Rathodics

Potential application of a research: Civilian or Defense?

2006-06-15T09:40:00.000-07:00

As I had said in one of my previous posts, I was at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) for training in neutron scattering. Over the weekend, I was discussing this with some of my friends, and the discussion diverted to, in case such an opportunity arises, whether we would be comfortable taking research grant money from an organization involved in weapons development or for a project related to weapons development. I feel that as far as potential application of a research is concerned, it is a very thin line to separate out civilian use and military use. More often than not, most of the research done doesn't have a well-defined, narrow field of application. Research done on a topic might find potential use in both civilian as well as military applications. It might so happen that initially the research might find applications only in the civilian arena, but later on can be extended to military applications. Hence, it becomes increasingly difficult to judge beforehand, whether it is the right step working on a particular topic. Maybe, I am wrong, and that there are well-defined areas of application for each research done. But, as of now, I find it difficult to see that research can not be pervasive.

Fatalism and Indifference.

2006-06-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

I came across the following paragraph in The Wonder that was India by A. L. Basham.

It has often been said that the scale of natural phenomena in India, and her total dependence on the monsoon, have helped to form the character of her peoples. Even today major disasters, such as flood, famine and plague are hard to check, and in older times their control was almost impossible. Many other ancient civilizations, such as those of the Greeks, Romans and Chinese, had to contend with hard winters, which encouraged sturdiness and resource. India, on the other hand, was blessed by a bounteous Nature, who demanded little of man in return for sustenance, but in her terrible anger could not be appeased by any human effort. Hence, it has been suggested, the Indian character has tended to fatalism and quietism, accepting fortune and misfortune alike without complaint.

How far this judgement is a fair one is very dubious.

Basham provides a few reasons on why he thinks that the above opinion is open to debate, which I won't delve into. However, I can comment that probably this same attitude can be characterized as that of being indifferent. Maybe this is one of the reasons for the 'chalta hai' type attitude prevalent in large sections of the Indian society. This indifference attitude, or should I say this fatalistic attitude, reflects in many aspect of the society - uncaring attitude towards elections for regulatory bodies, unwillingness to check corruption, indifference towards the hardships faced by others, most notably faced by those belonging to the lower stratum of the economic pyramid of the society, and so on and so forth. Again, this is also open to debate, since many now feel that the current generation is an enlightened one and is making efforts to get rid of this attitude. Only time will tell, whether this is, indeed, the case or not.

Arthur Gordon said

Some people confuse acceptance with apathy, but there's all the difference in the world. Apathy fails to distinguish between what can and what cannot be helped; acceptance makes that distinction. Apathy paralyzes the will-to-action; acceptance frees it by relieving it of impossible burdens.

Maybe, I am one of that confused person in the above quote. But, I believe that over a period of time, acceptance turns in apathy.

World No Tobacco Day

2006-05-31T07:59:00.000-07:00

Today is World No Tobacco Day. The ills of tobacco have been well-known unlike anything else. So, I won't rant about it. Just that I would like to tell some of my friends who do smoke to give a thought to this. Though I know that we live in a free world (sort of) and that they are free to do whatever they feel like, I just thought of doing my part to make their lives better.

Ughhh... I feel terrible... for what I did...

2006-05-30T14:28:00.000-07:00

Back after another hiatus. I had too, since I did something real stupid last week, while I was in Los Alamos. Hurt a couple of my friends by opening my big mouth. I felt terrible then, and still feel terrible... So, I thought I should let the world know about it. Sorry for that, my dear friends.

I was at the Joint School Neutron Scattering School in Soft Condensed Matter and Structural Biology offered by the Lujan Neutron Scattering Center at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). It was an excellent school, made some real good friends coming from different parts of the world, had a fabulous time with the above two colleagues, and, maybe, after a long time, had such a good time, till I opened my big mouth.

Back, sort of...

2006-03-18T22:42:00.000-07:00

I am back, though I don't know for how long. I have been dilly-dallying posting on the blog, though I had quite a number of drafts ready; but, I got a bit too preoccupied with other mundane things in life.

Michael Learns To Rock is playing in the backgroud, and the song is How Many Hours. The lyrics of this song caught my attention. It starts of as follows.

Mothers giving birth to a little son
crying in the rain of falling bombs
Father he is young but deep and wise
You see the fighter inside his eyes

More words follow till it says:

People selling flowers like nothing´s going on
turning their backs on a world gone wrong
Children play around I guess they found some wheels
You see them running down the naked fields

The words struck me, considering it is March 18, 2006 today.
The part of the lyrics which repeats itself, i.e.

Hold me cover my sight
This is no paradise
Don´t show me
the evil sides of the world

is something which I have felt time and again, not just today, but 'n' number of times, and for various reasons, which I won't delve into now.
Though I said not much above, I thought of just sharing this bit.

More on India's entry to Oscars 2006.

2005-09-26T20:37:00.000-07:00

Following up on my previous post regarding India's entry to the Oscars 2006, according to the director Amol Palekar, Paheli deals with a `woman's right to make a choice'. Probably, I completely misunderstand the movie, but, I couldn't see a hint of what Palekar has said above regarding Paheli.

In an apparent justification in choosing Paheli over other contenders, Vinod Pandey, the Acting Chairman of the Film Federation of India, said, "Paheli has represented the Indian ethos. It is a film based on the Indian language." Naah, I couldn't see that either in the movie.

The other nominations were Mangal Pandey, Veer-Zaara, Iqbal, Swades, Parineeta, Page 3, Black, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, Sachein (Tamil), Anniyan (Telugu), Uttarayan (Marathi), Achuvante Anna (Malayalam), Graham (Telugu), and Kadal (Tamil).

I haven't seen all of these movies. I have seen a few of them, and to tell you the truth, personally, I found Paheli to be the worst among whichever ones I have seen from the above list. But then, as I said previously, maybe, I didn't see the movie from the 'right angle'.

India's entry for Oscars 2006

2005-09-26T09:06:00.000-07:00

Paheli is India's entry for Oscars 2006.

More thoughts later.

One law for all Ontarians...

2005-09-12T10:54:00.000-07:00

While India seems to dither to put an end to the Sharia law, Canada seems to possess no qualms in rejecting the use of Sharia law in family disputes. Agreed, that the dynamics in these two nations are different, but, when it comes to being democratic, Premier Dalton McGuinty can't be more correct when he said that "There will be no Sharia law in Ontario. There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians." However, it is ironic that Ontario has allowed Catholic and Jewish faith-based tribunals to resolve family disputes on a voluntary basis.

Who's to blame for the rising gas prices?

2005-09-02T10:07:00.000-07:00

Consider the following numbers taken from AnthonyDowns.com.

The total vehicle population just about doubled from 1980 to 2000, from 380 million to 752 million, a CAGR of 3.47%. From 1960 to 1980, the CAGR was 6.39%. The human population rose at a CAGR of 1.56% from 1980 to 2000, with a total gain of 1.623 billion, vs. the vehicle increase of 372 million... In the world as a whole, the number of vehicles per 1,000 persons has risen from 36 in 1960 to 123 in 2000. The U.S. number is 778. If the world had one-half the ratio of the U.S., the total number of vehicles would be 2.4 billion instead of 752 million. It will be moving towards that level as developing nations get wealthier, if they do!

Also, consider the following statistics from U.S. Department of Transportation.

Average household size went from 3.3 in 1960 to 2.6 in 2000, a decline of over one-fifth. At the same time, vehicles per household rose from just over 1.0 to about 1.7, an increase of almost two-thirds... The census shows that in 2000 three-quarters of commuters drove alone to work(75.7 percent), followed by carpooling (12.2 percent), transit (4.7 percent), work at home(3.3 percent) and walk (2.9 percent). In 1960, 41 million commuters were in private vehicles; by 2000, 113 million workers commuted by private vehicle, nearly three times as many (See Exhibit E). Between 1990 and 2000, drove alone continued to increase, as carpools continued to drop. By 2000, the average vehicle occupancy for the commute trip was 1.08... The total number of workers increased in the 1990s but the number of workers using transit stayed about the same (6 million workers commute by transit). Therefore the proportion of commuters by transit, or the mode share for transit, has slightly declined.

I received an email, forwarded, of course, asking me to sign a petition - Petition for President Bush to lower gas and diesel prices in the United States. And, unbeknownst to the person who forwarded this email, there are tons of such emails/forums with the same petition going around.

As far as I can think of, there are two reasons for the gas prices to be at such an astronomical levels; one of them is simply as dictated by the supply-demand equation - the demand is more than the supply and hence the higher price, and the second one is some people with vested interests in the oil sector are pushing up the prices artificially.

In any case, aren't we barking at the wrong tree? Aren't we as owners and regular users of private vehicles responsible for this mess? As can be seen from the above statistics, the number of private vehicles has increased leaps and bounds, as compared to the population. Further, the number of people using public transportation system has stayed the same, if not dwindled. Wouldn't a better option, than vociferously putting all the blame on the authorities, be to pressurize the government to better the quality of public-transportation, so that more people start using it? For me at least, the quality of mass-transit system available at the place where I am is not great, and I don't have my own vehicle. If the mass-transit system is made better, I would at least feel safe while traveling in these buses. Secondly, many people are not willing to give up the luxury-turned-necessity of traveling in their own vehicles. I would say, it is their mindset that needs to be changed, before complaining about the gas prices and going gung-ho over asking the authorities to lower the gas prices. They need to understand that the only way out in tackling this problem of ever-depleting energy resource is to use it wisely, and not to make it cheap for everyone to waste it as they feel like. If the first reason for the price increase is, indeed, the case, then the demand for the gas will decrease reflecting in a decrease in gas-prices. On the other hand, if the second reason is the case, then the decrease in demand will affect the revenues earned by those with vested interest benefitted from the profits - more of a non-cooperation movement ala refusal of the residents of Delhi to pay for the unjustified power-charge hike, leading the government to roll-back the hike.

