How free are we?

Before I started writing this, I looked at what the dictionary terms “Freedom” as. It said freedom is.

• The state of being free or at liberty rather than inconfinement or under physical restraint:
• Exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.
• The power to determine action without restraint.

So the question is should I have to go to the dictionary meaning to understand what freedom is or is freedom something that is already known?. I looked at it only because , I did not know.
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In the year 1949 , the Indian Constitution gave to Indians some of the liberal rights such as universal adult franchise which was way ahead of its times compared to other developed nations. However on the political front, India adopted Nehru’s socialist model that included a significant dilution in property rights, among others. The government entered businesses as its primary activity, to help it achieve the ‘commanding heights of the economy.’ Government owned factories sprung up quickly and began churning out shirts, watches, fridges, scooters, bicycles, milk, bread, and cheese.
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India's (Nehru's) fascination with socialism meant that individual citizens cannot be free to hold their property and carry on their professions freely .Only Rajaji wanted liberalisation. Economic liberalisation was introduced to India only in the year 1991. In response to a balance-of-payments crisis, India did away with the Licence Raj and ended many public monopolies, allowing automatic approval of foreign direct investment in many sectors. Since then, India has emerged as one of the fastest growing developing economy. Just imagine had India implemented this concept earlier as campaigned by Rajaji. Notable contributions aside- it seems that Shri Rajaji was also something of a fortune-teller.

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A classic case of freedom abuse is India's Right to Information Act (RTI) which now appears to be a victim of some of the very issues it was designed to fight against. This Act was perceived as the ultimate weapon for the people to fight corruption and get accountability from the government. However now it is slowly seen that this Act is also the victim of the nefarious factors that it was made to fight against. It is a running into bottlenecks, including abuses by officials who are deleting information to prevent it from reaching the people.

Citizen-campaigners are reporting missing information in a small but significant number of cases. They believe officials who do not want to release information simply make it vanish. A call for stringent action in 'missing document' cases needs to be made. Also, changes must be made in this act such as submission of a list of officials who are custodians of the missing documents, filing criminal cases against them, fining guilty officers and probe into deficient record maintaining system and for other anomalies.
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Freedom includes having our own non corrupt judicial system. The problem with Indian judiciary is something else. It is said that over three million cases are pending in India's 21 high courts, and an astounding 26.3 million cases are pending in subordinate courts across the country. At the same time, there are almost a quarter million under-trials languishing in jails across the country. Even fast track courts take minimum five years to give justice. It’s always said justice delayed is justice denied. Something must be done to reduce this backlog. Surely there is a way. There is a system of Advance Rulings prevalent in this country where nonresidents get judgements within 6 months. It baffles me why such a solution is not available for residents. This is a ‘free country’ where even an arm of the judiciary system (Advance Rulings) shows priority to nonresidents more than residents.
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It is a pity that the people of India do not have quality of life. Majority of the population in this country does not have the freedom to disrobe for sanitation. Also this is a country where thanks to traffic the ambulances do not arrive on time. Yes…Yes…. Pizza somehow arrives on time without fail !

The issue of reproductive technologies in our society today raises an
interesting question. Do they increase a women's freedom of choice or do they
expand the power of men and science over women. Is freedom to choose what they
can do with their bodies truly freedom? The evils against women such as female infanticide, dowry is prevalent even now. We have not attained freedom from them yet. We have not attained freedom from scams , whether it is by corporates (Satyam) or by Politicians (innumerable). Also a serious issue arises from the freedom of free access to the internet. This has made children frequent adult sites. Porn now comes on TV itself. Recently a spycam video of misdoings of a fake Godman was telecasted by a famous television channel in its prime time news. This could have easily been avoided. This brings us to the next point , the freedom of press.

Freedom of the press is the freedom of communication and expression through vehicles including various electronic media and published materials. However the media must know its limits also. It cannot intrude the privacy of any person. A notable press victory of sorts was Wiki Leaks. Wiki Leaks has brought to light a series of disturbing insinuations and startling truths in the last year, some earth-shattering, others simply confirmations of our darkest suspicions about the way the world works. Wikileaks is the epitome of freedom of press. It revealed cables from and to United States that caused embarrassment to a lot of top notch officials. Julian Assange , the founder of Wikileaks has been awarded the Sydney Peace Foundation gold medal by the Sydney Peace Foundation of the University of Sydney for his "exceptional courage and initiative in pursuit of human rights." Truly Assange is a modern day hero.
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Kollywood dominates popular imagination in Tamil Nadu to a degree that perhaps far exceeds the influence of Bollywood. Yet, the industry was until elections gripped by intense fear. The film industry has always been a coveted fiefdom, but in the last five years, there’s been an almost absolute takeover by a family. If there is any Tamil film you’ve heard of recently, nine out of 10 times, it would have been produced by the first family that ruled Tamil Nadu until recently. And they did it by controlling its consumption — via marketing, theatres and media rights. Monopolizing distribution is a key component of the game. Often, they buy films of smaller producers and throw their massive marketing and distributing infrastructure behind it. On an hour long drive, one can count a song from their recent release playing four times on their own FM. This kind of promotion is of course free of charge in one’s own channel but they charge exorbitant rates for trailers of fresh releases by directors and producers not part of their stable.
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Many producers feel the only option for mass marketing is television and radio and both are controlled by the family.Like small-time businessmen, they now depend on the Internet and word-of-mouth for marketing. Recently, Kollywood saw a wave of small-budget films set in B-towns. The theme was raw, violent, realistic, and they turned into sleeper hits. Today, the so called ‘Madurai wave’ has also been monopolised by the family. Any first-time producer who refused to give in run the risk of their films never seeing the light of day.Theatre-owners were threatened to join hands with the family’s business interests. Many film makers could not find a single theatre willing to screen them since they did not have the ‘blessing’ of the family! Under the new Government, the Cine Industry hopes to breathe easy.
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Equity is a fundamentally significant concept that can be used to characterize the fairness and effectualness of education systems. Although it is not a new issue in both developing and developed nations, educational equity has received renewed interest because it is more widely recognized as a basic human right.

