Do YOU Know...?

If you still read a Viewspaper (Spell-check – the tiniest yet most dangerous form of Artificial Intelligence [don’t believe my words? try texting a message with Wi-fi and be ready for the disaster when AI changes every instance of Wi-fi to Wife!] tried to change it to Newspaper – the classic example of how ‘technology’ decides what you have in mind or how you ‘should’ think!), I bet you would find at least 10 reports of death in one way or other per day, no matter where you live and which Newspaper (damn that spell-check!) you read. One third of it would be because of disease (resulting from any and every reason), one third would be accidents (killing included) and one third would be suicides, on and average; natural (?) deaths are not considered as they don’t make NEWS! This statistics, and the root-cause of all three, itself makes a statement about the present condition of the society and it becomes scary when it reveals the fact that most of the deaths of Farmers and Soldiers are either by suicides or accidents they meet with on road, rail or in air rather than ‘on field’. We seem to have decided committing more to ‘Amar Jawan Amar Kisan’ than ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’, isn’t it?

This is a concern and a question too. Democracy is not about just casting your vote, never in exchange of a favour, but it is about having an opinion and a responsibility to carry that opinion on your shoulders. Opinion is neither a tradable commodity nor can it be exchanged for a material gain or thing, it needs to be formed, nurtured, developed and expressed at the right times in right ways; election being one of it! And a prerequisite quality of any ‘view’ or standpoint is being well-informed. The ‘i’ borrowed from the Social (and) Media seems to have replaced the ‘we’ in the ‘well’ making it ill-informed. It’s a scientifically proven psychological fact that if anything is said repeatedly, mind starts to believe it just because of the ‘echo’ effect, imagine what could happen when every type of available media is put to work of amplifying what you want to present as a rosy picture of anything – in plain language advertise it!

By the way, have you realized that Advertisement has become the barometer of performance lately? If you haven’t, pick up any Views-paper and try to find a ‘News’ in it amidst the propaganda or get down on the main road of your village, town, city or metro and look-up for the sky, your ‘vision’ would be blurred by the hoardings filled with sky-rocketing promises… It’s a show business after all, you know!

But this is neither an advertisement or any type of propaganda, so let me stick to my objective and to drive my point home all I need you to learn about a catchy term or phrase used in any type of mass communication to add some spice to the info and popularize it. You must have heard terms like ‘Believe it or not’ – there is a very famous Ripley’s series of true, weird and unbelievable stories with this name. Another similar phrase is, ‘Do you know?’ These could be very popular Song Numbers nowadays, but it generally is meant to share something important that you ought to know, otherwise!

It’s not time yet for Big B to call you on the Hot Seat in the next season of KBC but there’s no harm in refreshing the General Knowledge once in a while without any specific purpose, particularly for the questions that would never appear on KBC, not even as a Jackpot question, isn’t it? As an Independent, Reflective and Responsible Citizen with a Voting Right of a Democratic Republic Sovereign Nation, let us do this exercise for Alternative Inclusive Sustainable Development so that we could live and let live...!

1. Do you know India is an Agrarian Economy basically and it is one of the biggest in the world?

2. Do you know farmer families of half of the nation have ANNUAL income of ` 20,000/-? 

3. Do you know in last 50 years Agriculture Income increased merely by 20% vis-à-vis average income of all other sectors, including Teaching profession, increased by 250 to 500%, that is more than 10 to 25 times of Agriculture? 

4. Do you know besides lacking overall long-term availability of reusable water resources, 21% of the country’s diseases are water-related and 163 million Indians lack access to safe drinking water? 

5. Do you know out of the 10 cities with highest pollution in the world, seven are in India and our Capital Delhi NCR is at no. 11? 

6. Do you know more than one third of the world's malnourished children live in India, among these, half of the children under three years old are underweight and a third of wealthiest children are over-nourished? 

7. Do you know there are about 20 million street children in India, largest number in any country of the world? 

8. Do you know about half of the children in 7th Standard cannot write their name correctly or perform simple Maths operations like addition and subtraction? 

9. Do you know 7th Pay Commission would cause a fiscal deficit of 5 Lakh Crore Rupees in effect? 

10. Do you know, according to Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy’s report released on Tuesday, 5 Mar 2019, Unemployment Rate in India is Highest at 7.2% Since Sept 2016? 

11. Do you know we had a ‘Haircut’ worth few Lakh Crore in form of NPAs settlement of top borrowers? 

12. Do you know there is a Corporate Stimulus package of some Lakh Crore since 2009? 

13. Do you know there is an Economic Policy that governs concept, design and format of all other policies? 

14. Do you know these are some of the fundamental issues of prime importance that YOU should care for? 

15. Do you know every point above is actually a dot that could be connected to reveal a pattern? 

16. Do you know there is a possible solution to every situation including Kashmir? 

17. Do you know that YOU are responsible for everything mentioned above and much more unsaid? 

18. Do you know that YOU and ONLY YOU can change this...? 

19. Do you know that being free citizen of a democratic country - thinking independently, reflecting on things conscientiously and asking questions are three of your Fundamental Constitutional Rights? 

20. Do you know being 135 Crore means those many Heads, Hearts and 270 Crore Hands? 

21. Do you want to be a proactive responsible citizen or a reactive reckless puppet...?

We are done with Unit Tests and Final Exam is just round the corner. Brace up, pull-up your socks and do your homework right, for this would be the crucial exam for rest of your and future generation’s lives.

All the best and way to go...!