Words of Wisdom

Words of Wisdom for 4-Mar-2018:

“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965-English)

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana (1863-1952-Spanish)

These famous statements have produced many paraphrases and variants:

Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it.

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Those who do not know history's mistakes are doomed to repeat them.

Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat their mistakes.

Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them.

Metric Units for Time & Angle

Thought for Today: 14-Feb-2018:

This is about a strange dream I had last night of the Metric Units for time and Angular Measures. Surprisingly, we have no Metric equivalent of these two units. Why can’t we have one for these two measures? Let’s examine: 

Time and angular measures are very close, the time arises out of the rotation of earth. Years, fortnights and days are fixed. Only days of weeks and hours of days can be changed - say to Metric style. One week may have 10 days, which most will not like. But, a day may have 10 hours, an hour may have 100 minutes, a minute may have 100 seconds. Further down seconds we already have a metric system as milli-second, micro-second and so on. So now a day will have 10 Hours, 1,000 Minutes and 1,00,000 seconds instead of 24 Hours, 1,440 Minutes (1 Min = 0.6944 Metric Min) and 86,000 seconds (1 sec = 1.1628 Metric Sec). 

Similarly, for Angular Measure, we may have 100 degrees a right angle, total 400 degrees. Every degree may have 100 minutes and every minute may have 100 seconds. Thus the earth rotates 0.40 metric degrees every metric minute instead of 0.25 degrees every minute. (1 deg = 1.11111 metric degree, 1 min = 1.85185 metric min and 1 sec = 3.08642 metric sec)

The Supreme Court of India-2

Points to Ponder for 14-Jan-2018: 

In the last Post I wrote about the Supreme Court. Within just a couple of days, an unprecedented event took place. Four Senior-Most Judges expressed concern that there have been instances where cases having far reaching consequences for the Nation and the institution had been assigned by the Chief Justices of the Court selectively to the benches “of their preference” without any rationale basis for such assignment. This must be guarded against at all costs.

Now, let me try to analyse this impartially without prejudice to anybody, point by point:

They say that the cases are assigned to selective Judges or Benches for what reasons – must be for a verdict favourable to the CJI. It means that: 

(1) this verdict would be unfavourable to the majority of the remaining Judges, and 

(2) if the assignment of cases were done on the “Rational” basis, the verdicts may be different.

Now this is the catch. Today, in the age of high technology, it’s very difficult to accept different verdicts from different benches given the same set of facts.

Well, it happens all the while, all types of courts have different opinions and verdicts. But in the Supreme Court itself, if judgments differ, then we have to seriously think it over.

And, most importantly, the four Judges inadvertently admit that Judges can have different opinions and there is a chance of getting influenced by the external or internal factors.

The Supreme Court of India-1

Think Seriously, for 10-Jan-2018:

The Supreme court has observed, The freedom of speech and expression of the media must be allowed to the "fullest" and the press may not be hauled up for defamation for "some wrong reporting". "In a democracy, you (petitioner) must learn to tolerate, there could be some error or enthusiasm in reporting an alleged scam. But, we must allow freedom of speech and expression to press at the fullest. There may be some wrong reporting. For that they need not be hauled up for defamation".

By extending the same logic, will the Supreme court allow other professionals, say doctors and engineers to practice their trade freely at the expense of life and property? Also is the Supreme court tolerant of the criticism of itself and its judges? Then, why should there be a provision of “Defamation” at all- scrap it. What do you think?

I think the bottom line is that for press, it must have the prima facie evidence for reporting, and for individuals, they must be guided by social norms. On one hand we criticize “Bar Balas” for cultural degradation, but on the other support vulgar vituperations of other individuals. Isn’t it double standard? Looks like “Freedom of Expression” is too good for us.