COVID-19: Political change on the cards?

The outbreak is here. Turned into Pandemic, spreading across geographies without much of obstacles. The impact is felt in so many domains, from hospitals to hospitality, from tourism industry to ride-sharing. Governments are scrambling to slow down its spread. The corporates are equipping employees with work-from-home options. Unorganized sector is going for a toss. So, how could the COVID-19 affect the governing bodies? Late 2010s and the raise of Nationalists The Nationalists or Conservatives or Right wingers are in raise in the 2nd half of 2010s, across the world.

Couple of things that went unnoticed

Last July marks the Quadrennial year working in an MNC. These years had taught me several valuable lessons. Learnt either from first-hand experience or learning from others action. What I learnt is that our fundamentals are flawed as several important things are not taught at young age. There are 2 important things that must be included in curriculum. Career vs. Job : In earlier generation, its pride to be working with an employer for long duration (say, in terms years or decades).

EVMs should be avoided for Indian elections - Why?

As a country, 1990’s are changing times for India. The nation saw some of the interesting transformations, which would be an unimaginable tale even a decade earlier for Geo-political experts. The changes ranges from Economic stance of the country to opening up to private cable channels to introduction of Internet to the masses (the snail-paced dial-ups). The election commission too hopped into the transformation train. From the conventional paper based ballot, the Electronic Voting Machines were introduced.

Final frontier for AI could be decoding Sarcasm

Sarcasm, according to Google is “ the use of irony to mock or convey contempt”. Interpreting it could be final frontier for AI. Understanding Sarcastic line is a complex process. Depends on lots of variables — context, body language, tone modulation and so on. To be fair there is not proper/scientific way to decode sarcasm. To add to it, degree of closeness is (kinda) proportional to complexity of sarcasm. In one of the scene Deadpool 2 movie, the lead actor was questioned who he is.

What is farming — Biz or Charity?

Occupation (for-profit) or welfare/charity (non-profit)? This is the question which started a long conversation with my friend over Whatsapp. Why does it matter? Everything depends on the answer. If it’s Occupation, you can tax them for the revenue, likewise you can insure them so they can land safe in times of tragedy. Or if its a welfare, government can take it or some NGOs can chip in with funding from benevolent sponsors.

Democracy, a silver bullet?

I’m a big fan of Democratic government. Went to war, in cyber world, with my friends whenever they say Saudi Arabia/China style of government is better than D-government. I’m pro-democracy because I believe in free will of humans. So far, every dictator has ruled the people, crushed the basic rights in the name of religion, communism, socialism et al. We are not animals to be herded by some dictator. On the other end of spectrum, we have democracy.