A quote on Nehru family's wealth in Swiss banks

"A stunning exposure on Sonia Gandhi’s secret billions in Swiss banks came, surprisingly, from Switzerland itself, where the world’s corrupt stash away their booty. In its issue of November 19, 1991, Schweizer Illustrierte, the most popular magazine of Switzerland, did an exposé of over a dozen politicians of the third world, including Rajiv Gandhi, who had stashed away their bribe monies in Swiss banks. Schweizer Illustrierte, not a rag, sells some 2,15,000 copies and has a readership of 9,17,000 — almost a sixth of Swiss adult population. Citing the newly opened KGB records, the magazine reported ‘that Sonia Gandhi the widow of the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was controlling secret account with 2.5 billion Swiss Francs (equal to $2.2 billion) in her minor son’s name’.


 The $2.2 billion account must have existed from before June 1988 when Rahul Gandhi attained majority. The loot in today’s rupee value equals almost Rs 10,000 crore. Swiss banks invest and multiply the clients’ monies, not keep them buried. Had it been invested in safe long-term securities, the $.2.2 billion bribe would have multiplied to $9.41 billion (Rs 42,345 crore) by 2009. If it had been put in US stocks, it would have swelled to $12.97 billion (Rs 58,365 crore). If, as most likely, it were invested in long-term bonds and stocks as 50:50, it would have grown to $11.19 billion (Rs 50,355 crore). Before the global financial meltdown in 2008, the $2.2 billion bribes in stocks would have peaked at $18.66 billion (Rs 83,900 crore). By any calculation the present size of the $2.2 billion secret funds of the family in Swiss banks seems huge — anywhere between Rs 43,000 plus to some Rs 84,000 crore!"  

If you get stuck in a snarl………….

There is a terrific traffic jam.  You can neither move forward nor backward. You are trapped and it is terrible.  You will be delayed and your boss will pounce upon you.  You will lose the business deal you have so painstakingly worked up. You may be late for the important meeting. You may miss the flight or you may be late for the lecture you had wanted to attend so badly.  Your partner would be terribly angry; after all you had promised to be there in another twenty minutes and now you never know when you will reach. Even if you tell the truth he/she might not believe. You had given other excuses for being late before when you were not stuck in a traffic jam. 

Thinking about all this, you become angry, tense, and you do not know what to do. You look out trying to know whether any soul knows what has happened. You keep looking at your watch with a furrowed forehead and grim face.  You are at your worst. You can feel every cell of your body becoming taut and the way you suppress your anger, despair and helplessness.  It is indeed an ordeal and time seems to stand still.

Anyway you are hooked. By becoming tense and absolutely nervous the situation is not going to improve at all. You have to wait until the bloody thing ends. 

Sit there behind the wheel and look out to the sky. Observe the clouds that float like white cotton puffs, See the designs they make as they move, and try to figure out a meaning for the patterns. Bring the glass down( if it is not freezing outside) and feel the gentle breeze whispering by.  Hear the chirpings of birds. Does the wind waft up to you a fragrance? Can you see some tree-tops swaying in the breeze? 

Bring a favorite spot to your mind and recall all its details. See the colorful plants and hedges, gurgling rivulets, panoramic views of the valleys, get the scents and hear every sound. If you have the family album in the car see you child or partner and just keep looking at them. You will be instantly relieved.   May be you can read a book you keep in the car. On the tape and play your favorite song.  It will instantly lift and relax you.  Sing or hum a tune you love.  As you enjoy the music give your hand and face a massage.

Look around, you will find a lot to amuse yourself. Observe how the other passengers react to the jam. You can of course use this time to do your business calls. Call your office and leave all the necessary instructions for the day. Or, talk to a dear friend and tell him about the asshole you are presently in.  Call your child or the one you love and simply talk to him/her.

See how you have become a stress-busting superhero. As we lead a much stressed life most of the time, you may not be aware that you are in tension during a snarl. Become aware and resort to one of the above and when the jam is over drive on and arrive there fresh with all your mental energies intact. If you stay there with the built up stress for an hour or so you will be a spent horse and you will be underperforming all day.  

Who exploits India?

