How Much You Pay for Prasar Bharati.! By:Joseph Martin CJ It is a fact that the tax payers money in a democratic country needs to be spend in responsible manner .There is nothing wrong if the government of a democratic country trying to control and reduce the government expenditure ,keeping in mind the genuine interest of its citizens and the nation ,( with out sacrificing its social responsibilities towards the citizens). Our concern here is restricted to Public Service broadcaster and National Broadcaster, Prasar Bharati. All over the world Pubic Broadcasters facing brutal axe on its funding by the governments, which became a serious threat to the quality of its services to their citizens and even a threat to their very existence itself.Prasar Bharati also going to face or facing the same scenario due to the government decision to fund only the fifty percentage of its operating expenses. In this scenario let us examine how much tax payers valuable money our nation and its citizens paying for Prasar Bharati's (AIR&DD's) various diversified services . On 09.03.2010, Hon’ble Minister of State for I&B Shri. Mohan Jatua, tabled in the Lok Sabha the following statement , regarding the details of income, expenditure and gap in income & expenditure of All India Radio & Doordarshan for the last four years as under: (STARRED QUESTION NO .166 ANSWERED ON 09.03.2010 in the LOK SABHA ,link to the statement http://164.100.47.132/LssNew/psearch/QResult15.aspx?qref=83283) . Financial Year Income Expenditure Gap Between Expenditure & Income 2006-07 983.05 1954.67 971.62 2007-08 1035.86 2057.92 1022.06 2008-09 1096.78 2518.88 1422.10 2009-10 1119.00 3098.00 1979.00 Amount in Crore of Rupees,For the year 2009-10 figures are provisional. If the income ,expenditure and gap between expenditure & income (Revenue deficit) of Prasar Bharati is calculated for the last four financial years it will be, Average income ..................=1058.7Crore Average expenditure ..........=2406.7Crore Average Revenue deficit...=1348.0Crore. Up to now this revenue deficit of Prasar Bharati was completely funded by the government and in effect this revenue deficit was the governments expenditure for Prasar Bharati.So the governments or tax payers average spending in the last four financial years for Prasar Bharati's services were 1348.00 Crore. India the largest democracy in the world with second largest population,with an estimated population of 1.13 billion, (as per 2008 survey).The average expense per citizens/year towards Prasar Bharati in the last for years was 1348.00 Crore/113 Crore= 11.9 rupees /citizen/year only . We want to ask the policy makers and the each citizen of this country to decide whether this just 11.9 rupees /citizen/year expenditure for Prasar Bharati and its services is justified or not?. It is certain that, even those opposed to the very concept of Public Service Broadcasting and National Broadcasting, will agree that this expenditure of just 11.9 rupees /citizen/year for the Public Service Broadcaster and National Broadcaster of the largest democracy in the world is absolutely justifiable.

Our nftetn.org Server is fault.. so we place this item in this blog Kindly Ignore A News has been spread throughout Tamilnadu that the Circle Secretary of Chennai has invoked the name of our Tamilnadu Circle Secretary in their meeting held on 6th July’12 questioning the placing of Com A B Bardhan’s TU Lecture Notes in TN website and abused our Circle Secretary by calling Caste aspersion as Parppann (a derogatory term for Brahmin). Comrades started enquiring the said / alleged affair. One of our Senior Comrade (Outside Chennai and Tamilnadu Circle), hearing the same verified the veracity of that affair. With great organizational interest, Our Senior Comrade voluntarily conveyed to Tamilnadu Circle Secretary that Chennai Circle secretary denied any such speech /such meeting. Moreover, whenever TN CS and Chennai CS share joint platform, no disrespect was shown by each other and even if any differences, both expressed the same in a dignified way only. As far as TN CS is concerned, he acts only on issue basis in TU related matters and never acts on the basis of whims and fancies or on the basis of fear or favour. No more enquiry on this matter is solicited. 11-7-12

