Enhancing Bhārat's Positivity, And The World's: A Strategic Plan

Prelude

Writing this post brought back fond memories of my professional career as a Senior Consultant with the Abu Dhabi Systems & Information Centre (ADSIC), now defunct and probably functioning under the new name Abu Dhabi Digital Authority. 

It was during those six years (2008-2014) that I had the opportunity to get acquainted with the Strategic Plans of several Abu Dhabi Government Departments and also create a couple of Strategic Plans for whole-of-Government initiatives such as Abu Dhabi Spatial Data Infrastructure (AD-SDI) Program and Abu Dhabi No Objection Certificate (NOC) Program. The work on Geospatial Data Contend Standards made me familiar with the works of International Standards bodies OGC and ISO. 

Reminiscing on the good old days in UAE, I would like to recall with gratitude my associations with colleagues at GISTEC, ADSIC and the GPC Group. 

Image Credit: UN HR Portal

Edits since publishing on 01-08-2022
09-08-2022: Added video Time for India to Reclaim its Rich Heritage in Strategy 5

10-08-2022: Added article Emotional Clothing responds to bodily stress in Digital Strategy 3

Executive Summary

This is a vision of what a new Bhārat will look like in the next decade. This proposal for a societal transformation is coming at a time when the nation and the world needs positivity and innovative solutions that’s never been attempted before for causing a dramatic change in a society. Another reason, why this is the right time to launch this transformational strategic plan is that only our current Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, who is a global visionary of great stature and demonstrable ability, can lead this movement from the front and make it a phenomenally successful endeavor.

The objective of this Strategic Plan is to lay the ground work for enhancing hopefulness and confidence in the future of our country and thereby help the government realize its long-term plans of sustained growth and development. It makes the country take a look at what's going on today, establishes the foundational elements to build prosperity for present generation and for future generations, and guides the country towards realizing its growth plans. This consists of planning the future with imagination and wisdom by creating specific government strategies, implementing them, and evaluating the results of executing the plan. 

The top five benefits of this strategic plan are:

1. It enables the government to be proactive rather than reactive.
2. It sets up a sense of direction and optimism for all the main players. 
3. It enhances the efficiency and effectiveness of the government .
4. It makes the business of governance more humane and durable.
5. It increases government's reach to the citizens.

The strengths of this formal strategic plan are that:

• It brings key players in the government on one platform. 
• It provides a goal and everyone works to achieve that goal. 
• It creates focus in the efforts towards specific short-term and long-term goals. 
• It acts as a stimulus for educated and intelligent people to work for the government.
• It lays out a digital strategy to help implement the strategic plan.  

Planning Context

Presently, different political ideologies, religious beliefs, and other social issues are causing disruptions in the society and deep polarization in the country. A large section of the people, irrespective of their religions, is experiencing hopelessness, worry, grief, and anger. Indecent and abusive languages and behaviors have become common in public spaces and even within the respected halls of the parliament house. A polarized society is a persistent and dangerous problem in India today.   

There are heated conversation on the rise of majoritarianism, dwindling checks and balances, and increasing curbs on dissent at the national level. India’s democratic credentials are being downgraded by several pro-democracy groups and human rights organizations. Presently there are violent religious extremists and their supporters inspiring, radicalizing, financing, and recruiting individuals or groups in India to commit acts of violence. 

This Strategic Plan responds to the dangers posed by the current dynamics of the polarized society. This Plan is based on the assumption that creativity, perseverance, and hope are abundant in our country and the world of increasing uncertainty, complexity, and insecurity.

Walking A Path Of  Positivity

Positivity elevates us to see new opportunities and possibilities. It opens our minds to a wider range of options and actions. Positivity broadens people’s attention and thinking enabling them to use a wider range of ideas and behaviors. An attitude of positivity can be cultivated through practice. Positivity is the practice or tendency to be positive or optimistic in life. When we are positive, we engage in positive thinking, have positive emotions, and engage in positive behaviors like kindness and generosity.

Positivity is maintaining our calmness, composure, hopefulness, enthusiasm, energy, and love for life. When we have positive perspectives, we perceive things differently and that enables us to feel more positive. 

