Playing with Democracy

Yesterday around 11:30 PM IST, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook faced EU parliamentary committee for 1:15 hr. The committee was interested in how Facebook was used in shaping the opinion of the general public and what steps it has taken against it. CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg explained how Russians used Facebook to spread propaganda during American presidential election of 2016. As democracies, the leaders of European Union were interested in safeguarding the public from unwanted influence from non-political players to suit their own interests.

While India this week rocked by a scandal much more sinister than that of Facebook. A representative of Vatican, Archbishop of Delhi, Anil Couto, in a letter, called for prayer and fasting, throughout India for purely political and social reasons.

Anil Couto not only failed to apologize but defended himself when confronted by media.

Church, especially roman catholic church has a bloody and long history in meddling the politics across Europe. The term secularism simply means “separation of the state and church”. This new word “Secularism” came into existence due to the active involvement of the church in the political affair of European nations. “Secularism” or separation of Church from politics is fundamental to any democracy. And Roman Catholic Church decided to target just that under the disguise of the social fabric of India.

The church was controlling the affairs of the British government for long. In 1534 Vatican threatens to delegitimize the marriage of King Henry VIII. He, in turn, refused to accept the authority of Vatican over British Churches. Britain achieved its freedom from Roman pope by establishing the Church of England.

French were so fed up with the church that after French Revolution of 1789 they literally went for “Dechristianization of France” They banned christian festivals, & calendar. They exiled 30,000 priests and killed hundreds. Because they had suffered from it for hundreds of years.

In the United States, the very first amendment to their constitution was regarding Secularism. The phrase "separation between church and state" was first coined by Founding Father of America and 3rd President Thomas Jefferson in 1-Jan-1802 in a letter wrote to  Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut.
Germany which is known for Jewish massacre also persecuted 2,720 clergymen from Roman Catholic Church during 1940.

Russia banned Christianity during Soviet Era. Even though China did not take such an extreme step it did, however, clamp down the authority of Vatican to appoint Bishops and Archbishops in China. Chinese church is independent of Vatican.

Roman Catholic religion is hated by democracies and dictatorship alike. After outcasted from every major power around the world,  the Vatican still refused to learn the lesson and trying to influence the politics in India in whatever manner possible.

So is it surprising that Archbishop of Delhi is suddenly worried for Indian Democracy? If you go through the examples I have quoted above you will observe that they were merely a reaction to activities carried out by Catholic Church in the name of religion.

In every country, church was grabbing political power wherever possible.

The church is doing this since it’s inspection. We need to look at this pattern from a broad perspective. “Kadi ninda” is not going to help. Vatican agents are roaming across India influencing political discourse to suit their agenda. We need to take action against this.

First, we should ban foreign pastors who are entering in India daily under the tourist visa. These foreigners do not understand social fabric of this country. They and their foreign religion are the real threat to our nation.

Second, we need to inform people about the birth of secularism. The word was literally invented for separating Church from political power. No equivalent to this exists in any other language of the world.

Finally, we need to be more vigilant about this. The letter wrote by archbishop wasn’t a secret internal memo. If this is what came to light, imagine what they have been planning in secret.

For those who are interested to know more can read “Breaking India” written by Rajiv Malhotra who has done extensive research and gone into much details showing how the foreigner forces are working.

Wild Wild Documentary

I am working on app video I promised earlier, but taking a break to address this issue. There is a web series released on Netflix, named as "Wild Wild Country". It is based on the events that took place at Rajaneeshpuram.

The "Unbiased" documentary that tries to gives us a peek into events that unfolded in the 1980s, leaves us with more unanswered questions.

As documentary describe it, it was United State's largest "bioterrorism” or “mass wiretapping” case.

The first criticism documentary put forth is Rajaneesh having Rolls Royce. Why Spiritual leader needs wealth? Well, it's so hypocritical, coming from conservative christains, whose religious leader wear clothes made out of pure gold, and owns 0.44 KM land in central Rome. Nevertheless, in a so-called free and democratic world it is nobody's business how many units of a certain commodity someone should possess.

After 3 episodes of racist nagging about Rajaneeshi purchasing property which was available for sale in the town, we get down to the real allegation in episode 4. It was claimed that Ma Anand Sheela aka Sheela Patel poised the "Homeless" people Rajaneeshi brought to win county election. Even though they did include 1 white guy as "Homeless" you get the message why suddenly a small village in US of A was so upset. People would say, no that was not the reason, I am imagining this and all. But if it was the largest "bioterrorism” case as the Documentary claims it to be, Why don't we hear often about it? Either because 'Black life doesn't matters' or the entire case was completely bogus from the beginning.

