अयोध्या

 हम  माता सीता और प्रभु राम की सनातन प्रजा हैं। अयोध्या नगरी प्रभु की राजधानी है। श्रीराम अपनी जन्मस्थली पर  नवनिर्मित  मंदिर में विराज कर हमें कृतार्थ करेंगे। हम भी संकल्प लें कि हम बनाएंगे अयोध्या को विश्व की श्रेष्ठतम नगरी और वैश्विक सभ्यता का केंद्र । अयोध्या  मानव जाति के उत्कर्ष और कष्टनिवारण का केंद्र बने, ऐसी योजना का कार्यान्वयन हो। विश्व धर्ममय हो, यह हमारा दायित्व है; अयोध्या इसकी धुरी होगी, तो यह शीघ्र संभव है। 

नीरज कुमार झा 

Work for Being Human

 Working for longer hours and working more productively are related issues but not the same. It is better that people work longer and more productively. They merit even separately. 

Working is in fact redeeming one's humanity. It is by working we advance from a being to a human being, from barbarism to civilization. Basically, what we mean by work is service to others. This is how we become a society, civilization, and humanity.  The more we work, the better we get. Self-indulgence is secondary and is just a break to realise ultimately it is work that gives meaning to our life and brings fulfilment.

Being drained out while working is the most satisfying thing to get into. The problem is that we do not have satisfying jobs or we do not like the jobs we do and we begin our work feeling drained. This is tragic. 

The basic problem is that many people do not have any work to do, even if they may be employed. And if they have a job, the problem is not about the time one spends on a particular work but of organisation and culture. We may be valuing jobs one over another and doing a job not in a likeable way. It is a problem of collective norms and know-how. 

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Oṃ Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinaḥ

Liberalism functions as capitalism in the economic domain and republicanism in the political domain. Liberalism, as per the human inclination it manifests, is not typically ideological in its nature but is about humanism, the perseverance of human beings to become human. It is about the dignity of each human being and the full flowering of their persons. Liberalism is the discovery of Dharma by the West, which made them modern and brought the modern age to the world.

Humanism is the core of Liberalism. It means all value one and get that one centre stage. This is to properize being.

Proper knowledge systems must home to this properization of being human. It means epistemology must cohere with capitalism and republicanism, which seek human beings to evolve from herds and sovereignly use their own faculty and agency while respecting the similar rights of others.  It is about the age-old wisdom of living and letting others live.

It is the most challenging task to work with people's consciousness. The scope of working human consciousness is about epistemology. It is epistemology, which shapes human consciousness and becomes consciousness. Epistemology gets anatomical. It becomes one's mental eyes with which one sees the world. It is almost impossible to navigate one's deviant consciousness to course. But, it is not entirely a hopeless scenario either. 

Let us work for the essential human spirit: let us translate this prayer into reality. 

ॐ सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः
सर्वे सन्तु निरामयाः ।
सर्वे भद्राणि पश्यन्तु
मा कश्चिद्दुःखभाग्भवेत् ।
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः॥

May all sentient beings be at peace,
may no one suffer from illness,
May all see what is auspicious, may no one suffer.
Om peace, peace, peace.

Niraj Kumar Jha 

On History of Rationality

Thinking and acting rationally is a very late historical development if we see humanity as a whole. Surprisingly, the ancient world, particularly India and Greece and maybe others, had such an approach, though contested by other approaches. Presently, this is how humanity brought humanism and modernity to itself; but this is still evolving, and struggling in many pockets of the world and of any culture. 

It is not that reason has been missing in any age but it rarely commanded the centerstage or remained sustainably there. Traditions and affectiveness still remain dominant in human minds, and reason finds itself at the receiving end. The persisting reality, the highlight of this post, is this: the primal instincts have always, throughout history, appropriated reason for their own ends. 

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Talk Well

Talking well gets wellness.
Talking positivity promotes positivity.
Logical articulations, even in casual conversations, promote general rationality and science.
Always speak well and be a good human being and responsible citizen.
This is how you can contribute by simply being.

