Democracy : Is India mature enough for it?

India is the biggest democracy in the world today. The leaders of the world are all in praises for India. But, we Indians should take some time to analyse this fact. India is for sure, the biggest democracy. But is it a successful one? That’s the million dollar question!

The very essence of democracy is, as the famous slogan goes, “To the people, for the people, and by the people”. Does the government we elect, work for the people? Is it by the people? We do vote, but when the politicians play the number games in the aftermath of elections, when they change their loyalties to parties, in the quest for the ultimate power, we, ‘The people’ only wait and watch helplessly. The voting then turns into a mere formality. What sort of a democracy are we talking about?

Democracy in India has become a mere competition between political parties. Every party is trying to outwit the other. Personal attacks, allegations and harsh words is what the politicians find themselves busy with. And in the realm of all this, the nation is forgotten. The recent political episodes in Goa and Jharkhand only strengthen this fact further. And moreover, any developmental works done by a ruling party is rubbished away and criticized by the opposition for no reason. Otherwise, how would anyone explain the opposition of the POTA, the terrorism act during the NDA regime? And for what petty reason! That it would be misused? Give me a break!!! Then there was a lot of hue and cry made about the IFFI Goa. It was heartening to see as a goan, the developmental works being criticized.

And the real makers of democracy, the public are also moulded in this kind of attitude. The public sees the elections as an entertaining cricket match. They support a political party, blindly vote for the party, irrespective of whether the candidate is a deserving one or not. Then on the counting day, sit in their couches in front of TV sets, cheering for the number of sits won by their favourite party. One should know that it’s our nation’s future that is in stake during elections. This raises the question, is India mature enough for democracy??

First of all, we need to introduce a discipline in our political system. Qualification should be made mandatory for politicians. The parties should be selective in giving tickets to the candidates, and those having a criminal background should be permanently barred from contesting elections. Secondly, the attitude should change. The parties should have a ‘nation-first’ approach. The parties, ruling and the oppositions should work as a team, instead of locking horns. A more solid anti-defection rule should be implemented, not allowing the politicians to change loyalties between parties. The public should also change their attitude towards politics, viewing it as a means to brighten their future, and not as a means of entertainment. The public should support good leaders rather than political parties.

Perhaps, switching to a bi-party system should lessen the problem. Today, Indian politics is virtually a bi-party one, with NDA and UPA. But these alliances themselves stand on frail foundations.

The initiative to change the political scene in India should right now. Both the public and the leaders should have a vision for our country. Let’s make India a matured democracy.

Looking Beyond Windows...

When it comes to choosing an Operating System, the only name that runs through our mind is the MS Windows. But hang on guys, IT is much more then only windows...!

The IT industry has been in many phases of late. The Dot Com bubble, the BPO buzz and the Open-Source or the Linux boom have all been raging the IT industry in the past years. Amongst these, perhaps the most fancied and the biggest phenomenon to occur in IT industry is the Open-Source Boom. The Open-Source freaks optimistically say that Linux will take over the industry in the near future. That is a debatable question in itself. Is Open-source here to stay? Or is it a bubble that will burst?

Microsoft Monopoly
Microsoft has monopolized the IT arena for quite some time now. The reason for such a monopoly is that Microsoft offered the users what most then OS did not offer, the Graphical User-Interface (GUI). The PC soon became a daily commodity. With growing popularity, many applications began to release, Office and Non-Office, compatible on windows. Getting help is only a click or a phone-call away. The support for Windows and Window-based applications is swarming. Loads of training institutes are offering courses on these applications, and getting skilled people in this technology is not a problem. The Windows OS and softwares are time tested. But, all these goodies come in for a price!

The Open-Source way out..!
Here is where the Open-Source or Linux has an edge. The Linux is available for free. Source-code is available for customizing according to the needs of the user. Linux can emulate any software, including the Windows NT server in a workgroup environment. Linux is stable, and works well with legacy systems. Amazingly, Linux would run very well on a 386 machine with an 8MB RAM. But the ‘free’ aspect comes with more problems. The Linux is not easy to install and configure. The support, services and the skilled personnel are hard to find. The Linux has somewhat made its mark in the server side. The desk-top and the home PC users are still not convinced. Linux is today seen the way we see electronic cars. Noble, but not nearly as satisfying as the good old petrol cars.

The deciding factor
So are you having a tough time in deciding which OS to go for? The user-friendly Windows or the freeware Linux? If you really can’t make up your mind, then worry not. There’s still a way out. Not many would know, but there is a third option here, called Lindows. As the name would suggest, it is a hybrid between Linux and Windows, and offers best of both the worlds.

Yet another way out!
Now renamed as Linspire, this Operating system was launched by Michael Robertson (of the MP3.com fame). Linspire is built on Linux, thanks to the Open-source boom. Linspire runs both the Linux and Windows applications. Though it comes with some price, it is way less then the Windows. An affordable $50 is what it costs.