We get the glimpse of it in 5th episode when Rajaneesh's attorney even after showing the willingness to discuss surrender gets absolutely no response from the Police. So Osho decided to call their bluff. He filled his flight plan with FAA for traveling to Bermuda. US of A authorities caught him for, and I quote Osho International, "fleeing the non-existent arrest warrant". If you watch episode 5 again you will notice that there was no warrant against Osho when he took the flight. So the entire theory of fleeing does not hold when you add to the fact that surrender was denied not by Osho but by US of A's authorities.

Then Osho was moved for 12 days and 6 jails because that's how public transportation system works there, apparently. All this while Authorities were claiming, and they still claim that in the documentary that Osho was aware of all the things that were happening. But when Ma Anand Sheela refused to pass the blame on Osho, authorities got caught in a dilemma. They had high profile innocent in jail on which they could not even press charges.

So a deal was struck, into which Osho will plead guilty to charges and rather than being tried he will be allowed to leave the country. Isn't it strange that a man is pleading guilty of terrorism and biggest punishment America can give is ask him to pack his bags and leave? If you consider this, then you might feel Osama got the rotten deal.

Ma Anand Sheela who was convicted for 10 years or 120 months, was released only after serving 39 months. That is not even 35% of her sentence.

Ma Shanti B aka Jane Strok got her arrest warrant revoke where prosecution asked for "appropriate sentence" and Judge revoking it by saying "Sometimes Justice is stronger than mercy, but sometimes mercy overrules justice." Wow! american criminal justice system suddenly became so considerate.

I personally think this documentary is only going to increase Osho's popularity as people as people who haven't heard him or read him, will at least search him on the internet.

How to Safeguard Personal Data -1

After news broke out about Cambridge Analytica, people became curious about data gathering and data analysis.

People are now beginning to understand that if American companies like Facebook or Twitter are giving free service, then where they really earning money from. What Facebook is doing google has done a long time ago. Just that, Google used information for their own benefit to improve search results etc, while Facebook sold information to the third party.

Let me tell you that all these 3 companies Facebook, Twitter and Google are banned in China.

I am not software or online security expert. I will try to tell you what I have learned and understood. It might not be accurate, so proceed with caution.

First thing I want to tell you that Facebook, Twitter, and Google are American companies. WhatsApp used to be Brazilian company but Facebook bought that.  Also, you can add Instagram and Spanchat in that list. So you can imagine the amount of data these people have from all over the world.

Out of these three main giants, Google and Facebook are making the profit while Twitter is making the loss

Company	Profit/(Loss) in 2016
Google	$19,460Million
Facebook	$10.217 Million
Twitter	$456.87 Million LOSS

Facebook result Page 42

Google Result Page 49

Twitter result Page 42

Google is much diversified than the other two. Google makes smartphones, Android operating system, Gmail and what not. Google was scanning the libraries around the world. The documentary on this called "Google and the world brain", please do watch it.

Facebook is not that diversified and Twitter even less. So what these people do with your stolen data?

Data from one person does not make any difference. But data from all the persons make a lot of difference.

Last Sunday on 18^th March 2018 Raj Thakre held Padwa Melava at Mumbai. He talked about a lot of issues. One issue he talked about was Akshay Kumar being a Canadian citizen who’s films are being funded by BJP and government. People were not pleased on the criticism. One person named Prathamesh More also wrote an open letter to Raj Thakre which was published on Marathi News Channel.

I am not saying Data gathering has anything to do with it. But imagine, you are upset with Modi about some issue. Maybe you don’t like his foreign trips, maybe you want 15 lakhs in your account. Cambridge Analytica using data from Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp (Which is owned by Facebook) will tell Congress what exactly people are upset with. Congress will target only that issue and will win the election.

Remember even BJP can do that. Cambridge Analytica will work for the one who will pay the most.

Let me give you an example to try. Go to Google, and search “Learn Esperanto” Click on few links and scroll the pages. Now Go to Amazon and search “Learn Esperanto” search few items. Now when you go to Facebook you will see adds related to learning Esperanto. Search something you haven’t searched before. Search for Treadmill or Dog food.

This is how Data Gathering works.

How to avoid it?

First, change your browser. There is a browser called TOR. Let me tell you what TOR says about itself. “TOR prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location, and it lets you access sites which are blocked.”

Download TOR Here

You can use Incognito mode from Google Chrome, but there is no guarantee that Google itself is not storing your data. If you want a “Make in India” product try Epic Browser. Epic Browser says about itself “The world's only private and secure web browser blocks ads, trackers, fingerprinting, crypto mining, ultrasound signaling and more.”

Download Epic Here

I personally use Epic browser. I have been using it for long. And I find TOR browser is too much secure than my needs. While Epic is just right. I am not a wanted criminal hiding from Police. Hence Epic suits my needs than TOR. EPIC also has Free in-built VPN which comes handy for various purposes, Like commenting on Chinese Web-Sites.

But we use browsers and computers far less than we used to. Now a day’s our go-to device for consuming media is Mobile. And Mobile has apps. I will cover the Apps next time. Tell then, Chao!