On other hand, going from what the number for the sales of private vehicles say, it seems that most people consider that having and using a private vehicle is a birth-right which sits way at the top of this list of our rights. The sales of private vehicles have, in fact, gone up, to the extent that those gas-guzzling SUVs have the highest share in this increase. Of course, news articles, such as this, seem to point that there are vested interests in promoting people to buy more vehicles. And, people are, in fact, falling in for the trick.

So, who is to blame for the increase in gas prices? The owners and users of private vehicles are equally culpable for this state of affairs as are those with vested interests.

How to fold a shirt!!!

2005-08-31T20:14:00.000-07:00

Well, never thought that folding a shirt is also an art - just like peeling a banana. Check this video where a Chinese lady shows (and explains in Chinese, I guess), how to fold a shirt.

Steel from Plastic.

2005-08-10T16:50:00.000-07:00

A scientist in Australia has succeeded in converting waste plastic into steel.

Prof. Veena Sahajwalla, at the University of South Wales, Australia, is one the winners of the 24 Australian Eureka Prize, 2005, for developing a technique to use waste plastic in steel making.

Signing Petitions.

2005-08-10T11:22:00.000-07:00

Some people seem to think that signing petitions is one of the best ways for the concerned authorities to act in favor of whatever they are demanding. I seem to disagree on this aspect.

Signing petitions is just like donating money. It gives a sense of having done something. People get a feeling that by signing a petition, which has been signed by tens of others, or hundreds of others or thousands of other such individuals, they have made a big difference in solving the problem at hand. I am not aware of the statistics which depict how many such signed petitions actually forced the concerned individual to act as per what the petition demanded. However, I would not be surprised if such petitions do not even land up on the desk on the concerned individual.

Then, there are those people who start such petitions. I have a problem with those who believe that such petitions are the cure-all for all the ailments afflicting the society. Most of the petitions don't necessarily provide solutions to the problem at hand, but, just threatens the governing body against the action taken by that body. This doesn't seem to reflect any developmental work, but just hindrance to the smooth flow of the operation. I feel that there are better ways to tackle the erring governing body, such as forums for debates, approaching the judiciary, etc.

Unfortunately, the advent of internet has heralded another big chapter in this issue of signing petitions. Online petitions is a rage nowadays. Incidently, one of the topmost such online petitions, according to Petition Online - a website dedicated to creating and signing petitions online - is for issuance of US Postal Service stamp on Diwali, with more than 247,000 signatures!!!

Infrastructure and India.

2005-08-09T16:24:00.000-07:00

Back after a long, long hiatus.

On July 25, 2005, Intel Corp (NSDQ:INTC) announced that they were planning to build a new 300 mm wafer factory in Arizona. It seems that India was one of the contenders for Intel's new fab. And, as the end result goes, Arizona certainly pipped India for Intel plant. Given the fact that India seems to be at the forefront of nations to which much of the work from developed nations is being outsourced, what can be the reason for such a decision on part of Intel?

The recent article in Reuters pretty much sums up the feelings abound for companies planning to shift such fabrication facilities to India. Even though India has progressed leaps and bounds in the past decade or so, it sorely lacks the infrastructural facilities needed to be an all-round player, when it comes to be the foremost player in the developing economies. The complete breakdown of the machinery in Mumbai during the recent deluge is a live testimony of the level of preparedness. The financial capital of the country was literally turned into an island, with no respite whatsoever.

There are plans to have a good road transport infrastructure starting with connecting most of the big cities by quality roads. However, it has been faced with much resistance by many groups, including the environmentalists. It was, keeping in mind the fact that good transportation infrastructure is one of the most important requirements for a nation to develop, that president Dwight D. Eisenhower, initiated the interstate program in US, even though he was faced with the strongest opposition. Privatization and Public-Private partnership offer the best option for infrastructural development, but many favour the grossly inefficient nationalization policy. The government plans to have a single-rate telephone call facility throughout India by 2007. I wouldn't be surprised if it is faced with opposition from those with vested interests.

It is high time that, for infrastructural development of India, there exists a symbiosis between the government, and the private sector for the benefit of the country. Of course, that implies taking into confidence the non-governmental, non-profit organizations too. However, it is the responsibility of such organizations too to understand that there exists a give and take relationship, whenever a change is imminent. India, currently, is at that crossroad where it has to decide whether it wants to keep moving towards progress as it has been in the past decade or revert back to the archaic policies taking us back to the stone age.

World Health Day.

2005-04-07T19:56:00.000-07:00

April 07 is the World Health Day. The theme for 2005 is 'Make every mother and child count'.

Apart from this aspect, the world is plagued by innumerable health-related issues. Same goes for India, too, where the nation is striving to get itself rid of ailments which hampers the economic growth of any developing nation.

The following data, for India, is taken from The World Health Report 2004 published by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Total expenditure on health as % of GDP

1997 5.3%
1998 5.0%
1999 5.2%
2000 5.1%
2001 5.1%

General government expenditure on health as % of total expenditure on health

1997 15.7%
1998 18.4%
1999 17.9%
2000 17.6%
2001 17.9%

Private expenditure on health as % of total expenditure on health

1997 84.3%
1998 81.6%
1999 82.1%
2000 82.4%
2001 82.1%

General government expenditure on health as % of total government expenditure

1997 3.2%
1998 3.5%
1999 3.3%
2000 3.1%
2001 3.1%

Children under five years of age underweight for age: 46.7(%) in year 1998-99
Under-five mortality rate (per 1000 live births): 96
Infant mortality rate (per 1000 live births): 77
One-year-olds immunized against measles (5%) (2001): 56
Maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births): 540
Births attended by skilled health personnel (%): 42.3

HIV prevalence among 15-49-year-olds (%): 0.8
Malaria mortality rate (per 100,000): 3
Tuberculosis prevalence (per 100,000): 431
Tuberculosis mortality rate (per 100,000): 41
Tuberculosis cases detected under DOTS (2001): 23
Tuberculosis cases cured under DOTS: 84

Population using solid fuels (%): 81
Population with sustainable access to an improved water source (%) (urban): 95
Population with sustainable access to an improved water source (%) (rural): 79
Population with access to improved sanitation (%) (urban): 61
Population with access to improved sanitation (%) (rural): 15

However, to derive a meaningful analysis from the above numbers would involve comparison with data for other countries.

A few things can be said, though. India's total health expenditure was 5.2% of GDP in 2001. Of this, the Government of India spends less than 1% of its gross national product on its health care budget. Private health spending, mostly in the form of out-of-pocket expenditures by families and individuals, accounts for 82.2% of the total health expenditures. The 2002 Indian national health policy suggests increasing health expenditures from 5.2% of GDP in 2001 to 6% of GDP by 2010, and government health spending from 0.9% of GDP in 2002 to 2% of GDP in 2010.

The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) reports the following data on expenditure of central and state governments in health.

Years % to GDP
1993-94 1.25
1994-95 1.22
1995-96 1.02
1996-97 0.95
1997-98 1.00
1998-99 1.11
1999-2000 0.90

The government expenditure on health as percentage of total government expenditure (2001) for a few countries stood as follows.

China 10%
Ghana 9%
India 3%
Indonesia 3%
Mexico 17%
Sri Lanka 6%

Though the key health indicators are looking much better than they were when India got independence, there is still much left to be done. Life expectancy has gone up markedly, the infant mortality rate has been halved, 42 per cent of children receive the essential immunizations. We have a huge private healthcare infrastructure. And yet, critical health issues remain: infectious diseases continue to claim a large number of lives, babies continue to die needless deaths from diarrhoea and respiratory infections, and millions still do not have access to the most basic healthcare.

In India, just like the disparity in wealth, there is a vast disparity in healthcare infrastructure, too. If some of the cities in India are the hottest destination for medical tourism, then healthcare infrastructure in most of the rural India is in abysmal conditions. The root causes of these afflictions in the rural healthcare infrastructure seems to encompasses various aspects, such as the governmental healthcare policy, accessibility to healthcare infrastructure, private vs. public healthcare debates, etc. This reflects in the quality of the healthcare accessible to the denizens of a particular part of the country. Globalization adds another angle to the healthcare issue.

But, all is not bad, at least so it seems. Various individuals and non-governmental organization are taking up this issue, and handling them as per their own resources. They provide medical services, as well as, documentation on the state of healthcare and possible ways to remedy the situation. People's movements have also helped to bring this issue to the forefront. However, as expected, it is a very slow process, and all it requires is dedication and persistence.

Google Maps

2005-04-05T09:27:00.000-07:00

Google (GOOG.O) introduced their new feature, maps and satellite images. Maps and satellite images are not new, except that Google seems to moving at an unprecedented pace to catch of and surpass the rivals, viz. MSN (MSFT.O) and YAHOO (YHOO.O).

On April 1, 2005, they announced an increase in the Gmail capacity. Lets see what more do they come up in near future.

Commercial Interests of the US administration

2005-03-28T18:42:00.000-07:00

The current United States administration is trying to prevent Iran from acquiring the same nuclear technology, which the Ford administration, consisting of President Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger, Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfled, offered to Iran in 1976. This comes in a report in Washington Post, under certain declassified documents. A notable sentence from this report is as below.

Charles Naas, who was deputy U.S. ambassador to Iran in the 1970s, said proliferation was high in the minds of technical experts, "but the nuclear deal was attractive in terms of commerce, and the relationship as a whole was very important."

The reports on US offering Pakistan with F-16s seems to create a sense of deja vu, since there is a larger goal of commercial profit in this offer too. A similar point is put forward in this article in Washington Post, aptly summarized in the first few lines of the report as follows.

The Bush administration's decision to sell F-16 fighter planes to Pakistan is likely to be as warmly greeted in Fort Worth as it is in Karachi.

That's because Lockheed Martin Corp. has said it needs new orders for the jet before this fall, or it will have to take action to close the production line there that employs about 5,000 workers.

Apart from the mixing of the church and the state, underlying commercial interests of the administration is also a big part of governance in the US administration. Enron is a live testimony of this.

World Water Day.

2005-03-22T11:37:00.000-07:00

March 22 is World Water Day.

