The first encounter between the naked, brown skinned, ‘alien’ natives of the New World and Christopher Columbus has come to be called ‘the Encounter’. The upper-case ‘E’ in the epithet aptly reveals the importance of this event in human history. The voyages of Columbus and subsequent events directly related to it have been given many meanings: the discovery of a new world, the first step in the direct ion of world conquest and domination, but the theme that is embedded into astonishing depth in ‘the Encounter’, is that of religion.

To my understanding, the voyages of Columbus marked the inception of a new worldview. The people, or at least the ones who could understand, did not see the world simply in terms of earth, water and sky anymore; what they saw now was a labyrinth of astonishing and unsolvable mystery. The world was incessantly keeping secrets from them, and was challenging them to unravel these secrets. There had suddenly dropped into common sense the idea of the ‘undiscovered’. But the rush of adventurers venturing to remote and fantastical parts of earth was not restricted to the great ambition of world discovery; who can say that the motive of expanding territory and conquering an unowned world was not implicit. But also was implicit the universal motif of religion.

Columbus set sail on 9 September, 1492, from Canary Islands in the south of Spain. I dare not question the immense inspiration Columbus had drawn from the accounts of Marco Polo of his travels to the East. It is only fair to consider that he had truly been haunted by the desire to discover and explore. But there is a chain of events that must also be considered in context of his first voyage. Queen Isabelle II of Castile and King Ferdinand of Aragon had completed in January of the same year their ‘Reconquest’. This was a mission to convert the entire Iberian Peninsula to Christianity, which came to a closure with

The Encounter CHIRAYU GOEL

ENGLISH HONS | IInd Year.

their ‘reconquest’ of Granada. On 31 March 1492, the couple issued the Edict of Expulsion, an ultimatum for all Jews in their domain to convert to Christianity by 31 July, 1492, or be expelled. Whether or not Columbus’ motive behind the voyage was purely in the spirit of discovery, his patrons, Isabelle and Ferdinand, were loyal agents and protectors of the Roman Catholic Church, and it doesn’t take much thinking before you realise that the voyage might just have been an extension to the mission of the Reconquest.

How and why Columbus reached the New World instead of the East he had originally ventured toward is not a concern of this article. What does concern us is what Columbus saw when he finally set foot on Watling Islands of the Bahamas on 12 October, 1492, the place which, to his estimation, should have been the coast of China. Columbus encountered beings whose skin was neither white nor black, ‘the colour of Canary Islands’. From the outset, he had tried to fit the ‘new people’ into categories and definitions already existing in Western European common knowledge.

Through the lens he brought from home, Columbus saw not people that could have an independent culture and existence, but beings that were not European, and essentially, not Christian. Conversion to Christianity was a major objective, but a case can certainly be made not against the religious, but the religion itself. The conquest of the world to bring ‘faith’ to the ‘ignorant’, other than an elitist justification of a tyrannical venture, to some extent, might have been simple adherence to religion. Then, the message of conquest comes not from a monarch or conquistador, but from the Book of Genesis.

It is hard to believe the extent to which the Book of Genesis has shaped our existence. As a direct result of the conquest and hegemony of the European, ‘Christian’ nations on almost the entire world, today we have a universal, roughly similar, ‘Christian’ pattern of living. Ever wonder why a week ends on Sunday, why we follow the Gregorian calendar, notwithstanding if we belong to a Christian culture or not. The way society around the world works is a result of the European Empire owning half the world for a few centuries, and the European conceptualisation of society is drawn directly from the Book of Genesis. The relationship between man and woman, the relationship between brothers, how society is supposed to function in general, is taught, and ‘ingrained’ in the psyche of the European people by the stories in the Book of Genesis. Since Christians set a paradigm value to the word of Genesis, it being a religious text, a society that does not function like the society they know, is not a society at all. It is chaos.

On his subsequent voyages to this new world, Columbus brought along Christian priests, ‘to find out if the beings had a religion or not.’ Due to the same conceptualisation derived from a religious text, the Europeans could not imagine a people without religion.

Even the pagans had had religion. To the explorers, religion was irremovable from man. It is with this assumption that they approached the new beings. After learning their language,

the stories and myths they heard of the past of these beings were incestuous, barbaric, and completely alien to their concept of society. Not having their version of society and the concept of worship was likened to living in disorder. These beings were living in chaos and obviously needed to be taught. Their concept of society was the only one they imagined could exist, and it was given to them by Genesis. The one who did not know it was clearly ignorant.

