Yoga Sadhana And Progress Of Civilisation

Nivedita Joshi





Yoga has been defined as `Chitta vritti nirodha', that is, `stops all internal and external forms of thinking which may sprout with or without volition' ­ stilling the mind.Chitta stands for three things: mind, intelligence and ego. Mind has no discriminative power but has the power of gathering and feeling. Intelligence discriminates and reasons and comes to determinative knowledge. Intelligence is the tool to find the true Self, but the `i-ness' interferes with intelligence and prides itself on being the true Self. Intelligence is the vehicle of the true Self whereas i-ness is the impostor of the true Self.
The human body has three layers: causal, subtle and gross. The causal body is the sheath of the soul; it is incorruptible and non-decaying. When you are not in this body , you lose your true state and dwell in the chitta. Then, it is the subtle body or the physiological sheath. Senses of perception and organs of action are vehicles of gross body , dependent on mind, without which the outer body cannot function.
Gross and subtle bodies are interdependent. We use our senses to fulfil and enjoy the mind's demands and so get caught in the web of worldly desire. Like the spokes of a wheel, these enjoyments revolve between pleasure and pain. We become victims of circumstances, which create dual consciousness or personalities. This state is the seed of separation ­ viyoga, pain and dukkha, sorrow.
Practice of yoga sublimates the mind through conscious effort to obtain release from the web of pleasure and pain; it leads one to experience a state that is beyond pleasure and pain, as a pristine, pure and static shuddha swaroopa.
Yoga gives us ways to develop harmony and balance and achieve holistic health. Patanjali says that it is possible to achieve these either by practice and dispassion or by total surrender to the Supreme. Since total surrender is difficult, even impossible for most of us, Patanjali insists on abhyasa, practice and vairagya, dispassion. When harmony is achieved, then abhyasa and vairagya, starting out as forced regimental disciplines, become a natural process and the practitioner continues them without any motive or desire.From then on, his sadhana becomes vairagyabhyasa. In this state, the practitioner develops stability in mind and steadfastness in intelligence. He has no more disparities within himself or his encasement, the body . His sadhana becomes all in one and one in all, the true nature of oneself.
The practitioner of yoga, the yoga sadhaka, thus bridges the gap between body , mind and Self and becomes master of these three. The knower, the knowable and the known, become one.The journey of the seeker comes to an end. Through a constant process of evolving culture from yama to dhyana, he civilises himself and becomes kushal (adept), a true owner of the sacred body.
The light of wisdom dawns on him, like dharmameghas, a rain cloud of justice. As the dharma of clouds is to pour rain, the yogi's wisdom pours knowledge that is ever-pure, ever-green and continues to live for posterity . He becomes Krithartha, that is, his way of life reflects on humanity like the reflection of the mirror, and transforms it. Thereby , the culture of the yogi becomes the civilisation of the world.

Big data, big dangers

India needs to negotiate the world of big data technology with adequate safeguards

With the Supreme Court turning its gaze on privacy issues associated with Aadhaar, can we take a moment to look to the myriad ways in which our privacy is being assaulted in the digital world? When my neighbour across the street got too curious about my life, I installed curtains to block his gaze. But what about when the invisible drones at Facebook send him a message that one of my colleagues has tagged me enjoying a music festival in Goa and he might want to “like” this picture? How do we draw a curtain around our digital lives?

Think beyond the nosy neighbour to the corporations that want to utilise minutia of your life to sell products that you may or may not need. Corporations have always been interested in understanding consumer behaviour and been collecting data about users using their products or service. What is unique about Big Data Technology (BDT) is the scale at which this data collection can take place. For instance, Google has stored petabytes of information about billions of people and their online browsing habits. Similarly, Facebook and Amazon have collected information about social networks. In addition to using this data to improve products or services that these corporations offer, the stored data is available also to highest bidders and governments of nations where these companies are based.

Looming dangers

One major problem with collecting and storing such vast amounts of data overseas is the ability of owners of such data stores to violate the privacy of people. Even if the primary collectors of data may not engage in this behaviour, foreign governments or rogue multinationals could clandestinely access these vast pools of personal data in order to affect policies of a nation. Such knowledge could prove toxic and detrimental in the hands of unscrupulous elements or hostile foreign governments. The alleged Russian interference in the U.S. election tells us that these possibilities are not simply science fiction fantasies.

