Digging for Meaning

"Surgical strikes" of Mr. Modi Mr. Modi loves the metaphor of surgical strike - precise, effective, absolute. If surgeries are for flesh-and-bones bodies of living beings, the surgical strikes that Mr. Modi likes to unleash on are bodies of 'terrorism', 'corruption','poverty' etc. In a physical body, a 'surgical strike' can be contained. The target and the weapon is definite and known. The cause-effect are immediately visible. The metaphor loses its meaning when you try to use it on conceptually elastic exchanges such as terrorism and corruption. What I mean by conceptually elastic is - terrorism or corruption are fairly fluid in their meaning and depends on who is defining whom as being a terrorist or corrupt. 'Corruption' or 'Terrorism' is not a thing or a person that we can see, smell, touch. It exists between people as an exchange. Take for example the concept of "Terrorism" State sponsored terrorism is cal...

3 reasons why democracy as we know today is a waste of intentions, time, money and opportunity. It is a costly mistake that needs to be corrected. 1. Rule of the elite The word Democracy is an antonym of Aristocracy - the rule of an elite. Yet, the elected representative turn into elite the day he/she gets elected. For a true representative democracy, the representative must remain a representative of the constituency - socially, morally, financially... What is the point of this charade if the representative goes and sits in the capital and leads an entirely alien life to that of the constituency he represents. For a representative to be a 'representative' - he /she should share enough common traits, concerns, social condition with his/her constituency. There must be rules regarding the validity of candidature and his class & geographical mobility. For eg. if the candidate becomes x-times richer than the average enrichment of his constituency, his candidature must auto...

just a thought.. i don't understand why all of a sudden a foreign government's election result has caused such high media hype in US. People who don't even know where iran is, are 'protesting' (cyberspace can be a playground for the utterly idiotic and gullible out-of-lifers ) against apparent rigging of election. 'travesty of democracy'.. bull crap, funny how scores of other dictatorships or rigged election elected governments with help of US never get the kind of coverage that iran is getting now. do i see here a ploy by US to create ground for it to go for Iran? hm.. saying the obvious. free press they say.. one can engineer a thought culture just as easy these days, as perhaps it was 100 years back. we haven't become any smarter.. ___________________________________ Social protest as a measure of democracy i think that protests happening at a place are a measure of democracy. well then what about Lalgarh in west bengal? what naxalites are doing, is t...