The new world that Columbus encountered was apparently prelapsarian. The new beings were naked, and didn’t think it was odd. They were Eve, ignorant of the flaw in being naked, before eating the Apple of Wisdom. These beings, if a parallel be drawn, were still waiting for wisdom. The answer is clear. The beings must be taught and brought to wisdom, as is the lot of man. To the Europeans, these beings preceded Original Sin. They had no concept o f pr ivate proper ty, possession, ‘I’ and ‘Mine’. Everybody used everything, nobody owned anything.

There was virtually no reason for conflict. To the Europeans, this should have been Eden on Earth. But the prelapsarian were neither white, nor blonde, nor blue-eyed. They did not look like angels or God. It was concluded that these were an obvious ‘pseudo-prelapsarian’ anomaly in the postlapsarian world. Since ‘man’ came to be on Earth after the Original Sin in the first place, these beings were sinful humans, only they hadn’t yet been initiated in the Cycle of Penance. Initiation into this Cycle was coterminous with conversion.

The purpose of this article is not to defend the conquests and conversions as a truly devout Christian mission, that the Europeans were actually sincere when they said they were bringing ‘faith’ to the ‘ignorant’; this article is meant to mourn. We must mourn the passing of an encounter with religion, where we could have studied it, understood it as something marvellous that could procreate the very fabric of society, and convert the cognition of man; something which truly ran skin deep and into the subconscious, and not just a force of division, and the easiest provocation for genocide.

Man’s association with religion has deprived us of discovering what religion truly was.

Last week, Eric Scott Hunsader of Winnetka ,U.S.A was awarded a whooping $750,000 sum of money. Before any speculations, he didn’t win ‘Who wants to be Millionaire?’ but actually disclosed the violations of security laws in the New York Stock Exchange in 2010. The authenticity of the reports he presented was confirmed this month. NYSE was fined as they used to price data to customers who paid for proprietary feeds a few seconds before it shared them on the feeds used by the public.

In India, Danish Kumar in 2013 exposed that the Ranbaxy’s medicines are not going through proper safety and quality tests and risking people’s lives. Ranbaxy, then the largest drug maker, also presented false information to Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Ranbaxy was held guilty and was heavily fined.

Dr. Anand Rai, who uncovered the Vyapam Scam, the infamous scandal which has claimed 36 lives in which undeserving candidates were selected for recruitment in government jobs and colleges in the Madhya Pradesh.

W h i s t l e b l o w e r s Protection Act

In 2004, the Supreme Court pressed the government after n o t i c i n g t h e m u r d e r o f whistleblower like Satyendra Dubey who disclosed the corruption in the Golden Quadrilateral Project in 2003.

It was actually introduced in August 2010 and took years to get passed. After various amendments, the Whistle blower protection Act was passed in Lok Sabha in 2011 a n d i n R a j y a S a b h a o n February 21, 2014. The Rajya Sabha passed the bill after some amendments but the amendments were not moved as the discussion took place on the last day of the 15th Lok Sabha. The Whistleblowers Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2015 was introduced in Lok Sabha on May 11, 2015 and passed in that House on May 13, 2015. The Bill amends the Whistleblowers Protection Act, 2014.

The Act provides a mechanism for receiving and inquiring into public interest disclosures against acts of corruption, wilful misuse of power or discretion, or criminal offences by public servants. The Bill prohibits the reporting of a corruption related disclosure if it falls under any 10 categories of information.

REPORT WHISTLEBLOWER CASE STUDY | Akshita Sharma | Chemistry

If we pay attention to the above cases, there is a similarity between them. All these people above mentioned have revealed the unlawful activities going on inside a private or public organisation. Not to beat around the bush, they are whistleblowers. The term was coined by Ralph Nader in order to have positive connotation to the word for informers - gossipmongers.The term has existed for years but now it has got figurative use. In other words, whistle blowing could be defined as raising a concern over any wrong doing or misdeed in any organisation, but the concern must be a genuine one about crime, criminal offence, miscarriage of justice, dangers to health and safety and of the environment and the cover up of any of these.

