POK Sankalpa Diwas a step to reaffirmation of our Sovereignty

Almost a year after 12 March 1993 Bombay serial blasts, the Parliament of India undertook a resolution which is known as POK Sankalpa Diwas. Both Houses of Parliament on February 22, 1994, passed a resolution unanimously on Jammu & Kashmir which has neither been rescinded nor amended so far. 

The Resolution noted deep concern on Pakistan’s role in imparting training to the terrorists in camps located in Pakistan and Occupied Kashmir, supplying them with weapons and funds, as well as providing them assistance in infiltrating into India with the intent to create disorder, disharmony, and subversion. It called upon Pakistan to stop its support to terrorism immediately and desist from the campaign of making of false and defamatory statements against India. 

The Resolution declared that the state of Jammu & Kashmir has been, is and shall be an integral part of India and any attempts to separate it will be resisted by all necessary means. It demanded that Pakistan vacate the areas of the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, which they have occupied through aggression. It firmly determined  that all attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of India will be met resolutely.

Since 1970 to 1993 there had been at least 2219 terror attack incidents that left 6828 dead and 8,042 injured. The 12 March 1993 Bombay serial blasts was the single largest till then, where a series of 12 bomb explosions shook Mumbai and the nation at large. These were the first serial-bomb-blasts of their kind in the world. It resulted in 257 fatalities and 717 injuries. Surprisingly the then-Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar from Indian National Congress, announced thirteen blasts, including a fictitious bomb in a Muslim quarter of the city, to prevent the events from taking on a communal hue, which was intune with the minority appeasement policy that was ailing India during Congress rule.

The Parliament passed the Resolution on POK due to public sentiment but no retaliation against Pakistan for nurturing and harbouring terrorists were taken. Obviously from 1994 to 2015 the Congress government saw at least 7763 terror attacks, that left    12014 dead and 20772 injured in its aftermath. The most prominent amongst them is the attack on the Indian Parliament on 13 December 2001.

Only after the ushering in of the BJP government in the centre did the nation see some form of retaliation against Pakistan and the terror camps in its soil. The current government has reiterated the POK Sankalpa and is taking prudent steps to fulfill the Resolution taken by the Indian Parliament on 22 February 1994. Therefore remembering the POK Sankalpa Diwas has come into relevance.

Text of the  Parliament Resolution on 22 February 1994.

“This House” 

Notes with deep concern Pakistan’s role in imparting training to the terrorists in camps located in Pakistan and Occupied Kashmir, the supply of weapons and funds, assistance in infiltration of trained militants including foreign mercenaries into Jammu and Kashmir with the avowed purpose of creating disorder disharmony and subversion:

Reiterates that the militants trained in Pakistan are indulging in murder, loot and other heinous crimes against the people, taking them hostage and creating an atmosphere of terror;

Condemns strongly the continued support and encouragement Pakistan is extending to subversive and terrorist activities in the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir;

Calls upon Pakistan to stop forthwith its support to terrorism, which is in violation of the Simla Agreement and the internationally accepted norms of inter-State conduct and is the root cause of tension between the two countries;

Reiterates that the Indian political and democratic structures and the Constitution provide for firm guarantees for the promotion and protection of human rights of all its citizens;

Regards Pakistan’s anti-India campaign of calumny, and falsehood as unacceptable and deplorable.

Notes with deep concern the highly provocative statements emanating from Pakistan urges Pakistan to refrain from making statements which vitiate the atmosphere and incite public opinion Expresses regret and concern at the pitiable conditions and violations of human rights and denial of democratic freedoms of the people in those areas of the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, which are under the illegal occupation of Pakistan;

On behalf of the People of India,

Firmly declares that:

a) The state of Jammu & Kashmir has been, is and shall be an integral part of India and any attempts to separate it from the rest of the country will be resisted by all necessary means;

b) India has the will and capacity to firmly counter all designs against its unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity;

and demands that –

c) Pakistan must vacate the areas of the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, which they have occupied through aggression;

and resolves that –

d) All attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of India will be met resolutely.

The Resolution was unanimously adopted, Mr. Speaker: The Resolution is unanimously passed.

February 22, 1994

Source – Parliamentary Debates: Official report, Volume 170, Issue 2, 1994, p. 237

Covid 19 ushers new perspectives in Uttar Pradesh

Elaborating on the Covid 19 situation in Uttar Pradesh, the CM Sri Adityanath Yogi said, the most important aspect of containing a pandemic lies in prompt action from the government.

