Few Thoughts on Google Wave

I have been using Google Wave (henceforth "Wave") for about four days now, and think I have a decent idea of what Wave is and what it is not. This is not a review, so I won't be discussing features or enumerating cool things that can be done with it. But if you want to know what makes Wave such an exciting product or the philosophy behind it, you may want to hang on till the end of this post.

The first thing I have found myself shouting to nearly everyone is that Wave is primarily a substitute to email. It is not meant to be (or ever, in my knowledge, advertised to be) a substitute to Facebook, Twitter, or sliced bread. What this means is that it is only as good as you collectively make it. If you have an email address that no one knows of, you know how lifeless and empty it can get. The real advantage of Wave cannot be felt unless a significant majority of your contacts use it proactively for communication and collaboration.

"Communication and collaboration": These are precisely the two words which are the driving philosophy of Wave. The Wave Development Team started to improve upon email, and while they were at it, found it easy to squeeze in instant messaging and document collaboration in the existing framework. The team working on Wave must have been quite understandably frustrated with the limitations of email. It is not that email can't be improved. But since it is a de-facto standard of communication with same rules, any unilateral change will not work very well. People will be vary of using the new features that will not work everywhere and the massive inertia of people would likely make the product a failure. This is the reason wave had be launched as a totally new product.

They haven't categorically mentioned it, but I feel a major driving force behind development of Wave was managing disk space on server. Whenever an email is sent to a list of recipients, the server has to store separate copies of that email for each one of the recipients. These copies are identical and offer no significant benefit other than making the system decoupled. A change in one does not alter the other. While this may offer some advantages, there are often cases when we want the changes to be visible to any interested party in a multiparty conversation. It is not without reason that the Reply All button is the most worn out button in an email dashboard. Wave makes it possible to have a single conversation hosted in the server that everyone can access simultaneously and independently. If you are no longer interested in a conversation, you can either mute it (still visible to you but no updates will bother you) or delete it altogether. The wave will remain on the server till the last user deletes it. So now the servers don't have to pass around volumes of email that you may not even read, and will only serve them when you request it. Also, just because you are a party to a conversation with huge attachments, it won't clog your mailbox. The Wave Team hasn't yet made it public if they plan to associate the space requirement of wave with a user (or a group of users). Probably just the fact that they have solved the problem of disk space management affords them the luxury to allow people to use and abuse it for some time before they can come up with a policy on it. Of course, the option to reply privately exists so that users of email will not miss something they have been used to.

But there are other issues that will require people to learn a lot of etiquette. Case in point is the Forward Email feature. While it is most intuitive to just add a group of people to a wave (which you mean to forward), the person who sent it to you isn't exactly interested in the LOLs blurted out by your friends. Never, ever mix friends from different groups. The Best Practice is to copy the wave and start a new thread yourself. Another issue that I believe that the Wave Team should address is the CC Recipients. As in traditional email, wave might allow in future to have separate class of people who have been added just with the intent of observers. Unlike traditional email where people get a new mail message irrespective of the fact whether they are active participants or CCed in (and have to actually open the mail to check), Wave users will often find themselves muting conversations that are not of their interest and Wave must provide a means to ping people back into wave even if they have muted it. It won't be Google's fault that they misuse the mute feature, but they have made it so easy that people are bound to misuse it.

Message playback is another feature that Wave counts as a strength, but frankly the thing I am most thankful to them is remove those pesky headers and legal disclaimer signatures. All that remains is just the contextual association of a blip (or a blurb) of text with a user. Since Wave stores just the changes made, Wiki style, it didn't take them much effort to incorporate the playback feature.

This brings us to the most visible thing people see when they first use Wave: The real-time relaying of messages as they are typed. Many people feel they have been betrayed into using Wave when all they got in return was real-time messages. It isn't cool enough to convince them to switch. Unfortunately they have misunderstood Wave because the trivial happens to be the most visible. In fact, the real-time relaying is a feature that most people want to be able to opt out of. They want a Draft Mode. This is not to say that this feature is trivial by itself, or otherwise unimportant. It certainly didn't call for reinventing the email and could have been incorporated into existing IM systems. I call it trivial in comparison to all other features that make Wave so powerful. If all you want to do is pure IMing, you may even find Wave clumsy, having to press Shift+Enter (or clicking Done) to sent the message for good. But if you want the freedom to do many things within the same framework without making it a mess, Wave is your best bet around. PS: If you find the real time message relaying cool, try Fuzzmail. Warning: Fuzzmail mails are public, so be careful with what you type.

We now come to the topic that makes waves so strong: its customizable gadgets and bots. No review of Wave can be complete because there is so much in developers hands to make out of it. What truly constitutes a Wave experience is the limitless customization that can be done by making a gadget or a robots for it, making Wave a platform like Windows or Linux rather than an application software. You want a collaborative drawing broad? You got it. Wanna play chess? You got it. Want to have a multi-party video chat from inside Wave? You got it. A straw poll? You-Got-It. This makes it very similar to iPhone...if you can think of it, there's an app for that! In just the little time Wave has been out, I have come across over three dozen useful gadgets and bots. For the uninitiated, a gadget is a software code that will add a new kind of content to a wave, visible to all participants. This can be a drawing board, a voting module, or even a game board. A robot on the other hand is kind of automated participant that typically adds/modifies content. It can be as simple as shortening the bare URLs or even looking up definition on the web. The robots can also run back-end gadgets, adding content to the wave.

Based on what I have seen of Wave, I am confident that it will be successful in its niche. But I don't see email going anywhere anytime soon. There is a lot of inertia against change and people who have grown up used to the email-style conversations may even hate Wave. What eventually happens, only time will tell.

Review of Bhuvan

Bhuvan, the purported Google Earth killer, is out. But far from being a killer, as of now, it hardly has any legs to stand on its own.

A quick, dirty look at a familiar place was more than sufficient for me to convince myself on which mapper to use the next time I need to look up some India-related map. Below is the screenshot of Oasis Mall in Bangalore from the two mappers (I used Google Maps for comparison, which is the web-app version of Google Earth):

(click for larger image)

(click for larger image)

As can be seen Google Maps wins hands down. I know that some people will say that this is the early release and future versions will have even higher resolution images. I know that's true to an extent, but I am not very hopeful. ISRO already has the highest resolution data available with itself and doesn't need any funds to purchase it from others. If they indeed had hi-res versions of the images, they could have already put them online. The fact that they didn't makes me wonder if that's the best they could come up with. Surely the geographical surveying technology of ISRO will improve over time, but I don't expect big changes anytime soon. While it is still possible that Bhuvan has the hi-res images with itself, but doesn't share them with general public for reasons of national security, it hardly matters to the end consumer like me.

This brings us to the topic of national security. Apparently Bhuvan censors many military, government and aviation centres for reasons of national security. I find it laughable because Google provides those very things freely available. Google has also, of late, restricted hi-res images of some government/military establishments on request of Govt. of India, but even that is cosmetic. These images are still available at the public data sources from whom Google bought them. And banning them in India also won't be sufficient because the biggest terrorist threat India faces are from across the border.

The search functionality of Bhuvan also leaves a lot to be desired. In order to find a city, you should ONLY enter the city name, and can't provide additional details as qualifiers. For example, search for "Bangalore, India" and "Bangalore, Karnataka" all lead to 0 (zero) results. I hope they fix this issue soon.

The actual navigation window (I am pretty sure there is a technical word for it) is delightfully responsive and refined. Did I mention that Bhuvan uses licensed version of TerraExplorer (a commercial software) for it. Unfortunately it works in only IE6+. For a regular website, I would have expected a faster roll-out of browser support, but again, this being a government website, I am not too hopeful of early roll-outs. There is a tricoloured globe on the top left corner of the navigation window, which is kind-of neat, but clicking it makes the earth fall off the screen!

The registration process is also painful as they require to fill up a big form up-front with all fields mandatory, including your postal address, designation and company you work for. They don't require phone-number now, but going by their privacy policy, they have it covered just in case they start requiring it in future. And did I mention that neither their registration form nor login form is secure (https). They know it well and acknowledge in their privacy policy that such information may "pass through other countries". They do say that "DOS/ISRO/NRSC will take reasonable and prudent precautions to ensure that your personally identifiable data is protected against unauthorized access, use, or disclosure." Isn't providing secure access 'reasonable'?

