INDIAN JUDICIAL SYSTEM—WHAT AILS IT???

Before the British arrived in India, the country had been following laws that were based on the Arthsastra (300 BC) and the Manusmriti (100 AD). This tradition continued despite the Muslim conquest of India. After the advent of the Muslims the Sharia or Islamic law was applied to them. This was superseded by a common law when India became a part of the British Empire.

The Supreme Court of India commenced operations in 1950. It presently has 30 judges apart from the Chief Justice of India. The procedure of the Supreme Court is conducted in English only.

There is a huge backlog of cases of which a large percentage is minor crimes belonging to the Motor Vehicle Act and petty crimes. It is criminal that the time of the courts be wasted on such petty issues. Prolonging the cases unduly by the litigants is a great problem in India and in this the advocates work hand in glove with the litigants.

If one takes a look at the number of cases pending in the Indian courts one would be shocked.

PENDING CASES:

Supreme Court ---- -39,780 Cases (Civil and Criminal)

High Courts--------- 39 Lakh Cases (7 Lakh Criminal, 32 Lakh civil)

Subordinate Courts- 2.63 Crore Cases

Undertrails---------- 2.5 lakh under-trails languishing in Jails

Judicial Strength----India has 14,576 judges as against the sanctioned strength of 17,641 including 630 High Court Judges and 31 SC judges.

India has --------------------10.5 judges/million persons.

Bangladesh has----------- 12 judges/million

USA has-------------------- 107 judges/ million.

This would mean a judge has to hear an average of 2100 cases per year. Considering that the court is open only around 225 days a year this would mean each judge hearing at least 10 cases a day which would result in only a single hearing of the case during the entire year. And all of us know that cases go in for dozens of hearings.

Despite all this backlog the courts enjoy the privileges of the British times. Does any office in the world close for Summer holidays and Dussehra holidays and so on?. Our courts do. If anyone questions them the courts would slap the contempt of court charges against them.

There is rampant corruption prevailing in Indian courts. As per Transparency International , delays in disposal , shortage of judges and complex procedures have made the Indian courts corruption prone.

The Supreme Court is showing its disinclination to allow the judiciary to come into the Lokpal bill.

The judges have become a law unto themselves. They have misused the powers given to them for protecting the law to protect the judges from the law.

The Supreme Court of India has ruled that no first information report (FIR) can be registered against a judge, nor, a criminal investigation initiated without prior approval of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Once appointed, a judge of the High Court or Supreme Court cannot be sacked except by 2/3 majority of the members present in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.

In the 1990s, when the Congress was in power, there were charges of corruption against Justice V.Ramaswami of the Supreme Court. A a panel of 3 judges (2 from the Supreme Court and 1 from the High Court) found him guilty in 11 out of the 14 charges.

Despite this a motion seeking to impeach Justice V Ramaswami could not be passed by parliament as the Congress MP’s abstained from voting. Since it required a two third majority of the members present the motion could not be passed. There have been no other attempts at impeachment in India.

After retiring from service in 1994 Ramaswami sought election on an AIDMK ticket in 1999 but was thankfully defeated.

In order to have effective justice a restriction is to be placed on the number of hearings a case can be adjourned and a time frame has to be fixed. Petty cases should be given even less time to be finalized. The number of judges have to be raised to at least double that of today. It is ironic that a country like Bangladesh is having a better judge/population ratio than us.

Corruption in the judiciary will totally undermine the justice system and the Supreme Court has to wake up to this fact. The judiciary has to be brought under the Lokpal bill (this is easier said than done due to the opposition of the Supreme Court).

MY VIEWS ON GOD-I

I have my own way of thinking about God. This thinking has crystallized after reading both our Hindu as well as western philosophies. I know that nothing is final in philosophy and I myself may change my thinking with time. As of now, these are the views I hold about God and the Universe. I am particularly indebted to the western philosopher Spinoza and think similar to him on many issues but differ from him on some. I am also indebted to the Upanishads themselves.

