Re: [Hum] The wisdom of "hum", the power of "us"

Dear Col Singh

Many thanks for your advice and blessings.

I hope that you and your friends will always be
a part of the unending struggle between the
various forces of good and evil.

Sarbajit

PS: Members are requested to "trim" (ie. cut out)
irrelevant portions of previous messages.

On 11/7/12, Col Thakur Singh <thakursinghk@gmail.com> wrote:
> 1. Dear HUM,
> 2. We wish you, "(HUM)" ", all the good luck and strength to be able to
> under take the arduous journey wherein be benevolent enough to extend
> all
> the help enroute, guidance BE A CATALYST to unite; one and all and
> take
> responsibility to help achieve the ultimate aim,the bliss, the goal of
> humanity --SAT CHIT ANAND
> 3. Change is progress,
> 4. change is life. change is unending and continuous
>
> Col thakur Singh

[HumJanenge] Info Needed

Dear Activist,

I need some information related to Income Tax Department. Just wondering if any of our fellow member is working in IT department.

Thanks for help.
Anshu

Re: [Hum] The wisdom of "hum", the power of "us"

1. Dear HUM,
2. We wish you, "(HUM)" ", all the good luck and strength to be able to under take the arduous journey wherein be benevolent enough to extend  all the  help enroute, guidance  BE A CATALYST to unite; one and all and take responsibility to help achieve the ultimate aim,the bliss,  the goal of humanity                                      --SAT CHIT ANAND
3. Change is progress, 
4. change is life. change is unending and continuous

Col thakur Singh

On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 8:21 PM, Sarbajit Roy <sroy.mb@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Friends

After the 2 years we had at "HumJanenge@googlegroups.com" (which BTW is still a fully functional mailing list for discussing RTI), your moderators were fed up with certain Google Group policies which were not allowing the Humjanenge google group to grow and expand further. This was also coupled with deep sense of frustration with the way RTI has been rendered irrelevant due to Mir Jafars within our ranks.

RTI is still (and will always be the mother of all processes for aggrieved citizens to get "justice" from the State). It is now time for us to come together on a HUGE platform to  completely expose these CORRUPT "super citizens" who are above the law and who don't feel the need to listen to us or answer our pointed questions. These f***ers who judge and point fingers at the whole world but won't disclose anything about themselves.

The distinguishing characteristic of HJ-GG from its inception has always been the high degree of freedom of speech and expression which took place on the group.  Different and independent views were actively encouraged. Conformists and NGO brain washed "activists" were roundly denounced and exposed- which is perhaps why secret instructions were regularly issued by every foreign financed NGO in India connected with RTI to get their members off our list (at least publicly) as fast as possible.

To understand the next step in our movement's evolution it is necessary that the theoretical concept behind our group dynamics is clearly understood.
This theory is the "Wisdom of Crowds"
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds]. Please read this link carefully to understand the basics.

No matter how much you know (or I know) as individuals our knowledge often amounts to nothing. "WE" (ie. "hum") require opinions, answers, feedback, sometimes a good hard kick in the arse, to set us straight when our egos go out of control..

At "Hum" we shall try to implement "T_WoC" faithfully by ensuring.

1)  Diversity of opinion - Many points of view and domain specialities
2)  Independence - Not trying to force fit / influence our subscribers to any PoV
3)  Decentralization - we value "local"/ practical knowledge and expertise (but not to the detriment of qualified practising professional /expert members)
4) Aggregation - The Moderators shall try to see that a "consensus" results from the major issues.

keeping in view

a) In some cases, groups are remarkably intelligent and are often smarter than the smartest people in them.

b) The best decisions are a product of disagreement and contest.

c) Too much communication can make the group as a whole less intelligent

d) That the collective is more likely to be smart only when
(i)  it isn't defining its own questions,
(ii) when the goodness of an answer can be evaluated by a simple result (such as a single numeric value,) and
(iii)  when the information system which informs the collective is filtered by a quality control mechanism that relies on individuals to a high degree. Only under those circumstances can a collective be smarter than a person. If any of these conditions are broken, the collective becomes unreliable or worse.

Food for thought.

Sarbajit

To UNSUBSCRIBE from the "Hum" mailing list please visit
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You can also leave this list by sending a blank email to
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"no emails" by logging in at
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If you want to "opt out", PLEASE don't reply, copy
or 'CC' to any individual members. They cannot get
you off this list.

