A BUNCH OF HIPPOCRITES OR AN ENTIRE NATION OF THEM

One first note the headline or caption of this article would arouse the passion of patriotism among readers and I may earn a lot of brickbats for criticizing my own nation & society, but let me put it straight the article means no offence to anyone its just to create self awareness.

I read a news report a few months ago of a terrible incident that took place in Metro. A 12-year-old boy whose bicycle was damaged by a car(apparently an imported one) that was part of a wedding reception. When the kid asked for compensation so that he could repair his cycle, the people in the party took offence, beat him up and burnt him to death in a nearby field. The story was buried in the regional pages, and hardly generated any public outcry. A few days later, there was a story of a 2-year-old child who had been trapped in a borewell - a common occurrence across the country. Incidents like these capture the public imagination, and the media obligingly provides a minute-by-minute report of the rescue efforts.

Another incident that occurred a couple of weeks ago, to be specific 29 march 2008 when a national news broadcaster came up with a outrageous breaking news “DELHI: COMMISSIONERS DOG FOUND”, now please is our commercial and economic activity so dead that this has to be the breaking news. There are millions of dogs wandering on million streets in the nation. Seems like the dogs too are privileged like humans...”Commissioners dog” ,”celebrities” then come stray dogs & comman man.Can we stoop so low just for TRP ratings.





BREAKING NEWS!!!





I wondered at these two occurrences and reached an uncomfortable conclusion. We Indians are a nation of hypocrites. Our inconsistencies are not always in such stark and horrific terms, but in thousands of other ways, small and big.

Let me begin with a list of our great thinkers ,so called corporate heads, they get MBA from a prestigious American University, whose founder made his money by profiting from India's colonization or n years of work experience with MNC consulting firms. They fly business class, even though they profess to work on issues concerning the urban poor, illiteracy, and poverty.

I myself am not too far behind, after taking part in save water campaigns I guiltily let the water run when I shave because I find the sound of running water soothing small drops, but still, then comes my wastage of water when I am washing and cleaning, I do so without any tabs and try to wash it away by telling I am a cleanliness freak. There might have been may other situations where I have said one and done the opposite I am no saint too.

Here is some celebrity bashing, the king of bollywood who swore by our national game hockey to rake some moolay during his movie “CHAK DE –INDIA” release, turned out it was just for TRP and collections in BOX office. When the time came for real improvement of the game he chose CRICKET giving the exact opposite statement as to which game he loves..

There are more examples, but this is not some lecture or a sermon session. The point is that I don't want to sound like a sermon giving morally high headed bloke; I just want be frank on the challenges we have as a nation.

Hypocrisy is a big issue in most societies, but it's a particularly problematic one in India.

We believe that "mamatha"-a mother's affection-is a sacred emotion, worship women as goddesses and yet inflict horrors upon our women. We take bribes, and then hope to wash away our sins by thrusting thousands down the hundis of our temples. We speak of compassion, but show little for the the old man standing clinging on to a pole in a crowded public transport. We study "moral science" in our schools (whoever coined that phrase should be given a special award) and were tested to see if we got all the spelling right when we have the essence itself wrong.
We learn about civics and citizenship, and yet are often asked why we have such a strong sense of family, but such a poor sense of a larger community:


“How can our homes be so clean, and our streets so littered with garbage”?

Clearly, I am talking in general-there are most of us who would justifiably take offence at being called hypocrites, and for good reason. But they are a minority today.
Every day, in every field-business, politics, social work or sports— across the length and breadth of this country, millions of us indulge in acts of hypocrisy that collectively add up to an epidemic.

Aren’t we the same nation that:
- Never invaded any country in her last 10000 years of history.
- Invented the Number System. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta
- Developed Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans.
- Although modern images of India often show poverty and lack of development,
India was the richest country on earth until the time of British invasion in the
Early 17th Century
- When many cultures were only nomadic forest dwellers over 5000 years ago,
- Indians established Harappan culture in Sindhu Valley (Indus Valley Civilization)

It seems that there was some noble past, a link between thought and action, where values were cherished. The signs are there: in the sublime music, in our dance forms, in the incredibly sophisticated material about human spirituality, and so on. So, how can a country with so much collective wisdom and spirituality be broken in so apparent a fashion?

It feels that we lost our way somewhere along the line. What is left today is only a frustrating glimpse of greatness into a life that was, leaving more questions than answers.

We have lost a sense of individual agency in our thoughts and actions. Like children of overachieving parents, we seem overwhelmed by the legacy of great ideas in our society. It's almost like we need to come over this complex thoughts that have settled upon our consciousness, and find morality for ourselves and then to society. To realize that words like "honesty" and "caring" and "respect" are most powerful when acted upon and, not lectured about or written about.

But if we have the perspective to consider our actions, and the courage to correct ourselves, we can rekindle the greatness that our society seems to have once had. And maybe rediscover our moral compass, one person at a time.

I’d like to end with a few notes about my nation by a few great men.

Albert Einstein said:

“We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count,Without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.”

Mark Twain said:

“India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of humanSpeech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grandMother of tradition. Our most valuable and most constructive materials in theHistory of man are treasured up in India only”.

French scholar Romaine Rolland said:

“If there is one place on the face of earthWhere all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest daysWhen man began the dream of existence, it is India.”

Hu Shih, former Ambassador of China to USA said:

“India conquered anddominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a singlesoldier across her border.”

