Globalization – Blessing or a curse??

I was going through the definition of word ‘globalization’ in encyclopedia, the tool that’s the lifeline for my net life. The term ‘Globalization’ started in somewhere around 1960s when different countries started thinking in terms of integrated network, where they can do trade, make investment, use labor by surpassing the boundaries and moving ahead in terms of internationalizing the nations.
Globalization started in economic arena but later on expanded to social and cultural areas also. So we can say we are trying to reach a place where we have global rules to do trade, global language, global culture and society…….but wait a minute, is the picture is as rosy as it appears from outside. Is globalization really a boom or a curse?
Today its very easy for a country, which is rich in some resource and poor in another, to do trade with the other, which has the opposite balance. A company from one nation can go ahead and do investments in the other one with far less barriers as compared to pre-globalization era. We hear so much of production happening in China/Indonesia/India/Philippines for US brands. People are getting employment because of this globalised market. Per capita of these nations have improved, less number of people fall under poverty line now, literacy rate has improved. But wait, is this kind of structure helping a nation or just an individual or a brand name in that matter. Is the brand or the person growing on the expense of under-developed nations. In today’s world we have so many poor and under developed nations like Guinea, Somalia which are rich in resources but are counted in world’s one of the most poor countries. When we go into thought process of globalised world, don’t we see that the rich nations taking due advantage of these countries in terms of resources, labor. In recent few decades we have heard much about term ‘outsourcing’.
Post globalization we have seen varied exchange of various culture. We can have Japanese food in any part of the world. Every kid loves burger, thanx to McDonalds which has brought burger on global platform. When I am walking down a street in interior of Lyon I see a india handicraft store. This all happened because of globalization. Cultural globalization has brought human beings closer, in which a person in one part of the world understand the roots and culture of the another person in other part. But is our society ready for this kind of change. When I see the history of human being, all the wars that has been fought since thousands of years and as a matter of fact are still continuing, it is quiet obvious that all these previous and present wars are fought for the sustain the individuality of an individual, a tribe, a religion or a nation. Our past and our present shows that mixing of two cultures is not as easy as it looks and people have fought and will fight for years to keep it intact. Under these circumstances globalization would not only be difficult to implement but also worth giving a thought that if ‘globalization with limits’ is better answer for world’s problem then ‘globalizations with no limits’. And if we want to put limits then what would be them? We can put limit on economics, trade, investment but can we put limit to cultural exchange which is bound to happen in wake of previous exchange. I just hope that globalization brings solution to the existing human problems and not become a new problem for the human existence.

Are we competing with China?

If we do a survey of Indian people regarding the country that they most follow, I think it would turn out to be China and Pakistan. To validate this fact I just typed ‘India Vs China‘ in google and realized that I am not the only one searching this text, there are 206,000,000 more people who want to know that which nation is stronger. I once was reading a news paper which said that the mindset of people in India towards China is one of "awe, vexation, envy and jealousy". This made me think if it was actually true, do I want to think of China because it is my neighbor or because it my competitor. Whenever I come across figures related to our literacy rate, the per capita income, GDP, etc the next question that pops up in my mind is ‘What about China, what are its numbers, are they higher then us or lower’. After thinking all this, I am sure that we Indian take China more as a competitor then as a friendly neighbor and I think the feeling is same on the other side of the fence. When I was thinking all this, my mind wandered an extra mile and started thinking that why China is apple of everybody’s eye even when it has so many controversies related. Let me put some in this article (you may say that I am trying to soothen my Indian soul and I might agree with you J ).
China is today accused of human rights violation. It doesn’t provide right to free speech for an individual or press. China govt has blocked lots of international news websites like BBC. When China hosted Olympics in 2008 it allowed these news sites to be unblocked only to be blocked again after the event. During the Olympics as Beijing came under immense criticism because of its pollution level, the govt ordered factory closures to bring down the pollution level. China today is the second biggest contributor of the green house gases yet it is not ready to take steps to curb its emission till something is done by the west. Lots of ‘Made In China’ products are made by labors who are forced to work under sub standard working conditions and wages. China today has border disputes with Taiwan, Tibet and India,
China recently completed its 60 years of communist rule and it had reason to celebrate. Despite of all the above mentioned points, China is one country which has developed the most in recent times. Today China’s population growth is at 0.6% and that of India is 1.2%. Its GDP growth is again greater than that of India. It has already become the first Asian nation to have hosted Olympics, I think India is far from that. China has extensive FDI as compared to India. Today China own more than $300 billion in US govt issued debt. China is investing heavily in African nations.
I think China’s ‘not so open & communist society’ has been able to achieve India’s ‘open & democratic society’ could not. This has inspired me for my next article – Is Communism better then Democracy?

Is religion a solution or a problem?