Recognition of Whistleblowers

Through the two corporate scandals - Enron and Worldcom, Sheron Watkins and Cynthia Coopers drew attention at an international level. Afterwards whistle blowing gained a lot of recognition as fraud and embezzlement of the two big corporate giants came into full light. The whistle was blown by two gutsy ladies. In the wake of the collapse of Enron, WorldCom—the telecommunications giant—collapsed and succumbed to $41 billion of debt. On July 19, 2002 the Company was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and seek protection from its creditors.  Amidst the string of SEC investigation into telecommunication companies emerged a hero, Cynthia Cooper, whose careful detective work as an internal auditor at WorldCom exposed some of the accounting irregularities behind the greatest accounting fraud in U.S. history.

In India, Y.M. Kale was the first Chartered Accountant who blew the whistle against the leading business group –Tata Finance Limited. He presented 904 pages of report which questioned the financial irregularities going in the firm in august 2002. However he could not get the glamour that Sharon Watkins gained in USA. Rather he was forced to resign from the job.

Earlier, the CVC was the designated agency to receive complaints from whistleblowers under the Public Interest Disclosure and Protection of Informer resolution (PIDPI).

The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) had directed all central government departments to designate a nodal officer in each ministry to look into complaints o f  c o r r u p t i o n r e c e i v e d f r o m whistleblowers under PIDPI.

This is handled by the ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.

Loopholes in the Whistleblower Protection Act 2015:

The bill puts number of conditions a n d l i m i t a t i o n re g a rd i n g t h e complaints filed by a whistleblower. The person will be sentenced of two year imprisonment and also penalty upto Rs.20,000 will put up if the complaint is found to be false and dubious.

Also, there is a certain time limit to bring complaint. The person has seven years to bring complaints, dating from the time the alleged corrupt practices occurred. Various people had the opinion that the bill balanced two conflicting interests. On one hand, it provided for filing of complaints and on the other hand, it put penalties to prevent unnecessary defamation and harassment of public servants.

Apart from this, the act doesn’t give protection to the whistleblowers as it lacks criminal charges and penalties on physical attacks on whistleblowers. In the bill, the word ‘victimisation’ is left for interpretation. There are no p r o v i s i o n s f o r c o r p o r a t e whistleblowing.

The bill does not deal in providing f i n a n c i a l i n c e n t i v e s t o t h e whistleblowers.

Whistle blower in India is in a miserable condition. As per records, whistle blowers face innumerous problems including mistreatment from other employees, suspension from the organization and in some cases even sacrifice of life.

It is high time the government considers the bill again and reviews it t o m a k e i t s t r o n g e r s o t h a t whistleblowers work fearlessly to uncover corrupt, illegal activities.

THE RIGHTSIDEOFTHINGS

We have been recently subject to a spate of hilarious harangues accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being “disconnected from the people” and that “loonies are representing it on social media” and “fringe members” are dishing out “absurd and offensive statements”.One is left wondering whether the elimination of the idea of corruption which had become synonymous with governance under the UPA, the time bound electrification of all of India’s villages, financial inclusion through Jan Dhan, unprecedented focus on agriculture through crop insurance, Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) preventing subsidy leakages and the planned massive infrastructure and development from road to rail occurred in some other continent.Reading or viewing exclusively that form of old media which elevates (often spurious) news of “Hindutva)” intolerance as front page headlines, while often almost censoring the tectonic developmental initiatives, does provide such an impression though. A few economic liberals who are condescending, and non-ideologically if not opportunistically sided with the BJP, waste their limited influence by reinforcing such dominant media stereotypes. They perceive their support wasted as the Modi government refuses to sufficiently engage and compromise with certain corrupt opposition in passing their desired economic legislation (like GST) and neither does the government carry out disinvestment initiatives unlike Vajpayee’s time. Yet, I do admit PM Modi has been a profound failure. Under his ‘powerful watch’, BJP and Sangh Parivar leaders have been killed with impunity across the country by political and ideological rivals.Hindu animal right activists like Prashant Poojari have been murdered for protesting against illegal cattle smuggling. A Hindu teenager Sawan Dharma Rathod was murdered allegedly by members of another religious community only for being Hindu. A 27-year-old RSS worker Sujith was brutally hacked to death in front of his aged parents in Kannur district in Kerala. Even as I write this piece, it is being reported that a Biju, a BJP worker in Kerala was hacked by deadly CPM goons and is fighting for his life in the hospital.The PM, to the disappointment of the millions of Hindutva adherents who constitute the core vote of the party, has not offered any solace, any personal words of comfort or security to the Hindus in many parts of India who face every-day, existential threats of religious violence. But the “secular” cabal expects the PM to apologise on behalf of all Hindus for the rare and isolated instance of ‘Hindu intolerance’.Those who are expecting the PM to forcefully  silence the fears and apprehensions of subaltern Hindus, who are unable to articulate their anguish against the betrayal of their idea of India with anything other than unsophisticated, rustic and provocative vocabulary, have double standards. That the sub-alters will have to remain mute to seditious and anti-Hindu slogans at university campuses by students funded at the taxpayer’s expense is unjust and unacceptable.While there should be no place for violent intimidations in civilised public discourse, the Indian PM is no more responsible for random outbursts from individuals whether remotely connected to the party with a 10 crore membership with each licensed with their own sense of freedom of expression. Is the US president held morally accountable for hate crimes or gun shootings in the US? Or the UK PM for the creation of ISIS Jihadists among British citizenry due to politics of appeasement in the garb of fighting Islamophobia.

