Thinking out loud

Moving to Wordpress

2009-03-24T03:20:00.001-07:00

Dear Reader, thanks for visiting :)

I have now moved to a wordpress blog at http://www.parijatgarg.org/blog. If you are subscribed to my blog, please do continue to read by subscribing at http://parijatgarg.org/blog/feed/.

Thanks again!

Ban Varun Gandhi?

2009-03-21T20:19:00.000-07:00

A heated discussion is ongoing on CNN-IBN, on whether Varun Gandhi should be banned from contesting the elections because of communal statements during his campaign. All but one participant agree that he should. The one who doesn't agrees only on one condition - that all parties that contest on this very principle, The Hurriyat for instance, should be banned from contesting. I'd add that Mayawati, who contests on the upliftment of "lower castes" because they have been repressed should be banned.

It is almost amazing how these people can go on and on moralizing about how it is against our constitution to be communal, etc and yet there is widespread acceptance for caste-based reservations and caste-based vote-bank politics. Bloody hypocrites!!

Bullshit Elections

2009-03-14T01:28:00.001-07:00

A few months ago I met two distinguished BJP veterans on a train in Rajasthan. Their lament - people who ask penetrating questions don't even go and cast a vote.

My question to them is this: Where are your election promises? Why are you not on TV bombarding me with what you will do for the country? Why are you not thrashing your competitors? Why are you not talking about the policy mistakes of the current Government.

My question to the media is: Why do I only see reports of party tie-ups? Why aren't you grilling the participating parties about what they are going to do and how they're going to fix the country's problems?

For the presidential elections in the US last year, the campaigns and discussions started almost a year ahead of the actual vote. There were debates. There were interviews. There was so much buzz. The media was all over it. You could watch stuff on CSpan or on youtube. You could hear stuff on radio (in the US).

Yet, we're told the general election is the single most important event in a country and this is the coverage we have. With less than a month before the first votes are cast, there are no manifestos available.

On what basis are we to vote then?

Risk and Return

2009-03-11T03:33:00.001-07:00

In a recent paper by Nassim Taleb, and indeed many many more articles now, the claim is made that if the quants/risk-managers knew the pitfalls of their risk modeling methods, the catastrophic losses made today could have been avoided. Sure.

Here's the thing. Itis precisely because they disregarded the risks that they made all the money they made over the decade leading upto the catastrophe. So if they had actually factored in the risks, they'd have taken much more conservative bets and thus they'd have made much less money and therefore a smaller bad move could have wiped out what they have made. This argument could probably continue to be made until the average annual return generated by financial firms would be in direct proportion to their actual equity and real GDP growth in the economy. No?

Goodwill gestures and reciprocation

2009-03-09T02:45:00.001-07:00

News items on two successive days:

March 7, 2009: Pak releases 12 Taliban prisoners in Swat valley as a goodwill gesture.
March 8, 2009: Taliban kill 14 kidnapped Pakistani soldiers

So much for goodwill gestures.

2009-01-29T18:57:00.001-08:00

"and what would you do," the master said unto the multitude, "if God
spoke directly to your face and said, 'I COMMAND THAT YOU BE HAPPY IN
THE WORLD, AS LONG AS YOU LIVE.' What would you do then?

Going American

2009-01-20T06:58:00.001-08:00

I'm watching President Obama's inauguration online, instead of on TV. Broadband! I'm going American :P

My Own Homepage

2009-01-11T08:22:00.001-08:00

I now have my own domain and a small personal homepage too :)

The Satyam Double-Cross?

2009-01-08T08:47:00.001-08:00

A popular mid day newspaper today has floated an interesting theory on the Satyam scam - a double-cross if you will. It is simple, so elegant that a scientific mind would take immediately to it. Here's the essence: Satyam's missing money did not not come in; it was taken out after it did.

Now here's why I think that makes sense.

Consider this. Mr Raju started Satyam back in 1987. He started with 20 employees and grew it with his patience and relentless energy. At some point he went public to raise money. But like all enterpreuners, he still feels the company is his baby. He should be deriving all the benefits from it - his small 8% stake not withstanding. In such a scenario, is he more likely to pump in money of his own, without accounting for it just to keep a hold on it? At a peak price of Rs. 542, his share would be about 3k crores. Would he rather pump in money against his own name, or try to take out a share?

Again, he says that very few people were aware of the fraud. Now, if he was infact raising false invoices, etc it would be extremely hard to do. 600 crores of excess revenue would mean that he would have to create several fictitious projects/clients. New projects are probably always discussed with lots of meetings to decide on pricing, etc. If these projects were fictitious, a lot of people would have to be involved. Similarly, if their operating margins were only 3%, what were the marketing folks doing? Did they not know what the operating costs were? Were they negotiating conrtacts with such small mark-ups? If there was 5k crore of fictitious money coming into the country, wouldn't the RBI know? After all, all this money would be earned in USD/EUR etc.

On the other hand, consider the theory that he was siphoning of money. All you have to do is to issue cheques from the various bank accounts while taking your CFO into confidence so he would not make entries in the books. Nobody else would need to be taken into confidence, except perhaps one other person, to sign off on the cheques. The money could then be used to speculate in the stock market, real estate or to fund bribes for winning Government contracts. The hope would be that the returns on this speculation would be retained by Raju while the original money would be returned to the accounts and the books would never reflect this. Now, given that the market has tanked over the last 10-11 months, how hard is it that Mr Raju lost a lot of money on those bets. With no money to return, Mr Raju has no other option left. He writes out a letter trying to look like a victim of child-love rather than egregious greed.

What do you think?

P.S. - Why does Infosys have 5k crores in fixed deposits? That's half their net worth.

Update: Raju confesses that he diverted company funds to buy real estate.

Oh the irony...

2009-01-06T22:59:00.000-08:00

September 22, 2008: Satyam wins the Golden Peacock Global Award for Excellence in Corporate Governance for 2008 from the World Council for Corporate Governance (Source)

January 7, 2009: Satyam chairman Ramalinga Raju resigns citing inflated profits, cash balances and understated liabilities. (Source)

I am amused no end! :)

Phone blogging

2008-12-29T04:48:00.001-08:00

This to test if I can blog from my phone.

Today was the first time ever that i was so late for an appointment
that it had to called off. I have never been more embarrassed in my
life.

Blame it on Mumbai traffic though. And on the fact that people don't
account for the fact that it can take countless hours to get from an
area in Mumbai to its corresponding local train station. And on the
fact that some times the bridges at the stations are out and you have
to walk for miles to find another one.

This city is crazy!

Of Fair Trial and Conscience

2008-12-23T20:28:00.001-08:00

There has been an outcry on the blogosphere recently about the issue of "Fair Trial" for Kasab, etc and how it was wrong of the Shiv Sena to threaten lawyers against taking up Kasab's case in court. (I am against that too, but the point I want to make is a little different and will come up shortly). On the other hand, a lot of arguments are floating around saying that lawyers shouldn't take up his case because he is a terrorist and has mocked the constitution and therefore no constitutional protection should be afforded to him. A reasonably fair sentiment but obviously wrong on technical counts.

People have dug up Ramjethmalani's interview with IBNLive where he shouts down the poor interviewer who is asking him if he is "defending the indefensible". Rightly so. His argument is that it is not for the press or the media to decide who is or is not "indefensible". It is for the courts to decide. He goes on to add that it would be a sad day for our country when a lawyer refuses to represent someone just because of public opinion. Fair enough. And so far I am with him. But here's the question I would ask (and sadly the interviewer never got around to asking; and since Mr Jethmalani is an able lawyer, he does not even attempt to answer it). Mr Jethmalani cites the Code of Conduct laid down by the Bar Council which (apparently) states that no lawyer must refuse to take up a case because of public opinion (It is another matter that there is no way to assess why a lawyer refused to take up a case). However, does the Code of Conduct not state that a lawyer should not take up a case unless he is convinced about the matter himself. The media or the press may not have the right to decide whether someone is guilty or not. However, a lawyer has to atleast be convinced one way or the other. His opinion may change as the trial progresses. However, when he takes up the case, should he not be reasonably convinced of his case? Unless he is, can he even assure his client a "fair trial"? So the question that should have been asked is this - "Mr. Jethmalani, are you reasonably convinced that Mr Manu Sharma is innocent."

In the current scenario, the question to be asked of any lawyer taking up Kasab's case is - are you convinced of Kasab's innocence?

The Apple Cart again...

2008-12-19T08:25:00.001-08:00

Here's why I love the preface. I quote:

"An election at present, considered as a means of selecting the best qualified rulers, is so absurd that if the last dozen parliaments had consisted of the candidates who were at the foot of the poll instead of those who were at the head of it there is no reason to suppose that we should have been a step more or less advanced than we are today. In neither case would the electorate have had any real choice of
representatives. If it had, we might have had to struggle with parliaments of Titus Oateses and Lord George Gordons dominating a few generals and artists, with Cabinets made up of the sort of orator who is said to carry away his hearers by his eloquence because, having first ascertained by a few cautious feelers what they are ready to applaud, he gives it to them a dozen times over in an overwhelming crescendo, and is in effect carried away by them. As it is, the voters have no real choice of candidates: they have to take what they can get and make the best of it according to their lights, which is often the worst of it by the light of heaven. By chance rather than by judgment they find themselves represented in parliament by a fortunate proportion of reasonably honest and public spirited persons who happen to be also successful public speakers. The rest are in parliament because they can afford it and have a fancy for it or an interest in it.

...

You will notice that I am too polite to call Demos a windbag or a hot air merchant; but I am going to ask you to begin our study of Democracy by considering it first as a big balloon, filled with gas or hot air, and sent up so that you shall be kept looking up at the sky whilst other people are picking your pockets. When the balloon comes down to earth every five years or so you are invited to get into the basket if you can throw out one of the people who are sitting tightly in it; but as you can afford neither the time nor the money, and there are forty millions of you and hardly room for six hundred in the basket, the balloon goes up again with much the same lot in it and leaves you where you were before. I think you will admit that the balloon as an image of Democracy corresponds to the parliamentary facts."

There is more where this came from. I love the preface. Read it! Project Gutenberg of Australia has been gracious enough to make a copy available here.

The Apple Cart

2008-12-19T08:11:00.001-08:00

For years have I searched for this book. I had a frayed old copy which I had read. Several pages were missing from the preface. Yet, I am a tremendous fan of Shaw's work. The Apple Cart is, a political comedy. More importantly, it is a satire on democracy vs. monarchy. Or rather, as Shaw says himself, of both vs. plutocracy.

The play is great. The preface is better. A must read for!

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300431h.html

OPEC oil cuts

2008-12-17T17:58:00.001-08:00

The OPEC cut oil production by a record 2.2 million bpd yesterday, in order to stop the fall in crude oil prices. The United States has condemned this move by the OPEC saying that "OPEC has an obligation to keep the market well supplied and to consider the health of the global economy, so efforts to limit the benefits of lower energy prices are short-sighted".

Yeah right! OPEC has the responsibility to let the world see the benefits of lower energy prices. And how about the US' responsibility of making all sorts of technology cheaply available to the rest of the world, for the improvement of living standards in general? How about cheaper Intel processors and Microsoft software? How about cheaper medication for critical diseases?

I don't think the US is under any obligation to give out freebies - but then neither are the OPEC countries.

Would you buy terrorist insurance?

2008-12-17T02:03:00.001-08:00

Insurance companies in India have recently begun offering "terrorist insurance". They're offering a cover of 5 lacs for a premium of Rs. 100 if you were to die in a terrorist attack in the next year. That's 1 in 5000 odds that you will die in a terrorist attack.

The Times of India (17th December 2008) reports that even in 2008, on average 2 people have died per day in terror related incidents.

On the other hand, The Hindu reported in 2007 that there are about 20,000 deaths due to rabies every year in India. Maybe we should buy rabies insurance instead. Oh and by the way, apparently there are laws in India against killing stray dogs. Sheesh!

Doctor Sania Mirza

2008-12-11T21:08:00.001-08:00

The Hindu reports that Sania Mirza has just been awarded a doctorate by MGR university in Chennai. A doctorate in what I ask? And Sania is very happy to get a doctorate. It had always been a dream? What's the point of such a doctorate? What does it say about you? And what's with universities falling over themselves to give out honorary degrees left, right and center. Why can't they leave the sanctity of somethings intact? BS!!!

TN leaders are "political jokers"

2008-12-09T20:29:00.001-08:00

Sarath Fonseca, Lanka's army chief dubs the Tamil Nadu leaders as Political Jokers. Karunanidhi insists that outsiders should not be allowed to point out this fact.

Heh!

राष्ट्रीय भावना आज...

2008-12-01T03:10:00.000-08:00

हो गई है पीर पर्वत-सी पिघलनी चाहिए,
इस हिमालय से कोई गंगा निकलनी चाहिए।

आज यह दीवार, परदों की तरह हिलने लगी,
शर्त लेकिन थी कि ये बुनियाद हिलनी चाहिए।

हर सड़क पर, हर गली में, हर नगर, हर गाँव में,
हाथ लहराते हुए हर लाश चलनी चाहिए।

सिर्फ़ हंगामा खड़ा करना मेरा मकसद नहीं,
सारी कोशिश है कि ये सूरत बदलनी चाहिए।

मेरे सीने में नहीं तो तेरे सीने में सही,
हो कहीं भी आग, लेकिन आग जलनी चाहिए।

- दुष्यंत कुमार

V.P.Singh is dead

2008-11-27T19:21:00.001-08:00

The one man responsible for bringing caste-based politics into full-swing in the country died yesterday, almost without a whimper. This took a long time coming but it has finally happened. And, while one feels rage and pain on what is happening in Bombay even now, one feels gratified that this man died without the country even noticing.

