Knowledge at Work.

India gained its independence on August 15^th 1947. However at the same time the Dominion of Pakistan was formed too. There are several causes for the formation of Pakistan but the man mainly responsible for it is Jinnah (from article). Was there a need for the formation of Pakistan, I do not think so. Today people from all different religions reside in India without any conflict. Why then should Jinnah want to create a new country by splitting not only the country on bases of geography but also splitting the people on bases of who are Hindus and Muslims? This rift developed in the 1940’s has caused countless terrorist attacks in both countries by fanatics.

The article is biased towards Hindus but also gives evidences to prove its bias. The author at the beginning of the article has said that following the speech on July 19, 1946 there was a great massacre of Hindus in Calcutta. This clearly influences the reader’s perception by attacking his or her emotions.

There is no reason given in the article of why Jinnah wanted the partition but it is clearly shown that he was an extremist and wanted it at any cost. He was responsible for the ‘great Calcutta killings’ in 1946. He aroused his fellow Muslims but did not even know how to speak Urdu. Jinnah was not a true Muslim. He was more of a Catholic than a Muslim. “He changed his birthday from 20 October to Christmas Day. As a student at Lincoln's Inn, he anglicized his name from Jinnahbhai to Jinnah.” Jinnah is portrayed as a selfish leader who can resort to any sort of violence to get his way.

The article gives the only the point of view of the different Hindu leaders and subtly criticizes Jinnah’s actions while praising the RSS. Syama Prasad Mookerjee was the leader of the Hindu Mahasabha. He plays around with words and uses it effectively to target the people’s emotion to trigger anti- Muslim sentiments- “Jinnah is out to destroy the very soul of India.” This statement encourages people to become patriotic as well as pro-Hindu. He reasons out that a partition is not the answer for India, and not just propagate it-

“Hindus regard this country as their sacred and holy land. Irrespective of provincial barriers or the diversity in faiths and languages there exists a remarkable economic and cultural unity and inter-dependence which cannot be destroyed at the will of persons and parties who think it beneath their dignity to regard India as their motherland. We must live and die for India and her liberty.”

This article is a subtle propaganda for the RSS. The author is artfully telling the reader that he is associated with the RSS and feels that the change in the views of the Bharatiya Janata Party is wrong. He feels that the RSS is right in its views about being an extremist pro-Hindu party.

The author has spoken about Hindu leaders who I have not heard of and glorified them, he has on the other hand he has given Gandhi, a person every Indian has heard of less prominence. Gandhi was a pacifist and the extremists did not agree upon his methods.

I feel the partition was just an excuse for Jinnah to gain some importance and make sure he is remembered for a long time. I feel that there was no logical need for a partition to occur. Why should there be any kind of war between people living in the same country when a third party (the British) can be root cause of it and also take advantage.

Religion Abhinav Todi

Today religion is something, which everybody follows; it does not have to be related to God. It can range from music to football. However during the time when people were not very open about new ideas, religion was only related with God. To me religion is just a way of saying “I believe in God”. But I ask if there really is a “God” why do so many people pray to different “Gods and Goddesses” Take Hinduism for example, there are so many Gods that the followers pray to that I do not even know some of their names. I feel some people use blind followers to make money. The Hindu ‘pundit’ may be uttering something that even he does not know what it means while performing a ‘pooja’ and the layman himself does not know whether the ‘pundit’ is really a ‘pundit’.

When a person follows a particular religion, he believes in something. He tries to find something, which may or may not have an answer to. I believe praying to pictures and photos, which has been conjured, up by an artist is irrational. Nonetheless I do believe in an entity. I do not believe that following a particular religion is the way to give respect to that entity. Why would a ‘God’ give something to a person who prays everyday wealth and another who also prays everyday nothing at all?

