Archive for September, 2016
THE SAME STORY
When I was in school,me and my friends received postcards that were feared.In most instances, we didn’t even bother to read the contents.The cards were torn and thrown away.We were discouraged from reading the cards.
Now what was in those cards that sent the proverbial chills down our spines?
The cards didn’t have any sender details.The recipient of the card was in the name of some god was asked to write the same message and forward it to 100 people.In case the recipient followed the instructions, there would be a reward in the form of blessings from the almighty.This is not the end of the story.Anyone who read the message and did not follow the instructions was threatened with divine retribution.So it was better not to read.
Now in the age of the internet and the social networks,things have changed but not the attitudes.I have come across such messages in my Facebook timeline. The message is tagged and shared and the tagged person is required to do the same for the fear of attracting divine wrath !
Such messages contain images of gods,goddesees and also godmen- even those with dubious reputations.
A couple of days ago a former colleague of mine put a photo of his better half where he professed his undying love for her.There is nothing amusing but for the fact that are a happy couple staying together.A better alternative would have been for him to say those words directly to the missus instead of broadcasting it on the internet.
Times have changed but it is the same story- people are always ready to make themselves fools.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )AN UNCLEAN THOUGHT
As a student of Statistics, I have gone through the concept of ‘Nonsense or Spurious’ Correlation. To the challenged, it denotes a mathematical relationship between two or more variables, when there is in fact, none. I can give an example to explain this. Sometime this year, government employees are going to receive higher salaries as part of the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission. This also includes teachers at different levels. It so happens that more students are successful in the examinations of 2017. The teachers will argue that the improvement in the performance is due to their efforts while the students and their parents have a different take.The government can argue that everything is because of the timely implementation of the Pay Commission report. Economists can make a better analysis. But the fact is that nothing concrete or mathematical can ever be brought out in support of the different reasons. This is the spurious correlation.
There is another example that combines the population of pigs and the production of pig iron in the country into a single equation. However hard we try, there is no way of establishing any possible cause and effect relationship between the two.
My post is also something along the lines of establishing a spurious correlation between the slogan of the day ‘Swach Bharat’ and the huge spurt in the case of vector borne diseases like Dengue and Chikungunya. Add to it the case of Malaria and the picture is complete. Don’t open your mouths in surprise for there may be mosquitoes flying around you!
It is not that there was no death before the coning of the term Swach Bharat from the likes of dengue. What is surprising is the rise, almost in an exponential rate, the number of people affected by the mosquitoes almost coinciding with the increase in the time, money and people involved in making India a cleaner country.
In the days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi first talked about Swach Bharat, everyone hitched on to the bandwagon. My principal of that time who is not in the habit of waking up early, posed for photos with a new broom in his hand, cleaning a tiny part of the college ground. Every alternate day there would be a procession aimed at creating greater awareness on the need to have a cleaner India. Even the municipality got involved. Slowly , everyone started to talk about the need for the people to develop an attitude that would clear the garbage, paving the way for a cleaner country.
As time has passed, things have taken a turn for the worse. There are now garbage mountains almost at every street. Everything is blamed on the people and their lack of a desire to have a cleaner street and country. It is true that I want my house to be clean and so I dump the waste in front of the house of my neighbour and this process continues. But I do not have the resources to take all the garbage of the street or the town and dispose it off, safely. That is where the authorities have to step in. In the name of Swach Bharat and the poor participation of the common man, they have neglected their duties.
It is this negligence that has resulted in the rise of the number of people suffering from the likes of Dengue.
An idea which was to make the country cleaner has ended up making the worse even worse than before.
It is for the readers to determine the cause and the effect, if any.
This post is an attempt to post for Tangy Tuesday Picks by blogadda.com as part of the #CelebrateBlogging campaign. I also intend to lay my hands on the sunglasses from #MiamiBlues
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Y V SAI MADHAV 