In an article by Subrmaniam swamy, I read that from the total bribe of 60,000 crores in the 2G spectrum case, Sonia, the UPA Chairperson, got 36,000 crores, Karunanidhi 15,000 crores, Chidambaram 5000 crores and' poor' Raja 4000 crores.The other day I was reading a foregin magazine article about Indian black money hoarded abroad. Among Indians having secret accounts the top family is there. I cannot believe they take  money from this poor country nor that  they are like their white friends who conquered and looted this great land earlier

 

India had freedom from the British who ruled and exploited the country. With freedom under the leadership of Gandhi the power was transferred to the Nehru clan.  That change was perhaps the only major change. The poor became poorer. Almost one in two in India is today living below the poverty line. India has a huge fiscal deficit. We have so many programs to uplift the masses, but a major portion of the money is sucked by the political leadership. There are people who ask what  freedom  has done to the land? Well, the major change is the exploitation has changed hands. A new set of super-rich and super-powerful leaders have emerged who control the media and  even the thinking of the middle class.  The latter are made to believe that India is fast progressing and it is going to be a super-power when in reality the country is one of the poorest and least developed. One of out of two houses does  not have a toilet or drinking water. One out of two gets Rs20/-(20 cents) a day!      

The  top political  leaders have hoarded lakhs of crores of rupees in foreign secret accounts. Corruption is an organized syndrome. Unless our CAG exposes these scams nobody is even going to know the extent of the looting that is happening in India. The country is one of the most corrupt nations on the face of the earth. The Nehrus have perpertuated this 'great' culture .

A World View

We live on a minor planet of an average star located in the outer limits of the Milky Way galaxy which contains over 200 billion stars. All the planets with their satellites revolve round the sun which in turn along with all of them goes round the galactic nucleus at a very high speed.

   There are over one hundred thousand million galaxies in the universe! Scientists think there are a number of such universes! Against these scales, even our Milky way galaxy, (dia.100,000 light years) wherein our own sun is just an ordinary star  is just a speck or a dot; our sun a negligible object and the earth  infinitesimal.

In an earth like planet with the optimum gravity to retain an atmosphere, at an optimum distance from the sun(to get just enough energy) with an abundance of elements, life evolved through random chemical reactions and later, through evolution, reached the levels of an advanced civilization we see today. There can be millions of earth-like- planets in the universe with life in many of them. Due to the huge distances involved, we do not know each other.  The entire solar system and the life on planet earth will end with the death of our sun in a supernova after 4 billion years.

 Thousands of billions of people have taken birth here and gone. A majority of them died before they reached the age of ten or less. Billions have perished in natural calamities and an equal number in wars fought for gods, religions, powerful guys and nations. No one over 125 years is alive today. That is our maximum life-span.  But this small planet has been there, almost in the same form, for the last 42000000000 years! It may be there for another 40000000000 years! But we humans are like an air bubble, forming and bursting out almost simultaneously.  

Man evolved from the lower mammals like chimpanzees probably in Africa and later spread out to the different continents. Geography and climate made him black, white, yellow colored with myriad physical linguistic and cultural differences. Temperate areas advanced more than the hot climate ones, Regions  like America, northern Europe, Japan, Korea Australia and New Zealand are all rich and prosperous. Sub Saharan Africa and Sothern Asia are poor and underdeveloped. Ethnic, nationalistic linguistic and religious differences have brought about innumerable conflicts. 

 

Man’s life had been extremely difficult in the early years. Food was scarce and he had to face the fury of nature, diseases and death. But his powerful procreative faculties made him survive and proliferate. He tamed animals, discovered agriculture, developed industry and started to make his life comfortable in the recent past.

During the early stages of human evolution he was awe struck at the wonderful nature phenomena..Many of them like the sun and moon were good and he started making them benevolent gods (deification of nature-phenomena).The forces which caused floods, hurricanes, thunder & lightening, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, contagious diseases and plagues became evil gods. He started pleasing the former and appeasing the latter.

 Further he was puzzled at the death of a friend who was walking with him just the other day. Something must have left his corpse (the body remains intact after death-at least for a small period-)and naturally he started thinking of a spirit that must have left the corpse. This is the beginning of animism –the cult of the spirits. Man was sad of his mortality and he longed to live eternally like the gods he made. All these together laid the foundations for the various religions we see today. Millions of gods of all shapes and hues got evolved and some of them became superior to the others. Later, in tandem with the rise of powerful kings and emperors, the concept of a supreme god evolved too. Religious leaders of different natures established different ways to live here to please his gods. Buddha , Sankara, Christ, Mohammed all had their own versions.

The discovery of agriculture and evolution of human societies made religions organized too. Today we have atheistic Buddhism,  pantheistic  Hinduism, monotheistic  Christianity, Judaism and Islam, atheistic communism, and animistic beliefs. There are hundreds of warring sects for each one of the major religions. Religions have caused thousands of wars, communal strife and they have harmed the peaceful co-existence of man.  