Rashtrapati Election — CPI Stand

MAINSTREAM, VOL L, NO 29, JULY 7, 2012 Rashtrapati Election — CPI Stand by S. SUDHAKAR REDDY The election of the Rashtrapati, scheduled for July 19, has sparked intense debate in the media as well as in political circles as differences in major political groupings have come to the surface and there are speculations on possible political realignments. But most of the speculations seem to be out of context because any realignment has to materialise on the basis of concrete socio-economic policies. The National Executive of the Communist Party of India, keeping in view the political tactics adopted at its Patna Congress, resolved to abstain from the presidential poll voting as our Party cannot support the candidates of parties or groups of parties that are wedded to implementation of the disastrous economic course of neo-liberalism. The call of the Party Congress was for continuous struggle against neo-liberalism as well as mobilisation of the masses and political forces towards an alternative to these policies. The presidential election this time assumed significance for two reasons: One, in the electoral college for the presidential poll, neither any political party on its own nor any of the groupings of political parties on their own had a majority. Second, the present political situation is such that no political party or pre-poll alliance is expected to gain majority. This will create a very complex situation for the new incumbent of Rashtrapati Bhavan. In such a situation, the Left rightly called for a national consensus on the election of the President and hoped that the Congress as the biggest partner of the ruling alliance will take initiative towards it and consult all parties in that regard. The Congress miserably failed in this task. It floated several names but never consulted others. Even when one of the constituents of the UPA was talked to on the issue, not one but two names were suggested. Only after deciding on its candidate did the Prime Minister make phone calls to seek support of others for the Congress candidate. Much before the Congress announced the candidature of Pranab Mukherjee, the AIADMK leader and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, J. Jayalalithaa, and the Chief Minister of Orissa, Naveen Patnaik, proposed the candidature of P.A. Sangma as the presidential candidate and requested the Left and other parties to support him. Sangma is one of the tall leaders of the tribals, but does not have much support from others. The Chief Minister of West Bengal and TMC leader, Mamata Benerjee, along with Mulayam Singh of the SP proposed the names of former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee as their choices. The BJP tried to own Abdul Kalam but he withdrew from the contest as the numbers were not in his favour. Mulayam Singh too backed out within 24 hours. Like the Congress, the BJP too kept delaying for long to declare its choice. It finally opted to adopt Sangma, not for any love for the tribal leader but in the hope that the option could win over those who had initially proposed his name. The JD (U) differed with the BJP and decided to support Pranab. The oldest ally of the BJP, the Shiv Sena, too kept away from it and extended support to Pranab. The SP, BSP, Lok Janshakti Party, RJD, and National Conference decided to support Pranab. The CPI-M and Forward Block also decided to support Pranab. In the meeting of the Left Parties on June 21, the CPI made it clear that it cannot support a candidate of the Congress party, since we are fighting against the anti-people policies that are adopted by the Congress and UPA-II. The ideal situation would have been to project a Left-sponsored candidate and mobilise the secular, democratic forces to project our opposition to the anti-people economic and pro-imperialist foreign policies of the UPA-II Government. But it was too late. Hence we proposed abstaining from the voting that was later endorsed by the National Executive of our Party. Let there be no doubt that the Left has a common approach of opposing the neo-liberal economic policies of the UPA-II Government. These policies have resulted in the unprecedented rise in prices of almost all essential commodities (inflation is already in double digit), slowdown in the economic sphere (the GDP growth rate has slipped down to around five per cent), the manufacturing sector’s growth rate is negative, the rupee’s exchange value has touched a record low of Rs 58 per dollar, and the cleavage between the haves and have-nots keeps widening. The government is not ready to even ensure food security and refuses to rebuild the mechanism of the universal Public Distribution System (PDS). The Left has called for a joint mass campaign on these issues from July 1. Will it be appropriate to support the candidate of the dispensation that is bent upon pursuing this disastrous course? The Congress as the leader of the UPA is not ready