Thoughts on Freedom of Expression

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” — George Bernard Shaw

Here is a thought experiment. Imagine yourself in a commercial jetliner cruising at 500 knots 37,000 feet above the earth’s surface. Who on earth created the contraption which gives you the ability to do something so awesome? Humans. And out of what? Stuff that came out of the earth. You can trace every bit of that plane to its origin, the earth. The metals, the glass, the plastics—you name it—every bit of that aircraft was once in the earth. The raw material has been around for billions of years but only in the last few centuries have humans developed the ability to work the raw materials into sophisticated shapes and forms that extend the reach of humans in unimaginable ways.
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A Letter from a Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Worshipper

I expressed the idea that Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is not a supreme being endowed with the power of the Almighty God in my article titled “Is Sri Sri Ravi Shankar a Con Man?” I concluded that he is doing very useful work and as evidence I pointed out that he has very large numbers of followers who are willing to pay good deals of money for his guidance. But that rubs his worshippers the wrong way. Fortunately, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is a Hindu and therefore his followers are not in the habit of calling for the murder of those who hurt their feelings. When SSRS’s followers feel slighted by my not considering SSRS god incarnate, they merely write letters protesting my view.
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The Brain of the Minister of State for Haj

In my last post, we met the Uttar Pradesh Minister of State for Haj, Mr Muhammad Yaqoob Qureshi, who has announced a $11.5 million reward for the murder of Danish cartoonists and has asked the Indian government to server dipolomatic ties with the US. Here is how his brain works.

Indian Minister Announces Reward for Murder

I am not surprised. Indian Minister Offers Bounty reports the website Arab News.

NEW DELHI, 19 February 2006 — A minister in India’s Uttar Pradesh state government has offered a reward of $11.5 million to anyone who would kill any of the cartoonists who drew the images of the Prophet Muhammad …

Muhammad Yaqoob Qureshi, minister of state for Haj and Minorities Welfare in the Uttar Pradesh government, told a rally in Meerut, 65 km east of New Delhi, after Friday prayers that he would give “the avenger” 510 million rupees ($11.5 million) and his weight in gold.

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The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity

The prime directive that the Buddha gave to humanity was as simple as it was wise: First do no harm; then try to do good. Easy enough to state but it is astonishingly hard to follow for the average human being. Granted that the average human has occasional flashes of genius, but those are rare and therefore shine brightly against a backdrop of all-pervasive darkness of the general stupidity of humanity at large. No one, present company included, is quite exempt from moments of supreme stupidity and random acts of senselessness. Stupidity is as much part of our human condition as our much vaunted rationality. Which is why it is so difficult to follow the Buddha’s directive: we are just not smart enough.
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India’s Picture-perfect Bureaucracy — Part 2

Wonders will never cease. Just yesterday I commented on the fact that THEY have decided to do away with discriminatory pricing for foreign nationals in India. Now I am happy to report that another of the millions of asinine rules has finally been reversed. For background, read my previous post on India’s picture-perfect bureaucracy from more than a year ago. It is about India’s anti-photography fetish. You just cannot take pictures of practically any place in India. There will be a battered sign which will forbid photography.

Last week on my flight to Hyderabad, the flight attendant announced that now it is no longer criminal to point your camera on Indian terrain and shoot. Bravo! What took these morons who make dumb policies so long to realize that a picture taken by an average person is not going to jeopardize national security?

Indian Secularism

It is a tradition, hoary and venerated, of dividing the people of India along myriad dimensions depending on the motives of those doing the dividing. Taking a cue from the British, past masters of the “Divide and Rule” strategy, the Congress party — Neo-colonialists — greedily embraced the D&R for the same purpose. With a vengeance, they classified and tagged people into various castes and creeds.
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Ripping-off Foreign Tourists — Part 2

So it would appear that wisdom is slowly dawning on the idiots that make policy in India. Last week I read that the powers that be have finally come to realize that it is not a good idea to rip off foreign tourists by charging foreigners more for services compared to Indian nationals. (When this discriminatory pricing scheme will be dismantled is of course anybody’s guess given the glacial pace of change in matters bureaucratic.)
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Rajiv Malhotra’s “U-Turn Theory”

Nearly five years ago in April 2001, TIME magazine did a feature titled The Power of Yoga.

A path to enlightenment that winds back 5,000 years in its native India, yoga has suddenly become so hot, so cool, so very this minute. It’s the exercise cum meditation for the new millennium, one that doesn’t so much pump you up as bliss you out.

The article feels like an “infomercial” on yoga but is worth a quick glance. (While you are there, don’t miss the brief photo essay on some yoga postures.)
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Off to Singapore

As it happens, I am off to Singapore for a few days. Blogging, therefore, will be suspended. Yeah, yeah, I know that I am not the most prolific of bloggers and stopping for extended periods of time is par for the course. Yet, courtesy demands that I alert you about this hiatus.

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

PS: If you want to visit the archives, may I suggest this one on the privatization of public sector units and the followup posts on “Wrong-headed policies condemn millions to misery,” and the “Government’s Anti-Midas Touch“.