Robot: 10 Facts

08 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by in Economics, employees, INTERNATIONAL NEWS, Readers News Service

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The automotive industry dominates the ever growing field of robotics.

Takeaways

  • The automotive industry is the largest user of industrial robots worldwide.
  • China — the world’s largest producer of cars — currently has 281 robots per 10,000 automotive industry workers.
  • The US employed 152 robots in all industries per 10,000 workers in 2013, tripling the global average.

1.South Korea employed 437 robots per 10,000 manufacturing workers as of 2013 — the highest robot density in the world.

2.South Korea has held the top spot since 2011, when it overtook Japan.

3.Japan’s industrial robot density in 2013 was 323 per 10,000 workers.

4.Third-ranked Germany had 282 robots in use per 10,000 workers — the highest rate in Europe.

5.One of the things South Korea, Japan and Germany all have in common is a huge automotive industry.

6.The automotive industry is the largest user of industrial robots. Other robot-intensive industries include electronics, metals, plastics and food.

7.China — the world’s largest producer of cars — currently has 281 robots per 10,000 automotive industry workers.

8.In all other industries, China’s robot industry rate was only about 14 per 10,000 workers.

9.The United States employed 152 robots in all industries per 10,000 workers in 2013.

10.While the U.S.’s robot density is just about a third of South Korea’s, it is almost three times the global rate of 62 robots per 10,000 manufacturing workers.

Source: World Robots 2014, International Federation of Robotics, with analysis by The Globalist Research Center

Why Good U.S. Jobs Are Too Few and Wages So Poor

08 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by in Current Affairs, INTERNATIONAL NEWS, Readers News Service, USA

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The lack of workers trained for a more technologically demanding workplace is slowing growth.

By , January 8, 2016   theglobalist.com

Credit: VLADGRINShutterstock.com

Takeaways

  • The future lies not in being angry about false injustice, rather in building and teaching machines.
  • Lack of workers trained for a more technologically demanding workplace is slowing growth.
  • By 2030, it will become technologically possible to replace 90% of the jobs with smart machines.
  • The globalization of technology will relegate us to low paying work better left to androids.
  • Four in ten graduates lack the complex reasoning skills needed for white-collar work.

Americans are justified to be angry about the economic recovery. This is a bipartisan challenge.

Since Ronald Reagan ran the country, the availability of attractive employment has been trending down and slowing economic growth is often blamed.

During Obama’s recovery, U.S. GDP has advanced at a 2.2% annual pace, whereas the comparable figures for the Reagan and Clinton presidencies were 4.6% and 3.7%.

But that puts the story backwards — the lack of workers adequately trained for a more technologically demanding workplace is slowing growth, not the other way around.

Switch to automation

Automation has been an enduring theme throughout American history. First, reapers and tractors consolidated farms and sent workers to factories.

Then machines replaced workers in manufacturing, pushing them into more highly paid professions in medicine, education and technology (but also less well paid occupations in restaurants, retailing and other services).

Until recently, computer-programmed machines could be taught strenuous and repetitive tasks like attaching a heavy, rigid fender onto an automobile.

Going forward, robots will increasingly replace people in activities requiring more-subtle manual dexterity—like making shirts and harvesting fruit—and those requiring more complex cognitive processes like masonry construction, driving limousines and building newrobots that adapt to changing environmental conditions.

The drug store I visit in Washington no longer has cashiers—just a group of checkout machines and one clerk to assist technologically flummoxed patrons.

Over the next two decades, robots will be capable of unloading pallets, stocking shelves, filling prescriptions, and generally running the store with minimal human intervention.

Flawed education system?

By 2030, it will become technologically possible to replace 90% of the jobs as we know them with smart machines.

The real challenge, however, will be training most Americans to engage in intellectually demanding and creative work.

Otherwise, the globalization of technology and competition will relegate most of us to very low paying work better left to androids.

In 2016, Americans should be skeptical, not merely of false promises to restore prosperity made by Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, but also outraged by the handiwork of mainstream politicians.

The latters’ efforts to make a U.S. high school diploma universal have made it a nearly worthless credential.

Less than 40% of 12th graders are ready to read or learn math at the college level, and many fewer have skills to enter technically demanding positions without post-secondary training.