V.P.Singh will forever be associated with bloody memories. One he caused by releasing the Mandal Commission Report, back in the 80s. There was a nationwide protest and a lot of bloodshed. And now, on the day he died, the country was grappling with one of the worst terrorist attacks against its crown jewel, Mumbai. Fitting perhaps.

Gurgaon Dust

2008-11-27T07:50:00.001-08:00

The city of Gurgaon these days seems to be perpetually engulfed in dust. Heavy dust. I'm sure I've inhaled several kilograms of a smoke and dust combination over the last few months. And it has been getting worse every week. Where is this coming from? I can understand smoke, but what's with the dust? And it's not like you can account for all of it by the construction. What is up?

Free-fall

2008-10-24T07:50:00.000-07:00

Anyone who really wants to experience the blood-chilling thrill of sky-diving or bungee jumping should have been long in today's market. I'm sure like any sky-dive, the life of many many people must have flashed through their minds.

Re-$

2008-10-23T21:20:00.000-07:00

The Rupee hits 50 to the dollar. Who'd have thought we'd see such a day. Sad!

Learning from your mistakes

2008-10-23T21:16:00.000-07:00

The problem with learning 'only' from your own mistakes, as some people insist on doing, is that you may learn a lesson too late, and not have an opportunity to use that lesson again.

For example, the global market crash. Events of this magnitude occur once in a lifetime - some people probably don't ever experience anything of this sort. So if we refuse to learn the lessons from the Great Depression, etc and insist on burning our hands before we learn something from this one, the lesson is as good as useless.

Don't Be Evil

2008-09-03T06:57:00.000-07:00

Google released their new web browser, Chrome, today.

Let's ask what the Mozilla foundation has to say about the title of this post.
I'd guess - "Et tu, Brute?"

Heh.

What's Next?

2008-05-23T22:18:00.000-07:00

"Farm Loan Waiver raised to Rs. 71,600 Crores"

This was the headline splashed across national dailies today. What's next?

All beggars from the streets of India will be swept up and given rooms in plush hotels across the country. They shall be fed and clothed at the tax-payers expense. Come election time, they shall be given enough soap to clean their right thumbs, ink them and impress them upon the "Skull-and-Crossbones" (which should ideally be the UPA's election symbol) on the ballot paper*.

* I know this is not how voting takes place, but might as well.

Eventually...

2008-03-17T08:29:00.000-07:00

...the fairy tale comes to an end and you're jolted back to reality. Why?

US companies paying bribes abroad - oh dear!

2008-03-06T18:59:00.000-08:00

A recent news item reads Pride may have bribed officials in over nine countries. Pride here is a group called Pride International, which is now undergoing an internal investigations due to allegations that it made improper payments to officials in Venezuela and Mexico to get extensions on drilling contracts and to facilitate the collection of payments for contracts that have been executed by them in these countries. The US government will fine them upward of $2 million per violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Is the US in complete denial of world realities or is this a farce that needs to be put up once in a while?

Frankly, I'm more amused than disturbed.

NY Escalators

2008-02-14T09:46:00.000-08:00

NY is a lot like Mumbai, always on the run. You can observe this running very clearly on the NY escalators leading to and from the subway metro stations. Each escalator has two lines, the standing line (on the right) and the walking line (on the left). They're always there and you'll always have space to walk up or down an escalator. It seems to be an unsaid rule. Nice!

Lessons...

2008-02-12T16:27:00.000-08:00

Lesson 1: Do not get lost when its snowing!

Lesson 2: Do not get eaten up by werewolves.

P.S. - Lessons in order of importance.

At NYC

2008-02-12T13:29:00.000-08:00

I've been in NYC since Wednesday last and I must confess, this place is crazy. Last week, the cold seemed impossible to tolerate and people here said that it was unseasonably warm. I thought they were nuts. And then today happened. Its been snowing for the last 4.5 hours and the temperature has dropped to 6 degrees below 0. The office is heated but even looking out at the falling snow gives me the shivers. Bad time to come to New York. Very bad time.

Fixing Education...

2007-12-22T08:07:00.000-08:00

The CFA Institute has lost its case against the AICTE. Another victory for the Govt. of India (and Indian regulation on education). Another loss for education in India. A lot of companies, the likes of Infosys and TCS complain that even though there are thousands upon thousands of engineers in the country, not more than 50% are actually employable as engineers. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.

We have complained long and loud that there are not enough good educational institutions of higher education in the country. The proposed solution? Regulated fee structures. Compulsory reservations. Compulsory approval from the AICTE. Setting up more "IITs" by the Government of India. Typical central planning solution. Typical case of confusing the disease with the symptoms. The disease, in my opinion, is the too much government intervention in education. The symptom - lack of capable engineers/doctors/lawyers in the country. And this is not specific to India. Even in the US, the primary education is run by the government, and there is universal condemnation of the system. Bill Gates has famously called the American primary education as "obsolete". On the other hand higher education is in the hands of private universities, and they are the magnet for bright students across the world. Even Greenspan, in his book "The Age of Turbulence" observes that the primary school system in the US requires a major overhaul if the US is to maintain its lead in the times to come.

In his book, Greenspan also points out an irony of Government interventionism versus free markets. He points out that cellular telephony in India was considered a luxury and was, therefore, left to the market forces to develop. On the other hand, electricity was considered a necessity and, therefore, the Government decided to develop it on its own. The irony is that today, cellular telephony is available in every corner, every village of the country, while electricity, a necessity, barely reaches a sixth of the villages and is hardly expected to be available 24 hours in most cities in the country.

Having said all this, it is clear that the solution is less, not more regulation. It is to be understood that the reason for the dearth of good education is two-fold. The first is the regulation of fees that can be charged by an educational institute. While the intention of the Government is to limit prices so that everybody can have access to education. However, we must learn from the past experience that price regulation has never led to a more equitable distribution of goods or services. Price regulation leads to a disincentive for anyone to setup an institute. As in the case of goods where black markets immediately spring in to existence, "coaching institutes" have sprung up like mushrooms around the country, bypassing the regulatory framework for "selling" education. Also, price regulation prevents qualified people from taking up jobs as teachers. This completely kills the self-sustaining and self-growing nature of better education and learning.

The reason for regulation is, apparently to make sure to maintain quality and to make sure people are not cheated. Only "good" institutes are supposed to be able to maintain AICTE approval. This system can be replaced by AICTE (or similar body) giving out ratings to the institute and ensuring transparency of processes and quality of the institute. After that, let people choose the institutes they want to study at. Also, stop regulating prices, or atleast allow most institutes to price their services as they want. Initially, the prices will sky-rocket. However, eventually, enough number of institutes will appear and competition will drive prices down. Higher fees will also allow institutes to attract better teachers which itself will have a multiplier effect - driving up quality of students very quickly.

We have taken such a chance before in 1991 with the destruction of the License Raj, with very positive results. We have to try that with education too. That's our only chance.

Hacking Wall Street

2007-10-02T20:12:00.000-07:00

Yes. That's my new job description. Before you get me wrong, the idea is not to literally "hack" wall street. The idea is to find non-random patterns in daily trading on the major stocks and derivatives exchanges around the world and use these patterns to make money. We look at trading data of a product (we have data for every trade and every order for a lot of stocks and derivatives) and use statistical methods to develop models to predict the price of the product over the next few seconds to a few minutes. An amazing mix of mathematics, computer science and financial markets. It's crazy but it's a lot of fun.

The culmination...

2007-06-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

...of half a decade of work. I'm a master of technology now! Yay!! :)

What is man...

2007-04-19T11:24:00.000-07:00

...but a bundle of desires?

From the eyes of the rebel...

2007-04-15T00:24:00.000-07:00

...who always walked the beaten path

My entire life has led up to this day.
An endless stream of classes, diligently attended;
Every question in each exam, meticulously answered;
Making the 'right' choices, every single time;
And here I am today, at a crossroads.

One way leads to acceptance, pragmatism;
And a long series of more crossroads;
And an ever stronger urge to choose the 'wrong' way;
And every stronger 'reasons' to stay 'in line'.

The other leads to somewhere, few dare to venture there;
I've not heard of anyone come back, he who trod this way.
Perhaps they find bliss and regret not their choice;
Or maybe they perish before we hear their voice.

And I stand here at this crossroads, every muscle tense;
Must I listen to my heart, or must I hear sense?
Just this once, the choice is mine, and I will take my time.

Of value systems

2007-04-02T08:19:00.000-07:00

Of late, I have begun to think a lot about value systems, moral codes and ethics. In recent discussions, I came up with some theories of my own and figured I'd do well to put them down in writing. Hence this.

The first and most important observation is that there is no objective way to tell if a value system is good or bad. This is impossible, by definition. A value system itself defines what is good and what is bad and hence cannot be judged as good or bad except in light of another value system. Having established this, we must look for other metrics for evaluating value systems. One metric that does come to mind is "consistency". Infact, there can be two varieties of consistency on which a value system may be evaluated. These are internal consistency and external consistency.

By internal consistency, I mean that the system must not contain statements which are contradictory to each other. Unfortunately, this is a common flaw amongst most systems in place today (or atleast the ones that are used in practise). To put it mildly, any one who follows such a value system is a hypocrite. [I would like to make a case that we are infact a society of hypocrites, but this is hardly the place to discuss that. Perhaps some other time.] To understand why this is so common, we need to understand how a value system must get built and how they usually end up getting built.

Ideally, when an individual or society wants to define for itself a moral code, it must start with a small set of core beliefs. These could be things like - "the duty of any person is to make life as comfortable for himself as possible" or "the duty of every individual is the protection of its lands". This set should ideally be small and free of contradictions. At worst, if it needs to have beliefs which might be contradictory, there should be a clear priority amongst those so as to be able to objectively make a choice if and when they clash. Having established this core set of beliefs, one can start making logical inferences. For instance, if the fundamental responsibility of an individual is the protection of the lands, it follows that he must face up to an army of any size in direct conflict or use any cunning means to overcome the enemy.

However, as societies mature, things cease to be as simple. Situations arise and people make choices that they find more convenient. Soon these choices tend to become part of the value system. The side-effect is that inconsistencies are introduced. When an individual is now introduced to this complex mass of rules and bye-rules, he is confused. To be able to make his own decisions consistent with this system, he tries to find the underlying core beliefs and finds that the corollaries are inconsistent with these core beliefs. It is at this point that he feels frustrated. This is the plight of the average youth everywhere. It is, therefore, imperetive that anyone who intends to follow his own value system accepts the logical consequences of each of his core beliefs.

The other sort of consistency, external consistency, is a source of much strife in the world. It is, apparently, the principal cause of the so-called generation gap. A youth, disillusioned by the "restrictions" of the currently socially accepted value system looks for an alternative. Often, he does succeed. Infact, the system may also be internally consistent. Nobody can objectively prove this system incorrect while remaining within the bounds of the core beliefs of that system*. This is where the senior generation usually blunders. They try to prove to the youth that their system is wrong in and of itself, which it may not be. The youth, obviously, are not convinced. The correct 'attack', if any, is the one based on external consistency. The argument stems from the fact that an individual is not an island and must live within a society. Therefore, his system must be consistent with the broad value system of society.

This works till the time that the individual realises that there is no reason why conformity with the 'incumbent' value system should be a part of their core beliefs. As soon as this assumption is thrown out, the whole argument starts again. At this point, it is for the individual to make a choice. At this point, the individual has to decide if he can live with the consequences of non-conformity with social norms. Depending on the society in which he lives, the consequences can be as 'harmless' as being ignored or as 'harsh' as being ostracized and being declared a social out-caste. Whether this is fair is not in question at the moment. Each one has to make this choice for himself.

*(An example is the story of the beggar lying by the street. A wealthy man asks him why he does not work. The beggar asks back why he should. So that he could make some money... and so on till the wealthy man says that this will eventually let him lie down and rest. The beggar says that that's exactly what he's doing now. This is the classic example of how both systems are internally consistent but clash head-on with each other because one promotes the way of comfort, the other of hard work.)

More breakthroughs...

2007-03-30T02:47:00.001-07:00

So now its 600 DVDs/second on a single strand of optical fibre. Video-on-demand, which seemed like sci-fi only 10 years ago (in Bill Gate's book), looks trivially possible. Clearly, we're not likely to hit an upper limit on our video-conferencing/VoIP capabilities in terms of bandwidth.

What we need to work on now is reducing the delays which affect interactive applications. If we can ensure that these delays remain low even as more and more data is pumped into the networks, we'll truly become a "connected" world!

Google अब हिंदी में

2007-03-08T10:03:00.000-08:00

Google तो जैसे रुकेगा ही नहीं। अब हिंदी में blog लिखना बहुत ही सरल हो गया है। transliteration के schemes तो हमेशा से थे पर google का नया हिंदी blogging का tool बहुत ही ज्यादा सरल है। आपको जो ठीक लगे, उस हिसाब से अंग्रेजी में लिखते जाइए, और google खुद समझ लेता है कि हिंदी का कौनसा शब्द है। यही नहीं, अगर एक से अधिक शब्दों कि spelling अंग्रेजी में एक सी होगी, तो शब्द पर left-click करने से सारे options दिखा देता है। google वो सब कुछ कर रहा है जो मैं करना चाहूँगा। ये गलत बात है। :(

The Unknown

2007-02-06T08:56:00.000-08:00

We are always fascinated with that which we do not know. We are drawn towards things we do not understand. That is our basic nature. It is this basic nature that helps us learn to walk, talk, hold hands and laugh while we are still very young. But it seems, as we grow older and learn some things, we tend to get comfortable in what we know. We come to believe all that we know. We fear to tread into the unknown, for we learn about fear itself. We fear that we might stumble upon something which disagrees with something we already know. We come to fear for our bodies and avoid anything which can potentially cause physical harm.

