Desicritics Category: Culture: Education

Photography Times: Green Snake

Vidhya — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 22:44:00 EDT

Snakes are tricky creatures to photograph. The meticulous camouflage of the green snakes only makes it harder to find if what's raised between the small branches is the head of the snake, or just another docile extension of a leaf.

The trees and the branches were fairly thick making it all the more difficult to find where the snakes were curled away. And my idea for the moment was to photograph one with particular importance to the scales and the eyes. Green snakes have large eyes and blunt shaped heads.

After an hour of patient searching I could find a couple of them, not very far from where I stood, that could be my possible subjects for the day. One of them was looking downward as if it were about to swoop down to catch some prey, and the other seemed almost at the right spot except that it had its head turned away from me.

Making this photograph a bit more difficult to shoot was a disturbing ray of light reflecting from a glass enclosure adjacent to the green snakes. I sought additional help asking K to hold a bunch of books beside the enclosure blocking the path of the light from reaching the abode of the green snakes. With the books held high, I had to work on my zoom before the snake turned his head toward me, which - for all you know - may only be for a couple of seconds.

I was carrying a 70-300mm lens, so had ample focal length to cruise between the branches and leaves to get as close as possible to his head. After a few adjustments to the focal and the aperture to wade away the unwanted lights, I took position hoping the snake didn't hiss away into some other branch. I continued looking through the viewfinder wondering at the amazing stillness with which the snake stayed in his head-turned-away posture - an essential skill if he needs to camouflage and set himself up to catch an unsuspecting prey.

After about 20 minutes of holding my position, my shoulders starting drooping and I badly needed a sip of Red Bull. Even before I had a second thought on giving in to a Red Bull, the green snake slowly turned over. Looking through the viewfinder at close to the entire focal length of my lens, it seemed as if he was staring straight into my eyes. The large eyes and the scaly slimy skin - just what I was waiting for, and three quick shots later I lunged for my Red Bull.

Reptiles are probably the oldest of species to have ever existed on the earth. Reptiles are generally cold-blooded and their skin is usually covered in scales. Contrary to popular belief, many species of snakes are not poisonous, and do not have a history of being hostile to humans.

The Green Snake, for instance, tends to escape if threatened by human or other activity in its vicinity. A rather meek species of snake, they rely on camouflage to protect themselves and prey on insects like crickets, moths and butterflies.

Beautiful Mathematics in Control Theory

Sumanth — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 00:12:02 EST

I became nostalgic as an angry Boman Irani asks Sharman Joshi in 3 Idiots,”how does an induction motor start?” Sharman Joshi answers “broom, brooooom......” imitating the noise that a motor makes as its starts accelerating. Many years back, I spent many days over a couple of months to understand how exactly the rotating magnetic field is produced by the coils in the stator of an induction motor and how this magnetic field cuts the squirrel cage rotor making the rotor to rotate to oppose the cause of electricity.

Most students of electrical engineering in those days of course loved the great bible by B.L. Theraja for mugging up all the concepts and mathematics just for exams. One day my Iranian friend showed me the Iranian (translated) version of this bible.

However, as the guys of these Engineering disciplines graduate to final semesters, they encounter a serious course called “Control Theory”. This course throws mathematical bouncers from day one and there is no one who can mug up this subject. The Laplace transforms, differential equations, the stability criteria, and the observability and controllability conditions make their life miserable. Most guys in those days used to feel greatly relieved once they escaped with minimum required credits to clear the course.

However, those few who can spare time and persist long enough during and after the course, can hope to tame the wild dragon and its mathematical equations and land riding on it at a beautiful place, which unravels many secrets to working of machines and complex systems all around.

Control theory is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering and mathematics, that deals with the behavior of dynamical systems. The process of designing a system to control behaviour of a dynamical system is called “control philosophy”.

Control Systems are not about anything specific. It is all about information flow and feedbacks. It is all about massive chains of feedbacks that run inside machines, humans, societies and systems all around. In a way, it connects the researcher to “Unified Systems Theory”. The researchers practice to observe only at the information flow, the non-linear elements in systems and the feedbacks that take place. Soon they realise that the feedbacks can be altered and the behaviour of the system can be changed.