HELP is available at:
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"Hum" supports "India Against Corruption"
http://indiaagainstcorruption.net.in

[Hum] The wisdom of "hum", the power of "us"

Dear Friends

After the 2 years we had at "HumJanenge@googlegroups.com" (which BTW is still a fully functional mailing list for discussing RTI), your moderators were fed up with certain Google Group policies which were not allowing the Humjanenge google group to grow and expand further. This was also coupled with deep sense of frustration with the way RTI has been rendered irrelevant due to Mir Jafars within our ranks.

RTI is still (and will always be the mother of all processes for aggrieved citizens to get "justice" from the State). It is now time for us to come together on a HUGE platform to  completely expose these CORRUPT "super citizens" who are above the law and who don't feel the need to listen to us or answer our pointed questions. These f***ers who judge and point fingers at the whole world but won't disclose anything about themselves.

The distinguishing characteristic of HJ-GG from its inception has always been the high degree of freedom of speech and expression which took place on the group.  Different and independent views were actively encouraged. Conformists and NGO brain washed "activists" were roundly denounced and exposed- which is perhaps why secret instructions were regularly issued by every foreign financed NGO in India connected with RTI to get their members off our list (at least publicly) as fast as possible.

To understand the next step in our movement's evolution it is necessary that the theoretical concept behind our group dynamics is clearly understood.
This theory is the "Wisdom of Crowds"
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds]. Please read this link carefully to understand the basics.

No matter how much you know (or I know) as individuals our knowledge often amounts to nothing. "WE" (ie. "hum") require opinions, answers, feedback, sometimes a good hard kick in the arse, to set us straight when our egos go out of control..

At "Hum" we shall try to implement "T_WoC" faithfully by ensuring.

1)  Diversity of opinion - Many points of view and domain specialities
2)  Independence - Not trying to force fit / influence our subscribers to any PoV
3)  Decentralization - we value "local"/ practical knowledge and expertise (but not to the detriment of qualified practising professional /expert members)
4) Aggregation - The Moderators shall try to see that a "consensus" results from the major issues.

keeping in view

a) In some cases, groups are remarkably intelligent and are often smarter than the smartest people in them.

b) The best decisions are a product of disagreement and contest.

c) Too much communication can make the group as a whole less intelligent

d) That the collective is more likely to be smart only when
(i)  it isn't defining its own questions,
(ii) when the goodness of an answer can be evaluated by a simple result (such as a single numeric value,) and
(iii)  when the information system which informs the collective is filtered by a quality control mechanism that relies on individuals to a high degree. Only under those circumstances can a collective be smarter than a person. If any of these conditions are broken, the collective becomes unreliable or worse.

Food for thought.

Sarbajit

[Hum] Re: [hum] Corruption not the sole problem

As often, another good one by Sarbajit Roy.

On Tuesday, 6 November 2012, Sarbajit Roy wrote:

Dear Seema

And not to mention that the people who actually drafted 80% of the RTI Act are dead. I wonder if anyone has actually read HD Shouries' draft bill.

You are also correct that there is this vast disinformation network that spreads the myth / hagiography that Aruna Roy and her 2 "friends/companions" were responsible for bringing about the Right to Information for "demanding information about muster rolls".

That such disinformation is spread by NGOs like CHRI is sickening
http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/programs/ai/rti/india/national.htm

What were people like you and me who have been "demanding" information for poor people every time we file a petition in court doing if not enforcing a citizen's right to information symmetry/parity - BY JUDICIAL PROCESS.

In which universe is Aruna Roy (and her MKSS) allegedly instigating some daily wage workers in 1989 to inspect muster rolls more meaningful in the RTI context than me (as Hony Secy. India Public Law Initiative in 1983/84) getting filed 270+ Writ petitions u/as 32 in the SC for poor and homeless people thrown out of their homes without notice and getting them justice by having notices issued and eventually blocking their eviction ?

I'm sure your own passion for advocacy would throw up numerous similar examples.

Sarbajit

On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 7:25 AM, seema misra <seemamisra08@gmail.com> wrote:

corrupition is of all kinds - including intellectual corruption.  Claiming credit for drafting 80% of the RTI Act is nothing but outright dishonesty and knowing that people involved in drafting the law for decades will not come and bicker on TV screens .

----- Original Message -----

From: IAC INFO

--
http://www.moneylife.in
http://www.moneylife.in/commentary/veeresh-malik
http://matescabin.blogspot.com/
http://joyroc.blogspot.com/
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Diary-of-a-Divorced-Delhi-Male/
 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vm2827/
 
 

Re: [Hum] Re: [hum] Corruption not the sole problem

Dear Seema

And not to mention that the people who actually drafted 80% of the RTI Act are dead. I wonder if anyone has actually read HD Shouries' draft bill.