for any introspection on economic and foreign policies. Rather, it intends to pursue these more ruthlessly. After the announcement of the candidature of Pranab Mukharjee as the presidential candidate, the Prime Minister thrice warned about hard decisions and pledged $ 10 billion to the IMF (equalling Rs 57,000 crores) while refusing to bring the Food Security Bill, Lok Pal Bill in Parliament. It seems Dr Manmohan Singh has fully swallowed the new mantra of bailout packages of the IMF that has brought a number of European countries to the brink of bankruptcy. This package, for which the Indian fund has been pledged, envisages nationalisation of private debt and cut in public spending in sectors like education, public health and slashing of pensions and wages. In foreign policy there is a change in favour of the USA, losing other friends and totally throwing out the nationally accepted non-aligned policy. The policies are generally pro-corporate and anti-people. Hence the CPI felt that we cannot vote for a Congress candidate in such circumstances. If we vote for the Congress and still call for struggles against the anti-people policies of the government, the credibility of the Party will be at a loss. We cannot support any NDA backed candidate. It is too late to put up a third candidate, as most of the parties have already made up their choices. Some quarters have raised the question that abstaining from voting is undemocratic. This is not true. As the provision for rejection is not there, abstaining is the only alternative though not much desirable. Similarly, a party-centric or state-centric position in a national poll will be amateurish to say the least. We cannot support the entry of FDI in multi-brand retail trade only because some other party inimical to us is opposing it. • IN spite of the differences between the Left parties on the issue of the presidential elections, Left Unity will continue. We agreed to disagree on this particular issue. Our joint struggles will continue. Actually, the National Executive of the Party has reiterated its commitment to make the food security campaign starting from July 1, 2012 a success. The CPI had differed on issues like Nandigram and Singur earlier but never treated them as matters leading to a breaking-point. Strengthe-ning the Left for greater Left and democratic unity is of key importance to implement the tactical line adopted at the Patna Congress of the Party. The RSP has also taken a similar stand along with the CPI to abstain from the election. The Congress and BJP both have lost credibility due to their shameless pursuance of neo-liberalism and their bid to impose a two-party system to continue the hegemony of the neo-liberalists in one form or the other has been totally exposed. It is time for the Left to unitedly work for a fresh re-alignment of forces on the basis of an alternative to neo-liberalism. Apart from their collaboration on implementation of the suicidal economic policies, both the parties are stinking with corruption. If the Congress has to send a few Ministers and MPs to jail, the BJP had to force two of its Chief Ministers to resign and sack all its three Ministers in Punjab due to corruption charges. In the recent elections, the rejection of the Congress in UP and Punjab and in by-elections in different States including in Andhra Pradesh shows the lack of support among the people for it. The BJP and NDA are equally discredited. The BJP lost power in Uttarakhand and its strength was reduced in UP and Punjab. People are on the move. Many struggles of peasants, workers, Adivasis, Dalits and other sections of people are taking place. The POSCO struggle has completed eight years but the fighting spirit continues. More struggles are coming up. There is uneasiness in the situation. There is a big churning in politics. It is a positive sign that the JD(U) is moving away from the BJP. They may go the way of the BJD of Orissa showing the BJP its place. So far as the mercurial temperament of Mamata Banerjee is concerned, nothing can be predicted. There is a necessity and possibility of realignment of political forces in the country. Secular parties should leave the NDA. Regional democratic parties should abandon the Congress and UPA, which is a sinking ship. Just regrouping of the non-Congress, non-BJP parties will not make a meaningful alternative. There should be clarity on the pro-people economic policies and commitment to control prices, inflation and corruption. The struggles of the Left Parties and masses on various basic issues will create a favourable atmosphere for a new alignment of political forces in the country. Our aim should be to bring the largest section of masses into struggles. Let us carry forward the call of the 21st Congress of the CPI for massive, militant struggles of the people, for a decisive turn of the nation towards the Left. The author is the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India.