Lets get 'Linspired'
Linspire has some amazing features like the shortest install time of only seven minuites! The booting time is also less compared to Linux and Windows. The kernel texts are hidden while booting. And it offers a very neat and user-friendly interface, an interface that will be welcomed by all the newbies. The Linspire users complained of no re-boots or hang-ups, unlike the Windows machines.

The if's and but's about Linspire
One of the biggest shortcomings of Linspire is that it cannot run some of the key versions of MS Office, i.e. Office 97, Office 2000 and Office XP. Perhaps this has been a major factor for Linspire not making it big in the OS market. If the Linspire team could work on these shortcomings, then it could give the mighty Microsoft, a run for their money. Let’s wait and watch.

Moral of the story - Look beyond windows
So, we see that IT industry today is not only about Windows. The Windows may continue to rule, but Linux is here to stay. And if Linspire comes close to success, then it can change the IT scenario in big ways, the very change that worries Microsoft.

What's wrong with Indian sports ?

The world today sees India as one of the most promising nations. Be it business and economy, science, space research and what not. India is excelling in all these fields, and gives even the developed countries a run for their money. But when it comes to sports, India has not much to boast about, except may be cricket. What has really gone wrong with Indian sports that it is in such a low profile in the world sports today??

India has always been underperforming in major sports events like Olympics. It has always been at the bottom of the medals tally. Do we lack talent? Do we lack the attitude? The answer is a big NO! India has loads of talent and can produce world-class sports persons. The only thing that goes wrong in India is that these talents are not nurtured.

The unfortunate thing about Indian sports is that, many times, the budding talent is suppressed. At home or in school, a child showing a keen interest in sports is always shooed away from it. A child is more encouraged in study-related activities. Nothing wrong in that, but he should not be discouraged if he is showing a keen interest in sports. Instead, parents and teachers should teach the child the importance of education, and guide him on how to have a balance between education and sports. The talent should be nurtured at young ages, so that they grow up to become world-class sports persons.

In fact, the parents and teachers are not to be blamed. Sport is not seen as a career option here. That’s because there’s not much money in it. And that’s an unfortunate fact. Today, many of the famous sports personalities of the past have to struggle with life. And we do not have full-fledged sportsmen, unlike other countries. Most of the sportsmen, except the cricketers have to work for their living.

Let us try to analyze some of the causes of the sorry state of India sports and their solutions:

1.) Dominance of cricket:
Excessive popularity of cricket is hampering the prosperity of other sports. Today, we see TV channels dragging each other to court to acquire the rights of cricketing events. But other major events like the NFL (National Football League), is neglected. The major TV channels should come forward and telecast these events. A good quality telecast will help in increasing the viewers and in turn the popularity. It was good to see the way PHL (Premiere Hockey League) was highly publicized by ESPN-Star. Such high quality telecasts should be extended to other domestic sports events too.

2.) Lack of Infrastructure and economic support.
Another reason for the downfall of sports is the lack of infrastructure. If sports have to be seen as a career option, then there should be professionalism in the ruling bodies. The grounds have to be improved. There should be a professional league in a sport like football. The sportspersons should be given financial support. The promising talents should be given world-class training. Effort should be made to give our sportspersons as much international exposure as possible.

3.) Lack of Professionalism.
The ruling bodies of respective sports should keep away from politics. Instead an experienced sportsperson of the past should lead it. There should not be differences within the bodies. We have seen this happen in Football and Hockey. Not much needs to be spoken of the differences between Subhash Bhowmick and the AIFF, and the famous episode of the clashes between Dhanraj Pillai and the Hokey Federation. These kinds of differences will fetch no good for the sport. The concerned authorities should pull up their socks. Contract system has been introduced in cricket. Other sports should follow suit. Merely changing coaches will not help. Efforts should also be made to evaluate coaches, physicians, and other designations related with the sport. Feedbacks should be taken from both players and the coaches, and the suggestions must be implemented. This will avoid the shameful incidents like the doping cases in the Olympics and Commonwealth Games, where the athletes had no idea what they were given. This shows that there is little transparency within the associations.

Today, India dreams of hosting Olympics. Rather, our goal should be to stand tall in the world sport arena. India has won the bid for the 2010 commonwealth games, on the basis that it has offered to provide a financial support of a millions of dollars to all participating countries. One can infer from this that money is not the problem in our country. Why not use it in the right direction to create good infrastructure and nurture good talent? Does it make sense to spend such a big amount of money on facilitating other countries, when our own country is lagging behind in world sports? In what way is hosting big sporting events like this, going to help the future of Indian sports…? It’s high time that India continues to remain a sleeping giant in the sports arena.