Incidently, water is another of the three focus areas of the New Mexico chapter of the Association for India's Development (AID-NM) for which I am volunteering. Last year, AIDNM organized two screenings of the documentary Thirst. AIDNM had invited the directors of this documentary, Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman to lead a discussion after the movie.

The documentary brought forward the issue of water privatization - is water a human right or a commodity to be bought and sold in a global marketplace? It is ridiculous the way corporations set their eyes on water, a basic necessity, as a source of their profits. At the same time, government officials of such places where water privatization is being sought, support the corporations, instead of the citizens who elected them to their posts. The documentary focuses on three places. One of them is Stockton, California, where the city government wants to grant a private company the rights to supply water. It shows the struggle of few dedicated individuals who form a small group to stop the government, though without success, to privatize water. The second example is of Cochabamba, Bolivia, where the government privatized water to Bechtel. However, due to widespread protest, under the leadership of Oscar Olivera, the government backed off the deal. The latest I heard is that Bechtel is suing Bolivia for unrealized losses due to the deal gone sour. The third case is of Rajasthan, India, where Dr. Rajendra Singh single-handedly, with the help of the villagers, made water conservation possible in the arid regions of Rajasthan. Incidently, AID-NM had invited Dr. Rajendra Singh in May 2004 for a panel discussion on water conservation, here in Albuquerque. He runs the organization Tarun Bharat Sangh, which has worked towards water rights in India.

Interspersed throughout the documentary are clippings from the 3rd World Water Forum held in Kyoto, Japan in 2003, where the government officials from various governments, World Bank and corporations try to justify that water privatization is, indeed, the way to progress.

Thirst was screened on PBS at various times. Please check your local listings if you would like to know the schedule of the screening.

Today is the last day for the 4th World Water Forum, which commenced on March 16, 2005 in Mexico City, Mexico.

Meanwhile, the 2nd Alternative World Water Forum, held from March 17 to 20, 2005 in Geneva, Switzerland, has called for a global tax to save the vital resource. The activists propose that this would avoid having to use private funding for the distribution of water.

Height of flattery!!!

2005-03-20T18:12:00.000-07:00

Who is Rice tyring to fool by saying that Pakistan is model state for the Islamic world? Ms. Rice, can I know the reason for passing such a hallowed honor on your dear friend? Is it that such a nation should not allow democratic elections? A country in which one of the high courts acquits those accused in a gang-rape case, probably, suits a model nation. Probably, the fact that one of men running the country is involved in a gun-running racket in nuclear arms makes it a model country. And, the fact that he is pardoned by the head honcho makes it a still better model country. These, apart from the fact, that there are innumerable tales out there detailing its involvement in terrorism. A model state, indeed!!!

China, the overseer of Human Rights!!!

2005-03-18T14:52:00.000-07:00

It seems that the current Bush administration in US will go to any length to make China happy ahead of Rice's visit. Just three weeks ago, the State Department criticized China on her human rights record. Now, just ahead of the visit by Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, US seems to have reversed its position on this same issue. Contradicting itself, the state department said that it won't introduce resolutions criticizing China at a 53-nation UN human rights conference. US seems to be hell-bent on appeasing China. Their reasons seem to be based on a few stray incidents on benevolence on part of China. However, US is conveniently forgetting China's blemished track record in human rights, which is getting murkier, as evident from the successful efforts by China to pass the anti-secession bill against Taiwan. Further, the recent volte face by the Dalai Lama seems to suggest strong-arm tactics in play by China. Bush seems to harp on bringing about democracy in Iraq, but turns a blind eye towards the political situation in China. I guess, he needs China more than China needs him.

The Kanishka and the Narita Bombing Trial

2005-03-16T18:16:00.000-07:00

The Kanishka trial came to close today with the acquittal of the two accused. However, the relatives of the victims plan to appeal the judgment in the higher court.

The decision has raised more unanswered questions than answering the ones already put forth. The answer to the main question, who, after all, committed such a heinous crime, still remains elusive. The investigation suffered many roadblocks, some which were put forward due to the nature of the crime itself, viz. lack of clues in the crash above the ocean, and the remaining ones created by the way this investigation itself was handled. It was beyond anyone's control to derive meaningful evidence for the cause of the crash from the wreckage. But, when certain pieces of the jumble started falling in place, crucial evidence was destroyed by the Canadian police. Somehow, the reasoning given by the agent for destroying the tapes doesn't sound convincing to me.

The investigation took 15 years and the trail took 13 months. It seems to be one of the most complex and longest running case in the Canadian history. Looking at the way the evidence has been presented, chances were high that the judge would decide in favour of the accused.

I don't have any answers as to where now for this probe. My heart goes out to all those who lost their loved ones in this crash.

On a different note, when most of the news sites mention this crash to be the deadliest acts of terrorism before September 11, 2001, it is surprising to note that most of the US news sites, for instance, CNN, ABC, MSN, Reuters, don't even have this headline on their front page. Instead, the mugshots of Scott Peterson and Robert Blake adorn their main headline.

Wolfowitz as World Bank president.

2005-03-16T08:52:00.000-07:00

It is anybody's guess, what is President Bush upto when he has proposed Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as the candidate for the post of the president of World Bank. Considering that Wolfowitz is one of the main architects of the US attack over Iraq, it would not come as a surprise that, under the aegis of a person known for his role in designing and promoting the Iraq war, World Bank would stray away from its main goal of providing developing nations with financial aid. As it is, World Bank has been accused, more than once, of providing aid to the poor nations with strings attached. I wouldn't be surprised if this aid now goes to Iraq on the pretext of rebuilding this war-ravaged country, but being funneled, in fact, to 'fight the war on terror'. Further, the 'strings attached' to the loans to the developing nations will also turn into arm-twisting tactics to garner support for the Iraq war. Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ.N), would definitely have been million times better than Wolfowitz.

Look at the root cause...

2005-03-14T13:29:00.000-07:00

The recent decision by the Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister to give Rs. 1 lakh to families with single-girl child doesn't seem to make much sense, if we consider the reasoning given by the government to implement this scheme. It is directed to increase the low sex ratio in the state, which currently stands at 943 females to 1,000 males.

The root cause of this problem is that such families think that a girl-child is more of a liability than an asset, and that once she grows up and gets married, she goes to her husband's place. Now, this new idea of giving Rs. 1 lakh will, if not maintain status quo, induce more reluctance on part of families to have a girl-child. This is simply because they will think that what good is this money if it is going to be given to their child and that too at an age when she will get married and be off to her husband's home. It is the in-laws who are going to benefit from this 1 lakh rupees. Further, it is going to worsen the dowry situation also, which, according to some people, is much more rampant in Andhra Pradesh, than most of the other states. The in-laws, knowing that the bride has received Rs. 1 lakh from the government, will press for this amount.

The government needs to think about striking the root cause of the problem, rather than coming up with such superficial solutions.

International Women's Day

2005-03-08T12:23:00.000-07:00

Today, March 8, is International Women's Day. The edit page in Tuesday's Times of India gives a good primer on this topic.

Since I know about India, I can tell one thing which is of relevance to this topic. Both the extremes of discrimination against the fairer sex is evident in India. While most of the rural areas reels under the aura of gender discrimination, the urbanites seems to take pride in the fact that discrimination against women is a thing of past. This is evident in a letter sent by a reader to TOI which mentioned that it is time to do away with the 'Ladies Only' seats in the BEST buses in Bombay (now known as Mumbai), and reserve them only for pregnant women, senior citizens, and the invalids.

The union budget presented by the Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, also provides sops to women. Notable mentions among these are the relaxation in income tax limits for women in workforce, and lower property taxes held by women as compared to men. Noble as it many sound the goals of these actions, however, I feel that it is, nonetheless, fraught with limitations. Apart from gender equality, the government wants to decrease the investment of black money in real estate. Now, I see no reason to believe that a property held by a female investor would make the investment perfectly white. On the contrary, it gives an incentive to a person to spread the risks associated with holding too many real estate investments under a single name, and invite the suspicious eyes of the authorities.

Even the commercial world is celebrating International Women's Day as is evident from the classified sections in Tuesday's TOI with a heading of 'Women's Day Times Classified', and LG electronics asking to 'enjoy the privilege of being a woman' by buying one of their electronics online and winning a surprise 'Women's Day' gift.

On a different note, AID-NM, the non-profit organization for which I volunteer, doesn't seem to have anything planned for International Women's Day, even though 'Women's Repowerment' is one of the three focus area which they have chosen for 2004-5. Hmmm...

Protest-Vote

2005-02-24T16:32:00.000-07:00

I don't know whether it is a matter of coincidence or whether Niket knew about this, but just two weeks ago, while talking with Niket, we discussed about having a no-vote, also called as protest vote, option during elections. And, today, I read that the upcoming local elections in Maharashtra on April 10, will allow voters to register a protest vote. However, the Supreme court has still not passed a judgment on a petition demanding an additional facility on the electronic voting machines (EVMs) to log no-votes. It is a different matter that the reasons guiding this decision, in case of the Maharastra election commission, is not exactly the same reason as I would want a protest vote.

I felt convinced about this idea of protest-vote, when there were elections in the local student body here. Nominations were solicited for various posts. However, since only one nomination was received for each post, the candidates won the elections un-contested. My point is that after hearing the agenda of these candidates, if I am not satisfied, then I should be able to say that I feel that the candidate can't perform the duties of the post in concern, and I would not vote for this candidate, even though he or she is the only candidate. Unfortunately, the elections, or should I say, non-elections due to lack of more than one candidates, were already over by the time I came across this revelation.

Now, getting back to the Maharashtra local elections, I feel that this is a great step towards registering the citizens opinion for candidates in his/her constituency. It gives a solution to the age-old question that elections is a process of choosing between better of the two evils (my sincerest apologies to those candidates who are, indeed, honest). If it turns out that I don't like either of the candidates standing in the election, then I should have a right to ask the parties to field in candidates who I believe will serve the constituency. It puts the ball in the court of these political parties, who seem to be under the notion, though false, that the idealogies of their party and its members are the most altruistic and in congruence.

