Untold stories

A lot has been happening around. Coronavirus, Budget, Delhi violence, Shaheen bagh, Trump visit, and much more. It looks like the entire landscape is in a state of flux. The budget did not bring any reforms 2.0. It was again a piecemeal change in governance. Trump's visit was more of an unofficial start of his election campaign. It was about showcasing the friendship of Modi and Trump. Shaheen bagh was about Dadi's. Unfortunately, a model protest lost its steam due to Delhi violence. Coronavirus was about the threat of the health pandemic and China's preparedness to deal with it. It was amazing to see how china built a 1000 bed hospital in just 10 days' time.

It was also a month of celebrations. February is a month of marriages and birthdays. It makes me wonder why is that a trend? For someone to be born in February means the intercourse would have happened in the May-June timeframe. However, those are the months of peak summer. It is awkward that people will sleep on top of each other, hand in arms, drenched, smeared and soaked in each other sweat and sowing the seeds of future civilization. That too when it is not even their anniversary or any other occasion when love is in the air. Air is so hot in those months that even love also prefers to remain inside the sachet.  

Anyway, life in February is more fun as weather is not too cold and not too hot. Occasional western disturbances temper the rising sun. Exercising, sports become a lot more fun. The rest is life as usual.

General all weather rhyme

This can be used for any girl be it your wife, sister, daughter or girlfriend.

ऊपर से सख्त , अंदर से  लगती नटखट
लगती है खूंखार पर है बड़ी होशियार
दिखाती है चाबुक पर है बड़ी नाज़ुक
हरकतें है अटपट पर खाना बनती है चटपट
करती है बड़ी खटपट पर काम में है फटाफट
मिज़ाज़ से संवैधानिक पर वो है एक वैज्ञानिक
लगेगी बहुत भोली पर दे देगी गोली
इतना तो मैंने दिया बाकि दिमाग लगाओ भइया ||

Trap Civil services interview

A very common technique of trapping students in civil services interview is by making them buy a common counter-government narrative which is broadly available in media. Other trap questions to test the mental alertness of the student is to ask him multiple questions and see if he is answering all of them or not. Check his Optimism, 4-D thinking, Whether a candidate asking cross-question or not?

Check if the candidate is reading between the lines or not?

 Here I am listing some of the common ways to trap a civil services candidate in the interview:

Q.1 Do you believe in government numbers?

Q.2 Do you believe the government has missed a point by focusing on CAA and NRC rather than bringing UCC and Population control measures?

Q.3 Whose fault is pollution in Delhi, Delhi Government or Haryana government?

Q.4 Democracy vs Philosopher king? Cons of democracy?

Q.5 If Uniform Civil Code is about equality then what about Sabrimala?

Q.6 If you support CAA then what would you do with pigeons making a nest in your house?

Q.7 End justify means or not? What about international relations?

Q.8 If you will deal peacefully with protestors then how would you deal with mosquitoes who are troubling you?

Q.9 Should Civil servants be allowed to express themselves freely?

Q.10 Culture of North India vs South India? Which one did you find better?

Q.11 Do you think farmer's income can be doubled in the next few years or we can achieve the target of $5 trillion economies by 2023?

Q.12 What is your view on government budget proposals on Women and Health?

Q.13 If you have to take the shortest route from Arunachal to Rajasthan, which all states would you cross?

Q.14 Who was the first president of India? Shri Rajendra Prasad Sharma or Yadav?

Q.15 What are some of the good things about feeling poor?

Q.16 Can a Muslim ever dream of becoming prime minister of India? Can a Muslim ever become a prime minister of India?

Q.17 Politics of freebies? How just is it to provide free passes to women on buses? Does this really work?

Q.18 Where do you see India 15 years down the line?

Q.19 Do you think the notion of secularism opted at the time of independence has become a burden on our country and it needs to be changed?

Q.20 How is the weather today?

Q.21 Economists in India are doctors without a stethoscope? Vijay Kelkar

Q.22 India is like a Thali? Shashi Tharoor

Q.23 A king is better to be feared than loved. Machiavelli

Q.24 Is India a nation or a nation-in-making?

Q.25 What is the psychology of a mob?

Q.26 Should we give 1/3rd of our salary to our better half or not?

Q.27 How would you categorize a developed society?

Q. 28 Politics as art of possible?

Q.29 Architect vs Civil Engineer? Who should get priority in making a building?

Q.30 Media regulation. Considering the menace of social media, should we regulate it?

Q.31 Stakeholders, Employees, Entrepreneurs, Government,  Customer which is more important for business? The customer wants privacy, the government wants access? Which one should we go for?

Q.32 What are much-hyped reforms 2.0? Don't you think the government is already doing that?

Q.33 Constitutionalism vs liberalism? Which one comes first? Social change vs law change which should happen first? W.r.t. Triple Talaq or Jallikattu?