Yet that basic urge, the basic attraction towards the unknown is so clearly visible when we stare in awe as a magician lifts up a woman with a wave of his hand or when a skillful hacker easily slips into somebody's email account. We are positively thrilled. We crave to know how it is done. We wish to be able to do it ourselves. Yet these are performing arts and performing arts are bound to attract.

Even so, why should the unknown realms of mathematics be any less fascinating. Perhaps the hurdle is the sheer amount one has to already know before one begins to appreciate the beauty of the unknown crevices of mathematics. This seems to be true of all the old areas of study, physics, psychology or architecture.

Is there no way these mundane subjects can be turned into performing arts. They say that science and art are different. Yet perhaps, a man may be able to perfect science to an art. Or simply give it a beautiful face. A recursive relation, for example, in complex dynamics can become something as beautiful as the Mandelbrot Set.

I know that putting a beautiful face on the equations of mathematics does not necessarily make them easier to learn, just as a skillfully performed magic trick does not make it easier to perform. Perhaps by turning these mundane subjects into performing arts however, we might rekindle our desire and resolve to understand and further them. Thus, are we perhaps more in need of magicians who can take a theorem on markov chains and turn it into a theory for why cab-drivers won't drive you from Gateway of India to Churchgate station, rather than wizened old professors who can recite verbatim the 23 definitions from Euclid's elements? Opinions are divided.

Purpose..

2007-01-22T10:30:00.000-08:00

Its a cold clear night here in Powai. Despite my efforts to think about the new currencies making the most noise (QQ and the Linden Dollar), my mind wandered off to something more troubling. All triggered by things like Second Life (www.secondlife.com). Somehow, the more I thought about Second Life, the more it seemed that life in the real world is about as futile as a life inside SL.

For some reason, we have decided that one should try to live longer. We have arbitrarily decided that one should have affection for other beings and not be selfish. We run about in a frenzy, trying to make more money or build more buildings and create more music. Yet all this is nothing but an effort to ease life which inherently seems to have no purpose. Some mystics suppose that the purpose of life is to find communion with God (a God which we ourselves have created). Yet others suggest that the purpose of life is to achieve Nirvana (i.e., the purpose of life is to get out of it). Still others recommend that the purpose of life should be the pursuit of knowledge. And the hedonists of course urge us to live for pleasure. Yet all this still begs the question - why is there life in the first place?

Meanwhile, life goes on. Now that I am here, I'll go with the pursuit of knowledge and happiness as the purpose of my life. God can wait. And so can Nirvana. I'm still not tired enough of being around.

Plugged In - The way I see it

2006-11-20T11:10:00.000-08:00

This is how I see the world as of today. Much is going to change and there will be many issues, technical and non-technical, many as yet unthought of, that will be thrown up for us to handle. More on this soon.

Where are we headed? (Part III)

2006-11-12T06:27:00.000-08:00

I finished my last post with an observation that the chaotic changes taking place around us are in fact, driven by three distinct forces - our ability to move information quickly over vast distances (networking), our ability to process tremendous amounts of information quickly (computing) and our ability to store tremendous amounts of information (storage). It is in the interplay of these potent forces that we can understand the bewildering changes taking place around us and where they are leading us. It is also important to understand that the development in these areas is not necessarily pointing in the same direction. We will discuss this as we go along.

Having said that, we must begin naturally from an examination of the state of the art in these areas. Lets start with storage.

In the desktop drives market, Seagate released a 750 GB model based on perpendicular storage technology in April of 2006. Perpendicular storage technology allows much higher amounts of information to be stored on the same disk area thus allowing much higher capacity disks. While these disks will still take some time to become mainstream, 160 GB disks are extremely common these days with 80 GB disks being the entry level across most segments. For recent entrants into the computer-user world, this might not seem like a lot. However, at a time not long ago (a time which even I can remember distinctly even though I'm only 22), 4 GB disks sounded like overkill to most people. Today, 4+ GB DVD disks are available for as low as Rs. 15 - and DVDs are old technology. The latest entrants fighting for supremacy are the Blu-Ray and High-Density DVD disks offering, at the higher end, storage capacities of 50 GBs. And even as these technologies struggle to get to the retail market, scientists around the world are trying to fit more and more data into disks of similar sizes. On the flash memory drive side, the latest entrant is a 16GB pen drive that you can carry around your neck - and this was in March of 2006. These are all products available in the retail end-user segment.

On the server side, the story is even more mind-boggling. Companies like SGI are offering storage capacities in excess of 400 terabytes (a terabyte is 1000 gigabytes) in a single system with access speeds of 2.5GB/s and higher. The internet archive is on its way to creating a machine capable of storing and managing 1 petabyte (which is a thousand thousand gigabytes). To put this in perspective, the entire text within the Library of Congress takes up only about 20 TB of space. However, several organisations around the world have space requirements running into several petabytes. And this requirement will only grow. We'll come back to this point again later.

Moving to networking. Again, several things are happening in the area of networking. A very visible effort taking place is the process of covering entire cities with wireless network access (for example, this is planned for the city of Pune). The idea is that wherever you are in the city, you should have access to the internet. Ubiquitous networking. And the hope is that this will spread to more and more cities until most populated places on the earth are network enabled. The other process is, of course, the increasing availability of wired broadband access in more and more cities. Broadband penetration is increasing rapidly and more and more people are getting on to the internet. In parallel, optical bandwidths have gone through the roof. In a recent breakthrough, researchers at NTT were able to pump 14 terabits of data in a second over a distance of 160 kilometers. With a still-in-research technology called "All Optical Networks", these speeds are set to be dwarfed. We'll discuss the possibilities opened up by such speeds in another post.

The story on the computing side is also very exciting. 4 GHz processors are common on desktop PCs today. This is almost 400 times faster than an average PC only 12 years ago (when I got my first one). 3D gaming freaks are pushing even this to its limits and it is almost necessary to have high-performance graphics cards to play the more and more closer-to-life 3D simulation games. The sheer computing power available to an ordinary user today is mind-boggling by even very recent standards. As if PCs were not enough, mobile devices are pushing the computing envelope very rapidly. The Nokia N-Gage phone sports a 104 MHz processor in a package weighing a total of 5 ounces (140 grams) and the Palm Treo 700p flaunts 312 MHz of processing power in a 111x58x23 mm package. Many of us reading this probably remember owning and using PCs (the famed Intel MMX 200 MHz machine) with less computing power. At the higher end of the spectrum, companies around the world are trying to smash through the 1 petaflop barrier. With brains like that of Dr. Narendra Karmarkar (creator of the famous Karmarkar's algorithm for optimization problems) at work on this problem at Computational Research Laboratories (CRL), such a machine may be available sooner than we expect, opening up tremendous opprotunities for research into biotechnology, cosmology, defence and a plethora of other fields. Even companies like Google, Microsoft, etc are building up huge computational capabilities to support the paradigm of software as a service. In this way, compute power is increasing at all ends - the mobile and embedded devices, PCs as well as compute-clusters available with corporates.

This increase in capabilities at both ends of the spectrum seem counter-intuitive to many. On the one hand, SaaS (software as a service) is gaining currency and it seems that all heavy-duty data processing will take place on centralized servers, thus obviating the need for high-performance systems at the user-end. On the other hand, more and more applications are being pushed onto mobile devices raising the requirements of low-power high-performance computing in small packages. In this tussle, what is the fate of software and the end-user? What will happen to the PC? Will my refrigerator actually speak to the supermarket? I'll try to examine these questions in posts to come.

Decisions...

2006-11-11T14:25:00.000-08:00

Just came across this short poem by Piet Hein that details a very effective method to make decisions...

Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,
and you're hampered by not having any,
the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.
No - not so that chance shall decide the affair
while you're passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you're hoping

The lull before the storm...

2006-11-09T11:58:00.000-08:00

I am afloat on an open sea
The sun is low on the horizon
A salty wind criss-crosses me
And I stare away into oblivion

I think back and I wonder
If I've always been this way
Anyway I wish it'd be so
Until my dying day

Such serenity such peace
Such silence all around
Such freedom to ponder
The mysteries that abound

Yet perhaps I am too simple
To think that this would do
For what good is understanding
If you cannot share it too

Perhaps I'd like some paper
A pen and ink to write
Give form to thoughts that maybe
Some silly some very bright

But then again I close my eyes
and feel the wind across my face
I'll just enjoy it while I can
Before I go back to the race.

Where are we headed? (Part II)

2006-10-09T17:39:00.000-07:00

In the last post, I seem to have given all the credit to wireless communication, saying that it led to the ultimate speedup. Yet I contend that computers are a key ingredient to what we are observing today. And here I will explain why I think so.

Wile the invention of wireless communication (and indeed, electronic communication in general) was indeed a quantum leap, it speeded up only part of the process of change. Change is the result of two very distinct activities. One is, of course, the dissemination of ideas/information. Clearly, however, there is the creation of ideas/information that is a critical activity. Speed-of-light communication allowed the quick transportation of information. However, now the bottleneck in the process of change shifted from transport of information to the generation of information. Initially, this is where computers created the greatest impact.

Computers were mammoth machines crunching numbers at phenomenal speed. Suddenly it became possible to make sense of a much larger amount of information. This naturally led to a greater speed of generating ideas. These ideas could be related to particle physics or national demographics. Calculations which would take days could now be done in a matter of hours, allowing new ideas to be tested much more quickly. Printing presses and electronic communication allowed data and research papers to be sent around the world at tremendous speeds while computers allowed the validation and generation of new ideas. Part of this research fed back into developing better and faster computers, better storage technologies and reliable communication technologies. Now both components of change were operating at superhuman speeds. The plan was set. What we are observing today is this result of an interplay of this tremendous computing power and communication speed developed by man over the millennia in a series of steps that would seem only natural.

At this point I would like to reiterate something that is oft forgotten in any discussion of technology. It is the fact that communication speed-up is a phenomenon quite distinct from the increase in raw computing power, which are in turn quite distinct from the increase in our capacity to store information. It is true that these three forces affect each other dramatically and often depend on each other for their own growth. However, keeping this fact in mind can help us understand much of this apparently chaotic change around us much more easily.

Where are we headed? (Part I)

2006-10-09T17:37:00.000-07:00

I have this habit of giving "gyaan" to people... to the extent of being called a "Compulsive Gyaan Giver" even by some rather tolerant people. Usually this gyaan can be about any of the numerous aspects of life or the world. One of my favorite subjects is technology. I sometimes end up spending hours talking about the kind of things happening in networking, computer hardware, storage, the web, etc. Recently, I got asked a very pointed question - "You keep talking about all the things that are happening. But do you really know what this will result in eventually?". There are two problems with this question. One, that there is hardly a notion of an "eventually" in this matter; and second, to really make a guess as to where this will lead to in the next 8-10 years is anybody's guess. If I were to hazard a guess today and I happen to become an eminent person someday, I will be jibed at for being either very outlandish in my expectations or being too conservative. I'll take that risk nonetheless; if for nothing else than to make nature want me to be an eminent person. To explain where we are headed today, I'll start from distant history, borrowing ideas freely from several sources (not all of which I might remember), but especially from two people I consider to be real visionaries, Alvin Toffler and Bill Gates.

People often attribute the rapid change they are witnessing today to some inventions that took place a couple of decades ago. They are partly right. They are right to an extent that computers (and communication networks) helped accelerate the process of change to a speed where it is noticeable by a single generation. This speed-up has led people to pay attention to the process of change and makes them attribute the change itself to computers. (I will write about why computers are not the only method by which this speedup would be possible, but more on that later). The speed-up in change that has occurred in the past few decades has also caused uneasiness resulting in the kind of questions I was asked - "where is all this leading?".

Toffler explains that the uneasiness because of change in society today is not because of the change itself but the pace of change. He says that the pace of change has effects on people irrespective of the change itself. The kind of change that in earlier ages took place over several generations, with the situation not changing significantly within one lifetime, now happens in 20 years or less. The amount of change that people had to cope with in previous ages was negligible compared to the changes an average individual copes with today. Computer systems become obsolete days after they are purchased, telephone tarrifs plummet by the day, airplane fares fluctuate by the minute and new ticket booking mechanisms spring up every few months. However, what Toffler fails to explain is why these changes take place at an increasing pace. I will first make my case for why this change is necessarily going to be accelerated.

All change is driven by information/knowledge. In that sense, the first seeds of change were sown when man developed language. As soon as man found a mechanism for communicating ideas, he had stepped over the first hurdle. Now it was not necessary for every individual to discover a better way of doing things. Once an idea came into being, it was not lost with the individual. It was preserved by being passed on to others of the next generation. This was the foundation stone of the huge edifice of knowledge we stand in awe of today. With only a spoken language, however, which could not overcome the barriers of time and distance effectively, the diffusion of ideas was slow. Of the many ideas that were built on top of the initial ideas passed down by word of mouth was the idea of writing. Writing added a new force to ideas, a new permanence. It added speed to the dispersal of knowledge.

Somewhere in this stream, the wheel was invented. Not only did the wheel provide mobility to men, it added, more importantly, mobility to knowledge. Thus, the wheel, which was a knowledge product helped in the propagation of knowledge itself. With the wheel to cover distance and writing to carry knowledge over time, the basic requirements were established. The first river valley civilizations were born. Ships, a much later invention, allowed man and his ideas, to travel all over the globe. Now, an idea born anywhere on the planet did not need to be confined to that part of the planet. It still took months or years for an idea to travel to other continents, but suddenly the world was one, for the first time in history.

The printing press, as is widely accepted, was the next stepping stone. Now more people had access to knowledge than ever before imagined possible. Knowledge started slipping out of the hands of the few elite in society and started trickling to all its members. Now even more minds were available to build on previous knowledge. The renaissance was a direct result of this access to knowledge. Where there were once 10 minds creating ideas, there were now 10000. The speed of generation of ideas increased and so did the speed of change. At this point, change came up to a pace which was visible to people. And it led to the first revolution (the industrial revolution), when man invented the steam engine and railways. Faster dispersal of ideas resulted, accelerating change. Next came a quantum leap - wireless communication. This single invention speeded up the flow of ideas/information by a factor of several millions. Messages that took days or weeks aboard a ship or a steam engine were now transmitted instantaneously.

