Tuesday, August 6, 2013

India Today

I don't usually blog on current events. The reason is simple - I need atleast a whole week to complete a single post, and by the time I complete it, the event is not current any more. Looking through all of my blogposts (admittedly not as many as I would like), there are just a couple of posts that were prompted by news items. Make it one more now.

The two headlines that scream at me when I take a quick glance at any national newspaper's website are : "5 Indians soldiers killed in attack by Pakistan soldiers." and "UP cops arrest dalit writer for Facebook post criticizing UP Government on Durga issue". It makes me wonder about a couple of things. 

1) Security or liberty?
Large Governments make us believe today that there must be some compromise on individual freedom so that the country's citizens can be safe. Since the 9/11 attacks in the United States, they have managed to prevent any other major terrorist incident. But as recent revelations show, they have also been monitoring potentially every activity made by their citizens online. The Government probably thinks it is a necessary compromise. What do you feel? Do you value security or liberty? Or are you Libertarian, and want minimum interference from Governments whatsoever? (As a side note, Libertarians believe that every Man has enough rational abilities to govern himself. These days, a lot of netizens proclaim themselves as libertarian, but a lot of them also accuse the masses for its tastes, such as in, and especially in, movies. This is a topic for a different day though)

2) Security at the cost of liberty? Liberty at the cost of security? As today's national headlines demonstrate, we seem to have neither in our country.

PS : Whoa, that is my shortest post ever!

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