Q.34 Election commission reforms? Model code of conduct? Anti-defection law?

Q.35 Suggest some ways to improve democracy culture in India?

Will gather more questions soon.

AAP 3.0

Delhi elections have got over and people of Delhi have reposed their faith in Kejriwal once again. Though there was a sort of wave for the Aam Adami Party from the beginning, there were moments of doubt due to Shaheen Bagh and Anti-CAA protest. However, Kejriwal got some good advice in steering clear of any controversy by lying low and remaining politically neutral. He focused on his work rather than ranting out anti-Modi rhetoric which people do not like to buy. Hence the results. However, a huge task is cut out for Aam Adami party in its third term. Hence it should get working and stay focused on following key issues for the second term. 

First is pollution and cleanliness. There is just no compromise on this. Without a clean space and clean surroundings, human creativity and productivity are at risk. Apart from the visible loss in terms of health and quality of life indicators, we do not know how much we lose in terms of reduced creativity. We definitely deserve a better outer space than this. 

The second would be traffic and transport. We need to increase the mobility of people in the cities. More buses, schemes like odd-even, public transport promotion and last-mile connectivity should be put in place. Time has come for Delhi to have another ring road. 

Parking and market decongestion is another need of hour for Delhi. Delhi has many parks which is a very good thing. All these parks should be redeveloped by building underground parking in each one of them. Building multi-story mechanical parking and creating a no-vehicle zone in markets like Karol Bagh, Chandi Chowk by providing free last-mile connectivity would be a game-changer to uplift the face of Delhi. 

Fourth area of focus would be the regularisation of colonies which leads to decongestion. This is a major issue. Rather than regularizing land deeds, government would better grow the city in the vertical and create multi-story MIG or LIG flats so that more people could be accommodated in lesser space. This would help in better management of space which is anyway a scarcity in the city.

Fifth would be a better accounting of electricity and water. This could be achieved by installing smart electricity and water meter. For households above a certain income level, the government should ensure that people install solar cells for water heating or air-conditioning. All of this is doable.

In addition, the government should continue with the good work of school education, mohalla clinic, and mohalla sabhas. Delhi could be a model of development for the entire world. It could be an example of how a city despite being congested, over-populated and unstructured, managed to become a world-class city. Though few pre-conditions to this are pretty clear.

Firstly, the Delhi government should better not antagonize the central government who is a major fund provider. Secondly focus should be clearly on governance and development issues rather than political issues. Thirdly, a greater political consensus mixed with a hard-headed approach is necessary to achieve these goals. Fourth, the primary focus should be on local issues rather than the bigger dream of emerging as an all-India competitor of BJP or Congress.

People of Delhi have bestowed a great opportunity and blessing on the Aam Adami party by reposing their faith in them. They better not fritter away this golden opportunity.

Delhi Violence

Delhi is known as the protest capital of India. At any point in time, at least 10 to 20 groups are found protesting against social and economic policies of the government at places like Ram Leela Maidan or Jantar Mantar. However, this February was a little different. Recently, Delhi saw one of its worst violence. Nearly 43 people died in communal fights. It made me wonder why do people take part in a violent protest? What is the psychology behind these violent protests?

Some of the key observations were most of the participants were people in the age group of 16 to 30 years who did not even know why were they protesting? Second is most of the participants are either jobless or identityless people suffering from some sort of inferiority complex deep within. The third is individually none had the courage to come forward and protest. They were throwing stones and petrol bombs and quickly hiding in the crowd. Most of them had their faces covered. Fourth, some were retaliating and mourning against personal losses. They had little to no understanding of the issue at hand. Like in this lack of education for the citizenship amendment act.  And lastly, none of them seemed to be a religious person. From the above perspective, the psychological profiling of protestors is a fearful illiterate, identity-less, inferior, crowd of people with a low sense of esteem and self-worth. And thus herein lies the answer to the question of how to deal with these people. 

The first solution could be to use the technology to capture their human identity and as soon as they know that they are under watch, they will disappear. Second is to quarantine the area of violence and strictly regulate the entry and exit of people from the violence zone.  Third would be to provide a sense of worth and self-esteem to its people by providing them swift justice on matters of interest. Job, education, access to resources are some of the easier and meaningful long term ways of inculcating trust and worth with the citizenry but providing immediate help on matters of law and order could give them a sense of immediate justice. Fourth would be the education of the crowd on the issue of interest. If pro-supporter could challenge the anti-supported of CAA into public debate then it would have resolved any doubts. The larger responsibility lies with the government. The government should challenge the peaceful protestors into public debates and increase the public outreach program on the issue. Fifth and more credible way would be to bring on board religious leaders and prominent personalities in dissolving the protestors. Hence, those could be some simple methods.