All the above is just the TIP of the iceberg, the list
could be endless.

WELL SOMEONE SAID THE WORD “I” IS GREEDY ,WELL IAM GREEDY FOR MY NATION TO GROW,SO ALL YOU I’S JOIN AND MAKE OUR NATION.

Readers kindly oblige this article is inspired by a book written by a social columnist, social worker and former employee of a MNC.


Not My Job!


Cheers,
Akshay Balachandra
We The People

"CTRL + P Paper to PAUPERED"

"CTRL + P Paper to PAUPERED"


One of the most important things that go unnoticed when wasted is PAPER. We don’t feel the pinch as most of us in the corporate world pay for it directly. —after all, paper is pretty cheap— But having more ethical values about it would make it a lot easier to save it.

People take it very Easy & Ignorant, while taking the Print Outs. This may be due to:

1) Lack Of Awareness (Though Most Of them are Well Educated!!!)
2) Care-Free Attitude- (after all, paper is pretty cheap, Company Shall Bear the Expenses!)How People Mis Use Paper….
1) Take Unnecessary Print Outs
2) Print Outs of E-Books (And it is also Not ethical to take print outs of E-Books)
3) One Sided Print Outs

Most of the times, the printed materials are not used once it is read. Later they are found in the Bin or lying in a corner.

Paper accounts for more than half of all municipal solid waste (a.k.a. trash). Anything we can do to save paper will help reduce the amount of trash going into landfills, and it will also reduce energy use and pollution associated with manufacturing, transporting, and recycling new paper products. Perhaps most importantly, when we save paper, we reduce the need to cut down trees to make new paper.

How best can we reduce the Usage of Paper……???

OK, by now we know that the "Paperless Office" is a myth. Infect, computers seem to have actually increased our use of paper. So at least we shall make an attempt to minimize the Usage of Paper.
All we need to do is, be cautious before doing Ctrl+P.

Review Drafts Using On-Screen Tricks

One can often get "screen blind" after looking at a document on the screen for a long time, and reviewing a printout allows one to catch errors that would have gone unnoticed. An on-screen trick that will allow We to review your document from a seemingly different perspective is to temporarily change the font size of the text (typically making it larger). This makes the words easier to read and shifts things around a bit, giving your eyes a new view of the document. If We have already implemented formatting that a change in font size would mess up, try increasing the apparent font size by setting the zoom to a higher percentage (or set it to "Page Width").

Print Pages, Passages, or Sections

Sometimes We may need a printout of only part of a large or medium-sized document. Perhaps We need to review one or two pages of a many-page document, or maybe We need just one section of a large spreadsheet. We may find the printing options in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint helpful in your quest to review your work but also minimize the number of pages We print.

• Microsoft Word: To print only the current page—i.e. the page where your cursor is—select Edit/Print, click the "Current Page" option button, and then click OK. Or We can print a range of pages by clicking the "Pages" option button and entering the range of pages We want to print (e.g. 4-5).

• Excel: The above "page range" approach will also work with Excel. Alternately, We can select a range of cells in your spreadsheet; then when We go to print, click the "Selection" option button on the print dialog. If We do this, it's a good idea to then do Preview to make sure the printout will be what We expect. If it's not, We can use the Setup option from within the Preview frame to tweak the page orientation, the margins, or the "Adjust to" percentage to get the printout arranged the way We want.

• PowerPoint: The following options on the print dialog will help We print only the pages We want:
o clicking the "Current Slide" option button will limit the printout to just the slide We are currently viewing;

o Clicking the "Slides" option button and filling in a slide range will limit the printout to a range of slides.

Use Double Sided:
Anytime We have to print or make photocopies, always try to do so double-sided. Most copiers today have features that will allow "one-sided to two-sided" copying, and many laser printers allow "duplex" printing. Check with your office geek if you're not sure.

If your printer does not allow double-sided printing, We can do it manually using Microsoft Word's printing features:
• First print the odd pages;
• then flip the printed pages over and put them back in the printer;
• Then go back to Word and print out the even pages.

Print “Two Up”

Some computer software—such as Microsoft Word—allows the printing of two reduced-size pages on one sheet of paper. (We can usually print even more pages per sheet, but once We get beyond two, things get very hard to read.) The "two up" printouts look sort of like the pages of a book, and they cut your paper use in half. We can even use double-sided printing in combination with two-up printing to cut your paper use by 75% compared to "normal" one-up, one-sided printing. Again, check with your office tech-support person if We have trouble figuring out how to use any of these options.

Print Again on the Blank Side

If you have paper that was printed on one side that is staple-free and wrinkle-free, We can use it again for making draft printouts. If We have a personal ink jet, We can keep your draft paper in the same in-printer stack as the clean paper and just flip the stack around, depending on whether We need a final printout (on virgin paper) or a draft (on once-printed paper). If We share a laser printer at the office, We may be able to agree to use the #2 paper drawer for draft printing.

Use Obsolete Print outs for Note Paper

For paper that still has a blank side but isn't pristine enough to go into the printer for one last round of printing, We can still get more out of it by using it for taking notes at meetings and whatnot. A clipboard is a convenient way to create a scrap-paper notepad. If you're a hard-core paper saver, We can cut old printouts into fourths or sixths and make a stack of them to use for writing notes and phone messages. Both methods will reduce the number of new note pads and message pads We need to buy.

Cheers,
Akshay Balchandra
Ramanujan Melkote
Sudheer Keshav