Normal And Abnormal

Practically what is observed in a democratic system is that the common man or more refined to say the citizen is nothing but a vote casting machine. He has no role in decision making, formation of law or implementation the law. He does not have any voice anywhere. If he finds something goes wrong, he cannot practically correct the same. When corruption takes place all around, this common man deemed to have moved away unnoticed. If he spot the error of the elected and highlight the same he may even be eliminated. He cannot pinpoint any activities of corruption if found in the legislature, executive or the judiciary. He may be put behind bars. That is the so called democracy and the related freedom of expression. There is more comody in the democracy than we think. It is presumed that in a democratic system the people elect their representatives to rule them. The people are construed as the masters and the elected representatives are said to be their servants. In reality all

(Strike in a production unit in Palakkad. Image courtesy, Times of India) Undoubtedly there is only one claimant for the economy of Kerala as we see today. That is none other than the people of Kerala. Since independence, with bare minimum education, our people moved out to other states across the country. The huge outflow was towards the then Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. They worked hard to meet their needs and send the remaining back to the homes. Later few people moved to Malaya (today's Malaysian region), Persia (Gulf countries) Sheema (England) etc. These all together laid the economic foundation of Kerala. Later with higher education and competitive knowledge and skills our past generations moved all over the world. Our past spirit and experience brought our today's generation to one of the most intelligent and skillful people of the world. And that brought the external remittance to Rs 1.5 lakh crores per annum. None of our political parties tried to pool thi

(Offshore drilling platform. Image courtesy BOP team) This is being asked to the people of Kerala, that why we are too lazy rather made to be so within our state. All our attention is always focused on politics. Nothing else seems to be important for us. Meeting, rally, wall writing, zindabad etc are our prime task. We may look at our governments one after the other. We are always trying to find more and more avenues to avail loans. We never put even the slightest effort to find new sources to generate revenue to the exchequer. And all these have brought unbearable liability for our coming generations. Here is a humble suggestion. Let us have discussion with the African countries Algeria and Nigeria for oil rigging and processing. As per reports Nigeria is losing large amount of oil from off shore illegal rigging. They may be interested in a strong partnership with another country like India. Initially we may obtain permission from Government of India and then the state of

(Amal Jyoti College of Engineering, Koovappally, Kanjirapally) According to available information, out of the 51,000 engineering seats available in different colleges 23,000 are lying vacant this year. With the existing employment opportunities for engineers in India this trend is likely to be continued. It may not be worth to find out reasons for our youth going to other countries for studies leaving these much seats in our colleges. However, if we can draft a plan jointly by representatives from engineering colleges, Ministeries of Education, Finance and Tourism of Government of Kerala we may be able to fill these vacancies. Let us try to bring students from other countries, preferably from third world countries. We may initially offer as much concessions as possible to attract more and more students and also to set a trend. Tourism and finance departments should give more focus towards this direction. Let us keep in mind that we may include Medicine and other branches al

Nothing with mass moves faster than light. When we take the universe as a sphere, the diameter comes to 93 billion light years. In other words the travelling time from one end of the universe to the other it takes the same 93 billion light years. This is the physical travelling time. However, if we mark a spot at the border of the universe and we make a mental travel it is instant.  In the case of mental travel distance is not a matter. For instance, in mental travel, the duration of travel to the moon or to the sun or to the galaxy or finally to the end of the universe, it is the same time. All religions say that God is Omnipresent. When we have God in Kochi, He is in New York and in Tokyo too. And also He is in every minute point of this universe. His travelling time from any place to any place is zero. And that is the height of velocity! K V George 

As per the UN report 1.3 million people die in road accidents every year in the world. Half of all accidents the victims are pedestrians, cyclists and motor cyclists. 93% of all road accidents are in low and middle income group countries. They have 60% vehicles in the world. Over speeding, rash driving, violation of rules, failure to understand signs, fatigue and alcohol are prime causes of road accident committed by drivers. Carelessness, illiteracy, crossing at wrong places, moving on carriage way etc are causes for pedestrians. As per information 95% of all road accidents are caused due to human error at some point. According to a study 84% people aged 65 and above hold driving licence in US . One sixth of drivers are above 65 in US. Under aged drivers death in road accident in India in 2018 were, male 1980 and female 157.  Norway is reported to have the best roads in the world, followed by Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and France. Now, what is more important here is