Has the prime minister failed hindus? Harsh Jaitak | Maths | IIIrd Year

THE RIGHTSIDEOFTHINGS

Modi, BJP and Hindu bashing on the internet, especially social media, has reached epidemic proportions. Pro-Hindu ideologues often face legal wrath and threats from their ‘secular’ ideological adversaries, often resorting to venomous intimidation secured by their sense of privileged proximity to the power elite in media and politics. The ironical helplessness of a so called authoritarian government tolerating sadistic media elements who have resorted to an unprecedented wave of calumny and falsehood presumably emboldened by absence of any punitive repercussions has not saved it from the occasional charge of “fascism”.Islamists and the ‘secular’ fundamentalists have used and misused colonial era, section 153-A and 295-C of the IPC construed against ‘hate speech’ for effectively throttling criticism of Islamism and Muslim personal law from the public discourse.Under Modi Raj, in the Congress ruled state of Karnataka, Hindus have been arrested for mocking Islamist tyrants like Tipu Sultan who destroyed hundreds, if not thousands of Hindu temples or even merely questioning the “fundamental tenets” of Christianity. In contrast, the abuse directed against Hindu religion and its dharmic universe through appeals to unfettered freedom of expression has continued unabated under this so called Hindu nationalist government.The perverse attack on Goddess Durga by the leftists in academia and media through appeals to ‘alternative readings’ and the deafening silence of the PM for whom the goddess represents a patron deity for whom he fasts by abstinence from all but water on the nine days of the auspicious nine nights of Navratri remains an enduring paradox.Similarly, last year, on the occasion of the Hindu festival of Mahashivratri, the Prime Minister was busy attending Christian sainthood functions instead of ensuring Hindus a gazetted holiday on the day. Instead of admonishing those who defamed Hindus for organising church attacks and rape of nuns the PM submitted to such pernicious narratives despite being aware of their inherent mendacity. Investigations have shown that they were mostly non-communal incidents often carried out by non-Hindus.Instead of expressing concern at the police documented report of the sacrilege of hundreds of Hindu temples and religious sites annually and expressing his gratitude for Hindu tolerance despite the enormous provocation, the PM preferred the “secular” political correctness which he found so loathsome during his tenure as the Gujarat PM and the campaign trail.Exclusive minority scholarships and schemes which Modi as Gujarat CM detested were found acceptable in his avatar as PM. Discriminatory laws like the Right to Education remain untouched so as to avoid confrontation against the liberals and prevent derailing of his ambitious developmental agenda. The problem is that the PM seems to have rather internalised the dictum that ‘India is not Gujarat’ rather than what has been alleged as the dogmatic perusal of the Gujarat model for India.The idea that the government has floundered on the economic front is largely misplaced and a matter of erroneous perception from textbook libertarians. So, is the sense of Hindutva and development being perceived as antithetical by the PM. The paramountcy of development for Modi stems from his belief that ensuring development for all is not only a dharmic commitment for ensuring universal justice by banishing the unnaturally high poverty sustained by corruption and pathetic economics. But it is also perhaps the best antidote to counter the anti-Hindu bigots for once and for all who have persistently argued that Hindutva is the BJP’s political refuge in explaining away its (supposed) lack of delivery on the economic front.The non-primacy to cultural Hindutva is in essence Modi’s great gamble.

I have a nag.

I have a nag for writing, but i lack words.

Is it words i lack? Or is it some lack of substance?

A lack of emotion? Maybe i need a potion.