Following the pragmatic approach and foresight of the Prime Minister Sri Narendra Modi, the UP Government had immediately geared into a proactive state. Sri Yogi had stopped all festivities starting with Holi in a bid to contain the situation since 2 people were suspected of Covid in the state. Subsequently all schools and colleges had been shut down within days, followed by Malls and Cinema halls. Even an international cricket match to be held in UP was directed to continue without any spectators, though eventually the BCCI cancelled the event in view of the pandemic. From March 22 Janta Curfew was declared in the country  at the PM's behest.

The challenge to UP lies in its location that soon became a transit for migrant workers of  other states, leave alone the huge influx of migrants from the state itself. The government immediately employed 16000 buses to ferry the migrants home in UP from various states. Arrangements were made for quarantine and tests before the migrants were allowed to go home.

Preparation for lockdown was already underway. The ministers had immediately been grouped under various task forces to handle every aspect that needed active engagement. Various committees based on vocational and rural requirements were tasked to take adequate steps to avert any crisis. Daily meeting with any of those 7 or more committes would take place with the CM. The committee looking after health were quick to identify Covid hospitals, categorizing them into 3 levels,  and to acquire required test kits. Today 78000 patients can be accommodated in beds in UP. Similarly committee for law and order ensured strict implementation without the police getting infected, the committee for rural and agricultural enablement ensured MSME could take advantage of the labour influx to boost medical and other productivity. Rural necessities like cold storage, facemask stitching, sanitizer, agricultural and vocational need based productivity were up to speed. Today 26 manufacturing units of PPE kits are running in UP and many states have procured sanitizer from the state.

Soon the Tabliqi Jammat fall out lead to an unprecedented situation threatening to throw pandemic into stage 3 or community spread. Every effort was made to find and contain such 5000 attendees within 48 hours. Migrants and students from various states returned to UP by the trains or buses arranged by the  UP government. These migrant workers had a high risk of carrying Covid 19 depending on their state of origin, for example, 50% for Mumbai and 70% for Delhi. About 15 lakh migrant workers can be quarantined in UP. The migrants were screened before being allowed to proceed home with 15 days of ration for home quarantine on government transport. 

The administration of Covid has been scalable starting from the gram panchayat level and ward level that monitors for any suspect symptoms. All 75 districts in UP has ventilators and full testing facilities, with 75000 medical workers actively screening the population. The government is ready to bring back all its migrant workers and provide them with adequate employment in the state.

Due to the Chinese spread of the virus many companies are seeking an alternative site and UP has already managed to woo a German shoe manufacturer and hopes to generate many more earning opportunities in the state. The infrastructure and roadways coupled with the government policies and strong security situation has been aiding influx of investors in the state. The stability is further enhanced by the findings that the migrant workers have higher immunity levels and are recovering within 7 days when provided with adequate care. The returning migrants have brought in various skills from plumbing to computer operators into the state enriching the human resource reserves in the state. The UP government is planning a commission to  enable employment for the migrants are a skill mapping of their work force. Other states can avail this work force that will be equipped with social security and insurance policies but will be under the observation of the state to avoid exploitation. This is in line with the PM's view of swabhilambhan and arthic samriddhi or self reliance and economic development. 

Speaking on fake news Sri Yogi mentioned that law shall take its course on all miscreants and also refuted the claims of opposition that his government is more into temples than economy. The facilities provided by the state is so adequate that there is little outward migration from the state. The state does not believe in appeasement politics and the faith of the people lies with the government.

Women empowerment through Gramin Sebika Sangathan and Kishan Utpadan Sangathan has boosted the employment and earning capacity of the rural folks. With the homecoming of skilled workers employment opportunities would increase with government support. For example, instead of importing incense the same can be manufactured from flowers offered in temples, this will also boost the make in India programme. The pandemic is also an opportunity to realign the economy. There is no conflict between faith and economy, both Ram and Roti are essential. The state stands firmly with its people in times of crisis providing the 18 crore people with free ration for 5 times till date, 32 lakh people with subsidy for daily needs, and 86 lakh people with pension schemes. The state looks forward to self employment through MSME sectors and all steps in that direction is already underway.

