RETHINKING CAPITALISM

In this fast growing world, a great paradox has surrounded our lives. The pace of life has been ever increasing without the same level of increase in the welfare of people. Nations have witnessed spurious economic growth driven by technology and globalisation. It has led to the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few. This development is not new - even in ancient times, society and its economic transactions were formulated to produce outcomes in favour of a priveleged few.

All this is known by all. However, what has made me raise them is to look deeper into the reasons for their prevelance. The dominant system of organising economy and society, over the past couple of centuries, has been Capitalism. This article is not aimed at rejecting capitalism or embracinformation socialism, as some might start to think. We have to think beyond this dichotomy in order to find a solution.

Capitalism has reduced the state's capacity of social redressal. This was not a problem according to earlier capitalists since it was assumed that market forces would redress inequalities, which, sadly, has not taken place. Is capitalism to be blamed? I believe that an amalgamation of the different theoretical explanations would provide the best answer.

So, here we'll point out the limits of capitalism. Market transactions are as necessary as food is for our survival. What we should worry about is how capitalism has pervaded each and every sphere of our lives.

It has limited our priorities to economic gains. Even though individualism is central to liberal societies, capitalism has failed to address the issues of the poor, the landless, the workers, etc. An example is the Indian union. Where did we go wrong? Seggregation of social groups and implementing utilitarian goals has been one problem. Another is having dichotomous thinking. If the individual is central to capitalism and liberalism, then that individual could belong to any race, profession or class, among others. Then why is it that we only bestow privileges on a few people? Why is that benefits havent reached all the individuals?

What is worth noting is that the individual and the state, and the individual and society should not oppose each other, but their growth should go hand in hand.

Capitalism, by seeking a nightwatchman state, has rendered the state weak. This can be cited as a reason for the lack of job opportunities, for instance. Even though capitalism has pushed each individual to realise his/her potential, it has failed to help many in reaching the end of the shore.

The root cause of all these problems is that capitalism has taken away propriety from its advocates, namely the industrialists, entrepreneurs, etc.

The goal defined by capitalism is limited and incomplete, i.e., profit making. There needs to be an emphasis on social responsibility as well. Profit-seeking makes its practitioners morally neutral, and thus, they soak up all the economic benefits without leaving any gains for the rest. There's an insecurity that someone else might win the race or surpass their achievements; this is manifested in competition, it makes the participants blind - leaving no room for morality. Therefore, when we view this at a greater level, all these insecurities manifest in their means of achieving growth, for example - development induced displacement, price rise, inflation, world war, etc.

When we view this from a global perspective, capitalism has made nations opt for a policy of hot pursuit along with intervening in matters of conflict subject to other nations, for example, West Asia. Global conflicts have, thus, been perpetuated. Terrorist groups like the ISIS derive their strength from the weakening of nation states and one of the factors responsible for this has been foreign intervention. What is the driver of foreign invasions and interventions? Clearly, capitalist interests -  most evident in oil.

So now we have an aggregate of problems are ever increasing. Let's pause for a while and look into what governs us and how we can improve the existing frameworks in order to achieve the benefit of all rather than just a few.

Let's rethink Capitalism.

Kritika Kaushik

THE GREECE DEBT CRISIS

Greece, the weak link in the eurozone, is struggling to pay its debt as its people and its creditors grow more restive. The tumult poses a challenge to the euro and the Continent's goal of economic unity. If Greece goes bankrupt or decides to leave the 19-nation eurozone, the situation could create instability in the region whoose consequences will reverberate around the globe.
Greece's debt crisis has a highly complex backdrop rather than just being about whether the tiny country with it's rich mythological history will default on its debt or leave the eurozone. The crisis is like the historical canary in a coal mine, warning of the dangers facing other heavily indebted countries.