 
Niraj Kumar Jha

Educating Health

The ancient Nalanda University had a mandatory course on health and medicine in their graduation programme. This was solid wisdom. Personally, being educated has no meaning if a person does not how to be healthy and what to do in case they fall ill or face an emergency. Otherwise, too, healthy people boost the health of the commonwealth. How to be healthy, physically and mentally, and what to do in medical emergencies must be a part of school education and be mandatory to earn credits for the graduation programme. In other words, personal health management and basic medicinal awareness must be a basic part of education.

General health and medical facilities should also be one of the main focuses for associational entities. Health security must be brought to be a prime rationale of and core mandate for the State.

Niraj Kumar Jha

सामाजिक मीडिया

सामाजिक मीडिया लोकशिक्षण के प्रभावशाली माध्यम एवं मंच के रूप में स्थापित हो चुका है। हालाँकि इसके अंतर्वस्तु प्रदाताओं में विभिन्न अभिकरण सम्मिलित हैं लेकिन इसका विशिष्ट पक्ष यह है कि इसमें बड़ी संख्या में लोग  व्यष्टि रूप में सम्मिलित हैं। यह एक शक्तिशाली जनतांत्रिक मंच है।

जहाँ तक शिक्षण का प्रश्न है, सामाजिक मीडिया आबालवृद्ध के मानस को गढ़ रहा है। यह ज्ञानियों और ज्ञानमीमांसकों के लिए अद्भुत अवसर है। पहली बार उन्हें इतने व्यापक रूप से सामान्य जन उनके सम्मुख श्रोता सह पाठक के रूप उपास्थित हैं और जिनसे वे संवाद भी कर सकते हैं। यह सच्चे विद्वानों के लिए गोलबंद प्रवंचकों से भी पार पाने का अवसर देता है।

 
प्रायोजित गोष्ठियों और बंधे पत्र-पत्रिकाओं एवं स्टूडियो से स्वतंत्र एवं इच्छानुकूल सम्प्रेषण के लिए सुविधा अत्यंत सीमित थी। सामाजिक मीडिया यह सुविधा सभी को निरंतर और स्थायी रूप से देता है। कुशल जनहितैषी विद्वान इस मंच पर विमर्श कर मानवता की भलाई के लिए अपना योगदान प्रभावी रूप से दे सकते हैं।

नीरज कुमार झा

Ideoconomics, Popiconomics, Pruconomics, and Poweconomics

Four Portmanteau Words for Economics

1. Ideoconomics: ideology-driven economics
2. Popiconomics: populist economics
3. Pruconomics: prudent economics
4. Poweconomics: power-driven economics

Niraj Kumar Jha

हँसते धूल कण

धूल का हर कण हँस-हँस कर लोटता है
मगरूर आदमी जब उस राह गुजरता है

नीरज कुमार झा

शब्द संग्रह

किसी व्यक्ति अथवा समुदाय की सच्ची समृद्धि इस तथ्य से सिद्ध होती है कि उसका शब्द संग्रह और विशेषकर प्रयुक्त शब्दों की संख्या कितनी है। प्रयुक्त शब्दों की अल्पता जीवन की विपन्नता का हिस्सा है। यह भिन्न तथ्य है कि विपन्न जन या समुदाय भी प्रयास के द्वारा कृत्रिम रूप से शब्द संग्रह का विस्तार कर लेते हैं।

शब्दभंडार का स्वाभाविक विस्तार व्यवसाय, उद्योग, विज्ञान और संस्कृति में व्यक्ति तथा समुदाय के सुधारवादी दृष्टिकोण से युक्त क्रियाशीलता से होता है। मानव पकृति से ही विकासवादी जीव है और विकास का एक कारक, और प्रभाव भी, उसका शब्दों का संग्रह है। यह विकास की प्रक्रिया का उपकरण, विकास को धारण करने का साधन और श्रेष्ठ जीवन का सरोवर है।

शब्द संचय पृथक प्रयास नहीं होना चाहिए। यह पिछड़ेपन की स्थिति में होता है। शब्द संग्रह का विस्तार प्रयोग के क्रम का स्वाभाविक परिणाम है।

समुदाय पिछड़ा इसलिए होता है कि उसे लक्ष्य और हेतु का अंतर पता नहीं होता है। वे उत्पादन के घटकों और उत्पाद की पहचान को लेकर भी भ्रम में रहते हैं। 

उद्यमशीलता संस्कार और समृद्धि का आधार है।

नीरज कुमार झा

Menacing Idiots

 The audacity of idiots and the timidity of wise people have been the biggest bane of humankind. 