Age of the Cloud and its documentation challenges

With the advent of cloud the scope of documentation is geared for a change. The expectation of the readers in regard to accessing documentation for applications has made a quantum shift. This information is expected to be online with an emphasis on real time availability for new versions of the applications. The documentation and information mapping styles have developed quite a lot to cater to the new readers who are technologically more advanced today.

Readers expect information to be available on any device that can connect to the internet, be it computers, tablets, mobiles or any other gadgets that are or will be available. They expect the information to be presented in a modular form that is searchable. Context sensitive help and information mapping with bread crumbs are sought after in documentation for application deployed as services on the cloud.

For documentation experts the challenge lies in presenting their readers the exact information in the most scannable form so that assimilation of information is quick. Graphical and tabular representation of content is resorted to whenever possible. Information is broken down into the smallest possible modular level so that data search is exact, if the search is made through appropriate keywords.

Today content management systems employ various rule engines to help the user access the data searched for quickly. These content management systems are faced with a growing challenge of maintaining data security. Information must be shared with the user according to the priviledge rights of the user, thus information exchange may resort to encryption to protect sensitive data.

With the fast paced changes happening today, documentation is already moving into audio-visual content and soon manuals will be the second option for dissipating information.

Challenges of NGO

I have been often asked what it is like to usher in change while working for NGOs. Well maybe experiences differ but where I work it is not cake walk.

Caveat Amateur Astrologers

I am not a professional astrologer, this gives me the chance of exchanging thoughts with a curious lot of people who undertake to predict their future by doing some research on the Web. Trust me more often than not the predictions go awry. Not because astrology is a pseudo science as some people love to call it, but because these people are into pseudo research. Unless you have a foundation you cannot understand what astrology is all about. The bottom line is astrology does not deliver. We all know of amateur homeopaths who read a book, maybe Materia Medica, and start prescribing for themselves and others. Have a candid answer from these newborn homeopaths and you will see they find themselves suffering from 60% of the diseases in that few thousand page book and 80% of the medicines seem their acute requirement!
Surf the Web for result for a specific astrological incident in the natal chart you will have about 10, 000 results and 20 different observations on it. If you note each of them down and you will be shocked to find that for every negative prediction you have a positive prediction too. I call this amateur astrologers paradox. This does not happen with a seasoned astrologer because their base is strong. It does not require an amateur to take astrology classes to be clear sighted but it does require having a learned guide.
Astrology was popular in the past as it is today, and every civilization had its own version of astrology. Today we are a global village and we share all these versions in a common language, English. An unsuspecting newbie would be reading predictions of one astrological incident from all these different books expecting a unanimous prediction, that cannot be. Just as grammar of any language is different from another, so does the analysis and interpretation of a method of astrology differ. The Chinese system is easier to identify due to their naming convention by animals types, that too if you are on the right page. Indian, Arabic and Western astrology easily intermingle as one system. How many times do we check the name of the author of the article and judge their location and probable source of knowledge. Our amateur researches definitely miss this aspect most of the time. Sometimes even some authors are as confused as our amateurs, their research too suffers from the same disease.
Normally we end up reading articles of Indian astrology with that of western astrology as one whole, while each is a separate unit in itself. The predictive calculation of each is different from the other, yet amateurs easily conclude their future by using planetary location in their natal chart. The result is confusion due to varied prediction of the same incident.
If you have read till this point you must be wondering the solution is simply identifying which system of astrology the author belongs to by categorizing them into broad based groups like Indian, Western, Persian etc. Well you must not reach your conclusion yet. This is because in one system there may be various methods. In Indian system we have a bunch of methods, each different from the other in calculation and predictions. Even each have their individual strengths and weaknesses. Jaimini system is different from the Parashara system. In Parashara system we have further subsystems, like prediction through Astakabarga, Rashi and Argala, Nakshatra dasa , Rasi dasa, Yogini dasa, Sudarshana Chakra, Kalachakra, etc.
In astrology a line of text out of context will invariably leave you blundering, what would a mess up of the system lead to! If you are Indian especially from Bengal, you would know the story of the barber turned physician of the king. When this guy was just a barber he could easily slice off a mole from the king's nose without fear of medical complexities. The king promoted him to the rank of the king's physician and he now had to learn physiology. In future the king had a mole again but this time the barber turned physician fervently refused to do the same again, now that he was aware of the consequences that may take place.
This is the predicament of the serious practitioners of astrology. Professionals often deal with one sub-system and make a prediction without verifying with other sub-system about the validity of the forecast. Indian astrology has multiple systems with the purpose of cross verification and moderation of the results. Professionals hardly validate their results due to time vs. fee equation in their practice, resulting in dissatisfied patrons about the quality of predictions. It does not affect their practice since almost all practitioners have the same flaw. The success in prediction is directly dependent on multiple use of ratification methods, the more you recheck the more chances of being correct.
Would the amateurs still want to predict their future surfing the Net?
Well, a word of caution for the professional too, just in case you are one. Please do not correct the division method of Parashara from 360 days to 365 days. If you undertake the correction you need to correct the predictions to that degree too, that is not possible unless you are a seer too. Our miscalculations bring a bad name to the subject. Why would one suppose the ancients who could predict intricacies of astronomy without a telescope or modern gadgets, would falter in major details? They must have had their reason and since we cannot consult their gurukul today as they are long lost, let us not mess up their system, go wrong, and blame the science. Let us not forget astrologers must have intuition and their natal chart too must predict their astrological capabilities... that is what the Vedic astrological books say.

