words per minute
32
VijaySinghChauhan
00:00
Speed
Daaru and desi weddings have a rummy relationship. It often begins with a heated discussion about whether to have an alcoholic wedding or non-alcoholic. Then, even when the sobersides score the official victory, they can be sabotaged by unofficial car-o-bar action. When all goes well everyone is nicely buzzed, dancing and laughing a lot, but there is always the risk that someone will get embarrassingly drunk. If that someone happens to be the groom, woe betide the wretch.
Brides’ patience runs low these days. There are cases of grooms being rejected upon the discovery that there is no toilet in their house. One blundering fellow was dumped at the altar by his bride-to-be after he said 17 when she asked him to solve 15 + 6. A bride from Begusarai reportedly rejected her groom when his wedding procession arrived at her doorstep sans a DJ. On the other hand, in Shahjahanpur a groom has gotten into trouble for paying a little too much attention to the DJ, doing a cringe-worthy nagin dance that had the bride concluding he was a drunkard, better ditched than hitched.
It’s true that the nagin dance has come a long way from its Reena Roy and Sridevi avatars, having now become something of a male bonding ritual. But dear groom, as enjoyable as that hooded cobra pose is, that slithering on the floor or those hissing sounds, maybe you had better get it out of your system at the bachelor party itself. Just last month the WannaCry infection hobbled hundreds of thousands of computers across 150 plus countries and this week another global cyberattack has wreaked havoc. Some security experts warn that this time the ransomware virus is actually a wiper in disguise, aiming at erasing data rather than extort. Either way the vulnerability of both businesses and critical national infrastructure has once again been worryingly exposed. India may be the worst affected by Petya/NotPetya in Asia, with both Mumbai’s Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust and Gujarat’s Pipavav Port being hit.
There’s no doubt that we are living in an era of new vulnerabilities. Terrorism has spread online. Hacking of elections now looks like a realisable possibility rather than just an outlandish conspiracy theory. And as the internet of things become all-embracing (hooking up all automobiles, medical devices, TVs, manufacturing operations, power plants, etc) the task of outpacing ransomware, hacks and other cybercrime will only grow more demanding.
One name for this transition is the fourth industrial revolution. The first industrial revolution dramatically improved conditions of both work and leisure but not without big costs – the toll of global warming for example is still rising. Likewise today’s transition carries dangers. Perfect security is unattainable. But the right combination of national policies and international protocols, individual and corporate safeguards can minimise risks. Government of India needs to get much more serious about cyber defence and so does India Inc. Poorly maintained IT infrastructure will expose it to attack. It is also important to underscore that the WannaCry attack was defeated by a British researcher’s kill switch. Individual heroes – interestingly including ethical hackers or bug hunters – continue to play a big role even in the new digital story.