Happy New Year!!!

Today is Chaitra Shudha Pratipada (चैत्र शुद्ध प्रतिपदा), New Year for many Indians. I wish them a very happy and prosperous New Year! This morning I attended RSS’s Gudi Padava Ustav. A knowledgeable speaker in RSS fraternity touched upon Hindu Cosmology. It triggered a recall of my readings on this topic which I am presenting it here.

·        Hindus believe Brahma (creator of universe) leaves for 100 years. Each year consists of 300 cosmic days and 300 cosmic nights. 1 day (cosmic daytime) of Brahma is called as Kalpa (कल्प). Brahma is 51 years old and Shweta Varaha (श्वेत वराह) Kalpa is currently going on.

·        Brahma creates 14 Manus (मनु) in each Kalpa. Period of 1 Manu is called as Manvantar (मन्वंतर). Currently, वैवस्वत (मनु) Manvantar is going on which is 7^th Manu.

·        Each Manvantar has 71 Mahayug. Each Manu is separated by Sandhya. There are 15 Sandhya which are equivalent of 6 Mahayug. Therefore, each Kalpa is of (14 X 71) + 6 = 1000 Mahayug

·         1 Mahayug comprises of 1 Satya (सत्य), Treta (त्रेता), Dwapar (द्वापर) and Kali (कलि) Yug each.

·         Kali Yug is of 4,32,000 conventional years

·         Dwapar Yug is twice of Kali Yug i.e. 4,32,000 X 2 = 8,64,000 years

·         Treta Yug is thrice of Kali Yug i.e. 4,32,000 X 3 = 12,96,000 years

·         Satya Yug is four times of Kali Yug i.e. 4,32,000 X 4 = 17,28,000 years.

·        Therefore one Mahayug is of 43,20,000 years and one Manu is of 30,67,20,000 years and one Kalpa is of 4,32,00,00,000 years!

·         We are currently in Kaliyug of 28^th Mahayug of वैवस्वत Manvantar of Shweta Varaha Kalpa.

·        Brahma is awake during daytime (Kalpa) and hence universe is awake. When brahma is sleeping in the night, universe is also sleeping (destroyed by Shiva). Brahma dies after 100 years and universe is completely destroyed. He reincarnates only after 100 years and universe starts blossoming once again. This cycle repeats again and again. Rig Veda says no body knows how long it is going on and how long it would continue.

These are our beliefs and there is no scientific justification of it. However, age of the universe suggested by modern science is surprisingly very much closer to what suggested by Hindu cosmology. Whenever you perform any Pooja at your home next time, observe what Brahmin says. He gives the complete reference of Hindu cosmology by uttering Kalpa-Manavantar-Yug-Year-Season-Month-Paksha-Date (Tithi)-Day (War)-Nakshatra. Listen it carefully.

All of our Indian calendars are derived or calculated from सूर्यसिद्धान्त of Rig Veda. Other Asian calendars like Chinese and Japanese are also based on this principle. Our calendars are based upon cycle of moon. However correction (leap year or Adhik Mas) is applied based upon the solar cycle. Therefore, Hindu calendars are lunisolar calendar. Christian’s calendar is Solar whereas Muslim’s calendar is pure lunar.

A variety of calendars are used in India. Maharashtra and southern states use Shalivahana Shaka. The northern states use Vikram Samvat. Both of them have same months. In Shalivahan Shaka, new month begins with Shukla Paksha whereas it begins with Krishna Paksha in Vikram Samvat. In short, Amavasya (no moon) is the last day of the month in Shalivahan Shaka whereas Pornima (full moon) is the last day of the month in Vikram Samvat. Subtract ~78 from Gregorian year for Shalivahan Shaka (1936 from today) and add ~56 for Vikram Samvat. There is one more very common calendar which starts from beginning of Kali Yug (3102 BCE). It is called as Yugabda. Add ~3102 in CE to get Yugabda.

Indian National Calendar is Shaka which is similar to Shalivahan Shaka. We must use it in all the Government communication. But we have been taught not to honor our own traditions. We have already forgotten all our “National” things given in the Constitution of India in last 64 years. We hear Indian National Calendar only on Aakashwani Radio station when starts in the morning. But who listens Aakashwani nowadays!!

