Be Happy, Spread Happiness.......

                                                          World Happiness Day – 20^th March

 

“HAPPINESS” – A feeling or emotional state of well-being in which one feels positive or pleasant, when his/her desire/hunger for someone/something gets gratified.

But, it is not always related to materialistic achievement. When one does something good to others, help others – be it helping an old person in crossing a road, or helping a friend in his/her hard times, or satiating the hunger of a street child – then also, the smile on the face of the person being helped gives the helper a reason to be happy. We shouldn’t attach ourselves to something or someone to remain happy. 

“Happiness” is an instantaneous feeling, and we must feel happy even in our bad situations, as it helps in lowering anxiety, depression and pain by suppressing the hormones creating it and releasing the feel-happy neuro-transmitters. 

It has been rightly said by Albert Camus, “Those who prefer their principles over their happiness, they refuse to be happy outside the conditions they seem to have attached to their happiness”. 

So, let’s take an oath today – “I’m determined to be happy and cheerful in whatever situation I may find myself. For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition. If I can’t do a kind deed, I will speak a kind word. If I cannot speak a kind word, I’ll think a kind thought”.

Apart from being happy, keeping others happy is also important. We should never hurt anyone, and always try to do kind deeds so that others feel the happiness. Happiness is contagious – the more we feel happy, the more it would spread, and the more it would create a blanket of joy all around us.

Be happy, be positive, be energetic, and be enthusiastic……………..

If Killing is a Crime then, why not Giving Birth

It must be appearing ridiculous that how killing and giving birth are synonymous, but the reality is, it is indeed true. The only difference between the two is - killing ends someone’s life permanently at the very instant and giving birth (more than what is required) keeps killing a person continuously for his/her whole life. 

Let me put my points more clearly. When a child comes to this world, s(he) has every right to get proper education, hygienic food and every single basic needs to become a good person. We all do know - more the number of persons in a family, the more we need resources to feed them and to take care of them. Increasing the size of a family just for the sake of a boy isn’t a good decision at all.

It is evident from our past that the patriarchal society always dominated, and snubbed the women from achieving what they were capable of and what they actually deserved. But, in spite of many technological advancements, innovation, good education etc. there are still some people, living in this world who treat women as an object or, who always prefer boys over girls. What possibly could be the reason behind this cheap mentality? Is a girl not capable enough to endure pain, or has a girl not such strength and knowledge that she could lead her life on her own? I would like to quote Mahatma Gandhi’s words here, “To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it’s man’s injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, woman is less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man’s superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater power of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her man could not be. If non-violence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?”  

Not only that the girls are at the receiving ends of this punishment or atrocity, in fact, boys also suffer from this population explosion. To have more earning members in a family, the birth giving process ends only when, either the father is satisfied or, the mother isn’t in a condition to conceive more. Having more and more children isn’t a solution to any problem. Instead, it results in more trouble in allocating the available resources to everyone in a family. 

This is really insane to consider only boys as the forerunner of a family’s ancestral principles. But, just worrying would not solve the problem. It is necessary to critically analyze the problem in question and find whether population explosion is actually causing these problems – loss of biodiversity, consumption of available resources at a rapid pace, shortage of food grains etc. What we all should be focusing on, is the fact that both – boys as well as girls – have the equal potential to take care of their families and, they do deserve equal rights, proper education, hygienic foods and other resources for their proper growth and development. “Small Family, Happy Family” should be kept in mind always.

Justice for “Nirbhaya”, or Justice for India

Winter has already arrived and we do have enough fuel to have our Chatter-box Carriage’s engine moving endlessly while slipping into the blankets in our closed homes – be it criticizing Bollywood about making, time and again, meaningless movies, or the DDCA incident, or Big Boss 9, or it may also be about making arrangements related to Christmas or New Year celebration. But, the most important additive came out as “Juvenile Justice Bill”. After so many obstructions in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha sessions – the whole year, during discussions or debates on any issue, or during the presentation of important bills, finally one good thing (for the time being) happened by the end of this year, as Juvenile Justice Bill got passed. It was indeed the result of continuous efforts of Jyoti Singh’s parents, many other citizens of India, DCW chairperson – Swati Maliwal, and Women and Children Welfare Minister – Menka Gandhi.