An examination of this growth from the invention of a language to the invention of wireless communication will show that the acceleration in the creation of ideas (synonymous with change) is the result of the creation of ideas themselves. Writing, ships, the printing press and wireless communication were creations of the very ideas which they then helped propagate at higher and higher speeds with greater and greater reliability.

Innovation or Consolidation

2006-09-26T08:52:00.000-07:00

It has been very widely accepted that the last century or two have been times of tremendous growth of knowledge and ideas. What was once natural philosophy is now a thousand headed hydra called science. Men who were once natural philosophers are now computer scientists or botanists or cosmologists. There is so much knowledge now, they say, that one man can never hope to understand but a tiny fraction. He must decide whether he wishes to study urban waste management or political systems of the post-modern era. He cannot do both. Yet the irony, to my mind, is that this precisely is the recipe for stagnation of our understanding. We, as a race, have spewed out ideas and generated knowledge at a prodigal pace and yet we have no clue about how to organise it, consolidate it. Rather, we go about shaking our heads saying "Oh! No man can hope to understand this. " It is as if we, who relentlessly fought our way through the hidden pathways of nature, to understand her, have laid down our weapons in the face of our own creation - knowledge. Our only answer to this problem is a ghost of a real solution - collecting as many books and pictures and sounds in one place as we can. To that effect, we created the Library of Congress or the Internet Archive. We have taken the huge mass of ill-digested ideas in the form of cryptic and often confusing articles and books and put them into a hierarchy of subjects, which apparently are not supposed to have any bearing on one another; atleast none is suggested by the notion of a "hierarchy". And we have hardly done a satisfactory job at that.

Does nobody feel that this is inadequate. Does nobody feel that we would do well to atleast consolidate the ideas and knowledge we have generated so far. The way our society works today, it would seem that only those who create - whether ideas or goods - are the ones who are appreciated. Little, or atleast significantly less, value is given to him who seeks to unify and to clarify. The fact that there are hardly any "awards for clarification" as compared to "awards for innovation", is evidence enough. Is there no place in society for a person who only desires to clarify old ideas, to cut through the riff-raff and to bring forth a succint understanding of all that we, as a race, know? Perhaps I'm on the wrong planet!

Complications

2006-08-26T14:31:00.000-07:00

Beyond a point, people should stop making life more complicated than it has to be.

Measuring distances...

2006-08-21T12:07:00.000-07:00

Kautilya says that you can never be more than 12,500 miles from home. And yet, what little meaning distances in miles have. In the units that matter, you could be inches away yet light-years apart....

Love, adjectives and geographical contexts

2006-08-06T03:30:00.000-07:00

A brief thought:

When a Englishman falls in love, he tells the girl that she is the sunshine of his life. On the other hand, should an Indian fall in love, he would say "zindagi dhoop tum ghana saya" (Life is sunshine, you're a shade from the sun). Such is the effect of local weather on our language.

With it now becoming possible for people across the world to trivially read literature from everywhere else, may it not be hard for people to appreciate this?

Of e-books and book racks

2006-07-13T03:32:00.000-07:00

I once dreamed of having a library of my own; you know, the kind that Uncle Scrooge had; one with a ladder and huge racks lining an entire room, an easy chair and a small fireplace. Then I found e-books. Thousands upon thousands of them. And then there was talk of book readers which more and more closely mimick real books without taking up that space. So supposing they finally made one real-book look-alike capable of storing a million books, what would I decorate my study-room with? Much of the charm of real books is being able to put them up in a rack where visitors can come and stare at them with awe. The books you have in your book-racks convey, in some sense, the kind of person you are. With all the million books now hidden away in a tiny device lying around on a desk, who/what will tell visitors to my house what kind of person I am? I think I'll still keep real books around. After all, a library with so many books that you need a ladder is so cool!

Knowledge...

2006-07-06T12:09:00.000-07:00

A creeping sense of despair and ignorance has taken me over. I've been reading Suketu Mehta's Maximum City. Here's a man who claims to have met Bal Thackery and asked him personal questions, has spoken to Chhota Shakeel, has spent several days with the top hit-men of D-Company. He has Vidhu Vinod Chopra as a personal friend and a dance-bar dancer as a friend. Here's a man who claims personal interaction with Gulshan Kumar's murderer. That is just two years after he has returned to the country. I spent the last 4 years here without a clue to what goes on in this city. I wander out, lost, onto my terrace. My head reeling with a new perspective of this hybrid city, New York and Los Angeles rolled into one. The wind is gusty and the rain gods have held their fury for a day giving us respite from the continuous downpour. I look across lake Powai, at a shimmering Hiranandani colony. I could be a writer I think. I should have been one. But then, how little I know and how much courage it would take to try and find out and more courage still to write it down. A friend complains about how he cannot understand what to do about the girl he loves. His helplessness is genuine, but it seems so trivial, so immaterial. How would it matter. The world seems so complex. Have spent the last few days trying to understand monetary theory, financial markets. There seems to be so much at work here. So much on the surface and perhaps so much more under the covers. And then suddenly the moon breaks out from the clouds. The city melts away and my attention is turned towards the heavens. Suddenly, even the gangsters, the financial markets and national politics seem trivial. There is the explanation of the universe which is still missing. There is the eternal question of who we are and why we are here. Somehow, suddenly, the quantum- and astro- physicists seem to be the most important people on earth. They are the ones trying to answer the hardest questions. Yet here I stand, knowing nothing, reaching out with open hands, grasping nothing. With what little more I learn, my appetite grows. More. More I scream. I wish to move out of my body and spend the rest of my life just watching the world; absorbing it, every detail, every nuance; learning the ways of the world without having to be part of it. Gathering every last bit of knowledge to be had yet without a desire to use it. A dangerous desire it is at this age and I cannot understand the source of this desire; but then knowledge of the self is perhaps the hardest to have, awarded only to the truly blessed....

Suketu Mehta speaks...

2006-07-04T11:14:00.000-07:00

I have begun reading Maximum City by Suketu Mehta. So far it is strangely depressing. You almost feel like the city (Bombay) is engulfing you. With the rains not having ceased for the last several days and being stuck in my room, the feeling's much worse. However, there is something which is very cliche but which he says very well. I thought I'd put it down...

Long before the millennium, Indians such as the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi were talking about taking the country into the twenty-first century, as if the twentieth century could just be leapfrogged. India desires modernity; it desires computers, information technology, neural networks, video on demand. But there is no guarantee of a constant supply of electricity in most places in the country. In this, as in every other area, the country is convinced it can pole-vault over the basics: develop world-class computer and management institutes without achieving basic literacy; provide advanced cardiac surgery and diagnostic imaging while the most easily avoidable childhood diseases run rampant; sell washing machines that depend on a non-existent water supply from shops that are dark most hours of the day because of power cuts; support a dozen private and public companies offering mobile phone services, while the basic land telephone network is in terrible shape; drive scores of new cars that go from 0 to 60 in ten seconds without any roads where they might do this without killing everything inside and out, man and beast.

It is an optimistic view of technological progress - that is you reach for the moon, you will somehow, automatically, span the inconvenient steps in between. Inda has the third-largest pool of technical labour in the world, but a third of its one billion people can't read or write. An Indian scientist can design a supercomputer, but it won't work because the junior technician cannot maintain it properly. The country produces some of the best technical brains in the world but neglects to teach my plumber how to fix a toilet so it stays fixed. It is still a Brahmin-oriented system of education; those who work with their hands have to learn for themselves. Education has to do with reading and writing, with abstractions, with higher thought."

Slightly exaggerated in my opinion, but on the dot. I hope its not all gloomy later in the book. I don't want to lose hope on India even before I try to do something myself.

मधुशाला

2006-06-24T04:35:00.000-07:00

Madhushala, Dr. Harivanshrai Bacchan's masterpiece and brought to life by Shri Manna De, is one of my favorite pieces of poetry. It's one of those writings which mean different things to different people. Now Dr. Bacchan is not here anymore, and what he had meant when he wrote it will forever be obscured from us.

The first question is what he meant by Madhushala. To some, madhushala would mean material pleasure. To others it would mean spiritual fulfillment and to still others, like me, it would mean the achievement of a cherished goal and the ensuing satisfaction. What one makes of the word madhushala defines what the poem itself means to the reader. To me, it says so many things about finding the way to ones goal, about the hardships one would face, about motivation, about the joy of finding it, about how it would soon lose its lusture... I've picked out a few verses and I'm putting forth my interpretations of the same. If I'm worthy of interpreting such a great work, I don't know, yet I'll do my best.

मदिरालय जाने को घर से चलता है पीने वाला
किस पथ से जाऊं असमंजस में है वो भोला-भाला
अलग अलग पथ बतलाते सब, पर मैं ये बतलाता हूँ
राह पकड़ तू एक चला चल, पा जाएगा मधुशाला

The seeker sets forth on his search for his goal yet he does not which way to go. What must he do to get to his goal? He asks advice from everyone and everyone offers different advice. Yet I (the poet) has only one advice. Pick one path, any path and follow it steadfastly. You will reach your goal.

अधरों पर हो कोइ भी रस जिव्हा पर लगती हाला
भाजन हो कोइ हाथों में लगता रक्खा है प्याला
हर सूरत साकी की सूरत में परिवर्तित हो जाती
आंखों के आगे हो कुछ भी आंखों में है मधुशाला

The poet recommends extreme passion towards one's goal. The goal must so consume the seeker that it becomes his reality. All that the seeker must think of at all times is his goal.

छोटे से जीवन में कितना प्यार करूं पीलूं हाला
आने के ही साथ जगत में कहलाया जाने वाला
स्वागत के ही साथ विदा ही होती देखी तैयारी
बंद लगी होने खुलते ही मेरी जीवन मधुशाला

This could mean two things. This is the seeker's lament. For him, this life is too short and there is so much to be achieved. So much to do and yet as soon as he has begun to move, it seems that its time to go. It could also mean that most people tend to play it safe in life. They refuse to take risks. They live their life as a preparation of death, not as life itself. The seeker laments that he wishes to take risks but that doesn't seem to be the norm in society.

एक बरस में एक बार ही जगती होली की ज्वाला
एक बार ही लगती बाजी जलती दीपों की माला
दुनिया वालो किन्तु किसी दिन, आ मदिरालय में देखो
दिन को होली, रात दिवाली, रोज़ मनाती मधुशाला

The poet motivates the seeker to move towards his goal. He tells of how for those who reach their goal, everyday is a celebration. Success is desirable and success is good seems to be the import of this verse.

चलने ही चलने में कितना जीवन हाय बिता डाला
'दूर अभी है', पर कहता है हर पथ बतलानेवाला
हिम्मत है ना बढूं आगे, साहस है ना फिरूं पीछे
किम्कर्त्व्यविमूढ़ मुझे कर दूर खडी है मधुशाला

मुख से तू अविरत कहता जा मधु, मदिरा, मादक हाला
हाथों में अनुभव करता जा एक ललित कल्पित प्याला
ध्यान किये जा मन में सुमधुर सुखकर, सुन्दर साकी का
और बढ़ा चल, पथिक, ना तुझको दूर लगेगी मधुशाला

The seeker is tired। He has worked for so long yet the goal seems far off. He's not sure whether to turn back or to go ahead. He's confused and yet the goal is off yonder... In such a situation, the advice is simple. Imagine what joy one'd get when one reaches the goal. Imagine the happiness of success. That will give you strength and the goal will not seem so far off afterall.

मदिरा पीने कि अभिलाषा ही बन जाये जब हाला
अधरों की आतुरता में ही जब आभासित हो प्याला
बने ध्यान ही करते करते जब साकी साकार सखे
रहे ना हाला, प्याला साकी, तुझे मिलेगी मधुशाला

When the desire to reach the goal becomes so overpowering that you begin experiencing the joy. When your every thought is so focussed that the goal seems to materialize in front of you, that's when all other things fade away and you'll find your goal.

हाथों में आने से पहले नाज़ दिखेगा प्याला
अधरों पर आने से पहले अदा दिखाएगी हाला
बहुतेरे इनकार करेगा सकी आने से पहले
पथिक ना घबरा जाना, पहले मान करेगी मधुशाला

Right before you reach your goal, you'll find hindrances. You'll run into problems even as the goal seems so near. Things will seem to go wrong. That is bound to happen. Success will not be yours so easily. But remember, its just a test. Don't be frightened, keep moving. Its the nature of success to be a bit elusive. Keep going, success will be yours.

शांत सकी हो अब तक साकी किस उर की ज्वाला
और और की रटन लगाता जाता हर पीने वाला
कितनी इच्छाएँ हर जाने वाला यहाँ छोड जाता
कितने अरमानों की बनकर कब्र खडी है मधुशाला

Having achieved one goal, the seeker is not satisfied. He craves more and more. His desires will never be fulfilled. They have never been fulfilled for anyone. When the time comes for the final departure, every seeker has left with unfulfilled desire.

As I said before, everyone has their own interpretations. The greatest things about such compositions is that they are open to interpretation. Its much like God himself, meaning different things to different people. Mostly its a source of support and inspiration in an otherwise difficult life...

(You can read the complete poem in devnagri script at Kaavyaalaya. You'll have to download the Shusha font available on that site too).

The Sky Rumbled....

2006-06-19T07:42:00.000-07:00

An old e-diary reveals that I wrote the following on 27th September, 2004. I still remember that evening. It was one of those days when I get confused whether to feel elated or depressed. It seems I had chosen to be depressed that day. Some of it sounds cliched now, but who can help it. :)

It was cloudy today and the sky was blood red. The country is bleeding and the stars are witness. The country mourns silently. There is not one voice but a murmur of pain and discontent. Its grows louder and the sky rumbles in reponse. A crack of lightening, as if demanding some answers.