The other major problem is the potential drain of economic wealth of a nation. Currently, the corporations collecting such vast amounts of data are all based in developed countries, mostly in the U.S. Most emerging economies, including India, have neither the knowledge nor the favourable environment for businesses that collect data on such a vast scale. The advertising revenue that is currently earned by local newspapers or other media companies would eventually start to flow outside the country to overseas multinationals. A measure of this effect can already be seen in a way that consumer dollars are being redistributed across the spectrum of U.S. businesses touching them. For instance, communication carriers such as AT&T, Verizon and cable networks find that their revenue has remained flat to slightly falling in the last five years whereas the revenues of Google, which depend on these carriers to provide connectivity to consumers, are increasing exponentially. Unless we employ some countermeasures, we should expect the same phenomenon repeat itself for corporations based in India.

Sadly, BDT is a tiger the world is destined to ride. It is no longer possible to safely disembark, but staying on is not without its perils. The only way to negotiate this brave new world is to make sure that India does it on her own terms and finds a way to protect both financial rewards and ensure individual privacy and national security through appropriate safeguards.

What India can do

China has apparently understood this dynamic and taken measures to counter this threat. It has encouraged the formation of large Internet companies such as Baidu and Alibaba and deterred Google and others from having major market share in China by using informal trade restraints and anti-monopoly rules against them. India may not be able to emulate China in this way, but we could take other countermeasures to preserve our digital economy independence. The heart of building companies using BDT is their ability to build sophisticated super-large data centres. By providing appropriate subsidies such as cheap power and real estate, and cheap network bandwidth to those data centres, one would encourage our industries to be able to build and retain data within our boundaries. In the short term, we should also create a policy framework that encourages overseas multinationals such as Google and Amazon to build large data centres in India and to retain the bulk of raw data collected in India within our national geographical boundaries.

Moreover, we should also build research and development activities in Big Data Science and data centre technology at our academic and research institutions that allow for better understanding of the way in which BDT can be limited to reduce the risk of deductive disclosure at an individual level. This will require developing software and training for individuals on how to protect their privacy and for organisations and government officials to put in place strict firewalls, data backup and secure erasure procedures. In the West, we already are seeing a number of start-ups developing technology that enables users to control who gets access to the data about their behaviour patterns in the digital world.

The government has approved the “Digital India” Plan that aims to connect 2.5 lakh villages to the Internet by 2019 and to bring Wi-Fi access to 2.5 lakh schools, all universities and public places in major cities and major tourist centres. This is indeed a very desirable policy step. But unless we evolve appropriate policies to counter the side effects of the Digital Plan, this could also lead to the unforeseen eColonisation of India.

Hemant Kanakia is a computer scientist and investor in high technology companies. The views expressed are personal

Source: The Hindu, 15-06-2017

What is client politics in political science

A political situation where government policy is influenced by the interests of a small minority, rather than that of the overwhelming majority. In politics, smaller groups at times can exert a disproportionate influence on government policy by virtue of being more organised than larger groups. Individuals in these smaller groups have more incentive to organise since the benefits they gain from a favourable policy are larger when they are part of a smaller group. In contrast, individuals in larger groups have lesser incentive to organise since the benefits they gain are smaller.

World-class Institutes Plan Faces Autonomy Hurdle

Anubhuti Vishnoi

New Delhi:





CONCERNS RAISED IN CABINET ON THE LEVELS OF AUTONOMY PROMISED & THE POSSIBLE FALLOUT OF SUCH A MOVE

Prime minister's office (PMO) and Union human resource development (HRD) ministry may have finally ironed out their differences over the extent of autonomy for 20 chosen `world-class' institutes or `institutes of eminence', but the debate seems to have spilled onto the cabinet now.Concerns have been raised in the cabinet on the considerable levels of autonomy promised to these institutes and the possible fallout or negative implications of such a move.
The HRD ministry's proposed UGC (Institutions of Eminence Deemed to be Universities) regulations, 2017, which were moved for cabinet approval nearly three weeks back, have now been `deferred', ET has learnt.
During a cabinet discussion, a concern was also raised on how it would be ensured that such autonomous institutes will not end up creating more JNU like `Kanhaiyas', sources said. The proposal to catapult Indian institutes to global recognition first announced in the 2016 Union budget and said to be the brainchild of the PMO -had caused considerable friction between the HRD ministry then led by Smriti Irani and the PMO, with the latter pushing for greater levels of autonomy for the institutes while the ministry called for caution and some governmental role. The ministry and PMO were at that point at loggerheads on the autonomy framework for IIMs under the new IIM Bill with similar positions on the debate.
After Irani's sudden exit mid-2016, the HRD ministry under Prakash Javadekar was mostly in agreement with the PMO to draft a set of significantly liberalised regulations. The regulations now bear a distinct PMO mark and assure complete academic, administrative and financial autonomy to the select 20.
The regulations aim to create a group of degree granting `world class institutes' as a special category under deemed universities, but governed by a separate set of regulations. As was envisaged by the PMO, the regulations clearly indicate that UGC regulations will not be applicable in most part to these 20 institutes.
This required considerable heavy lifting after the Solicitor General of India advised that it is not legally feasible to create a separate regulatory structure for them in the form of the proposed Empowered Exper t Committee (EEC). EEC was originally proposed as a body that can function independent and autonomous of the UGC. After the SG's legal opinion, provisions had to be incorporated to get a UGC seal of approval on the EEC decision.
One of the key changes made was in the corpus fund requirement. It was originally proposed that a private institute must have a corpus of `500 crore to be eligible to be declared a world class institute. However, after the PMO's intervention, this was said to be reworked to keep it at `200 crore instead. Later, the HRD ministry has brought this down to just 60 crore to be raised to `150 crore in ten years' time. It was argued that corpus fund is also read as locked up money, so there may not be enough rationale for prescribing such a high amount being kept locked up.
The draft regulations had said the institutions must ensure a 1:10 facultystudent ratio, enroll 20,000 students in 15 years. These criteria finally stand revised and now to start with the faculty student ration will be 1:20 that may be improved to 1:10 in five years' times and a total enrolment of 15,000 students in 15 years.