Vision, Mission, Overview

Vision 

A Bhārat brimming with positivity, peace, and joy and helping the whole world attain happiness: Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu (May the whole world become happy). A country is but the product of its collective thoughts - what it thinks, it becomes.

Mission

To transform Bhārat within and across the world, to make peoples' lives better by enhancing  positivity for social change to reach the status of 'Vasudhaiva kutumbakam' (the world is one family). This will prepare the country to collaborate and engage among people with diverse perspectives in order to make more informed decisions, develop more robust strategies, and solve complex challenges.

Strategies

Strategy 1: Enhance optimism within the country and across the world.

Strategy 2: Promote spirituality within the country and across the world.

Strategy 3: Transform the political landscape of the country and the world.

Strategy 4: Establish a 'Ministry of Wellbeing' to ensure the happiness of citizens.

Strategy 5: Restore the culture of Bhārat and the legendary name of the nation.

Digital Strategy 1: Develop a 10-point Likert scale to compute Positivity Index of information.

Digital Strategy 2: Assign Positivity Index and Geographic Coordinate to Search results.

Digital Strategy 3: Develop sensors and devices that display emotions of speakers.

Digital Strategy 4: Create a model for computing Gross National Happiness (GNH) index.

We need a new vision of reality, one that allows the forces transforming our nation and the world to flow together as a positive movement for social change. 

Strategic Design

Positivity and optimism make all the difference. The power of positive words is positive results. John F. Kennedy utilized the power of positive words, when he delivered a stirring speech to Congress in 1961 proposing the Moon Landing goal:

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.” 

He spoke these words after four years of the Soviets beating the US to space with an unmanned capsule, then a monkey, followed by a Cosmonaut. Look at JFK’s choice of positive words (all marked in bold) in that one sentence! Later Kennedy reaffirmed his commitment with these words:

“We choose to go to Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.”

Words generate power. Their meaning crystallizes perceptions that shape our beliefs, drive our behavior, and ultimately create the results. Their power arises from our emotional responses when we read, speak, or hear them. In just 8 years of setting the goal, American astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969 fulfilling the goal! 

Strategic Objectives

This section outlines the five transformational strategic objectives that are broad actionable plans to achieve major, comprehensive, and long-term objectives of peace and harmony to nurture sustainable growth and development of the country. 

Strategy 1: Enhance optimism within the country and across the world.
 

Imagine what we can achieve when a majority of our leaders speak and act with positivity and optimism. The leaders shall ensure that their choice of words will be based on the balance of past experiences and future ramifications.

The positivity of Bharath can be enhanced at the government level, at the party level, and at the society level with a three-pronged approach to be initiated by the Government, the Political Parties, and the Volunteer organizations of the Parties. This goal can be achieved by ensuring that:

1. All Ministers of the Government, their spokesmen, and senior government officials shall converse only using positive words. They shall make conscious efforts to stop any negative words or deeds to come out of them in the public space and while interacting with the public and the media. Leaders who use positivity are admired, respected, and remembered. 
   
   
2. All Political Parties (including their Youth Wings) shall train the party workers to speak positively, uttering only positive words and doing only positive deeds. People will always remember a leader for being a positive person and they'll express their gratitude for showing them respect.  
   
   
3. Volunteer organizations of Political Parties like the Sangh Parivar shall work towards actively promoting all major religions of the country, and not just Hinduism, in the true spirit of plurality and inclusivity of Bharat's ancient traditions and practices. The country will benefit a great deal if its people live positively and righteously.

Achieving these targets are easier said than done. This is a social transformation program of such a massive scale that has never been attempted before. It calls for gigantic efforts by world's leading technology companies to rise up to the occasion and develop advanced tools and devices to be made available for this purpose as explained in the section Digital Strategy.  

Strategy 2: Promote spirituality within the country and across the world.

Spirituality contribute to happiness by encouraging optimism and the pursuit of a joyful life, by reassuring an order to things, and helping people to identify their values and appreciate the same values in others. The main objective of this strategy is to attain peace and harmony among the multi-religious communities of the country. However, we have to realize that there is only one religion, the religion of love. 

We need to help the nation and the world transcend the boundaries of religions and target spirituality as a desired goal for mankind's peace and happiness. Realizing the role of spiritualty for individual and societal transformation will allow us to present religion to the future generation, not as a dogmatic doctrine, but as a way of life. 

