QUO VADIS OPPOSITION?

 Mossadegh....and....Modi

Since Iran exports a huge amount of oil to India, the Iran-US conflict is detrimental to our interests. Whenever the conflict escalates, it affects India as well, so our media goes into overdrive about it.

Have you ever wondered "Why Iranians call America "The Devil's Land"?

The British had historically dominated Iran's oil production, with 84% share of Iran's oil production going to England and only 16% to Iran. The Emperor of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was a corrupt man (अय्याश), so he didn't care! 

Iran had a constitutional monarchy, also had elections, Parliament. In 1951, Mohammed Mossadegh, a staunch patriot, became Prime Minister.  He did not like the dominance of foreign companies in Iran's oil production and trade. On March 15, 1951, he presented a Bill for the nationalization of Iran's oil industry in Parliament, which was passed by majority. After this Bill was passed, Iranians began to dream of happiness, that now their poverty would be removed! 

Time magazine called Mossadegh "Man of the year" in 1951! 

But due to these developments, the British lost a lot! The British started many small and big attempts to remove Mossadegh, tried to bribe Mossadegh, tried to assassinate Mossadegh, and attempted a military coup, but because Mossadegh was very experienced and intelligent, the British assassination, bribery plots failed and Mossadegh was very popular among the Iranian people. With a popular PM, a military coup was not possible. Finally, the British asked for help from the Americans.

America's CIA approved a $1 million fund to remove Mossadegh. Then one million US dollars equalled 4250 crore Rials (Iranian currency)! The funds were sent to the American Ambassador in Tehran (the capital of Iran).

 Mossadegh wanted to completely end the monarchy in Iran and give all the power to Parliament, so the Emperor of Iran was also on the side of England and the Americans. Their plan was to create discontent against Mossadegh and remove popular support from him, then overthrow his Government with the help of corrupt Parliamentarians.

A large number of Iranian journalists, editors, and Muslim clerics were paid 631 crore Riyals by the US and those journalists, editors and Muslim clerics had only one thing to do in return, which was to incite the people against Mossadegh.

Members of the Iranian Parliament were paid 46 million Rials each to spread propaganda about Mossadegh's work. Thousands of Iranians were paid to participate in the false protests. Then started marches on the Parliament. Big media around the world also started supporting American propaganda. Mossadegh began to be referred to as "the Dictator" in "The New York Times".  The same "Time" magazine that had praised now called Mossadegh a dangerous entity. Opposition to Mossadegh began at a very low level, with cartoons depicting him as gay.

Realizing that his Government was about to be overthrown by corrupt MPs, Mossadegh dissolved the Parliament, and finally, the US forced the Iranian Emperor to remove Mossadegh from his post as Prime Minister. (Since Mossadegh had the authority to accept or reject the order, the Shah decided to arrest him if he refused the order!). But Mossadegh's soldiers arrested the Army unit that had come to arrest him, and upon learning this, the Shah of Iran fled to Baghdad! 

Finally, by paying a bribe of 210 million Rials, the US instigated fake riots in the capital of Iran, with mercenaries on the sides. Rioters attacked Mossadegh's house, and Mossadegh was forced to flee, (the military helped in the overthrow of Govt), a puppet was made the Prime Minister, citing the old order of the Emperor. After the Emperor returned to Iran, Mossadegh surrendered. He was put on trial, imprisoned, and then held under house arrest until his death. (Mossadegh died in custody at the age of 85.)

After that the Americans and the British started taking of share of 40% - 40% of Iranian oil and the remaining 20% was given to other European companies. For decades the Iranian people had to live under the dictatorship of the Shah, a revolution ended the Monarchy but then the fanatical Khomeini came to power and made the lives of the Iranian people even worse.

WHAT WAS MOSSADEGH'S CRIME? 

His idea that the economic sectors of our country should be dominated by indigenous companies instead of foreign companies. This policy was his crime..? Under Mossadegh's leadership, Iran would have become a fully democratic country before 1955, and 100% of the oil production would have benefited Iran. 

The decades of torture inflicted on the Iranian people would not have happened in a strong democracy and a Government that favours indigenous companies, Iran would probably be a more prosperous country than Saudi Arabia today. But Iran's corrupt parliamentarians, journalists, editors and protestors sold Iran's rich future for just one million dollars.

During this period of oppression, the Iranian people began to realize that America had a hand in overthrowing Mossadegh's Government. In 1979, the Iranians detained Americans in the US embassy for 444 days, and 77 volumes of documents the Iranians found in the embassy were released, in which there was evidence of the American hand and how they helped the oppressive puppets in Iran.