But the questions that still remain unanswered are – “Was this a good, well-thought decision? What, if, God forbids, next time such an incident happens and the accused found to be of 15 years? Shall we again pass a bill reducing the age to 15 years for the consideration of adult culpability?”

Reducing the age to consider a person as juvenile is good, but not completely. The main focus should have been on transforming such an accused person into a good human being by keeping them at Rehabilitation Centres, monitoring their behaviour, and looking after them on a regular basis, and at the same time, punishing the accused in the “rarest of rare cases” by death too. Thus, reducing the age of adult culpability is, therefore, a sheer abdication on behalf of the state and central ministers.

We all have seen and heard of many incidents and cases involving rapes, physical violence, abduction, mental torture – in which the accused were of ages less than 18 years and some even less than 16 years. So, the main question is – What has to be done to stop such cases? What Indian government need to do to make India a better and peaceful place not only for Indian citizens, but for foreigners also?


The first and foremost important step they need to take is – to restrict the access of porn sites to persons above 20 years. It has been seen and even reported many times that children in age groups of 12 – 16 years do have access to porn videos at such a tender age. It has to be stopped. They (Indian Government) need to come up with a solution for this as soon as possible. It is sure that giving access to adults doesn’t mean 100% reduction in such crimes, but there will be a downfall for sure. Individuals after 20 years do have a better understanding, maturity and the required capability to differentiate between right or wrong. And, to make them capable of taking the right decisions, proper education is a must. Various programs are running to provide quality education to one and all, but there is a need to implement it in a more well-planned way to increase its outreach to far villages.

It’s also the duty of parents to keep an eye on their children, to look after them seriously and to make them aware of what is right and wrong, how to respect others and how to spread love and happiness and peace. It’s not a one day work. It has to be done in a systematic and well-planned way, but not at slow speed. Only then we can imagine India as a safer place for Women and a peaceful nation without any internal conflict.

Bihar Election - Victory v/s Defeat, Bad v/s Very Bad, Develpoment v/s Caste

The two months long election-gala came to an end today with JDU+ as the majority party in Bihar. The complete action-packed campaigns and rallies along with allegations and accusations on one another were surfacing all over media during the past two-three months, which derived its roots from the 10 years tenure of Nitish Kumar as the Chief Minister with little breaks and 15 years of Jangal-raaz of Lalu Prasad Yadav.

This state election will be remembered not only because the Prime Minister of India was totally involved in rallies and accusations instead of the party head and that the 2015 Bihar polls was largely considered as a personality clash of two political stalwarts – Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Prime Minster Narendra Modi but, because of so many other reasons. First, Bihar became the first state where the option of NOTA was available in the EVM for voters. Second, it was the first time in the state’s electoral history that drones were used by security forces for air surveillance and EC had made arrangements to webcast the polls. Third, it was the first time that an app was available for the voters in order to locate their booth on their phones. And fourth, NRIs had a chance to vote for their favourite from their foreign soils. It’s a great achievement for the Election Commission to organise the election with less or no disturbance or casualties and, achieving a greater height to acknowledge for years to come thereby, setting a benchmark for other states. 

Now, coming to what it (victory or defeat) really means for the different parties then, one thing is sure that there will be development in between the political clash of each party in order to outnumber each other. 

For Mr. Lalu Yadav, it’s a golden chance to clean some dirt off his party’s face and to rise again (this time for good) so as to win a place in the heart of Bihari jantaa. He needs to keep a check on his or his party’s illegal work or, the source of power of his lantern will get depleted completely. As far as Nitish Kumar is considered, it’s a great victory for him and Bihar and, it’s a victory of the trust that Bihari jantaa have on him. It again doesn’t mean that whatever he has done in the past was completely good or, he has a dirt-free image. Instead, it’ll be a fiery ordeal for him to cater to the needs of his subjects. And last but not the least, for Narendra Modi, it might be a big setback but, it’s the time for introspection and to focus on development despite the defeat in Bihar. It is his responsibility to take India to a greater height in every field and to deal with various obstructions in his path effectively and efficiently.