When a person sees a ‘miracle’ occur, he believes it to be of supernatural origin without examining the situation. During this time of awe a cunning person can begin preaching that it is the work of ‘God’. In certain villages, people dig the earth and place a statue of a ‘God’ and cover it up. But before placing the statue in the ground, place seeds underneath the statue. Then when the seeds get soaked with water from the rain, they expand and push the statue out of the ground and claim it is the work of ‘God’ and trick people into donating money in the name of religion. Fear also makes a person believe in religion. By giving hopes that people who follow a particular religion will create a path for them to go to heaven. Just before the European renaissance occurred, no one questioned the church when it preached something, when the church condemned someone everybody around did the same. The church imposed its will upon the people. People lived in fear of the church. I can relate religion to an analogy of putting some monkeys in a deep pit such that they cannot get out of it. Every week a new monkey is put into the pit. When several generations pass the later generation will not even question why they cannot get out of the pit. Getting out the pit will become ‘forbidden’.

Religion might give a person psychological satisfaction. It might give him or her hope or a wall to lean on when a rainy day occurs. Followers believe that by praying and sacrificing they will get what they want. However one cannot get anything without trying himself.

Changing ones stance on a particular religion is very tough. I would need a lot of evidence that I have to follow Hinduism in order for me to go to heaven. It is not easy for a person who has a faith in someone or something to change it.

People use a lot of biases when it comes to religion. Interpretation of certain texts is a major fallacy when the question of what ‘God’ wants particular followers to do occurs. There can be many meanings to a simple statement like ‘as he ran the earth shook’- for the person running the earth will look as if it is shaking or during the time he was running, an earthquake occurred. People use this misinterpretation and blame their actions on the religion. The fanatic Islam followers have bombed an terrorized Hindus and other religion in the name of God. Why would God want such acts of crime to occur?

As the years pass more number of people question the ultimate truth of the existence of ‘God’. Science has taken over the minds of people and a sense of rational thinking has set in. Having faith in something is not a goo thing, not having faith in anything is worse as the person has nothing to support him. However blindly doing something is a irrational approach to life. Without faith life has no meaning.

Order in chaos? How can this be? I was reading a book chaos from which I was enlightened with the knowledge of seeing order in chaos. Something as random as the fluctuation of the economy of a country could be looked as a chaotic field and hence through a certain mistake found by Edward Lorenz that dynamic systems are dependent on the initial conditions of the system. This was an eye opener to me as its application was finding out the future conditions of the economy was made possible.

I had not known anything about theory of relativity. I knew it had something to do with relative motion of objects but after coming to school I learnt that it has to do with particle moving with speeds near to the speed of light. I learnt that when objects move fast time slows down for them to an observer in rest. This was a revelation to me. The formulas and theories used made a lot of sense once I read and understood the chapter. I was excited to know that I could understand such a phenomenon without external aid.

Another thing that was an eye opener to me was that I learned that physics that I learned earlier was shattered by the development of quantum physics. Particle without mass had momentum. Not only that but the very nature of particle and waves interchanged which could not be defined by classical physics.

The media source claims the Iran is engaged in the creation of nuclear weapons and the USA wants answers. This article is completely biased towards the USA. The author of the article subtly shows his contempt for Iran. I feel that the article does not look at Iran’s point of view and makes accusations against the country.

The author also makes a generalization on how the Iran has always ‘defended its right to continue its nuclear program’ supporting this statement with only one instance. This bias can be looked at from the author’s point of view by saying that USA and Iran have ha certain issues in the past since the Iranian Revolution. However this does not give the author the right to only talk about the Iran’s failure to address the nuclear issue. This article is like propaganda to turn its readers against Iran. The author has only used confirmation bias to support his accusation on Iran.

However through evidence in the article, I can say that Iran is using vague language to delay or evade the talk about the nuclear deal. Due to this Hillary Clinton seems to show some agitation and frustration and wants a ‘head on’ answer from Tehran. Iran is clearly evading the question put forth by the USA on the nuclear deal by saying that it wants to discuss about certain issues but does not mention about the nuclear deal. The USA has taken up this issue with the United Nations so that they get an answer but at the same time telling the world to be scared of Iran. I feel the USA is trying to divide the world just like it did in the Cold War. But doing this however there is a lot of potential for another outbreak for war and could be known as World War 3.

