How safe are citizens?

Here's a reprint from an article from a newspaper recently:-

Stray bullet hits software engineer near Iblur
Staff Reporter
Doctors remove slug from her pelvis in fourth such case

BANGALORE: Imagine going home at the end of a tiring day and end up with a bullet in your pelvis. This is what happened to Niharika Jeena (27), a software engineer, who was seriously injured after she was hit by a stray bullet, suspected to have been fired from the Iblur firing range of the Army Service Corps (ASC) in Viveknagar police station limits.
The shocking incident took place on Friday night and Ms. Jeena is treated at St. John’s Hospital. She is out of danger, the police said.
Ms. Jeena, a software engineer with Cognizant Technologies in Murugeshpalya, was riding home on her moped. Around 7.30 p.m. when she had stopped at the Ejipura junction on Koramangala Outer Ring Road, she suddenly experienced a terrible pain and collapsed, bleeding. Passers-by rushed her to the hospital. After radiogram, the doctors found that she was hit by a bullet and it was stuck near the pelvic bone. Doctors removed the bullet, which is similar to AK-47 rounds. The bullet would be sent to Forensic Science Laboratory for ballistic examination, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Ulsoor Gate) B.B. Ashok Kumar told The Hindu on Tuesday.
“We strongly suspect it was fired from the Army’s Iblur firing range. A case has been registered in Viveknagar police station,” Mr. Kumar said.
Ms. Jeena is the daughter of Bhupinder Singh Jeena, a forest official in Uttaranchal. She and her sister live in VI Block, Koramangala, here.
Senior police officers are of the view that the Defence authorities should stop firing practice at Iblur firing range as there had been an increase in the incidents of stray bullets hitting the public.
Since 2003, four people have been seriously injured after being hit by stray bullets on the Outer Ring Road in Viveknagar police station limits. On July 6, 2003, Satyajith Kumar Singh (27), who was travelling in an autorickshaw, was hit by a bullet in his buttocks. On April 21, 2005, one pierced the waist of Thomas (32) who was riding a motorcycle. On April 22 this year, Mercy Andrew (51), a BMTC commuter, was injured after she took a bullet in her arm. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central) B.N.S. Reddy said they would be writing to the Defence authorities asking them to stop firing practice at the range. Many VVIPs, including heads of foreign nations who visit Bangalore, take the Koramangala Outer Ring Road to reach the facilities of IT majors such as Infosys and Wipro on Hosur Road.
However, the defence sources said that they were unaware of the Friday night’s incident. According to the Army protocol, when ever firing practise takes place, the police are present at the range. At the end of the firing, the police officials give their clearance, the sources maintained.

How safe are we from our own people? Politicians and Military combined is the worst sort of combination possible. This incident will be brushed under the carpet by these politically well connected Military Top Brass, even though there have been many such cases. This is true for many of our Military Ranges all over India. Many an innocent villagers have lost their lives all of a sudden because of this. This does not mean the Military should not practice, but practice carefully, under strict surveillance in well enclosed ranges. Serious note should be taken of this incident, and its recurrence should be prevented at all costs. Why should innocent citizens suffer because some top brass did not organise his military exercises well?

Defeating violence

Poverty is one of the main underlying cause of violence broadly termed as terrorism. Alleviation of Poverty alone can change the world scenario to a peaceful one. It is the poor, struggling for their daily bread, who get inspired by fiery speeches to take up a gun and fight for their
rights. Nothing is wrong in fighting for one's rights and thus we cannot dismiss the
word "terroism" and put it away in a black list.We cannot cutoff innocent people who
were never even armed, by labelling them as supporters of terrorism. USA has defined
things in its own sick way and labelled every non-american an enemy of their country,
and thus have begun to acquire an image they will never be able to erase from the
public mind for centuries to come, and this happened when the bomb was dropped on
Hiroshima. This image of a vengeful USA was imprinted on millions of dying people
during the WWII and these imagesof America still cause upsurges of hate against
America.
Exploiting the poor has always been a racist thing. Britishers were the world's first
colonisers, and their hunger for colonies has given rise to America, which is indeed a
free colony now, free from the Queen's rule, but it has the same seeds from which all
british colonies sprang up.

However cool the americans appear to be, they always have a "dagger in the cloak"
policy haunting them.The hatred they aroused is impossible to blame on anyone else but
Americans themselves. yet there is a way out for Americans and that is to woo the rest
of the world, and they do so in their own ways, sometimes going so wrong, that they
sink deeper into the hellhole they are creating.