At an undergraduate, graduate course, project or dissertation work, it mostly involves the machines. Most students start practicing to observe the behaviour of machines and systems around, model and control them. Then they work to improvise the mathematical algorithms for optimisation.

For example, a student can find a crankshaft of vehicle behaving same way as an electrical network of inductors, capacitors and resistors. A human being walking can be visualised as an inverted pendulum balancing itself. It is all about behaviour of dynamical systems, their stability and their control.

Inverted Pendulum Video:

Robot balancing itself:

Controlling a massive inverted pendulum in sky:

The students learn that corrective actions to reach a desired state in a dynamical system not only depend on the error, but also the integration of errors over a period of time. It is also important that overshoots due to a badly tuned control systems can lead to unwanted oscillations with the states of the system badly swinging across a desired state creating havoc.

The students know mathematically, how deadly the time delays between actions and results (inherent in systems) coupled with bad control strategy can make a system unstable, instead of improving its behaviour. For example, imagine how difficult it would be to drive a car, when there is a 2 seconds delay in the behaviour of steering wheel and/or the accelerator pedal. You will not be able to drive such a car. However, huge delays exist in systems around us on which we intervene so often. For example, the way a child responds to positive or negative feedback, is known only after a certain delay, for which many people never have any patience. As a result, there are enough small children who manipulate and control their parents instead of getting controlled.

The feedback and interventions play an important role in global markets. Bad sentiments in market makes people withdraw money and remain in cash and this positive feedback (or vicious circle) causes further crash to happen. Similarly, the higher liquidity due to government stimulus or funds from across the world can boost markets and make the feedback loop run in the opposite direction boosting the sentiments. Now, this entire phenomenon can be modelled using an autoregressive with moving averages (ARMA) models or by difference equations.

The future states of any dynamical system are a function of its current states and also a function of its series of part states and series ofpast inputs (or interventions). When a dynamical system has many actors, many couplings, times delays, non-linear behaviour, then that system is intelligent enough to fool any number of best brains in the world. So, most often sincere and highly popular interventions further screw up a badly behaving system, making the people demand further increase of interventions, which leads to a completely screwed up system. In fact, this entire phenomenon can be understood when one mathematically simulates it in a program in Matlab.

AMU's Suspension of (Allegedly) Gay Professor - Unconstitutional

Ruchi — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:03:02 EST

Aligarh Muslim University suspended the chairman of its Modern Indian Languages post after a sting operation (allegedly funded by the university) yielded footage of the professor engaging in consensual homosexual sex in his official residence. The university cited “gross misconduct” as reason for suspension. The professor was due to retire in September of this year.

First, it’s not the professor but the university, the local television channel and anyone else, involved in the sting who are on the wrong side of the law. In this case, it’s almost irrelevant that homosexuality was decriminalized last year, because the evidence thereof was obtained through premeditated and calculated violation of the professor’s constitutional right to privacy (under the expanded scope of Article 21, right to life). His privacy was invaded twice: entering his home without consent; and filming him while having sex and distributing it for public consumption. The continuing inquiry into his private sexual life is continued invasion of privacy and the suspension is not just illegal discrimination based on his sexuality but also impinges on his right to livelihood.

There are other issues that bear consideration. The university and some news channels note the professor’s partner’s profession, “rickshaw puller”. Why is this detail relevant if not for its moral aspersion, the sneaky insinuation of promiscuity and/or prostitution given the class difference between the two men. Had his partner been some nondescript middle-class professional such as engineer or chartered accountant, would this detail been brought up so frequently? Obviously not.

In addition, our news media, which just till last week portrayed themselves as guardians of free speech and democracy have chosen not only to not take a firm stand on the issue but have also downplayed the news with minimal coverage. Constitutional rights have been trammeled but gone is the moral outrage that marked the coverage of the SRK’s standoff against Shiv Sena. The reason is obvious: the professor lacks SRK’s saleability and more importantly, the corporate interests that govern our news media cannot be certain of the viewer’s reaction, given the fact that a large section of Indians still frown upon homosexuality. Hence, instead of the clearly defined pro-SRK stand and ad nauseam coverage seen last week, we see detached and neutral reporting here (while it is agreed that the job of credible news media is to report, keeping the analysis/opinion confined to the appropriate pages/shows, the discussion is about the double standards of the media). It also bears mention that Shahrukh Khan is still waxing eloquent (diplomatically) about Sena’s misguided ways but is completely ignoring this issue even though he’s made a predictable routine of modern haha homosexual insinuations with his loyal sidekick, Karan Johar in movies, award shows and interviews.