Nuclear energy should be used for creation of power and not war. It was the USA who had originally built the destructive weapon and used it on Japan. From that time on, countries have been stock piling such weapons as if preparing for another world war. The issue for accumulation of weapons has been a major cause for countries. War does not only kill people and damage property but also cause economic decline in the countries. This issue is a very important and is it rational and ethical to stockpile such weapons. Is there really need for armies to protect us? Such matters need to be discussed to earth as whole and not with certain countries. Science has turned from being used to advance mankind into a one-way ticket for mankind to be bombed back to the stoneage.

the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history

No one knows where is Hitler after he fled. However we do know the atrocities he committed against the Jews, against mankind. The amount of damage and destruction both mental and physical because of the wars is unaccountable. Mankind has learned that nothing good comes out from war. There is no one right or wrong in war. There is no one right or wring in history. History is the view of different people complied into a document. G.W.F. Hegel’s saying ‘ the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history’ applies to some things concerning history but not all.

We learn a lot from history, whether it is something as big as the discovery of an atom or something as small as a method of recycling of paper, we learn a lot from history. History teaches us the existences of different tribes, their culture and hence their origin. We can learn where we came from through historical evidences of different tribes. It is not allowed for women to get up from their bed for forty days after they have given birth to a child in Hinduism. This is not related to the religion it self but history. Since the woman is still healing she was not allowed to get up from her bed in the past. This was slowly modified into the religion it self, and even though the new generation may not know it, they still follow it. We are incorporating history into our daily lives an are constantly learning from it. Gunpowder was used by the Japanese in the early 5^th century and is still used now in fire works. Today’s scientists look back into history to make progress in fields like medicine and mathematics. The Vedic science of medicine and mathematics are more effective than this era’s counting and medicines.

However history itself it not reliable as there are different viewpoints each historian gives. Like in theory of relativity when two events occur at an instant of time, a person may see them occur at the same time but another person will not see it occur at the same instant of time. Neither of them are wrong but there is no right answer. Lack of methods of preserving local dialects and cultures have eroded evidences of tribes existing and left scientists to assume many events occurring in tribes. We cannot learn from what does not exist. Interpretation of certain texts is a lot of work. Even the slightest errors in translation can result in a completely wrong interpretation of the text.

One cannot always look at history to learn something. There is a clear distinction between what is half true and what is completely false. It is up to the one reading that particular historical evidence to decide whether it is true or not. One cannot sleep overnight and reason out history as mathematics.

Right to Life

The media source claims that CIA interrogators used illegal means to get information out of an al Qaeda prisoner. The report from the executive director of the ACLU stated that these means used were reprehensible and illegal As claimed by the author there have been several other cases in which the CIA have tries to scare prisoners into spilling out information by firing gun shots in a near by room to show that the other was being fired upon. The article also states that several cases of such misconduct have been taken up by the Department of Justice of which only one person was prosecuted. The point the article is trying to make is whether it is justified to use methods like scaring prisoners with guns and drills to get information out of them or is it necessary to do so.

I feel it is justified to perform such acts of people to get information, provided they have been convicted with evidence. Ethical and moral rights do not play a role here. If the interrogators would not create an atmosphere of fear into such prisoners, they would think that they are untouchable. The al Qaeda is a terrorist group, which has terrorized the world with their bombs and mass murder. I feel it is justified that they themselves face what the general public have faced when someone they know have been killed or injured because of the al Qaeda. The media clearly shows that it does not like the behavior of the CIA towards its prisoners, but it is also not looking at who the prisoner is. If the prisoner was falsely accused and the CIA guards were just getting pleasure out of someone else’s misery, then the CIA is wrong. However there is evidence that the prisoner who is being accused is from the al Qaeda. The al Qaeda are trained not to leak information otherwise all those who had been captured would have leaked out information, therefore the CIA were trying another tactic to get information- if words do not work, use fear.