However, now the problem lies in the fact, that if protest-vote gets a majority, then what should be done. One of the solutions would be to ask the parties to field a different person as its candidate, and conduct elections again. Though logical, given the amount of planning, money and human resources involved, this seems to be a difficult solution to implement, without substantial burden on the exchequer. I would be interested in knowing what the election commission and the Supreme Court thinks about this dilemma.

A Generic drug king in this patented drug market?

2005-02-22T08:30:00.000-07:00

The Swiss pharmaceutical, Novartis AG, became the world's largest generic drug maker by agreeing to buy 100% of the German firm Hexal and 67.7% of Eon Labs, a US generic drugs company with strategic partnership with the German firm. This follows the acquisition of Slovenia's Lek in 2002 and Canada's Sabex last year by Novartis.

This seems to be a highly calculated move on part of Novartis, when most of the big pharmaceuticals are directing their products towards high margin drugs. Not to say that Novartis plans to abandon this highly profitable patented drugs market, but it seems that Novartis has found a tremendous potential on these off-patent drugs. Novartis aims to capture 10% of this currently $58 billion generic drugs market by 2010, which will be $93 billion by then.

Only time will tell, whether this gamble will pay off or not.

2005-02-21T11:10:00.000-07:00

The shuttling of the MLAs in Goa by BJP to Jaipur and then to Udaipur seems to suggest that these MLAs will not miss a chance to shift to the Congress camp in the face of the trust vote in the assembly. This is not the first time that a political party has taken such steps from getting their MLAs poached by the rival party. Congress MLAs dissenting against Shankersinh Vaghela were taken to Khajuraho. 34 Nationalist Congress Party MLAs were forced to a mandatory vacation in Indore, when the Congress chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh's coalition government was under pressure from the BJP-Shiv Sena coalition.

The point to be raised is that what good is an MLA, who can defect to the opposing party on just being promised a berth in the government. Such a person lacks the will to stick to the idealogies of the political party itself; how can he or she serve the common man then? Wouldn't a party be better off without such members? Defection just before and during the time of decisions involving change of guard in the government, viz. vote of no confidence, should be barred. This would prevent such power-grabbers.

Kyoto Protocol

2005-02-17T21:55:00.000-07:00

Finally, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol came into effect on Wednesday, requiring the participating countries to cut back emissions by 2012 to 5.2% of the 1990 levels. Many of the European Union nations have been reducing industrial emissions by employing better methods, even before the treaty came into effect a couple of days ago.

However, notable mention in the treaty is the refusal of the US and Australia to ratify the treaty. It should be observed that US produces more than 25% of the world's greenhouse gases. China comes a distant second. One of the reasons which US and Australia give is that the cutback clause did not apply to India and China. India and China account for less than 12% of the world's greenhouse gases emissions. In such a situation, it would be worthwhile to note what the editorial in the Thursday issue of TOI says:

"...It is facile to lay the blame for global climate change entirely on smokeemitting choolas and methane-expelling animal-waste fuels in the Indo-Gangetic plain, which are at any rate more environment-friendly than energy-guzzling electric appliances and heavy industry..."

According to US, the long-term benefit from the Kyoto climate treaty won't be worth the immediate economic cost. Wouldn't it be a good idea, if even companies started thinking this way? Make hay while the sun shines. Who cares about long-term prospects of the companies? Make money, even though that would imply short-term success, but long-term failure. Is that what they teach at Harvard and Yale? It says that signing the treaty would slow down their economic growth. It implies that the US agrees that its economic engine is based on employing trade practices, which involves, among other things, polluting the environment. I am not against capitalism, but this is capitalism at its worst.

President Bush says that the harmful effects of carbon dioxide pollutant are yet to be scientifically proved. So, articles in Science and Nature are wrong. And, chances are that such a research won't be completed in US, since all the money goes for defence-related projects.

US says that it is planting trees and preserving forests as carbon sinks. I don't know about the rest of the US, but this is totally contradictory to what I have been observing in my neighbourhood. I have uploaded, on my photolog, two snaps of a street which runs just behind my apartment. One of them was taken 4 years ago, and the other one was taken today. The old one shows the road-divider lined with trees, whereas the new one shows all the trees cut down. Is that the trees plantation drive we are talking about?

Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, argues in the same issue of TOI, when asked about US staying out of the protocol:

"...If we see the developments in American states, from California to New England, if we see the growing commitment of companies for a technology-oriented push, we see it is not a monolithic block. We see it also in the administration..."

Mr. Toepfer, is that the reason, why California did away with a rule to have 100% Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) by 2004? Or, was it just plain old lobbying from this same companies with technology-oriented push? The above example contradicts your statement that the administration is pushing for cleaner technologies.

Ian Campbell, the Environment Minister of Australia, says that Australia is on track to cut emissions by 30%. Then, why not sign the protocol? It isn't asking for anything different. Aha, easier said than done. It's time you practice what you preach.

The plain truth is that these two countries don't benefit anything from signing this treaty, and hence their refusal.

Sign NPT? No way..

2005-02-14T21:15:00.000-07:00

An article on Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in TOI provides a better picture about India's reluctance to sign this treaty. Even though the basic idea of NPT is noble, I find the discriminatory regulations of the treaty repulsive. Further, as far as nuclear weapons research is concerned, India is at a cross-road from where it can't turn back just because such a partisan treaty, as NPT is, says so. If India signs the treaty, then it would call for destroying all of India's nuclear arsenal, since India would have to sign it as a Non-Nuclear Weapon States (NNWS). However, the 5 Nuclear Weapons States (NWS) have every right in this universe to not to destroy their nuclear weapons, simply because they tested their weapons before January 1967. Further, the presence of loopholes in such treaties makes it worthless to follow. Iran and North Korea seem to be taking advantage of these loopholes. As a matter of fact, US, one of the 5 NWS, itself, has backed away from a number of elements of the treaty on grounds of security reasons. Reports of China, one of the 5 NWS, aiding Pakistan in developing nuclear weapons are aplenty. Such a pact is nothing, but another so-called legal way for the developed nations to have an upper-hand on the developing and the under-developed nations.

All the President's Men...

2005-02-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

The cover page of the recent issue of Time magazine sports the image of Dr. A.Q.Khan, the erstwhile chief of the Pakistan's nuclear ambitions. Aptly titled The Merchant of the Menace, this issue gives an account on the nefarious activities of the scientist, who has made himself a big name in the nuclear weapons trafficking market, by doing business with regimes in Libya, Iran and North Korea, while being head of Pakistan's nuclear program.

The Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, pardoned Khan the next day after he confessed to running the nuclear arsenal smuggling ring during an appearance on national television. Though he is under house arrest, such a punishment seems to be a far cry from what would have been expected of such a person, at a time, when mere mercenaries fighting for Taliban are languishing in jails under unhumane conditions. Considering the charges levelled against him, it would be naive to assume that he can go scot-free. Unfortunately, that exactly seems to be the case. The reluctance on behalf of the Pakistani president to investigate his network backed by the fear that several members of the Pakistani government will be in the dock, and the reluctance on behalf of US to pressurize the Pakistani government to investigate Khan, backed by the fear of losing Pakistan as a critical ally on the 'war on terror' seems to be important reasons behind Khan being still living lavishly. According to the magazine, the network is still present, and the hardware is still available. Musharraf is afraid that Khan will spill the beans regarding the complicity of the senior members of the Pakistani military and security services... who knows, his own complicity too.

HIV/AIDS vaccine tests

2005-02-10T16:44:00.000-07:00

It is notable that India is one of the few countries willing to undertake human clinical trials for the preventive HIV/AIDS vaccine.

One of the issues, pointed out in an article in TOI, is how would the researchers know whether such a vaccine, indeed, prevents getting infected by HIV. In the words of the author, "...the paradox is that researchers would not know the vaccine's results until some of the volunteers take behaviour risks and get infected..." Irrespective of the amount of support provided to such volunteers, such as adequate guarantee that specialized tests would be available to them free of cost for as long as they live, etc., I feel that, on part of the volunteers, it is very noble of them, that they are willing to go through the enormous stress and trauma for the benefit of the society.

Basic Education and Economic Development in India.

2005-02-09T16:46:00.000-07:00

With reference to Atanu Dey's post on A review of Education Related Posts Here and the subsequent referral by Niket's post on Education: A Prerequisite for Development, I agree on what Atanu has summarized "...My claim is that basic education (not higher education) is a necessary (not sufficient) condition for economic development (not growth)...".

However, I feel that the basic education in it's current form in India cannot support economic development. What good is an education which just teaches you to read and write and fiddle around with numbers? Economic development of a democratic nation depends, finally, on the citizens of that country. Just making them read and write won't necessarily impart critical thinking on behalf of the citizens. Without any such thought process, the country will slide towards ruins, specifically, if a corrupt official is a constituent in the governing body. A person needs to decide what is right and what is wrong, when it comes to judging the steps taken towards economic development. For a country like India, this process of keeping the authorities under check starts right from the villagers of the smallest village keeping its governing body under a constant vigil, and rises up to the national government. The knowledge imparted by textbooks, and the teachers, seriously lacks the 'dark' side of the, otherwise culturally and historically rich, India. It fails to address, in sufficient depth, social issues such as, among others, poverty, population, corruption, dowry, and domestic violence. At least, an introduction, to such topics would start the thinking process of a student. I would support for a revamping of the curriculum to include such topics, which ultimately, is going to direct a citizen's thinking.

Take Nepal's issue to UN; I don't think so.

2005-02-08T11:57:00.000-07:00

Tuesday's editorial in Times of India says that India should take up Nepal's issue to the UN, unlike our neighbours, Bangladesh, China and Pakistan, who insist that it is Nepal's internal matter. The reason, the editor says that New Delhi should internationalize the lack of a democratic government in Nepal, is that such a move would put these neighbouring un-democratic governments in a spot of bother, when it comes to their turn to explain their so-called democratic governments.