God which I call the Supreme Being (Brahman of the Upanishads) is the only existence and there is nothing that is not God. Its existence is not dependent on anything else. It is the cause and reason of all existence. It is infinite, eternal, self-existent, self-caused. It does not have anything called will. It does not do anything thinking of an end. If it does something thinking of an end it means it has a desire. Desire arises only when something is lacking. When there is nothing else apart from it, when it is complete by itself why would it have a desire or will? You can see that a lot of this thinking is also stated in the Upanishads. But there are many aspects on which I differ with the Upanishads.

This Supreme Being does not have a separate identity from ours as humans tend to think, we are an inseparable particle of that whole. The Supreme Being does not think. Thinking is essentially a human process. We think about something because there are many things we do not know and many ifs and buts in life. We think about things that give us pleasure and that give us pain. But the Supreme Being is above pain and pleasure and it is supreme and no other principle guides it. It is all comprehensive, and is the collective whole of everything. Therefore it has nothing to think about. Simply because man thinks he feels that the Supreme Being should also think.

I feel that the Universe stretches in an infinite number of dimensions. We do not know and can neither visualize what lies behind the Universe. Einstein says that the universe curves in on itself and we cannot go anywhere without the universe being there. But despite all his brilliance Einstein is still a human being and his thinking is essentially human. We know only 3 dimensions-Length, Breadth and Height. Even if we consider Time to be a dimension there are only 4 dimensions known to man. The Supreme Being stretches in an infinite number of dimensions. How much may science develop, man would never be able even visualize the ultimate reality because he simply does not possess the mental faculties to comprehend it.

I have a great analogy (this is my own idea and I have not taken it from any ones thought) for visualizing the role of man in the universe (which in turn is God). See the human cell, which our scientists have discovered. Cell is a part of the human body. It multiplies and therefore the body grows, it dies and the body dies. It is a part and parcel of our body and is never separate from it. It can never exist separate from the body. Similarly a body can never exist without a cell. The cell unconsciously fulfills all the functions that are required for the human body. It does not know that it is a part of the body because it cannot think like humans do. It does not have a brain. Similarly each particle in the Universe is a part and parcel of the whole. The Universe cannot exist without that particle and the particle cannot exist without the Universe. I call each particle perfect because it fulfills its function perfectly. It cannot be anything else but perfect because if this particle is imperfect, then so is the Supreme Being of whom it is a part. This is the reason why I do not believe in Good and Bad per se. All deeds happen within God and are again perfect by themselves. That is why I do not believe in anything called sin either.

But if that is the case, then how to determine what a person should do. Good and bad can be defined in a different way without linking them to God. That is by taking society as a base. Why is the society formed? It is for the mutual benefit of the individuals that are part of it. Man is like any other animal, the only difference being his brain. In the olden times man lived in the open and in caves as animals do today. But that was an insecure life. He had to continuously hunt for food. It may be available one day and not available on another. He had to sometime fight for his food. Similarly, some other man may covet his mate and take her by force if he is stronger. There was chaos and the stronger always prevailed. Even the stronger man was not safe from attack from a still stronger man. Therefore everyone was insecure. Slowly with time man discovered that association with each other protected him from such insecurity. That is how society came into existence. Since society is formed for mutual benefit, anything that threatens to destroy the fabric of society should be termed as bad and that helps the smooth perpetration of the society as good. Seen this way, a murder is bad because it hurts an individual for whose benefit society is formed. A person helping another person is good because it will improve the security of the person who is a part of the society. Good and bad can also change as per the circumstances and are only relative the ultimate aim being the smooth continuation of the society. At the same time none of the concepts set forth by the society should be accepted unquestioningly. Everything should be questioned and inquired into to find whether it helps the smooth existence of the individuals that form its part. It should also be dynamic and adapt itself to the changing environment so that it accepts modern ideas continuously and does not hinder the development of independent thought. There was a time when people were persecuted just because they said that the earth revolved around the sun. Giordano Bruno was burnt at stake for believing in the concept of pantheism. I feel that those things are bad because they restrict the freedom of an individual and thereby harm the society as a whole.

I do not believe in a soul. Consciousness and body are never separate. Consciousness arises when certain conditions of the body are fulfilled and ceases when those conditions are extinguished. We can never find the whys and where fore’s of this because this is related to the ultimate reality and we do not have the mental faculties to even comprehend it.