Seeing unity in diversity is true spirituality. Only when we realize the unity of all creation, get over the feeling of multiplicity and diversity, can we really enjoy true divine bliss. Imbibing the spirit of unity makes us realize that whenever hatred develops between us and others, we are not separate from them.  

This emphasis on spiritualty, which is at the core of all religions, shall do away with the Hinduism vs Hindutva debates that are currently polarizing the society. The main challenge is to contain and eliminate the fundamentalist groups of all religions and eradicate the feeling of superiority of any religion from its followers. This is an evolutionary change of the society and the majority religion of the country has a leading role to play in the implementation of this strategy. 

It requires a major mindset shift in the collective consciousness of the country consisting of the the set of shared beliefs, ideas, and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within the society. For this to happen, we have to gradually move away from the concept of religion towards spirituality.  Spirituality differs from religion in several ways. It unites people and not divide them. It feeds on trust and not on doubts. It encourages questions and not blind obedience. It offers inner peace and not threat or fear.  

India should lead the world in ensuring that the two major religions that have made terrorism synonymous with Islam and religious conversion synonymous with Christianity should get rid of the stigma and the negative connotations associated with them.

The most urgent task today is to tackle the extremely radicalized religion of the world and rescue its followers in the country from the religious fundamentalists. India is a fertile ground to try out this ambitious endeavor, which is explained in details in this separate article Onus On Hindus to Rescue Muslim Brethren! 

 

Strategy 3: Transform the political landscape of the country and the world.

Our political landscape is determined by aspects associated with political leaders, parties, organizations, movements, campaigns, and grassroots activities. The objective of this strategy is to transform and revolutionize the nature and functions of politics and politicians of the country and set an example to the world.

The social thought, behavior, and image of the politicians need to be completely revamped. Politics should be changed to a profession requiring minimum educational qualifications and professional training. It should be transformed into an arena where the country's intelligent youths and brightest minds can enter with enthusiasm and zeal. A few years of professional training in public administration and civil services or short-term service in the armed forces should constitute the required minimum practical experience for entry into a political career. Institutions in the lines of the National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie should be set up for this purpose in all states. Experienced people who have proved their credentials in other professions and fields should be allowed lateral entry into this political service. 

The role of the existing opposition parties also needs a fundamental change. Today opposition parties and opposition party ruled states have become synonymous with all negative aspects of the society such as corruption, nepotism, political violence and murders, hartals, nefarious anti-national activities, using police and bureaucracy to repress the citizens.

The first step to remedy this situation is to make them active supporting participants in the governance of the nation, rather than blindly and destructively opposing all the initiatives of the government, as they are currently doing. In order to achieve this mindset change, the opposition parties should henceforth be referred to as complementing parties. 

These parties shall still continue to function, befitting an ideal opposition, by criticizing wrong policies, voicing alternative views, scrutinizing the government's expenditure, and safeguarding liberty & right of the citizens. In short, they shall provide guidance to the ruling party and complement the works of the government to serve the public better.

The success of our democracy depends to a great extend on the constructive role of the opposition parties. There should be complete synergy between the ruling and opposition parties so that their effect in the governance will be greater than the sum of their separate effects. There should be symbiotic relationships among the parties that are mutually beneficial to all partners. 

In conjunction with other strategies, we can stand the concept of politics on its head and set an example to the world on how we can transform the political landscape with positivity and optimism. 

 

Strategy 4: Establish a 'Ministry of Wellbeing' to ensure the happiness of citizens. 

With positivity we can make people happier. However, happiness is not a goal in itself but is a necessity to help people reach their full potential. The main function of the new Ministry is to oversee the successful implementation of this Strategic Plan during the execution, performance monitoring, and evaluation phases of the program, thus ensuring that the citizens are happy, comfortable, and in good spiritual health, adhering to the vision and mission of the strategy.

This Ministry shall play a key role in representing the potentials of positivity across the government. As this is an ongoing program of several years' duration, the Ministry of Wellbeing shall continuously coordinate with all other Ministries of the Government to harmonize their activities (programs and projects) and ensure that they are in complete alignment with the positivity strategy of the government. Note that the similar sounding 'Ministry of Health and Family Welfare' will continue to function in its existing role without any change.

