CAB: The Beginning of the End

First of all, most of us don't know that the prelude of the discriminatory aspect of the Citizenship Act is already a law for the last 3-4 years. In 2015 and 2016, the central government issued two notifications exempting certain groups of illegal migrants from provisions of the 1946 and the 1920 Acts.These groups are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who arrived in India on or before December 31, 2014.This implies that except Muslims, all other groups of illegal migrants will not be deported or imprisoned if they are caught for being in India without valid documents. Even the RBI in 2018 kept out Muslims long-term Visa (LTV) holders from property buying right. LTV holders of all other religions were allowed to purchase one residential property in India. 

The Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 goes leaps ahead and seeks to provide Citizenship to religiously persecuted individuals from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan belonging to all the world major religions except the Muslims. The Act has the discriminatory element at its face value but the long- term repercussions of such differential treatment are way more dangerous. 

Why are Muslims protesting? 

♦️ After the NRC excercise is conducted pan-India, it's highly likely that millions of people (of all religions) will not be able to prove their citizenship owing to lack of few documents or some mistakes wherein. Out of all such left-out people, if they want to acquire Indian citizenship by naturalisation, as per the amended Citizenship Act, only Muslims will have to prove that they've been residing in India for atleast last 11 aggregate years, while people of all other religions will have to prove the same for only 5 years. That’s blatant discrimination against Muslims.

♦️ The Bill states that on acquiring citizenship: (i) such illegal immigrants shall be deemed to be citizens of India from the date of their entry into India, and (ii) all legal proceedings against them in respect of their illegal migration or citizenship will be closed. Hence, only Muslims immigrants will be left out and they may be imprisoned or deported under the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920.

♦️ If persecution is the criteria for granting citizenships to immigrants, it's a fact that the Rohingyas of Myanmar,  Shia and Ahmadiyya Muslims  of Pakistan or the Hazras, Tajiks and Uzbeks of Afghanistan,Madhesis from Nepal or Tamils of Sri Lanka  or even Atheists face persecution in their countries.The UNO has called Rohingyas as the most persecuted minorities of the world. But BJP - led government won't grant them citizenship as the above-mentioned persecuted communities don't belong to the traditional vote bank of BJP.  Granting citizenship on the basis of religion is an absolute violation of Article 14 (Right to Equality) and a dishonor to the Indian Preamble, secularism being a part of its basic structure. 

♦️ The Act is also discriminatory in general because it shall provide citizenship to only those immigrants who entered India  before or on December 31, 2014. So, what about people who enter India after that date. Will they not have faced any persecution?

Why NRC is anti-poor? 

♦️ Millions of people in India have always lived under extreme poverty since ages. They don't own any land or house, neither  their forefathers did ; they never got admitted to any school. Can we expect such downtrodden people who live hand-to-mouth,  to show land and tenancy records to prove their citizenships? 

♦️ The unfortunate experience gained from NRC from Assam should serve as a warning to the rest of the country. Though the BJP is admitting that the  NRC process in Assam was “flawed”, it seems hell-bent to extend NRC to the rest of India. When the Assam exercise itself has given birth to a massive humanitarian crisis , can there be any rationale for extending it to even a single other Indian state, let alone whole of India? When the administrative cost of NRC in a small state like Assam alone cost thousands of crore, won't it be a financial disaster for India to afford pan+india NRC that would cost lakhs of crores at a time when the Indian economy is facing severe crisis?

Such a law that imperils the very secular foundation of our nation and create a huge humanitarian crisis should no doubt be protested against but the protest should be peaceful. Violence and Vandalism  are absolutely illegal, unethical and shall only dilute the public support and real cause the struggle stands for.

IRFAN

FISHING :No Less Cruel

Many people don't eat land animals and birds, not even eggs but are okay with eating fish. They justify this saying that fish aren’t raised in the cruel confinement of factory farms; fishing doesn’t require trees to be cleared for pasture lands or to grow feed crops or require huge amounts of pesticides and irrigation water ; fish don't scream, so they might not be feeling pain. All of these arguments are specious.

Fish does feel pain

1. Imagine someone forcibly keeps your head dip in a pool of water and you're gasping for air but all in vain. How suffocating and frightening it would be! The restlessness, panic, pain and struggle for life that you would feel is the same what fishes feel when they're out of water. Almost, every commercially-caught fish dies a slow and painful death from suffocation when it is pulled out of water and  kept tossed on the ice or rock. Fish caught in deep waters have it even worse: as they are pulled to the surface, depressurization can cause their organs to burst, or their stomachs to protrude from their mouths.

2. Sometimes we hear or see the news of a person accidentally been impaled by a metal rod or something. How painful it is even to hear that! So, definitely it wouldn't be a pleasure for the fish to be impaled on a fisherman's hook and be pulled out of the water.The hooks often pierced in the face, or even in the eyes of fish would cut its mouth open.