The problem with man is, he thinks that he can understand everything that is happening in the universe. He thinks that because he has a structured way of thinking, everything should come into his thought. It never occurs to him that he is no better than a particle of sand in the universe’s (I should say a multiverse) scheme of things. A cell can never comprehend its significance in the body it helps to perpetrate; similarly man can never comprehend his significance either.

Man has invented God in his own model to explain away the unexplained. Man feels, so he expects the God to feel, man juxtaposes all the good qualities as defined by him on to God. Since all the good qualities as defined by society are appended to God, the concept of God is never bad for society. God is in fact the ideal man as per society. This concept puts the fear of the other world into man and tempers him to an extent so that he moderates his actions and controls himself. That is why I say that religion is a necessary thing for society. But it should not become so rigid as to restrict the progress of the society itself for whose benefit it has been formed.

No religion was founded with a bad intention, and the idea is to bring peace to humans. Unfortunately, religious interpreters twist religion for their own benefit with the result that the original teachings get obscured. An amazing example is Buddhism. Buddhism was founded as a reaction to the idolatry of Hinduism and Buddha was totally against idol worship. Nevertheless, his followers worship Buddha’s image now, which is totally against his own teaching. This is how interpreters distort religion and change its original meaning. 

TIME TRAVEL…….IS IT POSSIBLE???

Although earlier books have described time travel, its scientific roots can be traced back to the Special Theory of Relativity propounded by Albert Einstein in 1905.

As per this theory any object /person traveling with significant speeds comparable to that of light (speed of light 300,000 KM/Sec) will have a slowdown in time compared to the objects/persons which are stationery.

This slowing down in time is not noticeable to a person that is moving but it can be observed by the persons who are stationery. This principle of time variation is a tool for traveling vast distances in space (at least theoretically).

This theory states that this time slowdown is applicable for all speeds but becomes observable and significant as one approaches the speed of light. If an object is traveling at 90% the speed of light(270,000 KM/Sec), then its time as observable by stationery observers would slow down by half. An hour for a stationary observer would only be half an hour for a person traveling at 90% the speed of light.

Time then starts slowing down rapidly as one approach the speed of light and at the speed of light time stands still. This conclusion appears meaningless to many people because we cannot comprehend this happening. But technically this is supposed to be feasible and Einstein has proved that beyond all doubt by his mathematical calculations.

Unless there is a fundamental mistake in our mathematics which we have not yet discovered, the theory of Einstein is correct.

Even more incomprehensible is what happens after crossing the speed of light. Time then starts going in the reverse direction i.e. from present to the past.

Travel both forward and backward in time is possible due to this theory. How that happens is given below:

1. FORWARD: If a person starts off on a rocket from the earth and travel with the speed of light, then time virtually stands still for him. With that speed he can travel to say a star 100 light years away and back then it would take him 200 years as calculated from the earth. But for him no time would have elapsed. If he now lands back on earth, then he would be doing so 200 years later or in 2211. So, he has traveled into the future.

2. BACKWARD: If a person starts off on a rocket from the earth and exceeds the speed of light, then he starts going from the present to the past. As the speed increases more he would travel back in time faster. If he then lands back on the earth, he would be landing in the past.

Perhaps there is some universal principle which we are missing here. A principle we are unable to comprehend and that is beyond our three/four dimensional thinking. Perhaps we are trying to bring in this universal principle into our limited thinking which is resulting in paradoxes that are incomprehensible to us.

I have doubts about the operation of our physical laws at the speed of light and perhaps we are vainly applying them in areas where they are not valid. Perhaps time travel as we perceive is not possible at all. But of course only time can answer that and maybe even it would not be able to do so.

WILL EARTH BE HIT BY AN ASTEROID OF SUBSTANTIAL SIZE.

I am generally fond of Astronomy. When I was going through some videos on youtube I found this video which I had shared above and it made me feel disturbed. Then I thought that I should investigate a little more about the probability of earth taking such a hit.

The latest meteor impact occurred at Kali in Estonia around 700 BC. Multiple craters were formed at the site of impact by the meteor with an estimated velocity of 15 km/s and a mass of around 50 MT. The main crater formed by the impact is 100 meters across with a depth of 22 meters.