Parents programs children to believe their religion. The brain washing is so intense and deep rooted that normally they come to believe their religion is the only true one. Perhaps it is interesting to note that these religions are fundamentally different in the concept of the god, how man should live here and the nature of an afterlife. Even the ultimate purpose of life varies totally from one to the other. For the Hindus it is cessation from the chain of birth and rebirth, for the Buddhists it is Nirvana or total detachment, for the Moslems it is a material heaven where every conceivable pleasure is available and the Christians speak of a spiritual life with the godhead.  Even today, in the midst of an advanced civilization half of all men still believe in a religion of some sort--more due to the force of habit and early childhood programming than due to any other cause.

We have this enigmatic 100 odd years in front of us. We can live it in the delusion of a god, heaven and do everything for the afterlife. Or, we can understand the true facts of life and face things squarely living this life happily and successfully with a lot of celebration, helping fellow beings and at last go with a gratitude that we got a chance to come down here.  

How can India develop?

Age is not what makes a country rich or poor. India and Egypt are very old but are still underdeveloped. Australia, New Zealand or Canada are not older than 150 years but are very much developed.  Natural resource cannot be the reason too. Japan is thickly populated, its 80% land is unsuitable for cultivation. There is no natural wealth. Further it is devastated by nature’s fury. Switzerland is another example. Remember men are the same everywhere-black or white, Christian or Hindu. One cannot maintain that people from hot countries like India are lazy: they work hard when they go abroad like the Indians do in the gulf.     

Could the difference then be in the attitude of people?  Those of  the rich nations are educated and believe they are responsible for what they are. They love work and plan their lives. They have children only if they can be fed, cared for and educated.  They are more enterprising and have simpler government rules, which promotes industry. They try to save and invest and are law abiding. They respect fellow humans and their rights and follow gender equality. They want their country to progress too. In contrast, we do not follow rules, nor do we respect others' rights. See how we behave in our roads, to our women in public places and how we treat the fairer sex at home and at the work place and forbid them from partaking in nation building. The vast majority  are uneducated and they believe in karma or pre-destiny and accept anything that comes as their fate.  We do not love work and just do the bare minimum to retain  the job. We are more selfish and want to enrich ourselves at all cost. We have a corrupt, big bureaucracy and never ending rules. Our towns and cities are not organised and are filthy.  
 Our leaders are a reflection of us and are more interested in enriching and empowering themselves. The government has wrong priorities: half of all Indian households do not have a toilet! Half of the population live in single room shacks with Rs.20 a day or less! And we send rockets to the moon to look for water there! 

India is not poor in natural resources and our arable land ratio is very high, It has plenty of natural wealth  long coast line, a large number of good rivers and abundant youthful manpower. Still we have not progressed. May be the attitude of the people has to change. They have to become more enterprising, start loving work, respect rules, become less religious, get educated (not literate) plan the family and ensure gender equality.  If you feel there is some truth in this, mail it to your friends.       

Plight of women a cause for India's backwardness?.

The condition of women is an excellent indicator of the status of a  nation. By this yardstick India is one of the most backward countries. Her 550 million women (less than the number of men due to female infanticide and selective abortion) are still leading a life of utter poverty, illiteracy and neglect in a patriarchal society.   One of the causes for persistence of hunger and abject poverty in India is due to the subjugation, marginalization and disempowerment of women. The oppression of women is so much here that Indian women do not even think about equality.

The Indian woman is jobless, hungry and malnourished,   poor illiterate and oppressed,  anemic and unhealthy, has five or six  children,  lives in a poor home with an alcoholic and abusive husband.  . They suffer from hunger and poverty much more than men and she has the primary responsibility to feed, educate and guide the children. Women are more hungry and malnourished than men as they have to eat at last (even when they are lactating) after ensuring the male members had enough. Females get less food and health care..  

Girls get less education (the preference is always for boys), even if sent to school they are pulled back to help the household. Women end up working more hours than men (often more arduous work) and their work goes unrecognized and unpaid. Women who are employed outside have to do the entire household work all by themselves and the males only find fault with what they do..

A guy who marries a girl has to be offered a huge dowry and other valuables as per the pre-agreement of the conditions of the ‘sale’ of the woman. She is a like commodity sold by her family to his family, the only difference being the sold item  has to be offered with a huge amount. A girl is expected to be a virgin before marriage but the boy’s past does not matter at all.  After marriage she is generally ill-treated, assaulted and murdered (for bringing less dowry) in the households by the husbands and in-laws.  Female infanticides and selective abortions is common too.  The constitution of India guarantees equality but under the prevailing patriarchal society and its norms,  women are powerless to decide their life or the number of children they want, whom they will marry or what they will do.

Women are traditionally responsible for the welfare of their families but excessive poverty (more than one in two of all women is under extreme poverty) make them helpless. Without family planning measures she delivers a number of children many of whom die an early death and she herself may die at childbirth.