The university’s decision to suspend the professor is in violation of both the court’s decision (which decriminalized consensual homosexual sex between adults) and its central tenet of inclusiveness. While, it is unfortunate that the professor himself has chosen not to fight against the university’s decision (instead leaving quietly to return to his hometown), the rightness of a fight is not based on the subject’s own willingness and/or ability to fight (e.g., the fight against Sati was not led by the thousands of women who perished in the tradition’s flames). The mark of a just and open society is how well it protects the interests of its minorities, not the powerful.

Liberate Our Students From Sexual Repression

Golden Boy — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 08:49:50 EST

My decision of taking up the Profession of a Spoken English Trainer came with its own pros and cons. On one hand it meant I would have had to settle for less money, on the other hand I found out that it could be a deeply satisfying experience as it meant I could work with young people, helping them learn a language that could open for them not only a door to a whole new world of expression but also free them of the cultural baggage of their mother-tongue.

In my experience as a Spoken English Trainer, I have discovered that two things compel Indians to learn the language: One, the whole new vista of better job prospects that the knowledge of this International Language offers; and secondly, the characteristic of English language as a tool of self-expression which is used across the globe in a growing community of forward-looking people who belong to the realm of progressive thought.

Being able to speak and communicate in English is the key to adopt a whole new culture based on freedom from archaic traditions imposed by religion and society. It is THE medium now for universal brotherhood, the language of the Global Citizen who does not believe in boundaries of narrow nationalistic ideologies.

"Experience in the Classroom"

Even as I struggled to find my own ways and means to teach a foreign language to young people who largely belonged in the age group of 17-24, in an attempt to equip them with a skill for financial betterment, I was soon to discover that I was also dealing with their psychology in some way.

Knowing a particular Indian language as your first language can bring with it its own luggage of past history and cultural ideologies and limitations

Very soon in my career as a Spoken English Trainer I found that my students were basically shy, non-expressive, self-repressive, and carried a baggage of puritanical ideology, all of which was evidently not their own baggage but the heritage of their mother tongue which was the symbol of a particular lifestyle and psychology that their elders belonged to.

People from Hindi and Marathi medium schools are basically unexposed to the ideas of Individuality and Liberty. The Cinema of these languages are hugely influenced by a sexually repressive and narrow Nationalistic mentality which has been the heritage of a country like India, a country that has historically been subject to foreign onslaughts, and was subject to major religious influences (Indic, Islamic and Victorian) which believed in suppression of one's sexual energy.

Even as I struggled to help them learn a foreign language, I noticed that just knowing the nuances of the language was not enough.

The struggle lay not as much in teaching them Grammar but in giving them a voice to express themselves, a voice that had been silenced over generations by forces- religious and imperialistic that wanted the multitudes of this country to remain quiet and adhere to the Ideology of Suppression

Talking openly in the classroom about Sex or anything remotely to do with sexuality, even about being attracted to the opposite gender, could be termed as a major diversion from my duty as a Language Trainer

But what can be more liberating than tapping into one's sexual energy for the purpose of freeing oneself from the mentality of suppression? And what better way to expressing oneself than tapping into a space within which is hugely sexual in nature, in order to free individual expression?

Everyone knows that even the most loyal of Elephants goes wild when in 'heat' i.e. the period of 'heightened sexual desire', when the animal struggles to break away from its shackles.

What lies beneath all our highly held ideologies of Liberty and Freedom as the basic Human Right enshrined in every progressive Constitution today, is this sexual energy. And if it is tamed or suppressed in any way, be it religious or societal is an abuse of the most pervert order.

What I have found in my classrooms is that families go to an extra mile to suppress the sexual energy of a growing child, even to the extent of depriving them of Attention as a means of manipulation of their sexual life-force. Lack of validation for the Individual in them, due to the archaic family roles and duties in India, makes Individual Expression even more repressed.