A college diploma is not much better. After millions of unqualified students have been pushed into universities, four in ten graduates lack the complex reasoning skills needed for white-collar work — as it exists today.

Machines equipped with high-level artificial intelligence could replace armies of stockbrokers, insurance adjusters and restaurant managers over the next several decades.

Need for more technical skills

Meanwhile the president and his presumptive heir, Hillary Clinton, remain wedded to pushing more people into college (and too often into debt) without regard for whether this investment could possibly pay off.

And conservatives—including the likes of Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio — oppose universal standards for more academic rigor like the Common Core.

The future lies in educating Americans, not to be angry about false injustice or an omnipresent state, but rather to build and teach the machines that will do the work that has burdened humanity since the first branch was shaped into a hunting implement.

Without young people trained and encouraged to do that sophisticated work, the locus of prosperity will permanently shift from America to Asia.

There, pragmatic leaders urge children to study engineering, not the personal and institutional hobbyhorses peddled by pious academics and deceitful politicians.

Number of Americans Who Identify as Bisexual on the Rise

08 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by in International, INTERNATIONAL NEWS, Readers News Service, USA, Women

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By Kali Holloway / AlterNet

Razvan Raz / Shutterstock

It seems fitting that as we close out a year in which sexual fluidity was one of the most discussed topics, a new study finds that the number of adult Americans who identify as bisexual is on the rise.

That’s according to the Centers for Disease Control, which assessed sexual attitudes of more than 9,000 U.S. residents aged 18-44. The survey found that between 2011 and 2013, an increasing number of respondents reported same-sex sexual contact and bisexual self-identification.

As in other recent surveys, the CDC report found U.S. women outpaced men in reporting bisexuality. Two percent of men polled labeled themselves bisexual, up from 1.2 percent in the 2006-2010 survey. Women, at 5.5 percent, up from 3.9 percent in the previous poll, were nearly three times as likely to identify as bisexual than men.

Fittingly, the report notes an increase in the number of American women who report same-sex sexual contact. This was true of 14.2 percent of women polled in 2006-2010—a figure that rose to 17.4 in the most recent survey. Just 6.2 percent of men say they’ve had sexual contact with other men.

CNN notes that researchers identified some race-linked disparities among survey respondents. Hispanic and Latina women, at 11.2 percent, were least likely to have had sexual contact with other women. Conversely, 19.6 percent of white women and 19.4 percent of black women reported having had same-sex sexual contact.

In late 2015, a study at the University of Essex became somewhat controversial due to researchers’ determination that “100 percent heterosexual” women simply don’t exist. The study assessed women’s involuntary physical responses, such as pupil dilation, when shown sexually suggestive videos of both men and women. Overwhelmingly, women who identified as lesbian showed signs of arousal almost solely with images of women. But heterosexual women involved in the study responded to both.

“Even though the majority of women identify as straight, our research clearly demonstrates that when it comes to what turns them on, they are either bisexual or gay, but never straight,” said the study’s lead author Gerulf Rieger, in a statement that garnered a few interesting responses.

The 2014-2015 edition of the CDC study is slated for release this fall.

Communist MP who shocked nation with outrageous statements need not apologize

08 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by in History, INTERNATIONAL NEWS, Left politics

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| Daniela Lazarová  radio.cz

  • Communist Party MP Marta Semelová, who shocked many with her comments on the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia and the judicial murder of Milada Horáková in the 1950s, will not have to apologize for her words. A Prague district court dismissed the case against her on Wednesday, saying that the complaint was legally unsubstantiated.

Marta Semelová, photo: CTK

Marta Semelová, photo: CTK

Marta Semelová, one of the most outspoken members of the communist party, enjoyed her moment of triumph in court on Wednesday, smirking at her critics in the packed courtroom, many of whom were ordered out after calling out “shame” and otherwise protesting against the ruling. Semelová, who said in an interview on Czech Television that the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia had in reality been “international assistance” and who cast doubt over whether Milada Horáková’s confession in the 1950s show trial had been enforced, told Czech Television shortly after the verdict that she had expected no less.

“I stand fully by my words. I think this court case against me was completely absurd.”

Although Semelová presented the case as an attack against freedom of speech, the judge made it quite clear that the law left him no other option but to dismiss the case. The complaint against Semelová was filed by lawyer and politician Michal Kincl, who said that the Communist MPs words had offended him as a citizen and raised fears of a possible return to power of a criminal regime. He asked for a written apology and that Semelová publicly withdraw her words.