The 10 year old cycle polo player's death in Nagpur seems to have resulted by the unwanted fight between different sports departments of Kerala and also of Maharashtra. The National Sports Authority should also share the responsibility of this unnatural death of a sports child. The Kerala State Sports Ministry, The Maharashtra Sports Ministry and the Central Sports Ministry cannot wash their hands from the death of this girl from Kerala. According to media reports the concerned sports authority of Nagpur had refused the ten year old girl food and a place to stay. It should also be found that where she had food from and what she had eaten that made her vomiting. She was reported to have walked to the close by doctor. She was said to have administered an injection to prevent vomiting. And she dies soon. It can be noticed that in the name of sports some irresponsible people are playing with common man's tax money. Since we cannot expect much from any governments, some

   (Penguin on the vast icy land of        Antarctica) Spider silk is stronger than steel Spider silk is too light and flexible. Soldiers can use it to prevent bullets. Though it is very strong as steel and can be used for different purposes, it cannot be widely used as producing and harvesting of spider silk is found very difficult. Antartica is a desert Icy terrain with mountainous topography, Antartica is actually classified as a desert. This southernmost continent get little moisture falls from the sky. It is the coldest, windiest and driest continent. By area it is one and a half times of United States. Antartica is the best place on earth to observe space for it's dry climate and free of light pollution. (Indebted to the article by Alex Daniel, Bestlife, Yahoo Life dated October 2018) K V George

According media reports many Malayalis are stranded at different parts of the country due lack of adequate train services towards Kerala, forcing them to keep away from their near and dear at home in this festival time. Bus charge from Bangalore to Kochi is reported to be Rs 6,000/- Many cannot afford this huge rate. What is the reason for this huge rate?  Nothing but availing the opportunity, in the absence of proper law to prevent this exploitation. Now, it is to find that who is responsible for this unfamiliar situation? Undoubtedly the central government, the state government and every elected representative are responsible for this unusual situation. The state government should have convincingly explained and demanded from the Ministry of Railways the number of special trains required by the state of Kerala. On the other hand the central government should have assessed the needs of the state and provided the required trains voluntarily without inviting any pressure fro

(16 Indian sailors including 3 Malayalis detained in Nigeria. Image courtesy, The New Indian Express) Nigeria has detained 27 people belonging to five countries including Poland, Sri Lanka and India on charges of illegally operating to take away crude from their region. 16 of them are from India. They all alleged to have entered the Nigerian waters on August 7. According to Nigerian reports they lose about 5 lakhs barrels of crude daily by these illegal operations. Now the question is whether our people have really committed the error or not. If they did it, it should be found that under whose command they did it. Whatever it may be we must think about the families of those sailors.  We may try to operate through the diplomatic chain to rescue those men with the strict arrangement to keep them away from such illegitimate business. It may not be wise for the government to leave these men for the political games of Nigerian political parties. K V George 

Recently a Malayalam TV Channel has transmitted a programme in which a young woman  appeared has revealed her story at very young age.  She belonged to an extremely poor family. She had no father with her and the mother was a handicapped one. She had a good number of other children also living in the wayside tent in small towns. They kept changing places frequently. All these children, both boys and girls were in the age group of about 3 to 7/8 years. These children were used for the earnings of a set of few hooligans.  These children were trained to become circus players like rope walking and other physical play. About ten years ago, these children were given a daily targets of Rs 250/-, nonveg food pack and a bottle of alcoholic drink. In most days they don't get sufficient money to have their food. After wandering through trains, bus stands, market areas etc from 6.00 am to 7.00 pm with tiring circus performance reach their tents with nothing to eat and get beaten by

It's  sheer imagination that is come out of ignorance. Still we can try to crack an imaginary nut. Can we travel into future? The answer is yes. This yes is said by some scientists including Einstein. You just imagine that you are stationed at a place in the space having a distance of 1 light year from the earth. Again imagine that you are holding a light velocity adjustable telescope with you. When you looked at the earth from there right now what you see the same day and hour of the past year. Now with the special arrangement of your telescope you just double the speed of light. What you would be seeing on the earth is what happened 6 months back. Again keep doubling the speed you will see 3 months before, then half of it again half of it and so on and finally you reached one second before. Here comes the hard nut to crack. From this almost instant point you may increase velocity to any extent it cannot cross that near zero point. If anyone can find a way to cross thi

