Dr Rajiv Desai
An Educational Blog
Are We Animals?
Are We Animals? _____ Man versus polar bear: _ Keeper Julius Latoya shares a tender moment with Kinna, a young orphaned African elephant at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Tsavo East National Park, Kenya. ______ ______ Section-1 Prologue: Many parents admonish their misbehaving children by saying “stop acting like animals” implying that children are acting in a primitive and thoughtless manner. When my students/patients misbehave, I occasionally tell them that they are behaving like animals. Of course, my critics in India would label my utterances as racist and dehumanizing akin to the Nazis’ persecution of Jews during the Holocaust and torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Many patients hospitalized in some Covid-19 facilities in India complained that their condition was like “animals” at the facility. Most of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos. Many of […]
POPULATION PROBLEM
Population Problem: _ _ Prologue: In an interview given to Economic Times, JRD Tata had reminisced how Nehru once retorted to his concerns on rising population. “Nonsense, a large population is the greatest source of power of any nation,” the first prime minister of Independent India is believed to have told the industry doyen. Subsequently India’s bulging population was seen as threat to the country’s future so much so that Nehru’s grandson, Sanjay Gandhi, ran a controversial campaign of forced sterilization during the emergency (1975-77). Their present Prime Minister Narendra Modi red-flagged population explosion in the course of his Independence Day speech. Mainstream politicians, journalists, and academics frequently avoid discussing population issues since notions about population are often seen as being politically or ideologically motivated. As a result, population debates are generally argued from the fringes. Some groups characterize population growth as a Ponzi scheme, whereby increasing numbers of youth […]
ELECTRONIC VOTING
Electronic Voting: _____ _____ Prologue: Voting is the bridge between the governed and the government. The right to vote freely for the candidate of one’s choice is of the essence of a democratic society. Every voter’s vote is entitled to be counted once. It must be correctly counted and reported. The Voting System of a country consists of certain regulations which define how the preference of people is collected and how outcome of the polling process is indicating the will of people. A popular quote says that “It’s not the people who vote that count, it’s the people who count the votes.” Elections are a defining feature of democratic government, but all too frequently, we take the actual mechanics of the election for granted. We speak at length of such issues as who is allowed to vote, how campaigns are conducted, and how they are financed, but most people’s understanding […]
TERRORISM
TERRORISM: _ The image above shows victim of terrorism. _ Prologue: The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of some people who are evil, but because of good people who don’t do anything about evil people. In human history, terrorism is widely recognized as the world’s most famous enemy of mankind. As history itself will admit that terrorism is annihilation with far-reaching and destructive effects, it is also the cruelest of crimes against humanity. Its remains have turned neighbors into enemies and have made our societies and the whole world unsafe for living. Its aims and applications are global and uncompromising. Neither terrorism nor perpetrators are new. Even though it has been used since the beginning of recorded time, not history itself can keep, with precision, the number of lives and properties lost to terrorism. Terrorism has been most succinctly defined as “the intentional use of, or […]
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION (FREEDOM OF SPEECH)
_____________________________________________________________________________ FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION (FREEDOM OF SPEECH) _ _ Caveat: Please do read my articles on ‘Internet censorship’, ‘Science of Religion’ and ‘Torture’ whereby I have discussed freedom of expression on internet, blasphemy & sacred texts and clash of moral duties respectively. The reason for writing an entire article on ‘Freedom of Expression’ is to respond to an attempt made by Indian media to block my article ‘Hybrid Smile’ on my facebook page. Here I have discussed in depth the scope of freedom of expression and the limitations of freedom of expression. In order to make the article vibrant and inclusive, I have taken liberty to include views of some which may sound offensive to some community or some leaders or some people. I do not agree with some of the views of others posted in this article but for the sake of freedom of expression, I have allowed those […]