Women are more mal-nourished, ill-treated, assaulted, abused and subjugated. They are less educated, have lesser skill and are confined within the four walls of the house unable to have a meaningful life, or contribute to the development of the society and family as a whole. There may be exceptions to this in the urban areas but as a whole it holds good.  The plight of women and their backwardness could be the single most reason for the underdevelopment of India.

Are organized religions harmful to man?

There are erudite and highly learned Critics who consider religion to be outdated and harmful to the individual. Let me reproduce their main arguments for your perusal. You can discard or reject them outright. If you have a free mind, please give it a thought before you do so. I do not want to mention their most common argument that religions have promoted facts and histories that are contradicted by science;after all  believers never think scientifically.

Religious believers brain wash children to believe what they want and take away their intellectual freedom to think freely and come to their own conclusions later.. They start thinking as per the software which is implanted through the early years of ideological brainwashing. Without this brainwashing how many would believe hat they do today? In his 1976 book ‘The Selfish Gene’, Richard Dawkins coined the term memes to describe informational units that can be transmitted culturally, like genes. Dawkins argues that religious ideologies are a set of ideas and concepts working to ensure the perpetuation and proliferation of the religion. One of the precepts of any religion is to raise one's children in one's faith. They make  children act irrationally and misallocate their energies. A child is conditioned to feel guilt, fear, and other negative emotions harmful to his self fearing gods, Satan, spirits, torments of hell, and so forth.

The magical ceremonies (religious rituals, processions, body postures) they witness from childhood obstruct their logical thinking of cause and effect. Genital mutilation of female children take away the joy in living as a woman. The frenzied sounds, howling, and mesmerizing postures, done in the name of faith healing is simply absurd and misleading.

  
Everyone agrees that religions have caused all wars in history. It proves beyond any reasonable doubt that various faiths have compartmentalized people who later forget they are brothers and sisters.  A lot of terrorism has their roots in religious fundamentalism.  The roots of Communal strife, riots and caste atrocities can all be traced to religions

.  

The resources of man is wastefully earmarked for places of worship, halls,  palaces, dwellings, and others. The paraphernalia for religious rituals is another source of human resource waste. The thought that it is the afterlife that matters hampers human progress as it makes people more accommodative and submissive to whatever happens in life. They accept failure and set-backs as god-sent and they do not challenge or try to overcome them. They suffer poverty, wants, illness, misery, commit terror and die in the hope of a heavenly life. Karl Marx feels that, religion is a tool whereby the masses are made to endure their suffering. The religious leaders instill a conviction that  the current suffering will lead to eventual happiness and in that hope they endure every ill. 

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Critics such as Richard Dawkins argue that religious belief often involves delusional behavior. Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation compares religion to a mental illness, saying it "allows otherwise normal human beings to behave like people with mental problems doing meaningless rituals and ceremonies. 

Every religion discriminates against women who are  treated like slaves. Girls are not free like boys to get educated, fend for themselves and decide their life. Nearly half of the population of the underdeveloped countries (where religions control everything) are backward, uneducated and depend on their men folk to live. Their lives are not productive and the same has partly precipitated the underdevelopment of the said nations.

Can a god ordain all these?

If a child happens to be born in Somalia, it will probably die before the age of 7 out of starvation diseases or both. A recent famine has claimed the lives of 29000 children under the age of 5. Andrew Mitchell who visited the country feels 400,00 will be dead. In Somalia  180 per 1000 children die at birth itself.  Its chances to get educated and prosper in life is almost nil. It may, in all probability  die before reaching adulthood . Unloved, unfed, it survives (if at all it does)  amidst poverty, war and tension. (Somalia’s Per capita income is $600/- against Luxemburg’s 55,100/- )

In USA a baby is fully planned, much before it arrives, its parents ensure that it is provided with every conceivable amenities (good food, proper care and medical attention) and is loved and protected. It will be sent to the best schools and it can on its own (through part time jobs), complete its university education and be well- placed and lead a comfortable life.  Its chances of dying is very low (infant mortality rate is only 7 in USA)  and it is assured of the country’s economic prosperity (USA per Capita Income $47,000)

An Indian child is probably born unplanned, unwanted and takes birth into extreme poverty. There is no food  as its mother’s breasts are dry with mal-nutrition). its chances of survival is say 50,50. Iinfant mortality rate alone is 48 per thousand. Death rate before the age of 10 is very high. If it is a female infant it would have been probably aborted , killed at birth and discriminated against later.  The chances that it will complete high school education are bleak if it survives childhood.

Look at Luxemburg, its per Capita income is 55,100 and its children are taking birth into luxury and its bright future is assured by its birth alone just like a Somalian or an Indian child’s future is doomed.  

The children of Carlos Slim, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mukesh Ambani and others in the genre are born inheriting billions. They are already multi billionaires even if they do not do anything later in life.

