Month: March 2020

Musings

Coronas – Stellar and Earthly

Mani 10 Comments

This was meant to be about the significance of corona viruses in our scheme of things and the insignificance of us in the Universe’s scheme of things.

Well, maybe the next time…

Right now I’m still a little high from viewing the skies at sunset three evenings in a row from my terrace. Here are a few photos: all I can think of now are the words of Georges Lemaitre (1894–1966): Catholic priest, mathematician, physicist, the cosmologist who first proposed the theory of an expanding Universe which has come to be called ‘Big Bang’ …

“The evolution of the world can be compared to a display of fireworks that has just ended: some few red wisps, ashes and smoke. Standing on a well–chilled cinder, we see the slow fading of the suns, and we try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of worlds…”

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General ravings, Potshots

Courting Contempt

Mani 2 Comments

[Disclaimer: This has been written on the 9th day of the author’s self-isolation due to persistent cough and sore throat, and amid recurring episodes of catatonia, mild hallucination, and hysterical cackling at the sight of TV news anchors and onions. Any disrespect shown or hurt caused to any lawyer, advocate, journalist, politician or any other person connected with or disconnected to the judiciary is entirely intentional.]

Despite the title, this isn’t about the ethics (assuming the existence of any) of ex-Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi accepting the NDA government’s offer of a Rajya Sabha seat. Nor is it about the ethics (assuming they have any) of these myriad lawyers, journalists, politicians and affiliated scoundrels who today are questioning Gogoi’s ethics, when just two years ago –  on January 12, 2018 to be precise – the same bunch had extolled Gogoi as some kind of judicial hero for having been one of the four Supreme Court judges who  held a press conference to publicly accuse then Chief Justice of India Deepak Mishra of improprieties.

Ethics in India is like the radioactive element Polonium-214: it has a rather short half-life.

This is about the 3.3 crore cases that are pending before courts in India.

Now, numbers numb the brain—especially, large numbers. We usually regard anything more than six as a blurry ‘many’.  So, how in the name of Bakasura the Ravenous does one comprehend a number like 3.3 crores?  How can we visualize it, get a feel of what it is?

It’s important that we can do this. Because India is all about very large numbers; especially in the synergistic realms of political swindling, business theft and general loot of the public exchequer by public and private individuals and institutions.  For example, there’s Rana Kapoor, Founder of YES Bank, whose maxim seems to have been “Founders Keepers” as he scammed us of at least Rs 3000 crores (they’re still counting).  Vijay Mallya, that ethylated and spirited Kingfisher entrepreneur, made off to Britain with Rs 9000 crores of public money kindly gifted to him by nine banks.  Nirav Modi the Hira Chor (I just love the way our journalists call him ‘Diamantaire’ ) robbed Rs 28,000 crores from just one bank (Punjab National Bank).

And so, ignoring your howls of protest and with a murmured Guru Stotram  to the great  Isaac Asimov who had a way of making the most complex things simple to understand, we shall try and explain this number of pending court cases—3.3 crores— in a manner that even Rahul Gandhi might comprehend (if he concentrates really hard).

In sallying forth, we shall try our best to retain our footing on the treacherously narrow and slippery path that runs high above the dreadful chasm of Contempt of Court.

Here goes…

Preamble

Any business involving Indian courts generates colossal quantities of paper – in the form of indemnities, oaths, bonds, undertakings, agreements, powers of attorney, declarations, affidavits, deeds, and a plethora of other documents. Each document is invariably photocopied in triplicate at the very least.

Why so many copies? No-one knows.

Maybe it’s prescribed in the Shastras and Puranas.  Maybe it’s just that no one dares ask why.

I personally believe all the kabaadiwallahs, channawallahs, peanut vendors, et al. are running this multiple-photocopies system in cahoots with lawyers and advocates to ensure that they receive a vast, steady and sustainable  supply of waste paper for packaging their wares—a fine example of the Sustainable Circular Economy.

Anyway: to return to the topic from which we were rudely distracted by ourselves…

Bird’s-eye view

Let’s assume, very conservatively, that each court case involves 2000 sheets of A-4 sized paper located in various files. Then, 3.3 crore court cases give us a total of 66 billion A4 sheets (that’s 66000000000). Since we know that an A4 sheet measures 21 cm × 29.7 cm, it’s easy to work out the total area that can be covered by the paper that makes up 3.3. crore case files:

Area of paper  = [66000000000 × 21 × 29.7] square cm =  4116 square kilometres (km2).