Asteroids with a diameter of over 50 meters strike the earth every 1000 years-------- One such strike took place in 1908 at Tunguska in Siberia. This is the largest impact event over land in Earth's recent history. Luckily the impact occurred in a forest and trees in the surrounding area with a diameter of 8 KM got affected. The general agreement among scientists is that this meteor is a few tens of meters across.

Asteroids with an average diameter of 1KM strike the earth every 500,000 years.

Bigger collisions with asteroids 5 KM in diameter occur once every 10 million years-------- The smallest of these impacts would generate 20,000 times as much energy as the greatest bomb ever produced by us and leave a crater 95 km across. One such strike is supposed to have wiped out the Dinosaur population from the earth 6.5 million years ago.

The largest meteor impact crater on the earth is the Barringer crater in the Arizona desert formed 50,000 years ago. This is 1200 meters across and 170 meters deep. This is believed to have been caused by a meteor weighing 150,000 MT at the time of striking the earth and an impact speed of 13 KM/hr.

There are only 3 asteroids with diameters of 500 KM and over that can cause the devastation that is shown in the video. They are 1) Ceres-Dia 952 KM, 2) 2Pallas- 544 KM, 3) 4Vesta-529 KM. Luckily for us none of them have any chance of colliding with the earth. Of the asteroids Vesta is the only one that attains brightness that is is visible to the naked eye.

The TORINO SCALE is a scale for measuring the possibility of an asteroid or a comet hitting the earth. This is valuated between 0 and 10.

On this scale a collision is certain if the object reaches 8 on the scale. None of the objects evaluated by astronomers till date managed to cross 1 till the Asteroid Aphophis did so in 2004. In fact at one time Aphophis was upgraded to 4 which means a 1% chance of a collision capable of regional devastation. With later observations however, it has been downgraded to 0.

Subsequently another asteroid 2004 VD 17 reached a level of 2, but subsequent observations made the scientist downgrade it to 0. All the asteroids discovered earlier have been downgraded to 0. Incidentally, a 0 level indicates almost nil chances of impact.

Presently there are only 3 asteroids with a risk level of 1. Level 1 means a collision is highly unlikely.

The asteroid 2007 VK184 discovered in 2007 has a probability of 1 in 3030 to hit the earth. It has a diameter of 130 meters and travels at a speed of 16KM/Hr.

The asteroids 2011 AG5 and 2011 BM45 discovered in Feb 2011 are rated 1.

Considering the above data it is highly unlikely in the near future that earth would be hit a by an asteroid of substantial size to cause lasting damage.

CHINA A SUCCESS STORY.

China is the most populous country in the world and is our neighbor. Our countries had contact since thousands of years. It is interesting to know some facts about China.

After the victory in the Chinese Civil War, the communist party of China led by Mao Zedong gained control of most of China. On 1st October 1949, they established the “People’s Republic of China” as a Socialist State headed by the Communist Party.

Till the time of India China war in 1962, both India and China were at the same level of economic development.

After the death of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiao Ping emerged as the most important leader in 1978. He started a series of political and economic reforms that led to China's rapid economic development starting in the 1990s.

Post-1978 reforms in China have led to some relaxation of control over many areas of society. However, the government still has almost absolute control over politics, and it continually seeks to eradicate what it perceives as threats to the social, political and economic stability of the country. Examples include the jailing of political opponents and journalists, regulation of the press, regulation of religion, and also suppression of independence movements.

In 1989, the student protests at Tiananmen Square were brutally put to an end by the Chinese military after 15 days of martial law.

In 1997, Hong Kong was ceded to the PRC by the United Kingdom, and in 1999, Macau was handed over by Portugal.

Chinas economy is the 2nd largest in the world after the USA. It has been growing at an average rate of 10% over the last 30 years.

China is the largest exporter of gods in the world and the second largest importer.

In the year 2011 China has crossed the USA and became the number one country in the world in terms of industrial output. This is a significant development that has to be taken note of.

Some economic data on China is given below and is compared with that of India:

                                                          CHINA            INDIA

GDP 2010 USD trillion                     5.750             1.430

PER CAPITA USD                            4,283              1,176

                                                   CHINA                                              INDIA

                            GDP BY SEC %   EMP BY SEC%   GDP BY SEC%  EMP BY SEC%

AGRICULTURE       9.60                       39.50                        19.70                    55

INDUSTRY             46.80                      27.20                        26.20                    18

SERVICES              43.60                      33.20                        54.10                    27

The role of China in the world’s economy was minimal in 1980. But due to the economic reforms initiated then it grew rapidly and is today one of the largest economies in the world.

