Minority ruling the Majority(??????)

Ever since I read a couple of articles in rediff about the brahmins and their plight, so many thoughts have been crossing my mind. The issue is a very important one and also a very neglected one. The articles may have affected me more since I am also a brahmin. I have tried best to bring this issue from a neutral standpoint.

India is a unique country in many ways. It is also very unique in the sense that it is probably the only nation in the world where the minority rules the majority. All attention is turned towards the minority and the majority fears the minority because the card of secularism is overplayed by the politicians, media and by almost everybody in the country. Many of us(including me) have not voiced their true opinions for being stereotyped and for fear of being criticized for supporting the majority(even though that maybe the logical and the right opinion). The rediff article brought out the plight of the Brahmins with so many statistics that brought out the gross disparity in pay for the Brahmins. There are very few Government support programs for the downtrodden brahmins. There are so many issues apart from the prime issue affecting the so called "Forward Community" - RESERVATION. I think reservation has lost us many deserving Doctors and now with the reservations in the IIM we will probably lose out on many more deserving Business Acumen. This is the prime reason for very few brahmins being Doctors. The probability and possibility of a Brahmin getting into Medical College(especially in my part of the Country- Tamil Nadu ) is very very low. Brahmin Parents (who generally are very proud of the academic achievements of their kids and do anything to motivate them during high school) considering the enormity of the task involved, discourage their child to become Doctors and ask them to seek some alternate routes. Reservation leads to a situation to what me and my friend calls " Reverse Discrimination". Deserving people are left out for no fault of theirs and may feel demotivated. People who really want to get into the best school and put in the required hardwork are very frustrated and disappointed when they could not make the cut just because of the reservation. This may have devastating effects when they are just out of high school. Let me tell you how the reservation should work. No way should a person who have the required marks should be out.Statistics have shown that the reserved seats almost end up getting not fully filled and the percentage of people who complete the degree is also relatively low. The seats must be increased totally to accomodate the people who come in the reservation quota. This is just one more instance of everything being done in India to please the minority. The sad but true thing is that there are many people who convert just to take the benefits of being a minority. Reservations and minority were issues that were played by politicians to garner votes and is a very bad influence on the society.

Everyone in India will remembra the Gujarat riots as one where several muslims were killed. No one remembers why and how the Gujarat riots were started. It was started when the coach containing many hindu brahmins had been burnt alive by some miscreants. Here I am not justifying that Godhra riots were the right retaliation and saying what Narendra Modi did what was right. The sad thing about the buring up was that it was not big news and very little interest was shown by the media. Jayalalitha was one of the very few who spoke about the incident and I think her comments about this was one of the best things done by her. Her comments were something similar to the following lines. "Just because the people who died were from the forward caste the issue is not being talked about. The media does not spread the news, No politician has condemned the killings for fear of being typecasted. I am not like that" The message sent by Jayalalitha's statements were very clear. Maybe the life of a person from the minority is more valuable than a person from the Forward Caste. We see many news about muslims being killed but when the same thing happens to the opposite end of the caste ladder it is being downplayed. Incidents like these and many more make me think that we need the RSSs and the BJPs and Bal Thackerays just to keep the Brahmins in the society. I still do not know whose life is more valuable. Maybe at least in India, the life of a minority is more valuable. I really hope that the above statement is not true but sadly it is true.

Here are the links to the two articles I read. Please take a few minutes and read the article.

http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/jun/15franc.htm?q=tp&file=.htm
http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/may/23franc.htm

Two-Tier System for Internet?????????

This week I received an email from ebay. This email was different from the usual emails containing information about discounts and the hot selling products customized to my preferences. The email talked about the telecom powers trying to use their enormous size and political muscle to control the internet accessibility.The phone and cable companies now control more than 95% of all Internet access. These large corporations are spending millions of dollars to promote legislation that would divide the Internet into a two-tiered system.The top tier would be a "Pay-to-Play" high-speed toll-road restricted to only the largest companies that can afford to pay high fees for preferential access to the Net. The bottom tier -- the slow lane -- would be what is left for everyone else. If the fast lane is the information "super-highway," the slow lane will operate more like a dirt road.

If this is indeed true and looks like it certainly, this is indeed a serous issue. First there are cost issues and many normal people will not be able to afford the high speed Internet. This might result in a decline in sales for the online companies. The other issue could be more employees accessing the Internet at workplace and might result in lesser productivity .

For more information, check this link at http://www.itsournet.org/ .

The other prominent issue would be the controlling of the Internet standards and legislation. There is still some efforts at reaching consensus and as expected the U.S is trying to control the legislative powers and be the controlling force for setting Internet standards.

This is an interesting link I visited recently. It will be fun especially for people from Tamilnadu.

http://video.google.com/
videoplay?docid=4413202459678535244&q=tamil