In 2011, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution "Happiness: towards a holistic approach to development" urging member nations to measure happiness and well-being and calling happiness a "fundamental human goal." The Gross National Happiness (GNH) index is used to measure the collective happiness and well-being of a population. 

The concept behind GNH is that sustainable development should take a holistic approach towards notions of progress and give equal importance to non-economic aspects of wellbeing. Valuing collective happiness should be the goal of governance, by emphasizing harmony with nature and traditional values. Presently, the nine domains of GNH are psychological well-being, health, time use, education, cultural diversity and resilience, good governance, community vitality, ecological diversity and resilience, and living standards.

A long term goal of the Ministry of Wellbeing is to take the lead in coming up with an appropriate model for computing the Gross National Happiness (GNH) index by ensuring that the model is designed for secular governments and does not include any religious behavior measurement components.

Strategy 5: Restore the culture of Bhārat and the legendary name of the nation.

The preservation and development of our cultural heritage should be an ongoing process as not much concerted efforts have been attempted at restoring the destroyed physical heritages consisting of ancient monuments, antiquities, historic archaeological sites, museums, galleries etc. There are several intangible cultural heritages in the form of languages, dialects, paintings, writings songs, music, dance, theatre, folk traditions, performing arts, rites and rituals, etc. that need to be nurtured and preserved. 

Time for India to Reclaim its Rich Heritage

The humongous diversity of Bhārat's rich cultural heritage is evident to the whole world in the form of one of the world's largest collections of tangible and intangible objects that we inherited from the past generations. The existing Ministry of Culture, Government of India can provide the lead in executing this strategy of restoring the culture of Bhārat.  

Another important element of this strategy is the restoration of the legendary and celebrated name Bhārat to our nation. The name Bhārat in Sanskrit means “One who is engaged in search of knowledge” and symbolizes the historical and cultural traditions of our country.

The name India is devoid of any meaning as it is an anglicized form of the name Indus, which is a corrupted version of the Sanskrit name Sindhu, the name of the trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. 

The first Article of the Constitution of India in Part I titled The Union and its Territory states:

ARTICLE 1 : NAME AND TERRITORY OF THE UNION

(1) India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.  

That is, the visionary framers of the constitution of the nation has retained with foresight both the names India and Bhārat in our constitution that came into force on 26th January 1950. It is time to duly acknowledge their wisdom and rationale by implementing this singular name change probably on its 73rd anniversary in 2023.

This will be an opportune time to also revise the call sign prefix ‘VT’, the nationality code that all aircrafts registered in India is required to carry. The present call sign on Indian aircrafts is a legacy of the British Raj as it stands for ‘Victorian Territory’ or ‘Viceroy Territory’.

The Digital Strategy

The successful implementation of this positivity strategy of such revolutionary nature and worldwide scope demands pushing the frontiers of technology and knowledge. It requires equally mind-blogging products and procedures to be developed based on cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence /Machine Learning technologies, with the active collaboration of the leading tech companies in the world such as Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon. 

We need new methodologies to quantify and measure the positivity quality of information content as well as new technologies to measure human emotions such as happiness, anger, stress, and fear. Some of the new digital tools, techniques, and models that need to be made available for this program are listed below including the names of the partners in the new ventures, wherever applicable. 

Digital Strategy 1: Develop a 10-point Likert scale to compute Positivity Index of information.

Devising this scale to measure and assign a number indicating a score to the quality of positivity property of information content is the real challenge as it has never been attempted by mankind before. 

Positivity quality of information is a vague concept, which makes it hard to measure directly. But we can unpack positivity quality into attributes that can be directly measured. This is a measure similar to Data quality, Product quality, Process quality, Service quality, Software quality, etc. There are so many attributes that can be considered for gauging the positivity quality of information. For example, the attributes may include clarity (simple and understandable language), relevance, trustworthiness, dependability, creativeness, relatability (resonate with the reader), conciseness (not longwinded), efficaciousness (successful in producing a desired or intended result; effective), originality, comprehensiveness, and authenticity of information. 

This calls for developing a standard Positivity Index by considering various metrics. Google together with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) should come up with an international standard that defines a uniform and consistent 10-point scale for evaluating and computing the positivity index of written text. 

Digital Strategy 2: Assign Positivity Index and Geographic Coordinate to Search results.