And just in case you are not comfortable with any of it, you can mail them directly at bhuvan@nrsc.gov.in. Unfortunately they haven't mentioned what they can do with the personally identifiable information you provide them by email (just that they will 'store' it). They do use cookies, just like most sites, and suggest that "For more information on cookies, you can point your browser to http://www.cookiecentral.com." (Yes, they think that by writing in white on white background, they have achieved something smart). And just in case you want to provide feedback to them, you have to provide it for Website Design, services, Performances, Database (Quality, Content, Volume, etc.) -- All field mandatory!

The patriotic organization they are, they also have a Hindi version of the site. The Flash introduction is in English, and shows a Mercator projection of world map zooming past the surface of a globe which we are supposed to assume is the Earth! Even if you do count the English version flash as a working feature, apart from it, nothing works. Absolutely nothing! There are no links, and even the login form is dummy. Oh sorry, one link works: The one that takes you back to the English version of the site. Thanks-a-lot!

But hey, I might have missed out on the 'true' purpose of the website. It provides a vast amount of data on temperature/rainfall/wasteland/watershed/soil/etc. I tried about half a dozen weather stations for temperature/rainfall data, and they resulted in no available data. I had better luck with wasteland and waterbody data where each reporting centre threw up a dozen or so numbers relating to statistical analysis of the land/water body. Soil erosion too threw up half a dozen numbers. One advice: Don't turn on Soil Erosion Layer if you ever intend to do anything other than check for soil quality. Apparently they have so much data that every pixel results in some soil data often shadowing other things you might have been interested in. The other layers (state/city/roads) have been pretty average but show potential for improvement. And while Bhuvan starts with the whole globe, there is hardly any data for non-Indian locations. This might have been intentional. They don't want anyone to use Indian government resources to learn about other countries. That said, they have gone extra length to provide artificially blurred images for non-Indian locations. Image quality would have been better from a handheld digital camera taking pictures from moon. I am waiting for their project manager to find out that Bhuvan engineer(s) wasted precious working hours blurring images about countries nobody cares about. They are sure to lose their seniority when the promotion-season comes!

Is iPhone a Music Phone?

The iPhone is a fancy Cellphone with a fancy MP3 player (iPod). But is it truly a music phone? Let's find out by checking it against the features of music phones. Note that I have deliberately left out Cellphone features (Speed Dial, Ring tones, Profiles, etc.) and Music Player features (Playlists, Sync, Storage, etc.), concentrating solely on Music Phone features (as I see them).

1) Dedicated "Music" button. Hmm...a difficult call for iPhone. It has an iPod icon on the main screen, but it is not exactly a dedicated button. The icon is accessible whenever the phone is in ready mode, but inaccessible from inside other applications. Other touchscreen phones have a physical button, but iPhone skipped the feature for elegance. If I were to vote on it, I would say the iPhone barely misses out on this criteria.

2) Earphones/headphones have dedicated music controls. The iPhone uses the standard 3.5mm jacks and does not have a controller with music keys.

3) Remote Music Access. That is, while on call using earphone, if the phone user starts the music player, the person on the other end also hears the audio being played (in addition to the voice). The iPhone fails this one too.

Unfortunately failing all the three criteria, I come to this conclusion that iPhone is just a Cellphone with MP3 player, and not a true Music Phone. And I totally understand iPhone lovers commenting that nobody cares about technicalities when everyone knows that iPhone is the best Music Phone ever, and you can actually 'touch' the music, and whatever. Either way, I am amused that the most talked about 'Music Phone' is technically not a Music Phone.

Elements of Logical Comprehension

We are all aware of the often-used literary technique in which the author shows interaction between the protagonist and a stranger. The stranger ends up being the villain of the story, doing things only expected of a mad man. Only by the very end, the author pulls off a shocker, telling us something that wasn't known before. It changes the whole meaning of the story, and we suddenly start sympathizing with the stranger. One famous story that comes to mind is "Broken Routine" by Jeffrey Archer. This technique works because we, as readers, place full faith in the author in telling us the complete account of events, both seen and unseen. Indeed, intentional gullibility is often the best way to enjoy classical literature. But this shouldn't stop us from understanding the essential principles to be followed to have a complete understanding of any event. What follows is my understanding of the elements that should be used in any attempt to understand events in a logical manner.

Any piece of information, by itself carries little meaning. If you hear someone saying "Yes", you can't expect yourself to form full picture of what was going on. However, it is common human nature to synthesize stories (or theories) around facts where none exist or are not immediately clear. This has the potential to create confusion, but often helps us guide through decisions based on incomplete information. It is not without reason that many people believe humans are much more suited for the real world than computers, who tend to wait for enough data before taking any action.

Any event comprises of three components: Context, Perspective and Expression. Take away one, and you create the potential of confusion.

Context is the most visible part. Context refers to the situation that exists when and where the event takes place, the metaphorical page everyone has to be on at the start of a conversation. Context can be defined as something that is easily visible to anyone present where the event occurs. Since physical presence is not the only way to be present, presence can broadly be described as ability to sense the essence. In a public speech, it is knowing and seeing (at least) the speaker and the crowd. In a teleconference it would be knowing the speakers, the agenda, and the mood. Gossip columns thrive best by quoting celebrities out-of-context, which is often the easiest way to tell half-truths.

Perspective is about knowing the background. It is seeing the unseen. The story I referred to in the first paragraph is an example of one with missing perspective. A missing perspective is easily left unnoticed. You can't know so easily if the labor union leader who betrayed his fellow workers was just greedy, or had received death threats. Whenever possible, we should try to establish a working communication with the person in question before forming an opinion, giving enough time to clarify his reasons and beliefs. But again, this is not possible every time. In such cases, the best we can do is asking question "Do I know enough to form an unbiased opinion?"

Expression refers to the active part of the event. In its most general form, it is a sentence (or sentences) in a natural language, though it can also be a facial expression or body language. Unadulterated understanding of the expression (cognition) is key to forming an unbiased opinion. Language and cultural barriers are the biggest hindrance in assimilating the expression. While lacking a funny bone is a case of missing perspective, having a poor understanding of the language is an example of inaccurate cognition.

I have tried my best to come up with all possible elements that make up logical comprehension, but there may be more that I missed. I will be glad to include any suggestions, which can be left in comments.

Net Productivity

I just came across this study from a group of researchers in University of Melbourne. In brief, it claims that those workers who use internet at work for personal leisure activities (in moderation) are on an average 9% more productive than the rest.

Although I haven't read the actual study yet, this post is based on assumption that the University of Melbourne is reporting the study accurately. If so, I have serious concerns over the way researchers used the data to fit their theories. Using the same data, which I believe is a questionnaire filled out by many professionals when asked by the researchers, I can draw many more independent conclusions:

• People who are more productive at work are more comfortable using the internet at work for personal use.
• People who are more productive at work are more comfortable accepting the fact that they use internet for personal use in a (supposedly) anonymous survey.
• The more computer savvy people in workplace are more productive. (This is different from what the study concluded. The study did not take into account whether the same people also use computer more effectively for official purposes.)

As you can see, it is easy to fit many theories on to same facts. Unless they do controlled experiments, such studies should be taken with a pinches of salt. A controlled experiment here would have been monitoring people who didn't use internet at work start using it without letting them know they are being watched. That is, monitoring employee productivity in organizations that previously didn't have internet access (or had draconian laws punishing people caught surfing for private work) start having liberal attitude towards the issue. Keeping workers in dark is essential because if they knew they are being monitored, they naturally start performing their very best.

Without these control measures in place, it looks like an attempt to pass off correlation as causation.

Finish Your Plate

I don't understand people who force themselves to eat the excess food in their plate reminding themselves of the hungry kids in <insert backward African country name>, who hardly manage one square meal a day. I find this logic flawed at many levels.