A beautiful country torn by a hundred worries. What man can understand, or even hope to understand her completely. Every part is distinct. Every part speaks its own language.

The country looks older than its 58 years. Its back bent, almost broken with misery. Yet somehow its people find the energy to celebrate its umpteen festivals with joy. Perhaps thats the only time they get to forget their sorrows.

Yet their eyes are alight with fire. There is hope. 'Hope', which has kept them going for so long. They work with the hope of a better tomorrow. Yet they choose their leaders going by a few favours for today. But who can blame them. Every day is a struggle to keep away the shadow of despair. Even the promise of a brighter tomorrow is enough. We've learnt to live on hope. A hope which would be difficult to fulfil even for the smartest and most dedicated of men. And despite that, who do we have making those promises?

The sky rumbled today, as if demanding an answer - for how long?
We've been eaten away from the inside and yet we put up a farce of strength. For how long will this go on. We have a lot of strength. But that strength comes from the people in this country. The farmer in his fields, and scientist in his laboratory, the miner in the coal mine and the doctor in the hospital.

We have today more politicians than we probably ever had, and fewer moral principles than ever. We have more political parties, and less patriotism. We have more celebrities and fewer heros. We have more engineering colleges and probably fewer dedicated students. We have more schools and lesser real learning. We think sixteen year olds driving Ford Ikon's is national progress. We think greater number of Finnish cell phones in the country signify economic growth.

The sky rumbled today, as if demanding an answer - who?
Who will take up the responsibility to fix this. "I would", I said, "but what can I do." The rumbling ceased and a voice said. Excel at what you do. And wherever you go, remember that you're a product of this country. You are today what you are, because of the poor sweeper who sweeps the roads for an annual wage you wish to earn in a week. You are today what you are, because somebody decided to plant a tree whose shade they'd never enjoy. Your progress depends on the progress of this country and its doom is your doom.

"It is difficult I said. How will I sustain my energy?"
"Every time you feel weak",said the sky, "talk to me. I have seen a lot. I have seen men die for this cause. I will tell you about them. I have seen the world and there is no place as beautiful as this. I will show you what you're working for."

"I am so insignificant. How will I alone make a difference."
At this the sky smiled. He said, "take a look at the north star. It once asked me the same question."

"I promise", said I; and the sky wept for joy.

CIA, MI6 and RAW

2006-06-18T14:27:00.000-07:00

In continuation to Sabarish's post on the bad design of ISRO's website, I have more to say. Atleast ISRO has a website. India's intelligence agency (that's RAW, if you didn't know. I'm sure you know its the CIA for the US and perhaps even that its the MI6/SIS for the UK) does not even seem to have one. Perhaps it is so secret they thought it unwise to put one up. Unfortunately, we know more about American intelligence and other agencies than we know about their Indian counterparts. I know how much effort I have expended in trying to find out more about the RAW. Can we atleast get a glimpse of what kind of intelligence capabilities we have as a nation? Perhaps even what we had 10 years ago?

Even as Hollywood churns out movie after movie about American intelligence and covert operations, Bollywood is stuck up with creating movies showcasing poor shayari and love-struck 18-year-olds. It is time we recognize that no generation works for their country out of sheer patriotism, atleast not in the absence of propoganda. It is time we realise that the aspirations of children in this country atleast are driven very largely by what they see on television and the silver screen. The absence of any solid effort to showcase such agencies (RAW/DRDO/ISRO) by the government, these agencies or the media suggest either of two reasons. One, the agencies are well-staffed with very high-calibre people and they need no more talented people; that they are churning out over-the-horizon technology and it would be imprudent to make such technology public; that they are so good at recruiting under-cover agents that we don't even realise how much work is being done. This is hard to believe. The other is that they have nothing to showcase and are too proud to indulge in marketing. I fervently hope it is the former; or that they shed this false pride soon and do some serious rethinking about their public image.

If one tells big lies...

2006-06-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

I began reading a biography of Winston Churchill (by David Irving) today. Its not the most flattering one and someday I'll have to read one that is pro-Churchill before I can form my conclusions about the man. It's a huge two-volume biography, quite suitable for a man of such tremendous influence, and I'm not even sure I'll make it through the whole thing.

So far (57 pages), Irving has pointed out so many weaknesses of the man that my head reels with the kind of hero-like perception I had of him. Of course, we know that Churchill had been against the liquidation of Britain's hold on India but even so it is hard to not respect the man. What is disturbing though is that he may have been partly responsible for the spread of 'The War' to Britain. Apparently Hitler hadn't had ambitions on England but Churchill's persistent exaggerations about Hitler's defence spending and his intention to attack Britain seem to have finally led him to do just that. The thing is that it seems that individuals have such profound influence on the course of history. Its almost frightening.

In any case, the biography mentions a statement from the original Mein Kamph which is supposedly not present in the authorized English translation. It says - "If one tells Big Lies, people will always believe a part."

More on this when I've read more.

On specialization...

2006-06-17T12:14:00.000-07:00

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, design a building, write a sonnet, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, solve equations, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
- Robert Heinlein

I couldn't agree more.

Who runs the world...

2006-06-13T10:58:00.000-07:00

Was talking to a friend today. Discussing strange things like fixed and floating currency exchange rates etc... about which neither of us knows much. In any case the discussion led to this friend saying that we shouldn't worry because its the engineers who run the world after all. I was almost knocked off my feet. Did he really think engineers run the world?? Atleast I don't carry around that illusion. I kind of figured its the economists who do. Their policies determine the fates of millions of people of a country. But then, do economists get to implement all the policies they want? I'm not so sure... perhaps their political masters are in control. But they are supposedly controlled by the voters, the citizens. So do the citizens run the world? I don't quite think so. So what makes it go?? Somebody! HELP!

The Kite Runner

2006-06-11T04:36:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini. Depressing novel. A nice one, but depressing. We all heard about the hardships in Afghanistan but the graphic detail in which Hosseini describes the madness that persisted in Afghanistan for so long left me numb. Its hard to believe that this is happening on the same planet we inhabit and by creatures who are supposedly members of my own species. We live such insulated lives while the world seems to be burning everywhere. Except from a few notable exceptions (which may also be hiding a lot of secrets, such as China) cruelty and insanity seems to be the norm. We still sit in our offices and labs and think that building better search engines will somehow fix the world. Will it? What else can one do?

Ghalib still relevant?

2006-06-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

Qaumein badshahon se nahin aawam se banti hain;
Aur aap agar aaj bhi kabootar na uda rahe hote to ye qaum kuchh aur hoti, ye mulk kuchh aur hota....

Does this still ring true for us in this time and age? Are we not somehow responsible for what this country is today?

Do-It-Youself

2006-06-01T06:53:00.000-07:00

I have a room next to a superb terrace. However, the trouble is that rain water comes flooding into my room everytime it rains... reason: bad L&T construction. Wrong slopes in the corridor. Anyway, for the last one year I had been trying to convince hostel authorities to do something about it, to no avail. Today I decided to put into action what hundreds of self-improvement books recommned - stop complaining, and start working. So I got myself a packet of white portland cement and created a... ummm... barrier for the rainwater. Here's a picture of my handiwork :) Satisfying!

Did that really happen?

2006-05-31T10:44:00.000-07:00

I was watching "Troy" for the hundredth time today when it struck me. Did Achilles ever really think that his name would go down in history and hence he should fight at Troy? Or was it only Homer's imagination that created this surreal hero? A thousand years after something is written, how do we tell fact from fiction. It is hard enough even if something was written a year ago. A hundred years from now, how would someone reading "False Impression" (by Archer) tell if there really was an Anna Petrescu, an Olga Krantz or a Lady Victoria Wentworth with a priceless collection of paintings? All the records would show that there indeed was a 9/11 attack on NYC. Would they, the then citizens of the world (of course provided there isn't another ice age by then), make movies showing Anna (or Krantz) as an epic herione? (For all you know we'll make one ourselves).

The point is, how does one tell fact from fiction so far away in time? A more important question perhaps is, does it even matter?

Now this takes guts

2006-05-31T09:36:00.000-07:00

I know it is not entirely fair for me to put up links to a youtube video because people without broadband are unlikely to be able to watch it... and there are a LOT of people here who do not have broadband. However, there is no way I can ignore such guts. You must watch Stephen Colbert land punch after punch after punch at the American presidency at the White House Correspondents' Dinner with, mind you, the President, the first lady and the who's who in American reporting present. A must watch.

Link Courtesy: The Digital Journalist

Anti-Reservation Protest at IITB

2006-05-21T21:34:00.000-07:00

A human-chain protest was held on 19th May, 2006 outside IIT Bombay. The protest was against the hike in reservations in educational institutes in the country. However, perhaps because of lack of police brutality or some such reason, the media did not find it good enough to cover it well. I have put up some photos from the protest at flickr.

Today, students go on hunger strike at IIT Bombay in batches of 24 hours. Will post photographs and commentary on the same soon.

Update: Its 3:30 AM on 23rd May and the hunger strike has been in progress for the last 14 hours. Several news channels have come and interviewed the students and several newspapers have enquired about the details. Hopefully reasonable coverage in tomorrow's morning news. Some photos from earlier in the day now up at flickr.

Update: It's 2:30 AM on 24th May. The Pro-reservation camp has been empty for the last 3 hours now. The government announces its intention to implement its reservation hike by June of 2007. Students in anti-hike camp still battle on. Multiple discussions in small groups. The nerves are strained. Others are asleep of exhaustion.

Update: Its 25th May, past mid-night. Alumni presence was seen today at the site of the anti-reservation hike protest. Mr. Shailesh Gandhi (a very active social activist) spoke at length with the students about what they can do to increase their support base and make their demands more relevant to Indian society at large. Faculty members, although bound by rules to not make statements to the media, made their presence felt at the site. They spoke to students and expressed their support to the cause. There are discussions about the next steps to be taken. Mobilization of more alumni and school students high on agenda.

Update: (25th May, late night) More alumni turnout today. Brainstorming about how to get a reasonable dialogue to start with the government. Proposal to take up the task of gathering data about current situation in the country instead of asking the government to do it. Students distribute thousands of pamphlets at key points in the city, exhorting people to participate in the "Maha-Rally" to take place at Azad Maidan on 28th of May.

News Coverage:
Anti-reservation protest goes hi-tech - Cybernoon
Defiant docs launch civil disobedience campaign - IBN Live
Medicos defiant, set up anti-quota agitation - Hindustan Times
Quota policy triggers diet plan - DNA
IITians, medicos gear up for a long battle - Hindustan Times
Anti-quota stir by IIT enters third day - Times of India
Government to implement OBC quotas by 2007 - Indian Express
IIT face off over reservation - Mid Day
IITians spread anti-quota message in schools - Times of India
Solidarity show: IITians go on hunger strike - DNA
Now, IIT students go on chain hunger strike - Mumbai Newsline

References:
Devil's Advocate: Karan Thapar's interview with Kamal Nath
Devil's Advocate: Karan Thapar's interview with Arjun Singh

Protesting the politics of reservation - Amit Varma
Rashmi Bansal from Youth Curry talks about the "Karan vs. Arjun" interview and more
Rashmi Bansal from Youth Curry analyses the reservation argument
EvenStar wonders when Sachin will go to school
Its the thought that counts, right? - Amit Varma

Thank God Its Fridays...

2006-05-20T23:57:00.000-07:00

...or was it Saturday? Who cares. It was fun; especially having read some nice things about myself on other people's blogs (:D). I'm talking about the MetroBloggers' meet at Andheri. The best part of course was the cool mix of people present. Right from the bald ones to the ones with long hair; ok, it was varied in other ways as well.

There was even an Investment Banker around (I can't tell you which one of them he was though) who claimed that he was as old as any three other people present, put together. Then there was this programmer guy who was bent on figuring out why Google was bent on giving out free services (while he himself handed out DVDs to anyone who'd care to take them, or to those who wouldn't) or on talking about the super-cool SLR lens which had a 1/2.8 something throughout some zoom ranges. Whew.

Of course, there was Divya (who said nice things about me on her blog) who also told us how to get to Andaman other than by pissing off the British. Selvin told us about the horrors of being a techie in a financial institution while Tony told us how his cookery blog gets more hits than his regular blog (:D).

About the investment banker again. He told us how IIT+IIM grads are the ones investment banks hire these days... and so it'd be a good idea to go to an IIM. But what happens if I do manage to start my own chai-paratha shop which I've dreamed of for so long? Would I want an IIT+IIM grad to be running it? Too expensive no? (:P)

With me being as shy as I am (believe me, its true) I didn't end up talking to a lot of people. Next time maybe... which I'm really looking forward to btw, what with Sakshi promising us free clothing (whoops! was that meant to be a secret?).

I'll stop with what now seems to be a must for an entry describing the meet - "Much Fun Came".

The Metro and a proud Indian

2006-05-05T22:00:00.000-07:00

Last year, on a trip to the US, I had been thoroughly impressed by the New York Metro rail system. The train coaches, etc were nothing to marvel about. They were simple enough. However, the impressive part was the way the system worked and the little thoughtful features that were part of the system. Inside each compartment, there was a map of the route that the train would follow so you would know how many stops there were to your destination. To the regular commuter, it is not a problem but for someone who travels occasionally, it can be a boon. For comparison, the few of the coaches in the Mumbai Local Train system carry such a map (this is not to say that I’m not a big fan of the local trains in Mumbai, but more on that in some other post). As the train approached each stop, there were announcements for the next stop and there were gentle reminders for people to stand away from doors, etc. The stations themselves were pretty nice. There were swipe-cards to open doors to get onto platforms and you could check the balance on your cards and could also get them “recharged”. Many had said then that I would find it hard to live again in India. I had contested that statement strongly and yesterday I got more support for my stand.