Can we say God ordains all these? That He, through his Providence, kills the Somalian and other poor countries’ children, shows special favors to those of the developed world  like Luxemburg or the US and sends poverty to the ones of India, Bangladesh and hosts of others whose survival is highly an improbability?  What type of a dispensation is this? Is it just as every child is created in the image of god? I am not able to understand. If somebody can clarify, I would be grateful.  

Does excess belief make people poorer?

We Keralites and Indians are madly religious. For anything and everything we invoke gods. If a misfortune comes we take the blame on ourselves. If a good thing happens we ascribe its credit to god. In short god is given all the credit and we are blamed for every ill. As we spend a lot of time on matters religious and as we believe gods will help us in everything (we need to pray only) and we pray and pray, go to the church or temple or to the shrine and partake in every religious ritual. See the net result! We are one of the poorest nations on the surface of the earth. Almost half of our 120 crore people are  living with Rs 20/- a day and they are all generally sick, emaciated and face all sorts of difficulties.   Nations which are advanced are far less religious; they believe they make their future. Hence they try to come up with all their capability. They have generally an aim and a purpose in life. They work and work, take risks and do not rest until they get what they want.  Here we do not even want anything. We are exhorted to be happy with what we have. It can be poverty, sickness, failures, backwardness; the gods have willed and we have to bear them. All that matters is the afterlife and hence this life is to be just endured.

Statistics on religious beliefs indicate that there is no other country in the world which is as mad about religion as India. And there are very few countries which is as corrupt, as poor and as backward as India. We are not bothered that half of all our children are malnourished, emaciated, sick and stunted!  We do not mind that more than 50 crores of our people do not get one meal a day, many of whom are staying in a single-room leaking, ramshackle shack. We do not mind they are sick and are in pain. The leaders who seem ‘more religious than us’ do not mind these things at all. They are very rich and powerful, their children study abroad and they have everything that can be thought about.  They know this life is all that matters and they try to live their lives to the full with all conceivable comforts and luxuries. The followers tow the foolish philosophy and suffer. 

A quarter of Indians live with Rs10/ 20 cents) a day!

Can people live on Rupees 10 (less than 20 cents) a day? A lunch cost Rs100 ($2) in an ordinary restaurant! For eating out with family you require more than Rs500/ ($10) .A middle class family of 3  needs 15,000($300) to live in India. How does then a family survive on Rs300/ ($6) a month? But as per a  government of India commissioned study, 83 crore (836 million to be precise) Indians live with Rs.20 a day! But they are not below poverty line as per the govt’s new standards. Half of themlive with Rs10 or below  

Extreme Poverty is widespread in India; it has a third of the world's poorest. According to a World Bank estimate, 41.6% of the population falls below the international poverty lines. A recent report by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) states that 8 Indian states have more poor than 26 poorest African nations combined population (above 410 million)!  

 The latest UNICEF data shows that one in three malnourished children worldwide are found in India and 42 percent of children under five are  underweight. It also showed that a total of 58 percent of children under five, surveyed, were stunted. The 2011 Global Hunger Index (GHI) Report places India amongst the three countries where the Global hunger Index  between 1996 and 2011 went up from 22.9 to 23.7.  We are behind  Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Kenya, Nigeria, Myanmar, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Malawi!.

 Many think  India has joined the ranks of the world's economic powers!  There are a handful who draw huge salaries in India and abroad.  But India’s real people, the vast majority, live with almost nothing. The government is bringing down those below poverty line by consciously lowering the poverty level from Rs 21 or a day to Rs11 and down. And they declare ‘we are succeeding in eradicating poverty. As per this standard, Those earning between Rs11and Rs20 are above poverty line!  

In the rural settings and slums of cities and towns of India  the fortunate can afford  Rs 20  a day. Others earn much less! To these millions and millions the shining malls, the glittering restaurants and supermarkets make no difference whatsoever. Two dry rottis will  be their lunch and a dry tea the dinner. The roof of their one-room hut will be on the verge of collapse or the ramshackle shack would be so dilapidated that it is better to live in the open air than inside. While they lie down hungry and naked or defecate  in the open they can hear the boom of an Indian rocket going to probe the moon to find out whether there is water there. 

A grim future of India

 India possesses the potential to be a very powerful and economically sound nation. And the opportunity to make that happen lies at the doorstep of India's leaders. 71% of the population—800 million people—are below 35 years of age. It is full of young people. It can be moved with a positive leadership. India's growth is driven by only a fraction of its population. Much of the nation remains a picture of rural poverty and urban squalor. A handful of  well placed Indians  will not be able to pull the hundreds of millions out of the grinding poverty.  Indian leadership from the village to the municipal level, all the way up to the highest offices in the North Block and South Block of India's capital  have little real understanding of what it would take to make India a nation that cares for all of its people. They indeed have little intent to achieve such a goal.