Firstly, eating more isn't magically going to make food appear in front of the poor kids. The common argument against this logic is that the main intention behind this act is to punish oneself for taking too much to eat. I am not convinced. This approach attempts to correct one wrong by committing another. Far more people die in the world due to obesity related diseases than malnutrition. Forcing yourself to die early is a crime in itself, and a very poor choice of penance.

Secondly, if you really want to punish yourself, it is far better to see how much food you have wasted, and eat that much less in next meal. If there is a magical hand that makes extra food appear in front of needy kids, this has far better chance of success as against the eat-till-you-can't-swallow strategy. Again, I do not recommend it wholeheartedly. Reducing waste is a noble idea, and should be practiced by everyone. If your heart feels the pain and you take care not to consciously waste food, you don't need any penance.

This brings us to my experience which actually prompted me to write this post. The other day, I was eating with a few colleagues, and everyone ordered their food individually. This is a common practice in US and I have rarely seen people order common items for the group, which is usual in India. A lady ordered sea-food dish for herself, only to find that the quantity was too much for her to consume. The waitress had earlier indicated that the dish serves one person, so I can't blame her for the bad decision. As we finished our dishes, we saw her painstakingly trying to eat whatever she has taken in her plate. She eventually ate about 80% of the food and had to leave the rest. To-Go boxes were not an option as we were living in a hotel with no means to reheat the food later. I also had a similar story, but I ate all I could normally (without overeating) and left the rest. I felt sorry seeing her turn sick due to overeating. What struck me most was that she was punishing her for something that was no fault of hers. Making herself repent wasn't going to improve anything as there was no lesson to be learned. With the waitress lying to make sure people order more than they can consume, there was nothing she could have done before (or can do from now on) that will reduce the waste. I felt compelled to share my views, but eventually decided otherwise.

Unfortunately, eating in a buffet is hardly better than the condition described above because the very concept of buffet makes people overeat. If you paid 10 bucks for a meal, wouldn't you want to maximize the return on your investment? It takes a lot of discipline to have a balanced diet in a buffet. Also, while buffet makes it possible for people to be judicious about the quantity of food they take, it also creates a whole new class of people who have no clue of the amount of food they can consume and waste mountain-fulls. Not only buffets, eating in large groups also leads to gluttonous behavior.

I personally have always maintained the sanctity of my body and over-eating tends to remind me of using it as a dustbin. I try my best to avoid wasting food, but I don't punish myself if I fail.

I don't intend to use this post as a collection of dos-n-dont's of good eating behavior, so if you are interested I suggest Googling.

Signs Of The Times

Nostalgia is a very powerful element in art. By reminding us of something with which we had strong association in the past, an artist can instantly bind with the audience. But the techniques (or rather effects) used to bring nostalgia have varied a lot over the years. Quite predictably so, as they have to spark the minds of people who once associated themselves with these things but today's world does not provide enough exposure to these things, making the association nostalgic.

Some of the effects that are currently used for nostalgia are:
1) Black&White/Sepia tone in photography.
2) Gramophone "hiss" and static for audio.
3) Image distortion and dislocation/streaks across screen/editing errors/blanking out/etc for video.

These effects remain quite powerful even today, thanks to the large population that associates with the period these things were common. However, the industry will soon need to invent new things that the younger generation needs association with. But with the great advances in technology, do we still have things 'bad' enough that they will spark the minds of this generation in years to come?

This got me thinking: What are the things that are common in today's time that will bring nostalgic effect 20 years later? Quite surprisingly, the list turned out to be longer that I had expected. Here's my list:

1) Two-dimensional cartoon (the ones used in most mainstream cartoons like Tom and Jerry) as against the three-dimensional/realistic one (like the ones used in movies like Wall-E). Two-dimensional cartoon are pretty common even today. Start any cartoon show and you will find that most of them are still 2D. This will surely change, and thus, 2D cartoons will bring nostalgic effect. On a side note, I don't think 2D cinema (as against 3D, that is watched using special glasses) will ever go out of fashion. This will remain true irrespective of the fact that future will bring many more 3D movies, techniques will improve and so will the user experience. Just like videography didn't kill photography, 2D movies are here to stay.
2) The characteristic movie loading animation as seen on online video sharing sites like YouTube. We all have seen and experienced the revolving circle and spokes while trying to load long videos. Future will surely see these being used for nostalgic effects even if the video loads in an instant.
3) Fonts. Without question, the fonts of our times will have nostalgic effect ones they go 'out of fashion'. I don't know which it will be: Times New Roman, Arial, Verdana, Courier New or Comic Sans? I just hope it isn't Comic Sans. I would love to see it around forever.
4) Microphone echo. Unfortunately this is one of the few things that are actually broken in today's world. Microphone's shrilling echo is something that needs to be buried deep into the past, and I am not sure whether I will enjoy the nostalgic effect 20 years on.
5) Command prompt/DOS mode. I am not very sure of this one, but it can really become a big nostalgic effect if the Linux community decides to 'move on' with better stuff. If they choose to stay geeky, the future will be less colorful and less nostalgic. I think they should rise to the occasion for the greater good of human race's future.
6) Windows 9x style windows and software. Vista/OS X have already changed it for good but they still haunt are recent past and are in our short-term memory.
7) Faded/yellowing paper. Most mainstreams publications don't have this problem, but if you are used to buying Rs. 20 detective novels (made from 100% recycled paper) from stalls in railway stations, you know what I mean.

Let me know your opinions on it, and suggestions for addition to this list.

The North-East Paradox

This is a hypothetical problem I invented while my mind was idling for some time.

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Suppose that Mr. Flight Pilot, a very capable pilot, decided to take an adventurous journey. This is what he planned:

From a point on equator, he would start flying north-east. Should he continue his journey for some time, he would have circumnavigated the world and emerged at the same location (a trivial solution). However, he had a wackier plan. Instead of going straight, he decided to direct his flight to the instantaneous north-east at each moment.

Take a moment to let that settle in and take one such imaginary flight in your mind to understand how this will turn out to be. You must have deduced by now that instead of going around the earth, his journey will be directed towards the north pole (only slightly misdirected by a mere 45°). It should appear quite logical that he would start spiraling into the north pole whizzing around the world at a faster rate as he closes in to the north pole.

Bonus Question: How long will he take to reach the north pole?

Bonus Answer: Never. Actually after infinite amount of time should he survive. As you can see from the image below (which is supposed to be taken from the top of north pole, like Stereographic projection), the direction of motion of the flight is always inclined with respect to the north pole. So although it would continue to get progressively closer to the north pole, he will never reach there.

(Pardon my poor illustrations)

I know you must have seen many problem like this, where you get progressively closer to the destination but never reach there. Problems that challenge your notions of a well-behaved world by throwing in infinities. But these problems no longer challenge us. In fact, these are so out-of-date, that they have become boring. The only reason I invented this problem is that I wanted to test my mathematical skills. The problem I gave myself to solve was: Solve for position of flight as a function of time, given the Radius of Earth (R), and speed of flight (v). You may want to try it yourself.

But it soon became clear that my mathematical skills aren't what they used to be. So after trying for a couple of days, I gave up on the problem. But since an idle mind is a devil's workshop, I had to invent a new problem.

Meet Mr. Polar Tourist. He wanted to travel to the north pole, but did not want to undertake the long, tedious journey . He heard about Mr. Flight Pilot, and his way of reaching close to the north pole. As he was a good mathematician himself, Mr. Polar Tourist decided to take help from Mr. Flight Pilot. His plan was simple. He knew that being in flight, he will never reach the north pole. So he decided that he will calculate the optimum location of jumping off the flight (using a parachute, of course) and walk the rest of the way. The way to calculate the optimum location was simple. As soon as walking (with his walking speed of w) will begin to take him closer to the north pole faster as compared to the flight, he will get down. Since he will walk directly to the north pole, and not at a weird angle, he will surely reach the north pole in finite amount of time.