After three major disasters (Japan,Vietnam and now Iraq) America has still not yet
learnt the art of non-interference. This is where India takes the lead, and India's
non-interference policies are well regarded worldwide.

The rationale behind non-interference was spun out by Gandhi, the main architect of
modern India.His logic was simple:- Until we have our own house straightened up neat
and prim, we cannot dream of fixing the neighbour's house, and thus a policy of
non-interference was adopted,promulgated and even constitutionalised.Emphasis was
given to straightening up India from within, building up India the right way, but then
the process began to be sabotaged by greedy politicians.They tried everything to rule
the masses, they tried imitating the british and failed, Nehru was the first of the
immitators.His 17 year rule ended when he died of a urinary dysfunction, the details
of which may be juicy but better avoided in this discussion.

Why I say Nehru was an immitator is that he began to promote westernisation without
realising its implications and their inbuilt pitfalls.While Hindi should have rightly
been chosen as a National Language and it was chosen,importance to Hindi was set
aside. English was given great importance.It simply caused a rift in the echelons of
power, and we have hindi speaking politicians like Laloo Prasad Yadav who are very
expert in their job, effective and successful too, and we have great English speaking
politicians like Mr P Chidambaram who cannot exist outside the system if they were
stripped of their English. We have Tamil speaking politicians who support anything
that helps them enrich their coffers, and we have Malayalam speaking politicians who
make use of the Middle-East workers to enrich their coffers.We have telugu speaking
politicians who are racing towards modernisaion under the leadership of a computer
savvy man, we have Bengali speaking politicians who are ready to die for a cause. It
is a shame some of the male politicians are not ready to die for a cause.Mamta
Bannerjee showed her mettle when she faced stones and brickbats fighting for the
people who had risen to defeat upmarket companies like the Tatas in their
landgrabbing spree. It is a shame no politician stood up by her side.

We also have bengali speaking politicians expert at covering the financial blunders of
the existing government, and we have urdu speaking politicians who love to shake hands
with pakistan.

You see we have many politicians who are great at their level, but none who can reach
out to the masses and impress the poor people, so we will eventually have a vacuum
which will be filled by terrorism and is being filled by terrorism in the form of
PWG,MAOISTS,ULFA,HUJI and a host of other organisations in Punjab and Kashmir which do
not nod their heads when the government in Delhi says so. Those of you who think India
is still safe, you better awaken...jaag jao.

Much as I would like to see Peace in India, and worldwide,the solutions are only
limited. We have to empower the poor, make them feel their existence is
worthwhile,cheer them up and help them along, we have to wean them away from taking
the gun into their hands and turn them towards taking up pen and paper,taking up
ploughs and seeders, driving their way up to a mass revolution which peacefully
expands above the petty politicians counting their votes like pountry farmers counting
eggs.

Weaning away the weaker sections is not as easy as a politician might think. (I
wonder if they can think at all)It requires years of hard work, which none of them
have put in.It requires a faith in the goodness of equality, a faith in honesty, a
faith in truthfullness, a faith in Gandhi's ideas, a faith so strong that none of the
ideologies that have influenced them and caused them to take up weapons remain in
their minds. Their minds have to be brought around, to a path of peace.Who can do this
is one question which some people are answering practically by performing actions that
will give results inthe distant future.

Pay more learn more?

The recent idea floated by Arjun Singh about Higher Fee Structure for Higher Education has raised many an ante. Here is a quote from the papers:-

NEW DELHI: If parents can pay higher school fees for their children, they may as well pay higher fees in colleges and universities too. The government is working out a plan to this effect.

The Human Resource Development Ministry and University Grants Commission (UGC) are discussing the issue with vice-chancellors and state education secretaries at a two-day conference on higher education currently on in the Capital.While stressing that government's funding on education would increase substantially, the Planning Commission feels the contribution from students must also go up.

This big "IF" only pertains to rich people, not the entire nation, but if the fees are hiked for higher education, there will be less takers, and there will be aspiring students committing suicide because they cannot get what they want. This sectarian ideology of Arjun Singh is a disaster, he has always been sectarian, he has been trying to do a balancing act, as if he was the judge of the country's future. The younger generation will simply dislike this idea because it will prevent many from getting into Higher Education.

Institutions like BITS,IITs,IIMs are already charging a heavy amount for higher education, and it is creating a buffered zone amongst the educated.There are the "rich-educated" and the "poor-educated" classes today.Definitely they do not see eye to eye and India's future is at stake here. Arjun Singh maybe targetting the "rich-educated" but the education fees going high is going to affect only the "poor-educated" adversely because it is they who may not be able to pay high amounts for higher education, and thus suffer a full stop in their academic career.