The judge said that although he wholeheartedly disagreed with the statements made by the MP, they could not be qualified as having damaged Kincl’s interests or infringed on his rights. He ended his speech by saying that the public could make its own conclusions on Semelová’s opinions.

“It is good that the defendant says these things out aloud so that we know what her views are and that she thereby reminds us of the times the return of which the complainant fears.”

Michal Kincl appealed the verdict almost immediately although he told journalists he understood the judge’s reasoning. He said he valued the fact that Judge Freibert had openly stated that he disagreed with Semelová’s views and had made it clear that the verdict should not be regarded as her moral victory.

This was also the line taken by commentators and legal experts who commented on the ruling in the media. Filip Melzer, an expert on civil law, told Czech Radio no other outcome could have been expected since by her words the Communist Party MP had neither damaged Mr. Kincl’s interests, nor his reputation.

An earlier complaint filed against Semelová in 2014 by the NGO ProtiAlt, which said that her comments propagated hatred and intolerance, was shelved by the police on the grounds that the statements did not qualify as a crime.

Build A Stronger CPI(M)

08 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by in CPI(M), Current Affairs, INDIA, Left politics, NATIONAL NEWS

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Sitaram Yechury

The CPI(M)’s Plenum on Organization, as mandated by the 21st Congress, convened and completed its work “by the end of 2015”.  It is a creditable achievement that the CPI(M) could successfully implement this mandate within a short period of eight months.

Party Central Committee had decided on a fairly comprehensive and elaborate procedure and time table for the conduct of the Plenum.  A detailed questionnaire  was prepared by the Party Centre to gather extensive information from the state committees regarding the current state of affairs of the Party organisation  and the details of its functioning.  The replies sent by the state committees were examined and on that basis, both the Draft Report and Draft Resolution on Organization were prepared. The intensity of the preparatory work can be understood by the fact that during the period since the Party Congress and the convening of the Plenum, the Polit Bureau met separately four times and the Central Committee three times in the run-up to the Plenum.

The deliberations of the Plenum began from the late afternoon of December 27th after the conclusion of a gigantic rally in Kolkata Brigade Parade Grounds.  Even the bourgeois media had to concede that this was the largest ever rally held at the Brigade in the recent past.  The composition of the people who converged at the rally, braving all attacks and blockading attempts by the Trinamul Congress, nailed the lie of our class enemies and the bourgeois media that youth are not being attracted towards the CPI(M).  Youth from all over the state of West Bengal enthusiastically participated in this rally.

For a Communist party, the importance of the Party organisation can never be understated.  It is the Party’s principal weapon in carrying the Party’s understanding and its political line to the vast mass of the Indian people.  Without a well-oiled and efficient Party organisation, the Party cannot develop deep links with the Indian people and champion their interests.

Revolutionary Party with a Mass Line

The successful conclusion of this Plenum began the process of revitalizing the Party organisation and the reinvigorating the rank and file to move forward in a faster manner to achieve our objectives.  The 21st Party Congress adopted the Political Resolution, reviewed its political-tactical line and laid down the P-TL for the coming three years, restoring the primacy of building the Left and democratic front.  This Plenum on Organization, therefore, focused  on strengthening and streamlining our Party organizational capacities to fulfill these objectives.

This re-doubling of the CPI(M)’s resolve to meet the current challenges can only be carried forward by unleashing mightier people’s struggles.  This means directly that we should enlarge the independent strength of our Party in a big way.  This needs to be done in conformity with our adopted political-tactical line that reiterates the need for changing the correlation of class forces among the Indian people in favour of the Left and Democratic Front (LDF).  This LDF has to be strong enough to present to the Indian people a class alternative based on an alternative set of policies instead of leaving the people at the mercy of choosing between one bourgeois party/formation or the other.  The LDF, by changing the correlation of class forces among the Indian people, will be the precursor to the forging of the unity of the People’s Democratic Front, under whose leadership the Indian revolution will advance through the People’s Democratic Revolution  to Socialism.

Thus, the Plenum reiterated the character of the CPI(M) as a revolutionary party  based on the tenets of Marxism-Leninism while its line at this current conjuncture is to strengthen the links with the Indian people. i.e., a revolutionary party with a mass line.

