Bill for equality

In the first week of January 2019 Modi government passed the bill for reservation for economically weaker sections of society in Lok Sabha.
In the below sections, I will try to introspect the Pros and Cons.

I have been a victim of caste based reservation myself during my college days.

BJP government worked on many decisions to impress the sections of the society which were under reservation. This includes promoting a Dalit candidate for the post of President. Triple talaq to impress the Muslim women.
In a poll bound country, BJP choose to impress the upper caste sections of the society too.

We can also view this decision in such a way that impressing of the lower caste was not helping much in the vote share for BJP. This again brings the hegemony of upper caste in the vote share for BJP. Good that BJP realized it soon that the upper caste are the ones who will be the game changers for BJP.

I am not sure if this bill will get passed in the Rajya sabha. In most probability it might not get through the rajya sabha at all. However, BJP has been successful in making the issues faced by the upper caste youth a political issue.
The disparity in the opportunities presented to different sections of the society has been opened up and made publicly acknowledged as a issue that needs political attention and mass thinking.

In the elections to come this will be the new game-changing political issue. Will there be a light at the end of the dark tunnel? I am no authority or have Acumen to answer this.
With this bill, I am confident that there is a path which has light at the end.

In the elections to come more and more political parties will want to jump into the foray of impressing the upper caste sections of the society to get their votes. Now is the time for the upper caste society to unite and vote in the elections. More and more voters from the upper caste we need to go out to the polling booths and cast their votes.

In the years to come the political thinking will start aligning towards impressing the upper caste and smaller yet subtle policy changes will follow in this direction. The dream goal would be that there is harmony and equality in the society with no bias based on birth.

It is now a wait and watch to see if Congress on the other hand can do something different to impress the upper caste.
Anyone who does better for the equality in society will win the elections with majority in the years to come.

About three decades ago BJP found an election issue out of ram mandir in ayodhya. Unfortunately BJP used it to grow its political strength, but nothing much was done on the ground. At one point in time BJP had become synonymous with Ram Mandir.
I hope Congress learns from its mistake and act in contributing role in removing the inequality and bringing justice to the youth of upper caste. This will also prove to be  rejuvenator for the perishing congress party.

It is interesting point in the history and all I can do is wait with curiosity and act by casting my vote.

Yoga in Americas

Myself Prabhat Joshi, living in Phoenix Arizona. My father introduced Yoga to me when I was 6 months of age. Since then, he has always ensured I perform Yoga everyday with no exception. He is my first Yoga guru.

He challenged me to touch my forehead to knee without bending my knee and stay there relaxed for 2 minutes. I was successful after a 2 yrs of conscious practice. Since then I have been practicing Yoga everyday.

It was a proud moment for me as a Yoga practitioner, to learn that UN has formally approved June 21 as International Yoga Day.

In US, I have seen high amount of awareness for Yoga. It created curiosity in me hence started my research on Yoga in USA.

9 out of 10 in USA have heard of Yoga:

Yoga has seen increased awareness in Americas in the last few years. Survey states that 9 out of 10 americans have heard of Yoga. Increased need for parallel exercise method was one of the driving forces. Regular exercises like Gym, jog, Hiking, sports need specific gears and weather conditions. Additionally these exercise methods had less of full body workout.

This vacuum of exercise method opened channel for Yoga. Hence 90% are aware of Yoga

Rise in Yoga practitioners:

According to the statistics by a private American firm, active Yoga practitioners have raised from 20.4 M in 2008 to 36.7 M in 2017. A sudden raise of 75% in the number of Yoga practitioners. I read more about the reason for this.

Post IT revolution, the amount of Indian immigration has increased. Immigrant Indians brought many things in culture with them along with Yoga. This opened Yoga as a mainstream alternative for exercises.

Another study shows that the stress levels in American civil society is high in the age bracket of 30 to 45 yrs. People in this age have hands full with affordable liquidity. Yoga which is proposed as an alternate for physical exercise and stress relief became an instant hit.

Demography of Yoga practitioners:

As per the survey, about 72% of Yoga practitioners are women. Only 28% are men.

A perfect man’s body is always imagined to be a muscle toned body. Every man in an urge to be that perfect body, has always liked to hit Gym coupled with weights. So men had many exercise forms which were well accepted.

On the other hand, a perfect woman's body has never been a muscle toned one. So there was a vacuum for exercise method for women which can help shed the fats but not tone the muscles. Yoga fits the bill here and I assume that is why Yoga was more embraced by women.

Additionally, the beauty industry is aggressive in marketing. For a women to keep up with others, exercise is almost without choice. This aggressive marketing by the beauty industry is also pushing Yoga in women. More women who are first time exercisers have started embracing Yoga as primary exercise method.