An article from newyorker

Why Smart People Are Stupid Posted by Jonah Lehrer Editors’ Note: The introductory paragraphs of this post appeared in similar form in an October, 2011, column by Jonah Lehrer for the Wall Street Journal. We regret the duplication of material. Intelligence-Stvenson.jpg Here’s a simple arithmetic question: A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? The vast majority of people respond quickly and confidently, insisting the ball costs ten cents. This answer is both obvious and wrong. (The correct answer is five cents for the ball and a dollar and five cents for the bat.) For more than five decades, Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Laureate and professor of psychology at Princeton, has been asking questions like this and analyzing our answers. His disarmingly simple experiments have profoundly changed the way we think about thinking. While philosophers, economists, and social scientists had assumed for centuries that human beings are rational agents—reason was our Promethean gift—Kahneman, the late Amos Tversky, and others, including Shane Frederick (who developed the bat-and-ball question), demonstrated that we’re not nearly as rational as we like to believe. When people face an uncertain situation, they don’t carefully evaluate the information or look up relevant statistics. Instead, their decisions depend on a long list of mental shortcuts, which often lead them to make foolish decisions. These shortcuts aren’t a faster way of doing the math; they’re a way of skipping the math altogether. Asked about the bat and the ball, we forget our arithmetic lessons and instead default to the answer that requires the least mental effort. Although Kahneman is now widely recognized as one of the most influential psychologists of the twentieth century, his work was dismissed for years. Kahneman recounts how one eminent American philosopher, after hearing about his research, quickly turned away, saying, “I am not interested in the psychology of stupidity.” The philosopher, it turns out, got it backward. A new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology led by Richard West at James Madison University and Keith Stanovich at the University of Toronto suggests that, in many instances, smarter people are more vulnerable to these thinking errors. Although we assume that intelligence is a buffer against bias—that’s why those with higher S.A.T. scores think they are less prone to these universal thinking mistakes—it can actually be a subtle curse. West and his colleagues began by giving four hundred and eighty-two undergraduates a questionnaire featuring a variety of classic bias problems. Here’s a example: In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake? Your first response is probably to take a shortcut, and to divide the final answer by half. That leads you to twenty-four days. But that’s wrong. The correct solution is forty-seven days. West also gave a puzzle that measured subjects’ vulnerability to something called “anchoring bias,” which Kahneman and Tversky had demonstrated in the nineteen-seventies. Subjects were first asked if the tallest redwood tree in the world was more than X feet, with X ranging from eighty-five to a thousand feet. Then the students were asked to estimate the height of the tallest redwood tree in the world. Students exposed to a small “anchor”—like eighty-five feet—guessed, on average, that the tallest tree in the world was only a hundred and eighteen feet. Given an anchor of a thousand feet, their estimates increased seven-fold. But West and colleagues weren’t simply interested in reconfirming the known biases of the human mind. Rather, they wanted to understand how these biases correlated with human intelligence. As a result, they interspersed their tests of bias with various cognitive measurements, including the S.A.T. and the Need for Cognition Scale, which measures “the tendency for an individual to engage in and enjoy thinking.” The results were quite disturbing. For one thing, self-awareness was not particularly useful: as the scientists note, “people who were aware of their own biases were not better able to overcome them.” This finding wouldn’t surprise Kahneman, who admits in “Thinking, Fast and Slow” that his decades of groundbreaking research have failed to significantly improve his own mental performance. “My intuitive thinking is just as prone to overconfidence, extreme predictions, and the planning fallacy”—a tendency to underestimate how long it will take to complete a task—“as it was before I made a study of these issues,” he writes. Perhaps our most dangerous bias is that we naturally assume that everyone else is more susceptible to thinking errors, a tendency known as the “bias blind spot.” This “meta-bias” is rooted in our ability to spot systematic mistakes in the decisions of others—we excel at noticing the flaws of friends—and inability to spot those same mistakes in ourselves. Although the bias blind spot itself isn’t a new concept, West’s latest paper demonstrates that it applies to every single bias under consideration, from anchoring to so-called “framing effects.” In each instance, we readily forgive our own minds but look harshly upon the minds of other people. And here’s the upsetting punch line: intelligence seems to make things worse. The scientists gave the students four measures of “cognitive sophistication.” As they report in the paper, all four of the measures showed positive correlations, “indicating that more cognitively sophisticated participants showed larger bias blind spots.” This trend held for many of the specific biases, indicating that smarter people (at least as measured by S.A.T. scores) and those more likely to engage in deliberation were slightly more vulnerable to common mental mistakes. Education also isn’t a savior; as Kahneman and Shane Frederick first noted many years ago, more than fifty per cent of students at Harvard, Princeton, and M.I.T. gave the incorrect answer to the bat-and-ball question. What explains this result? One provocative hypothesis is that the bias blind spot arises because of a mismatch between how we evaluate others and how we evaluate ourselves. When considering the irrational choices of a stranger, for instance, we are forced to rely on behavioral information; we see their biases from the outside, which allows us to glimpse their systematic thinking errors. However, when assessing our own bad choices, we tend to engage in elaborate introspection. We scrutinize our motivations and search for relevant reasons; we lament our mistakes to therapists and ruminate on the beliefs that led us astray. The problem with this introspective approach is that the driving forces behind biases—the root causes of our irrationality—are largely unconscious, which means they remain invisible to self-analysis and impermeable to intelligence. In fact, introspection can actually compound the error, blinding us to those primal processes responsible for many of our everyday failings. We spin eloquent stories, but these stories miss the point. The more we attempt to know ourselves, the less we actually understand. Drawing by James Stevenson. Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/frontal-cortex/2012/06/daniel-kahneman-bias-studies.html#ixzz1yiON8TRb

100 years in 10 mts

Samir Amin's Talk on Socialism