Strengthen Organisational Capacities

These revolutionary objectives cannot be accomplished unless we vastly develop the Party’s organizational capacities.  There, however, are very formidable challenges.  The crisis globally and in our country and society continues to deepen rapidly. Wisdom of an old saying informs us that “in every crisis situation, there is an opportunity”. At the Plenum, the CPI(M) decided to seize such opportunities to advance.

The CPI(M) is best placed to advance as the political party of the working class rallying the support of all the exploited classes of our people in a situation of the world capitalist crisis which shows that no amount of reforms under capitalism can liberate people from intensifying exploitation. This can be done only through the political alternative of Socialism. Further, the CPI(M) has an alternative policy framework, for India, which will enable our people to realise their inherent potential and create a better India on that basis. This alternative offers the Indian youth a vision for a better future by marshalling our country’s resources to provide our youth with quality education, good health and sustainable employment, as opposed to the current policies that enormously widen economic inequalities. The CPI(M) remains the consistent political force that advocates and struggles for the unity of our multi-religious, multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic population against all efforts at disrupting such unity by sharpening communal polarisation and thwarting the RSS/BJP designs to impose their project of a rabidly intolerant fascistic ‘Hindu Rashtra’.  Simultaneously, the CPI(M) consistently fights against terrorism and fundamentalism of all hues. Majority communalism and minority fundamentalism feed and strengthen each other.  The CPI(M) intensifies movements to abolish caste based untouchability, along with all expressions of discrimination and social oppression of all varieties.  In a morass of fast degenerating political morality, the CPI(M) stands out as an example combating corruption and moral degradation in public life.

This record of the CPI(M) provides us the opportunity to build upon this further to achieve the objectives of galvanizing the Party organisation.

Concrete Analysis of Concrete Conditions

The CPI(M) has consistently  advocated the Leninist dictum: “concrete analysis of concrete conditions is the living essence of dialectics”. In pursuance of this, the CPI(M) established three study groups to study the concrete changes that have occurred during the last two decades of neo-liberalism.  On the basis of the findings of these study groups, the Plenum decided to strengthen class and mass struggles by: forging a broad front of agricultural workers, poor peasants, middle peasants, rural workers in the non-farm sections, artisans and other sections of the rural poor against the landlord-rural rich nexus; organising workers in key and strategic industries; organising contract workers in both the organized and unorganized sectors; establishing area-based organisations in coordination between trade unions, youth, women etc.; organising the urban poor in the bastis/local areas; establishing occupation based neighbourhood-mohallah-basti committees; strengthening work amongst the middle classes particularly ideological work by the establishment of various fora like citizens forums, platforms to promote cultural activities/actions; scientific temper and others related to their life and work; and strengthening work in residential associations, pensioners associations and professional bodies.

Implementing a Proper Cadre Policy

A Communist Party is always built from the top. Hence, to accomplish the strengthening of our organisation, the Plenum underlined that these efforts must begin by strengthening the Party Centre and proceeding towards improving the  quality of the Party at all levels.  Amongst many other measures to achieve this, the Plenum highlighted the need for implementing a proper cadre policy by identifying and promoting younger comrades and ensuring the entrusting of tasks on the basis of a collective assessment of concerned committees; nurturing such cadre as Party wholetimers – symbols of ideological conviction and sacrifice in the struggles for a revolutionary transformation – and strictly ensuring a proper wage structure for the Party wholetimers and maintaining regularity of payment.

As a part of effective cadre building, the Plenum emphasized the need of holding regular Party schools and preparing a central syllabus, along with a list of essential reading for self-study and vastly improving the reach and quality of Party papers and publications and making special efforts to upgrade their form and content.

Intensify Struggles against Social Oppression

Underlining the CPI(M) understanding that the issues of economic exploitation and social oppression are the `two feet’ upon which stands the advance of class struggles in India, the Plenum highlighted the need for strengthening the Party organizational capabilities to intensify struggles against gender oppression, discrimination against the dalits, tribals, disabled and religious minorities, by the Party as a whole. The CPI(M) must advance by walking and then running on these `two feet’.