Source: Economic Times, 15-06-2017

Goddess Of Big Things

Anil Nair





In her latest `big' novel, Arundhati Roy the polemicist trumps literature

The philosopher John Gray famously spoke of how secularism, like chastity, is defined by what it denies. Something similar afflicts Arundhati Roy , a passionate votary of all things small, perishable and precious but who somehow seems unable to write in sustained fashion about anything but the big, bad and ominous.Twenty years of ranting against mammoth dams, nuclear bombs and the Leviathan Indian state would have, one assumed, cured her of polemic and, when finally news arrived that her second novel was on its way , it appeared to herald her return to that rare talent evidenced in her maiden novel.
The God of Small Things, whose sentences, like two-egg twins, combined childlike precociousness with adult presentiment was essentially a story about love and loss, the first forbidden, the second inevitable. It was a story about individuals, ordinary ones, and the war of loss and longing occasioned in their souls. The big bad world was always there, but always as an outcrop, a backdrop.
On the contrary , what we have with The Ministry of Utmost Happiness that just hit bookstores is an unabashed history lesson, where individuals are mere pawns in a larger-than-life plot.The story has beautiful, bleeding Kashmir at its centre and ugly India, imperial, impervious and with its “infrastructure of impunity“, slowly worming its way through the fine gossamer web to devour what is left of it.
By the time the well-worn plot is exhumed, examined and laid back to rest, the pro-Kashmiris, so to speak, have chosen one of the only two options available to such freedom fighters, patriots who are not nationalists ­ they scorn Pakistan but end up in Qabristan.As for the Indian end of the troika of individuals who are at the heart of this episode, the minion of the state develops a conscience, enough of it to concede at the end to the martyrdom-inclined, “you may be right but you will never win“.
The whole tone of the book is that of a Cassandra call, which declares that fascism is already here in India, that it is not a drill, that it is not alarmist to say such things but is merely true. Of course, these sections are very well-written, where scrupulous reportage melds with deadpan machismo, a world where Pankaj Mishra (investigating the alleged Chittisinghpura massacres) meets Frederick Forsyth (plotting The Dogs of War).
But, where, you might well ask, since this is a literary novel, is Amos Oz, an Israeli who surely knows quite a bit about wars within? Amos Oz, who unforgettably said that it is the task of any serious writer who enters the No Man's Land of conflicts, within and without, to always differentiate “the bad from the worse from the worst“. Nuance, in plain English. Something that The Ministry sadly lacks, determined as it is to deal only in big bromides and simplistic black and white. There is Aftab-turned-Anjum, of course, with whom the book begins, who periodically resurfaces and is adroitly there at the finale to tie up the loose ends, proof that even in an unfortunately expository work like this Roy's novelistic instincts do survive. Anjum is finely wrought, initially like her friend Razia, “a man who wanted to remain a man but be a woman in all other respects“, but is eventually reconciled to her new self after reconstruction surgeries coarsen her voice, with its peculiar rasping quality , like two voices quarrelling with one another.
This `in-betweeness', roiling ambi guity or hybridity if you will, is the real terrain of fiction and where Roy was so at home in Small Things. In The Ministry her perfect pitch is spoiled by abundant false notes, and in the final analysis it merits a verdict that mirrors what Orwell remarked about Dickens, that he “had rotten architecture but great gargoyles“, in other words, a floundering novel with flashes of brilliance.
In The Ministry , the politically unexamined life of the liberal, who is sure that she is right about everything, has trumped the novelist, a trap Roy could have avoided if only she had heeded her mentor John Berger's exhortation to convert self-pity to anger but also to beware of looking too far ahead, in fact, “a refusal to look ahead“. But Roy insists on looking too far ahead, always after a Chad Crowe new Camelot ­ if it was Paradise pickled and preserved in Small Things it is Jannat, “guesthouse in the graveyard“ in The Ministry . Instead of rubbing history against the grain and questio ning received notions, including her own, Roy toys with `revolution'.
A left-liberal autodidact, Roy behaves here more like a red diaper baby , conjuring, in the absence of a real political programme, possible prosthetic proletariats who might overthrow the existing order. “Lal Salaam Aleikum“, as Anjum intones at Maoist comrade Masse Revathy's funeral, and intoned in turn by Saddam Hussain, her sidekick and local cheat, who changes his name from Dayachand to that of the late Iraqi despot's because, “it would give me the courage to do what I had to do and face the consequences, like him“.
All so moving, if it was not all so contrived. The noted critic James Wood pertinently asked, “Which way will the ambitious contemporary novel go? Will it dare a picture of life, or just shout a spectacle?“ We all looked up to Roy , back from the wilderness after 20 years, to redress the balance. God, hasn't she disappointed us!

Source: Times of India, 15-06-2017

Ramzan Fasting Rejuvenates Body, Mind & Spirit

M Aslam





Fasting, during the month of Ramzan, not only serves as annual training for body and soul ­ which helps in renewal of life and encourages the spirit of sharing and giving ­ it also enables the promotion of spirituality and human excellence.The basic objective of this month-long annual process is to alter the behaviour and pattern of life of its practitioners in such a way that they turn out to be ideal human beings. It implies that a person observing fast will not only observe abstinence from eating and drinking but will get into a sublime state of mind in order to develop positive feelings. It essentially means restraining oneself from listening, speaking, hearing or thinking negatively about others. The expectation is that if one passes through this process of self-purification for a period of one month, its impact will last at least for the remaining eleven months.
I have practically observed that fasting instils moral courage and guides the heart. Fasting leads to tranquillity and calmness in the face of adversity , and helps one cultivate patience.
We are creatures of acquired habits. Some of these are good habits and some are bad, like smoking. Fasting provides the observer an opportunity to change his habit, as smoking is prohibited during this period. I was a chain smoker 12 years ago and it was fasting which created in me the necessary level of determination that enabled me to give up the bad habit.
Ramzan fasting can help us gu Ramzan fasting can help us guard against obesity and blood pressure, provided the faster follows the strict dietary rule: Eat at the designated time when you break your fast and avoid over-eating. “Eat and drink, but waste not by excess, for Allah loves not wasters.“ (Al-Quran, 7:31) Charitable acts recommended during Ramzan help us bond with the less privileged. And as the family comes together to break the fast at Iftar, and eat together at least twice a day for a month, and pray together, ties deepen and members of the family draw closer to each other.
Tajuddin B Shuaib, in `Essentials of Ramadan, The Fasting Month', summarises the essence of fasting as a tool for reconstruction of our spiritual faculties: “The institution of fasting is a unique form of worship prescribed as part of an overall system of Islam. Its uniqueness mirrors the uniqueness of the human being, a creature of physical and spiritual parts whose excellence depends on the right proportion of these two parts. Too much of the physical material will ruin man, and too much of the spiritual will too.Fasting orients the observer to the art of balancing the spiritual essentials with physical needs, a vivid proof that there is in all of us the will power, a pivotal element that controls our actions.
“This will be needed to help us curb the animalistic tendencies originating from the stomach, in full. It awakens the mind and kindles clear thinking and consciousness of Allah. Fasting is the sobering of a mind and reconstruction of our spiritual faculties.“
I only pray that our spiritual faculties get awakened during this month of fasting and we are able to balance spiritual essentials with our physical needs to receive God's blessings and protection, which we all need so desperately in these turbulent times.