But there was a big problem once he started doing the calculations. He couldn't figure out what would be the best time to exit the aircraft. You see, again following from the figure above, the instantaneous component of flight's speed towards the north pole is v/√2, which is faster than normal walking speed as v»w. Thus, the flight would always take him closer to the north pole faster than walking. The trouble is, this implies that he will always have to prefer sitting in the flight (although we have shown that it will never reach the north pole) over getting down and walking to the north pole (which obviously will complete the journey in finite time). This leads to a paradox. Can you explain why this paradox occurs, and what is the solution to this paradox?

As expected, I know the answer and will post it soon. Just try to solve this paradox for the time being.

Things to keep in mind while trying to solve this problem:

• This is a kinematics problem. So please do not include the solution of paradox as impossibility to undertake this flight (non-existence of ideal compass, delays in changing directions, fuel, longevity of pilot).
• Please also do not include aspects related to dynamics (role of centrifugal force)
• Arguments relating to quantum mechanics are also strictly forbidden (calculating the uncertainty in position for the given speed and stating the impossibility to undertake the exercise once the distance of flight from north pole goes below this number: via Heisenberg' uncertainty principle)
• Assume all ideal things for simplicity if you are trying to solve it by mathematically formulating the location in terms of time (spherical earth, flying at near ground level)
• It may make more sense to try thinking of other (similar) paradoxes like Achilles and the tortoise. The given example, however, is clearly not a solution to the problem as although the tortoise problem is infinite in steps, it is finite in time. The given problem is (apparently) infinite in both time and distance.
  

Update: Solution provided in the comments.

Get offended

The last few years have seen numerous cases of people getting offended for weirdest acts of crime; be it the offense over Ravi Shastri eating beef, Richard-Shilpa kissing, Saching cutting tricolor cake, or even Narayan Murthy playing National Anthem musical. There are many more cases of these kind, but the ones listed above are definitely representative of the ones dominating public memory. While the first one was seen as offending religious sentiments, the second one was about culture and the latter two were about national symbols. What is peculiar about these cases is that not only is there no hint of intention to cause offense, but the offense reported seems to come more out of the insecurity and inferiority complex of the people getting offended. What else can explain people getting offended on a thing like cutting a tricolor flag. I love my motherland, and if I had independently come to know of a person cutting a tricolor flag, I would have admired his love for India.

But the people directly involved are also not the only ones to be blamed for this. Unfortunately, our socio-cultural upbringing lays more stress on looking up to the west than being pride of our own culture. So when we see a person aping west by eating beef, paranoia reaches its peak as we start feeling insecure that someone our own has deserted us for the west; ditto for an Indian women receiving a kiss in public. Also since we look down at our country's past when compared to the west, we are again quick to take offense at something remotely offensive. Something that happened in 2002, should have actually taken place in 1947.

Moreover, it should be the intention that should count and not the end result. There are many things we see and experience regularly that would technically amount to religious (or national) blasphemy if seen with a different perspective. When a potter or sculptor makes giant Lord Ganesh statues for Ganesh Chaturthy, they have to invariably step on the chest (or sometimes the head) of Ganesh to make it perfectly. When Diwali arrives, every other local newspaper publishes a full page Goddess poster which ends up in the waste paper bin or the raddi-trolley. Ever visited a primary school? Just see the children singing the National Anthem and you will start rolling listening to the mistakes they make. Think yourself as perfect? Just sing the Anthem yourself. If it is even a second longer or shorter than 52 seconds, it would be my pleasure to sue you. Of course, there is a good possibility that once that I have pointed these out, some people would have already begun their hunt to get offended.

The only way I see out of this to start taking pride in our own culture and stop teaching our children that we Indians are inferior to our western counterparts. What was started by the British to save their crown seems to have been dutifully followed by our countrymen even after independence. While nearly all developed countries do official business in their native language, India still clings to English.

Interestingly, I quizzed myself on what would come next: the BIG thing of taking offense. My search did not last long. Ladies and gentlemen, I present you this video to take offense to.



Needless to say, this video is an insult to our country. Not only does it distorts the way our National Anthem is sung, it even has regional dialects thrown in. What is more, this one has big names involved (Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, A R Rahman, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, and many more), enough to get you good publicity if that is your sole motive. Grab this opportunity before someone else does.

I can hardly wait to see a news coverage on this video controversy.

To Hang Or Not To Hang

These are the days when the debate on capital punishments is intensifying again. For me, it is a strong remembrance of my blogging history, with my first post being on the execution of Dhananjoy Chatterjee. Since then, I have come a long way, both in terms of time elapsed as well as the lengths of my posts. Coming back to the point, in my first post, I didn't actually deal with the deeper questions regarding capital punishment, which I plan to briefly deal with in this post. Whether or not a person should be hanged till death is a question that necessitates division into two parts. The first part is concluding whether or not the crime has been committed by the accused, and the second whether the crime is heinous enough to warrant capital punishment. The scope of this post is solely the second question: When it has been established beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused has committed a felonious crime. I say "beyond a reasonable doubt" as one of the first tenets of rationality is never to be very sure; and I mention felonious crime as I feel that anything lesser would hardly ever qualify as one of the "rarest of the rare" cases when such punishment is prescribed.

The arguments against capital punishment are varied, detailed, and when seen in separation from the arguments in favor of capital punishment, very convincing. Avoiding the fallacy committed by the opposers, it would be preferable to briefly state their arguments. The arguments include the barbaric nature of the act, the questioning of government's responsibility towards the society, the right of a government over a person's life, that violence begets violence, and the very basic principle of criminal code: To try reforming rather than punishing.

Firstly, let us discuss whether or not the government has a right over a person's life. While this should be exercised with utmost caution, the fact remains that in order to protect the sovereignty of the country, this right is exercised at the borders of nearly every country. While those acts are against citizens of other countries, it is considered a country's right to kill those who perpetrate crime internally (like the terrorists). Just like the duty to protect sovereignty, it is the duty of every country to protect its society from criminals. Often. this is done by detaining/jailing them for a term that will either be sufficient for their reforming, or will allow specific social processes to continue without hindrance. An example of the first would be a pick-pocket, and that of the second would be a goon in preventive detention during elections. In rare cases, the court of law finds the offense committed to be so grave that it awards [sic] the maximum allowable punishment - Death penalty.

Many people find this act of court (on behalf of the nation) barbaric, though this is hardly the case. The capital punishments pronounced by the courts cannot be considered barbaric as the whole process is carried out in a free manner, with the accused getting his chance to plead and prove innocence. Also, the system assumes the person to be innocent until proven guilty, and even when the verdict is pronounced, the accused can appeal to successive higher courts to get justice. So while the argument that this is an extreme step remains valid, it is definitely not barbaric. Also, while it is highly debated whether such harsh punishments act as deterrent against further crimes, violence causes more violence if it selectively targets a group of people. That the government is punishing an arbitrary group of criminals will most certainly not lead to any increase in violence.

The next argument stems from the fact that the government's responsibility is to reform, rather than punish. Again, while for most of the crimes the sentence pronounced is to reform the criminal (whether such sentences are effective is beyond the scope of the post), only is extreme cases, when this is unlikely to get the result in a reasonable time frame, are such heavy punishments given. A question can always be asked how can the courts be sure that the person would reform or not, and here the problem begins as it not transforms to a subjective evaluation. While it is wrong to kill a person who can reform, it is also wrong to allow a criminal to roam freely in the society. Those favoring the middle-path would say that the criminal be kept in detention(jailed) until s/he reforms. But again, the government has to justify keeping a criminal alive on taxpayer's money. The previous sentence may have come as a blow to a lot of people for its super-objective evaluation of a person' life. But the government does not run on subjective emotions of the populace, and when incidents like IC-814 are a reality, it becomes even more difficult to justify the act. So when it has been established beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused has committed a felonious crime, the jury finds it unlikely that the criminal would reform, being indeed the rarest of the rare cases, there is nothing wrong in awarding capital punishment.

Note: While I agree to death penalty in principle, I also hold the view that if possible, it should be the right of the criminal to decide how s/he should be hanged.

Recommended watching: The life of David Gale

Majboori Ka Naam Mahatma Gandhi

"Godlike movie! Must see."

"Watch it yaar. Its five times better than the previous one."