We may sorrowfully notice the fact that the trend of abandoning old aged parents by children are increasing considerably in Kerala. While some parents are left in old age homes, some left in government hospitals and some are left in temples or in streets. According to available information about 16.5% of population of Kerala  constituted elderly people in 2015. This is likely to reach over 20% by 2023. Can we assure our own parents a comfortable old age living in our own houses? Before finding an answer to this, we may probe to find the answer that who are responsible to this situation. Number one is the parents themselves, because they could not make an unbreakable emotional attachment to the children. The next is our educational system. So far, it seems that our educational system has not identified this issue as an important one to be included in the school syllabus at appropriate density. Then comes our religions. They are more concerned in protecting the all powerful G

Devotees rush to the Sabarimala temple is increasing considerably year after year. The temple may not be able to accommodate these large number of devotees in the coming time. Media reports of today shows that as per the suggestion of the hon' le High Court of Kerala the Darshan is being increased to 90,000 per day. In this connection I would submit my humble suggestion to add over a lakh more to the existing numbers so that the daily Darshan may become possible for over two lakhs people. All you have to do is to construct a platform just before the eighteen stairs. This platform should be set at a height from there the devotees can have a clear view of the deity. Long steps can be provided at both sides of the platform. Since many devotees may not be adamant to climb the eighteen stairs and yet they can have the Holy Darshan, the rush during the coming years can be managed. Trust that the Devaswom authority may look into this suggestion. K V George 

                 (Linda Wolfe) We  can find some abnormal world record holders in marriage. Most married women in the world World record for maximum number of married woman is in the name of Linda Wolfe. She was married 23 times. At 16 she had her first marriage. It was for love. The last marriage was held in 1996, but was for publicity. That was a preacher named Glynn Scotty Wolfe.  Interestingly he was the world's most married man. Her husbands included a convict, a homeless man, a musician and a plumber. One husband lasted only for three days. Another man she married three times. Longest Marriage The world record for longest marriage is held by Herbert and Zelmyra Fisher who were together for 86 years 9 months and 16 days as of February 27, 2011. Sadly, on that day Herbert passed away. He was 106 years old. They had five children. Oldest couple to divorce Bertie and Jessie Wood hold the Guinness Book of World Records  for oldest couple to divorce. They ended their 36

Let us first admit the enmity prevailing among the Christian community including the priesthood in Syro Malabar Church. Each one of us may now ask  ourselves these questions. 'Am I a Christian? Do I believe in Jesus Christ?'. Now find the words of Jesus Christ. "These are the directions I give you, that you should love one another." (John 15:17)  About the unity also Lord Jesus said: "So may they all be one. Just as you, Father, are in me, and I am in you, so also may they be one in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me."  (John 17:21) Do anyone including priests follow these words of Jesus Christ? Now, irrespective of all that disputes and fighting going on in the Church  about the Holy Mass, we may find a few things about the mass of today in Catholic Church.As per the Tridentine Council the mass promulgated by Pope Pius V in 1570 must be the most recognised mass of the Catholic Church. The Holy Mass as we see today in Catholi

Democracy ranking of the top ten countries in 2023 places Norway on the top and Afghanistan and North Korea on the bottom. India ranks 108th in the Electoral Democracy Index of 2023 of V-dem Democracy Index report. India is placed below Tanzania, Bolivia, Mexico, Singapore and Nigeria. This whole thing shows a picture somewhat close to our democratic system prevailing in our country. The states are also more or less following the same. One of the unique example is Kerala. In comparison Kerala is rated high in education, health, standard of living, NRI remittance per capita (Kerala has now been over taken by Maharashtra. Kerala's earning has dwindled from 19% to 10.2%) Kerala is now on a head down economic fall. Soon we shall be able to see the reflection in the following way. Building construction may come down drastically and consequently the allied shops may also constrained to be closed. Sale of vehicles in the state may fall considerably. Vehicles on road may also c

(Jawaharlal Nehru Universit New Mehrauli road, New Delhi. Image courtesy, Times of India) Articles 14,15,16,17 & 18 of the Constitution of India prescribe equality to all and this equality make any Indian citizen, even if one is illiterate, to become a Minister of any department and lead the people. As per this eligibility provision, an illiterate can become a minister of education and one who has no knowledge of law can become a law minister and advise the lawyers and judges.  The prime reason for this is that 140 crores Indians do not respond to anything that happens around them and they have no opinion about anything at all. They receive anything and accept with no resistance. Again there is a cause for it and that is lack of education. It may be surprised to find that seven decades after independence only about five percent of our population are graduates and about one third of the population are below primary level of education (the exact figures may be checked and