However, in my view Yoga is not feminine but gender neutral.

Nearly 50% of Yoga practitioners have not left the session early. This brings a significant viewpoint.

I assume the reason might be that Yoga sessions are always delivered as a package. Starts with light warm ups and grades to fat burning Yoga, followed by meditation and relaxation. Seasoned practitioners would not like to break this in midway, as it makes the Yoga incomplete. However, if it is my first class, I would not mind staying till the end. This also means that most practitioners are seasoned and lesser novice.

Yoga schools:

It is noted that Yoga schools have mushroomed growth in US in the last 6 years. The investment in starting a Yoga studio is much lesser than starting a crossfit,  a Gym or a sports center. This opens a new market for smaller health entrepreneurs. Small scale business being the backbone of any economy, Yoga fits the bill. Survey also states that more than 50% of the Yoga schools have more than 1 center but less than 5. This also brings a point that most of the Yoga schools are small businesses and not a part of chain.

It is also worth mention that about 40% of the Yoga schools cater to 400 students a week. I assume some of them might be repeating students attending more than 1 session a week. From a profitability perspective, 400 students a week, will not only break even, but will yield higher bottom lines.

Higher margin might also be a reason Yoga schools growing in number and advertising aggressively.

Fitness accessories:

Back in 2007 times, when electronic fitness accessories were not mature, I remember me buying a digital pedometer from Best Buy. The device was of the size of a small egg. Bulky and uncomfortable size.

With advancement in technology, smarter and connected gadgets have taken over for fitness tracking.

Most, if not All fitness trackers are Yoga compatible. Thus provisioning Yoga to be practiced for mainstream fitness.

Where will it go?

Newer Yoga schools are bringing variations to the existing Yoga and introducing newer Yoga practices.

Yoga has now embarked a journey of acceptance and is susceptible to changes.

I assume newer Yoga methods will take shape in future.

Next market in Yoga will be when Yoga for muscle toning is innovated. I am sure, I am not dreaming, but will soon be a reality unless a better exercise practise gets introduced.

Wishing everyone a happy Yoga session..

All the statistics mentioned in this blog are true and supported by publically published documentation.

Love to Hate

I am deeply pained by the protest made by students in JNU.  It is one classic example of mis use of freedom of speech.
I am sure many of us hate them too. 

I started checking details on social media and other media channels, my rage against the JNU protestors increased multifold. Studying at the level of my rage against this, I noticed the more time I spent on social media, rage increased.

I started my research on why this hatred behavior started. I noticed that this hardness is fueled by the social media and media channels.

I think netizens (citizens on internet) of India need some reason to feel connected to some issue which hyped heavily. Netizens want to contribute to big topics. An easier way to do that is by sharing, commenting, tweeting the hate topics.

If I look back in the past, we netizens have hated so many.
We hated JNU students for anti national protest, we hated Kejrival for a brilliant idea to cut traffic pollution. 

We also hated Aamir Khan and demonstrated that we are intolerant to any celebrity who wants to move out of India. We worship Madhuri Dixit as an actress, while we forget that she had moved out of India in search of greener pastures. Aamir Khan expressed his fear that he is not safe, but Madhuri actually moved out. Let's not forget that Maharashtra govt has chosen Madhuri Dixit as a brand ambassador for Maharashtra tourism and industrialisation campaign.

Earlier we hated the dumb son of Laloo Yadav, also hated those who returned awards before Bihar elections. We liked hating the Dadri and related incidents.
Oops, I missed hatredenedness for Malda.

If I introspect what was the productive output of this hate, I see nothing. Mass hating leaves nothing but intolerance. I am yet to find out any individual or organisation which did something positive when this hate was being spewed out.

There is so much of graphic material created overnight on the topics of hate. Who funds those? Why do they fund it? Few people whom I met say it is Congress which spreads hate to curb BJP.
Few others say it is BJP which spreads hate to keep its vote bank intact.
I am here not to present my view is it is BJP or Congress. As a smart voter, I will express my views, by clicking the palm or lotus during elections.

Cell phone companies are gaining as more haters become netizens. Mobile carriers are gaining as we hate using the data plan. Every time we hate on social media, they know where we are by cellphone GPS. Many advertising companies are gaining.
Facebook, tweeter, WhatsApp are able to contain traffic in their network because of hate.

I would like to end with a vachana(kannada literature)
ಮನೆಒಳಗಿನ ಕಿಚ್ಚು ಮನೆಯ ಸುಟ್ಟಲ್ಲದೆ, ನೆರೆಮನೆಯ ಸುಡದು.

It means the fire within the house, burns your house and not the neighbors.
I hope we are not burning our own house in this love to hatredenedness.