these cool blog widgets for my library:

The tag cloud for my books:

Technorati Tags: Books, Library, Book Collection, Library Thing

New Blogger...

Recently (I mean in mid-August actually...) Blogger introduced a "beta" version in which you could connect your Blogger account to your Google account. I was in fact a little late to try out this transition, which was probably good since I avoided all the initial bugs and glitches which early transitioners faced. The new beta version has some features that I had wished for in a previous post on this blog.

In the beta version I can now attach "category" tags to all my posts. This was one of the features I (and I am sure many other Blogger users) had wished for. Most other blog hosting websites have had this feature for a long time. Curiously, Blogger calls these tags "Labels" instead of "Categories", probably to distinguish itself from other sites, but it essentially does the same job. So you may notice "Labels" I have attached to the post at the bottom of the post (along with Technorati tags). Clicking on a label will take you to all the posts that are categorized under that label. For example click on the "Elephants" Label to see all my posts in that category. The Technorati tags are actually similar to labels, except that clicking on them takes you to all the posts tagged by that... well.. "tag" on Technorati.

The beta version also has a better template management interface through which you can make changes to your blog template. This has a user friendly interface to change fonts and colors and to add page elements such as blogroll, linkroll etc. It also includes a better way of adding and updating blogrolls and linkrolls. This is another thing I had wished for. Using this interface I can also display all the categories and number of posts filed under each in the sidebar. There are only a limited number of templates that are available with the new interface though.

I have upgraded my other blog "Oorjaa" with these new features. It was much easier on Oorjaa because there were only a few posts to take care of. There are a couple of new posts on Oorjaa too... so please take a look at them. I will be upgrading this blog using the new interface pretty soon... once I decide if I should change the look of the blog or not. If you have an opinion on whether "Transmogrified" can use a bit of transmogrification in terms of the looks itself, please leave a comment to that effect. I also need to update the blogroll and linkroll.

There are still some bugs and glitches in the new version though. I noticed some while writing the posts on oorjaa after I upgraded it. For example, when I try to insert an image into the post it gets inserted at the top of the post by default instead of being inserted at the present cursor location. The spell checker (always a good thing to do before posting) is horrible. It highlighted stuff in my post in all the weird places, sometimes highlighting half of one word and half of the next, for no apparent reason. Also it messed up all my links. So finally I had to use Word to do the task. Hopefully Blogger will get to resolving these soon.

Another feature I have been using for some time now for both of my blogs is "Google Analytics" to track the traffic. It is much much better that other traffic monitoring sites that I used previously. It give me much more relevant information regarding the traffic. Here is a snapshot of the geo-location of visitors for the month of November for example (click on it for a larger image). A bow of gratitude to each one of you who helped to put a tiny dot on the map! Keep coming back.


Technorati Tags: Blogging, Blogger Beta, Google Analytics

Bodhi Vakya... "Centrism"

Bodhi Vakya means 'words of the enlightened one'. I think everyone has little glimpes of enlightenment at one point or another. Some may call it the "aha!" or "eureka!" moment. Often I come across little gems of sentences that carry profound wisdom (Buddhist panna, Sanskrit pradnya). I would like to think, the person was having a glimpse of enlightenment while writing them. This is a continuation of the previous "Bodhi Vakya" series and somehow it is also a continuation of the theme of the previous post.
~~~

The recent election here in USA has led many people to conclude that the country has voted strongly for a "centrist" position, as opposed to the bitter partisan rivalry and polarizing ideological stances. Almost all political parties are driven by some ideology. The ideology serves as the starting point for defining all (or most) of the party's position on social and political issues. More often than not, solutions derived from one or the other ideology are hardly the "optimum" solutions for the problem at hand. However it is often observed that people are keen on adhering to their ideology more than solving the problem in a reasonable amount of time. As a result the optimal solutions are often dumped in the thrash can.

People adhering to extreme positions often paint "centrists" as having "no ideological spine". Centrism is also portrayed as the position in which you go in whichever direction the winds are blowing. My own preferences and opinions lie sligtly to the left of the center if you need to know... but here is a piece from an essay that I recently came across, that tries to define the "centrist" position more formally. So here is the first Bodhi Vakya.. from Jason Scorse of Voices of Reason..

I want to reframe centrism as the political philosophy that takes the best ideas of all political persuasions instead of simply being viewed as either watered down liberalism or conservatism. In addition, centrism should be viewed as a philosophy of governing that is concerned primarily with societal outcomes, and less so with ideological purity. It is a more humble philosophy that allows for unintended consequences, continually updated assumptions, and the sincere desire to take into account opposing viewpoints. (read the full essay)

The second emphasis is added by me. I think it defines the "centrist ideology" if you will. This reminds me of Buddha's "middle way". Buddha was a very practical person and througout his life he refused to answer any questions regarding the metaphysical descriptions of reality. He reiterated that he was more concerned with alleviating the suffering here and now, in this life. There is a fable in which a lay person asked the Buddha to explain to him the "true nature of reality" before he could accept his teaching. The Buddha answered, "You are like a person who has been shot by a poisoned arrow. Before the doctor cures you, you insist on knowing the exact composition of the poison, whether it is slow acting or fast acting, the name of the person who shot the arrow, his family background and other questions of such nature. These things have nothing to do with your suffering here and now. All you need to do is to try the medicine the doctor is about to give. If it works you can find the answers to the rest of the questions yourself". The Buddha's middle way was concerned with "outcomes" rather than abstract concepts. Similarly a centrist position should be concerned with societal outcomes rather than ideological purity. This then is the official definition of the centrist position that I accept hereforth. A bow to Jason for penning it clearly.

It also reminded me of this paragraph from John Kenneth Galbraith's "The Good Society". So here is the second Bodhi Vakya for today...

Anciently and still, the economy has been defined ideologically. There is liberalism, socialism or capitalism; the speaker is a liberal or a socialist or is for free enterprise. He or she favors public ownership or, as in recent times, privatization. These are the controlling rules within which we live.

There is in the present day no greater or more ardently argued error. In the modern economic and political system ideological identification represents an escape from unwelcome thought -- the substitution of broad and banal formula for specific decision in the particular case.

Left - Right, Liberal - Conservative, all of these serve as labels that people have conjured to define and differentiate one ideology from another. The reality as always is somwhere in between. The only label that defines reality well is "gray", neither black, not white. So when it comes to solving problems, it is best to keep the labels in the closet and wear the hard hats.

Technorati Tags: centrism, ideology, philosophy