You are also correct that there is this vast disinformation network that spreads the myth / hagiography that Aruna Roy and her 2 "friends/companions" were responsible for bringing about the Right to Information for "demanding information about muster rolls".

That such disinformation is spread by NGOs like CHRI is sickening
http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/programs/ai/rti/india/national.htm

What were people like you and me who have been "demanding" information for poor people every time we file a petition in court doing if not enforcing a citizen's right to information symmetry/parity - BY JUDICIAL PROCESS.

In which universe is Aruna Roy (and her MKSS) allegedly instigating some daily wage workers in 1989 to inspect muster rolls more meaningful in the RTI context than me (as Hony Secy. India Public Law Initiative in 1983/84) getting filed 270+ Writ petitions u/as 32 in the SC for poor and homeless people thrown out of their homes without notice and getting them justice by having notices issued and eventually blocking their eviction ?

I'm sure your own passion for advocacy would throw up numerous similar examples.

Sarbajit

On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 7:25 AM, seema misra <seemamisra08@gmail.com> wrote:

corrupition is of all kinds - including intellectual corruption.  Claiming credit for drafting 80% of the RTI Act is nothing but outright dishonesty and knowing that people involved in drafting the law for decades will not come and bicker on TV screens .

----- Original Message -----

From: IAC INFO

Re: [Hum] Money Spinners

Hi

I really don't think such articles are directly relevant or useful in the Indian context. Reading it carefully I found it to be rubbish. The only thing I agreed with was

"The US feeding frenzy shows how the safeguards and structures of a nominal democracy can remain in place while the system they define mutates into plutocracy."

This is borne out by our experience.  In India the leader of the Govt is the richest woman in the country.  Her son-in-law who was a nobody can go from 50 lakhs to 6,000 crores in the space of 4 years. This royal family even have their own private bankers, 1 of whom has been granted the licence to print as much money as needed to finance the black component which goes into their shady dealings. In fact this individual group prints more Indian currency notes than the RBI (plus the quality of his notes is better) and has a network (so-called depositor base) to push and distribute his fake notes on a national scale. Even the Govt can't shut him down because he will shut them down.

Sarbajit

On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 10:45 PM, IAC INFO <info.indiaagainstcorruption@gmail.com> wrote:

A provocative article on Election reform and state financing - Ajay

Money Spinners, October 29, 2012

Here's how we can defeat political corruption of the kind that's destroying US democracy.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 30th October 2012.

Permalink: http://www.monbiot.com/2012/10/29/money-spinners/

It's a revolting spectacle: the two presidential candidates engaged in a frantic and demeaning scramble for money. By November 6th, Obama and Romney will each have raised over $1bn(1). Other groups have already spent a further billion(2). Every election costs more than the one before; every election, as a result, drags the US deeper into cronyism and corruption. Whichever candidate takes the most votes, it's the money that wins.

Is it conceivable, for example, that Mitt Romney, whose top five donors are all Wall Street banks(3), would put the financial sector back in its cage? Or that Barack Obama, who has received over $700,000 from both Microsoft and Google(4), would challenge their monopolistic powers? Or, in the Senate, that the leading climate change denier James Inhofe, whose biggest donors are fossil fuel companies, could change his views, even when confronted by an overwhelming weight of evidence?(5) The US feeding frenzy shows how the safeguards and structures of a nominal democracy can remain in place while the system they define mutates into plutocracy.

Despite perpetual attempts to reform it, US campaign finance is now more corrupt and corrupting than it has been for decades. It is hard to see how it can be redeemed. If the corporate cronies and billionaires' bootlickers who currently hold office were to vote to change the system, they'd commit political suicide. What else, apart from the money they spend, would recommend them to the American people?

But we should see this system as a ghastly warning of what happens if a nation fails to purge the big money from politics. Ours, by comparison to the US system, looks almost cute. Total campaign spending in the last general election – by the parties, the candidates and independent groups – was £58m(6): about one sixtieth of the cost of the current presidential race. There's a cap on overall spending and tough restrictions on political advertising.

But it's still rotten. There is no limit on individual donations. In a system with low total budgets, this grants tremendous leverage to the richest donors. The political parties know that if they do anything which offends the interests of corporate power they jeopardise their prospects.