To visualize this better:  with the paper from our pending court cases, we could completely paper over  India’s six largest metropolises—National Capital Territory of Delhi  (1484 km2),  Bengaluru (709 km2), Hyderabad (650 km2), Mumbai  (623.7 km2),  Chennai (426 km2) and Kolkata (205 km2)— and still have enough paper left over (i.e. 289 million A4 sheets, with a total area of 18 km2) to cover 2812 football fields.

Not impressed?

Astronomical view

Well…we could instead paste our 66 billion A4 sheets together, lengthwise, and make a paper bridge that’s 19.6 million kilometres long—enough to stretch to the Moon and back 20 times,  still leaving us 4.2 million km of paper with which to wrap Earth around the Equator 105 times.

If that’s not inspiring enough:

Green view

A good working estimate is that one large tree has to be felled to make about 10,000 sheets of A4 paper. This means that our 66 billion pending court cases represent the long-neglected and cruelly fragmented remains of  6.6 million trees!  

One wonders how many of these pending cases pertain to our ecology and environment? To tree felling?

Economic development view

There’s also a bright side to the issue: a silver lining in the judicial cloud. Consider the fact that these 3.3 crore pending cases have for decades provided livelihoods to lakhs of advocates, legal interns, office assistants, stamp vendors, typists, photocopiers, notaries public, stamp and seal makers, oath commissioners, and other hard-working men and women. By ensuring that these court cases have remained pending, these heroes and heroines of our judiciary have in fact contributed significantly to India’s GDP.

May they continue to do so! 

Way forward

The Indian judiciary is doing its best to reduce the number of pending cases. For instance, in 2016, the subordinate courts disposed of a whopping 1.9 crore cases…but the problem is, over 2 crore fresh cases were filed in subordinate courts during that year. [see here for details].

Clearly, like the Red Queen, our judiciary is sprinting to stay in the same place…and steadily falling back. The number of pending cases just grows and grows.

Little wonder that out of the 3.3 crore currently pending cases, 86 lakh cases have been pending for five years and more in subordinate courts and High Courts.

How we can reduce this colossal backlog?

A friend suggests that we periodically line up and shoot all advocates who ask for adjournments. An attractive idea: but we fear it might be a violation of their fundamental rights to procrastinate.

We must instead look for a Constitutional solution.

Let’s focus only on these 86 lakh (8600000) cases pending for five years and more. Let’s suppose the government and judiciary set up 100 brand-new super-efficient Special Courts exclusively to dispose of these 86 lakh old cases, with each Court working 10 hours daily for 300 days a year. Furthermore, let’s suppose each Special Court completes hearing and disposal of a case every hour (i.e. it finishes off 10 cases daily, or 3000 cases a year).

How long will it take for these Special Courts to get through all 86 lakh old cases?

It would take 8600000 ÷ 100 × 3000 = 28.66 years.

 So, if we set up the 100 Special Courts today, they could get the job done by November 2048!

Of course, that’s provided the litigants and their lawyers don’t appeal to higher courts against the verdicts in the Special Courts…

[Adjourned]

 

 

 

 

General ravings, Musings, Potshots

Corona Virus, Evolution and Revolution

Mani 1 Comment

However much we dread the Corona Virus, we cannot mask ourselves against the truth that the virus reflects the spirit of true Indian Secularism in the way it infects all people irrespective of their race, religious belief, caste or class.

Covid-19 might not be good for one’s constitution, but in its own humble way it respects the Indian Constitution. It shows us that we are all truly One.

Which, for no apparent reason, brings us to the question: how can one teach Evolution to Indian schoolchildren?

Now, you might think the answer’s simple. You might answer as follows:

“Just write up – or better still and in true Indian tradition, plagiarize—a simple summary of Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’; enrich Darwin’s ideas with Gregor Mendel’s insights into inheritance of characteristics; lead on to Erwin Schrodinger’s insights into the molecules that must make up life, and explain how his ideas and the work of Oswald Avery, Linus Pauling and others inspired the discovery of DNA’s structure by Rosalind Franklin, Francis Crick and James Watson…sparking off a vast amount of research and expansion in our knowledge of how all life on Earth is linked, so that we know today that all humans are descended from the same ancestral mother who lived somewhere in the African continent.”