At present 94% of India's children drop out of school before completion of the 12th grade. This is largely because of poverty and the lack of opportunities that await them once they finish education.  There is widespread unemployment among the 6% successful ones who go in for a regular college degree.  

Te situation in rural agricultural India is becoming desperate. Over the last 3 years, at least 950,000 farmers—nearly a million! have committed suicide! One observer points out that currently, seven to eight farmers commit suicide in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh alone every day.

It must be understood that a large number of people who are "considered" by Indian leaders not to be poor are, in reality, abysmally poor. For instance, the minimum income required, as per the World Bank's  assessment, to live above the poverty line, for underdeveloped countries like India or China, is about $1 per day or about Rs50 a day. But the Indian government's poverty line definition, is earning around Rs.12 or so per day, which translates to approximately Rs.360 per month! ($6) More than half  of the entire Indians are below the poverty line! They are abysmally poor and live in squalor and filth. 

Rising social tension because of the growing income disparity between a sea of extremely poor and a decent number of middle class, is either not noticed, or ignored, by a rudderless leadership. There are definite signals that the hundreds of millions of poor could turn violent. No wonder the Maoists are gaining ground in Bihar, jungles of Madya Pradesh, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, W. Bengal,  Jharkhand , Chhattisgarh, and even Tamil Nadu. There is a limit for the selfishness of Indian leadership who care only for themselves.   

India a super power or a pauper?

The middle class of India (watching  the Indian media  which pamper them) think that the country is going to be a super power. But the reality is nowhere near the coveted position. The London School of Economics maintain that this dream my remain a myth. There are some achievements in fields like sustaining democracy, cultural strides and some growth.  They  are nullified by:

1.       Weakness in so many fronts like widespread and extreme poverty, illiteracy, backwardness of women ,mal-nutrition and sickness of children,  high birth rate, population explosion, wrong priorities in the allotment of central funds, subsidy culture,   budget deficits,  and so on.

2.       Corrupt leadership especially the congress leadership who are corrupt to the core and who directly or indirectly promote corruption to enrich and empower themselves. The top political family is reported to have the maximum black money in the country. They have to shield themselves and in the process the entire machinery is to be kept corrupt. (India is one of the most corrupt nations in the world (95th  in a total of 110 or so surveyed!)

3.       Religious extremism and caste polarization is ruining the nation. People are madly religious unlike the developed countries and even their thinking is along religious lines. Top national politicians try to placate and favor the minority community to get votes. Politics have degenerated to the level of pleasing minorities.

We need sincere leaders interested in the country’s development (not the ones Indira Gandhi who eradicated poverty from the face of the nation with slogans like ‘Garibi Hatao’( Discard poverty), ‘The nation is on the move’ written everywhere or likethe new flamboyant young guy, Rahul  Gandhi who  sleeps in a poor man’s hut for a night, talks about the absence of power in a village woman’s house  in the parliament, drinks tea from a street vendor and conducts road shows-spending millions for his security alone!. These are gimmicks and the guy seems to be enjoying the whole thing as a show, eyeing the throne of the Prime Ministership of the nation dangling in front. See the way democracy works here!  

India should not even aspire for such exalted status unless and until the leaders become sincere in developing the country (not themselves)  and try to rectify educational backwardness, educate and empower women,  eradicate  the caste and religious extremism , extreme poverty  and  illiteracy.  

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 Know thyself, discover your strengths &and weaknesses . Feel and keep in your mind your good, winning experiences and confident situations, Know how to forget your unpleasant past. Know precisely what you want in life. Make it specific and time bound. How to make it your predominant thought. How to see your goal as already achieved.  Alpha Meditation to influence your subconscious mind.  Focused  attention

How to maintain Peak State Body physiology to get what you want.  Attain Mental fitness

Venue: Hotel International, MG Rd, Kochi Date:  24^th25^th  March from 9.30-5pm Registration:  book your seat through phone and email send Rs.500 advance though bank transfer to the A/c. No. 6400. Of Prof. P.A. Varghese (Kakkandu branch) Ernakulum District co-operative bank . Contact 9895471704 professorpavarghese@yahoo.co.uk  Fees:  Rs.4500/- For Face Book participants Rs.2500/-includes buffet lunch, tea and snacks morning and evening. Handouts, writing materials will be supplied.If there are 2 participants from the same firm or house the fee will be Rs2000/each.Join now for the two day seminar

School Students (including higer secondary)are not welcome. Those not serious about their future are not welcome. Those who believe everything is controlled by fate are not welcome.Those who are not willing to practice what is taught are not welcome too.Max. participants allowed 20 only on a first come first served basis.  