Would love to hear what many of you out there think about this.

The art of Breathing

This is for the total beginners who have very little experience of yogic principles, and have done nothing of such yogic practices.

About Breath
Breath is Life itself. Stop Breathing and you are as good as dead.
Therefore you can understand that if you are able to control your breathing process with your own mind.... then you can control your mind well. And since everything is in the mind.... stress, peace, anger, tension, pleasure, hate, jealousy, ignorance, compassion, and so many more qualities, it is up to you to choose what you want to be... a tense person or a relaxed person, a person full of hate or a person full of love. The opposites are what the mind is made of, and you must understand that the mind in turn is being directed by an energy called the Pranic Energy....Life Force... which causes the breath to enter the body and leave it in rhythmic cycles. You are actually a vibrating pulsating soul full of energy and you don’t know this. So start with learning how to control breath.

The process
As you inhale slowly... you will find that breath has a focal point in your body. It goes downwards. Then you hold it for a moment and watch ...it remains there..... tickling your stomach... but the other force takes over and you have to exhale.... the cycle is complete. You have taken in so many oxygen atoms that will now recharge your body!
Now notice that we always breathe so stressfully. Why? This is bad habit #1 which has to be stopped. How?
We waste a lot of time thinking and don’t really breathe properly. We waste time in useless activities at times and don’t even realize it.
We forget how to breathe! That is the problem. We must remember to breathe well again and all will be fine with us..... I guarantee that.
Sit erect on a chair, and if you can sit in the Lotus Posture, please do that.
Keep the backbone straight. Hold your neck up. Look straight at any point which is in front of you... on the wall....eyesight level. Now inhale fast repeatedly and empty out your lungs fast....as if you are running....... This hyperventilation helps a lot in refreshing your mind. As you begin to breathe consciously you will be surprised to notice that many times you don't even breathe...you stop as if waiting for something to happen. Your breath has been disrupted by years of forgetfullness.

So now you have to learn the secret of breathing again. This came to you first when you were born... with your very first breath you inhaled...you took in the secret.... it is still in your memory...your fresh childlike mind is still the same...but you are so different...you have a body that is big..... it is cumbersome....therefore now you need to learn the secret again.....
After completing Hyperventilation..... you need to start with breath control.

The first step is to learn how to take a deep breath...hold it for a few seconds...and release it slowly. This is actually simple....You breath in deeply.... hold it...count till you feel you must exhale...then release it. Don't force it to remain for too long...don’t overdo the holding breath part. it can be harmful too.
Once your rhythm is restored to normal breathing you will be so relaxed...you will say how I have missed this.....
The advanced steps in breath control demand some serious study...especially the Patanjali Yoga Sutras...., which hold the key to a good life. This is a small article for beginners..... ..............

Who will stop this

"A speeding Blueline bus mowed down seven people in New Delhi on Sunday in the worst such disaster blamed on the "killer" fleet, sparking mob fury that halted all traffic on the highway to Agra and forced the police to fire tear gas. The dead included five women, a child and a man."

This is almost a daily story now and the answers, if they do exist, lie in the following suggestions.

1.Stop private buses altogether, and give the contract for buses to a single private company like TATA or BIRLA or RELIANCE to manage the show in a uniform manner, doing away with irregular traffic patterns which cause deaths of so many every day. Whoever gets the contract will have to ensure that the private bus operators they subsequently hire comply to their strict standards. The standards should be set by the government.
2.Do away with privatisation totally, and have a single government body to maintain and run Bus services all over India, just like the Railways. This way private owners will be forced to comply again with standards set by the government.

Among the standards to be set, there should be these points kept in focus :-

Speed limit adherance
No compulsion to provide a profit at the cost of a passenger's life
maintenance of the vehicle periodically monitored
Roadworthyness of the Vehicle monitored periodically
Compatability of trained drivers to be monitored
Drivers to be trained abroad so that they learn some civic sense.
Age limits for drivers ( not under 18, not over 50)
Maintenance of roads
Proper organisation of Bus Stands, with a proper and safe system for boarding buses.
Ensurance of passenger compliance with rules related to standing on the road while waiting



Both the above suggestions and the points for setting standards, hopefully will put an end to the greed of the private bus owners. It is the greed for getting customers that causes these drivers to drive so rashly, killing the very customers they serve.