The Irony of being a Soldier

When the government policies are not good and also diplomacy fails then it is not the politicians or foreign civil servants who suffer but the soldiers of Armed forces who suffer and pay the price of their failure with their lives. Nations go to war not because armed forces want it but they are ordered to do so by the elected representative and their selected and appointed foreign diplomats did not perform their duty satisfactorily and the armed forces are asked to go and rectify their mistake by paying the price with the blood of soldiers.  Sometimes they tie the hands of armed forces by their previous agreements and treaties like in the present case of Galvan valley and make them look like worst than the police force who at last can carry and wield lathis while tacking a civil riot..The soldiers get two days of fame, some slogan shouting and attention on TV and maybe a few medals but then it is the life time suffering for the families including in some cases ridicule and humiliation. But nobody asks the question as to what lead to this failure and fix the blame correctly.

If the financial institutions fail due to the policies of government and failure of watchdogs like RBI and SEBI then it is not they get blamed but the it is the public that suffers. Government gets kudos by pumping money and promising public that their interest will be looked after by using the public tax paid money. Our tax money is given to financial institution for their mistakes and public suffers. But the real culprits are never found and punished.

In case of natural calamities like floods,earthquake, drought etc and man made calamities like riots, major arson and looting, terrorist issues, it is again that the armed forces that get called but no action against the administration and institutions that failed or did not do their duty properly and allowed this situation to develop.

Politicians get elected again and civil servants get promotions, financial institution get a healing dose of tax paid money and the public is left holding the empty sack and the armed forces suffer human lives.

End of story. To be repeated again and again as we do not learn from the past.

Amazing Animals & climatic harmony

The nature is full of amazing creatures and their ability to survive extreme heat or cold. While some brave the weather by going underground or develop special features, some go into hibernation but there is a group of animals that actually die and again come back to life. Wood frog belongs to a small group of animals that can freeze but not die. It is a native of northern forest of Alaska and Canada and in winters it buries itself into the leafy litter of forest floor and goes into deep hibernation where it’s breathing, heart beat stops and as much as 65% of water in its body turns into ice. Come summer and as the ice melts it revives itself and goes to feed, breed, etc and again in winter it freezes and the cycle is repeated.

Frogs are cold blooded so their body temperature is about the same as surrounding air. At the beginning of winter the frog does this trick because its liver continues pumping the protective glucose around its body and the frog’s heart slows and eventually stops. The ice produced quickly fills the wood frog's abdominal cavity and encases the internal organs .It forms layer between skin and muscles. The lens turns white as its eyes freezes. The glucose produced by the liver flushes into every cell of body and this liquid prevents the cells from freezing and binds the water droplets inside the cell to prevent dehydration. Of course if it gets very cold and the ice formation is in excess of 65% then it will actually die and will not be able to revive itself in summer. All the other organs stop functioning and the frog can survive winters like this undergoing cycle of freezing and thawing.

The amazing ability of this group of animals who have developed special abilities to brave cold weather and their adaptability to live in harmony without damaging the environment but adapt to live with it should be a lesson for the humans who have done every trick possible to degrade and spoil the environment rather than learn to live with it in harmony and adapt to its changes but are doing their best to change and degrade it every day.

Agriculture Income_Misconceptions

Agriculture income as per income tax law is exempted from income tax. Well the answer is yes and no both. If one has no other income except agriculture income then the answer is yes and the total income will be exempted from paying any income tax on it. But if one has other income like salary, pension, capital gains, interest income, etc then as per the act the agriculture income will be added to the other income and the tax calculated on this total income. From this tax the tax on agriculture income will be deducted to arrive at the final tax payable. What it does is to raise the slab of income tax payable and even though the agriculture income is free from income tax but one ends up paying higher tax on his other income. Your a might go up from 10% to 0 % or from 20% to 30% on your other income.

Climatic Change & Frog Syndrome

Frog syndrome refers to the first experiment done by Henzman where he came to the conclusion that a frog if put in a large vessel at room temperature and then the water is heated very gradually then the frog would not attempt to escape and gradually will adjust to the rise in temperature, feel drowsy and if the temperature is very high then it may eventually  die. Whereas, if the frog is put in a vessel with water temperature high enough, then it will immediately jump off.

At the basic level the frog syndrome is a cautionary warning against complacency. It has been linked to organizational changes, government policies, our apathy to climatic change, the world over rise in pollution level, the economic meltdown and career related stress.

The world is getting hot, storms have been ferocious, land masses disappearing, arctic ice is melting, air pollution is increasing, more earthquakes and tremors, more severe floods, etc. New researches in these fields also indicate the adaptability of the 21 century human beings. In the face of unprecedented climatic change we are normalizing the weather temperatures and not realizing how truly bad things have become. During lock down it was possible to see Dauladhar ranges and Himalayan ranges from as far as 200 to 250 Km away. We could hear singing and chirping of birds and the wild animals could be seen in villages and rural areas and this clearly points out as to what we have lost and accepted the present situation because it developed gradually. Unfortunately we have normalized all these things and have accepted the present conditions as the new normal.

As pointed out by Moore that” There is a risk that we will quickly normalize conditions we do not want to normalize.” It is also possible that in the future the climatic changes may produce temperatures beyond the psychological and biological threshold of humans besides other kinds of extreme weather.  Taken to this extreme does this mean that human will never realize that like the frog that we are in the boiling pot of water and eventually become extinct? But maybe this will be generalizing the things too far and as the Club of Rome in 1972 with 100 members in their famous report “The limits to growth” pointed out that the technological advances may be able to offset not only this limit to growth but also these extreme climatic changes provided we realize the gravity of situation before it becomes too late.

Issues Solar Plant-Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh government is in big way promoting solar energy generation and in this endeavor roof top solar energy plants play a big role. Even subsidy by the central government and UP state government is being offered. The PVC solar panels are also easily available at a reasonable rate and installation can done by any vendor including a net metering system to measure what all you have consumed from the grid and how much you have supplied to the grid. Theoretically the bill is supposed to be what one has consumed in excess of what one has supplied to the grid. It looks very simple and straight forward but this is where your problems start.

Even though one have been supplying to the grid he continue to received a bill only for what one has withdrawn from the grid with no adjustment for the energy supplied to the grid. The reason is simple as explained by an electricity board official. The meter readers do not know how to read the net metering system and take the reading in most of the cities of the units you withdrew from the grid on a piece of paper and raise the bill. They do not use automatic readers and where they use they only record the amount withdrawn from the grid except main cities where automatic machine read only what is withdrawn from the grid and do not record what one has supplied. Result is that the consumer looses and the department gains in terms of extra power. Delhi (BSES)raises a bill which shows both these readings and the balance is only charged but unfortunately UP energy has no such method and your bill only shows what you have consumed.

There is a need to train the meter readers and give them automatic readers which will read both the readings and the bill must show both the readings and only balance charged to the consumer. Unless this is implemented people ill shy away from solar installation in UP and those who have already installed will continue to run from pillar to post and suffer losses due to non trained meter readers. Meanwhile till the training is complete what the UPPCL can do is to give a whattsapp number where the consumer can upload both the readings and then based on this the bill is raised on a fixed date as given by the department.