That's why Iranians call America, "Satan's Country"! 

Mossadegh could not complete the policy of breaking the dominance of foreign companies and promoting indigenous companies, he made enemies with the two superpowers of the world. In the end, he had an unfortunate end, as in Bollywood films the hero doesn't win every time.

Finally, who were the real villain for Iran..? Journalists, editors, MPs and activists who had been sold to America! 

Had these people not been sold, the Iranian people would have stood behind Mossadegh and America would not have succeeded like England. But for a few dollars, the patriotic leader of Iran was called "Kumshah" and soon the whole country was ruined! 

Our country 'India' is also on the same path today. 

It is a great misfortune that the common citizens do not notice the ongoing conspiracies unless they suffer endless atrocities.

It is wise to be alert in time and not fall prey to corrupt media propaganda, trust our patriotic present Indian leadership and stand firmly behind it.

Otherwise, a disaster like Iran is inevitable....and this is why intelligence agencies of big capitalist countries are working day and night. These intelligence agencies are making many politicians of India work as their agents and there are also some journalists, urban naxals, pseudo-liberals and NGOs working with the aim of selling the country for dirty money. 

It is no longer a secret that a campaign for regime change in India has been launched by foreign agencies. It is said that our destiny is in our own hands, we just need to understand it properly.

From Balu's Twitter feed 05 Feb 2023

NEW NATURAL LAWS

 AN UPDATE ON LOADED PRINCIPLES

1. Solomon's Paradox: We're better at solving other people's problems than our own because detachment yields objectivity. But Kross et al (2014) found viewing oneself in the 3rd person yields the same detachment, so when trying to help yourself, imagine you're helping a friend.

2. Cunningham's Law: The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question, but to post the wrong answer, because people are more interested in criticizing you than helping you.

3. Bonhoeffer's Theory of Stupidity: Evil can be guarded against. Stupidity cannot. And the world's few evil people have little power without the help of the world's many stupid people. Therefore, stupidity is a far greater threat than evil.

4. Brooks's law: "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

5. Gibson's Law: “For every PhD, there is an equal and opposite PhD.”

In courtroom trials & political debates, anyone can find a subject-matter expert who supports their view, because having a PhD doesn’t make someone right, it often just makes them more skilled at being wrong.

6. Surrogate Activities: The more we eliminate struggles from our lives, the more we create artificial struggles – sports, video games, Twitter culture wars – because the mind wants peace, but also needs conflict.

7. Shirky Principle: To ensure survival, institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution. E.g. Arms manufacturers lobby politicians to push for new wars, and light bulb manufacturers deliberately make their bulbs short-lived so you buy them more often.

8. Babble Hypothesis: According to multiple studies, what best predicts whether someone becomes a leader? Their experience? Their IQ?

        No. The amount of time they spend talking. It doesn't even matter what they say, just how
        much they say it. We suck at picking leaders.

9. Noble Cause Corruption: The greatest evils come not from those seeking to do bad, but from those seeking to do good and believing the ends justify the means. Ironically, few things justify the immoral treatment of others more than the belief that you're more moral than them.

10. Noise Bottlenecks: Consuming online content makes us feel like we're learning, but 90% of the content is useless junk—small talk, clickbait, marketing—which crowds out actual info from our minds. As such, we feel we're getting smarter as we get stupider.

11. Walson's law: If you keep putting information and intelligence first at all the time, money keeps coming in.

12. Clarke’s Second Law: The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

13. Clarke’s Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

14. Godwin’s Law: As a discussion on the Internet grows longer, the likelihood of a person/s being compared to Hitler or another Nazi increases.

15. The Streisand Effect: When an attempt is made to remove a piece of information (because it is not meant for that audience), it gets much more publicity than intended, and becomes known more widely.

16. Kidlin's Law: If you have a problem, write it down clearly and that's half done.

17. Falkland’s Law: When there is no need to make a decision, don't make a decision.

18. Gilbert's Law: The biggest problem at work is that none tells you what to do.

19. Amara's Law: We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.

20. Andy and Bill's Law: When a computer chip is released, new software will be released to use up all of its power.

21. Benford's Law of Controversy: Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available.

22. Betteridge's Law of Headlines: Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word ‘no'.

23. Dilbert principle: "the most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage: management.

Gall's Law: A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.