The main factor in making parents not send their children to government schools is reported to be “the discouragement effect” brought on in part by the “abysmal quality of Indian[state] schools.”

One major problem is teacher absenteeism. A major survey of educational provision in four northern Indian states, the Public Report on Basic Education (“Probe Report”), revealed startling findings on the quality of state schools. When researchers called unannounced on a large random sample of government schools, in only half was there any“teaching activity” going on at all! In one-third, the head teacher was absent. The team reported “several cases of irresponsible teachers keeping a school closed or non-functional for several months at a time;a school where the teacher was drunk…a head teacher who asks the children to do domestic chores, including looking after the baby; several cases of teachers sleeping at school…; a head teacher who came to school once a week…and so on down the line.

Why are private schools not celebrated as part of the way forward in achieving “education for all”? There seems to be three practical reasons why not. First, private schools charge fees, thus making them out of reach for the poor. To ensure that children from poor families unable to pay school fees are able to attend private schools, governments could finance their education through vouchers.The second objection questions whether high-quality provision could exist in private schools serving the poor because levels of resourcing are low. The third objection is oddest of all. It concerns the impact of private provision on state education: If poor parents support private education, this allegedly carries a real danger of undermining the government schooling system.

None of this discussion, of course, means that nothing could be improved in the private sector’s efforts to serve the poor. Access to private education could be extended even further by building on the initiatives—already undertaken bythe private schools themselves—that offer ree and reduced-fee seats to needy children. Such informal schemes could be extended and replicated by philanthropists and/or the state so that “pupil passports”or vouchers could be targeted at the poorest children (although there may be thedanger of additional regulations that could stifle the growth of private schools if they were administered by the state). With these passports or vouchers, many more of the poor could be empowered to attend private unaided schools.

A known fact is Sri Sankara Senior Secondary school at chennai does not want to admit poor students which is mandatory as per a new Right to education law. The law makes it obligatory on the state governments and local bodies to ensure that every child gets education in a neighbourhood school. The district education officer can admit 25% of poor children living nearby to any private school as per the Act. According to it, if a child around nine years old has never been to school, he/she must be admitted to the fourth standard after some training. The schools cannot refuse admission, and must provide education free of cost.
‘Admitting poor students may bring down discipline and the quality of education and also demoralize teachers’, says the principal of this School. In a circular issued to students by the Adyar-based school, the principal has linked a student's performance to his/her economic status and asked parents to protest against the Right To Education Act.The circular said that under the Act, the school would have no choice but to admit students from poor families, which would pull down its standards. She urged parents to "protest and fight" against the Act. Suggesting that the state's decision to implement it from the coming year could force the school to increase fees, she asked parents to appeal to the state and the Centre not to implement the Act in its present form.
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From the early teenage, all we dream is about being independent. At that age, freedom means making decisions on own. However as we grow, we lose our way. Instead of standing up to one’s own beliefs, we capitulate to others interpretations of ‘being free’. Suppose we puff cigarettes, use drugs or drink alcohol because we feel old enough or cool enough does not signify freedom. Freedom is about taking that responsibility for our own actions. Being free does not mean being lawfully right. Maturity and the ability to adopt responsibility do not in any way show the age. Everything lies in the mind. We must learn to say no to those things that are misrepresented as to being ‘cool’ to foster our freedom. Yes, we must have the spine to say no. People will try and talk to us to doing a lot of things that might seem ‘cool’. Being wise is saying no to these things. The ‘Misuse of Freedom’ is increasing day by day and only we can help ourselves.

Conclusion:

So how free are we? Can we conclude on a hypothetical scale of 1 to 10, we are probably on 4…? No! It does not work that way. It is not quantifiable. It is qualitative. Let’s take one definition, not imprisoned or enslaved, in the world we live in there are personal prisons and there are persons and things that enslave us. One prison is work, confined to forcibly do things and a simple gadget that enslaves is our mobile.

The true worth liberty is best known to people of Libya and Egypt. For the present generation in India, freedom is something of the past. Freedom to them is only confined to history books. It’s high time we realize it’s beyond that.
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P.S.1. Motivation levels have reached a new low and thats the first reason for my prolonged absence from blogging.The second reason is mentioned in P.S.2

P.S.2. Laziness has also reached a new high.

P.S.3. I promise myself to be more frequent. I also promise to come out with rib tickling posts.Ya...I know its long due.

P.S.4 Dont ask me why I did not name SUN Pictures , Cloud Nine , Mohana Movies , Red Giant , Nithu( Swami Nithyananda) in the post.I have done it here. :P ha ha..
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