What really happened in Greece?
After Wall Street imploded in 2008, Greece became the epicenter of Europe's debt crisis. With global financial markets still reeling, Greece announced in October 2009 that it had been understating its deficit figures for years, raising alarms about the soundness of Greek finances. It admitted that its budget deficit was 12.9% of GDP; that's more than four times the EU's 3% limit. This scared off investors who lowered Greece's credit ratings. It also drove up the cost of future loans, making it even more unlikely that Greece could find the funds to repay its debt.
To avert the financial calamity that Greece was already heading towards, the IMF, the European Central Bank and the European Commission issued the fist international bailout for Greece, that is, a total of 120 billion euros. However, the bailouts came with certain conditions. Harsh austerity terms were imposed that required deep budget cuts and steep tax increases. They also required Greece to overhaul its economy by streamlining the government thereby, ending tax evasion.
The bailout was supposed to buy Greece time to stabilise its finance, however, it didn't work as expected, as the economy had already shrunk by a quarter in five years and unemployment was about 25%. This was mainly because the bailout money primarily went towards paying off Greece's international loans, rather than making its way into the economy. 

Many economists, and many Greeks, blame the austerity measures for much of the country's continuing problems, however the country's creditors, especially Germany place the blame on Athens for failing to conduct the economic overhaul required under its bailout. The only thing everyone agrees on is that Greece is yet again running out of money-and fast.
Some people argue that if Greece were to leave the currency union now, it wouldn't be such a catastrophe. Europe has put up safeguards to limit the financial contagion, in an effort to keep the problems from spreading to other countries. While others say that despite the frustration of endless negotiations, European political leaders see a united Europe as an imperative. They also worry that if Greece were to default and leave the eurozone, it could ignite turmoil in the financial markets that might stall the budding recovery in Europe and impede the United State's rebound.

Well, we'll have to wait to find out what happens in the future for Greece.

Manvi Govil

#DISTRACTINGLYSEXY

British Nobel Prize winning biochemist Sir Tim Hunt's sexist comments at a conference in South Korea came as a surprise. The 72-year old Nobel Laureate, on 8 June, called himself a 'chauvinist' and said that he was in favour of single-sex science labs as women could be a distraction (because they 'fall in love' and 'cry when criticised’
He was quoted as saying, "Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and — when you criticise them — they cry.”
To make matters worse, these comments were made at a lunch hosted by women.What an irony!
As expected, Hunt received a lot of flak for his misogynistic comments that not only sparked outrage on the internet, but also prompted action from organisations associated with him.

University College London said in a statement that Mr. Hunt, who was knighted in 2006, has resigned his post in the faculty of life sciences .The Royal Society, where Mr. Hunt is a fellow, also sought to distance itself from the comments as some critics called for him to be removed from its rolls

THE NONAPOLOGY APOLOGY-
Following the backlash, Mr. Hunt, who acknowledged a reputation as a chauvinist at the conference, issued what some on social media called a “non apology apology.” He told BBC radio that he was “really, really sorry” for causing any offence.
He said the comments were meant to be ironic and lighthearted but had been “interpreted deadly seriously by my audience”.

He  stood by his comments and  elaborated that women are prone to cry when confronted with criticism. “It’s terribly important that you can criticise people’s ideas without criticising them and if they burst into tears, it means that you tend to hold back from getting at the absolute truth,” he said. “Science is about nothing but getting at the truth, and anything that gets in the way of that diminishes, in my experience, the science.”

Well, a big question coming up in my mind is  how a man of reasoning , a rather strict believer in science could not see through the unreasoned facts in his own statements! If it were women who drove men away from getting to the truth the same should apply to men. If men can be distracted by beautiful women , cannot handsome men be blamed for distracting women from their work? The allegation thus is visibly biased,unreasonable and unacceptable.

A DISTRACTION IS A DISTRACTION.
It could vary from a strong wind to colleague with sour throat(Mind it! Could be any gender). If you are a real pro you don't let yourself get distracted by anybody or anything. So all of it depends solely on your will and discipline. It's important to look into your weakness instead of blaming it onto opposite gender around you.

Irrespective of the intention, Hunt's comments were uncalled for, coming from someone holding his position in the science fraternity. This however is not a lone incident of women being blamed for lack of concentration in men!

