END OF HIBERNATION...

in the last blog i made an attempt to understand marxism by incorporating a greater degree of objectivity in my appoach....i concluded that i am anything but a marxist...this is something i know now...something i did not know back in college....
ideologies facinated me..they do now too...the difference lies in my perspective...
liberalism was one strand of thought with captured the imagination of many , including me ( if i may say so at the cost of contradicting myself)...
the economics taught in delhi univeristy with a neoclassical framework, emphasized the benefits and the 'goodness'of leissez faire... the merits of competition.... the condition for efficiency seemed to be equated with profit maximization..MR=MC...
these things appeared very mechanical to me...for the humanistic touch was so absent in the study of this'dismal science'...
papers like macroeconomics , national income accounts, discussed development and growth in the context of a rising GDP...that is if the government expenditure rises on things as arbit as financing the junket of a minister , the GDP figure will register an increase...
i was relieved to finally find that the stream of welfare economics, did have some answers to my questions....
the welfare of society could be incorporated in the general equilibrium framework, with the purpose of attaining efficiency...the only problem was the choice of social welfare function...Arrow's imposibility theorm , negates the possibility of a well behaved social welfare function ... so it is the interpersonal decision making , which can be used in arriving at such functions...a society which values the well being of the poorest will have a different welfare function than a dictatorial regime... or a society could assign weights to well being different income groups to arrive at a social welfare function...
the approach may seem elegant...but the question arises--who decides the weights??????
the question may seem simple...but the answer to it holds the key to failure of economic theory in answering questions of greater relevance to mankind... from an academic perspective one may make assumptions about the nature of decision takers....but we really need not be Einstein
to figure out, the distortions that creep in with relaxation of these assumptions...

so i was disappointed in college for failure on my part to get answers to questions pertaining to the synergy between competition and welfare....

contd..

IDEOLOGIES!!!

ideology is the the most impotrant factor in shaping ones character...perspective....and outlook..or so i thought in school days....
those were the days..yes i can never over the nostalgia..those were the best days of my life......
being a student of political science in plus 2, i was fortunate to be exposed to the theoretical background of ideologies galore.....ranging from socialism..to capitalism..to liberalism....to fascism....to the various facets of socialism....communism..and MARXISM.....

marxism was one ideology which facinated me immensely...its tenets made a great deal of sense to me....no other ideology was built on the foundations of exploitation...and the inherent schism...the principle of dialectical materialism was one aspect of marxism i was most facinated to...thesis...antithesis..synthesis...

so brimming with idealism..wanting to attain greater ideological maturity, i entered the portals of hindu college(derided by me in previous posts for entirely different set of reasons)...
college introduced me to AYN RAND.. to liberatarian philosophy...to leissez faire...(three years of training in neoclassical economics is bound to leave anyone questioning the judgement of indian policymakers..and their economic programmes)...

it sowed the seeds of confusion....thesis....antithesis....
confusion is good...it is indeed good.. for it forces you to look for answers...it forces you to hunt for it...

nonchalence to realism...i guess that was my problem...synthesis!!!

i started thinking....
ok! if marxism was all that practical then why did USSR fail????
maybe because dictatorship of proletariat did not mean dictatorship of ...stalin....of breznev....of khrushchev...et al....in the words of george orwell...equality did not really mean that some people are more equal than others.....
and if the principles of dialectics hold..then revolution would have been a natural progression...a historical climax...not a premeditated event....
revolt would have been against capitalists....in a capitalist state...not against monarchs.....in a state where capitalism has not grown much beyond the embryonic stage.........

why communism failed in east europe????for exactly the same reason..i suppose....
everyone seems to ignore the background against which revolution is stated to occur....

it seemed i had answers to some questions.....
so i wrote an article for college magazine discussing this antagonism..this confusion...and this dillema..
and what next..i am branded a communist!!!!