Researches prove that fish does feel pain.

Fish also have the tendency to move away from the pain-causing agent and this behavior is cognitive and not just reflexive. Fish don’t audibly scream when they’re impaled on hooks or grimace when the hooks are ripped from their mouths, but their behavior offers evidence of their suffering—if we’re willing to look. For example, when a biologist Braithwaite and her colleagues exposed fish to irritating chemicals, they lost their appetite, their gills beat faster, and they rubbed the affected areas against the side of the tank.
Fish, like “higher vertebrates,” have neurotransmitters such as endorphins that relieve suffering—the only reason for their nervous systems to produce these painkillers is to alleviate pain. Researchers have created a detailed map of more than 20 pain receptors, or nociceptors.

Eating fish isn’t healthy as you think

·       Industrial and municipal wastes and the agricultural chemicals flushed into the world’s waters are absorbed by the fish and get bioaccumulated in their bodies.

·       Fish can accumulate high levels of mercury and carcinogens like PCBs.(Polychlorinated Biphenyl). Fish is the main source of methyl mercury a substance that has been linked to cardiovascular disease, fetal brain damage, blindness, deafness, and problems with motor skills, language, and attention span. In USA, Seafood is also the number one cause of food poisoning.

Fish ‘Farming’ does exist and it’s cruel

·       Fish “farming” involves large-scale, highly mechanized production of fish Thousands of fish are crammed into ponds, troughs, or sea-floating cages, so that fish farmers can raise the greatest possible number of fish per cubic foot of water. In most cases, each fish is allotted a space scarcely larger than their body.

·       Farmed fish are fed pellets designed for unnaturally rapid weight gain. Under these abnormal intensely crowded conditions, fish suffer from stress, infections, parasites, oxygen depletion, and gas bubble disease.

·        In an effort to prevent the spread of disease among the fish, producers give them large amounts of antibiotics. Even so, many fish die before slaughter.

·       For economic reasons and to reduce fish feces, most farmed fish are starved for days or weeks before they are slaughtered.

·       Farmed” fish also are fed dyes to give their flesh a pink color, as well as massive amounts of antibiotics to stave off bacterial diseases and sea lice.

·       Ever heard of a cruel practice called Eyestalk ablation ?  Female prawns have their eye sliced open or cut off — usually without pain relief — to make them reproduce faster. It is routinely practiced on female shrimps (or prawns) in almost every marine shrimp maturation or reproduction facility in the world. Female prawns have a gland behind their eyes which tells their ovaries when to mature. In the wild this could be influenced by things like breeding season or environmental factors but prawn farmers have found that the stressful and crowded conditions on farms can make prawns reluctant to reproduce.By destroying this gland, farmers rapidly force ovary growth, denying female prawns the natural instinct to only reproduce when the conditions are right

Fishing destroys Environment.

Lets start by a ubiquitous term in fishing industry called "Bycatch". Modern fishing gear, often undetectable by sight and extremely strong, is very efficient at catching the desired fish species—as well as anything else in its path. So, it's not only the target fishes that get caught up in the fish gear or net but also huge amount of other marine lives—including turtles, dolphins and juvenile fish—Such 'unwanted' lives are then discarded overboard dead or dying. Now Some alarming figures :

·       About 40% of fish catch worldwide is unintentionally caught and is partly thrown back into the sea, either dead or dying.

·       It is estimated that over 300,000 small whales, dolphins, and porpoises die from entanglement in fishing nets each year, making this the single largest cause of mortality for small cetaceans.

Very often fishing gears or nets are lost or abandoned in the ocean. They are called 'Ghost net or Ghost gear'.Ghost nets don’t only catch fish; they also entangle sea turtles, dolphins and porpoises, birds, sharks, seals, and more. These nets continue to trap everything in their path, presenting a major problem for the health of our oceans and marine life.

·       A staggering 640,000 tonnes of ghost gear is left in our oceans each year – more than one tonne every minute

·        Every year more than 100,000 whales, dolphins, seals and turtles get caught in abandoned or lost fishing nets, lines and traps. Made of durable material, this ghost gear can take up to 600 years to break down. Some nets are bigger than football pitches.

·       Fish nets are major contributor to more than 8 million tonnes of plastic leaks into the ocean each year – equal to dumping a garbage truck of plastic every minute.

·       Bottom-trawling and dredging destroys the fragile sea floor and coral reefs which are extremely important for the ecosystem.

·       The farming of marine fish, crustaceans and even bivalves produces waste in the form of fecal matter and unused feed. These largely nitrogen-based wastes can cause oxygen depletion in coastal environments and a net loss of marine productivity in certain coastal areas. Additionally, the use of antibiotics, antifoulants, and pesticides are all problems that aquaculture can introduce into the marine environment.