23. Brandolini's Law: The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.

24. Campbell's Law: The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.

OUR INDIAN EDUCATION RACKET

THE INDIAN EDUCATION RACKET

In a society that has almost normalised the practice of corruption, is it surprising that we are hearing the never-ending tales of scams in the educational sector? Yet, despite this routinisation of corruption — and even its societal acceptance, when we find a Vice-Chancellor (VC) involved in selling fake degrees, or a minister and his associates manipulating the entire process of recruitment of school teachers, it becomes difficult to remain silent. The reason for this anguish is that if we continue to destroy the realm of education and devalue the vocation of teaching, none can save our children and activate their creative potential. In the process of worshipping money, or celebrating the newly emergent ‘heroes’ — techno-managers and traders as educationists, and politicians as agents of the corporate elite — we have almost forgotten that a society that has lost its teachers, the carriers of the illuminating light of education, is already dead.

WHITHER INDIAN EDUCATION

Switzerland with a total population of 8+ million tops the Ranking in the Global Innovation Index (indicates innovation performance). Ironically, India stands 52nd in the same list despite having a population of over a billion and producing over 1 million engineers annually. No Nobel Laureates in Science from India since independence. The US has 100+ Nobel laureates with a far smaller population. PhD holders applying for clerk jobs is a common sight.

What’s failing? Despite having such a high number of graduates passing out each year, where are we lacking? Do we detect signs of a fraudulent system anywhere?

Manav Bharti University (MBU) of Solan in Himachal Pradesh has been embroiled in a massive scam, understood to have been ongoing since around 2009 when the institution was opened. Issuance of fake degrees numbering over 36,000 to students across 17 states was first unearthed when an anonymous complaint was registered with the University Grants Commission. The UGC then proceeded to inform the authorities about the fraud back in 2019.

The education system that we follow was set up during the East India Company rule under the guidelines of Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay in the 1830s. This system was based on the British requirement. They wanted Indians as clerks and labour, performing all the low-level work. Communication was also a challenge. Hence, subjects like English, Math and Science made it to the curriculum putting aside any holistic approach in studies and suppressing creative thinking. Unfortunately, even after independence, we’re still a slave to this curriculum.

In most cases, the education system fails to teach the relevance of subjects in practical life. The pattern is such that the students are gauged on the basis of their cramming abilities barring any creative approach to learning. Decent marks do not assure proper learning and actual application ability. A banal example is how the students cram Sanskrit textbooks in schools and score high marks but when it comes to speaking, they fail miserably. Limited options of courses are another hurdle for students trying to make unconventional career choices.

The most successful Indians we see, top business tycoons, sportspersons, politicians, et al, have not fallen victim to this age-old education trap. Most of them have either educated themselves in what they actually want to do or have pursued education in foreign countries rather than just aiming to get a degree. The plight of the Indian Education system is well-known to everyone, this is the reason why most Politicians and big shots prefer to send their kids to foreign lands for education. What then, is the need of the hour? is to eradicate this system and emphasise an overall holistic development approach. The world is changing dramatically and new technologies are emerging with each passing day opening up a different arena. Jobs like that of Influencers, SEO managers and Artificial Intelligence Engineers weren’t even dreamt of back in the day. We will see new jobs in the coming future that we might even not have heard of.

Think of a huge tree in Santiniketan, and under its shade Rabindranath Tagore and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi sitting together, reflecting on education, culture and civilisation, and inspiring a nation with new dreams and aspirations. Think of an educationist like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in Nehru’s Cabinet, and educating the political class. Think of some of our great VCs like Ashutosh Mukherjee and Gopalaswami Parthasarathy. Think of great professors like CV Raman and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. And think of many unknown, yet, immensely dedicated, teachers who drew their inspiration from the likes of Maria Montessori and Gijubhai Badheka, and sought to implement a creatively nuanced and life-affirming agenda of education. Think of a generation who loved to converse with Paulo Freire and Ivan Illich, or was fond of listening to Jiddu Krishnamurti’s talks on education. Think of some of our finest minds — historians, physicists, social scientists — giving up lucrative careers, choosing to work with rural and marginalised children, and making it a point that the Eklavyas in new India should not be deprived of light education.

Possibly, the new generation would not believe it. The reason is that they are already disillusioned as they hear an altogether different story, say, the notorious tales of some of our VCs. Recently, the Hyderabad police arrested a current and a retired VC of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan University, Bhopal, for providing degrees — from B Tech to MBA — in exchange for money. And the chairman of a university in Himachal Pradesh has been accused of selling 55,000 degrees. There seems to be no end to the tales of these multi-crore scams. Yet, in another recruitment scam in state-run government-aided schools in West Bengal, the minister concerned, it appears, was involved in manipulating the merit list for the recruitment of out-of-turn persons in 2016. No wonder, the Calcutta High Court did not hesitate to instruct the daughter of West Bengal’s junior education minister to return the salary which she has received since 2018; she has also been barred from entering the school premises where she was working as an assistant teacher. Amid the constant flow of this sort of news of corruption and nepotism, is it really possible for the new generation to believe that the world can be different?