There’s no darkness, maybe i am so good i can see in the darkness.

Do i need light? Do i have a fight?

Should i run? Or should i stay?

Maybe i need a new way.

But where do i go? What do i know?

Who do i have that i can trust to show?

Do i even have anyone?

Maybe i am the one.

The one that is supreme, or the one that is weak?

The one that will shine, or the one dark as the time?

At night i wonder, what is my purpose?

In the day i am fine. Because in the day i have the sun

It shows me that i can still be anyone.

V E D A N T K A U S H I K | E N G L I S H

The night is dark and in the dark it is sweetBut I have a nag for love, but i lack feelings concrete.

Is it emotion i lack? Or is it some commotion? The quench for laughter is one i’ll die for.

But i circle around the feeling that i’m the one. But what good is it, if i don't know if i can be the one.

The one that just sees and smiles? Or the one who is just beguile? The one with the laughter? Or the one who’s the master?

I have a nag for controlling people, but i lack the distance. Is it the determination i lack? Or is it the desire to be discreet?

Whatever and wherever it is, I am the one to be. But the one doesn't matter. He has no substance.

I have no vision, he has no grace. I am no leader, he is no master. I am not dark, he is not great.

I am a laughter, searching for embrace. I am supreme, but he is a waste.

I have a purpose, he needs a light. He needs a reason, to stop running, stay and fight.

Are you the reason? Are you the one? The one for the master, who is a slave.

The one who forever quenches that empty space? You can be, for there will all ways be the sun.

And for as long as you want, you can be anyone. All it needs is to have a nag for something, but I lack words.

The bloodlust of the sun rays formed the heat, The dense copper desert had jammed his feet.

It is war and they go real far.

The massive bombs and bullet covers other sound, He noticed Jokes, giggles and easiness was something

nowhere to be found. It is war and they go real far.

One kills and the other dies, Be loyal to your duty, the only method a soldier applies.

It is war and they go real far.

I may come back, I may survive,

The soldier promised to his beautiful wife. Daddy loves you angel

The soldier was also a father Leaving his daughter for the nation was harder.

It is war and they go real far.

The night time of the desert was cold, Yet it was only the bullet vest the soldier holds.

It is war and they go real far.

No lambs or lanterns nothing for light beams, The dusky route reveals only when the fired bullets gleam.

It is war and they go real far.

His colleague got injured and brutally shot, But he was fighting with the purpose they all fought.

It is war and they go real far.

And on that night even the baby girl lost the father, She will cry a lot because to her nothing else bothered.

Her mother also lost the husband, She prayed nothing as she knew these wars will never end.

It was war and they HAD gone real far...

THE WAR OF SOLDIERS Anurag Mishra | Economics | Ist Year

SIDDHANTSHEKHAR

ONHUMANS

AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Artificial Intelligence has always been a staple of Science Fiction and in the recent years, much of the research in Computer Science and Semantics. The true measure of the credibility of an Artificial Intelligence is given by something known as the Turing Test. "The Turing test is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human" (Wikipedia). Basically what is means that if I open up a random chat window on a computer and make you have a conversation with the person or entity on the other end and you can not tell if it is a human or a machine, we have achieved a perfect replica of Human Intelligence.

However, I have a few contentions against this idea. The first being the imbalance between rationality and emotions as components of intelligence. Usually, when we talk about intelligence, the assumption is that an intelligent machine would be perfectly rational. But the fact of the matter is that human intelligence itself is not made up of rationality alone. Humans, as a consequence of  millennia  of evolution, are still driven by emotion and visceral instincts after all. And these emotions can never be duplicated in a machine. How can you explain to a machine the urgency of hunger or the discomfort of pain or the gnawing need for self-actualisation? You can not, simply because survival is not the prime motivator of a machine's existence. Even in Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, Human life is given preference over the Robot's. Until we make the primary instinct of a machine to survive, we can not effectively capture the essence of human intelligence.

This brings me to yet another dilemma. If, in order to duplicate perfect human intelligence, we do somehow instills self-preservation into the coding of a machine, the machine would obviously pick its own survival over ours, as a species. So why would we create anything that is so selfish? For the love of knowledge? Well, no! We would not create AI in the first place. Especially if the cost of that knowledge is our own survival.

