Viswanathan K's Thoughts

Almost every democracy is “representative”. Let Glyn Moody describe it : “Yes, elections take place, but after that, politicians just seem to do what they want, with little concern for what the public really thinks about the laws that they push through.” Except if you are a Swiss citizen. There it’s easy to call for a popular vote: “If 50,000 signatures are collected from Swiss voters or eight cantons [Swiss states] demand a referendum within 100 days, then a popular vote is held.” Keeping Switzerland’s size and population in mind, 50,000 is not as trivially small a number as it might be in other countries; but nor is it an impossibly big number to get either. If you think India needs such a system, join the queue: Germany needs it before us! Why? Because Chancellor Angela Merkel, an otherwise cautious politician who knew the pulse of the voters, has changed. As George Soros said : “In the case of the (Syrian) migration issue, she did act on principle.” Now keep in Ge...

In moments of idealism, we often find ourselves wishing for a simpler/better/less-evil’er world. Or hear others say something similar and smirk. While in some cases, it is definitely a possibility, in others, it is good to step back and think of the practicality of what is being hoped for. The first kind is worth wishing for: If you wish for a cleaner alternative to, say, fossil fuels, it could happen. While difficult, no law of physics prevents such a technology from being developed. Even being cheaper than existing fuels eventually. It could happen. If not today, maybe tomorrow. Or the day after. But not impossible. The other kind of wishful thinking is what does deserve a smirk. The kind where people hope for things that would violate the laws of physics: like hoping for a perpetual motion machine to “fix” the energy problem. Or the kind, and this is more common among idealists, wishing for things like world peace. These are cases where hope is based on human nature chan...