एक रूपये का डॉलर!!

“आप मुझे एक रूपये का डॉलर दो, मैं आपको पॉंच रूपयेका डॉलर देता हॅुं” tea vendor said to me in my office, when I ushered 10 Rupee note. I was amused when I heard this. But we frequently hear this when people erroneously equate coin with dollar. His utterance provoked me to see the history of Indian Rupee.

Rupiya is derived from “Rupe” mean Silver or “Rupa” means image or one can also interpret it as image on silver. Indian Rupee had been silver coin based currency for long. To my surprise, Indian Rupee was equal to US$ until 1947. The first major devaluation of Indian rupee happened in 1949. It is very difficult to pass any judgment on this because I have not studied economics. But it is very evident that international politics forced Nehru to accept this. At the same time, there are varied and exactly opposite views on the merits and demerits of this event. Therefore, I leave it to readers to draw their own inferences.

From 1926 to 1966 Indian rupee was pegged to GBP at Rs. 13.33. The pegging was changed to US$ in 1966 at Rs. 7.56. India gone away with the pegging system slowly during Narasimha Rao’s regime. Today, Indian Rupee is completely market linked and its value is driven by market. It means theoretically GOI or RBI does not control it but practically they do it indirectly. Please see the following table which gives exchange rate with US$. I leave it to readers to draw their own conclusions after going through the data!!  

Year	Exchange Rate $	Devaluation	PM
1947	1	0	Nehru
1950	4.79	379%	Nehru (devaluated  in 1949)
1955	4.79	0%	Nehru
1960	4.77	0%	Nehru
1965	4.78	0%	Nehru (64), Indira (66-77)
1970	7.56	58%	Indira
1975	8.39	11%	Indira, Desai, Charan Singh
1980	7.86	-6%	Indira (80-84)
1985	12.36	57%	Rajiv (84-89), Chandrashekhar, VP Singh
1990	17.5	42%	Narasimha Rao (91-96)
1995	32.42	85%	Gujral, Gowda, Vajpayee
2000	44.94	39%	Vajpayee (98-04)
2005	43.47	-3%	Manmohan Singh
2006	45.19	4%	Manmohan Singh
2007	39.42	-13%	Manmohan Singh
2008	48.88	24%	Manmohan Singh
2009	46.37	-5%	Manmohan Singh
2010	46.21	-0.35%	Manmohan Singh
2013	68	47%	Manmohan Singh
Feb-2014	62.27	-9%	Manmohan Singh

 

One Rupee note is issues by Govt. of India whereas rest of the currency notes are issued by Reserve Bank of India. Indian Rupee has another interesting history. Indian Rupee has been official currency for countries like Seychelles, Kenya, Uganda and Mauritius. Persian Gulf countries like Dubai, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Muscat, and Oman were using Indian Rupee as their currency till 1959. But, it promoted gold smuggling and put pressure on India’s foreign reserves. Therefore, GOI issued Gulf Rupee exclusively for these countries in 1959. Indian Rupee suddenly devaluated in 1966. As a result these countries started replacing Gulf Rupee with their own currency. Oman replaced it at the end in 1970.

भगोड़ा

When Aam Adami Party (AAP) was formed and decided to contest the election, many people ridiculed them and predicted that they won’t make any impact on Indian politics. This was because many believe that the social movements can’t be successful as a political party. They are integral and important part of democracy but have to remain apolitical and act as a pressure group on the ruling class from outside. We have seen a rise and a fall of Sharad Joshi. But AAP proved differently and exception to this belief.

When they demonstrated fantastic performance in Delhi Assembly Election in Dec-13, all the conventional wisdom of Indian politics collapsed. Many rightly said that if Delhiites would have slightest idea that AAP can reach near to half way mark, they would have given them decisive majority. All main stream political parties have forgotten the basic principles of contesting election such as person to person contact, informal meeting with the voters and society during the campaign. They are now more focused on money powered, big rallies, personalities, celebrities, television debates and very artificial sounding campaign.