Quo Vadis Professional Certification in Documentation

Wondering if the current categorization of course diversification is really required as some of these certification institutes, even some universities, seem to be churning out a never-ending spiral of specialization that end up in propagating the same information that is inherently taught in the other courses or should be a part of a super set group.
I will not put any particular certification to test but without some example my concern may not be clear, and of course I do not expect your agreement with my ideas but just provide some food for thought.
Technical Writing, for example, would require skills in language and computer applications, and this same skill set is required for Instructional Design. Each one may require a specific domain knowledge and that is true for almost all professions and depends on a job profile in a particular company.
To make the context clearer, let us qualify that technical writing would require knowledge of English (just for this instance as my ramblings are in this language) and a degree in Education. Technical writers are nothing but educators, especially of a specific computer application or platform, and so are instructional designers, except that they may deal with a different subject matter but the education media would be computers. Essentially they are doing the same task of educating by using of the same electronic media and thus having the same skill set requirement. Yet we see a pseudo-differentiation as technical writers and instructional designers.
Instructional designers are often required to know educational models like, Behaviourist, Cognitivist, Constructivist, etc. Can technical writers be really successful in their objective of imparting knowledge that will be comprehendable if they are unaware of education methodologies? They cannot do away with educational theories if they are serious about their profession. So essentially they belong to the same super set of computer based educators. Classifying them into two water tight groups is like categorizing junior school teachers (excluding primary teachers) and senior school teacher as two separate classes of teachers who cannot function in each others domain.
Why then do we perceive technical writer as different form instructional designer? Is it because these groups get marketed as such by a third party whose business is to create certification courses and ensure they do not run out of business? Would I say a programmer who can only write codes are different from those who can can also store them in version control application or take part in configuration management to be different from each other? I would rather say the latter group or groups are the programmers with an extra set of skills but that still makes them programmers.
A technical writer with language skills and a background in education has a good standing in documentation. This background makes them a good instructional designer as well. So essentially they are both good documentation specialists. How incongruous does it look to have a company advertise for technical writers and instructional designer separately as if they are different professionals. Would it not be better to seek documentation specialists with skills in technical writing and instructional designing, just as we seek for skills in HTML, XML, SCORM, DITA, etc., or experience in one specific domain, rather than categorize a true group into perceived categories that may not stand the test of classification by exclusion.
In my experience as technical writer I have often had to create CBT and WBT, as another instructional designer may have ended up writing white papers and manuals. This is simply because both these groups fall under documentation specialist that a company has at its disposal often named as one or the other. I have even been into marketing communications while holding the job title of technical writer, because often companies do not have specialist with that job title or the technical writer may be best suited SME for a particular application. The company is aware that essentially these job titles and profile classifications do not fall into water tight compartments. Once we know what we are dealing with, this only raises the question if the HR of the company is really aware of what it seeks.
I am not contesting specialization courses that groom a professional in a particular set of skills but just highlighting the fact that technical writing, instructional design, marketing communications, etc., are essentially the same. Specializing in Human Resource or Marketing, while studying management makes one a management professional with a specialization in that area not a separate professional with a different degree. Its high time the institutes catering to separate technical writing and instruction designing courses realize what they are into, rather than create a poor impression about itself in the industry that knows what is required to do the job.