These were some of the half-a-dozen approving comments that I heard about the "Lage Raho Munna Bhai" movie that compelled the movie-wary person like me to finally watch it. After watching it, to say the least, I was not impressed. Mostly this happens when the expectations are built at a level that the movie can't deliver to. But in this case, there was an additional reason. The very theme of the movie is something I am not impressed with. It is quite likely that this may be one of the best way the theme of Gandhism may be presented (in the form of Gandhigiri)in a movie that can appeal to the masses. But a wrong start can only get you so far.

My first impressions about Gandhism were formed in some of my early school days when this concept was presented in a glorified way by the textbooks. Yes, it did sound rosy till I started my own experiments with truth. The first result I got from it was a startling fact that shook my belief in Gandhism right down to its foundations. It was a simple yet powerful truth: Truth is relative.

The very basic principle of Satyagraha in Gandhism was rejected by this result. Gandhism propounds that in a fight for truth, Satyagraha will fetch you your ends. But it never delves into the possibility that what is truth for you may not be for the other party and vice-versa. Without going into the correctness of our struggle for independence, if the Britishers also felt that they are rightfully occupying India and resorted to Satyagraha, it would have led to a dangerous, yet seemingly harmless deadlock. For those who can't comprehend any neutral situation where there can be two truths, a very common example is with regards to custody rights of children in case of mutual divorce. In most such cases, it is nearly impossible to rightfully point out whose truth is stronger, let alone absolute. Imagine how things would turn out if both husband and wife resorted to Satyagraha as a means of salvation to their ultimate truth.

The second result I got was that Satyagraha has very limited application: Satyagraha is applicable only when there is no other truth. This result is different from the first in a sense that the first dealt with truths of conflicting nature, while this one has to do with all the truths in the life of the person asking for the truth (the Satyagrahi). Satyagraha will only work if there is just one truth in the life of the Satyagrahi. We have all heard the phrase "Majboori ka naam Mahatma Gandhi" but I wonder if anyone today has tried to appreciate the wisdom enshrined in these five words. The second result I got is, in fact, an appreciation of this wisdom. India's struggle for freedom was successful by the application of Satyagraha. This was possible because Indians were deprived of any meaningful existence by the Britishers and they had nothing to lose. Satyagraha would not have been applicable if the masses had careers to pursue and lives to make.

Imagine the situation in the life of a lover who pursues Satyagraha to get his beloved. He sits in front of her house till her father agrees to the match. The first day, he gets a lot of raised eyebrows and a couple of warnings. In comes the next day and the case of harassment and stalking is lodged with the police. In a few hours, they come over, warn the lover, and when he refuses to budge, force him out of the colony. The lover, strongly pursuing Satyagraha, returns as soon as possible to his ground zero to continue his struggle. The police, this time, take him into a preventive detention for a day and after a strong warning of stricter actions, leave him back to his house. As expected by the hardcore Satyagrahi, he returns to his post; and as expected by the police, he is arrested again and presented before a district magistrate. The magistrate notes the details of the case and leaves the lover with a last warning, violating which he would be required to keep out of the city's municipal limits. The story can be constructed further, but it is clear that the guy will end up losing his job, his (good) name in the locality and what not. It may so happen that the bride's father gives in to the to the lover's undying love for his daughter after five years, but the lover would have definitely lost everything in the meanwhile. This is the essence of the popular Hindi phrase that has not got its rightful glory.

It is a common and accepted practice that nations glorify their history, but if ours is really about truth, shouldn't we publish it with disclaimers?

The Saxena Test

Has my computer turned into a human?

This question is troubling humanity for quite some time now. Many people have tried to answer it by giving our beloved computer tasks that only a human can be expected to complete, most of which have historically been intelligent tasks. One of the most famous such test is the Turing Test. According to Alan M. Turing, a computer can be considered intelligent (and consequently human) only if it passes the Turing Test. Here's the deal:

You are sitting on one side of a curtain. The proposed human being (PHB) is on the other side. You can interact with it through a neutral common language, say printed questions and answers. If it is not possible to determine if the PIB on the other side is a human or a computer, then a computer that is able to remain undetected by this test would be considered intelligent. The test is very simple, but till date no computer has been able to pass this test. Numerous attempts have been made to develop intelligent computers, based on humongous memory background. But since these have not been extensive, and thus, these machines have failed to pass the test. So is this test the holy grail, and should our search end here?

Not quite. The rate of advancement in computer sciences is extremely rapid, and predictions that such a computer is just round the corner are rife. This brings us to the fundamental question: What task (or test) can be performed by a human being, and not a computer? Furthermore, if we can frame a test that also distinguishes a human by evaluating human traits other than intelligence, it would definitely be more desirable. Such a test should have the capability to differentiating how a human thinks, as against the database searching capability of a computer. Most of the questions asked till now have been based on soft computing theories. But with even soft-computing approach applied to computer's thinking, these methods have limited application. Based on the discussions above, it is clear that to frame the ultimate question, we should concentrate on topics where the computer can't be applied rather than where computer is traditionally "slower" than humans. One such task that I thought about is the ability to understand Jokes! I call it "The Saxena Test".

The idea is simple. To the PHB, present a plain text of English prose and ask whether it considers the prose a valid humorous prose (i.e. a joke), and preferably rate it on a scale 1~10 how much humorous does the PIB find it. The beauty of this question is that computers can't be taught what jokes are, it is something we have in our instincts. Although we differ on how much humorous we find certain jokes, there is an obvious pattern of rating among rating too humorous jokes, and less humorous ones. Also, it is possible to tell if there is any joke in the text or not.

Since the set of jokes in an infinite set, when a computer would be developed to try and solve this problem, it is clear that instead of building an exhaustive database of jokes, it would be taught recognizing the language patterns in the joke. But here also, since the exceptions are so many, a computer would definitely fail. As an example, consider this prose:

"Man 1: Hey, would you come to play golf with me?
Man 2: Yes, but only if you call me once."

It is clear (at least to me) that the sentence above is not a joke. But it is easy to recollect innumerable jokes that fit into this pattern.

On many occasions, the humor in the joke is dependent on extra information not present in the joke. For example, consider this example:

Two atoms were coming around a corner, where they collide against each other and fall down.
The first atom asks the other: Are you all right?
The second atom replies: I think I have lost an electron.
First atom: Are you sure?
Second atom: Yes, I am positive.

To those who don't understand atomic structure, this wouldn't appear like a joke. Let us take another example:

Descartes is sitting in a bar, having a drink. The bartender asks him if he would like another. "I think not," he says, and vanishes.

It is possible for us to use these cases to our advantage while testing the PHB. Thus after giving one of the standard task of understanding an English prose, a book on history of logic, the computer should start considering the prose above as a joke, and the joke-rating of the prose above should rise substantially.

The next task is quantification of whether the PHB is human or not. The joke-rating provided by the PHB should be normalized and compared with ratings given by actual human beings. If there is high positive correlation, say around 0.8~0.9, then the PHB can be considered as a human.

I thought about this test years back, and thought it was high time I publish it; before someone else does! Neat?

Wisdom of the Wiki-Commons

The bottomline first: It works.

"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing." - Jimmy Wales

For those who still don't get it what is being talked about, the subject of this post is Wikipedia and more specifically the English Wikipedia. The quote above is by the founder of Wikipedia, quoted in a Slashdot Interview.

What is Wikipedia?
In brief, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is the world's largest encyclopedia and is growing at an extremely fast rate. With more than 1 million articles in English Wikipedia, it can be used as a single point reference to know from biography of Atilla the Hun to ingenuity of the Monty Hall Problem. What's more a lot of articles also have audio versions also, so one can also sit back and listen to them without having to read anything.

How stuff works?
This is where a complication begins. One would expect an encyclopedia to be written by experts; people who are associated with the topic in concern in great detail. However, Wikipedia is edited and maintained mainly by people like us, who are at best "Jack of few trades". And there is no deterrent to anyone's editing. Though registration is optional (though required for starting new articles), anyone can edit any page he/she wants. A big button shouting "edit this page" sits at the top of every article and besides every section welcoming you to edit and improve the articles.