In contrast, AAP focused on building network at ground level, empowering common man, self-motivated activism, constructive usage of social media, funding election through micro finance from voters and transparency in the entire approach. Selecting new faces brought the freshness and energy into their campaign. Their idea of separate manifesto for each constituency was so innovative that other parties have to follow the suit. The most importantly, after so many years of democracy, a common man believed that the election can be fought without money power, connect with elites, a dynast and charismatic oratory skills. Their spectacular performance in Delhi election had profound impact across the country. After so many years, a common man felt that established can be defeated and they can be a part of government! AAP gave hope to the nation that politics can be clean and forced mainstream political parties to introspect.

All initial euphoria started converting into disarray in few days. AAP could not understand the difference between an activist and a ruler. Delhiites happily accepted that they had taken support from Congress for forming a government. Now it was a time to demonstrate to the nation that common man can run the government. However, they did very little to build upon their distinctive feature and prepare a ground work on fulfilling their manifesto. The unexpected windfall of success went into the heads of Arvind Kejriwal and his team and started dreaming at national level. Their confrontational, publicity seeking, heroism, populistic, threatening, anarchist and chaotic way of governance is highly deplorable. Their approach of demonizing politicians, bureaucrats, government servants, industrialists is highly reprehensible. They are misleading the nation. They knew that they can’t introduce Jan Lokpal bill when parliament has already passed Lokpal bill. The state responsibility is to accept it in the state. The state has complete liberty of changing/modifying it. However, AAP was not interested in the constitutional way. The very reason of resignation of government is unconvincing when none asked for their resignation, Congress did not withdraw their support and none sought for no-confidence motion. They approached voters whether to accept Congress’s unconditional support or not but conveniently forgotten them while resigning. They had moral ground for resigning as they had already lost the majority on the floor. But they conveniently ignored it and continued.

Nobody joins politics to sit in the opposition perpetually or help defeating others or get defeated, but to govern as per their principles, ambition and promises within the constitutional framework. Running government is all about patience, courage, belief, firmness, digesting criticism, dialogue, consultation, confrontation, cooperation and occasional receding. But AAP chose to run away from the responsibilities.

The experiment of AAP is disastrously failed. AAP may take very high moral ground. But they helped Congress, to whom they have been criticizing for corruption, to grab the government with the least number of MLA’s. Now Congress government in the center rules Delhi under Presidential Rule! I wonder what they have achieved by resigning. They have committed a big crime by pushing Delhiites into one more election. Voters of India are very wise. They will give you ONLY one chance and AAP has missed it!

Privacy is My Right!

One experiences all sort of emotions while driving on our roads. The most prominent one is rage on the fellow citizen who has given damn to your safety or rights while on the road. Many a times, we feel that let me chase him out and give him back! One may also fantasize of veiled attack on him. Here is the way!

Today Big Data, Social media, mobile and internet have certainly given such possibilities. Few days back, Maharashtra RTO has given a number (09212357123). If you send an SMS VAHAH and vehicle number, a return SMS will provide the owner’s name. (It is still working but personal information is not sent now). Once the name is available, it is very easy to get his photo, telephone number and other details on social media websites such as Linkedin, Facebook, Google+ etc. Today image search (http://images.google.com/ ) is also possible. Such search engine can give photos of entire family and friend’s network of that person.

Today so much of information is available online than never before. One can get private information of a person based on his public information. Getting someone’s PAN number is very easy. Banks, utility suppliers and even NSDL systems are very prone for hacking. Even hacking is not needed. Small bribe can get you anyone’s PAN number. Once it is available, access to all his financial information is possible. Income Tax department’s website Traces (tdscpc.gov.in) has all the information about bank accounts, FD, shares and mutual funds. There is one organization called CIBIL. Its major stakeholder is TransUnion (of USA). The overseas companies hold 43% stake in this company and remaining stake is held by various Indian Banks. The all member financial companies provide financial information of an individual to this company. CIBIL has consolidated information of credit card transactions, any types of loan and properties bought on loan. Do you still think that your financial information is secret?

