Thursday, January 26, 2012

Republic Day - The Making of a Superpower?

Some excerpts from an article on India's growth featured in the Times of India on Wednesday, 25th January, 2012;

"But just adding new hands to the workforce won't help. The government has to make sure that kids get a good education at schools and colleges. This will need money, but more importantly, some checks to make sure that schools actually get built and teachers do their job properly. By 2007-08 , more than 82% of the world's population was literate. In India, the number is 67%.

So, just pumping in money and sarkari schemes after education won't suffice. Governments and progressive politicians will have to chip away at deep-seated social and religious prejudices.

A healthy workforce is a productive workforce. India's state-led healthcare system is tottering. Data like the number of new hospital beds added in every state hide the reality of large-scale graft, nonexistent infrastructure, spurious drugs and abysmal healthcare management.

To find out which states have the worst public healthcare systems, you just haveto see the list of states where over 80% of the spending on healthcare goes to private hospitals , clinics and doctors. The list includes Andhra Pradesh, Bengal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and India's largest state, Uttar Pradesh.

Only 11% of India's population has any kind of insurance, so it's easy to understand why for a poor family, a debilitating disease affecting an earning member can be a financial disaster. Just like we saw with education, across nearly all health parameters , Muslims, backward classes and women fare worse than other Indians.

The eight northeastern states of India are not only landlocked, but locked away from mainstream public imagination. That's a pity, because northeasterners are among India's best-educated and healthy people. We need more roads, airports and rail routes to connect the region to mainland investors, markets and opportunities."

Footnotes:

Excerpts from an article by ToI reporter Abheek Burman.

Monday, January 23, 2012

The 381st

This post marks the completion of 381 posts on this blog. Spanning a period of 6 years and from across several locations, I feel elated at the manner in which I can now reach out to all of you who are some of the finest harbours of creative excellence.

Thank you all for Redefining Oblivion

Friday, January 20, 2012

SOPA-PIPA and Us

Some excerpts from Mashable's take on why SOPA will take us back to the dark ages;

"It’s not just books, music and movies. The Internet is empowering people to create all sorts of businesses and distribution systems. They leapfrog the old hurdles, ignore the gatekeepers and go straight to the public.

Yet the language in SOPA is so irrational that I can only assume that the authors and backers wanted nothing more than to fundamentally change the rules of the web: To shut down the open post fields, kill reposting (goodbye, Tumblr), end shared videos (sorry, YouTube), expand the definition of what it means to infringe (sorry, Twitter, no sharing links that aren’t yours).

When you turn copyright infringement into a felony and say that anyone can accuse a website of providing ”infringing” tools (and apply severe penalties whether or not you do something about it), you are essentially making it impossible for anyone to do anything online without fear of retribution."

Footnotes:

This post contains excerpts of Mashable's opinion on SOPA.

Redefining Oblivion firmly believes that Copyright Infringement cannot be condoned and hence they are not bad words after all, but to think that one will possibly no longer be able to re-post links that aren't yours is quite  something else.

So technically, in future, this post will constitute a violation, perhaps?

Are we ready yet?

Monday, January 16, 2012

Human Nature

Though numerous other understandings of human nature exist within the New Age movement, all agree that some form of the divine exists within the self, and all similarly look to practices of self-development as central to cultivating knowledge of that divine essence.

This fact reveals one of the most important commonalities across all New Age approaches: the New Age possess a strong belief in individual human evolution.

Evolution within the New Age worldview does not mean biological evolution in the Darwinian sense. Rather, New Agers believe that individual human beings ideally evolve over their lifetime (and multiple lifetimes), achieving greater and greater awareness of their divine natures.

Footnotes:

Excerpts from a very interesting article on 'New Age Human Nature and the Purpose of Existence' I came across. Makes good reading. 

Friday, January 13, 2012

Streets of Philadelphia

Staying with music, Streets of Philadelphia is an Oscar winning song, by Bruce Springsteen. It was sung for "the first mainstream film on HIV/AIDS" in the 1993 film, Philadelphia, starring Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks. The song was an absolute hit in a number of countries, particularly Canada, France, Germany, Ireland and Norway, where it topped the singles charts.

It was included in the album 'All Time Greatest Movie Songs', released by Sony in 1999 and is among my most favourite soundtracks of all time.



Footnotes:

With inputs from Wikipedia

Monday, January 09, 2012

Birthday Boy - Page



Composed by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant of the British rock band, Led Zeppelin in 1971, Stairway to Heaven is 'often considered one of the greatest rock songs of all-time.'

In the words of Page, Stairway to Heaven "crystallized the essence of the band. It had everything there and showed the band at its best... as a band, as a unit. Not talking about solos or anything, it had everything there. We were careful never to release it as a single. It was a milestone for us. Every musician wants to do something of lasting quality, something which will hold up for a long time and I guess we did it with "Stairway". [Pete] Townshend probably thought that he got it with Tommy. I don't know whether I have the ability to come up with more. I have to do a lot of hard work before I can get anywhere near those stages of consistent, total brilliance."

Footnotes:

Today marks the 68th birthday of Jimmy PageRedefining Oblivion pays tribute to this legend who is one of the most influential and important guitarists and songwriters in rock music, and salutes his journey of excellence that began with The Yardbirds until Led Zeppelin, and beyond. 

Friday, January 06, 2012

Dusting into Time

A few days ago, I was leafing through some blogs that were, once upon a time, very active and current. Over time, however, I notice many of them have remained 'unfed' or worse - discontinued.

And I wonder, what is it that makes people abandon something that they have been so passionate about. Is is the lack of time? But when one embarks upon a journey of passion, one certainly takes the effort to make space and time to further that activity. It is perhaps a feeling of loss of thought or block that comes with time? Or, for some, was it really something that was chanced upon merely by accident only to notice and understand later that the 'once-upon-a-time-cool-thing' isn't cool anymore? Now, how uncool can that be?

Whatever the reason, it ain't a very pleasant sight to see a lot of dead blogs floating around! 

Monday, January 02, 2012

Opening Statements - 2012

Eschatological beliefs, transformation, mysticism, transition, apocalyptic and other things apart, it is hoped that this year will bring about positive change.

Redefining Oblivion wishes all of you a Very Happy, Healthy, Prosperous and Purposeful 2012, and beyond.

Footnotes: 

Opening Statements - 2011