Combating Communalism

The Plenum underlined the need to strengthen organizational capabilities to combat the current ideological offensive of the communal forces by undertaking various measures like: mobilising litterateurs, scientists, historians, cultural personalities and other sections of intellectuals; taking initiatives at the pre-school and school level by involving teachers and social organisations paying special attention to organise social and cultural activities to propagate scientific temper and secular values; evolving special activities to combat the penetration of communal influence amongst the exploited classes, dalits and adivasis; setting up of broad-based cultural platforms for propagation of progressive and secular values and cultural productions.  The trade unions and other mass organisations should also organize cultural and social activities in their localities. Organising social service activities like health centres, educational coaching centres, reading rooms, relief work and so on are essential along with the urgent need to  strengthen popular science and literary movements.

Urgent Essential Tasks

Building the capabilities of the Party organisation requires that the CPI(M) must undertake measures to strengthen our links with the Indian people in order to unleash mightier people’s struggles.  This needs, first and foremost,  the implementation of  the mass line of the Party to ensure the deepening of live links with the people. This means, apart from strengthening the local Party units to unleash a large variety of local struggles, we must focus on advancing the agrarian revolution, the axis of the democratic revolution, by forging unity in struggles of all rural exploited sections of people thereby strengthening efforts to develop the worker-peasant alliance.

The immediate focus must be on forging class and mass struggles on economic and social issues to widen the Party’s influence and to rally the Left and democratic forces; adopting a mass line and establish live links with the people; streamlining the organisation to build a revolutionary Party with quality membership of high quality; making special efforts to attract youth to the Party;  and waging the ideological struggle against communalism, neo-liberalism and reactionary ideologies.

The Plenum decided that the decisions contained in the adopted documents – Resolution and the Report – must be implemented in a time-bound fashion beginning from the Party Polit Bureau and Central Committee.  As some states will soon be going in for assembly elections, the Plenum decided that all state committees, in accordance with their concrete conditions, must concretize time-bound implementation plans and review them in a year’s time.

The Plenum concluded by calling  upon the entire Party, the rank and file, its sympathizers and well-wishers to rally together to implement these decisions with an urgent resolve. This is the only way that the CPI(M) can advance towards discharging its responsibility of ensuring a revolutionary social transformation in our country.

Forward towards a stronger CPI(M) with an all India mass base!
Forward towards a revolutionary Party with a Mass Line!

Marxism does not attack religion per se

08 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by in Communalism, CPI(M), Current Affairs, History, INDIA, Left politics, RELIGION, Religious Intolarence

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Sitaram Yechury

[This text is based on the speech delivered by Sitaram Yechury, General Secretary of CPI(M)  at the valedictory function of the 83rd Sivagiri Pilgrimage Celebrations on January 1, 2016 at Kerala.]

It is, indeed, an honour to be here at Sivagiri. My heartfelt thanks for being invited to share some thoughts with all of you in the concluding session of the 83rd Sivagiri Pilgrimage celebrations. It is, indeed, a very new and an appropriate way to begin the new year. A Happy New Year to all of you.

I belong to a generation that grew up on the values propagated by Srinarayana Guru – `the oneness of humanity’, with no social barriers on the grounds of caste, religion, region etc.  The slogan of `one caste, one religion, one god’ is an elevated expression of humanism which recognizes the value of a human being  as being supreme. A value that recognizes all human beings as being equal, irrespective of all social divisions.  This universality of oneness of humanity, in a sense, crystallizes the finest elements of  rational thought and philosophy that emerged in the course of the advance of human civilization in these lands.  As “different rivers flow through different courses to merge in the ocean”, so do different human beings through the practice of individual beliefs and faith eventually merge with humanity as a whole. This is humanism of the highest variety.

Such humanism has a strong resonance with the Communist philosophy and worldview.  The overriding concern of Marxism is humanism.  In fact, Karl Marx had once said, “Nothing human is alien to me”.  It is the pursuit of the simple question of what constitutes the real freedom of a human being and his consequent liberation, Marx proceeded to reject the Hegelian idea of the revolution of the mind as articulated by Feuerbach, during his time, to come to a conclusion of seminal importance.  This was: consciousness of a human being is determined by the social conditions and not vice a versa. “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but on the contrary their social being that determines their consciousness”.

Marxism’s focus on changing the concrete conditions of material existence, as the basic pre-requisite for human liberation, emerges from this understanding and hence Marx’s own scientific study on the real living conditions of the people and his consequent dissection of capitalism.