I happened to travel on the Delhi Metro yesterday, and there wasn’t a prouder Indian. The least I can say is that I was thrilled. We have not only managed to create a system that equals local rail services elsewhere in the world, we have gone one better. The Metro system boasts of contact-less smartcards for getting onto platforms, instead of swipe-cards. The platforms, whether two levels above the road or two levels below, are immaculately built. It has more security deployed (at least visibly) than the New York metro. The station at Rajiv Chowk (near Cannaught Place), is absolutely world class. The coaches are of the highest quality, with route maps in each coach, announcements before every stop, air-conditioning and all inter-connected as a single standing place. Train frequencies are high, as high as one every 5 minutes on some routes during peak hours. Unfortunately, photography is prohibited on the stations and on the train otherwise I’d have gone trigger-happy and posted tens if not hundreds of pictures of the system.

The fact that this system is so fantastically built and is being run extremely well too, is a source of pride. However, the social impact of this system is, to my mind, fantastic too. The amount of mental (and physical) strain generated while traveling in Delhi can be appreciated only by doing so oneself. Before the Metro arrived (maybe they should start a new era, such as B.C. and A.D.), if you did not have your own car, you were stuck with traveling in DTC buses (which thankfully were converted to CNG a few years back) or in an auto-rickshaw. Needless to say, the smoke, traffic (with blaring horns), and oppressive Delhi heat would pretty much destroy any desire to travel. Even the thought of having to move out onto Delhi roads could be depressing. However, the Metro is a completely different story. Of course, I traveled not at peak traffic but pretty much late in the evening which might make me slightly more biased than one needs to be. For a person like me having something like the Metro means that I will fret much less if I have to travel. I will spend less time traveling (peak hours or not, the time of travel from point to point is constant on the Metro, unlike on the road where travel time could vary from 25 minutes to 2 hours on the same route). I will be much surer about how long it will take me to get to a place and hence I can make much more definite plans saving even more time for myself and others who I might have to meet with. In general, productivity of every individual increases significantly. At least some traffic on the roads is reduced. Obviously the amount of traffic reduction on the roads is not commensurate with the increase in traffic on the Metro simply because the propensity to travel increases. My guess is that significant amounts of employment are being generated, not to mention the number of businesses that must have been setup to support the Metro. As the Metro spreads through the city over the coming years, I hope they continue to function as they are now and help mitigate travel problems in the city. Further, I hope they provide us with the confidence that all is not lost and we can build systems even in this country that will let us compete with the best in the world. Meanwhile, one more point to India.

TOI bashing

2006-04-25T21:56:00.000-07:00

For any of you who thought the Times of India was unnecessarily berated for poor journalism, here is another entertaining headline (the "funniness" becomes clear when one reads the actual article)

"Al-Qaeda suspect killed in Kenya bombing"

ISLAMABAD: An Egyptian al-Qaeda member wanted for his role in the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Kenya was killed by Pakistani forces close to the Afghan border, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said on Thursday ...

Photoblog - now with RSS feed

2006-04-25T11:03:00.000-07:00

Yup! I've created an RSS feed for "Glimpses of India", my photoblog. Now get notified when I post new photographs...
Glimpses of India RSS Feed

Webaroo...

2006-04-23T15:51:00.000-07:00

Well it has been a complete let down, frankly. We've been watching Webaroo for quite a while now. So many IITians have worked for them by now and on apparently very interesting things too. There were people working on image compression, video compression, information retreival, etc. They spent money too. Pizzas for lunch... etc etc. I was pretty excited about Webaroo myself. With them spending so much money on interns and the kind of work going on, I was expecting some spectacular products to be announced. Come 10th April and the only expression I had was - "What? All this for a webpack?"

And what a webpack too. A friend tells me that the Mumbai webpack does not throw up IIT Bombay in its search results. Ok, you can say I have an inflated ego but come on, I'd still say IIT should be there in a Mumbai-only webpack. In any case, the whole idea is indigestible. Lots of people have already pointed out several problems with the concept.

1. hard-disk space on laptops is expensive. Does 40 gigs of webpack make sense?
2. a webpack for cellphones? how many MBs did you say? duh?
3. anyone who knows he'll be away from a network connection (as when travelling on an international flight) for an extended period would simply download relevant stuff he'd want to read - well maybe this does not hold that much water, but fine.
4. connectivity is exploding. Beyond a certain threshold it does not matter how much hard-disk space you have. Is this a product to just act as a filler for the time when connectivity becomes ubiquitous, even in aircrafts? (yes, even today you can get network connectivity there, albeit at a fairly high cost and only on some carriers).
5. The internet is an interactive medium. Once you "download" it, the interactivity is essentially gone. You can't read email, can't eshop, etc. so what's the point.

Those are common arguments that are raised. I, however, had other questions on my mind. The first is that of copyright infringement. What Webaroo is offering is basically redistribution of content from the web. Now such material could be copyrighted and yet make it into their webpack (if it doesn't, quite a lot of good content would be absent). Google only stores it in an index for searching, so perhaps that's fair use. But giving it away as a product... is that fair use?

Second, what about websites that make money by online advertisements? Aren't they losing revenue because there obviously cannot be ad-tracking? So isn't Webaroo running at the expense of other site owners?

As I said, I was pretty much disappointed with Webaroo. So much research for (in my opinion) a fairly crappy product. Maybe they have something else hidden away; waiting for the right time to announce it. Maybe, just maybe. One hopes. Meanwhile, I'm just happy IIT has given me a 24 hour net connection and I can blog at 4 AM in the morning.

[Wait! Maybe people in IIT Chennai would like to download this stuff; what with LAN down during the night... just a thought]

[I remembered a joke I heard years ago. It was basically when the internet was only entering common vocabulary. This guy walks up to a computer store owner with a floppy and says - "can you give me a copy of the internet on this floppy?". It was pretty lame even then but I think the Webaroo guys got serious about it. Floppy maybe not, but an HD-DVD surely (or Blu-Ray disc, depending on which camp you're in)]

On reservations and national progress

2006-04-08T23:18:00.000-07:00

Gurcharan Das, in his book "India Unbound", laments the fact that India has failed to become a tiger, moving forward in leaps and bounds, but is instead more like an elephant, lumbering ahead slowly, occasionally even taking a step backwards. Well, we just took one step backwards and there is talk that there will be an even bigger one soon.

One of our esteemed national leaders with all his intelligence and social goodwill has announced that he plans to allow reservations for the OBCs in the so-called higher centers of learning. This will take the percentage of reserved seats to just below 50%. This certainly should be good news. The backward classes will now have access to higher learning. They will use this higher learning to get better jobs and use their new wealth, position and influence for the emancipation of others of their own lot. This is good; very good. Only there is a problem - the problem of equity. As grown-ups, we are expected to understand that some sacrifices have to be made for the overall development of this country. This itself is a difficult task but wait, the problem is worse. Consider the plight of an 18 year old, who does not get admission to IIT because of this high reservation. Try explaining to him why a student with much lesser ability is eligible to go to the dream institute while he is not. Its easy to explain meritocracy; its not easy to explain caste-based discrimination. To him, it is an opportunity lost because of an individual from another caste. It is difficult to see how it leads to healthier feelings among children of different castes. I see this system fostering bitterness - that's all.

To overcome this problem, it has been suggested that the number of seats in these institutes be increased so that the actual number of students from general categories need not be reduced. This sounds fair but lets not rush to conclusions. What this proposal means is that the intake into these institutes should be increased by over 50%; i.e. for example, an IIT should increase its intake from around 500 students each year to over 750 students a year. This increases its total student population from 4400 to 6600 students. A noble thought; unfortunately extremely short-sighted. These institutes are barely managing to provide the quality of infrastructure that their peers in other places are providing. "India is a poor country. We cannot afford to provide those facilities. We have to first focus on bringing everybody at par". This is how the argument goes. In my opinion, if we spend all our time "bringing everybody at par", we will never move to the next phase.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that students among the SC/ST/OBCs are not capable. I'm saying that they should be provided support at primary and secondary levels. Tremendous support. I'm all for it. However, should we do it at the expense of other students? Probably not.

As if it is not bad enough that they are pushing reservations our institutes of national pride, they now want to push it onto private companies. To my mind, this is an outrage. Companies become profitable because of meritorious/talented people. Also, companies (typically) do not indulge in caste based discrimination while hiring. They look for talent. When they find it, they hire it. Having been given all the opportunities (read reservations at every level of education) if a student does not manage to raise his capabilities to work usefully for a company, is it society's responsibility anymore? People like Narayanmurthy apparently support such reservation. Naturally. They don't care. They have tonnes of places where they can absorb less-skilled people - they have call centers. On the other hand, consider the case of Google or GoldmanSachs and the like. As soon as such a rule is passed, these companies will wind up their business and run off in a jiffy. Their businesses are incredibly mobile. They offshored to India. They can offshore to China (or Taiwan, Singapore, Japan...). At a time when such companies are generating so much economic activity (and even perhaps revenues) in the country, can we afford to lose them?

I love this country and hope to do my bit. However, if this hare-brained scheme for "bringing equity within the country" ever makes it to the law-books, I will lose hope. I'm sure many like me, and more capable than me, will lose hope too. Perhaps then it will be time to leave in search of other lands....

Music and Rain

2006-03-09T03:55:00.000-08:00

Music and rain; two things that have this way of doing funny things to your brain. Put them together, and they are a deadly force. We had this live music programme the other day. Somehow, live music has much greater impact than listening to maestros on half-decent speakers. And to be sure, I was crapped out. Its more like a high; unable to think. Infact, without a desire to think. Its one of those times when you really give in to pure emotion. Frightening it is.

And then it rained today, and I felt funny enough. Its that thing where if there is someone to miss, you tend to miss and if there is no one to miss you wish there was. I'm not exactly sure which happened to me. Maybe I wouldn't accept it if I knew. In any case, the day is wasted. Only the almost closed lab with air-conditioning which more or less makes one oblivious to the outside weather prevented me from sitting all day long with my head in my hands staring away into infinity.

They are bad days, days like today. If you sit and enjoy them, you realise that the day is wasted. If you insulate yourself and manage to work, you realise that the day is wasted. And this just made me realise that I tend to look at the negative only. I'm sure Piyush can come up with some explanation of why such days are the best days by this very nature of theirs... sigh! All I can say is - "rain rain go away, come again another day..." :(

Photoblogging!

2006-02-27T23:33:00.000-08:00

Started photoblogging recently, on a theme that's fairly close to my heart. I'm not much of a photographer but I do manage to get some reasonably good ones among the hundreds that I click. Its a slow beginning but with time hopefully a good collection will be created.

Glimpses of India - A Photoblog

Probability - All in the mind?

2006-01-26T08:41:00.000-08:00

It’s been a while since I have been troubled by the notion of probabilities; trouble with the simple notion that a coin showing up heads has a probability distribution. I have had a hard time trying to articulate what I have felt and I finally think I have succeeded somewhat. It is my contention that in a quantum certain world, probabilities have nothing to do with an experiment at all; probabilities are only a summary of the state of our knowledge about the world and its laws. I will try to justify this position.

We start with the simplifying assumption that the world is quantum certain. We’ll add quantum uncertainty and worry about its effects later. In a quantum certain universe, the current state of the universe completely determines the future states of the world (or universe). The connection of all the variables may be extremely complicated and may be affected by “a butterfly flapping its wings in Australia”; but the future is certainly determined by the present state of the universe. Now let us try out an experiment in such a universe. I have a biased coin. Initially I do not know what the “probability” of the coin showing up heads is. Without any prior information about the coin, I would say that the probability of the coin showing up heads is half. I then proceed to toss the coin and find that it does indeed show up heads. I repeat the experiment a few times and find that the coin shows up heads 8 times out of 10. This leads me to adjust my probability assessment of the coin showing up heads. Now I show the coin to a friend and ask him to make an assessment of the probability distribution. Again, without any prior information, my friend is going to put the probability at half. I then proceed to flip the coin again. Now here is the point to consider: what is the actual probability of the coin showing up heads – half? Or 0.8? Clearly, my friend’s or my belief should not affect the outcome of the toss at all. Indeed, in a quantum certain world, the end result of this experiment is already decided – only we don’t know what it is. So in this case probability is indeed only in our mind and it has nothing to do with the act of flipping the coin at all. It may be argued that probabilities should not be interpreted as being assigned to a single event but as the statistics arising out of several repetitions of an experiment. However, if the world is quantum certain, why should it be the case that asymptotically the coin will continue to show the same statistical probability of showing up heads 8 out of 10 times? Why may not the predetermined chain of events lead to a completely different statistical behavior in the long run?

Now, let us add quantum uncertainty. This clearly allows probabilities to be “out there” instead of being only a figment of our imagination. However, there is still a problem. Why is it that uncertainties at the level of the tiny atomic/sub-atomic particles so precisely affect and control the probabilities of much more coarse-grained events like coin flips and card selections? How do uncertainties at the quantum level lead to such probability distributions that can be so easily analyzed, like say the probability of picking a king of spades from a pack of 52 cards? Do they infact affect these events at all? Or are these probabilities (of gross events, not quantum events) still only creations of our imagination; a statement of our ignorance of the state of the world?

The "Right to Destroy Information" act

2006-01-26T04:15:00.000-08:00

We heard a lot about “The Wayback Machine” recently. For the uninitiated, the wayback machine is a website that archives the internet; and not once or twice, but several times over, every so often. The Wayback Machine has around 6 copies of my homepage with the first copy being the half-built version of my very first. Another version still sports all the photographs I once had on my page but have since removed. I’m shocked, to say the least.