Instead of providing just access to information, the Search Engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc.) should enhance the Search function to the next dimension by interpreting information while analyzing the words, phrases, and sentences of existing digital contents and allocating a Positivity score to the information content. Additionally, the Search function should also assign a Geographic Coordinate to the information indicating the location on Earth of its source. 

The Government of India should work with Google to develop a 10-point scale so that any written text (articles, journals, newspapers, periodicals, and magazines in all kind of forms, be it print-media or electronic) can be evaluated for the quality of positivity and assigned a score, with higher score indicating higher positivity rating.

The Geographic Coordinate assigned to the search results can be used to physically locate the source of the information. This could be used to measure, for example,  which town, district, state, or country has the highest Positivity rating, based on Google's enhanced Search tool. Also, several locations based analytics can be carried out on the Search results.

 

Digital Strategy 3: Develop sensors and devices that display emotions of speakers.

While Positivity Index will take care of the information contained in written and spoken words such as articles, books, and audio / video materials, it won't be practical to do a similar analysis of real-time speeches and assign a Positivity index to it.

This calls for a completely different approach for ranking Positivity on a real-time basis for talks (speeches, discourses, orations, sermons) of politicians, government functionaries, TV channel anchors & participants who frequently influence public opinion through the media. While it is easier for the authors of written speeches to take care of positivity, it will be a real challenge for the unrehearsed and impromptu speakers to do the same. Accomplishing this task calls for a completely different approach and new technology.

By monitoring subtle changes in wireless signals reflected off people's bodies, today a device can measure (without the help of on-body sensors), breathing and heart beats to determine if a person is excited, happy, angry or sad. These moods reflect one's personality, talent, thought process, background, emotionality, and impressibility.

Anger is one of the important emotions that can negatively affect a politician engaged in discussions in parliament, a government functionary answering questions of media persons, or a debate participant in TV programs / stage shows. Other observable behavioral components of emotion include happiness, brightness, enthusiasm, cheer, elation, exhilaration, optimism, buoyancy, hopefulness, confidence, comfort, freedom, security, confidence, peace of mind, and satisfaction.

Emotional Clothing responds to bodily stress 

The technology could measure speakers' reactions in real-time and, through a wearable device that changes color from red (anger) to blue (calm), provide feedback to control negative emotions, like anger, fear, stress, and thus improve the performance. It can also test debate participants' reactions in real-time and let viewers know, by appropriate color variations on a headband or neckband, how he is actually performing.

This type of appropriate wearable devices for use by speakers will be of immense use for the politicians and others who interact with the public, to control their negative emotions and enhance their creativity, critical thinking skills, interpersonal skills, leadership abilities,  and ability to engage with the audience positively.

The genesis of this idea germinated after listening to a speech by PM Narendra Modi as explained in this post Technology to Choose Debate Winner!

Digital Strategy 4: Create a model for computing Gross National Happiness (GNH) index.

Many cities and governments across the world have undertaken efforts to measure happiness and well-being of the population. Bhutan is the country that has held the ideal of GNH since 1972. It has computed the first quantitative GNH Index in 2008.

The GNH index is constructed of 72 indicators representing 9 dimensions. To realize GNH, each person should have achieved sufficiency in each of the 9 dimensions and 72 indicators. Presently, the nine dimensions of GNH are psychological well-being, health, time use, education, cultural diversity and resilience, good governance, community vitality, ecological diversity and resilience, and living standards.

India has to work with other global standards bodies to come up with an appropriate model for computing the Gross National Happiness (GNH) index. It should standardize this index for universal applicability, ensuring that the model is designed for secular governments and does not include any religious behavior measurement components.

Conclusion

Today, it is of paramount importance for Bharat to exert a major influence on world affairs on the global stage. We are living in a globally interconnected world and the fate of each country is closely tied to the rest of the world. What each country does, impacts others.  Promoting positivity in the world builds a camaraderie of peaceful, intelligent brains working harmoniously together for a better tomorrow.

Respect for human rights and concern for fellow beings must become the central thread that stitch together our shared world and the interconnected future. We need to reimagine the future of our  country, as well as the future of humanity, and take urgent action to realize them. New paradigms cannot be forged only with predictable methodologies.