BRANDING is one thing i really hate about bigots and fanatics.....it creates scepticism...distrust...and is not healthy for intellectual growth of civil society....McCarthy and anti communist movt. in USA....the atrocities committes in USSR on those who did not agree""to walk on 2 legs"....have presented to us the extremes... the nadir....

so what i have learned is one simple lesson.....objectivity is the key to growth of intellect..and perspective....
ideology forces u to view everything from a lense.. the image is bound to be distorted in the absence of objectivity......

so the catch is i am not a marxist(for nw i believe that marxism or no marxism...only future has the answer ).....
i am not a liberatarian tooo....
cause if i am such a confused person and i have learned to look at everything with a greater degree of objectivity....then liberatarianism is my next TARGET....

more on it in the next blog.....

arrrrrrggggghhhhh

MTNL broadband SUCKS!!!!
i wrote a nice long article after days of deliberation... and when i try to publish it....boom...server down..i am sick of it...
i hope this one gets published without any hitch:(

options!!!

college has started...and this semester is KILLING!!! with balance of payments, envionmental economics, advanced topics in trade, advanced econometrics and game theory--i cant ask for any more reason to commit suicide!!!
and i thought that the life of an economist was easier....
the myth didnt take a lot of time to get shattered.....

LIVE 8 the biggest hoax!!

last sunday i watched the concert, named LIVE 8 to my bewilderment for reasons beyond my comprehension! In between the pop acts were sandwiched short documentries that projected the pathos of people suffering from poverty in african nations..the slogan was 'MAKE POVRTY HISTORY'....The underlying idea behind organizing such an event was to exert political pressure on the leaders of the G8 nations ahead of the G 8 summit, with respect to their role in eradication of poverty in africa.. everything was fine.....

but hold it... does anyone remember the stories on africa now...at least all that my ROCK CRAZY sister remembers is coldplay.. yes and i am sure the world over who ever attended the show would have recollections similar to my sisters....

also are the G8 leaders discussing african poverty in their summit????? lemme see...england is either busy celebrating the victory over paris in their bid to host olympic or busy recuperating after the terrorist attacks(al quaida is top on their list of priority)... while france is busy lamenting their loss in the bid.. on the other hand mr president (i guess that is what americanslaverized(new word i invented) indian media of the aaj tak variety calls him)
has no time for things as trivial as poverty(america does not have hunger death, so y shud they be concerned?), he has a royal birthday parties to attend..and his hand got injured recently eliciting media frenzy... do these hotshots simply dont have time!!!!!

moreover do blair, bush,chiraq et all watch ROCK???????????????????????????????
A big question... sadly the answer is not all that intricate..............

so then another question arises... why and for what was this LIVE 8 thing aimed at?????????it would be interesting to evaluate how global policy issues were influenced because of some ROCKSTARS!!!!! ANOTHER THING highly conspicuous by its absence in the concert was a single african singer(i do not mean will smithwho is an american)......so whose purpose was served after all the hullaballoo??????????
this is one question i really cannot answer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hmmmm

i am suffering frm what i called the writer's block..cant believe it is happening with me again..hopefully will get over it soon.....

somewhere i belong.....

"i wanna heal i wanna feel...............wat i found was never real....i wanna let go of the pain i felt so long...................i will break away........i will find myself today"
how i identify with the wordings of this song.........
not come across a song with as much depth as this since along long time......
only that i dont wanna sing it 5 yrs from now...
having 'found'myself finally..........

TOO MANY....

Too many spelling mistakes in last blog...
wen will i learn to type fast with 100% accuracy??????????

MEDIA MATTERS.....

