We thought we were only in an alphabet soup: IT, CBI, ED, SFIO, NCB, NIA and others in the offing. Who is the big brother? Who is the upstart? Who is the interloper? Who is more powerful? Who is the favourite of the powers that be? These are questions that are asked when two people meet for tea/coffee or gossip.
When there are three or more people, everyone lapses into silence. It is as if there was collective omertà. In order to put at rest all questions, I suggest we put an EVM in every polling station, list all the candidate-agencies, and ask the people to vote for their preferred agency. Persons over 85 years of age may vote from their home. There will be no NOTA option.
The new dish in the soup wars is CAA-NRC. [NRC was intended to enumerate all citizens in the National Register. A diabolical procedure was adopted. When the patriotic authors found that lakhs of Hindus had been denied enumeration, they invented the CAA that would allow all except the Muslims from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan to be granted citizenship and, consequently, enumeration in the NRC. In the process, the interests of the persecuted Tamils of Sri Lanka and Indian-origin people of Nepal and Myanmar were betrayed.] NRC is available only in Assam. CAA was included in the menu on March 11, 2024. A sample of the NRC-CAA is being currently tested in the Uchcha Nyayalaya.
Of late, we have realized we are also in a numeric soup. Once upon a time, the only number that each person knew was the roll number in the Board examinations. Soon, more numbers trooped into our lives. Ration card number, voter id number, two wheeler or car registration number, landline telephone number, passport number for the more adventurous, the ubiquitous mobile number, and the God-number called Aadhaar that is omnipresent and omnipotent. Now, a number has come to beat all other numbers — it is the alphanumeric number of the Electoral Bond (EB). Even the all-powerful Supreme Court of India could not prise the alphanumeric numbers from the grip of the fear-gripped SBI. For a few days, EB-SBI seemed more powerful than ED-CBI.
There is a new game in town. One version of the game is called join-the-alphabets. The first winner was CBI-ED. ED was miffed. ED asserted that it was the lead partner and the winner should be declared as ED-CBI. The jury is out. The judgement may be expected when the votes are counted in the Lok Sabha elections. It is rumoured in Delhi that if ED-CBI is the winner, this may be the last elections to the Lok Sabha and, if that happened, all expenditure on elections will be saved. The Kovind Committee did not take into account this huge saving when it recommended ‘One Nation, One Election’. If the Committee had taken this saving into account, it may have recommended ‘One Nation, No Election’.
Not far behind the CBI-ED or ED-CBI is the CBI-IT. If CBI seized cash, it belonged to IT. What would happen if IT seized cash? Conventional wisdom said that if IT seized cash it belonged to IT. Now, unconventional wisdom has overtaken conventional wisdom. If IT seized cash, there were two claimants: CBI and ED. CBI claimed it was “assets disproportionate to known sources of income.” ED claimed it was “proceeds of crime”. The jury is out on this issue too.
The other version of the game is called ‘join-the-numbers’. The SBI had to be dragged by four horses to release the alpha-numeric identities of 22,217 EBs. As I write this, the alpha-numeric soup has been served. The soup will be bitter for many donors. Some donee-parties will plead they were not in the kitchen when the soup was made; some others may argue that the soup was forced down their throats and they had to swallow it. Consequently, soup may be banned as ‘dangerous to health’.
The crisis created by alphabets, numerics and alpha-numerics has assumed proportions that may threaten national interest and, even, national security. Hence the help of Chat-GPT has been sought to advise on enlarging the goals of Viksit Bharat: the new goals will be to make India’s GDP the (first) largest in the world; to triple the income of farmers; to create 5 crore jobs a year; and to put Rs 150 lakhs in the bank account of every Indian.
Besides Chat-GPT, AI may be harnessed to substitute the troublesome alphabets, numerics and alpha-numerics by a revolutionary identification tool that will be invisible, inaudible, non-inhalable and inedible. Too many soups have damaged the organs of the nation and hence it is considered that the eyes, ears, nose and tongue-in-mouth deserve a long rest. NITI-Aayog, which is the official repository of all intelligence in India, could be nominated to collaborate with AI.
There is an old saying, “all’s well that ends well”. The new saying is “the end is the same as the beginning”. Thanks to the many varieties of soup, we shall go back to where it began in 2004. Achhe din aane wale hai.
Too many soups have damaged the organs of the nation and hence it is considered that the eyes, ears, nose and tongue-in-mouth deserve a long rest
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1
24.03.2024
We thought we were only in an alphabet soup: IT, CBI, ED, SFIO, NCB, NIA and others in the offing. Who is the big brother? Who is the upstart? Who is the interloper? Who is more powerful? Who is the favourite of the powers that be? These are questions that are asked when two people meet for tea/coffee or gossip.
When there are three or more people, everyone lapses into silence. It is as if there was collective omertà. In order to put at rest all questions, I suggest we put an EVM in every polling station, list all the candidate-agencies, and ask the people to vote for their preferred agency. Persons over 85 years of age may vote from their home. There will be no NOTA option.
The new dish in the soup wars is CAA-NRC. [NRC was intended to enumerate all citizens in the National Register. A diabolical procedure was adopted. When the patriotic authors found that lakhs of Hindus had been denied enumeration, they invented the CAA that would allow all except the Muslims from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan to be granted citizenship and, consequently, enumeration in the NRC. In the process, the interests of the persecuted Tamils of Sri Lanka and Indian-origin people of Nepal and Myanmar were betrayed.] NRC is........
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