Just another blog!

Ever since the Snowden leaks – and even before them – we've been hearing the word ‘Orwellian’ to describe the state of surveillance we're living under. But what exactly does the word ‘Orwellian’ mean? What was George Orwell so afraid of and that he cautioned us against? Reading two of his definitive books – ‘Nineteen Eighty-four’ and ‘Animal Farm’ – I cannot believe that Orwell was afraid of increasing surveillance. I believe that Orwell was afraid of something more. In the world described in ‘Nineteen Eighty-four’, constant, never-ending surveillance is only tiny part – a means to an end. The end what is scarier. Moreover, I refuse to believe that the word ‘Orwellian’ should be used to describe just one tiny component of one novel written. No, I believe that the description should apply to a broader concept. I believe that to understand the term ‘Orwellian’, one must look to the earlier story – ‘Animal Farm’. Indeed, I think that ‘Animal Farm’ really sets the stage for t...

Hello, and welcome to this pilot episode of Dangerous Democracy with Arvind Kejriwal. In this series, I will attempt to expose (cue: dramatic tone) the dangerous ideas that are being propagated by those who seek to be elected. Let's start with the underdog here. The AAP, a nascent party, has suddenly sprung out of the wilderness as the most dangerous party in the world. It feeds on the peoples' fear of corruption and fools them into a false sense of security with its innocuous sounding name; which portrays it as something that is for the common person. However, behind the innocuous façade, and the X is worse than Y game lies a dangerous mind. The mind of Arvind Kejriwal, politician wannabe, and complete moron. For once, let's not go over the utter idiocies of the AAP's short term in Delhi, which ended in a temper tantrum that would put any five year old to shame. Let's go to the point before they were ever elected. To the book that should have warned us of the ...

Because I can publish shitty drawings, and even shittier text. And I have no obligation to be accurate.

Lately, I've seen a disturbing trend of increasing governmental control with a "think of the children" type justification. By "type", I mean any justification that appeals to irrational (though justified) that we may have, like fear for our children's safety. The British government is planning a nation-wide "porn firewall" that will restrict its citizens from accessing a number of websites, all in the noble cause of protecting children from the horrors of pornography. An admirable move, but think about the consequences. A number of companies selling porn filters will benefit via huge contracts, and citizens who are granted the right to freedom will have the right subtly snatched away from them. Now, you may think that I'm exaggerating when I say that citizens will lose freedom under such a censor-wall, after all, it's just pornography that they seek to block, right? No! If a government gets power to block websites, it can seek to suppre...

Last week, a Dutch artist decided to celebrate Eric Arthur Blair's birthday by placing party hats on all the CCTV cameras on the street. Wikipedia describes 1984 as a dystopian novel; yet the constant surveillance described as a work of fiction in that novel now is a reality. If anything, we've become so accustomed to cameras keeping an eye on every move; we've learnt to ignore them. Cameras decorated with party hats should definitely remind us of the surveillance states we live in. With this, I don't mean that the surveillance is necessarily malign; it can be benign, almost innocuous, that we submit to such surveillance willingly, and appreciate the results that such surveillance presents. In fact, everything that we do is tracked and studied. Go to a grocery store and buy stuff using a credit card, and the store tracks exactly what you buy, and knows with great certainty what you'll buy next. Search for something on the net, and Google will hound you with ad...