So how does it work when there is no reason it should work? What stops people from vandalizing their hearts out, and corporations from using it as an advertisement board? Or in short, why should one use it at all when all one can expect is nothing more than few sentences of garbled text?

The reason is the philosophy behind Wikipedia and the founding principles of it. Wikipedia is based on three basic philosophies that are complimentary and non-negotiable. They are Verifiability, Neutral Point of View and No Original Research.

Verifiability means that only those things can be written in Wikipedia to which a source can be attributed as reference or can be observed by anyone without substantial effort. This directs people who contribute in Wikipedia to quote reputed sources of their articles and hence achieves good amount of reliability.

Neutral Point of View means that articles are to be written without any bias. This means howsoever you feel strongly about an article, you have to present it in neutral perspective without adding any personal opinions and flavors to the facts.

No Original Research means that you cannot write things in it that have not been previously reported by a reputed source. Hence Wikipedia is a source-based research and should not create primary sources.

It can be easily seen that with the strong content guiding policy like this, there is a platform created for things to prosper, given the right nurturing is given. It should be noted that Wikipedia strongly disallows copyrighted content (text, image or any form of creative work) to be written in it and licenses all works under GNU Free Documentation License.

Why the name Wikipedia?
Wikipedia is formed by joining the words "Wiki" and "Encyclopedia". All of you must be knowing what encyclopedia means, so only "Wiki" needs to be explained. "Wiki" is Hawaiian adjective meaning "quick". The philosophy behind adoption of this word is that a wiki-based system is easy to edit. One of the basic features of a Wiki is that it stores all revisions of the work, so that if anything bad happens (like vandalism or even a genuine mistake), things can be corrected. This can also be used to view how things were in the past, if relevant to the context, and mostly by editors to do things that will be discussed in details later. Wikipedia is based on a Wiki software called Media Wiki.

Administrative Structure
Although most of the editing part can be done by anyone, there are special things like deletion of article or blocking of compulsive vandals that can only be done by Wikipedia Administrators (known as sysops). They are elected on the basis of consensus among the Wikipedia community about the worthiness of the user in concern. Sock-puppetry (creating multiple accounts to support one's views) is strictly handled by Wikipedia and violators are usually banned.

The Wikipedia Mark-up
Wikpedia uses a markup similar to HTML though customized for a collaborative work with inter-related pages. In case one needs to link to a page in Wikipedia from a Wikipedia article, all that needs to be done is that to add double square brackets to the article name. For example, [[Indian Institutes of Technology]] will create a link to the article on Indian Institutes of Technology. There are similar easy ways of adding images and other useful features like bullets and tables. Although a lot of HTML codes work, their use is generally discouraged in favor of Wiki's own markup to provide consistency is article formats. Guides for Layout are available to make sure that there is little confusion as to how things are to be presented.

Fighting Vandalism
One of the serious problems that Wikipedia faces is vandalism of articles. However, the way Wikipedia is designed, vandalism is largely ineffective. Is is usually seen that most vandalism last less than 5 minutes! What's more, I can even quote this from my experience when I have seen vandalism getting reverted within a couple of minutes. This article can give you a good perspective of the issue being discussed.

The way vandalism is handled in Wikipedia is really commendable. First of all, since all previous revisions of the article in concern exist, once detected, its only a matter of couple of seconds that the article can be restored to its original state. Also, in order to check vandalism, there is a group of self-appointed people (I am one too), some 1000 in number, who check the recent changes taking place in Wikipedia from the Recent Changes Page. Coupled with a set of tools unknown to vandals and a lot of experience, they are able to weed out vandalism very effectively. In many instances, when I have reached a vandalized page within a couple of minutes, I see that someone has already come and corrected it. Amazingly, very little "garbage" goes through this filter. What does go through is still not spared. Most of the editors in Wikipedia (especially registered users) keep the pages edited by them in their watchlist. So, for example, if a person from Indore tries to advertise his business on Indore's Wikipedia page (which most likely a Recent Changes Patroller from Utah might not be able to qualify as vanity information), I get alerts of the changes. There are over 1000 articles in my watchlist even in the short span of less than 2 months in Wikipedia. With such multi-layered filtering, the vandalism/nonsense that does gets through is less than one PPM; something that can be considered very good.

Siblings
Wikipedia has a lot of sister projects like Wiktionary, Wikinews, and Wikiquote. These complement Wikipedia's work as the resource for everything by being a repository of news, quotes, etc. Interlinking between sister projects is also easily done through the Wiki mark-up.

Behind the scenes
If you click on the "discussion" link at the top of any page, you will find what really lies beneath the calm and serene surface of Wikipedia. You will see a lot of discussions between the editors on what is possibly wrong with the article and how can it be improved. The way these discussions are carried out are also very structured and personal attacks are looked down upon. People are given feedback on their edits and suggestion from others (not directly related to the article) is also sought.

All users have their own profile pages and talk pages (for communication). This enables them to communicate with others more efficiently. Many user prefer to use "Userboxes" to tell things about themselves (like mine can be seen in my profile page's end and also directly here).

The good editors are rewarded by their peers for work, usually by giving a variety of Barnstars. Wikipedian are also known for their sense of humour and they lighten the mood when things start heating up in controversial topic debates. For example in an RfC (Request for Comments) over Kelly Martin's high-handed attitude in deleting userboxes that she felt are crap [sic] and should be deleted, also popularly known as the great userbox purge, a lot of people posted humourous stuff like an annoying pastel box.

A lot of things related to Wikipedia are prefixed by adding "wiki" before them. For example, any break from Wikipedia is known as a wikibreak, the stress caused by it is wikistress and the mood while editing Wikipedia is wikimood.

Brilliant Prose
Some 1000 articles of English Wikipedia's are categorized as brilliant prose (Featured Articles). This is a extensive and rigorous process of review to establish that the article in concern conforms to high standards. In order to make an article into a Featured Article, it has to conform to a lot of strict guidelines on content and presentation. First there is a Peer Review where authors invite comments and suggestions from their fellow editors on how to improve the article. Once done, it can proceed for the Featured Article Review. Here experts suggest how the article can be fine-tuned to make it a brilliant prose. Once having achieved the FA status, the article also appears on the front page of Wikipedia.

Comparison with other Encyclopedia
Wikipedia, over time, has been compared to a lot of encyclopedia and the main things stressed are the quality of content and reliability. The points where Wikipedia failed to ensure reliability have been quoted often in the media. But I still use it as a primary source of reference because of my experience with it. When I read something about what was reported wrong in Wikipedia, I feel similar to reading about people who win in gambling. Millions of people buy tickets, but only those who win are featured in newspapers, etc. With a lot of opportunities for having an error, Wikipedia scores quite good as compared to other encyclopedias also. In a study, it was found that while Encyclopedia Britannica had on an average 3 errors per article, Wikipedia had 4; a feat considering it is just 5 years old. Other criticisms include unequal weightage of subjects, which I have to accept is true. As Wikipedia is evolving, whenever someone comes to an article he knows something about, he edits it. But almost never does he know everything about it. So the article waits for the next "expert" to come over and edit relevant sections. I feel its premature to compare articles randomly. If a comparison is to be made, it should be made between equals. Like a featured article in Wikipedia and in another encyclopedia. Although Wikipedia has the restriction of using free content only (it doesn't buy content like text, images, etc), I am quite sure wikipedia will be equal, if not better than the other encyclopedias. The reason behind my belief is that even the best of encyclopedias have a non-neutral point of view, or tend to find a diplomatic way out of the problem by either mis-representing facts or completely ignoring them. While in Wikipedia, care is taken that even minority view is expressed. Wikipedia does not work on voting, but on constructive discussions. If there is an evidence to include a content, it finds its way into the article.

The Real Bottomline
Even with so many potential dangers, Wikipedia scores quite well in both reliability and exhaustiveness because of the sheer large number of people editing it (more than 1 million registered users and innumerably more anonymous ones). Jimmy Wales once said that "Wikipedia is like a sausage: you might like the taste of it, but you don't necessarily want to see how it's made". It will apply to most of you but since I am a chef, I have to oversee it being made it to perfection.

