Probing the Psyche of a Convict

If India has produced eminent lawyers, renowned artists and path-breaking scientists; it has also led to the breeding of infamous criminals.

From brutal assaults to murders, molestations to rape and petty thievery to a string of robberies, the country has witnessed it all. We convict them, torture them and sentence them to life imprisonment; or death in some cases. But, do we ever bother to reflect upon their lives, their upbringing, and their problems? Do we ever try to understand what goes into their minds? Do we ever try to probe the reason behind such an inhumane and relentless act? Do we ever try to resolve the situation at its ground level? Certainly not.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, a crime against a woman is committed every 3 minutes, a woman is raped every 29 minutes and a dowry death occurs every 77 minutes. Isn’t it shocking that in a country like India where a woman is worshipped as a goddess is abused?

Well, that’s not all. India continues to be a safe haven for drug traffickers, extremists, wildlife poachers, human traffickers and corrupt officials.

We might be on our way to becoming the next superpower but sadly, we are still lagging behind in terms of our legal system. More than three crore cases lie pending in courts across the country, 64,919 with the Supreme Court itself. The data available for the 24 High Courts and lower courts up to the year ending 2013 showed pendency of 44.5 lakhs and whopping 2.6 crores, respectively.

By looking at the crime records, one must be concerned as the state of affairs is going to get no better, but only worse.Therefore, we should try to get to the roots of this problem to be able to combat it.

In this assessment, firstly, we should analyse the childhood and parenting of the convict as it has a pivotal role to play in determining the nature of the crime and the mental make-up of the convict.

In families where children do not receive proper guidance and counselling, are not looked after well, have strained relationships with their parents are more likely to commit a crime compared to those families where parents share a healthy relationship with their child. Hence, it is important that a child receives good nurturing and parental care, so that he grows into a responsible being.

According to the 2012 research report on the survey of 1435 newly sentenced prisoners by the Ministry of Justice in UK, many prisoners had experienced abuse or violence at home, while others reported alcohol or drug abuse by parents.

Secondly, societal impacts unknowingly add to this problem. In some cases anger, discrimination, marginalisation, injustice or death of a family member triggers such outrageous responses.

A 23 year old former militant fighter told Mercy Corps researchers, “I did not join the Taliban because I was poor. I joined because I was angry.”

Do you know the reason behind such a move? US led surge to clear the area of militants destroyed his madrassa thereby fuelling his anger to the extent that he decided to join the banned terrorist outfit, Taliban.

Thirdly, poverty and unemployment come into the picture. It is seen by way of evidence that a high proportion of young people turn into terrorists because of a dearth of economic opportunities and poor living standards.

Terror outfits promise the insurgents with financial and social aid for their families- education, health and good salaries, thereby addressing their grievances. This acts as an incentive enough for the unemployed youth to spread terror across countries.

Hence, the government should act as a major deterrent of financial aid networks supporting terrorism. It should also aim at reducing unemployment by initiating vocational training programmes, expansion of entrepreneurship and education.

Lastly, the law and order system plays foul in promoting crimes. Uttar Pradesh tops the ranking of the worst Indian states list as it holds a dubious position in fostering crime.

"The accused think they can get away as the chief minister and the police head are of their caste. For the last 12 years, both BSP and SP have destroyed police systems in UP and run the state like their fiefdom,” said Prakash Singh, a former DGP of UP.

In my opinion, the law and order system should be revamped; police forces should become more vigilant and strict action should be taken in dealing with criminals. Also, court cases should be fast-tracked as ‘Justice delayed is justice denied.’ And, corrupt officials embroiled in scams should not be allowed to run the country.

Well, it is practically impossible to list all the reasons that arouse a criminal mind. But the ones mentioned above, are some of the major reasons.

Anyway, the bottom line is that as a country, our motive should be to eliminate poverty and unemployment; set up rehabilitation centres for the convicts and strengthen the judicial system.

Delving into the past lives of hard core criminals, have clearly exposed the fact that they were simple middle / poor class people going about their business in life. Suddenly in their otherwise mundane life, their self respect, dignity, source of income, happiness has been snatched away unceremoniously by insensitive govts, high caste people, or by the rich and the powerful.

With a weak and slow judicial system and an indifferent society, they are forced to take the law in their own hands and take to a criminal life.

Who is responsible for this? I guess we all are. Govts, NGOs, society, professionals and each one of us educated people.

Improvements will definitely come if we all become law abiding and law fearing citizens, elect the right candidates and be true patriots putting the interest of humanity first. And what better place is there, to cultivate this attitude than our homes and schools.

Akanksha Khandelwal

Porn Ban No Deterrent

The world is changing at a very fast rate today where adolescents are particularly fraught. Constant debates of whether to ban or not to ban pornography have brought the topic again in light- comfortableness of parents in discussing sexuality. No matter how open our thoughts are, sexuality is one such topic from which we all still shy away when it comes to having a healthy conversation. 

The younger generation shares a proclivity towards sexuality. Watching porn is a natural adolescent curiosity and ban is likely to increase their interest rather than deterring. However this does mean a salacious outlook towards society. Well according to me, those who are exposed to natural diet of sexuality, their chances of becoming a sensible towards sexuality are far brighter. Even if he/she is occasionally indulging in porn, it is fine and causes no signs of stress.