Of course your answer is correct, O learned reader. Alas, translating your answer into action is not simple, because nothing’s simple in India. It’s especially hard to introduce the flavours of Truth and Rationality, seasoned with Scientific Temper and Honesty and laced with a few dashes of Fun and Adventure, into the horrifying tasteless khichdi that masquerades as our Education Policy.

Consider, gentle reader, two of the simple statements just made up there somewhere:

  1. All life on Earth is linked.
  2. All humans are descended from the same ancestral mother who lived somewhere in the African continent.

Now, imagine that we propose to set out these statements as the Learning Outcomes of the chapter on ‘Evolution’ in the NCERT textbook for, say, Class 10. Assuming further that we are not lynched on the spot by an all-party delegation of MPs and MLAs, these are the kinds of responses we might expect from two of our political parties, the BJP and the CPI(M):

BJP: It is quite correct to state that all life on Earth is linked. But our textbooks must also emphasize that these so-called discoveries of Evolution by these Darwins and Sharwins, Watsons and Whatnots, were actually made 11000 years ago by our Vedic ancestors who summarized their insights into the concept of ‘vasudaiva kutumbakam’ – One Great Family. We must also mention that Indians ruled the entire Earth in ancient times, for which evidence is everywhere to see, in our ancient epics as well as in today’s world. For example, Argentina derives its name from Arjun-Sthaan, clearly evidencing that Arjuna, the great warrior of Mahabharata, had visited this South American region in his search for divine weapons…

CPI(M): In very simple words, we see this attempt to introduce Evolution into our school curriculum as nothing but another manifestation of Brahmanical Hegemony masquerading as pseudo-rationalism to preserve and strengthen the existing class-hierarchical model of social exploitation ; a diabolic and communal attempt by bigoted Hindutva-worshipping self-styled scholars to saffronize our school curriculum and brainwash young and innocent minds into believing the despicable lie that all Indians are equal—thereby denying the hundreds of millions of underprivileged Backward Castes, Minorities, Dalits, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, women and other oppressed communities their just rights for reservation of jobs, educational quotas, subsidies and other forms of affirmative action under the various reservation policies. We will oppose this Hindutva proposal tooth and nail; we shall leave no stone unturned or Molotov cocktail unflung in our peaceful street marches calling for Revolution against Evolution…

General ravings, Musings, Remembering

Drumming away the Blues

Mani 16 Comments

Right from childhood days in Shillong I’ve loved music. Around 1967/68, when I was around 11 and also a round 11 (I was fat and short), I taught myself how to play the drums.  A battered old leather suitcase made a nice snare drum; a brass table top with a couple of nails on it made for an excellent cymbal;  and for sticks I ‘borrowed’  a couple of Mom’s knitting needles (sizes 7 to 9 worked best, as they allowed a good rebound for rolls).   My musical heroes in those early days were Brian Bennett (The Shadows), Mel Taylor (The Ventures),  Ringo Starr (The Beatles), and Ginger Baker (Cream).   In 1969 I bought a pair of teak drumsticks for the princely sum of Rs 1.50.  I still have them; every scar on them brings fond and noisy memories. They worked well on my suitcase too, though I kept borrowing Mom’s knitting needles…

But the story of my musical eccentricities must wait for another time.  Why I mention music now is, music has always been my refuge, it’s brought me solace and comfort and delight. And playing the drums elevates my spirits even in the darkest of moments.

Which is why, last week, after a gap of over five years, I picked up my drumsticks and went to a jam room in South Extension where there’s a nice drum set, and I practiced playing the drums for an hour.

There were no listeners to tell me how hideous it sounded, because I was all alone and the jam room was (mercifully) sound-proofed.  I was rusty, stiff in bone and muscle and brain, I panted and gasped at the exertion, I missed a beat every nine beats on average.

But I loved it!

I emerged from the jam-room, exhausted but healed of angst, the words of Omar Khayyam  blending weirdly yet sublimely with the words of Adi Sankaracharya in my haze-filled mind:

Alike for those who for TODAY prepare,

And those that after a TOMORROW stare,

A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries

“Fools! Your Reward is neither Here nor There!“

Bhaja Govindam, Bhaja Govindam

Govindam Bhaja, Moodamathe!

I managed to record part of my solo cacophony, and place three short sections below – missed beats and all – for your torment, ferment and comment, O patient and long-suffering reader!

 

Don’t worry, I promise you I won’t post any more of my solo practice sessions.

Oh…and tomorrow I’m going again to the jam room.  Do join in…it’ll be great!