I tend to disagree with this view. The reason, maybe you can call me a pessimist, is that India has been voicing concerns over the form of the government in our neighbouring countries, ever since they came into being. However, our voice was always drowned down by the lack of interest on part of the world community. Such a pressure on Pakistan would only backfire on the 'super-powers', given it's 'support' on the 'war on terror'. China is too strong and 'important' to take on right now; maybe, during the era of Soviet Union, they could have; but not anymore. Bangladesh, let's see, what reason can we give? Yes, maybe, Bangladesh doesn't have enough oil under it's soil, that such an effort would be a waste of time and money.

I get a feeling that as far as Nepal is concerned, India will have to go alone.

Activism by the common man.

2005-02-04T16:00:00.000-07:00

It is a relief to hear that Kisalay Kaushal is back home. The 14-year old student was kidnapped near his residence in Patna when he was going to board the school bus on January 19.

The protests by schoolchildren against the kidnapping and lack of any headway in the rescue of Kisalay was one of the most important aspects of this case. Inspite of this, Lalu Prasad Yadav decided not to meet the students of the DPS school when they tried meeting him at the Patna airport, and was ultimately, forced to meet them. The students intensified their protest by engaging in a chain fast and refusing to take their tiffins to school. Their efforts were partly rewarded, when parents and teachers joined the agitation. Increase in pressure made the authorities to intensify their operation to find the abducted student, finally, meeting with success. It shows that activism on behalf of the common man can make the society a much better place.

Involvement of the general public in forcing the authorities to take stronger measures is a welcome sight. Such an involvement by the citizens was lacking upto some extent since we received freedom from the British. Probably, we were getting complacent in our new-found independence. But, this recent participation in this kidnapping issue suggests that many of us are realizing that it is our duty to keep the government under check, whenever they falter. Incidently, people's movement is a part of the developmental process of India. Recent years have shed more light on such movements. There are groups working on re-educating the citizens about their duties, which doesn't stop after casting their ballots as far as electing a government is concerned. Such activism on their part is commendable.

On a side note, now that the student has been rescued, the kidnapping issue has turned out to be a big election issue in Bihar with mudslinging from both the political parties, which is unfortunate, considering that the politicians themselves were initially hesistant to talk about the kidnapping.

The Government, too...

2005-02-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

Recent reports suggest that the state government in Maharastra would like the country liquor shops to open at 6 AM, 4 hours earlier than the current timing of 10 AM. The reason, as cited in the report, seems to be the higher revenues to the cash-starved government. Due to the recent crackdown on illicit liquor joints, the revenues of the country liquor bars has increased by almost 50%. Presumably, the state government has gotten greedy to avail more revenues by increasing the number of hours of operations of such joints.

Considering that many domestic abuse cases arise due to liquor problems, such a law will just aggravate this situation. The government seems to have forgotten its moral obligation towards the society. On one hand, it took action against illicit liquor joints (which is, indeed, good, if it persists in its drive againsts such places), and on the other hand, it wants to increase access to legal country bars. I guess, the axiom usually reserved for corporations, 'Profit before people', seems to apply even to governments nowadays.

Setback to Democracy.

2005-02-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

Taking Niket's blog on The Kashmir Municipal Elections a step further, his statement that elections are just a beginning can't be more true. It can be exemplified by the recent ongoings in Nepal, where Nepal's King Gyanendra has dismissed Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba's coalition government. At the same time, the king has declared a state of emergency and ruled that he is taking over the country for the next three years.

Democracy means the government of the people, by the people and for the people. It is the sole right of the citizens of the country to keep the government under check. The suspension of all fundamental rights of the citizens can aptly be characterized as monarchy. Some analysts mention that this is not the first time democracy has been trampled upon, citing the example of Pakistan with President Musharraf taking over the country in recent years.

However, I doubt whether Nepal will get such an expansive coverage as Iraq got, simply because of vested interests in Iraq.

"Simply, so that I can say that I supported Tsunami rehabilitation..."

2005-01-31T18:15:00.000-07:00

This is partly based on something which I experienced recently. Many charity organizations, both governmental and non-governmental, are involved in Tsunami rehabilitation projects in India. Of course, the extent of damage from this natural disaster warrants a large scale involvement of such organizations to try their best to bring life to normal in these affected areas. However, I came across another reasoning why certain organizations would want to undertake such projects. Some volunteers from such organizations would want to handle Tsunami projects, simply because they can say that their organization is involved in Tsunami rehabilitation projects.

Irrespective of the type of disaster, I feel this is an absurd reason for an organization to take up a disaster rehabilitation project. Just because it feels nice to say that yes, we worked on the rehabilitation of the people affected by the disaster, completely contradicts the self-less nature of a charity organization. A charity organization works for the benefit of the under-priviledged, and not for the feel-good factor. Agreed that a person supporting a project needs to convince self about the need of the project rather than blindly supporting it. But, saying that it feels nice to say that we supported so and so project is not at all a convincing reasoning.

The counter argument is most people won't donate money under ordinary circumstances, and that they would get moved by the afflictions of the affected people and donate only when such a disaster strikes. To take full advantage of this nature of such donors, we should not lose an opportunity to appeal to their emotions and 'hit the iron when it is hot'. My argument, in particular with Tsunami rehabilitation projects, is that, as it is, monetary contributions towards Tsunami relief and rehabilitation has surpassed all previous contributions. Further, it has seen an overwhelming participation from various organizations supporting various projects, which is, indeed, a welcome sign. Under such circumstances, it is important to remember that there are million other underpriviledged people who are rendered helpless even without such a disaster. This comes to my mind an experience of one of my colleagues who was present in the Tsunami affected areas, helping these organizations. A poor, hungry lady came to her and asked her whether it is necessary for her to be affected by Tsunami, if she wanted one of the food-packets handed out by my friend. This indicates the lack of attention given to the already under-priviledged people.

Charity organizations shouldn't lose their focus on trying their best for the upliftment of the society. At the same time, it shouldn't get lost in this race to say that we did it the first, we did it the best, we did the largest. If nothing, then it just introduces competition, rather than collaboration among these charities, which hampers such developmental projects.

Anti MNC groups on the current state of the stock markets in India.

2005-01-28T11:15:00.000-07:00

The BSE Sensex has been pushing forward like it never did in history before. Early on in the month of December, there were polls on whether it would cross the 7000 barrier in 2005. Then, the BSE Sensex skyrocketed with such celerity that the poll question changed to whether it would cross 7000 in January 2005. However, early January saw some bearish behavior and the BSE Sensex is hovering between 6000 and 6500 as of now.

This bull run of BSE Sensex was attributed to Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) pumping in the money in the Indian economy. This was also cited as the reason for the projected 8% growth rate in India, and the ever-improving economy in India.

My point in writing the above facts is asking what those people, who are against MNCs coming to India, have to say regarding this economic growth. Agreed that the affects of MNCs coming are not exactly black or white, and that there are lot of grey areas. It's just that I wanted to know their view, those who are against the opening up of the economy, on the economic growth of this country.

Any anti-MNC reader among my already slim readership?

Survival stories or Sensationalizing?

2005-01-27T13:17:00.000-07:00

During the days following the Tsunami devastation, many news channel in India were deeply involved in presenting survivors' stories. They had extensive interviews of how a particular person survived by clinging on to trees or sitting under the rubble for days at ends. There is no harm in the TV channels spotlighting this never say die spirit of survival of certain individuals. However, I feel that it presents an emotional burden on someone whose kin was not that lucky and lost his or her life. Yes, some of us are born lucky, but the way it has been presented on these TV channels seem to suggest that they are born lucky at the expense of others who are not so lucky. Such was the extensive coverage of these survival experiences, that I feel that the relief and rehabilitation news took a backseat. I would assume that giving more importance to the R&R efforts would encourage more people to contribute towards these efforts, rather than basking in the glory of the survival spirit of us humans. It seem to paint a picture that all that mattered for these news channel was who can sensationalize the most.

Another brick in the wall...

2004-11-26T21:28:00.000-07:00

Who doesn't remember the chorus vocals "we don't need no education..." in the Pink Floyd song "Another brick in the wall" which became an anthem within itself? It seems that the group of kids who formed the chorus now have lodged a claim for unpaid royalties.

The chorus came from a school in Islington, England, and was chosen because it was close to the studio. It was made up of 23 kids between the ages of 13 and 15. They were overdubbed 12 times, making it sound like there were many more kids.

Google Scientific Search Engine

2004-11-18T18:27:00.000-07:00

Google (GOOG) came out with a search engine to search research articles in journals, called Google Scholar. Now, this should be interesting. I wonder, if Yahoo and MSN ever thought about it.

'Sears-Mart' or 'K-Sears'?

2004-11-17T07:56:00.000-07:00

I was planning to post a blog explaining the long hiatus on my blog, but I couldn't resist posting this blog before I could have done that. So, here it is.
Kmart Buying Sears in $11 Billion Deal. It, surely, took the industry by surprise. It would be very interesting to know the intent of this sale, and how would they manage this newly created third-largest retailer in U.S. and how would it fare.

The Scian Melt #2

2004-10-20T09:45:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the second edition of The Scian Melt. Here we feature interesting weblog posts that have two common threads, Science and India. If you would like to participate in future editions of The Scian Melt, feel free to email us with your entry.

The first one is by Patrix M, where he seem to present his viewpoints on a quote from a book by P. Kennedy.

Another one from Patrix M compares brains v. brawns. It is an interesting blog, and I never thought regarding such a comparison. Do visit this one.

This one is from Prayatna. It explores a topic which is at the forefront in the research circles in US, and now has hit headlines in India too Looming funding crisis in professional higher education in India"

For all the tech-photo philias, Anita Bora has some amazing snaps in Adventures in animal kingdom.

Talking about science photos, how about the science of lighting in photography from Seshu Badrinath at Tiffinbox?

Rajesh Jain at Emergic explains both technology and business of network computing.

The next Scian Melt will be held on November 20th at Selective Amnesia hosted by Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan. You can send your entries directly to Chandrachoodan to chandrachoodan[at]gmail.com or to melt[at]thescian.com. If you are interested in hosting the Scian Melt, let us know and we'll add you to the hosting schedule.