Just a few days ago I had written about how we find it extremely hard to hit the delete button. Now it turns out that even if I do hit the delete button on anything I put on the internet, its still useless. The undo button is still around and it can undo deletions that took place many many years ago. Why? This personal paranoia about losing information has reached epic proportions. We as a race so strongly fear the “loss of history” that we are taking repeated snapshots of the “world” every few days (months?). What purpose does it serve to store semi-complete homepages of individuals who are blissfully unaware that what they put up on the net may probably be around for eternity to see (atleast if the Wayback machine has its way). Its as if the saying “what’s done cannot be undone” has caught up with the internet; only not completely. We can undo deletions but apparently there is no way to undo creation.

Perhaps intellectual property rights should now be augmented with a new clause – the right to destroy information. This would mean that an individual or an organization should be allowed to destroy information that they created (unless they transferred the rights to someone else in which case the new owner would have the right to destroy the information). There would ofcourse be the problem of determining the rightful ownership of the content but then this problem also exists for the copyright act.

Is it really important that we preserve every aspect of the world we live in today? May it not be better to let certain information be destroyed so that it does not stifle the creativity of the generations to come? Does having lots of storage capacity justify us holding on to the past? We need to figure out.

Archive or Delete?

2006-01-23T00:20:00.000-08:00

I came across the first “animation” program I'd ever writter, today. It was lying in some obscure corner of my hard-disk (which is quite large). The amazing thing though is not that I found it… its that it was lying around till today, almost 10 years after it was first written. It managed to survive perhaps 5-6 hard-disk changes, atleast 10 computer changes, 3 city changes and a growth from class VI to 4^th year at college. You might think that the program survived because it was a first. I thought so too so I fired up a search for all the QBasic programs lying around on my hard-disk. It threw up around 500 programs. Now I stopped writing QBasic programs as long back as 1999. That means that all these programs survived on my hard-disks for atleast 7 years. The message is clear – As long as I have disk space, those programs are not going anywhere.

This was about QBasic programs; maybe something some geek may feel sentimental about. However, it sets one thinking. Why is that we find it so hard to destroy information? If you’ve been computer-friendly long enough, you might find your class XI physics project report lying around somewhere on your disk. Only those unfortunate (fortunate?) enough to have gone through a hard-disk crash would lose that data. Even they have probably started making regular backups of their disks so they are not going to lose anything again.

We seem to have this problem at every level. One of the main “feature” of gmail is – “never have to delete an email”. It sounds lovely, and we grab it. There are people in my department who haven’t deleted a single email from their department email accounts since they entered college – that’s all of 3.5 years and several thousands of emails. What makes us hold on to emails that inform us about cancelled classes – classes that we were to attend 3 years ago? Even so, those emails sit around. Older versions of homepages sit around as gzipped files on our web-servers. Source code of assignment 2 from 5^th semester hardware lab is probably sitting around as another gzip file; perhaps multiple copies – one on your computer, another on your department account and yet another on the hostel account.

As the amount of digital information generated (email, blogs, photographs from digital cameras, mp3s and tetris/mine-sweeper highest score records) has exploded, so has storage capacity. In 1994, my computer had a total hard-disk capacity of 120 MBs (yes, MBs) with the operating system occupying about 30 MB (windows 3.11). Today I have 240 GBs of local storage (2000 times in 11 years) + 2.5 GBs of email space on gmail + 500 MB on department servers + webhosting space on tripod/blogger/yahoo… As long as I have this space, I don’t want to hit the delete key. Nobody does.

Will there some day be a limit when we are forced to choose to delete instead of archive? Meanwhile, as the amount of information on our hard-disks keep increasing, there will be increasing number of serendipitous discoveries of our pasts all written down as 0s and 1s.

Footprints?

2006-01-09T10:07:00.000-08:00

On the sands of time?

It seems instead that its the ocean that is time and eventually washes away every footprint that ever was made... giving the world a clean slate to work on again and again and again...

The Indigo Days

2006-01-06T02:36:00.000-08:00

It’s not been long since the British left India. Indeed, in terms of the age of a country, it hasn’t been long since the British first came to India. So it is surprising to see how quickly lessons that history teaches us are forgotten. Perhaps that is why history has to repeat itself, and that is exactly what it seems to be doing now.

India had been known for its spices, silks, cotton, sugar and indigo. Indigo was a dye and as everyone who was awake during history classes at school would know, Indigo plantations deplete the soil of nitrates, thus making it unsuitable for cultivation of other crops. The British forced the farmers to grow indigo to cheaply feed their own textile industry back home. The soil would then be incapable of producing anything else but indigo.

The situation is not very different today. It is widely agreed that at one time land was the source of power. Today knowledge is the source of power; and India had plentiful of both, cultivable land and knowledge. When land was the source of power, the British exploited it for their purposes. When knowledge is the source of power, the United States is exploiting it for its purposes. The call-centers of today are not very unlike the indigo plantations of yester-years. They suck in what could have been smart and intelligent people and turn them into brain-dead zombies. Our capabilities as a nation are being put to such menial uses. Thousands of call-center employees leave home at 9 PM to work over-night at these call-centers. They stay awake at night and sleep during the day. This is against nature itself. It affects the health of these people as it affects the health of the nation itself. At one time we produced great mathematicians and great writers. Today people who have the greatest success-rate in telemarketing get promotions. Our standards of performance have been dropped to these levels. And this is done by paying us a pittance as compared to what the same work would have cost them to do at home.

It does not matter what subject you graduated in – you are a good candidate for a call-center job. It is true that these jobs have served us by absorbing a large part of our working population and increasing the per capita income in the country. On the one hand, lakhs and lakhs of jobs are created by these call-centers; on the other hand, core industry like civil/mechanical/chemical engineering complain of a lack of trained personnel willing to work with them. It is this core industry that would build the infrastructure in the country to cope with the future, and yet they don’t have qualified people working for them. This is obviously because the BPO firms pay more than core industry can hope to pay and no student/professional can be blamed for choosing higher paying jobs.

The whole point is that even though we rejoice as disposable incomes rise and consumerism increases, we must really take a long hard look at what we are losing out as a nation in the long run. Its time we realized that it’s the Indigo Days all over again and we must take control before its too late.

Nobody likes nosy Parker

2005-12-01T10:02:00.000-08:00

Anybody who reads blogs must have picked up the scent by now. Things aren't well on the road to Mountain View. Since it went public last year and its share soared to over 400 dollars apiece recently, tech watchers have become edgy about Google. Comparisons are being drawn with its older "cousin" from Redmond. "Google will become the next Microsoft". Ofcourse, in my opinion, that's rather a compliment, but not everybody agrees.

The one project from Google that really seems to have triggered this wave of dissent is Google Print. As people thrash out the issue of whether scanning (and OCRing) books to make them searchable is a copyright infringement or not, Google doesn't seem to be letting up much steam. They recently announced a contribution of some millions of dollars to a project of the government of the United States to digitize documents relating to the cultural heritage of various countries of the world. Is it a good thing? Some people say its not. After all what does the United States think of itself? I say its a good thing. If a country cannot preserve its documents and make them available to its people, why shouldn't someone else do it for them? And why is Google into it? Their stated aim is to digitize every bit of information in the world and make it searchable. Laudable that. Am I happy that Google is doing it? Not really. Given the fact that I've always dreamt of doing the same, and the fact that I graduate in 2007, Google beat me to the market by atleast 12 years. (Ha! I think too much of myself don't I?)

On the other hand, some other things do get a bit disturbing. Google's (hideously painful to use) Orkut is one of them. I wasn't aware of "Social Networks" on such a large scale before Orkut came along. Ofcourse a huge tonne of other social networking sites sprung up after that. What is disturbing is the ease with which we post tonnes of personal information on these networks. Now it doesn't take too much paranoia to conjure up a "big brother" who might be watching you - always. Google desktop indexes your entire hard-drive. Gmail "reads" all your emails. Orkut keeps track of your friends. Personalised Google search knows exactly what sites you visit. I get a creepy feeling sometimes - Google seems to be peeking into every aspect of our lives. Ofcourse, I've always been a bit paranoid. But maybe its one of the reasons that people are getting uncomfortable about Google. They are blaming it on sloppy products, bad management, and Microsoft-like tactics (read Google Analytics), but on an unconscious level, maybe they are worried that their privacy might be at stake. Is this fear justified? Who knows. But I'm dead sure about one thing - nobody likes nosy Parker.

The perfect moment...

2005-11-14T04:54:00.000-08:00

As the song fades into silence...
and the evening fades into darkness...
I wish my life would freeze
in this one perfect moment
And yet life has just begun
how many more perfect evenings will come
when the wind rustles my hair
and the sun goes down
lighting the sky orange, pink and red...

Of Duct Tape and the Real-World

2005-10-04T06:32:00.003-07:00

There was a time when I was a believer. Let me clarify what I mean. I believed that I knew precious little and there are thousands upon thousands of people 'out there' who really knew their stuff. I believed that its these people who keep the world together - i.e. they build things that are perfect. They were doctors who knew the human body inside-out. They were the lawyers who knew entire law books by heart. They were the politicians who understood the socio-economic and international impacts of their decisions. They were the aerospace engineers who knew their dynamics like the back of their hands. In effect, they were people who really excelled at what they did...

As time went by and I stepped into college, the myth aobut the IITian began dissolving. These were not creatures who pored over books deep into the night (ok, they do it, for about 2 weeks a semester). These were not the creatures who discussed Lorentz equations over the dinner table.

So I thought that perhaps that's not the case with research. Perhaps people know their stuff there. If the students working on their projects (whether bachelors, masters or doctors) are anything to go by, that area's kind of out too... It is not my privilege to comment on our professors but they seem to be stuck up with old ideas and rarely want to see a new view- point. I feel inadequate to be judge.

I tried to look to industry. Again the same dismal picture. Behind the bright colourful advertisements, there seem to be huge teams of mediocre people; people working on projects they don't really understand - somehow making things stay together long enough to sell it. Larsen and Toubro builds a 34 crore rupee hostel that leaks in the first rains. Slopes on the corridors are in the incorrect direction so that rainwater drains into the rooms. Kone puts in elevators that refuse to run properly for two days at a stretch. Dominos Pizza runs out of mushrooms when they have an unexpectedly large order. It turns out that the telecom network of the world is just held together - and no one person really knows how it works. Scary! Media-persons report that a 3 year old can install Windows98 in 15 minutes (you bet!). You'd think that the reporters would care to find out the 'truth'. Hard luck.

Humanity seems to be in its childhood as far as building things is concerned - whether it is sky-scrapers or software. The simplest of innovations are hailed like 'finds-of-the-millennium'. The simplest of software seem to be boons straight from God. I always thought it would be hard for me to build something like them - but I never thought that even huge companies think so too. The realization dawned slowly, and its painful. The only respite is to watch programmes on Extreme Machines and Modern Marvels. Atleast those programmes convince you that some really incredible engineering challenges are presented and people do meet them successfully. Yet when you're back into the real-world, you can't help but wonder if the world is actually a bunch of contraptions held together with duct-tape...

Holding On!

2005-09-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

Oh! Why do we delude ourselves
Why don't we just let go
The time will never cease
And we really must go with the flow.

Why do we cling to each other
When the time has come when we must part
Why can't we tear away our gaze
And come away without a heavy heart.

Oh! Why do we hold on to a precious time
Fearing to let go a support in hand
Its like crossing a mighty river
Trying to find a foothold that we may stand

Why not try to swim along
Taking life with you as it comes your way
Watching a paper-boat in a stream
Tossing and jumping or flowing away

And yet I say it just for now
I know this mood will not last
I am as weak as any other
And a total slave of my past

I wish I could just close my eyes
And see ahead at what was coming
So I could let go off my past
And look ahead without complaining.

Modern Art?

2005-09-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

Man has always painted. We find paintings that cavemen made on their caves. They drew the animals they hunted.

It was believed to be a good omen. Today, millennia later, we learn interesting facts about their life from their paintings. Their paintings are crude, but have a semblance to the world they lived in.

As man matured, his paintings grew more and more intricate. He painted ceremonies and rituals. He made portraits of great kings and scenes of great wars. He painted beautiful women and majestic buildings. He migrated from painting on walls to painting on wood, papyrus, canvas and paper. What was common among all these paintings was that they were a picture of the world that the painters lived in, or were a picture of the ideal world that the painters dreamt of.

We have always stood in awe of some paintings. People from around the world flock to Paris to see the Mona Lisa. They may not appreciate the intricacies of the painting, but they find it rewarding to stand in its presence for but one fleeting moment. In the same age as the Mona Lisa, however, there developed a new form of Art - Modern Art. Paintings of abstract objects, thrown together in a jumble, supposedly meant to express some emotion that the painter felt. In my opinion, the only emotion that a painter could have been feeling while painting such pictures would be "chaos" or a supreme confidence that he could pass that painting off as a piece of art. Given the apparent genius of these painters, I increasingly feel that it is this second emotion that the painters felt. Modern Art is nothing but a mockery of the supposed understanding of "art" that people possess. Even as art connoisseurs ooh and aah in ecstacy as they "study" one of these pieces, the master-minds who created them laugh their heads off in their graves. It has been a trick that they tried and they successfully pulled it off. Little would they have guessed that their hoax would run long after they left.

[This painting stands framed in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York]

[This picture was clicked at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York]

Some relevant things Calvin has to say...

If

2005-08-31T10:04:00.000-07:00

- By Rudyard Kipling


If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;



If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;



If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";



If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

The Doors of Perception

2005-08-16T06:15:00.000-07:00

A deeply moving thought by Aldous Huxley...

"We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies -- all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes."

Are we prepared, indeed?