How do we make sense of this education racket? There are many reasons —the naked form of commodification of education (money can buy a cup of Starbucks coffee; likewise, money can buy a B Tech, BEd, MBA or even MBBS degree); the unholy alliance of the political class and the traders of education resulting in the mushrooming growth of poor quality medical colleges, and technical universities with ‘management quota’ and capitation fee; and the chronic diploma disease that urges many, even the most disinterested ones, to get a BA/MA or even PhD degree at any cost.

But then, what about people like us — English-educated, urbane, professional middle-class? We are no less responsible for this pathetic state of affairs. Do we really value the vocation of teaching? Do we really want our children to be nurtured by great teachers? Do we really come to the street, and demand that our children need good libraries in schools, creative and experimental pedagogic practices, and good teachers who make them realise that education, far from being a mere technique of cracking standardised tests, is essentially the integration of intellectual cognition and aesthetic imagination, or sensitivity that generates humility, kindness and a sense of altruism? Do we raise our voices for saving some of our good public universities from the ongoing political assault? Or do we think that we need not bother because our children would leave India, go abroad, and settle down comfortably? Or, are we only searching for some brands, or, for that matter, coaching centre strategists, Ed Tech companies, and packaged ‘success manuals’?

How many of us realise that a teacher is not a technician who forces the child to memorise that ‘A’ means apple; or 19x19 is 361; instead, a teacher is a catalyst who, even at the time of playing with mathematics and physics, or history and geography, seeks to arouse the child’s hidden faculties? We seem to be in a hurry. In the age of instantaneity, we need instant results — a seat in a medical college at any cost, or admission to a foreign university. No wonder, we passively watch this severe blow to the vocation of teaching and allow the mafia to run the emergent education industry.

Without a people’s movement to save education, there seems to be no escape from this rot.

POSCA: AQUA VITAE OF A DIFFERENT SORT

 The 2,000-Year-Old Energy Drink From Ancient Rome

We all know it’s good to hydrate. Water can be so boring though. So when I’m trying to rehydrate after a long run in the summer heat, I tend to reach for an old-timey solution: The energy drink of ancient Rome.

The Romans were famed for their innovations in military logistics, which allowed them to extend their territory from Rome and its immediate surrounds to the whole Mediterranean and ultimately, with the establishment of the Roman Empire, virtually all of western Eurasia. But an army can’t win if it’s thirsty. Enter . This blend of vinegar and water—and possibly salt, herbs, and other stuff—holds a special place in beverage history thanks to its role as the Gatorade of the Roman army.

It’s possible  was Greek in origin. Its name may have derived from the Greek word epoxos, which means “very sharp,” according to The Logistics of the Roman Army at War, by Jonathan Roth, historian at San Jose State University. But the beverage owes its fame to the small, but essential, part it played in the Roman army’s legendary efficiency. As early as the middle of the Roman Republic era (509-27 BCE), the military rationed  to troops along with grains and, very occasionally, meat and cheese. That policy continued for centuries, well into the Roman Empire.

Roman soldiers did, of course, drink water. But historical records suggest that it wasn’t their beverage of choice. Consider what Plutarch wrote about how Cato the Elder, an officer during the Second Punic War (218-202 BCE), dealt with his thirst, according to Roth:

Water was what he drank on his campaigns, except that once in a while, in a raging thirst, he would call for vinegar, or when his strength was failing, would add a little wine.

Like Cato, Romans prized wine for its supposed health benefits, as Rod Phillips, a historian at Carleton University in Ottawa, writes in his book Wine: A Social and Cultural History of the Drink That Changed Our Lives. That made —which contained vinegar made from wine gone bad—vastly preferable to plain old H20. And wine, at the time, was plentiful. Rich Romans put back titanic volumes of it. As the reach of Roman imperialism spread throughout Europe, viticulture followed, which “gave their armies ready access to wine depots almost everywhere,” writes Phillips.

For military officials, off-wine was a cheap source of calories to distribute in bulk. Diluting it with water to make  “effectively doubled the volume of liquid ration given to the soldiers at a very low cost,” observes Roth.