Bellwethers of the retail season...

2004-10-15T14:27:00.000-07:00

I came across an interesting article, Thinking Outside the Box to Forecast Holiday Sales, which mentions how sales forecasters use innovative ways to do their job during the holiday season, i.e. forecast sales. The traditional way involved chatting with store clerks, counting customers with shopping bags, and asking shoppers themselves. However, considering that the holiday spending accounts for one-fourth of annual retail sales, some people do think out of the box to forecast sales. Here are a few novel, and in some cases, time-tested with very impressive track record, methods of predicting the sales.

- Counting number of parents who line up in stores to get a picture taken of their child with Santa Claus. If the lines for the photos are long, mall foot traffic is high.

- Sales figures of imaging companies who take photographs of kids with Santa Claus.

- Tracking sales at Christmas tree lots or hardware chains like Lowe's Cos., etc. If the treese sell off quickly, analysts assume early consumer confidence.

- Tracking gift wrap sales; retailers order gift wrapping paper in proportion to the sales they expect as shoppers buy it later in the season to wrap their gifts

- Tracking sales of corrugated board to see if retailers are beefing up their inventories for expected sales

- Tracking the first frost that hits; in a period of inflated energy prices, consumers have less money to spare if they have to turn on their furnaces sooner

Nanotech in India

2004-10-15T09:57:00.000-07:00

Aditya mentioned in one of his blog president promotes nanotech... in July during an awards ceremony at the ISRO, and then as recent as September in a joint India-US videoconference on space.

Guess what, he repeats it again while addressing a packed audience of young scientists and research scholars at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Thursday night. I hope this nanotech picks up fast in India, before we are too late to catch the bus. Just a word of caution - beware of a possible nanotech bubble, because right now, there is more hype than hope in nanotech, and a premature hoopla over nanotech might as well make history repeat itself after the dot-com bust.

Broadband in India

2004-10-15T09:42:00.000-07:00

I am not aware of the current situation with respect to internet connection in India. But, according to this news item, broadband connection will debut soon in India. The monthly charges are intended to hover between Rs. 500 and Rs. 800.

However, one point which bothers me a lot is the access to basic facilities such as water and electricity in most part of India. I am not saying that we should not make progress at the technological forefront. My point is that the government should, just as it comes up with policies to increase the penetration of computers and internet, come up with policies to increase the number of people/places who have access to water and electricity.

"Atlas of the World"

2004-10-14T13:59:00.000-07:00

The National Geographic Society is launching the eighth edition of its "Atlas of the World" this month with a record number of updates and editorial changes from its edition five years ago. The reason for this high pace in change has to do mainly with two factors: a still rapidly growing population and an even-more international economy, says Allen Carroll, the society's chief cartographer.

Some of the aspects of this book are as follows.

- 17,000 updates and editorial changes from its edition five years ago
- 416-page long, weighing 7 pounds (3.2 kg)
- $165 per copy, with a first print run of 165,000
- 8,000 labels in a single map plate
- 136-page index with 140,000 place names
- Site of terror attacks
- Bases of Al Qaeda or other groups purposefully left out since they are a shifting target
- Migration and refugee flows and health and literacy rates
- A map of undersea fiber-optic cables showing a jumbled mass of cables between Europe and the United States, but a lone one snaking around the west coast of Afirca and skipping much of east Africa
- Europe, parts of Asia and North America dominating the map of internet hosts
- Includes East Timor, the first new nation of this century
- Shows the recently defined border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia
- Shows the administrative divisions in Slovakia and the Czech Republic
- Mount Everest at 29,035 feet (8,850 m), Earth's highest point. It is recorded 7 feet (2.1 m) higher than their previous version, not because it has grown, but because measurement data is more accurate
- Shrinking of Lake Chad due to an ongoing drought
- Effect on the Aral Sea due to the siphoning of water
- Satellite imagery composed of a compilation of nighttime shots taken over several months and peiced together to show human settlements according to the number of bright lights
- North America's East and West coasts, Western Europe, parts of India and Japan, having the biggest number of lights
- Parts of Australia engulfed in fires
- Towns and cities identified by the names people would identify if traveling to that area, ex. Italy's capital identified as "Roma" with the English translation "Rome" next to it

The Leaning Minarets of Taj Mahal!!!

2004-10-14T07:44:00.000-07:00

According to this piece of news in Silicon India, the Taj Mahal is tilting and that it might crumble and sink too, if corrective actions are not taken. The Taj Mahal was built on the banks of Yamuna river with sufficiently deep water around it. However, due to the receding water levels, the water bed has gone dry jeopardizing the structure of Taj Mahal. Corrective actions suggested include refilling the water bed with water.

Piracy is good too...

2004-10-12T12:41:00.000-07:00

I was reading an article by Richard Heeks titled Myths of Software Development in Developing Countries. Among other "negative myths", he cites one myth to debunk, which I couldn't resist post it here.

"Piracy is ruining software production in developing countries"

Piracy accounts for 50%-90% of software consumption in developing country markets. Yet this has not crushed local software production. Quite the reverse. Piracy has grown the local market by speeding the diffusion of information technology and of software skills. As piracy diffuses standard imported packages, many local software firms have developed capabilities by producing localised versions through "reverse functional engineering" (Heeks 1996a). Piracy has stimulated innovation and has also helped the diffusion of software production tools.

My only comment is that it is an interesting observation.

Funds for chat-room surveillance???

2004-10-11T17:07:00.000-07:00

"The U.S. Intelligence Community funds ways to spy on chat rooms".

National Science Foundation (NSF) approves $157,673 from its Approaches to Combat Terrorism program to come up with ways to monitor chat-rooms for possible terrorist activities.

Paranoia strikes again... I guess, there are better ways to spend money.

Nike

2004-10-11T15:00:00.000-07:00

Phil Knight, a Stanford MBA and middle-distance runner at the University of Oregon, imported inexpensive, well-made Japanese shoes, and sold them directly to runners at tracks meets in his spare time; thus was born Nike. Bill Bowerman, the University of Oregan coach, formed a partnership with Knight starting with $500, and formed Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS) in 1964, which would evolve into Nike.

Nike is named after the Greek goddess of victory.

Check out Phil Knight on Nike and sweatshops in "The Big One", a documentary by Michael Moore.

2004 Nobel in Economics

2004-10-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

The 2004 Nobel prize for economics goes to Finn Kydland of Norway and Edward Prescott of the United States "for their contributions to dynamic macroeconomics: the time consistency of economic policy and the driving forces behind business cycles". The economics award was not among the original prizes founded by Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, in his will in 1895. It was instituted by Bank of Sweden in 1968 and first awarded the following year.

2004 Nobel Peace Prize

2004-10-08T06:39:00.000-07:00

Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize "for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace". This seems to have sparked a debate that the Nobel Peace prize is moving away from its traditional role of offering the highest recognition for peace efforts during war time to more peripheral roles involving, such as supporting the environment, etc. as is the case for the 2004 peace prize.

2004 Nobel Prize for Literature

2004-10-07T07:19:00.000-07:00

Austria's Elfriede Jelinek won the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday for her "for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power".

2004 Nobel in Chemistry

2004-10-06T10:29:00.000-07:00

The third in the series of the Nobel Prize, the one for chemistry, goes to three professors for helping to understand how the human body gives the "kiss of death" to rogue proteins to defend itself from diseases like cancer.

Nobel in Physics

2004-10-05T06:28:00.000-07:00

The 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to three professors studying how tiny quark particles interact

2004 Nobel Prize in Medicine

2004-10-04T06:54:00.000-07:00

The 2004 Nobel Prize for Medicine has been announced. It goes to a pair of scientists who work on genes that control the sense of smell.

"Made in India" pretty soon in Walmart stores

2004-10-01T07:30:00.000-07:00

Finally, Wal-Mart to set up 100% arm in India. Being a supplier to Wal-Mart (WMT) is indeed a matter of pride. However, Wal-Mart has the reputation of driving a lot of suppliers out of business. It is interesting the way Wal-Mart works with its suppliers so that Walmart can offer its consumers the lowest price. It is said that when Wal-Mart approaches a supplier, instead of the normal procedure of a retailer defending its financial statements, Wal-Mart makes the supplier produce its financial statements. The supplier would say that it can offer, for instance, 1,000 quantities of a product at $10. Walmart would propose that it will buy the product in quantity of 100,000, but it has to be offered at $3. Given the prospect of a steady business of 100,000, the supplier usually ignores the consequences of the reduced margin, and more often than not, if it does not pay attention to its strategies is out of business in a short while.

Another piece of information: positions 6 to 10 in the richest person belongs to the Waltons.

Merck and J&J

2004-09-30T17:29:00.000-07:00

The recent news regarding Merck (MRK) announcing a safety recall of its arthritis drug Vioxx reminds me of the Tylenol issue in 1982.

7 people died because of cyanide-laced Tylenol tablets in Chicago. The tablets, it seems, were tampered with. What did Johnson and Johnson (JNJ)do to handle it? J&J put customer safety first, before their profits.

J&J asked consumers throughout US not to consume any Tylenol product. It recalled all Tylenol capsules from the market. This amounts to approximately 31 million bottles of Tylenol, with a retail value of more than 100 million dollars. Also, it stopped production and advertising of Tylenol. J&J announced a reward of $100,000 for the killer.

Just the executives at J&J came to know about the issue, a lot of questions were raised. Should they announce a recall of one of their most successful product (37% market for over-the-counter painkillers)? If yes, how many? Should the recall be nationwide? Will it create a panic? The recall was put on hold for the weekend. On Saturday, the burials of the victims was covered on the television. Any opposition to the recall within the executives, vanished, and on Tuesday, the recall was announced. The recall cost the company $240 million in earnings.

