A narrow escape and a sliver of hope

2024 election outcome gave a mixed feeling. Happy because the alternate outcome of brutal majority would be worse.  Happiness with disappointment because we need to survive these two, Modi and Shah for another 5 years. I was debating the caption for this writeup, It could have been worse, All is not lost….yet, A reprieve for democracy, A sliver of home amidst disappointment, Blessing in disguise for the functioning democracy. Couldn’t

 

ஏழாம் உலகம் (7th World) – Book by B.Jeyamohan

As per Indian subcontinent mythology, there are seven worlds below our feet – அதலம், விதலம், தலம், கபஸ்திமல், மகாதலம், சுதலம், பாதாளம். We get our food and water from there. We can’t see them. Similar to those seven worlds below us, are there worlds within our society we are not aware of? We see different classes of people daily but never stopped to ask how their life would look like. We may

 

Clickbait and misleading headlines

After the news came out that Israel deployed Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to pick their targets, we were bombarded with so many articles with blaring headlines with AI in it. Fighting for eyeballs media makes the headlines catchy and sensational. Many a times the headlines end up giving misleading information. If the reader is not savvy enough, they will walk away with wrong and problematic conclusions. Samples below:    

 

Doughnut Economics – Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist by Kate Raworth – Not a book review!!

The thought of how long I must continue to work 8hours a day with someone else owning my time has been swirling in my head for quite a while now. Yes, we get paid for the work and we need the money to solve the money problems. But it is not just work. It is also the emotional planning related to work we carry around beyond work hours – planning

 

Maamannan – The solid first half build-up is let down by an ineffectual predictable second half

Official Trailer: In Pariyerum Perumal, Maari Selvaraj explored the struggles of an individual, a college going student, who faced discrimination from the oppressor castes. The writing was organic with interesting characters. The antagonist, the girl’s father, was one of the well-developed characters in Kollywood movies. We got a peek into his state of mind, the peer pressure he faces, the need to conform to the community, oscillating between the caste

 

Shorts – Why the Energy industry is not every Capitalist’s dream

Image credit: wikipedia, Financial Express In a capitalistic society there perpetually exists a market for any type of commodity – be it in information technology, food, clothing, transport, art, entertainment, and food. All these fields are defined by cutting edge products, highly processed pieces of raw material that has been cut and changed to the way of our needs, and most importantly, the money to be made in these fields are

 

Maanaadu – well-made Time-Loop thriller brilliantly folds the socio-political message into the screenplay

[SPOILERS AHEAD …] Official Trailer: First things first. It is so refreshing to see a Muslim character as a protagonist in a Kollywood movie after a long time. That too as a normal person than someone out to terrorize the public. I guess in the last 3 decades Muslims were shown either as terrorists or stereotyped thanks to Roja and bunch of Vijayakanth and Arjun movies in that phase for

 

Stan Swamy and Death of Humanity

“Our justice system even in grave cases, suffers from slow motion syndrome which is lethal to ‘fair trial’ whatever the ultimate decision. Speedy justice is a component of social justice since the community, as a whole, is concerned in the criminal being condignly and finally punished within a reasonable time and the innocent being absolved from the inordinate ordeal of criminal proceedings.” Justice V.R.Krishna Iyer  How one reacts to death

 

Cinematograph Act, CBFC, Amendment Bill 2021 – do they have a place in democracy?

“…there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered…fullest liberty of expression is required to push arguments to their logical limits, rather than the limits of social embarrassment” – John Stuart Mill I don’t plan to get into merits and demerits of CBFC and Cinematograph Act. Or do I intend to discuss the Amendment

 

COVID Times – Random Thoughts

COVID Cures – Cumin to Cow In our country, even during normal times due to lack of access to doctors and cost of healthcare, there is always a space for fakes, and magical remedies. While science-based medicines have made phenomenal improvements in the last 2 centuries, we still have diseases where either we don’t have a cure yet or we can only manage them with or without some side effects.