Feasting on Fast Food

A small thought over the problem of fast food addiction 

McDonald's, Subway, Domino’s...what’s common among all these names? Firstly, they all are well known household names and have earned it by selling unhealthy food and more importantly selling it in tonnes everyday. Over the time, fast food chains have evolved as corporate majors with market cap worth billions of dollars and employing millions across the globe. But what has made these chains about all that fuzz?

With the growing income and aspiration to live a better lifestyle, people are spending  less time to cook themselves. Instead, they consider fast food chains as an ideal place to spend their time and money with family especially on weekends. They aren't much worried about the death trap they could fall into by addicting themselves to such foods. They don't realize that fast foods are much more addictive than smoking, drinking and doping and spending on fast foods is like paying to suffer.

DON'T GOBBLE IT UP

Indifference on part of school authorities is adding to the problem. Schools are increasingly encouraging and inviting fast food giants to set up shop in their campus to increase revenues which exposes children to fast foods from much smaller age. Many schools defend this by saying that they teach students about such health risks, but what's the point in teaching when during intervals they experience no immediate health problem after having these unhealthy foods. After all, fast foods leads to diseases that build up over the time like High BP, Diabetes etc.
Considering the pace with which the fast food chains are expanding their operations, coupled with decreasing levels of physical work and exercises among people, the quantum of damage that fast food chains could do to people’s health would not be a daunting task. Already, obesity levels among children are at highest levels ever in history and if it continues as such for a decade or two, it would not be surprising if majority of the world’s population gets affected by obesity related diseases.
So what could be done to prevent such a scenario? Given the number of people they employ, closing them can’t be a viable solution. However, policy makers could impose some additional taxes and restrictions on them. Importantly, Fast food chains should be barred from setting up shops in schools and colleges. Also, they may be told to put up pictorial warnings on their products, similar to those on tobacco product packets. YES!!! I mean tobacco products because they both posses same degree of danger to human body......
But the question is....IS THIS GOING TO HAPPEN? I have a negative view on that because such decisions require farsightedness and as of now we lack it. However the process seems to have started with ban on sale of fast food at Delhi University....but where are the schools, after all they are the most vulnerable ones.

Closed Mindedness: There's something we don't lack

Economically, wee are fast growing, but where's our inner growth....Are we growing, socially?.....Read on.....

It's Locked

India will be a knowledge superpower of the world!!! It sounds great and the one liner is enough to boastfully expand any Indian chest. But, have we ever had the reality check. India may be producing (literally!!!) millions of engineers, doctors and managers, but how many of them are worth what they are? The answer is a ‘very few’ and it will remain so, until and unless we don’t open up our minds. Open up our minds to the world around us and instead of just criticizing it, learn and strive to improve it.

Our society has been blessed with immense cultural and lingual wealth, however we have closed our minds to such an extent that we seize to learn from them. Instead, we have fallen into the trap of caste, religion and gender based discrimination which has limited the extent to which we could analyze and observe the things with an open and free mind. Our this attitude has led to development of a society where every one is limited to himself. We have developed into a society where women wants reservation for them while opposing caste based quota and various caste groups want quota for themselves while opposing religion based reservation. A society, where being included in a backward category is of so much pride that people go even to the extent of rioting. 
In a country like ours, where the burden of expectations are put upon the shoulders of children since early years, the quality of professionals that are passing out is very much surprising. It itself shows the truth that we are not ready to understand that innovation and management are the qualities that can only be developed intrinsically and not by learning loads of books for a couple of years. It can be attained only through learning with open minds. We don’t need to go too far to experience the management skills that can be developed without studying. Many Indian housewives inspite of being uneducated, take care of households with brilliance. Infact, innovation and management are an art of human mind and not some scientific concepts that can't be gobbled up. 

To be the real innovators, we should try to develop our minds like an open garden where everyone (read experience), whether good or bad, could enter because each one could teach us something that no other can. However, we have made our brain like a closed room with a door, where only those with permission could enter and in process we miss on some important learnings. 

The biggest problem that’s holding us back from proceeding towards more constructive and open environment is lack of discussion. Whether its parliament or a school competition, whatever happens is a ‘Debate’. In a debate, we could not change our stance, because if done, we will be considered a loser. So, even if we realize that our position was wrong, we could not admit it and we forcefully convince our brain that we are right, which eliminates the whole purpose of learning through debate instead what is produced is arrogance. Thus, it is not very surprising that all around the world during parliamentary debates public representatives resort to violence. In contrast,discussion is much more down towards and constructive. During discussion, the participant could change his perspective at any time and cold do so without the fear of loosing. However, inspite of these advantages barring some 5-10 minutes of GD during job screening discussions are rarely popular in our country.
So if we really want to make an impression on the world and if we really want to make our own India, a country that leads the world from front like it always has been in past, we all will need to change our minds and would need to do that urgently..... 

Corruption Magnet

India has been rocked by recent scandals, see what's going wrong

“सरकारी नौकरी में उपरी कमाई बहुत है ”(There’s lot of additional income in government jobs). Ask any person why he prefers the government job over the private one and this will be one reason every person will tell, for sure. In fact, the problem has become so grave that people are not as worried about their legal income as they are about their so called additional income.

Talk to these people about corruption and there will give you two responses. The first one being that, with such a high inflation there’s no option other than asking for bribes, for survival. And what’s included in there list of survival is cars, bungalows, jewellery and servants.

In case of second excuse, it’s much trickier to gauge their views. They will tell you that government should hang the corrupt but scope to earn an additional income(bribes) is one of the reasons to join public service.

However, in light of these notorious views, exchanging the bribes has become a routine exercise and it is now asked so often and openly, that many even don’t call it a bribe. They think, it’s their right to earn for what they do, forgetting that they are already paid to do so.

Show Me The Money

So what's the reason that bribery has become a part of our society? I think it's their Confidence. Confidence that government will not take any action against the culprits. Government employees are assured of their job security so they do whatever they want. People know that until proven guilty (which usually take years) they are not going to be punished. This makes corruption a great tool of earning due to negligible risk to return ratio.

In a country, where ‘Dr. Sen’ was given life term for just speaking against the government, people wander around freely even after acting against the country. So, should Raja not be terminated from parliament or his perks and salary be withhold? Or should election commission not bar him from appearing in next term elections? The answer should be a YES, but unfortunately it's not.  And as long as it remains so, there’s no reason why Raja or Kalmadi or any other person should not commit such a crime.

The only way to prevent corruption from further expanding its wings is transparency. And to start, government should make it compulsory for each and every government employee ranging from ‘President’ to ’Peon’ to be open to public scrutiny and bringing them under the purview of RTI. A strong 'Lokpal Bill' could be the perfect start but as of now, it looks like GoI is not serious on eliminating corruption. The proposed bill have left all the lower level employees out of its ambit and it lacks enough teeth to nab the culprit.  

In addition to this, those under trial should be barred from getting any compensation or perks against their work till proven guilty. If proved, he should be immediately suspended without giving the arrears and should not be allowed in other government jobs and if proven innocent all their arrears should be cleared. This will go a long way to reduce corruption as the punishment will be immediate and eminent.

In addition, government should make it rewarding for people to inform about corrupt officials by giving them preference for their work and jobs.

All these may be small baby steps but if implemented properly , it will certainly clip the wings of corrupt.