The solutions proposed by parliament would make our system a little less rotten. At the end of last year, the Committee on Standards in Public Life proposed that donations should be capped at an annual £10,000, the limits on campaign spending should be reduced, and public funding for political parties should be raised(7). Parties, it says, should receive a state subsidy based on the size of their vote at the last election.

The political process would still be dominated by people with plenty of disposable income. In the course of a five-year election cycle, a husband and wife would be allowed to donate, from the same bank account, £100,000(8). State funding pegged to votes at the last election favours the incumbent parties. It means that even when public support for a party has collapsed (think of the LibDems), it still receives a popularity bonus.

Even so, and despite their manifesto pledges(9), the three major parties have refused to accept the committee's findings. The excuse all of them use is that the state cannot afford more funding for political parties(10). This is a ridiculous objection. The money required is scarcely a rounding error in national accounts. It probably represents less than we pay every day for the crony capitalism the current system encourages: the unnecessary spending on the private finance initiative, on roads to nowhere(11), on the Trident programme(12) and all the rest, whose primary purpose is to keep the one per cent sweet. The overall cost of our suborned political process is incalculable: a corrupt and inefficient economy and a political system engineered to meet not the needs of the electorate, but the demands of big business and billionaires.

I would go much further than the parliamentary committee. This, I think, is what a democratic funding system would look like. Each party would be able to charge the same, modest fee for membership (perhaps £50). It would then receive matching funding from the state, as a multiple of its membership receipts. There would be no other sources of income. (Membership-based funding would make brokerage by trade unions redundant).

This system, I believe, would not only clean up politics, it would also force parties to re-engage with the public. It would oblige them to be more entrepreneurial in raising their membership, and therefore their democratic legitimacy. It creates an incentive for voters to join a party and to begin, once more, to participate in politics(13).

The cost to the public would be perhaps £50m a year(14), or a little over £1 per elector: three times the price of a telephone vote on the X-Factor(15). This, on the scale of state expenditure, is microscopic.

Both politicians and the tabloid press would complain bitterly about this system, claiming, as they already do, that taxpayers cannot afford to fund politics. But when you look at how the appeasement of the banking sector has ruined the economy, at how corporate muscle prevents action from being taken on climate change, at the economic and political distortions caused by the system of crony capitalism, and at the hideous example on the other side of the Atlantic, you discover that we can't afford not to.

References:

1. http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance

2. http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2012/10/capital-eye-opener-oct-26.html

3. http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/index.php

4. http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/index.php

5. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2012/aug/02/climate-change-political-funding-us

6. See Figure 19, Committee on Standards in Public Life, November 2011. Political party finance: ending the big donor culture. http://www.public-standards.gov.uk/Library/13th_Report___Political_party_finance_FINAL_PDF_VERSION_18_11_11.pdf

7. Committee on Standards in Public Life, November 2011. Political party finance: ending the big donor culture. http://www.public-standards.gov.uk/Library/13th_Report___Political_party_finance_FINAL_PDF_VERSION_18_11_11.pdf

8. The Committee says "it would be reasonable to allow spouses or partners each to donate up to £10,000 [per annum], even if the money comes from the same bank account."

9. Figure 4 of the committee's report quotes the commitments in the manifestos of the three main parties.

10. "The Conservative party co-chairman Baroness Warsi said: "the public will simply not accept a plan to hand over almost £100m of taxpayers' money to politicians"('Reform party funding or politics will sink in sleaze, says watchdog', The Independent, 23 November 2011); the Liberal Democrat president, Tim Farron MP, said: "While it is clear now is not the time for more public money to be spent on politicians, that shouldn't stop us taking immediate action to reform political funding"('Political parties 'should get more taxpayer funding", BBC News online, 22 November 2011); and Michael Dugher MP, Labour's Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, said: "In the current economic environment, we recognise that a significant increase in state funding for political parties is not a priority and any such measure would need to command broad public support" ('Labour: Tories wouldn't accept party funding cap', Politics.co.uk, 22 November 2011)." http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmpolcon/1763/176304.htm

11. http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/campaigns/roads-to-nowhere

12. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/oct/29/tories-lib-dems-trident

13. Membership of political parties has declined, in total, to 420,000, about one seventh of what it was in 1965. Committee on Standards in Public Life, November 2011, as above.

14. The committee reports that "Over the last decade the spending of the three main parties in total averaged £68 million a year. The smaller parties spent a fraction of that."

15. http://xfactor.itv.com/2012/vote/

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"Hum" supports "India Against Corruption"
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