There probably was something to the Romans’ belief in ’s health benefits. The drink’s acidity and slight alcohol content would likely have neutralized bacteria, making it safer than drinking straight water. That could have been a big benefit, given that tainted water has been known to ravage armies more effectively than battle. Vinegar was also thought to help stave off that scourge of militaries throughout history—scurvy. (It doesn’t, as it turns out. But Ancient Romans were hardly the only ones to misplace faith in vinegar’s antiscorbutic virtues; as late as the mid-1800s, the US Army rationed apple cider vinegar to troops stationed in America’s southwest during the Mexican War, according to Roth.)

Mind you, military leaders and other elites generally didn’t deign to drink , which was more a drink of the common people, according to Pass the Garum, a fantastic blog dedicated to exploring Roman cuisine. When Roman emperor Hadrian wanted to slum it with his soldiers, this would have been his drink of choice. As Pass the Garum notes, the ancient historian Suetonius mentions vendors selling  on the streets during the early years of the Roman Empire. Both among soldiers and common folk,       continued to enjoy favour well into the Middle Ages, writes Andrew Dalby, a renowned historian of Greek and Roman cuisines, in Food in the Ancient World from A to Z.

Aside from slaking Roman thirst, ’s other main claim to fame arises from its controversial cameo in the Bible. As Jesus Christ was suffering crucifixion—or possibly just before, at Golgotha—Roman soldiers offered him sips of the stuff from a sponge held aloft with a reed, according to Matthew 27:48. Depending on the interpretation, they did this either to help lessen his anguish or to needle him, notes Phillips. Whatever the case, Jesus wasn’t having it. “After tasting the   Christ refused to drink it,” writes Phillips.

So what did    taste like? It’s a little hard to say. Due to its ubiquity in Roman literature of the day, we can safely conclude that it involved some ratio of water and red wine vinegar. But might it also have featured other flavours? History isn’t very helpful on that score, since no Roman recipes exist.

Thanks to Byzantine medical writers, however, we’re not totally in the dark. Aëtius of Amida and Paul of Aegina, both Byzantine Greek physicians of the sixth and seventh centuries, respectively, included recipes for a “palatable and laxative”  that included cumin, fennel seed, celery seed, anise, thyme, and salt, according to another book by Dalby, Tastes of Byzantium: The Cuisine of a Legendary Empire. (However, Dalby complicates the matter somewhat by noting that the word they used, the Greek loanword phouska, may by that time have become a catchall term for second-rate wine substitutes.)

Adding herbs and sweeteners push  in the direction of more familiar old-school vinegar-based drinks like switchel, sekanjabin, and shrub. Throw in salt, and you have the combo of carbohydrates and sodium used in Gatorade and other modern sports drinks that help you recover the water and salts lost during exercise (or from simply sweating a lot). That makes sense: tromping around Europe and Asia Minor while saddled with armour and packs was undoubtedly sweaty work.

As for modern-day perspirers, why buy commercial sports drinks to slake your thirst when you can make the Gatorade of the ancients? While the scribes of antiquity haven’t left us a lot to go on, that hasn’t stopped food bloggers and Roman enthusiasts—and me—from trying. For anyone wanting to join in, here are a few recipes and guidelines to get you started. Make sure to use brewed vinegar only—red wine, black, balsamic, or apple cider, for example—and not distilled.

Though we have only the faintest hint that  was sweetened, lots of recipes call for honey—like ”Sharp-but-sweet ” from Pass the Garum:

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

250ml water

1 tbsp honey

According to this recipe, honey should first be melted in the microwave for about 20 seconds, and then added to the water and stirred. Then add the vinegar.

If you want something a little “sharper,” this recipe, from the site Romae Vitam, calls for a much higher proportion of vinegar to water, as well as crushed coriander seeds:

1.5 cups of red wine vinegar

0.5 cups of honey

1 tablespoon of crushed coriander seed

4 cups of water

The recipe calls for boiling the honey and letting it cool before combining. Also, make sure to strain out the crushed coriander before drinking.

My own–making is guided not by zeal for ancient Rome, but, rather because I’m really thirsty. So while my concoction was inspired by what I learned from a lecture on ancient Roman cuisine a few years back, it has since strayed from the more authentic recipes listed above. I’ll still use diluted apple cider vinegar, if it’s handy, but I’ll sometimes go with homemade kombucha. And instead of honey, I prefer a glug of maple syrup (less messy). Also, usually, a little salt. And definitely a ton of ice. I’m not sure if you can still call that  . But whatever it is, on a hot day, it sure hits the spot.

NOTE: This post originally appeared on Quartz and was published September 2,