The way of dressing of women at workplaces  is often put under scanner by many. Debrahlee Lorenzana, in case you haven't heard of her, is the woman who recently sued Citibank in the US for firing her for being "too hot".Yeah, according to her statement, the blokes in her office were so overwhelmed by her looks that she was reprimanded for dressing too sexily, was stripped from some of her duties and was then asked to transfer to a new branch.While she claims she wore modest clothing and did nothing to provoke the male reaction, the blokes around her couldn't seem to keep it in their pants. So they gave the 33-year-old single mother a long list of clothing items that she would not be allowed to wear, which included turtlenecks, pencil skirts, fitted suits and three-inch heels. How would a change in a women’s dress help you tame the diverted minds? Why should not the treatment be targeted where the problem is? 

Kate Moos in “Women in Ministry: The Fashion Problem” quite aptly answer the doubts, “While I know of several movie-star handsome men in the clergy whose hotness does not seem to prevent them from being taken seriously, I have now collected several stories of female clergy being taken aside by male superiors and told that their beauty or sexiness is 'distracting' and a serious problem.
What shall we call this?
Sexism.
Plain and simple.
If a man is distracted by his completely appropriately dressed female minister's beauty and sexiness, that's his problem. The Biblical name for that problem is lust, I do believe. The cultural name for it is objectification. I say 'Work on it with your spiritual director, Senior Pastor Horndog.' "

These narrow minded comments haven't even spared the celebrities. The well known couple Anushka and Virat's relationship was stated as a reason for the star batsman failing in two consecutive matches.

To these allegations the actress answered-
"I don't know what to make out of it. It is upsetting, no doubt. To be targeted and bullied by goons, if I call them that. It was very hurtful. It is sad that a self-made, successful woman, can be degraded and downgraded to nothing more than a distraction or a 'mandakini' who is destroying someone's concentration.”
It's highly disappointing to see how people easily neglected a technical flaw in his game and all the attention was diverted to Anushka being the reason of his failure.

Let's say Anushka's film fails at the box office. Would these very people claim that it was all because of Virat being a distraction? A person going out to cheer his or her partner for any of their ventures: that I suppose is a support, not distraction.

The next example comes from one of India's oldest universities Aligarh Muslim University (AMU)where women were banned from its main library. An academic from the institution said the action was taken over fears of "distracting" male students.
Meanwhile, India's education minister Smriti Irani voiced anger after a report in The Times of India newspaper pinned the blame on the attitude of the university's vice-chancellor Zameer Uddin Shah. Shah allegedly said there would be "four times more boys" in the library if women were permitted.

Now is this the girl's fault if boys follow her to the library? A clear answer to this is: NO. Then what are these girls being punished for? Being an element of distraction?

Well, if the problem is about boys not being able to concentrate or they're coming to the library just to get the pleasure of staring at girls. Then would it not be a better solution to put THEM out of the library instead of the girls. 

A woman at work is as much a professional as a man out there. Chauvinists like Tim Hunt and Zameer Uddin Shah have often failed to understand that. If men cannot control themselves around women, then it's they who've failed in their professionalism not the women. If you are distracted it's you who chose to do so, not the other person.

If a woman qualifies to and is capable of holding a position ,no one has a right to deny it to her alleging her to be distractingly sexy. Its high time we move over this mentality.We need to get over the beauty of a woman's body and appreciate the beauty of her mind. Time and again, women have shown their worth in various professional fields and proved that they cannot be done without.

Dear male chauvinist, RESPECT THE #BEAUTIFULBRAINS.