How can an Individual speak the language of the Free when he/she has to bend down under the weight of his own cultural baggage? How can he even start expressing himself in English, when self-expression itself has been muffled in every home in this country for generations?

It is time to wake up and think!

Making Universities Independent Makes Them More Productive

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 04:47:27 EST

Universities are usually under very tight control of the governments, which is a shame and is of a comparatively recent origin. From a historical perspective, universities were independent bodies, privately funded, and having high standards. Ever since we ended up having education, specially tertiary education, as an element of state policy, the universities have become tied to the government purse strings, which frankly sucks.

Recently, the UK announced cuts of up to $500 million. Broadly, this just continues a tradition of poking their noses into something that should be left independent and to their own devices. Why on earth would a government desire to tie up the independence of universities? I dont understand this, but because of this behaviour, quality has dipped, many subjects are no longer taught, core sciences get hammered and generally the universities are a pit. And because of this, the output suffers.

I have seen similar situations in USA, in mainland Europe and of course in India. The case of India is really shameful, between the UGC and the other accrediting institutions, they have stopped the growth of universities. While the funding aspect is important, just see the difference between institutions which are independently managed (IIM’s, ISB, IIT’s etc.) and compare that to where everything is government controlled. Having been inside one of these jails, it's highly surprising that any kind of research emerges. Forget about teaching, which is pathetic anyway. Just think about it. If we had managed to make our universities independent post WWII, we would have had sixty years of more research from two generations, more papers, more patents, more discoveries, more improvement of humankind and advancement of human knowledge from independent universities. So that's the opportunity cost that we are paying for the governments control of the universities. And then we want all to be knowledge societies The shameful thing is that because of this stranglehold, we have missed out on so much productivity. And that’s criminal - to actually kill off so much research which could have helped our lives to become so much better.

Here’s an interesting research paper and its abstract.

We test the hypothesis that universities are more productive when they are both more autonomous and face more competition. Using survey data, we construct indices of university autonomy and competition for both Europe and the United States. We show that there are strong positive correlations between these indices and multiple measures of university output. To obtain causal evidence, we investigate exogenous shocks to US universities' expenditures over three decades. These shocks arise through the political appointment process, which we use to generate instrumental variables. We find that an exogenous increase in a university's expenditure generates more output, measured by either patents or publications, if the university is more autonomous and faces more competition. Exploiting variation over time in the 'stakes' of competitions for US federal research grants, we also find that universities generate more output for a given expenditure when research competitions are high stakes. We draw lessons, arguing that European universities could benefit from a combination of greater autonomy and greater accountability. Greater accountability might come through increased reliance on competitive grants, enhanced competition for students and faculty (promoted by reforms that increase mobility), and yardstick competitions (which often take the form of assessment exercises).

The researchers use the Shanghai and HEEACT rankings of world universities to compare them. Shanghai uses the following metrics:

The number of alumni from the university who have won Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, medicine, or economics or Field Medals in mathematics (10% of the overall index).
The number of faculty of the university who have won Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, medicine, or economics or Field Medals in mathematics (20% of the overall index).
The annual number of articles authored by faculty of the university that are published in the journals Nature or Science (20% of the overall index).
The annual number of articles authored by faculty of the university that are in the Science Citation Index-expanded and Social Science Citation Index (20% of the overall index).
The number of Highly Cited Researchers (copyright Thomson ISI, 2008) in the university's faculty in 21 broad subject categories (20% of the overall index).
All of the above indicators divided by the number of full-time equivalent faculty (10% of the index).

The HEEACT adds the following metrics to the equation:

The number of research publications in the relevant field in the last 11 years (10% weight) and the current year (10% weight).
The number of citations to research publications in the relevant field in the last 11 years (20% weight) and last 2 years (10% weight).
The number of highly cited papers in the last 11 years (15% weight), the number of articles in 'high-impact' journals in the current year (15% weight), and the H-index for the last 2 years (20% weight).