Modelling for success

Through modelling you can replicate the desirable skill or behaviour of any one. What the person has acquired in a long period of time can be appropriated by you in a much shorter time and hence the whole process is accelerated learning.

Richard Bandler and John Grinder gives the pragmatic ways to replicate and produce the desirable skills or behavior. They modeled the strategies of Virginia Satir and duplicated her extraordinary results in family therapy. What Bandler and Grinder did differently was to find the thinking strategies she was using while copying behaviors. Many others like Anthony Robbins have adopted their techniques and modeled others successfully.                                                                                                                                                                              

Merely copying one’s behavior may not be enough; one has to assimilate core beliefs, and thought process while matching his physiology, and the motor skills.  You should know the person extremely well in the particular setting.  Pick up the pattern of their behaviors at an unconscious level and 'tune in' your motor-skills to theirs or  replicate his patterns of muscle movements, physical postures and gestures, and a number of other minute muscle movements without any rationalization and then you can have the same degree of skill or replicate his behavior in that setting.

Children model elders-they are natural modelers. They do not have any expectation or anxiety of the outcome or consequences of their modeling and they succeed at a phenomenal rate. They learn a language from the early developmental environment. In the school he/she is exposed to learning information through instruction. This is a new learning system and the child develops appropriate strategies. As he becomes an adult he has already ingrained certain learning methods.  Modeling re-teaches a person how to learn effectively without the involvement of any conscious learning system. 

In the case of a child, the learning of a set of skills and techniques is without any rationalization or any conscious intervention. The modellee simply models the person blindly to develop the necessary skills, behaviors, motor skills and unconscious processes that the other person has without trying to interpret what they do. You do not try to understand what you want to learn consciously but you simply try to mirror and match the person in his physiology, dressing and grooming, voice patterns, thoughts and the why of his behaviour and actions. 

Test Your Emotional Quotient

We have mentioned in an earlier post (EI, the ultimate success factor) that Emotional Intelligence is the most crucial factor of success in today’s world. Here is a simple test to see where you stand in Emotional Quotient. I do not claim originality for most of the questions.  It has been adopted from the researchers in EI (with a few of my own original ones.) Look for the rating at the bottom once you complete answering the questionnaire.

Answer the following questions (tick the correct answer)

1. I am confident about myself, my abilities and talents  (strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree)

2.  I am a good judge of others and myself (strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree)

 3.  In my circle of friends, I know how each one feels about the others  (1.Strongly Agree  2.  Agree, 3. Disagree, 4 strongly disagree.) 

4. When I am upset, I can know why I am upset. ( 1. Strongly Agree  2.  Agree, 3. Disagree, 4 strongly disagree.)

5. If I make a mistake, I often criticize and find fault with myself and my abilities. (1. Often, sometimes, rarely, almost never)

 6.  I am comfortable in a highly emotional situation (Strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree)

7. I do not like confrontations as I Become very anxious. I try to avoid it.  (Strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree)

8.  I am usually aloof and have very few intimate friends (strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree)

7. I have a habit of overreacting to minor problems. (Strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree)

8. When given an unpleasant task, (1.make a plan to complete it on time, 2. Try to do it fast and get it over, 3. Put it off until last 4. Never do it.)

9. If there is a heated argument in a meeting (1. Try for a short break 2. Stop responding to the other, 3. Apologize to end the problem, 4. Start insulting the other)

10. When I make a decision, (I rely on my instinct and judgment, 2. rely on others’ directions, 3. Go for the easy option 4. Use random method or guesswork)

11. Your instructor gives poor grade for project work you took a long time (you feel the instructor is stupid or unjust, 2.  Criticize your work 3. Persuade the instructor to give you more 4. Find out the mistakes and try to improve in future)

12. One of your friends had a big failure. (1.spend time with him, let him express his feelings while you offer support 2. You remain in his house but avoid discussing about it.3. Ask him to go out and forget about it. 4. Leave him to himself

13. One of your co-workers has nasty habit. (1. You tell him about it . 2. Complain to the superior.3. Talk about it to others. 4. Suffer the problem silently)

14. You lose your temper with your family, colleagues and others (1.Often  2.Sometimes, 3.Occasionallly. 4. Never)

15. You think and feel about your failures (1.Often 2.sometimes. 3 occasionally 4. Never

Rating:

For questions 1-6,& 9-10 Give 3 marks for 1, 2marks for 2, 1 mark for 3 and o mark for 4.