It, indeed, sounds as a strange paradox that a practitioner of Marxism, a Communist foot soldier, a confirmed atheist has been invited to be here as a part of these pilgrimage celebrations.  A  great deal of controversy has always existed regarding the Marxist understanding of religion. The popular perception is the normally out of context quotation that “religion is the opium of the people”. In fact, deliberately, the passage in which this statement finds place is never quoted in the full. Marx had stated :”Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world, just as it is the spirit of the spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people”.

Religion, is the opium in the sense that it is as potent as opium in transporting human beings to an illusory world. For a human being who is oppressed, religion provides the escape for  relief, it provides  a “heart in a heartless world, a spirit in a spiritless situation.” This is the strength and power of religion. It is like opium that the people are fed, to lull themselves into submission, robbing them of their inherent potential to change the real world, and hence, remain in conditions which appear outside of both their comprehension and control.

Marxism does not attack religion per se. It’s attack is on the conditions that give rise to the conditions that perpetuate the hold of religion on the people.  The point is to change the real world; to  transform the comforts of an illusory world into concrete reality. Therefore, as a Communist, we can assure you that the CPI(M) will be the foremost upholder of every individual’s right to his/her choice of their faith and their right to maintain their beliefs and propagate them.  We will defend,  till the last breath, this right of the individual choice and protect the faith of every individual. It, therefore, necessarily follows that we shall also protect everybody against any attempt to interfere into the rights of individual liberty of faith by any body of thought or action.  This is precisely what the communal forces attempt to do today.  The CPI(M)’s opposition to communalism is, hence, integral to both its philosophy and practice.

This growth of rabid communal polarization that we see around us today runs completely in contradiction with the body of thought and action that the Guru has bequeathed to us.   This rich legacy and the philosophical activities that the Guru undertook had heralded a movement for social renaissance in Kerala.  Remember, Swami Vivekananda had once described the Kerala society as a `mad house’ of casteism.  The Guru, through his philosophy of oneness of humanity,  spread the indomitable values of equality and humanism.  Kerala was a society where caste prejudices went beyond even the obnoxious practice of untouchability. In Kerala, there was the practice of unseability. Comrade EMS Namboodiripad used to tell us that in his childhood, it was not unusual to see some `unfortunate’ human beings carrying a bell around their neck whose sound would warn the  upper castes, to take a different path!

It was the social renaissance heralded by the Guru, amongst others, that has transformed this society into one with the most progressive values in the country today. In the process, Kerala society has achieved such advances in its human development indices that it matches and, in some cases, outstrips the standards existing in the developed capitalist countries today. In the field of literacy, education, gender equality and other social parameters, Kerala proudly stands at the top on the  rest of India.

The Guru used spirituality as a propelling force for upward social mobility of the people. In this process, he developed a unique combination of materialism and spiritualism, propagating The Buddha’s preachings of the control over the Body, Word, Mind, Food and Deed.   The consecration of the Shiva Lingam in 1888 – the Aruvippuram Prathishta – remains a landmark that has gone way beyond being a symbolic gesture.

Yet another resonance with Marxist philosophy is the Guru’s emphasis on “freedom through education, strength through organisation, economic independence through industry”.  In a sense, this brings me to the point of urging all of you to explore further a thought: Spiritualism is  not to be confined within the boundaries of religion or religiosity.  Of course, there is religious spiritualism which could also be call Theistic spiritualism. On the other hand, there is also an Atheistic spiritualism. Here, spiritualism is understood as the elevation of human  consciousness to the levels of refined humanism.  Such elevation of human consciousness can be achieved as much by a materialist philosophy as it can be through a Theistic theology.  (This is a tautological term, but I am using it only to emphasise the point.)

The Guru’s philosophy spread far and wide beyond the confines of Kerala. I am told that Mahatma Gandhi came here thrice during our freedom movement.  Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore came to meet the Guru in 1922. This surely was a meeting of minds.  Tagore had by then penned the Nobel Prize winning immortal lines to awaken India: “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;”.

