Media Freedom

The people in large numbers, including media persons, have been made to believe that the media is partisan and not free, and media-persons are largely dishonest. An odious term was also coined, which sought to denigrate the profession by comparing it to presumably another degraded profession.

The prevalence of this very debate proves that the media is largely free in this country and the media is not playing to any particular tune. If the media were not free, nobody would have raised this question or would have been able to do so. The conditions are just opposite and therefore there is so much intensity in the debate. But even the media does not concur with this fact. The media at this moment is at the receiving end of the psychological power-play.

The crucial thing we must know that the media is not just another pillar of democracy but it is the mainstay of democracy. If we are by and large safe on the streets or in our houses, we largely owe this to the media.

And we must get to the basics again. The media is largely a capitalist enterprise. The more evolved the capitalism, the freer would be the media. And we must be introspective too. Do we deserve a freer media? Isn't it that the media seeks to cater to our tastes?

Lastly, the crucial question - Are we responsible and honest citizens? Shouldn't we take our citizenship with some seriousness?

Niraj Kumar Jha

A Random Thought

Shouldn't the acts of self harm be treated as criminal and the concerned persons be prosecuted by the state for the same? Committing homicide unsuccessfully was punishable but what if somebody chops off his own limb intentionally or unintentionally? If the same thing is done to one by some other person whether intentionally or unintentionally, then it is treated as a crime in both cases? And if consent is such a crucial matter, then can one murder another with latter's consent? If some person is duped to lose something, then there is certainly for that time the consent existed. Often we hear that people do wrong things to others with latter's consent, but they are not exempted for such crimes. What is the difference between the acts when somebody donates an amount to a needy and when the needy robs the same amount from that person? Apart from the absence of consent, there is no difference in these events at all. Can we treat the willingness a valid factor for that purpose? And what if somebody else donates one's money to other needy persons? Is it not a more heinous crime? If jurisprudence has clear answers to such questions, many ideological shibboleths can be junked.

Niraj Kuma Jha

Equality of Opportunities

The idea of the equality of opportunity is another variant of the leftist gibberish. I need to expose this dangerous idea which the leftists have propagated over all these decades. First thing is that the idea is not feasible and the undeniable and mammoth proof of that is the prolonged Indian experimentation with this objective prior to 1991. That year the model simply collapsed as the model was not workable. The problem is that the idea is hardly different from the one which the Bolsheviks perpetrated behind their iron curtains. The idea for realization needs similar massive buildup which is ultimately doomed for a massive failure but meanwhile plays havoc with the people subjected to the project. Now the next question - what about opportunities? The general belief is that the opportunities are always limited and that should be equalized in availability. This is a huge misconception. A society which ensures freedom - and entrepreneurial freedom is the substance of that - generates abundance of opportunities and every people get what they deserve and strive for.

(This micro write-up suffices for the educated to get rid of this misconception prevailing for a very long time. Whenever I write about the chicanery behind the propagation of the idea of equality, people rush in to tell me about all this as if a naive needs some education.)

Niraj Kumar Jha

Q. Why do people in general venerate foolish persons so fervently and value useless things so highly?

A.

• The limits of knowledge frighten folks and they invariably fall for the idiots.
• The cunning people always form a vicious circle, which does not allow folks in general to think and act intelligently
• Education system has been devised in a way that they reduce people's brain to calculating instruments and they fail to see the existential realities from a proper perspective.
• Ideologies have swayed the minds of people over millennia. Power that be and ideologies which crop up from time to time have great hate and love relationship between them but they always enter into a very symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit.
• Incapable of building good systems, people lack dignity and purpose in life and they go for trivialities for seeking fulfillment.
• Our knowledge dissemination system is such that it nurses a false sense of being knowledgeable among all but provides little for people to acquire knowledge.
• The culture is something which needs continuous critical appraisal but it is the travesty of human destiny that they put it on the highest pedestal. The holification of culture is the gravest of the human follies.

Niraj Kumar Jha 

The Covfefe Times

Covfefe, the typo created word, immediately connects to the global realities. The word, by its origin and how it sounds, resonates the deafening cacophony characterizing the global affairs of the day. The state is such that the realities have totally overwhelmed the intellectualism and the resultant anomie has bogged down the whole humanity. The inevitable globalism is least helped by the stunted agencies and stands impeded by the lack of conviction on the part of the liberal democracies. This is the generation on which the destiny has bestowed the responsibility of facilitating the dawn of the new world but the generation stands totally oblivious of its responsibilities. This is the time to take philosophy very seriously. This is a make or mar moment of epochal proportion.

Niraj Kumar Jha

On a Poser Whether Indians are Cowards

The boy's poser is a cliche which has stayed over time. The fact remains that we have not been as aggressive or brutal as other civilizations of the world are or have been. But nothing beyond that stands. As late as during the second world war, the Indians constituted the largest military ever raised in the history, and they fought with the best fighting forces of the world with aplomb. This is the answer the videoed speaker skirts. Secondly, it was not so that the Indians did not resist the invasions. The fact is that they only failed in their war efforts. The result of battling often depends on luck and chance. And this must be noted very carefully Mr Neel Kamal Pandey that a lost war has a very long term debilitating effect on the defeated civilization. Now let us come to the problem which continues as it has ever been and which I have been reiterating now and then. We need a very strong philosophical statesmanship, which we have lacking for a very long time. Perhaps we did not have anything like after the Guptas, Our last hope died at Talikota. Now I come again to the original question: Are Indians cowards? In the battlefield it is only the regimen which speaks, and in the civil life the bullies, rogues, bravehearts, cowards and meek all survive but the fact remains what largely we have as men and women as a society is a matter of social engineering.

Niraj Kumar Jha

(In response to a question raised in a video by a young person posted by Sh Neel Kamal Pandey ji)

The Capital

The economy deserves the most meticulous and methodical approach in its management. Any sort of adventurism is going to be counter productive. In this context we must know of a couple of the cardinal principles of political economy. First is that the capital must be our sovereign master. It must have smoothest possible run. It must be least burdened with the taxes and be facilitated in the best possible way. Secondly, all citizens must be unrestrained to participate in the capitalist system as stakeholders. In this backdrop we must note that the taxes on the capital is never paid by the capitalists; they are simply passed on to the end users of services and products but in the process the taxes only constrain the capital from working in proportion to its potential. Secondly, welfarism is needed exactly because the capitalism is not allowed to have its free run. My take on the crisis of 1929 is that it was not a capitalist crisis but was the failure of economic management.

- Niraj Kumar Jha