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 Every politician, when he leaves office, ought to go straight to jail and serve his time, thus goes an American folk saying. Politics and politicians have come to be synonymous with dishonesty, favouritism, and corruption. This perhaps is the underlying reasoning for many good and competent people to stay away from active politics; and many corrupt and incompetent people to get attracted to active politics. The good people’s silence and inaction make it easy for the wicked people to fill the world with their opinions, lies, and propaganda; and establish their agendas and actions as normal and standard. For Gandhi, being political was not a choice, but an imperative. He famously said, “Anyone who says they are not interested in politics is like a drowning man who insists he is not interested in water.” Gandhi returned to India on 19 December 1914, after his sojourn in England and South Africa, as quite a matured man of forty-five, having seen the worlds of exploiters and the exploi...

 Religiosity has no definition. Living for
 a truth to dying for a lie could all be religiosity. On the one hand, it is as clear as what we see happening at homes, in worship places, and on streets during festive days and nights; on the other hand, it is as hazy and ambiguous as what its effects are. And there is no better place to fish than in hazy waters. Hyperreligiosity is an extreme and disproportionate display of already very ambiguous religiosity, whereby psychologically, a person experiences intense religious beliefs
or episodes that interfere with normal personal and social functioning. Collective or group hyperreligiosity, looking at its manifestations, is hyperreligiosity multiplied by the population of India. Here in India mass religiosity is triggered by the vocal force of one or a few, to shocking propositions. Here people kill, or even are ready to die, which have nothing to do with truth or falsehood, or needs nothing in particular to kill or to die for. Our ego get...

 Do we need leaders in a utopian society? However utopian a society may be, if there are humans, they will obviously form into groups and organisations. According to the study of Peter Ferdinand Drucker, an American management consultant, educator and author, if we put a group of people together what
can naturally come out of them is friction, confusion, and underperformance; for anything more than this we need leaders. A group cannot self-direct itself. If we as
a group need order, peace, success, etc. we need leaders. Rightly so every community and nation has leaders. Watching leaders of various nations in recent times makes us realise that every community and nation who has leaders does not necessarily end up having peace or genuine success and prosperity. Why? Going Populist ‘I, me, and only myself’ approach is against democratic results. Narcissistic populist leaders make themselves into a cult of personality with ‘56-inch chest’ who occupy
a place above the institutions of a ...

 We in unison agree that media control people. But we seldom approve that media control us; because we are not able to give up media. Giving up media appears to be giving up our freedoms; but in truth it is media and their masters that hold us sway. We, for better or for worse, are products of media to a great extent. The images that we have of the world, the other, and even of ourselves are a lot from the media. We sit, in buses and trains, on transits, in office, even on our thrones, scrolling down on our screens. We get influenced, immersed, and lost in the content and form of the mass media. Plato’s 24-century-old allegory of the cave is so very true in the case of the social media today. The allegory portrays people as slavish, naïve receivers like sponges; knowing only
as much as they are told, whether it is true or not. Plato underlines that people consider reality to be just the visible world, when reality in truth is more
than what meets the eye. His allegory assumes that ...

In a democracy there is something more dangerous than absence of free speech: hate speech.  Speeches have built the world. Speeches have destroyed the world. Speeches have initiated people killing people; speeches have put a stop to people killing people. Speech is a double-edged sword. Those wielding it have power. In democracy there is something more dangerous than absence of free speech: hate speech. What is free speech? In a democracy it is not necessary that everyone should sing the same song, said, S Rangarajan. Our constitution loudly and clearly declares that all citizens shall have right to freedom of speech and expression. Free speech is the right of every citizen under Article 19.1a. Free speech is once right to speak his or her mind, right to express one’s opinion, without negating the required reasonable restrictions. I would believe that free speech takes us a little further, it is also one’s inner opportunity and prospect to speak out when another is vulnerable and i...

Modern progress seems to be a cold-blooded creation of oligarchy. Creating a few on the top of the economic and control pyramid, who have all the powers. This irreversible concentration of wealth with the soulless corporates, who are right at the top of the economic pyramid, widens the gap between the haves and the have-nots.   What is progress?’ is the starting question of the mind expanding documentary called Surviving Progress (2011). In a world of 195 countries (may be a few more) with a planet with 7.8 billion people, this is a difficult question. Rightly so, the documentary does not answer the question; but unambiguously throws light on what is not progress. Modern progress seems to be a cold-blooded creation of oligarchy. Creating a few on the top of the economic and control pyramid, who have all the powers. What does it mean on economic terms? A glance at the grand GDP deception may give some clarity. A country’s progress is calculated by its gross domestic product (GDP). I...

  Thinking is a mental labour. It is normal that when we are challenged with cognitive tasks, we make our brains work harder; we push the grey matter in our heads to further limits. We could make our brains’ toil lighter by thinking accompanied. Let the brain act like a moderator of a conversation. Instead of doing everything only in our brains, we can shift many a mental works onto the world around us. Technology has pitched in even without we realising it. Who remembers telephone numbers anymore? Our smart phones do it for us. Thus we unburden our brains and augment its capacity. Two best and productive ways to provide our brains accompaniment for thinking are physical tools and social interaction. The Times of India republished an article from The New York Times on this and called it thinking outside your brain. As we live a fuller life when we live with others than in isolation; we think more fully when we think accompanied  by others. Physical tools help us move o...

The origin of the concept The term "secularism" was first used by the British writer George Jacob Holyoake in 1851. Holyoake invented the term secularism to describe his views of promoting a social order separate from religion, without actively dismissing or criticizing religious belief. An agnostic himself, Holyoake argued that "Secularism is not an argument against religion, it is a standard by itself. It does not question the legitimacy of religion. Secularism does not say there is no light or guidance elsewhere, but maintains that there is light and guidance in secular truth, whose conditions and sanctions exist independently. Therefore secularism is not equal to atheism. Holyoake did not merely coin the phrase, but also gave following principles of secularism. 1. Science as the true guide of man. 2. Morality as secular, not religious in origin. 3. Reason the only authority. 4. Freedom of thought and speech 5. Owing to the...

Totalitarianism represents humanity's most insidious perversion of political power—a systematic assault on individual freedom that transforms entire societies into controlled environments where human spirit is methodically crushed. Unlike mere dictatorships that primarily seek political submission, totalitarian regimes wage a comprehensive war against human autonomy, penetrating the most intimate spaces of personal thought, belief, and expression. At its core, totalitarianism is a radical political ideology that does not simply want obedience, but complete psychological transformation. It demands not just compliance, but total internal surrender. The totalitarian state is not satisfied with external conformity; it seeks to fundamentally reshape human consciousness, creating subjects who internalise the state's narrative so deeply that external coercion becomes almost unnecessary. The machinery of totalitarian control is breathtakingly sophisticated. Through pervasive propaganda...