The Guru’s teachings and personal example appear to be not merely relevant but more necessary to meet the challenges before us today.  On the one hand, the material basis of  existence for the vast mass of our people and the country, as a consequence of embracing the neo-liberal policy trajectory by the Indian ruling classes, is deteriorating. Unless material needs are satisfied, the growth of spiritualism leading to social renaissance and, therefore, to cultural renaissance would be simply impossible.  The economic policies followed  by the current government at the Centre and, to a large extent, by the government in Kerala, only buttress such material regression of our people’s lives.  These policies need to be resisted and reversed.  This is one focus of CPI(M)’s activities today.

On the other hand, the CPI(M)’s other focus is against the growing communal polarization and the vicious pursuit of consolidating the Hindutva  communal vote bank politics which is leading to severe ruptures in our society that can well destroy the unity and integrity of India.  Under the present Central government, both these aspects of anti-people economic reforms and communal polarization constitute its singular agenda.  In the process, the communal forces even make an attempt to forcibly appropriate the Guru’s philosophy and legacy.

This, simply, cannot be allowed. Such efforts, in particular, have to be defeated in order to carry ourselves to higher levels of social and material existence as envisaged and propagated by the Guru.  The efforts to replace the  rich Indian history with Hindu theology and the evolution of the syncretic Indian philosophy with a monolithic Hindu theology will have to be resisted and defeated.

I wish the Srinarayana Guru Mutt all success in its efforts to relentlessly continue to propagate the Guru’s philosophy  and vision of the `oneness of humanity’ and not permit any effort at hijacking this rich legacy to serve the narrow ends of communal forces.

Thank you once again for giving me this honour of sharing some of my thoughts at this sacred Srinarayana Guru Mutt.

counterview.net: Left-wing education association opposes Right to Education Act, says RTE promotes private investors in India

08 Friday Jan 2016

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RTE “does not cover all students, education at all levels even at the elementary stage”, it has come “sequel of another flopped flagship programme of the former UPA government, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA)”

Source: counterview.net: Left-wing education association opposes Right to Education Act, says RTE promotes private investors in India

రూపాయి విరాళానికి ప్రచారఖర్చు పాతిక

08 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by in AP NEWS, Current Affairs, INDIA, NATIONAL NEWS, Others

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చంద్రబాబు చేతిలో మంత్రదండం !

సత్య

ఆంధ్రప్రదేశ్‌ ముఖ్యమంత్రి చంద్రబాబు నాయుడి చేతిలో మంత్రదండటం వుందా ? భక్తులను కరుణించేందుకు గతంలో పుట్టపర్తి సత్యసాయి బాబా హాంఫట్‌ అంటూ విభూతి,బంగారు చైనులు తీసి ఇచ్చేవాడని,ఆయన వేలు ముంచటంతో బకెట్‌లోని నీరు పెట్రోలుగా మారిందని గతంలో చెప్పారు. తిరుపతి జన్మభూమి సభలో అక్కడికక్కడ ఒక విద్యార్ధికి ఒక టాబ్‌ను చంద్రబాబు బహుకరించారంటే ఆయన కూడా అదే పరంపరకు చెంది వుండాలి.

ఎవరైనా బడి ఎగ్గొడితే మందలించాలి.పిల్లలను బడి ఎగ్గొట్టించి పిల్లలను తీసుకువస్తే టీచర్లను మందలించాలి. కానీ చంద్రబాబు నాయుడు ఏం చేశారు ? వచ్చిన 23 మంది పిల్లల్లో వుపన్యాసం చేసిన విద్యార్ధినికి టాబ్‌ బహుకరించారు. ఆది ఆయన జేబులోంచి తీశారా, పక్కన వున్న అధికారి చేతిలోది లాక్కొని ఇచ్చారా లేక ముందే చెప్పుకున్నట్లు మంత్రదండంతో సృష్టించారా అన్నది గొర్రెల గోత్రాలు కాపర్లకు ఎరుక అన్నట్లు తెలుగు దేశం మాజీ నాయకురాలు ప్రస్తుతం ఆ జిల్లాకు చెందిన వైసిపి శాసనసభ్యురాలు రోజాను అడగాల్సిందే.