West Bengal has a history of long communist rule. Out of these long years, 35 years were continuously by two Chief Ministers, i.e, 1977 to 2000 by Jyoti Basu and 2000 to 2011 by Budhadeb Bhattacharjee. We may now go through the final outcome of the communist rule in the state. Most significant of all should be the economic development of the people of that state. We may first find the per capita income of the people. The pci of West Bengal in 2019 can be compared with the high income states. (It is shown in USD and the conversion rate indicated in rupees @Rs 81/- per $) Goa - 7,029 (5,69,349) Sikkim - 6,421 (5,20,101 Delhi - 5,817 (4,71,177) W Bengal -1,614 (1,32,354) Let us now find the literacy rates of 2021. Kerala - 94.0 Mizoram - 91.3 Goa - 88.7 W. Bengal - 76.3 According to NITI Aayog Health Index 2021 the selected score are: Kerala - 82.90 T. Nadu - 72.42 W.Bengal - 57.16 (2018) Unemployment rate of selected states in January 2022 Meghalaya - 1.4% Odisha - 1.8% Karna

Congress party in Kerala has reached the rock bottom level of unity. It is like a chariot drawn by  many horses to different directions. In other words the party is full of villians without any hero. The tussle is going on in the party at every level at every nook and corner. It is as if the known leaders have taken the oath of shattering the party. The way things stand now the LDF rule may continue for a few more terms continuously. Now Congress party has got an unexpected opportunity for a return, but the so called leaders, instead of availing  this gifted space scratching each other and enjoy right from top to bottom. These so called political heroes so far couldn't realise that their party is on the death bed. Now, instead of rejuvenating their beloved party they are individually and jointly trying to make the coffin for it. I feel pity on them. They will all put their best effort to waste this gifted opportunity to make a come back in the state. K V George 

Gambling in India remains banned since long. It was a common sight till some time ago that police run after agricultural workers playing cards under tree shadows in the fields. Some of those could be caught and thrashed heavily and produced before the court. This was the story of yesterday. Today gambling is legally permitted under the name online gambling. The winner has to pay the share of the winning amount to the government in the form of taxes. Gambling have many adverse impacts to the society including crime, domestic abuse leading to divorces, bankruptcy etc. Gambling also cause health problems like anxiety, depression, stress and the related issues like ulcer, headache, muscles pain etc. It has impact on the economy like lowered productivity, embezzlement, absenteeism etc . Leaving the negligible tax revenue gambling contribute nothing positive. A report by The New Indian Express dated 21 January 2021 says: 'The State (Tamil Nadu)  on Wednesday informed the Madr

Before answering the question, 'shall we ever have peace?', we must know what is peace. The outcome of our efforts yield us contentment. When we are fully contented with our efforts we become happy. When this happiness mount we become peaceful. Peace is a state of mind that most of us have not enjoyed. We do not get peace because we are always pushed away from acquiring it by our fellow men and the materials around. We are normally more concerned about unearned things than those earned by us. We set our targets to things that are away from us. We keep endeavouring to acquire those. In most cases we do not get contented with these efforts and get despaired. In fact when we have more things we get less peace and when we have less things we have more peace. Finally when we have nothing we become peaceful. This must be the reason that we do not have peace. Above all peace is the one that we can carry from this world when we return. Peace is the one that we can buy too.

Women are not safe in God's Own Country! The reports appeared in our news media every day suggest so. Is this happening out of a fearless attitude of our men or from a state of extreme lawlessness or due to some abnormal biological constitution of some people? Whatever it may be, we must immediately find an answer to this and correct. Stringent punishment should be the first option. The next option would be psychiatric treatment for habitual offenders. The next is the preventive measures. In this category the best would be including this subject in the school syllabus from class 4 to 12. Atleast the coming generations can expect safety. The rulers of the states as well as the country should give due attention to this matter and action to be taken on top most priority. I would also like to stress the fact that the entire society including the parents, the teachers, the religious leaders, the police establishment, the political system, the rulers etc are equally responsib