Religion is one word that baffles not only me but lot of individuals in this world. I remember that when I was a kid my parents used to take me to the gurudwara in our town and they taught me the evening prayers and the meaning of those prayers. Festivals used to be special occasions and going to a religious place used to be a must do activity in the family rule book. I grew up in such kind of environment where religious beliefs were inculcated in my mind through my parents acts, seeing them doing the prayers, seeing them visiting gurudwara every week and lighting candles there on diwali. In my growing years I kept on following the same path, although with a little deviation, and would have kept following it till date if this question wont have arisen in my mind – Does religion really provides the solution to all our problems or religion itself is a biggest problem to be handled by mankind. I will go back to the reason of this question. During my growing up years I came across variety of people and their varied beliefs and sometimes conflicts. Then came the news related to religious conflicts happening in some part of the world, sometimes in some part of country and sometimes in vicinity. All this made my mind think why this is happening, why can’t people of one religion live in harmony with that of other. Is this because of intrusion of one religion in another or if the mere presence of people of other religion pose a threat to existence of the other. All these things take you to the definition of religion and in that matter the reason of it.
India has been originator of few of world’s big religion namely Hinduism, Bhudhism and Jainism. Muslim and Christianity religion came from outside, then we have few newly developed ones like Sikhism. So now the next question, why so many? Starting of every new religion happened with one line – There is only one God. If there is one God then why do we have so many ways to worship Him. Infact religion has changed the definition of God so much that today I sometimes doubt in his mere existence. I cannot deny the fact that there is somebody who takes care of all the things that happen here or anywhere (might be because of my upbringing I cannot agree to His non-existence). But the question arises that if we need a religion to worship that one big person sitting somewhere up there. Is religion the means of reaching that person. Do we need some means to reach Him. What does religion teaches us. 1. There is a God. 2. We should always worship Him. 3. We should follow some set of rules to stay in the religion. I totally agree with point 1 although it is very personalized choice that if an individual wants to believe in the existence of God or if he doesn’t want to believe in that. Second point is again upto one’s perception. One may want to worship Him always and one may just want to bow to his mere presence that . All religions teach you different ways of praying. If we are praying to one God only then why do I need 100 different ways to do that. And then the 3rd point for which I am not sure. Today’s world is more religion centric instead of being God centric. We have books/epics/sculptures which teach the similar thing in different way. The means of conveying is different but the things that are conveyed are same. Why don’t we leave this point to be decided by an individual rather than a religion doing it. Does an individual always need a mentor who can set the rules for him, who tells him what to do and what not to and how to do it. In our case I think religion is doing the same. Older the religion gets more difficult it becomes to follow those rules. Any amendments in the rules give birth to new religion and then new set of rules. But can a human survive without being mentored. Would he become a spoil brat in absence of these rules? As an individual I will say no but as member of society I really don’t know the answer and don’t know if someday something would come that would replace the word religion with some globalized term and practice?

Too much of news is injurious to health.

When you are in a job you always dream of time when you need not wake up early in morning to get to the same office, when you need not plan the grocery shopping for the weekend as your weekdays had been damn busy, when you take an afternoon nap etc etc. This are called ‘Working class hallucination syndrome’ . A short break from work cannot help you in getting rid of this syndrome as the time between starting of the vacation and the end of it is so small that by the time you think of getting over this syndrome its time to join the work back.
Recently I had been lucky enough to get five weeks off from my office to visit my husband in France and this was the perfect time for me to do whatever I wanted to do and couldn’t do because of office. TV is always a part of this dream. TV is not always the idiot box and there are few good things that I wanted to see on TV, so I switched on BBC. I had been one ardent fan of this news channel and so it was proper time to show my gratitude by tuning into the news channel for whole day. It gave me immense pleasure to listen to news for whole day even when it is getting repeated. Days passed with me switching between BBC / CNN / France 24. With days it got more interesting as I had option of changing from one channel to other and then to next. It got me so much engrossed that I didn’t relaise that the only things that I am watching is earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, economic recession, nuclear armament, wars, militant attacks, elections…there is no end to it. And as we all know 1 bad + 1 Bad = double bad and so repetition of these news had more depressing effect on me. Every morning I woke up in good mood but by afternoon it started getting depressing. I couldn’t figure out the reason as I was doing what I wanted to do then why this depression by evening. I attributed this to my long stays at home, to which I am not used to of. One day out of curiosity I turned the TV off and shifted to this online news. Good point about online news is that it is totally dependent on you that is you read what you want to read and not like TV that you have to see what they are showing and that too in same chronology. Then I realized that (bad) news and there repetition is making me depressed. Have we run out of good news or the good has stopped happening to our planet earth. Or there can be one more viewpoint, good is not covered the way bad is covered. All these thought process made me sick that I had to turn off the TV, or atleast the news channel .
We always want to know what is happening in my neighbor, in my city, in my country or overall in world. But it should be kept in limits so that it doesn’t make us forget that despite of all the bad things happening in world, it is still a wonderful place to live in.