The key here, I believe, is to not try to duplicate human intelligence, instead we should focus on narrow cross sections of intelligence, something we already have achieved in modern computing. Programs and codes should be able to decipher language, decipher images, decipher numbers, but all in exclusivity. This gets us around the problem of having to incorporate human feelings into their hard wired language and codes and obviates the chances of any event's occurrence that might be detrimental to the survival of the human species.

What do you mean by mystery? Anything that does not yield a definite conclusion or explanation. Mystery as a genre in books has a preconceived notion. A book begins with an introvert protagonist, builds around his depressing lifestyle. One fine day he and his ‘accomplice’ are accused of a murder and then the end is an aberrant one.

Solving of a mystery is a quintessential part of the mystery books. However there is one mystery book which has not been solved even by the greatest of scholars. The book by Charles Dickens did not reach it’s definite end because of the author’s demise! Yes, the mystery remains a mystery since last 200 years. This is actually the true essence of mystery; with no concrete end.

The book follows the life of Edwin Drood; a young man who lives with his uncle named Jasper and he’s soon to be married. His uncle covetously loves Edwin’s fiancé and she is aware of it. One day, a fight erupts between Edwin and Neville Landless, a black man in pursuit of becoming a nobleman. The following day, Edwin goes missing. Of course the whole town accuses Mr. Landless for Edwin’s disappearance. The readers believe that Jasper could be the murderer only and only because he confesses his love or rather urges to possess Edwin’s fiancé post the infamous disappearance. That is the only prevalent theory.

“Died of what, lovey?” “Probably death.” This dialogue exchange left me dumbstruck.

Such is the greatness of a writer; even the unfinished work is loved by the people. I would recommend this book only to those readers who can digest the unconventional definition of mystery as a genre; that isn’t liable to reach an end, rather should not reach an end.

As they say: “While writing a mystery book, if nothing goes your way; make two people enter the room shooting incessantly with guns in their hands”

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD Shikhar Arora | Economics| IInd Year

We live in India. India is an over populated country; India lacks infrastructure; India lacks facilities; India is educating more and more people, but India has less jobs left. Don't be like India?

No, it cannot be blamed on the country.

India is the country that provides people with the free will to choose what career they want, encourages education in all fields, encourages jobs in all fields and is coming out with more and more employment options to meet the demand of the people. Inspite of all this, there are individuals who do B. Tech or Mass Communication or Fashion Designing or M.B.B.S. knowing the fact that these are overpopulated sectors and then blame the government for them applying for 16,000 per month paying job of a peon or that of a sweeper. Sometimes it is because of family pressure of doing these well known courses, but mostly it is owing to the laziness and the choice of the individuals to no explain to their families what they want. It seems that they want to look helpless, they want to be spoon fed with jobs that pay lakhs of rupees. I suggest this hypocrisy be killed. The youth of today should understand that however much job opportunities be created, they will never be enough and if they want to succeed in this overcrowded country, they should go for sectors other than that are already crowded. We are looking at sectors like travel and tourism, entrepreneurship, agro based technical fields, graphic designing and animation, writing books, archaeology, architecture, humanitarian jobs, being a perfumist and a casting director among various others. All you need is an internet pack to make your career fly. I think people need to become more open to career options, I think they need to update their ability to perceive and they should definitely go for something new. They should not give in to the social norm of 'If it's a boy then engineer, if it's a girl then doctor'. I'm not saying that our government and job opportunities sector are ideal but all I'm saying is not to stop until you are not only satisfied but also happy. Having said all this, I also believe in the teachings of Acharya Vinoba Bhave,a politician and a writer, who in his story 'Shram ki Pratistha' says

Akshata KarBiochemistry | Ist Year

UNCHARTED TERRAIN OF EMPLOYMENTThe less explored views on unemployment.

- no work is menial and we should all start appreciating all of kinds of labour, thus if an educated person wants to be a sweeper we should respect the decision. In foreign countries, carpenters, mechanics, plumbers, newspaper men are not criticised but rather appreciated and I think we should do the same.

GOVERNMENTComing back to the government, I would like to make a point about the 'Make in India' scheme. There are so many different industrial corridors being built by the government and thus the focus on infrastructure and facilities is increasing manifolds. A lot of focus is being given on employment. The job opportunities in the sectors of automobile, biotechnology, construction, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, railways, space, hospitality and wellness, mining and oil and gas, etc. are going to soar. This is a very fruitful step towards growth and the problem of employment is likely to be solved to a good extent.