Learning to read as adult changes brain'

Rosamma Thomas

Jaipur





Contrary To Popular Belief, New Research Finds You Can Start To Pick Up A Skill At Any Age

The adult brain, contrary to popular belief, is quite flexible, says a new study by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands. The research was conducted in collaboration with the Centre for Bio-Medical Research, Lucknow, and the University of Hyderabad.The researchers studied changes in the brain of 30 illiterate women from villages near Lucknow, aged between 18 and 30 years, after they received daily lessons in Hindi for six months. There were two control groups -30 illiterate women given no training, and a group comprising literate women who had received no formal education.
All three groups were made to undergo a restingstate functional MRI, used to analyse the functional connectivity in the human brain, at the outset. The first group underwent the scan once again after the training.
A comparison of the results showed changes in the brain -in the thalamus and brainstem -after the women learned to read and write.
“At the beginning of the training, the majority of them could not decipher a single written word of their mother tongue Hindi,“ website `ScienceDaily .com' said in a report on the study , adding that participants reached a level comparable to that of first-graders after only six months of reading training. “This growth of knowledge is remarkable,“ project leader Falk Huettig, of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, was quoted as saying.
The findings, which hold enormous potential for assessment of conditions like dyslexia, were published in the journal `Science Advances' on May 24.
“Reading is such a new ability in human evolutionary history that the existence of a `reading area' could not be specified in our genes.A kind of recycling process has to take place in the brain while learning to read: Areas evolved for the recognition of complex objects, such as faces, become engaged in translating let ters into language. Some regions of our visual system thereby turn into interfaces between the visual and language systems,“ `ScienceDaily' explained in its report on the study.
Huettig was quoted as saying that the study flew in the face of the belief so far that changes in the brain were limited to the outer layer, the cortex, which adapts quickly to new challenges.
“In contrast to previous assumptions, the learning process leads to a reorganisation that extends to deep brain structures in the thalamus and the brainstem. The relatively young phenomenon of human writing therefore changes brain regions that are very old in evolutionary terms and already core parts of mice and other mammalian brains,“ the website reported.
Michael Skeide, scientific researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS) in Leipzig and first author of the study , was quoted as explaining that the research explained why experienced readers navigated text more efficiently .
“We observed that the socalled colliculi superiores, a part of the brainstem, and the pulvinar, located in the thalamus, adapt the timing of their activity patterns to those of the visual cortex,“ Skeide was quoted as saying by `ScienceDaily'.
He explained that these deep structures in the thalamus and brainstem helped our visual cortex, which processes visual stimuli, fil ter important information from the flood of visual inputs even before we consciously perceive it. Interestingly , the more the signal timings between the two brain regions are aligned, the better the reading capabilities.
“We, therefore, believe that these brain systems increasingly fine-tune their communication as learners become more and more proficient in reading,“ the neuroscientist said.
Asked why the study was conducted on an all-women group, Uttam Kumar, assistant professor at the Centre for Bio-Medical Research's MRI neuro-imaging unit, said, “That was done to eliminate any controversy around differences in the learning pattern of men and women and to ensure uniformity in results.“
He said what the study showed was that “it does not matter what age you start to pick up a skill as long as it is a psychologically normal brain. If done in a sequential manner, the brain can accommodate the learning and the change is apparent.“
Source: Times of India, 15-06-2017