(Note: The author is a Wiki-holic and averages around 35 edits a day.)

New India-Version 2020

Just a few days back, I get a mail from a Yahoogroup that identifies itself as a word that translates to "Developing India" and asks for me to join. It plans to make India developed in the coming 20 years and the groups mails are filled with action words.

This is something that almost all Indians who have web presence can identify with. We all are bombarded with mails urging us to join the crusade to make India a developed country within a fixed time-frame and asks to to contribute by joining their discussions. Just like in the past I have graduated from forwarding all forwards to judiciously deciding the relevant information mails, I believe for the last one year, I have also graduated from such groups.

Well, forwarding junk and spam mails is definitely wrong, so it is understandable that one should mature enough not to forward all the "Send this to 100 people and your secret heart-throb will propose to you tomorrow" mails. But achieving India's progress...isn't it good to participate in such discussions...and contribute to India's progress.

Not quite...and here's why I think that your patriotism is misplaced. These groups belong to one of the following categories:

The All Gas Variety: This is one of the most common type of group that you will find promoting India's progress. They will have a standard welcome mail that describes their vision and ask you to join them if you conform to their vision. But unfortunately, they will only serve as message boards where people will post latest political information by cutting and pasting them from well-known websites. Most of these groups' usual mail then slowly drifts from these issues to the new "mahamantra" of some obscure god/philosopher and how it can change your life. Occasionally, someone will try to revive the group by starting a debate, but as soon as the debate dies, they will go back to their usual self.

The Soapbox Variety: This is less common than the above mention one. These groups will also have a well defined charter and vision, but they will also have something more. They will have public speakers of the Uma Bharati's class. That is, whenever any new story about India comes up, they will start posting pages after pages of their dissection of what happened and what ought to happen. As such groups usually have more than one firebrand orators, debates start over who's ideas should be accepted. Seeing these debates, you will usually remember the husband wife joke that goes like this:

Husband says: "In my family, I take the major decisions while my wife takes the minor decisions. She decides which school my children will go to, what they will eat, how will we spend the budget, etc. while I take the major decisions like should India suspend trade ties with Pakistan, should US invade Iraq, etc." It must have been clear by now that they try to act like the husbands.

The Misplaced Patriotism Variety: This is the sort of variety that most of them try to reach. While some do, the logic that whem one wins a rat-race, one is still a rat holds. But why do I say that they have "Misplaced Patriotism"? The reason will be clear once we understand what these groups actually do. One of the most common features of these groups is the aggressive feature with regards to issues concerning India. Be it injustice meted out to someone, or some political parties political moves. First they will criticize them and reach a consensus on criticism, and then they will hold demonstrations in the capital cities for this cause. They also take on the system by organizing signature campaigns in their support and advertising them aggressively. Many a times, they do succeed in getting the attention of courts/media, etc. which result in a relook into the case in consideration. Upbeat by their victory, they become even more aggressive in their future campaigns. The story looks alright and seems like this has always been you idea of a dream group that will steer India ahead. Isn't it? Most of you will say yes, but I disagree.

There are two analogies that I want to draw here. The first analogy is that of a million drops filling an ocean. These groups are like one drop that will fill the ocean one day. But which day...it is not clear if it would be anytime soon. Just try and visualize that if a faucet drips water continuously, theoretically one day it will fill the ocean, but practically it will not. The second analogy is of bicycling on a muddy road. If you have got the experience, you will remember that for going ahead by them same distance, you will have to exert a lot of force to do it.

The India today is like this muddy road. By working hard to go ahead, though will make a progress, but that extra distance that you go ahead will not be worth the effort you have put in. So instead of bicycling, you ought to clear the mud first. President Abraham Lincoln once said: "If I were given 6 hours time to cut the tree, I will spend the first 4 hours sharpening the axe." This is the most important lesson that these groups forget. They have been trying to cut the tree with a blunt knife, they have been tackling the symptoms and not the disease. Do these people think that just because one person got punished for his bad deeds, others will get scared. The answer to this is overwhelmingly loud NO. These groups will continue to work on fever while there is no stopping of the virus.

What needs to be done is creating a consensus among people on what should be the direction they want India to proceed, and then educate the masses to work for that mission. This is not that easy as this sounds. Those of you who have been following my blog would remember that long time back I had written an article on my vision of developed India. I had named it part one because I thought that I will write more. In fact I did wrote more, but just before publishing, I found that all my writings have been targeting the effect and not the cause. Unlike the first one that clearly stated its aim to get the desired effect, the aim of my subsequent posts was doomed to be lost in the bureaucracy of modern India, even if being taken up. All my work clearly lacked a well defined and achievable goal, with stress on the word achievable. This is why I held up writing those posts, all of which I scrapped today as worthless.

So what needs to be done? Is there any way?

We all keep cursing the work of government offices and envision a developed India where there are a lot of competing private sector companies giving us best quality services. I will give you the shock of your life. In India, it is not possible for a elected government servant to favor capitalism. Why? Because our constitution envisions India as a 'socialist' state. A food for thought for all of you:

In order to change the way things happen in India, we have to counter laziness and abuse of office. The best way to fight is to privatize as much as we can (note that I am not saying completely). So why not start with our constitution? Don't you think that we should first privatize our constitution....first remove the clause that envisions India as a socialist state? Don't you think that this will sharpen our knives a little....by at least allowing us to think Progress.

Think Developed India.

A Bag Habit

Today, as I was coming back from the Kshitij Arena, I happened to overtake a bunch of students. Fortunately for me, we all were on foot and hence I was able to hear what they were talking about for a little while. Mind you I wasn't eavesdropping.

The group had a Kgp guy and was accompanied by a couple of girls who looked like his friends from other colleges. They were discussing the scale and resplendence of Kshitij. Then I heard one of the girl comment :

"जब हमारे यहाँ कोइ गेस्ट आता है तो सारी लड़कियाँ साड़ी पहनती हैं। यहाँ कि लडकियाँ तो क्लास वाली जीन्स में ही बैग टाँग के चली जाती हैं।"

(Translation:"When some guest comes to our Institute, we all girls dress formally in sarees. Not like these Kgp ones who just go in the jeans they wore for the class and carrying a bag on their back.")

Did I mention that even I have noticed this umpteen times. Be it usual walk around the campus, or even things like guest reception, every time you will see all the organizing committee members (from Volu to VP) carrying a bag on their back.

I first noticed it in this year's Spring Fest, and I have reasons to believe that this is a new culture. It was when I saw one of the SF Core Committee members go up the dias to felicitate a guest. It goes without saying that he was wearing a bag on his back. I was surprised to see such rude behavior. Wasn't it known to him that he will have to go up the stage to welcome the guest? And even if he didn't, how much time it would have taken to take the bag off his shoulders? Then I saw repetition of this in almost every event I saw. I write almost here because there were a few in which I wasn't noticing any such thing. In all others, it was a sure sight. Just when I was about to dismiss it as an SF culture came Kshitij to bring me back the memories of Spring Fest.

These bags weren't also some special ones gifted to the members. I have seen them in a few varieties and without any Logo. Looking at the people around, it almost looks like a uniform for the event organizers. The only reasonable explanation for this looks like these people feel that wearing bags all the time makes them look like busy people. But almost all of the bags I saw were almost empty (at least looked that way from the outside). I wanted to ask someone regarding the origin of this 'tradition' but unfortunately it hasn't been possible as either the person I saw (and knew) was inaccessible or the person concerned was a stranger to me.

When I meet them, I want to ask them how this culture is doing them any good. Personally, if I were a Chief Guest to a function, and a student comes over the stage to greet me with a bag laden on his back, I would feel it very unprofessional and unwelcoming gesture, if not insulted by this casualness of the attitude. Sure wearing a bag makes a person look more busy, but it looks a lot unprofessional as well.

Blasphemy Inc.

A few days ago, we all witnessed how a 'godman' was harassed into submitting his stick at the airport. The uproar that followed at Mumbai and Aurangabad airport is also remembered by all.