J&J offered to exchange all Tylenol capsules that had already been purchased for Tylenol tablets, costing millions of dollars more. In less than six weeks of the sudden deaths, Tylenol was reintroduced with a new triple-seal tamper-resistant packaging. Many consumers may have switched to other painkillers after the incident. To encourage them to use Tylenol again, McNeil Consumer Products, subsidiary of J&J, provided $2.50-off coupons that were good towards the purchase of any Tylenol product in November and December of 1982. These coupons were available in newspapers. It could be obtained by consumers calling a special toll-free number too.

Further, a 25% discount was put into practice in 1983. Over 2250 J&J sales people made millions of presentations to people in the medical community to promote support for the reintroduction of Tylenol.

How did J&J decide their actions? They turned to their corporate business philisophy, which they call "Our Credo". Their credo was written in the mid-1940's by Robert Wood Johnson, the company's leader for 50 years. J&J's concern for societal interests is summarized in this document, which stresses honesty, integrity, and putting people before profits. Under this credo, J&J would rather take a big loss than ship a bad batch of one of its products. No wonder, J&J is rated each yearin a Fortune magazine poll as one of America's most admired companies, especially for its community and environmental responsibility. In the long run, the company's swift recall of Tylenol strengthened consumer confidence and loyalty, and Tylenol remains the United States' leading brand of pain reliever.

A parting question playing on probably everyone's mind: how will Merck compare to J&J in this respect?

Pre-quality days...

2004-09-30T12:41:00.000-07:00

Got stuck in a number of reports, submissions, classes, etc., and hence couldn't post anything for almost 3 weeks. Thanks for inquiring, Aditya.

I was talking with a professor here, who had worked in a big company long time ago. Those were the times when punch cards were still in use in computers. Japanese had still not entered the US market, and Quality was still not a buzz word. The big company had bought computers from another big, well-known PC manufacturer. The professor noticed that there were some guys almost all the time in the room where the computers were kept. He got curious and wondered that these guys must be up to something really important that they were present most of the time in the computer room. Later on, he found out that those guys were from the PC manufacturing company. PC broke down more often than not in those pre-quality days. The PC manufacturer was trying to portray, and successfully, that when it comes to customer service, their personnel will be present 24/7, to the extent that the PC manufacturer put their own rooms in the client firm.

Enter the Japanese, and quality took a different meaning altogether. I wonder, how many such 24/7 customer service personnel lost their jobs, after the US firms also started paying more attention to quality.

FDI: good or bad?

2004-09-05T12:30:00.000-07:00

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI): Is it good or bad for economies of developing countries? I don't know the answer to that, but I can provide one reason which I came across which says that FDI is, indeed, good for a developing nation. The article titled "Asian Economies Striving To Enhance Innovation Capabilities" by P. G. Yoshida, under the 'Perspective' section on page 2, in a January 2001 issue of Research Technology Management emphasized that for a country to develop, it needs to privatize state-owned enterprises. The author said that private sector participation is important to stimulate technological innovation, and to increase the rate at which these innovations reach the consumers. It cited that percentage of R&D expenditure by countries such as Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. It said that over the years the percentage of R&D expenditure by the industry, mostly through FDI, increased resulting in a better economy.

Later on, I had a chance to talk with one of the professors whose research interests include technology management, and I asked him regarding his point of view on this issue. He said that he agreed that, in this era of globalization, it is important for a developing nation to attract FDI to be competitive.

The reason he said that the citizens of a developing nation has tremendous potential to innovate. To tap into such a resource, it is of utmost importance to provide all the help they need to turn their innovativeness into something which will benefit their country, and hence, the society. One of the easiest avenues to fructify these resources is the government in terms of educational institutions, state-sector industry, etc. However, more often than not, the government can provide only limited amount of capital. The government has money, but it has to play wisely, when it comes to allocation of such limited resources. Further, people in the government who approve funding for technological projects don't necessarily have the relevant background, which is required to understand the need of the hour as mentioned in the proposal. So, many times, it so happens that a promising technology doesn't get any funding, but a vague idea can get funding. So, effectively, the government funding goes waste.

Now, the next source of capital is the industry. The chances of a developing nation having a well-established industry with sufficient amount of capital to fund such technology is pretty slim. Hence, they have to attract foreign companies to invest in such research and development, since foreign companies of repute from developed nations are expected to have sufficient capital to invest in countries other than their home. Further, a company will invest in R&D of a technology only if it lies within its area of operation, or is closely related to its current technology. Exceptions are in cases where a firm wants to diversify. The point here is that, unlike the government, such a firm has the necessary human resources to critically evaluate the R&D proposal, before committing their money towards it. In such an instance, bad ideas, vague ideas, etc. gets filtered out. Only ideas which have a potential of being commercialized are funded.

This gives rise to the question that what about basic research. Who would fund basic research? The professor answered that companies that just think about commercialization of technology, and hence just applied research, have a short-term view, and they have a very high failure-rate when faced with stiff competition from a company which invest in long-term research, such as basic research. The ideal combination would be to invest in both basic as well as applied research. Firms such as IBM, AT&T, Intel, etc. have both types of research going on in their labs.

So, the next question would be the extent of FDI. Some people argue that privatization, usually, goes against the benefit of the common people of the nation, since companies work for making profits; for them, the basic question is whether they would in business tomorrow or not. So, why would they care about the welfare of the common man. I guess, that is where the concept of Corporate Citizenry comes into picture. But, more about this, some other time.

Silly Patents

2004-09-03T12:15:00.000-07:00

Last night, I attended a seminar on Intellectual Property Management & Licensing by Kevin Murphy of Sandia National Laboratories. He covered lots of nitty-gritties of IP related issues. First of all here is a bit of history.

The first patent was issued in 1449 by the British. The story goes something like this. A glass blower in Italy was on a business trip to England. However, he wondered that if I go and teach his art of glass-blowing to someone in England, then he will lose his business to his competitors. So, he approached the monarch about his problem. The monarch wrote a letter saying that so and so person will teach those interested in learning the art of glass blowing on the condition that the students will not practice this art for a certain specified period, during which any glass-blowing to be done will be performed by the Italian glass-blower. Anyone found glass-blowing apart from the Italian glass-blower will face punishment. The monarch, then, signed the authorization. Thus, came into being a patent. The first US patent was given in 1790. Thomas Jefferson reviewed the patent, and then had president Washington sign it. The right to patent is mentioned in the US constitution, too.

In US, the first person to invent gets the patent rights, if accepted. In Japan, the first person to file the patent gets the rights to the patent. So, in Japan, if you missed your train, since there was a traffic jam, you lose your right to patent.

Many times, people don't realize that such and such invention can be patented. And, then, someone jumps on the technology, and patents it taking all the laurels, and money, associated with it. In few cases, the lack of a patent on the invention makes it available to the whole world. One such example is the clean-room technology. The first laminar flow hood was made by a personnel in the Sandia National Laboratories. However, the inventor didn't have a clue that he can patent in the laminar flow hood. On the contrary, he went about explaining his laminar flow hood to all he can meet, to the extent that he presented in quite a number of conferences. When others in industry came to know about the laminar flow hood, it was quickly adopted in the microelectronics industry, the medical industry, etc. Another such example is the video recording. Another student in the class said that the video recording technology was invented by Sandia National Laboratories, but patented by some other firm later on.

Towards the end, the speaker mentioned about 'Silly Patents'.

Silly patents are patents that are, well, silly. He handed out a few such silly patents, which I have listed below. Reading the titles, I think, one can guess why are such patents called 'Silly Patents'.

So, enjoy the list, do let me know of more such silly patents, though there should websites which list these.

Method of Concealing Partial Baldness, US Patent # 4,022,227, Granted on May 10, 1977: Divide the hair which is still present on your head into three sections, and use one of them to cover the bald area. It has 5 claims and 6 drawing figures. Trust me, there should be a lot of people out there accused of infringement of this patent.

Flashing Ear-ring Heartbeat Monitor, US Patent # 6,277,079, Granted on Aug 21, 2001: The ear-ring has an IR LED, which flashes when the person wearing that ear-ring is excited - this is one of the suggested use. Another use is for medical monitoring of patients. I wonder, which was the dominant application of this invention.

Method of Exercising a Cat, US Patent # 5,443,036, Granted on Aug 22, 1995: Shine a laser pointer on the floor and make your cat to follow it as you move the pointer. Nifty, isn't it?

Method of Swinging on a Swing, US Patent # 6,368,227, Granted on Apr 09, 2002: Well, let's see; the last time, I used a swing was definitely before April 2002.

Thumb Sleeve for Thumb Wrestling Game, US Patent # 6,704,937, Granted on Mar. 16, 2004 No comments!!!

When asked why do people file such patents, the speaker answered that the cost of filing a patent was very less 20 years ago. That was when a bunch of people started filing patents in hordes. When the government realized this, they started increasing the cost of filing a patent. Currently, the cost of filing a patent is around $1,600. Still, some file such silly patents; one of the obvious reason for people spending money on such patent applications is just that they got too much money to spend.

But, trust me, such silly patents do make an otherwise dull patents and articles reading more interesting.

Aliens trying to contact Earth???

2004-09-02T14:35:00.000-07:00

New Scientist magazine reported on Tuesday, September 04, 2004, that an unexplained signal from deep space might be a contact from an alien civilization. The article Mysterious signals from 1000 light years away ,however, reports other possible causes of the signal too.

The telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, seems to have detected this signal on three separate occasions.

It was detected by the SETI@home project, which uses programs running as screensavers on millions of personal computers worldwide.

The signal is named SHGb02+14a and is emitted at a frequency of about 1420 MHz. 1420 Mhz is also one of the main frequencies at which hydrogen readily absorbs and emits energy. Hydrogen is the most common element found in the universe. The detected signal's frequency is moving rapidyl, as if the tranmitter was located on a planet that is rotating very rapidly, about 40 times faster than Earth, and where the civilisation is not correcting the transmission for the motion of the planet. However, it is noted that the SETI@home software corrects for any drift in the frequency. Does that imply that it in no exactly an intelligent life out there?