Shikha Asrani

INDIA-CHINA : TUG OF WAR

India  and China have a long history of mutual consent and  peaceful existence. Their relationship dates back to almost 2,000 years.The religion of Buddhism is said to have entered the Chinese mainland around first century BC from India. There are even references of China in the great sanskrit epic Mahabharata and in the works of Chanakya, the prime minister of the Mauryan Empire. But India never had any modern diplomatic relationship with China till the year 1950. The first prime minister of the free India, Mr Jawaharlal Nehru wanted that both the countries who were among the largest free states in Asia to work  amicably and with a mutual respect for each other. But trouble started brewing in the countries relationship when Mao Zedong, the Commander of the Liberation Army and the Chairman Of the Communist Party proclaimed that Tibet is an integral part of China's territory and stated that Tibet was under China's territorial rule since the Yuan Dynasty(1271-1368). Mao accused India of interfering in China's internal affairs seeing how India was supporting Tibet. India in turn to calm China put out a statement saying that India has no political or territorial ambitions but wanted normal trade to take place as usual. This led to the signing  of an eight year agreement on Tibet based on  our prime minister's Panchsheel policy. The agreement  was not that helpful. Border skirmishes went on till 1960's with China claiming Sikkim and parts of Arunachal Pradesh which were part of Tibet once as China's land. All this led to a devastating war in 1962 which greatly hurt India's image. The relationship went on deteriorating till the 1970's. Incidents like the "Nathu La incident" and the "Chola incident" gave a huge blow to the already deteriorating relationship as these incidents saw considerable loss of army personnels on both sides of the border.
Concrete steps to renew good relations with the Chinese happened during the Morarji Desai's administration during 1979. Since then the story of the relationship between India and China has been of ups and downs. There was even a point when every diplomat in the world said that a there will be a war between China and India. It was in 1987, but now as trade and business is growing between India and China and the bilateral trade projected to hit the $1 trillion by 2050 we could say that our diplomatic ties were never better.

Christopher Thomas

GREECE DEBT CRISIS - AN OVERVIEW

Recently, Greece made an unwanted history- it became the first developed economy to default on loan from International Monetary Fund. But why did Greece need a loan from the IMF in the first place? The reason is simple- the Greek economy was floundering and continues to flounder. Although economists trace the history of the Greek Recession from the year 2009, several sources have traced the inception of this series to mid-2007, when the country was hit by 3 distinct recessions.

Greece, being a part of the ambitious European Union, found help soon. The Union helped the country with a financial aid of $140 million. But the conditions set for this deal were harsh. According to the deal, the Greek government was to introduce austerity measures in the country so that it would be able to repay the loan on time, and the George Papandreou- led government obeyed the European masters.

But then the change came in the form of Alexis Tsipras and his anti-austerity government elected by the Greek citizens in 2015. the government was popular with the masses, but the removal of austerity measures meant that the country had to dig deep into their pockets to repay the IMF's loan.

On 9th April, 2015 against all odds, Greece paid an amount of 448 million euros to the IMF. The hopes gathered courage and found its way among the global economy. But it didn't last long. Once again the country was almost bankrupted, and announced that it didn't have any money to pay back the IMF.

So what does this mean? For Greece, this may mean that it might eventually no longer remain a part of the EU. Greece's crash is sure to cause enough ripples that may upset world economy, and that is precisely the reason why many countries are keeping an eye on their stock markets, because as history has taught us, no country is isolated from others and neither is its fate.