Incidentally, the godman claimed that seizure of the 'dharm-dand' started a period of repentance during which he will be expected to maintain strict discipline by not doing either travelling, eating food, drinking water or speak. What confuses me is that this was realized by him after he travelled from Lucknow to Mumbai and sprouted angry sentences from his mouth.

I had never heard about the particular godman before, but was told by the media channels that he is very acclaimed by many people. However after witnessing a conduct that befits only politicians, I dispelled all doubts in my mind about his being a saint. A real saint in his place would have either refused to travel or tried to calm the people as soon as he would have heard about the angry response of the people. It should be noted that it was not a police raid in which his stick was taken away, but due to a security requirement that forbids people from carrying any dangerous articles inside the aircraft. Had the godman decided not to travel, there wasn't any question of having his stick taken away.

Now let us discuss the issue of disrespecting the godman's right to travel with his stick. As far as I remember, the government doesn't mantain any list of approved godmen, which in fact makes sense as they don't require government's approval for their sainthood. But this creates a problem as to who should be considered a godman and who not. What I mean to say is that if a saffron-clad person comes to the airport carrying a trident and having a hundred supporters behind him, does this qualify him to carry his weapon with him? What seems most obvious to me is that the security officer at the Lucknow airport was as ignorant as me about the godman's support base. He was just doing his duty by not allowing any unscrupeless thing onboard. Even if being aware of such a thing, one should avoid personal convictions while following duties.

Here I remember the famous tale of King Harishchandra who did not allow his wife to use the 'shamshan' for burning the dead body of his own son. Even though the person in concern was his own son, he didn't waver from his responsibilities. I have always laughed at his mixing truth with hallucinations (giving his kingdom to a saint based on a dream), which create serious doubts in my mind about his saneness, as a ruler is expected to work for the welfare of his subjects. What prompted him to hand over the future of a vast kingdom into incompetent hands (the saint wasn't an established 'good' ruler) is beyond me. But I have always regarded him for his decision at the graveyard.

Also, we shouldn't forget that a belief for one means blasphemy for the other. I am sure that the saints/godman who frequently travel abroad for sermons (ignoring the warnings that going overseas will debar them from being a Hindu, leave alone godman status) have to face similar treatments but keep quite as they know they are powerless there.

Now let us take a broader perspective of the whole issue. These things happen when people prefer 'idol worship' over 'ideal worship'. What is surprising is that it is prevalent in even the religions that ridicule 'idol worship'. When we are expected to worship hard work and dedication, we start worshiping Hansie Cronje and Md. Azharuddin instead. No wonder when idols betray, we either assume that the ideal has betrayed us or start seeing it as mirage; both of which are not the truth. What I mean to say is that instead of idolizing Mahatma Gandhi, we should idealize non-violence; instead of idolizing George Washington as a champion of freedom, we should idolize the spirit of the never-say-die attitude. People should only be a source of inspiration, not the source of ideology. It is easy to change whom you want to draw inspiration from, but difficult to change the ideology. When one attains such wisdom, it will be possible to draw inspiration from even the likes of Adolf Hitler.

Let us look back at the primary incident now. A quick look at the profile of the godman indicates that he was earlier absconding for a forgery and later emerged as a godman by preaching peace. There is nothing wrong in idealizing peace. Also that he was a (suspected) conman before cannot be held against him as history is full of such people who have raised from being conman/dacoits/plunderers to saints. But definitely, the manner in which he had reacted to the incident makes me feel that this shows a weakness in personality. This let-down wouldn't have taken place if instead of idolizing a person, his supporters would have idolized the ideals set forth by him. Of course belief is a personal issue and I am not asking anyone to change it, and am merely expressing my views. On similar lines, they should also understand this and have a distinction between holding one's views and forcing their views (the airport incident).

Freedom of speech is very different from right to harass.

Economics for Idiots

Till the time I passed out from my CBSE affiliated school, Economics was taught as a compulsory course for two years. But looks like in the good old days this was not the case. I am discounting the fact that either none of the policy makes of CBSE had ever studied in CBSE affiliated schools or they never took their economics class seriously, and am hoping that this is not a blunder. But the fact remains that the recent CBSE directive that requires all CBSE affiliated schools to provide free education to a single girl child and equivalent concessions to multiple girls without any provision of compensation to the schools does not make any economic sense. Moreover, it is all set to hurt most whom it was meant to help, that is single girls.

While the schools have already formed a group and filed petition seeking to quash this order, it will be interesting to note the implications of this order, if it gets implemented.

The first option that many schools are contemplating is to switch either to ICSE or some other board. I believe that only those schools will opt for it for whose students fees is a major concern and a marginal increase in fees would mean changing schools or dropping off, i.e. loss of business (as after all, establishing schools is also an example of entrepreneurship and money matters). This is because such a switch would be a blow to school's reputation and credibility.

Let us now have a look into the schools that will stay with CBSE and implement its directive. Let's first get rid of the trivial case of boys' schools that will continue to function as usual. Now let's consider the case of co-educational schools. These schools will definitely conclude that in order to retain its students, they will have to keep a higher percentage of risk-free students, namely boys. They would also have to counter the psychology of boys' parents that making them studying in co-ed school will be costlier as compared to an equivalent boys school (considering that the cost of education is proportional to the quality of the education in the absence of such economic incentives/disincentives). So the co-ed schools will have to do more than enough to tackle this problem. Hopefully for them, the plight of girls' schools will offer them a way out. This will become clear after we take a look into the economics of running a girls school.

The girl's school will unarguably be the hardest hit. It will be highly foolish to think that the schools will try to absorb the deficit owing to their already premium fee structure, as some sections of the society feel. Even a simple hand calculation shows that the cost per student will show super linear growth and for moderately high percentage of single girls, it is a rectangular hyperbola. For example if in a girl's school (urban), there are 35% equivalent single girls studying, it will translate to a 54% increase in fees that will have to be paid by the rest of the students. From a girl's parent point of view (those who will not benefit from this scheme), the economic implications would be drastic and they would be forced to admit their wards in co-ed schools, which will openly embrace them owing to their own economic considerations. The reluctance of such parents to allow their children to continue in girl's school would mean the problem of girl's school compounding as the quality schools will be flooded with admission applications from girl's parents cutting across economic spectrum.

In plain English, girl's school will have an economic disincentive to admit or to continue with single girl students. One doesn't have to be an expert in Economics to conclude that if an incentive exists, it will be exploited. Consequently girl's schools will device ways to keep off single girl child students. On the admission front they would be discriminated heavily against. The most effective way would be to introduce interview basis of selection, as the decision on the basis of written tests can always be challenged owing to the deterministic nature of written tests. Even those students already inside the school will face discrimination, enough to force them out or provide some 'defense'.

Imagine you are a father of a single girl child and are seeing your child being discriminated against. Naturally you would want to provide some protection for your child. This logically would be an undertaking that you will not claim the aforementioned benefit from the school if your child is admitted/allowed to continue in the school. Definitely this will be implied not explicitly asked for by the schools, as doing it openly would invite prosecution on the basis of discrimination. The schools will also not forget to add a little milk to the coffee so that it doesn't get too dark. The schools, of course are not idiots and don't even need an article like this to implement such decisions.

Let us now talk about the lower economic strata of society for whom this directive is originally meant to address. Most of such girls study in government schools, which will definitely not discriminate against them. But in such societies, the proportion of single girls is nominal. Even most of the single girls are so by chance as their parents get prepared to welcome another child in their family. Incidentally having another child won't affect them. If the next child were a girl, they would still get an equivalent of one girl's education fees waiver. On the other hand, if 'fortunately' it is a boy, it will not be reported to schools. Even if the school authorities find it out, which teacher or principal (whose priority is education of the masses) will cancel such waiver knowing that the parents are already burdened by the expenses of another child and an additional burden of a girl's fees may result in her dropping out. So in most of the cases, they will also remain mum. In reality, all this economics won't even reach out to the rural population for whom, an additional child means an additional working hand. Education unfortunately has a trickling down effect, not a trickling up effect. Whom does this directive propose to benefit is unclear, as it is clearly against single girl child. Boys on the other hand have nothing to loose if they keep safe distance from single girls (i.e. join boy's schools).