In 2003, China surpassed Japan to become the second-largest consumer of primary energy, after the United States. China is the world's second-largest consumer of oil, after the United States.

China ranks first worldwide in farm output.Yields are high because of intensive cultivation, for example, China's cropland area is only 75% of the U.S. total, but China still produces about 30% more crops and livestock than the United States.

Animal husbandry constitutes the second most important component of agricultural production. China is the world's leading producer of pigs, chickens, and eggs, and it also has sizable herds of sheep and cattle.

With bilateral trade exceeding US$38.6 billion, China is India's largest trading partner.

The U.S. trade deficit with China reached $232.5 billion in 2006.

China's foreign exchange reserves are the largest in the world.

China calls itself a communist country but follows all capitalist policies. The only communist sign is the supremacy of the communist party in governance. Although the public sector is very strong, the private sector also accounts for some 25% industrial production.

I remember reading one article by an Indian businessman which has appeared in Hindu a long time ago. He went to China for setting up a factory ( I do not recollect for what product).  After completion of construction he had to take a power connection, water connection and a pollution control certificate. He stunningly narrated that all that was required was to call all the three departments on telephone. They have then visited his factory and the work was done in one day. No bribes were paid. The businessman was so impressed by what happened that he wrote an article in the Hindu on what happened in China. With that sort of system little wonder China is developing so fast. 

Nevertheless China has its own problems. The available energy would not be able to run its full industrial capacity. The transport system also has certain bottlenecks in terms of goods transportation. There is also corruption in the country but not to the extent in India. For this they have the death penalty.

Despite its problems the growth of China had been a success story in the world. Other countries should analyze the reasons for the Chinese growth and adopt the Chinese techniques provided they are suitable to their systems of governance.

DEPLETION OF OZONE LAYER.

I read in the local newspaper in the morning today about the loss of Ozone layer to the extent of 40% (as reported by a WMO study) and was shocked about it. I thought it to be too large and wanted to check up a bit more about it.

After going through the available matter on the web I found that the layer has indeed gone down by 40% due to the very cold winter this year. Generally the decrease is around 30% in the winters.

Ozone is an allotrope (Forms of a chemical element with different physical and chemical properties) of Oxygen and is called O 3.

It is present mostly in the Stratosphere about 10 to 50 Km above us and filters the ultraviolet rays that are emitted by the Sun to the extent of some 97-99% . The ultraviolet rays of high frequency are extremely harmful for living beings. The Ozone layer itself varies in thickness geographically as well as with change in seasons.

The following factors affect the Ozone layer:

1. Volcanoes: Although volcanoes put in significant amount of sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere, these get rained off to the earth due to the high content of water vapor in volcanic eruptions. Large volcanic eruptions certainly disturb the ozone layer but their effect on the layer is around 3% and lasts not more than 3 years.

2. Stratospheric Winds: These winds change directions every 26 months known as QBO. As a result the ozone layer gets disturbed region to region but there is no net ozone loss overall.

3. Sunspot Cycle: Ozone is created by Solar Ultraviolet radiation. As there is a change in the activity of the Sun every 11 years, the level of Ozone also changes but this is less than 2%. However, large solar storms and flares may affect the ozone layer more. This also gets corrected in a period of 11 years.

4. Chlorine in the Stratosphere: This is man made and is operative because of the use of Fluorocarbons (used as refrigerant gases). This was estimated to be around 3% per decade. This is the one effect on the ozone layer which is irreversible and is permanent.

In the US and the European Economic Community, the use of fluorocarbons has been totally phased out now. Realizing the danger they have moved over to other less harmful gases.

Developing countries have also signed the Montreal protocol which is for the protection of the Ozone layer and are phasing out the use of these dangerous ozone depleting gases.

It would however take a long time for the harmful emissions already made before the phasing out by the developed nations.

A study conducted by scientists in the year 2003 has indicated that the rate of depletion of the ozone layer is slowing down due to the decrease in the use of fluorocarbons. This is a welcome sign and all can heave at least small sigh of relief.