Akhil Das

INDIA AND ISRAEL

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to embark on a historic visit to Israel later this year. No Indian Prime Minister has ever visited Israel. The NDA government has indicated that they will pursue a fresh approach with regard to Israel. Hence it is an appropriate time to discuss potential benefits of this change in policy and also its disadvantages.
India's relationship with Israel is intertwined with its relationship with Palestine. India's viewpoint on the Israel-Palestine conflict has historically had a negative impact on its relationship with Israel. Many factors affected India's position on the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 such as India's own experience with partition based on religious lines. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is also based on religious identities; Jews constitute a vast majority of the population of Israel while Palestinians are mostly Muslims. In 1949 India voted against Israel's admission into the United Nations as Prime Minister Nehru had not wanted to offend the sentiments of his friends in the Arab countries. Also, even after partition India had a large population of Muslims and the Congress government at the centre did not want to antagonise them. The Indian government did not have any formal diplomatic relationship with Israel until January 1992. Since then economic and military cooperation has increased manifold between the two countries. India is the largest buyer of Israeli military equipment and Israel is the second largest defence supplier to India after Russia. However diplomatic relations have not been that healthy as the Indian government under the Congress had repeatedly condemned Israeli military strikes in Palestinian territories. India was also one of the first countries to recognize the state of Palestine.
Hindu nationalist organisations of the Sangh Parivar have always supported Israel. It is important to note that when the then Israeli PM Ariel Sharon visited India in 2003, the NDA was in power at the centre. The Modi government also seems more sympathetic to Israel than its predecessors. The decision to improve our diplomatic ties with Israel has to be analysed critically as it has both pros n cons. Both India and Israel are victims of Islamist terrorist activities perpetrated by groups operating within the borders as well as from outside. Hence military cooperation, intelligence sharing and a friendly relationship between the two heads of government is exceedingly important in order to deal with threats to the security of our nation. Economic cooperation between the two countries will also benefit India enormously and efforts are being made to facilitate a free trade agreement between India and Israel which will probably be signed during Prime Minister Modi's visit to Israel. Obviously each country has to look to reap the maximum advantage economically as well as strategically from a relationship with any other country.  India stands to gain a lot economically as well as in the sphere of defence and military cooperation, if ties with Israel are improved further and understandably. The NDA government uses this argument against critics who want no cooperation between India and Israel.
Critics argue that this change in policy is due to the need of the BJP government to appease the RSS and it reflects the anti-Muslim stance of the Sangh Parivar. Recent UN reports have spoken of war crimes committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians. India has always been a huge supporter and defender of basic human rights and such blatant violations of human rights cannot be simply ignored. Millions of innocent lives have been lost due to the conflict between Israel and Palestine, the vast majority of them being Palestinian.
While economic interests are of utmost importance and India cannot afford to ignore Israel as was done by governments till 1992, the Modi government has to keep in mind the basic value of human rights which has been given great importance in the rich political history of our country. India has to urge the Israeli government to stop unnecessary military operations by Israel against Palestinian civilians. While improving our diplomatic relationship with Israel India also has to stress that a peaceful, non-violent resolution of the seemingly perennial conflict is the need of the hour. The Indian government should encourage talks between the leaders of Israel and Palestine as only dialogue will bring a solution and not endless violence. India has always supported the Palestinian cause and we should not and cannot abandon our support to Palestinian people and their legitimate demand for a nation-state.

R.Prajapathy

SAVE THE INTERNET, SAVE OUR FREEDOM

The internet is the new language of the 21st century. It provides a platform to interact, connect, access knowledge, network and earn. Its success lies in fostering innovation, sharing vast knowledge, accessing  new ways of doing business e-commerce, online services and giving opportunity to discover and learn without any discrimination of charging differently for site, content, website etc. Internet is free for all.
But unfortunately telecom operators like Airtel and Vodafone want to lobby more money by charging internet users according to sites they visit. They have requested TRAI to allow them to block websites and apps to exhort money from customers and providers so that they can access it. It is a strong  violation of principle of net neutrality. This will be a big blow to small start ups which rely on internet for expanding their business. It will be advantageous for big companies like flipkart to capture the entire market. Many small companies will be destroyed by big players in the market. There will be no new Zuckerberg or Sachin Bansal in future. It will be difficult for developers to launch their apps on net. Many internet sites will not be available in India. The internet will be divided into two parts i.e free and paid. Users will face difficulty in accessing sites at their will. It will truly be the end of the freedom of internet.

In order to save our right to a free net, There has been widespread protest against telecom operators
Various organisations have started #Savetheinternet pages on Facebook to protest against it. The popular youtube comedy channel“ALL INDIA backchod” launched a video “Save the internet” to protest and create awareness about net neutrality. People have written millions of letters to TRAI against the telecom companies demand. There is lot of criticism and anger among the people. Many politicians and movie stars have spoken against it.
I hope TRAI will pay heed to this protest and save our right to free internet.

Tanvi Prakash