·       Some fishing techniques cause habitat destruction. Blast fishing and cyanide fishing, which are illegal in many places, harm surrounding habitat.Blast fishing refers to the practice of using explosives to capture fish. Cyanide fishing refers to the practice of using cyanide to stun fish for collection. These two practices are commonly used for the aquarium trade and the live fish food trade.

So, next time, if a poker-faced fish ,unable to scream or show apparent signs of pain , falls short of arousing your compassion but waters your mouth, you can still skip eating it for the sake of your health and environment.

EVER WONDERED ?

MY ONLY WISH

May my heart know no joy, no sorrow

May it not wish for a better tomorrow 

May it be stoic to events - good or bad

May it strip all its emotional clads

May i have no expectation, no hope 

No desire to gain, No fear to lose

No amount of chaos unsettle my calm

Little brooding and no qualm

Jaded of this mortal role, 

Liberation now allures my vibrant soul. 

LET GO

Standing at the brink of ditch, 

Shattered and tattered, 

As I hold my pieces together

I ask myself,

When would this vagary be over?

Labyrinth is where I always land

Each time I desire His hand

Stupid me, I trust Him again

Mirage is what I retain

I shall let go of it

Call it my deliberate exaltation

I shall let go of it 

Call it my helpless submission 

Shall let my life flail and fling, 

To the tunes of destiny 

Shall let it wring and spin

In the pursuit of false epiphany

SHADES OF BELIEF

 As a human, our greatest limitation is the tendency to limit our thoughts and notions to what we are fed by parents, preachers, colleagues, teachers and media. . As we grow over the years, we presume these data as truth and subconsciously convert these 'truth'  into our belief. These beliefs get deeply entrenched in our mental system and become our conviction which we then start dogmatically preaching and reiterating. In the whole process, we do two things: first, voluntarily or involuntarily ,we forget verifying them in the first place. Second, we, unconsciously,  block all our doors of self-exploration and self-certify the unverified data that keeps on infecting our mental database.
Such a cognitive belief is the belief or the disbelief in the concept of an omnipotent and omnipresent being whom we often refer to as `God ', a concept which divides the whole world into contrasting groups called 'believers' and 'atheists', each of which prove their bigotry by their own logic and experiences. The whole discussion of the concept of God boils down to a black and white picture in terms of either an absolute assertion or an absolute rejection of this being(God). Is there any room for some shades of grey. Well, possibly.

-There is an unexplained and mysterious perfection and elusive precision in every component of the nature giving a thrust to the ever-thinking human mind to conceptualize an originator, controller and processor of all these natural processes. Thus a force called God is mentally created or its presence is logically discovered. The former is what the atheists assert and the latter is what the believers conceive. Nevertheless,the meticulously and perfectly designed universe and each of its components amazingly balanced, no doubt, give an indication of the presence of a creator or creators having utmost wisdom. The perfect equilibrium in each element of nature, from the whole big universe to the immaculately build human body to a nuclear particle, from smallest electron being stable in its shell to the stability of innumerous celestial bodies in the universe, everything is designed to perfection with intricate details, reflecting a wisdom beyond human capabilities, thus making the concept of a supreme being, plausible. But apart from omniscience, do these observations also give any reasonable sign of the omnipotence and omnipresence of that Supreme being? Should everything mysterious and baffling be attributed to ‘God’?

‌-It might be a case that the supreme being only has the power to create and not to control or intervene or rather it chooses not to do so. This possibility is reflected in the ecological imbalance, unanswered supplications, social chaos, disorders, tragedies and injustice that is so ubiquitous. 

‌-Can't there be two or more creators each tussling for its own hegemony?
‌-It might be that the creator or creators had never been eternal and would have themselves perished.

‌-It might be that our supplications and prayers doesn't reach our creator in the first place , or even if it does reach, responding to these is not under its ambit or capability? So we've been just fooling ourselves imploring and beseeching our Creator.
‌-God in our belief and minds, is a  perfect and constant embodiment of all virtues, powers and values. Is that necessarily true? If we can impart humanlike positive attributes to God, why not some negative ones? The personality and characteristics of our Gods might be nothing but our personal and cultural injections and projections of the values that we revere or idiolise. No wonder ,the cherished and  human personality is congruent with the personality of our Gods. Personification of God might also be the outcome of our necessity.Oppressed and  fearful societies tend to personify wrathful, violent, submission-seeking deities (or God), while prosperous and secure societies tend to personify loving, non-violent, compassionate deities.
We have restricted the mental construct of God to our religious beliefs which is largely inherited. It might be that the correct God is yet to be discovered. There are endless possibilities. And in this pursuit of our endless deciphering we must resist our urge to preconceive the idea that a God has to have human virtues of kindness, justice and compassion or it has to be omnipotent and omnipresent. We should not forget that we are searching for the truth and not a wish or a ray of hope or an object of worship to cling to.

