Skip to main content

The Idiotic Government of India

At last, the Government has chosen to adopt the easy route of banning pre-paid mobile services in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. This is such an asinine decision that it boggles ones mind.

Are we living in a democracy or what!

Just because a few individuals are using mobile phones to plan their anti-India activities, the Govt. thought it fit to issue a dictat that will inconvenience hundreds of thousands of innocent people going about their daily lives.

What do the ordinary people of J&K use their pre-paid connections for? I imagine they would use it for the same purposes as people anywhere else in the country would ... to enable families to stay closer and stay connected, to share the family gossip, youngsters of course would be using these connections to pursue their illicit love affairs, or secret love affairs, I should say, traders and small businessmen would be using phone connections to keep their ears close to the ground and be one up on the competition, the owner of an apple orchard would be using his connections to talk to his people on the ground, enabling him to stay abreast of how the apples are doing, and so on ...

Has the Govt. thought about the innocent family whose infant kid suddenly falls sick in the middle of the night? Earlier, they would have made full use of the usual Indian family "network" and got a doctor home in the middle of the night. But now without the prepaid connection, they will wait helplessly till morning. And that wait might prove to be too long for the kid ...

Obviously, I do not have access to the "intelligence" inputs that surely must have been the basis for this ghastly decision, but I would argue that prepaid cellphones are misused not only in J&K but all over India.

So, why doesn't the Govt. go ahead and ban them all over the country!

"Stupid is as stupid does," as Forrest Gump said.

Definitely applies to the Government of India.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Longforms and 'Best of 2017' Lists and Favorite Books by Ashutosh Joglekar and Scott Aaronson

Ashutosh Joglekar's books list. http://wavefunction.fieldofscience.com/2018/03/30-favorite-books.html Scott Aaronson' list https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3679 https://www.wired.com/story/most-read-wired-magazine-stories-2017/ https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/12/the-best-books-we-read-in-2017/548912/ https://longreads.com/2017/12/21/longreads-best-of-2017-essays/ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/21/world/asia/how-the-rohingya-escaped.html https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-journalists-covered-rise-mussolini-hitler-180961407/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/artificial-intelligence-future-scenarios-180968403/ https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/01/20/citizen-kay https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/where-we-are-hunt-cancer-vaccine-180968391/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/dna-based-attack-against-cancer-may-work-180968407/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/22/dona...

Edward Snowden

This seems to me to be the defining journalism-whistle-blower story of this generation. It's rare in today's world when privileged people voluntarily choose to take steps whereby they give up comfortable lives to do something that is in the 'public good.' Mr. Snowden was clearly a computer whiz which explains why he got jobs at the CIA (including postings in Geneva under diplomatic cover). Booz Allen obviously did not hire him or pay him the $1,20,000 salary without Mr. Snowden showcasing some considerable technical expertise. I believe Mr. Snowden's expertise probably lies in having deep expertise in various flavors of Linux. That is what I am inclined to infer from his various job roles as a 'Systems Engineer' or 'System Administrator.' Being the self-driven sort of person that he was, I am sure he must be having good knowledge about networking and encryption stuff including but not limited to Cisco routers and related technologies. ...

Sarah Kay's poem from TED

If I should have a daughter, instead of mom, she's going to call me Point B, because that way she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way  to me. And I am going to paint the Solar Systems on the backs of her hands, so she has to learn the entire universe before she can say 'Oh, I know that like the back of my hand' And she's going to learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back  up , just so we can kick you in the stomach but getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.