సినిమాల్లో, కధల్లో మాఫియా నాయకుడు ఫలానా రోజున ఫలానా చోట నాకు ఇంత సొమ్ము తెచ్చి ఇవ్వాలని ఆదేశాలు జారీ చేయటం తెలిసిందే. అది కూడా స్వచ్ఛందంగానే అని తెలుసు కదా. అదే మాదిరి నా రాజధాని… నా అమరావతి…. నా ఇటుక పేరుతో ప్రతి విద్యార్ధి, టీచరు తలా పది రూపాయల చొప్పున విధిగా విరాళంగా వసూలు చేసి పంపాలని పాఠశాల విద్యాశాఖ ఆదేశాలు జారీ చేయటంపై ప్రభుత్వం హైకోర్టులో మొట్టికాయలు తిన్నది. బలవంతపు వసూళ్లు చేయటం లేదని, గతంలో ఇచ్చిన వుత్తరువులను సవరిస్తూ ఒక మెమో జారీ చేశామని ప్రభుత్వం హైకోర్టుకు తెలిపింది. ఈ వ్యవహారంపై ప్రభుత్వ పరువు పోవటంతో విరాళాల వసూలుకు ఆదేశాలు ఇచ్చిన అధికారులపై ఆగ్రహించి, చర్య తీసుకోవాలని ముఖ్య మంత్రి ఆదేశించారన్న వార్తలు కూడా పక్కపక్కనే వచ్చాయి. అంటే బాబుగారు మంచోరే మధ్యలో అధికారులే ఆయనకు మచ్చ తెస్తున్నారనే భజనలో భాగం కూడా ఇది కావచ్చు. ఎందుకంటే ఇలాంటి చర్యల వార్తల ప్రకారం నిజంగా ప్రభుత్వాలు చర్యలు తీసుకుంటే ఈ పాటికి ఒక్క అధికారి కూడా మిగిలి వుండేవారు కాదు, అన్నింటికి మించి ఇలాంటి వుత్తరువులు వచ్చి వుండేవి కాదు. ఎందుకంటే వుత్తరువులు ఇవ్వనేల ఆపైన చర్యలకు గురికానేల అని ఏపనీ చేసే వారు కాదు. ఇంత జరిగాక కూడా స్కూలు ఎగ్గొట్టి పలమనేరు నుంచి తిరుపతికి 120 కిలోమీటర్ల దూరం మూడు గంటల పాటు ప్రయాణించి 23 మంది పిల్లలు స్వచ్ఛందంగా పోగుచేసిన 230 రూపాయల విరాళాన్ని జన్మభూమి సభలో అందచేశారు. అంతదూరం ప్రయాణించటానికి వారికి అంతకంటే కొన్ని రెట్లు ఎక్కువ ఖర్చు అయి వుండాలి. వారికి రానుపోను ఛార్జీలు, ఎంతో సమయం వెచ్చించాలి గనుక పిల్లలకు భోజనాల ఖర్చు ఇవన్నీ కలుపుకుంటే రూపాయి విరాళానికి పాతిక రూపాయల ప్రచార ఖర్చు అన్నట్లు ఆ మొత్తాన్ని ఎవరు భరించారు?

పలమనేరులో జన్మభూమి సభ జరుగుతూ వుండి వుంటే పిల్లలు వుత్సాహపడి విరాళం అందచేశారంటే అర్ధం చేసుకోవచ్చు. కనీసం పక్క నియోజకవర్గం కూడా కాదు, జిల్లా కేంద్రమూ కాదు, చిత్తూరు దాటి ప్రయాణించి రావాలి. ఇది టీచర్లు లేదా అధికారపార్టీ కార్యకర్తలు గానీ ముఖ్యమంత్రి మెప్పుకోసం నిర్వహించిన కార్యక్రమం తప్ప మరొకటి కాదు. దీన్ని అవకాశంగా తీసుకొని తాము స్వచ్ఛందంగానే విరాళాలు కోరామని, వత్తిడి చేయలేదని సదుద్దేశ్యంతో ముందుకు పోతుంటే కొందరు తప్పుడు ఆరోపణలు చేస్తున్నారని, కోర్టులకూ వెళ్లారని వాళ్లు ఏ పనీ చేయరనీ ముఖ్య మంత్రి ధ్వజమెత్తారు. ఇతరులు తప్పుడు ఆరోపణలు చేశారని చెప్పిన సిఎం వుత్తరువును సవరించినట్లు కోర్టుకు అడ్వకేట్‌ జనరల్‌ ద్వారా విన్నపం చేయించటం ఏమిటి ?