We see proliferation of Android phones and usage of gmail, Facebook, whatsApp on it. Go to Settings and click on apps. It gives a list of all the apps installed on the phone. Click on whatsApp, you will be astonished to see that it practically collects everything like geo location, contacts, groups, calling details, SMS and can directly modify/change/delete settings. The same is for other apps as well. Complete control on your phone!

Remember Govt. instructing Blackberry to provide unencrypted data or stop the services in India? Blackberry had to oblige unwillingly. Govt. collects data from internet traffic. We have already provided our biometric information through Aadhar Card. It is very easy to develop a system which will provide consolidated view of NSDL, Traces, CIBIL and Adhaar. The day is not far away that each citizen would be mapped! It is essentially good and useful but your personal information can be sensitive information too!

Just hold your breath! Do you think ONLY Govt. of India collects this information? Big Brother USA is also collecting it across the globe under the pretext of anti-terrorism operations. US’s National Security Agency (NSA) has built a huge data center in Utah which collects data from global internet traffic. They forced Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Skype, YouTube, whatsApp etc. to open their systems for collecting data. Now just imagine how much personal information you provide to these websites! By now Big Brother knows everything about you! This is not just enough. NSA used Microsoft’s Windows update to spread Flame Malware to target few countries in past. One can argue that there is nothing for me to hide. But we must understand our privacy is a basic building block of our freedom and democracy is built upon freedom!

Fear!

Other day, I was listening to a poem by Kavi Grace “भय इथले संपत नाही’ composed by Hridaynath Mangeshkar and sung by Lata Didi on Vividh Bharati. I wondered; can human race get rid of fear? Then I realized that it has been used for commercial benefit since ages and it is the core principle of many businesses.

Religion is the first and foremost entity who has been exploiting it since centuries. Believe me no religion is exception to it. Let’s talk about my religion. Almost all the pooja’s are example of it. Most of them have very noble purpose. But we have already forgotten the basic principles behind it and we do it out of fear. The same is being exploited by our priest. Most of us perform Satyanarayan Pooja. Listen to those 5 Adhyay priest narrates during the pooja. All of them say that if you do not perform the pooja as promised, it will bring bad luck to you. Many of us just do it not to break the tradition or out of fear.  

The next such community is Astrologers! The irony is that people have even developed the software for so-called science. In fact, many will try to convince you that how it is scientific and based on statistics but lack single evidence! Once I heard an interview of Sharad Upadhye a famous astrologer. She was asking many questions on gems and precious stones to him. He was explaining the benefits of them. At the end she asked him a question after looking at many rings in his hand. What are those precious stones? He laughed and said that all of them are dummy stones! Communities who have never seen or prepared their horoscope have started making it in recent days. Usage of horoscope for fixing marriages has increased to disgusting level and all out of fear! Vastu Shastra, Feng Shui and what not! Today no builder even dare to build south facing flat! Ironically, richest, and famous shops on Laxmi road in Pune are South facing!

Fear sells and can get you good money is a new realization to the profession who is not supposed to exploit it. It is the medical profession! Bird Flu is a classic example of it. In fact, there were very few human deaths due to bird flu. But fear of bird flu was sold across the globe and one pharma company made fortune in it. The same thing was repeated during swine flu. All of us have experienced deserted streets during its outbreak in 2009.  Do you know that there are no convincing test results that show Tamiflu cures Swine flu? Many NGO’s have demanded complete test results of Tamiflu. But Roche (only one manufacture in the world) had never provided any comprehensive test results on its capability of curing swine flu or controlling its epidemic.  Roche made billions of dollars in selling this medicine throughout the globe!

Last but not least, the political parties use the same model for garnering the votes. No political party is exception to it! Christianity is in danger was sold by George Bush in 2005. The entire international politics is played on the tenets of fear whether it is Iran or Iraq or any other so called rogue nations.

We are taught to live in fear! In fact, we have institutionalized fear! Insurance companies are the great example of it. Fear of not getting good school, fear of not getting good marks and good college, fear of not getting good job, fear of losing the job and finally fear of death! You would agree that all of these fears have already transformed into business for someone else. I wonder when we will learn to live with courage, as rationalist and with happiness! But where is the school for them!