The argument for this signal to be coming from extraterrestials is that it came from a point between the constellations Pisces and Aries, where there is no obvious star or planetary system within 1000 light years. Some astronomers argue that extraterrestrials would likely use this frequency to transmit any signals they would want to notify their presence. The signal doesn't seem to be a result of any obvious radio interference or noise, and it does not resemble the signature of any known astronomical object. This last statement is important, since it implies that there might be other reasons too which might have generated this signal as follows.

New object: It might be possible that the signal was generated by a natural phenomenon, which might be unknown to mankind. Jocelyn Bell Burnell of the University of Bath, UK, detected a pulsed radio signal in 1967, which the research team at the time thought was from extraterrestrials, but which turned out to be the first ever sighting of a pulsar.

Artefact: Since the signal always appears to be coming from the same point in the sky, it might that the signal is actually an artefact due to the telescope itself. The Arecibo telescope has a fixed dish reflector and scans the skies by changing the position of its receiver relative to the dish. At a certain position of the receiver relative to the dish, it might be possible that the waves are reflected from the ground onto the dish and then back to itself, making it appear to come from the space. It might also happent that there is an object on the ground near the telescope emitting at about 1420 MHz frequency. This possibility can be eliminated or confirmed by using a different telescope to listen for SHGb01+14a.

Fraud: Someone might have hacked into the SETI@home software such that such a frequency is detected. However, these signals were detected on two different occasions previously by different SETI@home users and there calculations were confirmed by others.

As of now, the source of the signals is not clear. But, one things can be said that folks in Roswell might be elated on hearing this news.

Think "out of the box"

2004-08-29T16:51:00.000-07:00

Last week, I attended this first session of a class, and had an interesting experience.

After we got through the routines of the first session of a class, like the introduction, the syllabus, the schedule, etc., the professor asked the 11 of us in the class to form two teams of 4 and a team of 3 students, which we promptly did. He, then, asked us to grab a piece of paper and a pen or a pencil and follow him out of the class, out of the building, into the open. The place was rectangular in shape, with a middle section made up of concrete; the edges of the rectangular area was not covered with concrete, but, had mud with plants growing in it. He asked the teams to choose a leader for the team, and the leaders to follow him. I was the leader of my team of 4 students.

The professor gave each team-leader three sticks (each about a meter long), 4 paper cups (one of them filled with water), a big paper cup (the size of about those handed out with popcorns), and some strings (which we can have as much as we wanted). He also handed out a piece of paper with some stuff printed on it. The team-leaders started reading what was written on it. I don't recall verbatim what was written on it, but here is a gist of what was written on it: the team has found a stash of cookies, which we can use to munch upon during the class. However, the place is infested with ants; so in order to preserve the cookies being attacked from ants, we need to build a tripod, and hang the jar of cookies from it, so that the ants can't get to it. After we are done, the team-members should line-up with the tallest member facing north.

As soon as the team-leaders were confident enough that we got the written matter into our cranium, we rushed to our team-members. Now, since I don't know what transpired between other team-leaders and team-members, I can't say how did they proceed. But, since I remember what I did, here goes my interaction with my team. I approached my team-members, told them what was written on that piece of paper. Now, we tied the three sticks together at one end, and spread the sticks around, with the tied end acting as a pivot, so that we can get a tripod. We poured water in three small-size paper cups, put the paper-cups on the concrete floor, and put the legs of the tripod in these paper cups. Next, we hung the large paper cup from the apex of the tripod using the strings. So, the idea was that the ants, come near the base of the tripod, climb the paper-cups; but, since there was water in the paper-cups, they can't get to the cookies and will drown in the water, and our stash of cookies is safe and sound, and ready to be relished during the class. Now, this is the point where I got of on the wrong foot; instead of lining up the whole team facing north, I asked only the tallest person from our group to face north, which he promptly did so.

Then, the professor asked whether the three teams were done with the task at hand; the three teams said in unison, that, yes, we are done. But, none of the teams had their members lined up with the tallest member facing north. Our team had, at least, the tallest member facing north; the remaining team didn't even do that. The professor, along with other teams, came to us first, saw the contraption which we had made, and approved our construction saying that our solution was correct. Then, we went to the second team's construction, and saw that they moved out from the concretized area and went to the muddy region along the edges, and made their tripod on it, and that they didn't even use the small-size paper-cups, nor did they use the water. They thought that making the tripod in the mud would give the legs of the tripod enough friction so that it won't slide on the floor. Well, there was no way to prevent the ants from climbing the legs of the tripod and reach the cookies; incorrect solution. Finally, we went to the third team; they also moved out to the edges and made the tripod in the muddy region, along the edges. They threw away the water from the cup, used the four small-size cups as a piece of decoration on the tripod, and balanced the large cup on top of the apex; again, incorrect solution.

Then, the professor asked the team leader: what made us think that we can't copy what was written on that printed paper on the piece of paper which we brought with us along with the pen/pencil? He didn't say anything that we can't do it. No answer. If we had done so, then we could have got the last part correct, i.e. lining up with the tallest member facing north. Then, he asked us the second question: why didn't we draw what we wanted to make rather than explain it verbally? No answer. If we had done so, we could have avoided shouting out our ideas at the top of our voice.

The professor, then, said that as we grow older, we approach our problems imposing un-necessary constraints. We take for granted that such a thing can't be done to solve the problem: we can't use the paper and pencil to jot down what we were supposed to do; we falsely assume that we need to make the tripod in a stipulated period of time, even though noe deadline was mentioned; under this false assumption of a time constraints, we assumed that we can't waste time to copy what was written or to draw what we were supposed to make. As adults, we draw the walls of our box nearer and nearer; we make the room of our thinking abilities smaller and smaller, and thereby, leave out many possible answer to the question out of the box, some of which are much simpler than the ones which are present in our minds. On the other hands, for kids, the walls are way too far and the room is way too big. Their box encompasses many possible answers, covering the spectrum of solutions from simple answers to outlandish answers. They do so, since they haven't been told that you can't use such a method, and hence, they don't impose any constraint on their thinking.

The lesson we learnt is that, as adults, we need to think out of the box, simply because, we assume un-necessary constraints on our solutions, those which weren't mentioned. But, kids don't need to think out of the box, because the walls of their box are as far as they can see, encompassing whatever they can dream of.

So, when you are faced with a problem, don't limit your thinking by assuming something as not possible, just because you think so; explore all possibilities.

Technological Progress in India

2004-08-26T07:31:00.000-07:00

This relates somewhat to what Niket said in his blog "Of reservations and technological advances". I raise this topic again on my blog, since I got to know something in a class yesterday, which I am not sure whether is correct or not; and, if correct, then upto what extent.

The professor teaching the class said that for any technological advancement there has to be an interplay between the three aspects of the triple helix - the universities, the national laboratories, and the industry. He gave the example of US (it should be obvious) and New Mexico (this should be more than obvious, considering the federally-owned land). Till the later 1980s, the national labs in US were involved in research and development catered towards generating products solely for government use, and that the funding situation was very stable. However, starting late 80s and early 90s, these national labs were pressurized to start getting products out to the common consumers. This gave the industry a chance to collaborate with these national laboratories, and started pumping in the money. So, the outcome was that the laboratories developed the product from the basic research, the universities helped them in providing access to students and faculty and, upto some extent, research facilities, and when the product was ready, the industry provided the necessary capital to commercialize it.

Now, the professor said that the industry aspect of the triple helix is lacking in India. India has one of the premier-most technological universities in the world, which can provide with the brains. It has quite a number of national labs that can provide with the ideas and basic research. However, it lack the capital pumped in by the industry. Now, does that mean that there are industries, but lacking the capital, or does that mean that there are no industrial firms itself; I don't know.

However, my feeling is that this in not the sole reason for the state of technological developments in India. There are lot of other factors which I feel play an important role in deciding the current state of technological progress in India; factors such as population, poverty, inequalities in educational level between different strata of the society, concentration of wealth, etc.

I hope to get a better answer to the above question in future classes though.

-SBR

Fat-busting microwave oven.

2004-08-23T18:56:00.000-07:00

This is one microwave oven I wouldn't want to use to heat my food. A new fat-busting microwave oven has been revealed by Sharp. And, that too, 7 times the price of an ordinary microwave oven. I didn't knew that obesity was a problem in Japan too. Oh well, I am not going to buy it; though, I would really like to know the physics behind melting fat. They mention convection heat and condensation heat to be the main means of melting fat.

-SBR

Another Blogger...

2004-08-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

Hello all, this is an important weekend for me for quite a few reasons.

The first reason is that after keeping track of blogs of other seasoned bloggers such as Prashant Mullick, Niket Kaisare and Aditya Bedekar, I finally started my own blog. The least I can do is thank them for providing me with information on blogging.

The second reason is that, even though Raksha Bandhan is on August 30, 2004, I celebrated it on Saturday, August 21, 2004, for reason I will write later on. My friend whom I treat her as a sister (and, she treats me as a brother) met a common friend's house to celebrate it. Our whole friend circle was present there. The celebration started with sisters tying rakhees to brothers, having sweets, brothers emptying there wallets/gift bags, and tons and tons of snaps. Finally, we settled down to some delicious gujju lunch; trust me, the kadhi was awesome that I was left licking my fingers.

The third reason is that, in the evening, I went out for a farewell party for one of my friend and his wife. Now, why would this be important? It is most important, since this friend and his wife belong to the same circle which spent the past 4 years together, capping off with a Raksha Bandhan celebration in the morning at our friend's house. They are leaving Albuquerque for good to settle down at another job posting in US. And, since they are leaving on Friday, we decided to celebrate Raksha Bandhan this weekend. Trust me, it's a real sad feeling that comes to me, when someone such close leave, considering the times we all had spent together, through times when we were all enjoying going on long drives, through times when we used to get-together at someones place to just chat, have dinner, and play games, and times when I was terribly sick, and they took took care of me that I felt I was at home in India. I wish them good luck in all their future endeavours.

In all, at the end of the day, I was filled with very ambivalent feelings; I was happy to celebrate Raksha Bandhan, since I cherish this festival a lot; at the same time, I was sad to bid farewell to a friend.

Well, I guess, life goes on...

-SBR