The higher authority in the CIA was angry as hell when information of such acts reached them. They were thinking on the basis of logic rather than letting their emotions get in the way. However I feel that the higher people who got ‘angry’ were merely doing it to prevent humanitarians from protesting against them, since the information was leaking on the news.

This leak of information about the CIA will cause havoc in the department. The media themselves are not the ‘good people’. This article is biased towards the faction that claims the interrogation method to be unjustified. Had the media not intervened in the CIA’s private prisons, havoc might not be caused in the department. The media take a lot of matters into its hand without thinking about the consequences. Not only that but also they influence those who read their articles to think in a certain way. This shows the fact that if the media feel someone in the situation is wrong; they are wrong only giving selective evidence to support its claim.

I feel those who commit crime for the wrong reasons and are free to roam about and do the same thing again should not be dealt with ease. It is only through instilling fear in the world of terrorist that they in the future that they may think many times before they bomb another city. The information leaked by the media is a world wide phenomena that even the terrorist are looking at. They know now that such acts of scaring their captured people is just a show and they will never be killed in prison. The media have prevented the CIA from getting information out of the prisoner. However this will also affect future prisoners, as they will know what to expect in the prisons of the CIA.

In conclusion I would like to say that if the CIA are in fact treating all of its prisoners in such a manner, I will not support its behavior. The term every human should have human rights can be looked at in two different ways here. If the CIA give the prisoner his human rights, they would be taking it away from those people who will be bombed by the al Qaeda in the future. However if they take his human rights away they, would be saving millions of people human right. No one can make the right decision here because both are correct. However a better decision can be made from the two. I feel it is the latter one.

http://www.punemirror.in/index.aspx?page=article&sectid=3&contentid=2009062420090624012102651a019ba28&sectxslt=&pageno=1

Red Bull – one of indias finest energy drinks, favored by a many across India, is on the verge of being banned completely from India. Because of not following regulations of the maximum amount of caffeine per drink which is two hundred parts per million the Food and Drug Administration has confiscated Red Bull cans worth more than six crore rupees. This does not look good for those who cherish this drink and they must be very angry at the Food and Drug Administration. The Food and Drug Administration has sent a batch of the cans for testing for taking legal action against the concerned parties.

Should Red Bull really be banned from the country? People who do not want to drink it should not drink it but they should not prevent others from drinking it. That is unfair to those who want to drink it but are prevented by doing so because of others. It is stated by researchers that in the long run, high consumption of such energy drinks damages the bones and leads to osteoporosis and arthritis. Research has also cited that there are remote links between such energy drinks and cancer. However how much of this is fact and how much fiction. Each ones body has a different anatomy and their reaction to substances is different. Researchers cannot generalize that Red Bull is bad for everyone and everyone is likely to get osteoporosis by consuming Red Bull. Even though Red Bull may in reality affect the health of all those who drink it in the long run there are so many other drinks in the market that do not follow regulations and are even worse than Red Bull. However the FDA does not catch them. People drink Red Bull not only for pleasure but also for energy. Late at night when I need to study during my exams a can of the drink is very helpful for me. It gives me the required boost to study some more. This article is not taking into account the fact that there are people who need the drink in order to do well their daily lives.
the article is bias towards banning the selling and distribution of Red bull in the indian market. from this i asume that there is corruption somewhere since Red Bull does control a lot of the markets consumption. there should be further investigation involved in this issue-"The limit set forth by the PFA Act applies only to carbonated waters and not to energy drinks containing functional ingredients such as caffeine up to 320mg/L, taurine, glucuronolactone and B group vitamins,” said Vikaas Saxena, director, marketing, Red Bull India."