2005-08-06T03:35:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I wrote about our unpreparedness for facing disaster - natural or otherwise. We have just been demonstrated just how unprepared we are. The recent downpour in Mumbai and nearby areas have brought the state and crucial services throughout the country, to their knees.
Local railways in Mumbai are always closed down for a few days each year. This year was a totally different story though. News clippings showed trains, but no signs of the tracks. People had to be evacuated using ropes - cliffhanger style. Some people walked 23 hours from the trains to their homes, with luggage on their heads. The roads were flooded to knee level at some places; and shoulder level at others. Homes did not have electricity or drinking water for days. And this was the condition in India's biggest metropolitan; the business capital.
Conditions were much worse in other parts of the state. Some villages were completely wiped off. And apparently these villages were not even on the maps of the government, let alone on their radar.
Cellular phone networks went down affecting the city even more in the time of crisis. SBI's ATM service across the country collapsed because their central server resides in Bombay. Our hostel mess was flooded with water; and remained so for about 2 weeks - thanks to L&T construction.
At this point, I'm not blaming the government or private enterprises for inaction. Enough people across the country have done that. What I'm more worried about is the state of our engineering. One wonders what civil engineers we are producing; The infrastructure they build have no way to cope with heavy rains - let alone floods. One wonders what kind of reliability engineering we are doing that heavy rains in one city affect banking operations across such a huge nation. We don't have redundancy measures in our systems. We are incapable of delivering communication services in a crisis. We are incapable of running rescue operations in a crisis.
It is true that several villages are built without consent or knowledge of the government. However, I cannot understand how they can remain out of sight of the government. Today perhaps Google Maps flaunts better pictures of all of India than the Indian government itself. What is the state of the art in remote sensing that we have? Don't we have enough computer engineers that can write software to analyse such imagery and develop safety plans? Are we only capable of running Call Centers; solving problems in running MS Word or processing credit requests in the UK? It is hard to believe that this may be true; but as of right now it seems to be the case. Is it time we do something about it?

The Three Kinds of Individuals

2005-06-07T06:14:00.000-07:00

People have always thought of the world as being divided into two classes of individuals - the rich and the poor; the literate and the illiterate; the socialist and the capitalist; the good and the bad...

But perhaps, its our language that goads us to classify individuals into only two categories. However, if we look toward life, free from our prejudice towards "two" categories, we find that there are infact, not two but three kinds of individuals. And by individuals, I do not only mean one man or one woman. By individual, I also mean one group of school-boys; one company of a thousand people; one city of a million people or one country of a billion.

Every individual or organisation has a personality. For an individual, it may be inborn or acquired. For an organisation or a group, it is emergent. Individuals within a group may vary, but the organisation does behave as if it has a life of its own; and hence a personality of its own.

So, coming back to the question of the three categories. I cannot yet give names for these categories (like the 'haves' and 'have-nots'), for merely appending a negation to the name of one category does not serve our purpose (my reference to language as being a hinderance for classification).

Let me begin by describing the behaviour of individuals of each category. The picture will become clearer then.

Let us start with category 1, which we will call as such for want of a better name. An individual of this category is like a wisened old man. Atleast that's what he thinks he is. He smiles quietly at the follies of his fellow individuals. He does not get angry at the 'blundering' soul. He pities him. Ocassionally, he gently tries to set him on the 'right path'. He suffers so others may not have to. He suffers for he knows that if he refuses to suffer, the whole world would have to.

A simple game will explain this person completely. There is a group of ten people. In each round of the game, every person secretly chooses one of two colours - red or black. Once everybody has picked his colour, the colours are declared. If everyone picks black, everybody gets 5 points each. If everybody picks red, everybody loses 1 point. If, however, atleast one person picks black (but not all), all the people who chose red get 1 point while those who chose black neither gain nor lose anything.

Clearly, on a relative basis, a person choosing red has nothing to lose. He will either gain some points, or lose only as much as any other. But the red person is not the one we are discussing at the moment. It is the black one that we are interested in. With the obvious merit of choosing red, why would anyone choose black? It could be either because he is a visionary or a stupid fool. While the person himself usually considers himself the former, the reds typically see him as the other. We will see why.

From the black's point of view, if everybody made the 'obviously correct' choice, all would be lost. While nobody would be better or worse off than the other, the group as a while will sink lower and lower, The blacks feel that it is their responsibility to ensure that this does not happen.

This immediately brings us to the nature of the second category of people. Well, it is more or less the red people. These people believe that there will always be someone else who will pick black. They believe that there will always be some fool or coward, who would make the safer choice. Such people are very often right about the fact that someone will pick up the tab...someone will take on the responsibility of saving civilisation....

And now the third category of people. These are the people who will suffer and do good, but at the same time worry that the reds might be right about them being foolish. They worry that they suffer needlessly. They figure that it would indeed be easier to pick red, while someone else chooses black. It is a dillemma, and a difficult one at that. We see it everyday, in our daily lives. There are those who bend the rules and get away with it...indeed, reap great benefits out of it; while others who follow them get rewarded only to the extent that they follow them; there are still others who follow the rules but feel cheated.

We see this drama played out on national scales too. Consider three entities; India, the Indian people and the United States...

The Problem of Consciousness

2005-04-18T12:19:00.000-07:00

Penrose, in his book "The Emperors New Mind", comes up with this nice argument about why teleportation of human beings is problematic. It goes something like this:
Suppose that a person is completely characterised by the "position" of the all the atoms/particles of his body relative to each other. Also, by some argumentation of Quantum Mechanics, its possible to say that its not a particular electron or proton that is part of a body that matters, but the fact that there is an electron at a position; basically that electrons are indistinguishable from each other. Now, suppose (the uncertainty principle notwithstanding), we are able to precisely locate each electron/proton/neutron in a persons body and transmit this information via electromagnetic waves to a distant planet. At that end, with still more sophisticated machinery, we construct a body with an identical configuration (as specified). Now, the original body is destroyed. Have we been able to transfer the person to another place? At first sight, one is tempted to say "well...yes....but what about the uncertainty principle".
Let us forget the Uncertainty Principle for the moment. There are other problems still. Suppose that we fail to destroy the original body. Does that mean that the "same" person is in two places at once? In body perhaps, but what about consciousness? Are the "two" people aware of each others presence? Have we replicated the "consciousness" too? So, essentially, is consciousness only a function of configuration of electrons in the body?
Again suppose, while the data was in transit, there was a lot of congestion on one of our wi-fi links. And the data had to be temporarily stored in a hard-disk. We, meanwhile, destroy the original body...since the data is safe and we are sure we can reconstruct the person as and when we wish. And now suppose the hard-disk lies around for several days. Is the "person" "inside" the hard-disk? Is part of the hard-disk conscious? Essentially, is consciousness a function of the information content in the human body?
What would happen if a person suddenly found himself at another place...with time having elapsed....but with the body having had NO EFFECT of passing time whatsoever. No new memories are formed during the process of transmission. This is different from falling asleep...where aging continues to happen even though memories might not be formed. Wouldn't the mind be in an 'inconsistent' state? Is that a problem?
Defining consciousness is a hard problem...perhaps the "most important problem about the world, the universe and everything" and whose answer is very unlikely to be 42. Is it Godel's incompleteness theorem at work here? Is this the ultimate question that we can never answer in finite time? Are we finite state automata too?

Are We Prepared?

2005-04-04T13:44:00.000-07:00

Science has been around for a very short while; its origins can be traced back to the Renaissance perhaps. Technology, on the other hand, has always been there. When Man invented the Wheel, there was no science, yet the Wheel was a fabulous piece of technology.
So we, humans, have been building things for a very long time, science or no science. They seem to work pretty well too. Those that don't, either die out or get replaced by better technologies. Technology today is good, but is it good enough? Can we stave off an alien invasion (Independence Day) or predict/outlive the onslaught of a premature ice-age (Day After Tomorrow). Hollywood would have us believe that we could. But how true is that?
How fragile is our technology? What extremes of conditions can it withstand?
Think of computing power - we have massive amounts of data being generated by millions of sensors around the globe and in space. Do we have the mathematical models to make sense of all that data? Do we have enough computing power to crunch through the numbers and produce results? Do we have visualisation tools that can present data to us in a way that we can understand?
On the socio-political side of affairs - do we have social support for fundamental research? Do we have economic strength to sustainm research which may not bear immediate results but which may be key to saving mankind and the earth some day. Do we have international brotherhood so that every country can contribute its bit to the forwarding of mankind without worrying about replicating technology so expensively built by one nation.
It is funny that we as individuals as well as nations should worry so much about time and effort, yet as inhabitants of this planet, we should fight each other tooth and nail to keep our 'secrets'; so that all the effort and time and money we have spent building technology is put in 175 times over in each country.
Moving on to India in particular: if we are to rise in power, and if we can take it as a given that no other country will help us get that power, do we have the resources to do so on our own? We have multiple problems at multiple levels. We have a pressing population/health/education problem. We might not have been, but now we certainly are a political mess. We have severe infrastructure shortage. We are spending lots of money and effort on solving these problems, but the solutions we build are extremely fragile. Roads don't last through one rainfall season. If the weather doesn't tear them apart, some or the other government department does. Does this not scream out for better planning? Are we conscious that we are desperately in need of e-enabling our governance? Our research centers? Are we in any position to monitor every corner of our country the way the US of A can (or atleast makes believe that it can)?
And yet there is brain-drain. Why is that? Is it not because we as a nation have failed to praise/support people who have worked for the nation? Is it not because we have failed to give them incentive (more than just patriotism) to work for the country?
Let alone technology, we have even failed to provide support to the young men and women guarding our national borders. Are we put to shame?

These are a lot of questions. Each begging for an answer, and more importantly, an action. Are we even conscious of these questions? Are we prepared for the future?

Seeking Perfection

2005-03-25T08:52:00.000-08:00

Perfection. Is it only a word; or is it worth striving for? It takes immense courage and patience to set oneself a goal and to make it there to perfection. There is perhaps no absolute 'perfect', but there surely is a personal measure for it.
Perfection is not a adjective one assigns to something after the fact, but a level of attainment that is decided beforehand. One strives to achieve that level. And it takes patience and a lot of self-belief.
The question, however, is whether there is a limit to the perfection one person can achieve. It is clear that one cannot master every sphere of human endeavour. But cannot one fix oneself a field, and work to perfection? Again, it takes a lot of courage to decide to dedicate oneself to a very focused area in life. It may be questioned if it even makes sense to do such a thing. Is it better to know a million things without being perfect at any? How broad should one's focus be?
Again, is it ok to excel at something academic while one's lifestyle is not balanced? Is it alright to excel at something while totally ignoring social norms of behavior? Is it perfection still if one fails ones duties as a child, student, parent or a friend to work towards a goal? Is it not possible to balance social and inner life while striving for perfection?
There are perhaps no right answers to these questions and different people will say different things. But what is more important? To be good be social definitions - maintaining cleanliness, normal behvaiour, and courtesy or to be a magician at something? Is it possible to attain perfection in both spheres? It is difficult to say the least - but probably attainable with super-human effort.
The only question is - is one motivated enough to put in that effort. One needs to ask oneself this single question.

Sunflowers!

2005-03-22T03:54:00.000-08:00

Ask a scientist, and he will tell you why the sunflowers follow the sun. Perhaps someday science will explain everything...

...but please don't explain everything to me...let the romance of ignorance live on...

Can I blog by email?

2005-03-20T00:33:00.000-08:00

Blogger has this great feature where I can blog by sending it email.
If it works, it will be great. Just checking out if it works alright.

Schrodinger's poor cat...

2005-03-19T00:49:00.000-08:00

This whole story about schrodinger's cat gives me the creeps...
either one believes that its only an analogy for the uncertainty principle and a very bad one at that or that there is something strange about the uncertainty principle itself.

Suppose we extend the usual experiment to be performed as follows...
The observer+box system is further enclosed in another box. Call the inside box B1 and the outside box B2. Also, outside B2 is another observer. Call the inside observer O1 and the outside observer O2.

Now, suppose that O1 open box B1 to find the cat dead. O2 is obviously unaware of what O1 observed. After a predetermined time, O2 opens the outer box B2 followed by the inner box B1. Is there any possibility of O2 finding the cat alive? Doesn't sound reasonable to expect this.

But now the trouble is this...for O2, the outcome was fixed the moment O1 found the cat dead. The wavefunction had already collapsed before O2 opened the box.

It can be claimed that the cat wavefunction collapsed because O1 observed it. But then, why is O1 privileged. Couldn't the box B1/B2 'observed' the cat? Or does the observer have to be alive? But then, what is the meaning of 'alive'?

Or perhaps we need to rething the meaning of conditional probabilities...and prior probabilities, posterior probabilities....etc etc.

But then again, the experiment could just be an extremely bad analogy for the real thing. However, is there a special status for the observer in quantum theory? Why is that?

Hence I prove that God exists...

2005-03-17T12:02:00.000-08:00

1+e^(iota*pi) = 0

5 fundamental quantities in mathematics, each created/discovered for different reasons, at different times in history, come together into this magnificently simple equation. Is that sheer chance or a conspiracy of the universe?

iota was invented to accomodate square roots of negative numbers
Pi was invented for geometrical purposes, though today it is defined analytically
e was probably invented for expressing logarithms
0 was invented by the Indians to ease numerical expression (?)
1 is fundamental anyway

How and why do they fall together so beautifully. Is it a sign of a divine presence, goading us to find it out ?

P.S. - I cannot claim to have discovered the importance of this equation. I remember somebody saying to me that Euler once used this to show that God exists. Googling didn't turn this up...but its pretty convincing anyway.

Why Blog?

2005-03-17T08:23:00.000-08:00

I guess blogging (or any form of diary writing) starts in one of two situations. One, when one has so much time on his hands that he does not know what to do with it. And the other, when life is full of so much sentiment evoking activity that its difficult to contain it, and these sentiments find outlet into the written word. So let it be with me.
Everytime I've tried maintaining a diary, I've ended up tearing it up after a few days...wonder if this one will last..........
Life is hectic; how I have time for blogging, I don't know. I'm surprised, to say the least, that I'm actually doing it. Let's see if I can keep it up. :-\