Niraj Kumar Jha

Dysfunctional v. Functional Untruths

 People use falsehoods or lies generally to mislead people, cover up wrongdoings or deceive others for personal gains. There is another aspect of such acts which is often ignored.  Many untruths speak for some great suppressed truths. These truths may be very big and vital but cannot be upheld due to some reasons. Untruths cover the void and make up for the anomalies caused by the absence of the relevant truth. Everyone must have a discerning eye to view everything that goes in the name of a 'fact' or a piece of apparent untruth. And, every uncovered false-factual untruth or patent falsehood must be examined to see whether that misleads or leads to some buried truth. Blanket dismissal of any falsehood is not a good thing to do, particularly on the part of thought workers or volunteers.  

Niraj Kumar Jha

मैं मुकाम पर

जिसे सिर्फ चलते ही जाना है,

जिसका हर कदम ही मुकाम हो,
उसका रास्ता कोई कैसे तय करे।
रास्ता दिखाने वालो,
मुझे भी बतलाते जाना,
मैं अभी मुकाम पर ही खड़ा हूँ,
मुझे कहाँ जाना है।

नीरज कुमार झा

Like Wolves

This is the irony of our age: we can make machines learn but can do nothing with ourselves. We still settle our scores like wolves. 

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Republicanism of Intellect

Processing pieces of information into knowledge and further into wisdom, which conduce public good and thereby the lives of the members of the public, needs sound and trained intellect on the part of a person. Tragically, people rarely have it, and others, including people tasked with it, are of little help; and, nowadays, the information glut complicates the processing hopelessly. The fact of being knowledgeable occurs with the intense engagement with the subject; it is either live or mentally simulated. The problem is that so-called knowers are alien to the processes they seemingly expertise in, and their loud mouthing of personal prejudices and ideological proclivities are matched only by the silences of the practitioners. The disengagement between knowers and doers costs and hurts all. Among people there exists a category of people who are privileged by mechanical means, not in an organic way. This vocal category has no stake in the public good. Many of them flourish by troubling waters and harvesting riches.

 
Republicanism is about a person's intellect; its training and exercise.

 
Niraj Kumar Jha

In response to a post on friendship (by Shri Anil Kumar Singh)

The fact of the matter is that friendship or for that matter any relationship is locational (geographically and socially). Means of communication, viz. personal visits, letters, telephoning, and now online communication do stretch the locational sense but do not replace it. These days, more concerningly, the last one, the internet means of communication and engagement, usurps the location itself and empties relations of what it was meant for and reduces these to a mere formality. It is a marker of advancement but the tragedy is that we abysmally lack the public infrastructure or even the awareness of its need to support people in distress. Being distressed is an inevitable part of everyone's life; one must realise this too. Old age is one such inevitability for most people and traditionally they depended on their children for support. This is also now gone in too many cases.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Yet Another War

Enemies of humanity perpetrate yet another aggression. A former superpower continues with its act of aggression against another nation. The aggressed are inevitably at war. Humanity should appreciate the warring nations and their warriors for defending national integrity and freedom. 

Our country also confronts the most pernicious and barbaric enemies. The world is turning more dangerous by the day. Other than rogue states, non-state actors are active with their vicious agenda. We need to remain united, contribute to national strength, and confront the elements and factors trying to disrupt the national resolve. 

Today, globalism of chaos displaces earlier short-lived processes of economic globalisation. That was the phase when peace and prosperity were making their appearance in every nook and cranny of the world.  Commoners had started enjoying their life and realising their worth for the first time in history. Now, everything is uncertain. Promises are increasingly crumbling. We often come to see the debris of hopes. 

Factors are many driving people to discredit the idea and dismantle the architecture of global integration. Entrenched forces felt threatened and control freaks suffered withdrawal symptoms. Agencies went overboard to structure globalisation and disrupted the evolution. But none of these was the prime factor. It was the dragon, which benefitted immensely from the liberalised trade regime but totally dishonoured its norms. International agencies had no means to discipline the giant. Other nations hurriedly retreated to guard their respective domestic economy. 