CASHLESS INDIA

The Central government’s decision to demonetize the notes of rs500 and rs1000  is being hailed by most of us and is being widely glorified as a “master stroke” and “surgical strike” on black money. It is being publicised as a panacea to end all the evil of the culture of Black Money and the industry of Fake Currency and the gullible citizens tend to be believing this.
Is it really that easy to flush out all the “black Money” in one go?.

Gone are the days when ‘Black Money’ consisted of undeclared wealth in the form of piles of cash hidden under pillowcases, mattresses or safe of Almirah or beneath the ground. Today, none or little portion of this Black Money finds itself in cash. Idle cash does not fetch profit so it is circulated. In the  present developed financial ecosystem, most ‘Black Money’ is stashed away in domestic or foreign Bank Accounts, or are invested in Gold, share market or are used in buying stocks or assets or invested in real estate or some kind of business. Even Government agrees to this fact and Tax data reflects this.

Income-tax probes from April 1 to October 31 this financial year, black-money holders accepted having stashed Rs 7,700 crore worth of ill-gotten assets. The cash component was merely Rs 408 crore or 5%. The remaining was invested in business, stocks, real estate and benami bank accounts, the data show. Financial year 2015-16 saw the highest black-money detection in the period, of which 6% was cash.The actual proportion of cash would be even lower as the tax department’s classification of seizures considers currency and ornaments as one unit.(Source: Hindustan Times).

The small fishes will be disturbed to an extent and forced to find some innovative ways and jugaad for this temporary inconvenience. Nevertheless, The big sharks have little to worry as they hardly keep illegitimate wealth as cash.

Black Money: a vicious cycle

It is important to understand that Black money is an outcome of corrupt black practices and the money thus generated feeds other practices which in turn generates more black money.Thus, the real evil that has been jeopardising the economy is the whole set of black activities which are either entirely illegal,such as smuggling, or drug-running or the undeclared activities mixed with declared legal activities. If actually 100 tonnes of minerals are extracted but only 80 tonnes are declared to be extracted, in order to reduce tax payment, then we have a case of “black money” being generated.If $100 of goods are exported but only $80 are declared, and the remainder $20 are kept abroad in Swiss Banks, then we have a case of “black money” being generated.

Unearthing “black money” lies therefore in tracking down and checking these 'black activities' and this requires honest and systematic monitoring and investigation and patient and efficient tax administration and Data collection. Attacking the holdings and stockpiles of stashed cash is like giving a painkiller for temporary relief.

Aftermath of this decision
Demonetisation is not a strategy that the present government has thought out of the box.In the past, It has been implemented in many countries including India but with limited success. Morarji Desai government had demonetized 1000, 5000 and 10000 rupee notes from the midnight of January 16, 1978.But this had caused no hardships for the ordinary people, since most of them had hardly ever seen such a note, let alone possess one.The hardships that this decision has been causing to the public is being ignored by the government. The worst hit by demonetisation are people belonging to the low income groups ,farmers, daily wage-earners, labourers, domestic workers — who entirely depend on petty cash and who, unlike us, don’t have a digital wallet or a debit or credit card.

Given that more than half of the population don't even have bank accounts,what about the low-class people who do not have a bank account or people who do not have an Identity-proof. How would they exchange their hard-earned money?

90% transactions take place in this country offline. All the transactions of small and medium enterprises are done in cash. Will the government compensate for the huge loss these business are suffering?

If the government is of the view that terminating the currency of larger denomination makes it hard to stockpile wealth, how can it justify the introduction of rs2000 notes. Given that. Rs 1 crore in Rs 1,000 notes, if stashed evenly, occupies one sq ft and weighs 13 kg, notes of Rs 2000 will make the task of hoarding wealth easier.

What about middle-income people who have been saving each month a chunk of their taxed salaries for marriage, admission or medical purpose? In spite of their saved cash being legal, they would have tough time legitimising it  and answering tax authorities when depositing their saved cash in their accounts . 

This demonetisation decision would certainly serve a s blow to the fake currency system and to a little extent, turn the accumulated unaccounted cash into piles of worthless paper but it is like a temporary medicine which does not hit the root cause of the menace. Offendors would soon find ways of Counterfeiting Rs2000 notes and corrupt practices that generate black money will still rot the economy  An artificial shortage of new currency notes will give a boost to counterfeiting.Even if we assume that the demonetisation strategy would have some long-term benefits, it is sure that  these would be outweighed by the inconvenience ,disruption and hardships it has been causing to the public in general.