Why does India provide billions of dollars of aid to Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Other Countries?

Why does India provide billions of dollars of aid to Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Other Countries, when many indians are in poverty and not having enough basic facilities?

The biggest flaw in this is, the assumption of, money solves everything. Money solves many things. But, that alone does not solve everything. The assumption that many people have here is, instead of giving Rs.100 crore to Nepal, if we give it to our people, then immediately, 10,000 people would come out of the poverty permanently. But, that is not the case.

In India, If anybody is not having basic facilities, there can be several reasons.

First one is, whether the person who is not having basic facilities, trying enough to get those. First thing that we have to understand is, life is not fair. Few people may get everything without doing any work, and few people may not get anything even after trying everything. But, before we start criticizing others, we have to see whether we have done everything or not. Many people underestimate the impact of knowledge, guidance and skill development and they won't take it even if it is offered for free. Without improving the knowledge and skills, if more money is given, it won't be used efficiently. Another major problem with Indians is, if I propose a plan where they can get some X money, and I get 10X for the same time spent without extra money [The only difference is, I have more knowledge], many people would reject the proposal right away. Not because, X is not enough for them, but, because, they are getting too less when compared to what am I getting. Even if they accept it, they will always think that I am exploiting them. There were several instances of people rejecting very good proposals from corporate companies, just because, they felt, those companies were exploiting them. Rejecting that kind of proposals does no good for them.

Local issues like water, small street roads, primary schools, drainage etc., are controlled by the local government. If you elect a very corrupted person as the Chairperson, Mayor or Surpanch, then, even if hundreds of crores of money is given to your area, the problem will not be solved. If you elect a capable person, then even if the state government is not supporting, they will use all the channels possible to get things done for that area. Many people do not know that, local elections are individual specific (nothing to do with political party) with executive powers without any policy change powers. Eventhough, I never vote for Arvind Kejriwal for state or center elections, if he contests for local elections, I will definitely vote for him. When I read the news of a person who did not vote for his mother in local elections, because, she contested from BJP, and BJP/Modi is against reservations, I lost words and felt pity for him.

For standard of living of individuals, state plays major role than the union government. Even in the limited areas that the union government controls, mostly, it is a supplement to what state government does. Also, state government can override in many things, probably except in railways and couple of other areas. For example, if union government allows export of particular items, state government can say no. In most cases, the low standard of living is not because of lack of money, but, because of the policy decisions of state government in obstructing everything. If state government changes their policies, then without any extra money, the standard of living would improve.

Most of the problems faced by India can be solved without any extra money. It is just that, we should work to solve it, and should elect capable people who can solve it, in the three layers of the government. If we don't go with the proper solution, even if we are given trillions, quadrillions or quintillions, the problem would still remain.

Let's suppose I am the Prime Minister and I have Rs.400 crore surplus. One state Chief Minister is asking me huge money for their state, since, that state lost many things. Rumours have it that, he is going to spend around Rs.400 crore for one day celebration. Afghanistan does not have basic infrastructure, and if I give some money to them, when time comes, I can ask them to restart military operations in our military base in their country, which would be useful if there is a war with Pakistan, or even to stop Pakistan from not starting the war. In this case, I will give Rs.400 crore to Afghanistan, and will give sand to the Chief Minister.

Investing in Mutual Funds through MF House Website or Broker Website?

If you directly invest from the websites of the Mutual Fund houses, and select Direct Plans, you will save 1% commission that would otherwise go to the Broker Site. But, the advantage with the Broker is, they will handle all the paper work for all the Mutual Funds, and you need to do one time paper work with the broker web site.

If you want get best of both, you can do one thing. Create an account with FundsIndia [It is free]. From that, invest for Rs.500 in tax saving MF of all the Mutual Fund Houses that you want (like Axis, Reliance, HDFC, Birla Sunlife etc.). When you do this, FundsIndia does the paper work for all the mutual fund houses, and they open an account in each of those. Once Folio number is created, you can create an online account in all the MF websites with that Folio Number. With that online account, you can start investing in Direct Plans. By this, with single time paper work, you can invest in any no.of Mutual fund houses, and also you will not lose 1%.