Quite a simple answer if you look at the correlations. The researchers have also done some regression analysis to confirm what we know. Autonomy, competition and independence from government clutches helps in the productivity of the universities. The overall impact is startling, they produce more patents and publications, and I quote specially for the US universities:

“expenditures are more than twice as productive in states with the most autonomy and competition, compared to states with the least”

The situation in Europe is more complicated, but still there are pockets of good behaviour (Switzerland, Sweden and UK!!!) where more competition and more autonomy are good drivers of university excellence. But will it happen? I doubt it, because the governments in these countries have a stranglehold on this sector of the society, which is a shame really.

The less said about ME universities the better. While I was closing this, I came across this Memri report. Pretty interesting what it said:

In TV Debate on Arab Universities, Arab Students' Union Head Ahmad Al-Shater Says Western Universities Are 'Laboratories for Weapons... Who Created Swine Flu, Bird Flu, & the Financial Crisis?'; Jordanian Professor Adib Al-Zu'bi Says Arab Countries 'Imported All the Prostitutes [After the U.S.S.R. Fell]... Scientists Imported by Israel & the U.S

I wouldn't even repeat what the student said, but the professor was quite right in many ways. I loved this bit:

There is a well-known example from an Arab country, which goes like this... A teacher asked: Who can give me the name of a creature that flies? One student said: A cow. The teacher said: You idiot, cows don't fly. Whose son are you? The boy said: I'm the son of so-and-so, who's a colonel in the army. So the teacher said: Cows fly, but they don't rise up from the ground. That is the situation.

Again, no exceptions, it's just relative across the world. Here the universities are tied to the government purse strings, in India and the ME, they are tied in even more ways. Forget about publications and research, they can't even teach properly if the foaming of the student above was any example.

Fiction: Rockstar

IdeaSmith — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:57:21 EST

I've just discovered a kink in my sexual make-up. I have a thing for gender role switching. That's not men dressing in lingerie (eww, gross!). It's a woman who's sexy because she's wearing a guy's long tee-shirt that comes down to mid-thigh. It's the breath-catching oomph of a rolled-up cuff revealing a slender arm. Or ooh...a chunky, sporty man's watch on a delicate female wrist.

How about the reverse? Hrithik Roshan gliding across an airport, pink tee-shirt, coloured sunglasses glory, the cool criminal in Dhoom 2. Oh he kills me, he kills me.

But the true master, the one that transcends gender, who takes sexuality beyond female or male has to be Sting. A voice that feels like a caress...of a man's tongue. When he lifts one foot to step forward and a field of golden corn springs up within him, it makes me think...that's the kind of sex that makes life, it makes you come alive.

How come all the lead guitarists, the famous ones, the images you have of a rockstar are all male? There's obviously something vaguely sexy about a guitar. The curvaceous soundbox, the long phallic arm and what about the strumming? I've played the guitar and I know it doesn't have to be held at crotch-level. And yet, why not? It goes from song-making to love-making.

I'd love to be straddling a guitar with my torso, strumming in tune to the master, letting his melody caress my song.

Ooh....

Oh, it's my phone. That buzz in my pocket feels so good.

Down with flu. Can't make it to practice today.

AHEMMM.

My mother's grim throat-clearing conveys that she is very, very angry about my checking my phone in church.

It's about choir practice.

Her thin-line mouth is a pointed reminder that we are still in church and I'm talking. I drop my gaze and shut up.

Twenty minutes later, I am settled in as comfortably as is possible in the confessional. Why do they make these seats so uncomfortable? Probably to punish the confessors for the sins they confess to.

Yes, my child.

Father, I have sinned.

Tell me about this thing you have done.

It's not something I did. I've been having...wrong thoughts.

Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep brooding silence. Presumably to make me ponder on my wrongdoing. Shame me into confessing all and purging my sins.

The silence is music. The silence is sexy in its own way.

About what, child?

About three notes too low. But low is good. It takes me higher. Go down, down further, go down on me.

I've been thinking of quitting the choir.

The silence is different now. Taut tension knife-edge sharp like the orchestra falling away to leave just that one high-pitched note behind.

I want to be in a rock band instead.

CRRRRRASSSSSHHHHHH.

I take a bow.