According to government reports and articles, porn websites show violence, discrimination, exploitation and altruism. This aspect can have a negative impact on the young minds because adolescent is a very sensitive age where you have selective perception and what you absorb then becomes reality of your life in your later stages. However, banning porn will not serve the purpose. Rather, the government should play an active role in widening the scale of sex education and making it compulsory for teenagers can probably fulfill the purpose.

Also, I believe parents have a very active role to play. Parents should become less squeamish with their children while discussing heavy topics like sexuality. If parents are apprehensive to talk about adult topics with children then there are chances that children start associating sex with sin or shame which can lead to sexual apprehensiveness later in life. It’s a fallacy that the earlier/more you talk about sex with children, more they will get interested in. Well interest/disinterest is a matter of choice. A clear demarcation needs to be done to differentiate between what they are watching and the real act of making love. That’s what we need to explain to the youth of the nation. Parents should keep a close eye on the websites that children are using and for what purpose. The personal computer should be placed in a public place at home where parents can keep an eye as to what kids are doing over net. Socially offensive or desolated websites should be blocked. Also, porn sites are not the only contender for showing expletives,  mobile phones are also in the same line. Whatsapp and other social messaging applications has made the sharing of photographs and videos simple that it has formulated into a trend. Parents should be punctilious as to what content they should keep with them and which one to delete. Be very careful when you phone is not with you and your child is using it. He/ she may, out of curiosity, indulge in something which is not appropriate.

To solve this problem, government should partner with NGO’s and organize campaigns, social awareness drives which can help in educating and proliferating the message. In rural regions, nukad natak can be organized. Well these are some suggestions that can surely make some difference and help in making India an improved society                

Sonalika thukral                                            

Artificial Gravity

If you've read my previous article “The ill-effects of space exposure,“ you'd probably know that most of the problems related to long-term space flight could be resolved by introducing ‘artificial gravity' into manned space-capsules. You might have at least heard about this term in movies, like ‘Guardians of the Galaxy', which made it look so unobtrusive. But, trust me, scientists have been, and still are clueless about how to create artificial gravity. In this article, I shall, to the best of my abilities, explain how it can possibly be created in manned space-vehicles that are completely bereft of any external gravitational influence. By ‘external gravitational influence’, I mean those gravitational forces due to nearby celestial bodies.

    The exploitation of centrifugal force present in rotatory motion to emulate the gravitational force experienced down here on Earth paves way for artificial-gravity environments aboard manned spacecraft. Both centrifugal and gravitational forces have an acceleration, and come under the same classification of forces, namely, pseudo forces. I wouldn’t want to describe what pseudo forces are here, so this is left to the reader to find out.

If the spacecraft did not have any crew, but only immobile parts attached rigidly to it, then its rotation would continue indefinitely, as long as there aren’t any external forces acting on it. But with all its crew present on board, and with various torques being developed by the movement of crew-members between different parts of the spacecraft, the rotation would be dampened a bit. So, occasionally, a shear force needs to act on it to keep up with and sustain an acceleration of 1g.

      If we managed to build an immensely powerful and arduous engine which, when fitted to a spacecraft, would be capable of producing a constant acceleration of 1g, then there’d be no need for a rotating spaceship which would cause substantial motion sicknesses amongst on-board crew members. I wouldn’t say anything about this more, and the only problem with such an engine is fuel.

But what I've really been longing to mention here is something about the ‘Graviton’. A Graviton is a hypothetical and abstract entity that has been supposed to give rise to and mediate the force of gravity experienced by all objects in the universe. This abstract particle is just a theoretical construct, and a consequence of the Quantum Field Theory, whose existence is completely unknown to us. But in the near future, its discovery would turn out to be one of the GREATEST achievements in the history of achievements. We could incorporate these particles into manned spaceships, and when flooded with gravitons, a gravitational force would be kindled inside this spaceship. But as of now, we are totally oblivious and clueless of its existence, and is a mere speculation and a first attempt to reconcile General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics.

Shreyash

The Law of Mind

All religions of the world represent forms of belief, and these beliefs are explained in many ways. The law of Mind is the Law of Life. And the Law of Life is the Law of Belief. What you believe about yourself, life and the universe is done unto you as you believe.

“Believe in the way your mind works, to believe in belief itself”

Belief is a thought in your mind that causes the power of your subconscious to be distributed into all phases of your life according to your thinking habits. You must realize that when the bible speaks of belief, it is not talking about your belief in some ritual, ceremony or a formula. It is talking about belief itself. The belief of your mind is simply the thought of your mind.

“If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”

                                                                                                                         -MARK 9:23

William James, the father of American psychology, said that the power to move the world is in your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is one with infinite intelligence and boundless wisdom. It is fed by hidden springs and is called the law of mind which is The Law of Life. Fill your mind with concepts of harmony, health and peace and you will see how wonders will happen in your life.

The reason there is so much chaos and misery in the world is that many people don’t understand the interaction between their two minds. When these two principles are in peace and synchronously together, you will have everything you need in your life.

As discussed above, the law of Mind is the law of Belief, belief can be summed up as a thought in your mind. A person thinks, feels and believes, so is the condition of his or her mind, body or circumstances. A technique, a methodology based on an understanding of what are you doing and why will help you to bring a concrete form of all the good things of life.

-Sahil Shaparia