Lastly, I would just like to encourage people to go for the jobs they want; if you want to be a travel guide, why not? If you want to be a wildlife explorer, why not? If you want to be a businessman, why not? And if you want to be a doctor or engineer or fashion designer, make sure that you be a very good one because there are more people and less seats. But even if you don't succeed at that you shouldn't get disheartened and stop, you should explore more career options. You could go to career counsellors and they will chart out the pros and cons of different careers according to your personality and then you can choose the career path you want to trod on or they will help you by telling you the ways by which you can get jobs in various fields related to your qualification and how to apply for them.

The process of applying for jobs has also become so much more simpler. You can do it on the internet(there are so many good jobs that just require graduation as qualification) and even give the face to face interview over Skype. Thus, you just got to get your lazy asses up and at them. And as Shiv Khera says, "You can do it”.

Random. It is a pretty random word. It can be used anywhere ran-domly. It can randomly mean anything based upon context and its random placement in a random sentence. Pretty versatile, don't you think?But what is it that attracts us to this word? The word meant “run-ning fast” back in the 13th century and gained its mathematical connotation in the 18th and 19th centuries. But modern context of the word arose in the late 1970s with a research paper in MIT using the word to denote “without any pattern and discernible reason.” Ever since, this meaning of the word has crept into our vernacular pervasively. The question still remains unanswered though. What attracts us to this word and has made it so prevalent in its use?

To answer this, we need to consider two things. One, what charm does this word hold and secondly, why has this particular connota-tion of the word gotten so popular and not any other. “Random” does find frequent use in Science, Math and Statistics. Then why have we, as a society, decided to use this loaded word and not any other. After all, there are a lot of words with similar meanings that we can potentially use like unforeseen, unexpected, befuddling.Well, to answer the first question, the word is short. “Random” is a two-syllabled word. Humans have a tendency to use shorter words instead of a longer one in their daily speech as long as their mean-ing is intelligible and coherent. If both the parties involved in the transaction of the information are sure that the content of the mes-sage would not be lost because of it, they always choose to use simpler words. There is a clear pattern and many primitive lan-guages are simply worded. Languages become increasingly com-plex as new ideas are introduced into it. You would be hard pressed to find a complicated term or idea expressed in a mono-syllable word. This is where random scores. The word is short to speak, easy to spell and encompasses a wide variety of meaning based upon its context in use. The word can mean a whole lot of different things in a sentence based upon its usage as we saw in the open-ing paragraph. This is one of the major allures of the word and has fuelled its popularity over its competition.

THATS SO RANDOM

However, this does not answer why has the word's present mean-ing gotten so popular in a short spell of time. To answer this, we will have to return to the time when the word got so popular and the look at it in context of the society.

We are living in a world that mutating, rather than evolving. The world is changing at a blinding pace and the inhabitants are being bombarded with information from all sides. Living in an information driven society, our chances of success depend upon the informa-tion we possess. Gone are the days where brute force won over brain every time. In the present society, the betas are are alphas and the nerds are the jocks. But even the nerds have a hard time keeping track of all the information they are being showered with. Even more difficult is trying to sift through the flood and come up with information that is relevant, or useful or important.

“Random” becomes an important tool in this maddening labyrinth. It saves you from rationalising or figuring out the details, reasons and origins of inconsequential things. So now you can ignore the transcript of your conversations, forget that information and casual-ly call the contents of the dialogue as “random”. You can stop questioning the motivations of a friend for visiting the same location as you at the same time by claiming you “randomly” ran into a friend. You can justify the wastage of your time and forget the de-tails by calling whatever you did as “random stuff”.Do not underestimate the power of this tool. This is one of the rea-son why you have been able to maintain your sanity so far in this world that tells you way more than you need to know. It is the rea-son why you can sift through information easily in your head, pick and store what you need and file away everything else that is in-consequential under the large umbrella term of “random”.

Is it a good thing? Well, that depends on your perspective. If you wish to record, recall and know every bit of information you ever happened to chance upon then no. But the practical mind knows that there is way too much information lying around for you to care about it all. Even more than you can humanly remember and recall. For most of us lesser mortals, happy to marinate in the sauce of our own blissful ignorance, “Random” is a pretty good folder to file this article under.

SIDDHANT SHEKHARPhysics | IIIrd Year

Richa SoniChemistry | IInd Year

AksharThe Mightier Pen.

2 March 2016 Issue 6.

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