The Tax saving MF is locked for 3 years. You can invest in other Mutual Funds also, but, the minimum for others is Rs.5000.

Raghuram Rajan on When Will Indian Policy Affects Other Countries

Question: With the near rumour of the US cutting down on the federal stimulus, rupee value crashing, when will we see an Indian policy affecting other countries so intensively?

Raghuram Rajan: I have been saying that, the US should worry about the effects of the policies on the rest of the world. If I stood by that, we should not be very happy down the line when Indian policies affect rest of the world adversely. We would like to live in a world where countries take into account the effect of their policies on other countries and do what is right/wrong rather than what is just right, given the circumstances of their country.

Courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10153397445190782

Criminalization of Marital Rape

This post may be disturbing to few readers. Reader discretion is advised.

I did not want to comment on this, mainly because, it requires explicit wordings. But, after seeing many people's support on this, I decided to write on this.

I see many people asking for criminalization of Marital Rape. I am unable understand what are they trying to achieve other than to keep significant unfair power in their hands.

What exactly is the definition of Marital rape? Is it just like any other rape except that, it happens between husband and wife?

If it is not like typical rape, then how we can call it rape? It would be just consensual.

If it is just like a typical rape, then is the woman going to do the same things which she would have done in case of typical rape. Is she going to shout, go out and call neighbours for help? If the family is living in a typical location, won't there be anybody in the neighborhood to help her? If she does not even call neighbours to help her to avoid the crime, but, later on goes to court to punish him for the crime, won't that be ridiculous?

Typically before a person does a big crime, he/she would have definitely done multiple small crimes. If a husband is raping his wife, and if it is a punishable offence, then typically, he would have done some smaller mistakes with his wife. At that time, what did the wife think about those small crimes? Typically, when there are problems between wife and husband, initially, wife stops talking to her husband. If the problem increases further, she leaves the house. If it still increases, she would take divorce, and if it does not stop even then, she would try to imprison him. In this case, the husband was good enough to live with, till yesterday, but, today, he is so horrible that, he has to be imprisoned immediately. He was a normal person till yesterday, but, became violent psycho overnight. If it was gradual, why did not the wife choose option of leaving the house and taking divorce. Why sudden jump to imprisonment?

What does a typical wife want by criminalizing marital rape? Imprisoning her husband for couple of years? I can safely assume that, once the husband is imprisoned, their marriage would break. [If the marriage does not break, it only means that, wife is threatening her husband by using other sections of Indian Penal Code, and the husband does not have any option.] When the marriage is going to break, and husband is going to leave anyway, cannot she forgive this one last mistake?

Let's assume that, Husband has really raped his wife like a typical rape. They were staying at far away location where they did not have any neighbours, and the husband behaved properly till a day before and suddenly became violent overnight. Wife did not have heart to forgive him for that one mistake. Even in this case, if the wife is even little physically injured, with the present laws, husband can be arrested with non-bailable warrant, and can be imprisoned upto 3 years. Is that not enough? Do we need yet another law? [Are feminists going to say that, it was a rape, but there were absolutely no physical injuries?]

I did not want to bring another section of law, by which the wife can arrest her husband with non-bailable warrant, with a just a signature, for absolutely no mistake of the husband. It would be a hell for any husband to escape that case. Probably the feminists might be thinking like, very good people who have not done anything bad, and have good financial background, are getting away with just 14 days imprisonment and few rounds of courts. They may want a strong law so that, they cannot escape.

If any political party supports criminalization of rape, I will not vote for that party as long as I find some liberal alternative. Fortunately, Modi's government is not supporting this.

Expecting Equality

If somebody is expecting equality, the first thing that I expect from them is, giving up the "unfair" advantages that they have.

When they have "unfair" advantages over me, to have equal level playing field, I have to treat them inferior wherever I can. After I get equal "unfair" advantage, I will treat them equally. But, till then, why should I suffer for somebody?