Good Law and Bad Law - The fine line

On November-11th Kerala State announced an amendment in law which stirred up trouble. Kerala Governor, Arif Khan, has signed an ordinance mainstreaming section -118(A) in Kerala Police Act. It now reads;

whoever makes, expresses, publishes or disseminates through any kind of mode of communication, any matter or subject for threatening, abusing, humiliating or defaming a person or class of persons, knowing it to be false and that causes injury to the mind, reputation or property of such person or class of persons or any other person in whom they have interest shall on conviction, be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with fine which may extend to ten thousand rupees or with both.

According to Chief Minister, it is a necessary step to curb the cyber bullying and verbal raping, which is prevalent in social media. And also the ambit of this law covers all media, printed and digital. This, as usual sent all media personnel to a frenzy.

Personally speaking I support the law because I think its genuinely gonna help reducing bullying and verbal abusing that happens all the time on social media. This law will instills fear in the minds of anyone who is thing of doing something abusive or rude. Fake News and Fake Propagandas that keep spreading in the social platforms need to cut down. Studies are even conducted on how propagandas inversely effect our thinking and health.

The driving force of propagandas are "fear". Fear stops us from thinking critically and analytically. Studies say there is an "Executive Control Network" in our brain which keeps up our high level functioning. But fear blocks or suppresses the functioning of this executive network. And there is this "Illusory truth Effect" which is used to describe how fake news and misinformation are spread like wild fire by neuro scientists. Illusory truth effect works because of a phenomenon called "cognitive fluency," which means how easily can we process information. The more easier a message to process the more easily it is trusted. If we feel uncomfortable hearing an information then it would be tough to trust that info easily.

But of course it's like two sides of a coin. The other side is where Government leverages this law to silence their political opponents. otherwise a non-cognizable offence, using this Police can arrest anyone without a warrant. It could be used as a political leverage. It gives serious power to Police, who themselves can use to extract personal vendettas. Most of the media people are looking at Supreme Court now, as it had struck down section 66, a similar IT Act in 2015, as their last resort.

The bloodsucking Yakshi

When I was a kid, April and May fell in the list of my favourite months. Not because it's going to rain and there would be mud all around, but those are the months my cousins would be here at our family house, in our hometown in Kerala. Those are the memories I would cherish forever. My grand-mother has 5 offsprings, 4 boys and a girl. My father is the second eldest of five. Then, he was the only one staying in Kerala and everyone else was in different parts of India, a Pan-India Family one could say. We were all present, it's like Parliament, shouting, laughing, scolding children, people everywhere, busy doing their chores. An outsider entering the home can still go unnoticed. Life was less complicated then. We were just ........just ourselves. Everyone you valued dearly is with you. It's like, the world has shrunken to a square block of bricks and mortar. Now it's all feel like a fairy-tale, one of the best things about joint-family. We are all tired of day's

Youth and Politics

Our political system is crippling and burdened with over aged hypocrites. I honestly believe our politics need a revamp. Don’t you think present is ruled and governed by the ghosts of past. There is big difference in past and present social values. Don’t get me wrong, when i colloquially put it as older people coz you might think i am some kind of Nazi. When i say older, i meant our over-the-hill politicians, you can say they have experience and all, but right now what we need most is not experienced minds but bold minds who can accept the change happening around and those who are willing to break free from the old traditional format. The average age of our Parliament is over 60 years. How many leaders are there in our parliament who are not from a well-off and don’t have a criminal background. Most of our politicians and executives for that matter are sycophants. Being rhetoric and sycophancy are the trademarks of most of our statesmen. This sycophantic behaviour destroyed our co

From a socialist point of view

"the private and individual is altogether banished from life and things which are by nature private, such as eyes and ears and hands, have become common, and in some way see and hear and act in common, and all men express praise and fell joy and sorrow on the same occasions" - Plato, The Republic That was the seed which grew into a big tree which considered as the ancestor of Communism or socialism (of course there is difference in Communism and socialism) or simply, you could say a classless society, where people share all their property. Definitely today, it is an outdated concept in the mind of so called forward looking, advanced, and modern people. The problem now a days with people is they just gave up on thinking process, they would like someone else to do the job for them and they will follow. Everything now a days are self-centric. Mai

I Speak my mind

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