For questions  7-8 and 11-15, give 0 mark for 1, 1 mark for 2, 2 marks for 3, 3 marks for 4

If you score 35-40 or more your Emotional Quotient is high. If the score is below 20 it is low.  Note those you lack and correct yourself and do the test after say 1 year to see your improvement. 

Imagine your future into reality

What do you want to be after 10 years from now?   If you can see clearly what you want, in all probability you will get it. But if you don’t foresee what you want, you will have to be content with what comes along. And you will term it fate or destiny although there is nothing like that.

LabelsThere is a simple but fool-proof way to attain what you want.  imagine your future into reality.  Your mental pictures determine your future; they attract to you the opportunities, personal contacts, financial and other means to reach your goals.

If you picture yourself a pauper you will become so; if you think of success or fame you will get them too. All of the great thinkers and seers throughout history have affirmed that every person becomes what he or she thinks. The saying, ‘as a man thinketh so is he’ is very much true. Even Buddha taught, ‘all that we are is the result of what we have thought.’ As the rich picture and see more wealth mentally they become richer. The poor sees poverty, wants and diseases all the time in their inner eye and they become poorer and sicker. Your mental pictures provide motivational guidance and condition your attitudes so that you will act in a guided manner to achieve the objectives you hold

Nobody can get rich by receiving handouts from another. Prosperity begins with one’s own thoughts. It is absolutely one’s own initiative. The poverty of the people can be removed only when they change their thoughts, when they become prosperity conscious. Every human being has the potential to create wealth, position or fame. They need first to change their perception.   You can be so much more than what you are now. You have no control on what has happened to you. Accept it. But you have perfect control on your future. Your time on this earth is meant for success, and happiness. Start to create that destiny from right now.  

We are all equal in one way

People dive into the depths of oceans.  The daredevil do skydiving or par jutting. We can find others treading the snow capped mountains to their dangerous peaks. Men like Obama spend long periods establishing themselves and again spend years giving up everything-free time,  family life and the innocent pleasures- and later go to every nook and corner of a large country for years  to become the leader of the nation.  Bill Gates and Warren Buffet make billions after years of intelligent toil and give almost the entire money they have made to the needy. Again they amass wealth to give to charity.  Millions and millions around the world work hard and hard. Peasants toil in the fields in the hot sun. Beggars go round begging.

What are these people after? To become a leader or the chief executive?  To conquer a mountain?  To explore the sea beds? For the thrill of the adventure? To help their fellow beings? To rear up a family? Or, Just to eke out a living?

Why should they become a leader or CEO? Why should anyone crave for adventure?  Why should anyone help others, especially the less fortunate? Why should people work for money? Certainly there is something beyond the obvious answers.  If you go deeper, everything can be reduced to 9 letters: HAPPINESS. we are all equal in this. All of us live here to be happy. There is no other ultimate aim behind whatever man does. Even a murder is committed to be happy (whether one will be truly happy or not is another thing). We live to be happy and peaceful.  

EI, the ultimate success factor

Success is not a function of one’s looks, IQ, physique, knowledge, skill, hard work or energy level. A lot of us  fail with high IQ, good looks and abundant knowledge, some of whom  work  hard  like a donkey. In today’s world Emotional Intelligence makes all the difference. EI, simply put, is one’s ability to understand, evaluate, monitor and control one’s own feelings and emotions. It is partly an inborn characteristic and partly a learnt one.

 One should be aware of one’s emotional set up and its impact on others and learn to control it.  Without regulating one’s feelings and reactions based on it, he/she can never cultivate meaningful relationships at home or at the work place.  Theodor Roosevelt feels that the most important single ingredient in the formula of success is how to get along with people. You cannot achieve great success without the help of others and people are more willing to help you if you have built a meaningful relationship. You cannot be victims of the stimuli- response patterns of behavior (reacting to a situation based on your instinct like animals do).We should decide our reactions suitably and  consciously, learning to treat the person with respect no matter who the guy is or how he behaved to you.    

Empathy-the ability to know the emotional make-up of other people- is one of the hallmarks of emotional intelligence.  You should be able to treat people, colleagues, family members, subordinates and superiors, as per their emotional set-up. If you react angrily to an angry outburst from one of your workers, friends or dear ones, well,  you are just like him with no control over your emotions and you cannot  be a leader and without becoming one there is no way you can succeed. To effectively behave to people you need to be cognizant of their emotional set-up and the why of their behavior before you react. The proficiency in building and managing relationships and networks--social skills-- is a crucial characteristic of emotional intelligence.

Your strong drive to achieve goals, passion to work for more than you are paid for and the desire to go the extra mile in whatever you do, will alone motivate people and this is another indication of a leader. You will have then the mental set-up to challenge any failure and overcome every obstacle on the way. You will be able to work comfortably even in an ambiguous situation.