Movie Review: 3 Idiots

Lomi — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 05:41:52 EST

I was very lucky to get hold of a movie ticket to this movie for almost the first day first show (actually it was second day). The reasons were obviously Aamir and Hirani. Both of them haven’t delivered a flop or a dud at box office for a very long time. I knew the perfectionist that Aamir and the entertainer that Hirani is, this movie is sure to be engrossing if not fulfilling. I have to say that I was more than happy with the outcome of the movie. It was natural, soft and last but not least touching.

The Movie started in all too familiar way of a search for a person. It is not uncommon in Hindi cinema to search for a person. But the difference here in was not the search component but the person they were searching was quite different from any normal person. Well the name itself was very different Ranchoddas Shaymaldas Chajaad. This guy was not either the typical Hindi romantic hero or even the typical action Hero that we come across in each and every Hindi cinema. He was sensible, charismatic, entertaining and also very joyful character. Well I have to say that Aamir fitted in perfectly into this role and it didn’t seem odd at all that a forty plus person was playing a college student.

The other characters in this movie also contribute equally and make a difference to the overall feel of the movie. The work of Sharman Joshi and Madhavan from RDB fame was expected to be good but what caught everyone the most attention and also the real surprise component in this movie was Chatur character. He was well suited to his character and made everyone in the theater to laugh his heart out. His Balatkar scene and his atypical Hindi accent were all the more good moments of the movie. The scene where Chatur impresses the most is when he reminds Madhavan and Sharman of the oath that he took of revenge and here he is delivering a perfect kickback. It sounded too childish and laughable but to think of it that is how a normal elite student of a premium institutes pit against each other nowadays. It is childish for us but that is the dirty world out there in those premium institutes.

The theme of the movie is very much coherent with Taare Zameen Par and the script of the Movie also had the feel of Munnabhai. The difference was the delivery of the whole package by different character with different story, screenplay and direction. The Movie is sure to be loved at first shot by everyone and may be people will not mind spending some more on the repeat viewing too. It is already breaking Sholay records and looks like becoming the all time favorite of Hindi cinema. Even then this Movie had certain shortcomings which needed to be addressed like for example not everyone will be as successful as Madhavan’s character if he goes away from the prescribed path. One example could be the US where every person has the maximum freedom that one can actually wish to have and you now have US president requesting his people to concentrate on Science and Maths. Well in a country like India it becomes doubly difficult to cross the paths.

Kareena Kappor did not have much to do in this Movie and it seemed more of a small role for her and Boman Irani’s character was again like his Munnabhai role where he was the same strict principal albeit in a engineering school. The NASA pencil scene and Balatkar scene is something we have heard of in our emails and school jokes yet it seemed different when it was put in as a movie scene. Javed Jaffrey’s brief stint was a nice gripping moment before interval but unexpectedly he just withers away after the interval.

The music didn’t seem all that great on TV and CD players but when seen in the context of the story and script, it seemed to make the cut. “Give me some sunshine” song had a nice feelings attached to it and seemed to cut across many people’s college days. Aamir’s courage in dealing with sensitive issues like student suicides, Indian education system, youth power, crossing new bridges are positive moments of the Movie. Overall this Movie felt like a complete package of message, music, masala (pregnant scene), sentiment and some non hand fights (between Aamir and Irani).

Focus is the Key

J Srinivasan — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 06:52:12 EST

I’m an all rounder. In all walks of life. Business, Sports, Technology. Etc. This makes for being easily interested in something else when I’m working on one thing. In fact, working on one thing usually bores me to death. But that is what I like – doing all the things there is for me to do. Anyone will tell you that the risks of failure, if not the heightened risk of incompletion is much higher when I try multiple things at the same time.

But ever since I got to studying myself with some degree of rigour and thoroughness, I found that what I actually revel in is doing one thing at a time, but moving from one task to the next with speed making it appear as if I am completing multiple tasks and getting the attendant satisfaction.

With my Futures trading I see this being applied in a slightly different manner. I concentrate on the Nifty only. That’s one scrip. While I survey all its underlying stocks, it’s always from the context of what each component will do to the index, called Nifty. The temptation to trade other stocks, to diversify risk, as is commonly advised is, in my experience, a downer. Like a Zurich Axiom says: Beware the allure of diversification.

The argument for this axiom is that if you can’t manage trading one instrument, how do you expect to manage multiple? The management of risk, due to divided attention is obviously impacted poorly. There are other, better ways to manage risk.