I am an avid follower of politics.....be it indian politics or world politics......
a recent incident and the amount of unnecessary media coverage it received substantiated my concerns about indian media turning saffron...
indian media since the days of BJP govt , towed the line of people in power ... following their dictats, and thereby forcing the " un intelligent" ,"gullible" and impressionalbe indian populace to feel india shining brightly in the sky..........oh well!!
even after the voters rejected the falsifying myth of india shine.... even after millions of indians suffering from deprivation did not accept the analogy drawn between happy nation and rising sensex.........the great indian media wont budge from its stand....numbed from wat they perceived as an utterly unexpected incident.... as if!!

so lemme come to the point.. recently in a desperate attempt to get himself a makeover of the secular variety (' jassi 's contribution to the circus they call politics..) mr advani went on a flip flop yet again.... praising the masiha of hindu nationalists shyamaprasad mukherjee at a public function...... what is he trying to prove...putting a mask and unmasking himself..interesting juxtaposition..he needs a break from underestimating the intelligence of indian voters.... advani and his ilk an their credentials need no more exposure........ the majoritorian politics is his brainchild..an is pursued with immense faith by another joker of the hindu variety -- praveen togaria....as if media is so innocent to not be able to see thru the game......

another man who is attracting too much of media limelight is rss cheif k.s sudarshan... wat is his base an from where does he draw mass support is the stuff to be researched...it is amusing for me to see every single crap uttered by him becomes a page 1 news item...let the poverty deaths an other stories of public concern go down the drains.....wat is the reason behind this warped sensibility that media suffers from????????
more to say...
in the next blog maybe....

AMBITIONS!!!

THER COMES A TIME IN OUR LIVES... wen we have to make a decision...'bout the paths we choose an the careers we select..... for me things went smoothly till the TIME arrived.. yes i had to decide wat i wanted to do --- engineering, medicine or anything else of less concequence(in da words of my ENLIGHTENED teachers from school)... the fact that i had topped my school in 10 th was an added concern... but the thickskinned that i am decided to take up the subject i loved the most--HISTORY..to the shock of my history teacher!!(imagine?!)...so took up humanities and limited my options.....this was one decision i dont know whether to regret or be happy about?????
rest in another blog...

LIFE LESS!!

STRUGLLIN wid MS excel........
go grant me some peace...

back to life???

life acts funny at times..... here i am slogin my ass at the library jottin arbit amendments and feelin terribly low......and there ir expects me to key everythin in an still not understanding as to wat i am really learnin......well part of her concerns arent wrong.... i am expected to slog it out to write a term paper(hell! did anyone thought u learn anythin in doin such a thing)...so to sum it up i didnt really learn anything at this so called summer internship , but slogging it out for nothin..(my life SUCKS!!).....
Meanwhile one whole year at JNU & not turned LEFTIST... shocking by any standards....left ideology has no problem... the real problem begins with execution.....how do u prevent the dependence on MNCs without havin indian firms do well in the concerned sector.... it was fashionable to support the exit of NESCAFE but to allow MNCs coming into the campus for recruitment speaks volumes of the inherent hypocricy that left ideology all over the world suffers from.....as if mikhail gorbachev doin an ad for Mc donald was'nt a sign...... left in JNU to me seems to profess what I term as regression---stagnation---perpetual doom..... they glamorize poverty--the pain of deprivation.... to these MONA DASes WHO dont even bother to pay their mess bills on time(her name figured inda LIST) , the real pain behind poverty is too glamorous to be left alone... they r content with livin a life of modst means--teachin in some arbit college in some arbit lace on earth.... so haow the hell they end up upliftin the poor remains a big question mark.......or they join some NGO whose lifeline is da money pumped into india by some foreign agency(whose source will undoubtedly be the corporates)... so does someone have da intelligence to ask these self proclaimed champions of humanity about their contribution to society in the vocations they choose after studies........
so much to writ ...
some other time....

BACK TO LIFE

after 8 hrs of killin schedule in office......this is my fav time....in front of my comp.......listenin to linkin park..........& doin wat i always wanted to do..........HELL!! writin a blog.............'tis a confusin time for me...really dunno wat to do ????wen i dont get time for gre study in office....is undoubtedly da most frustratin day for me..............
god save me!!