Hope is still there and always there. We, human beings, are always becoming beings. The fact of the matter is that smart technologies work to unify humanity, and the present-day threats and crises, other than anti-globalism, cannot be tackled without the concerted efforts of the whole of humanity. It depends on the present generation of humanity whether it chooses to work for the inevitability of a united humanity or prolong the chaos. 

Niraj Kumar Jha 

On Conversation

Conversation is about the polite and appreciative sharing of feelings and ideas. This is the way of being human, and being into it is a very humanising process. 

While a conversation is about interpersonal sympathies and intimacies, as it appears and is so, it also has profound implications for the political life of a community. It is a beautiful experience but has very powerful underpinnings. A citizenry with a cultivated art of good talking to each other makes a great republic. It brings in mutual understanding and general awareness; persons conversing facilitate each other and take their commonwealth forward.

People can get trained in debating, oratory, or rhetoric but fine conversation comes to one from their culture. A refind culture is the making of the good sense of the generations. But we can always make up for the time by merely being conscious of the need. A path that leads to a destination, is a part of that destination.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Some Basics

The nature of beings, things, and happenings, or phenomena in one word, may vary from what one knows about them, and the operating knowledge system may even be totally wrong in accounting things as they are. This sounds normal, but it also applies to collectives. Even dedicated knowledge agencies may be entirely off track hopelessly and forever. But, the power of an operating knowledge system is such that it blinds one to view the follies it may espouse.

 
The prime proof of knowledge of a society being substantive, not being frivolous or misleading, is that society itself is not a pack of herds but a community of dignified and autonomous men and women of substance. It is a nation of enterprising and responsible citizens. In other words, in a properly knowing state, a community is constituted of individuals in possession and control of their persons. If the knowledge system of the community is such, it offers a quality life to itself. It means each has the security of life, possessions, and of doing things worthwhile. To the degree one lives without fear and is free of wants and can do things which make them happy without inconveniencing others, they have, to that extent, a functional knowledge system.

 
Invariably, for any autonomous community, a troubled existence is mostly an outcome of its deficient or faulty knowledge system.

 
Epistemology matters; for those who do not care, humanism is only a notion and being sapiens is just being members of another species.

 
Niraj Kumar Jha

मुद्दे क्या हैं? किस तरह की सांख्यिकी की जरूरत है?

कृत्रिम समझदारी रोजगारों को खत्म कर रही है और बड़े पैमाने पर करेगी। कृत्रिम समझदारी की अपार क्षमताओं का हम कैसे लाभ उठा सकते हैं? ब्लॉकचेन प्रौद्योगिकी के लाभ और नुकसान हैं और साथ ही इसका व्यापक सामाजिक-राजनैतिक प्रभाव होने वाला है। आईओटी और मशीनलर्निंग का कैसे सदुपयोग हो? आगे महामारियों की रोकथाम कैसे हो? गंभीर रोगों से कैसे लड़ा जाए? दुर्घटनाओं को कैसे न्यून किया जाए? राष्ट्रीय अर्थव्यवस्था को कैसे प्रतियोगी बनाया जाए। सबसे बड़ा तेल उत्पादक देश ईवी में निवेश कर रहा है। हाइड्रजन दुनिया का ईंधन बनेगा। धनवान और प्रतिभाशाली लोग  देश छोड़ रहे हैं।

 
हम किस तरह की बातें कर रहे हैं!

 
नीरज कुमार झा

चुटकुला नहीं

हताश अपनी कृश काया से  
व्यक्ति, मान्य अतिबुद्धिमान  शरण आया । 
पूछा उपाय, शरीर कैसे बने ?
तुम जैसा शरीर चाहते हो, 
उसी नाप के कपड़े बनवा लो । 
उसे पहनने से तुम्हारा शरीर  वैसा हो जाएगा।  
बताने की जरूरत है कि 
उपाय सही नहीं है,
और यह चुटकुला भी नहीं है।  

नीरज कुमार झा