LIVE FROM LIFE -THE EARTH HOUR

The lights have gone, as had been said. This is going to be the longest power cut I may have to witness in this 8 month stay at the IIT Delhi – where power cuts mean small 20 seconds flip – flops. The occasion is the celebration of the Earth Hour. A ‘voluntary’ moratorium on the use of electricity for one hour on 28th of March, 2009. Well, the voluntary nature of the drive has been lost somewhere in the translation from I.A.S. - level English to peon - level English, because I heard the mess workers saying that the lights will be shut down, per force, from the main board, for an hour – like the blackouts during an air raid. As they had said, the power has gone, and I am left with an hour with only my laptop as a companion. Luckily its batteries are not under the jurisdiction of the administration of IIT Delhi!

Well, let me make myself very clear – I am not one of those who support indiscriminate exploitation of the Earth for human greed. Yet, I am definitely against the environmentalists and their gimmicks. In fact I am against any sort of gimmick, especially if it is purportedly based on some ‘serious’ issue. I feel the gimmicks make a mockery of the issues involved. I hate the candlelight vigils and candle light vigilantes, I hate human chains, the rallyists, the pamphleteers and I hate the Earth hour. So I intend to justify my hate in the following lines.

First of all, there is the simple cost benefit analysis. How much electricity will they save – if we do turn down our electrical systems for a measly hour in this long period of unabated industrial usage? I am sure more electricity would have been used in the publicity for the event. Quite a lot of trees would have been felled for the pamphlets.

Secondly, would it be wise to suddenly unload all our power plants and power infrastructure? I am not an electrical engineer, but I have read a little bit about power generation turbines, and a sudden 8:30 unloading by the whole population might be too much too quick for the governors and other feedback controlled devices there. Again, I am not crunching the numbers (simply because governors are the toughest things in the Theory of Machines!) but seriously, it is a step that might be regretted later – for a week or two.

Thirdly, how is a power cut of an hour any sort of Earth hour celebration in India? I do not know much about the durations of power cuts, but I would guess 83 % of Indian cities would be celebrating 3 to four hours of Earth Hour every day. The provincial towns might be dedicating half the day to the celebrations, while most villages would do so for about 20 hours. In fact, there are villages in India which have been celebrating Earth since the start of their existence – where people live and die celebrating an Earth lifetime! So, I am really amused when the green-wallahs direct us to celebrate Earth Hour – aren’t you?


[ As I finish typing this, the power returned – not the full hour! May be it was not even about the Earth Hour, but the violent thunderstorm that is raging outside. Still, it felt good writing it, so I am going to post it.]

LIVE FROM LIFE - THE LAWS OF THE LAND

Recently, a discussion on Orkut's IC 370 (India) community touched the topic of corruption in civil administration and police. This made me think a lot on an important point that I have been thinking about for long, but in another case. The point is that we have lot of inconsequential laws and rules. Laws which were useless to begin with and laws which have been rendered useless by the passage of time. Laws that place undue restrictions on people, and give the enforcers the leeway to extract bribes. I will try to keep it short. Let us begin with why do we need rules in this world, when it is assumed that all men are born free (and so are the women, I am no sexist). Of course there are people called anarchists, who believe the best law is no law. Everybody is free to do what they may like. Utopia - did you say? Wait a little - what would happen if some lunatic took to the idea that he would 'like' to run a dagger through your guts? Or for that matter, what if he would like to run his Hummer over you, for fun? We need laws - just to avoid people hurting others while exercising there freedom. As has been said - your freedom to swing your arms ends where the other person's nose begins. This can be extrapolated to past and future as well - that is why we need laws protecting monuments (some one's creation, which the builder might have expected the law to protect) and environment (the green laws are simply lines drawn to help us avoid hurting our future generations - Mother Earth needs no saving, she has already survived 4.5 billion years without our help).

Does that summarize all the laws we need in this world? I think so - laws a re simply the rules so that we do not step on each other's toes as we dance the dance of life. Yet, we have many laws, useless laws, if you would call them that, or at least inconsequential laws - that do not serve the purpose laws are supposed to. There are laws that shackle personal freedom, in domains in which nobody else is involved, or if somebody is involved, it is with consent. Laws that ban alcohol and drugs, laws that decide in the way two consenting adults can form relationship, laws that simply increase the paperwork involved, laws whose enforcement is more costly than their end. Another new set of laws that I think can join this list is the slew of laws against hurting sentiments. Laws that police personal choices are the most ridiculuous, if they still exist. I am no alcoholic, but for the point of argument, let's say I was one. So, what right does the state have to deny me my 'legal' bottle? Or if I were a junkie, why can't I get crack legally. Why does the state decide which forms of relationship are permissible? Curbing these acts does not solve any real problem - but they do increase the work of the police force, and give them the opportunity to take bribes - want to know how? Let's see. Does the common man on the street care if the junkie next door gets his fix or not. (And here I am simply talking about the transaction of the junkie getting his drugs, and we are not discussing the supply chain behind it) No, I don't, and unless you are the moral police type, I'm sure you would not bother. It's the junkie's life - let him 'use' it the way he wants - you got your own life to control. And the policeman knows that - if drugs get to the junkie, the society will not come to an abrupt end. However, the law says it is wrong. Hence, the policeman can take his bribe in lieu of allowing the junkie get his fix. No problem was there to fix, so none got fixed, and money changed hands. However, the law has created the problem in itself. By outlawing the simple junkie getting his fix legally, the law has made the supply chain pass into the black market. The prices shoot. As any economics student worth his salt will tell you - ideally, the price of anything should be equally to the cost of making and delivering it. However, in this black market scenario, the prices are way above the cost. So what happens to the surplus? It gets channeled into guns (illegal ones), and other really dangerous pursuits. It bankrolls the whole underworld - for God's sake - this law has not done an iota of good, but its adverse effects are too many to jot down. Did I mention that the explosive used for the 1993 Mumbai blasts used the same supply chain? The police personnel involved took bribes and winked the other way as the deadly cargo was unloaded, thinking it was some junkie's fix. Think clearly - would they have taken the bribe and looked the other way, had they known this was explosive, and had they been guided by a law to prevent explosives landing on the beach? I do not think so - they would have known that explosives can cause mayhem, unlike drugs, and would have taken due care - they would not have let explosives pass for a few bucks, as explosives are not inconsequential. Again they would not have to deal with decoy drug landing boats, because drugs are in the market - not on the beach. So, we can see how the laws can aid far more heinous crimes than the ones they set out to prevent from happening.

Another problem with the useless laws - laws which are not enforced because imposition is more costly than their violation - is that they give the corrupt officials free hand to victimize those who do not do their biding. Who is a law abiding person? A person who does not break the laws which are clear. Yet, many of us may break laws whose existence was unknown to us - much less their raison d'etre. Can I give an example? Yes, I can. Considering this case is still 'hot', I cannot take the names for the obvious reasons - to avoid rubbing these useless laws the wrong way. Recently, one of the political party's filed slander case against a net user, who had caused some 'uncharitable remarks' about the party to be aired on the net. The 'law' did nothing to prevent the same party and its siblings from unleashing mass terror on a great city on the slightest pretext, but the game is over for the poor blogger. Should I say more??