The Cable TV Imbroglio

I heaved a huge sigh of relief on Saturday morning, when SCV brought TEN Sports feed directly to the cricket starved Chennaiites homes. At last instead of watching the boring Fourth umpire from DD, I could at last see the live feed from TEN Sports, with a better cricket presentation. Thanks to SCV, I was saying for the first time.

Next day, I am surprised to see the news that Cable networks service providers are to be taken over by the Tamil Nadu government. Already the Central and state governments in a bizarre move 2 years back ushered in the Set Top Box regime. It was brought in as a mock system, mocking at us. It was implemented only in Chennai. I could see my fellow Tamils, just beyond the borders of Chennai, being able to watch all channels through the regular means, whilst I sit here dependent on a Set Top Box. Getting a Set Top Box would have been feasible, if it was confirmed as a permanent set up, or at least if SUN TV would have been a pay channel. For the mothers of Chennai are happy to receive SUN TV alone and so, the set top box plans ran into rough weather at least for the young chennaiites.

We the chennaiites were used as lab rats or guinea pigs for an experiment that has failed to impress most Indians. Now this new Cable Network Act has really surprised me. Telecommunications, Broadcasting etc., come under the Central subjects I guess. I am still unable to make any sense from this move. Venturing into unexplored areas probably, but Venturing into closed territories seems strange.

The TN Govt says, it will take over the multi-system operators. The street level operators shall remain. And the reasons

1. Shielding and improper relay of some channels by the Multi-System Operators
2. Lackluster Response to public grievances
3. Higher charges being collected
4. Poor Service
And The Hindu, showed up a cable line hanging down on the ground as an example of the lackluster attitude of the Operators. ( Is this the mistake of SCV or the street level operator).

Shielding of some channels, politically motivated can be associated with the Multi-System operators true. And in this case SCV, being under the control of DMK, could well shield Jaya TV if it wants to. But, the rest of the complaints seem irrelevant. The response, charges, service are all at the level of the street operators. Now, they are being allowed their share of the pie as usual and the regime controls the multi-system operators alone.

Is the govt in anyway better in their response and service? Our roads are a fair indication of the response times of the government. And as far as providing some channels in inferior quality, I guess only the DD is telecast poorly, and I am not sure if this has anything to do with the service provider or with the DD Channel as such.

The viability of this act getting passed seems far less, given elections are due and the governor’s accent is required. If the governor returns this back without his assent, it cannot be passed on in time to be of any use to the govt.

But this surely has more to it, than just the political tangle. The Dravidian parties since its first foray into governance has always looked into publicizing of businesses. Annadurai, introduced the public transport corporation and the “TamilNadu Padanool Kazhagam” back in 1967. The Public transport system pushed out the Town buses and today we see that in most other districts private transport buses are back. Only Chennai remains an exception. And with books, you could easily reach a child’s mind. Successive governments have allowed political alliances to dictate what or who are the personalities to be taught to the children. History and Language books have been manhandled for political reasons.

I read somewhere that the Narendra modi govt in Gujarat imparts lessons glorifying Hitler and damning Gandhi. Now I don’t blame them. But the knowledge to children is restricted to this one dimension alone. The children are not provided with opportunities to learn someone glorifying Gandhi. Where in it would be better if just the government regulates, the governments have ended up taking charge.

Governments generally take over private enterprises either as earning opportunities, as in the case of the Transport system and the liquor shops, or as a political move as in the case of Books and the recent Cable TV network. In any case taking over pf private enterprises affects many people involved in those businesses and also reduces the options available to the common man. The government should be a facilitator and regulator of the public machinery, rather than taking up control of private ventures. Slowly, the business ventures of the youngsters are getting curtailed for fear of the property and businesses being taken away for political and macro economic reasons.

Learnings

A tangled web is what epitomizes the literate mind. A famous quote “I was born intelligent, Education ruined me”. An education that prevents the free flow of thoughts in an attempt to set a focus has been silently accepted as the norm.

Well I learnt math for quiet a long time before I had a chance to learn Boolean algebra. And when I came across Boolean algebra, I learnt the properties. I could learn cumulative and associative properties in Boolean algebra. I learnt what was not possible with it. And then I saw these properties being associated with general math. I have never considered these properties all along in my tryst with math. I wasn’t handicapped by the lack of this knowledge. I have just taken for granted what was possible and what was not possible. I have been doing things without really knowing what’s.

The fact that I have learnt the methods first before learning the concepts was disturbing. We are taught of the methods first because, at that age it is easier to learn the methods of “5 in the hand, 3 in the mind” type. Even a number line is explored like, First Natural numbers, and then introduces 0, then the negative numbers, then the fractions, and then the real and non-real.

Now this is how we learn. But what is wrong with it. Why isn’t a child allowed to explore, if there are positive numbers, there should be something negative. If there is some presence of quantities, there should be the absence of them. There should be a state attained by the cancellation of opposing quanta. Why is a zero not derived from a child’s mind?

When I am exposed to the number line, the way I said earlier I am actually unlearning. I thought that these were the numbers, and then I am told, no there are more. It is not a step by step process, but rather the re ordering of the house. Re organizing is welcome, but if it comes from my side, why am I to re organize based on more inputs.

As we grow we have to add more knowledge, but here as we grow, we are substituting older knowledge with clearer representations. This is what I called unlearning. It would be rather better off, if I could have learnt the concepts and reflected more on them with learning as an incremental process.

Girls and stability

A Tea Time talk with a friend. Just found it interesting enough to share. It was abt gals in general. Afterall what else do guys discuss. This friend is actually running away from marriage. Iam like trying to convince him that one has to go through these troubles in life.

This day, he passed on a remark that I had to react to. His remark was "Girls are unstable". That remark could be interpreted in many ways. But in his context, u cant beleive in them. They tend to change. He carries this opinion against the current generation only. He doesnt sound a male chauvanist. Just that he has given too much of thought into it.

I knew there was a need for some change of opinion in his side. For one thing, I dont like generalisations. I could have given him specific examples of females who were venturing, who were highly stable in mind. But since his was a generalisation, I also wanted to react from a general perspective.

My point of contention was Gender differentiation is on 2 respects. One Physical and the other as per characteristics. At the Personality level, there is no male and female individually. It is not as distinguishable as the physical delineation.

Every person has a bit of male and female traits in themselves. And whichever one is at an higher percentage dominates. A male trait is mostly explorative and a female trait is mostly pretective. To be explorative, the masculine trait allows us to take risks. To be protective, the female trait avoids risks, ventures and in that way it has to adapt itself for the sake of protection.

Now, I speak of integrity, but for the sake of retaining my job, I might change myself. Then Iam unstable in mind, but stable in job. So I get protection. But when Iam ready to risk the job my masculine trait shines to the fore.

I said, it is not man or woman, it is with regard to personality. So if a woman is unstable, she lives up to her character. And she does the balancing act in a family if the guy is risk prone. And how does this answer him. More than anything else, I hope he would toss the coin and go ahead for a marriage when the time comes. Lets take the risk after all should be the way a guy goes about it. May be that is how all the guys have gone about this ordeal for so long.