However, the one line post that I wanted to write is this: Focus is the key to success.

Life is actually simple. The qualities for success are learnt at the age of 2 or 3. Thereafter, the building of skills, pretenses, tricks and treats, likes and dislikes end by about the age of 16 – 19. These work both ways for & against us. Bewildered? Me too! But that’s what my study of life has taught me.

Given this is all ‘operating’ at the same time, all the time, on everything I do, how do I ‘manage’ life to be successful?

That lies in the domain of BEING, but I’m not going into it here. Then there comes the domain of DOING which in turn results in the domain of HAVING (results). In this domain of doing, try FOCUS. Give it a long shot, consciously and despite severe pressure of multiplicity of demands on you. Without ignoring any of these demands; only dealing with them one by one. Over a short period, the results will astound you. It astounded me.

Women have a higher capability of multi tasking at the sensory level. They can choose to use this advantage to try multiple things at the same time, or bring this great gift to one task at a time and see the results for themselves.

You may find yourself having a mental debate about this or not. If you do, I have this quote for you:

“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a person in everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt prior to investigation.” --- Herbert Spencer

Try focus as your policy now. And keep at it till you manage to score atleast 75% in keeping focus, rigorously and thoroughly.

J Srinivasan@jsvasan

A Magic Pill to Eradicate Corruption

J Srinivasan — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 01:15:02 EST

For long now, we have seen enough and more about widespread and rampant corruption in India. We see it in daily headlines and TV news, day in and day out. Given that we are also a very righteous people, rampant corruption was at first obnoxious. Then it became a handle of ridicule. Later, it turned on our feeling of helplessness. In recent times, we began to ignore it as we go about our daily life, as if somehow, we must learn to survive and even succeed inspite of it. This has in turn led to most taking the view that we simply build in the costs, thereby making it an integral part of our life! That’s legitimacy without responsibility, since it’s all done hush hush, and the deep seated feeling is one of utter helplessness; overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem. What can I, an individual do? Why should I be the first goat sent to the slaughter house? Apathy at work!

This is more or less, briefly, roughly, approximately, the sum and substance of our current view of corruption in public life, in India.

I am no M K Gandhi. Nor am I Jay Prakash Narayan. Or a Nelson Mandela. Or even a K Chandrasekhar Rao who went on a hunger fast for a separate State of Telangana. Neither am I a lawyer, let alone a Constitutional Lawyer. I am a simple Citizen of India – like some of you who are reading this, and I feel exactly like you, helpless and resigned to this cancer afflicting us all. But I’m also an ontologist and I believe that at the root of all behavioral things, there is usually a very simple cause. Human Beings are driven by simple, even childlike core traits of character. Anyway, that is my belief but it is not the topic of this post but the explanation of why I undertook a study of this vexing problem.

Note: She = He = You and Me.

The nature of endemic corruption is that it flows Top Down.

If an underling is corrupt and her higher authority is not, the underling is unlikely to last very long in her position. Worse, she runs the risk of being punished for the crime, sooner or later. Thus corruption is top down. Period.

Corruption happens when a person holds the power to permit or deny an applicant, and is not accountable for the decision – or lack of a decision – to the applicant. This is the– no accountability to stakeholders. This immunity from prosecution or punishment is provided by articles in our (Indian) constitution. I’m not going to get into the legalities of this since it will distract from the main thrust of this post. Suffice it to say that in India, we need the permission of the perpetrator’s highest authority (often The President) to even investigate let alone prosecute her.

By the way, this works the same way in the private sector too. Almost all M & A (Memoranda & Articles of Association) contain a clause providing immunity to the employees from liability in the course of discharge of their work.

This argument has been used since the British Raj and the new rulers, the civil servant (?!) took it forward with glee.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for adequate safeguards against any form of harassment of officers doing their work. Be they from the government or the private sector. However, when the size of the organization becomes unwieldy and very decentralized as is the case of government in India, the need for protection against misuse must gain far greater weightage. The permissions must also be decentralized and so must be the criteria for granting such permissions be less protective.

Take the appalling case of Union Carbide and the Bhopal Gas tragedy. The Victims continue to suffer while the high paid Indian executives who managed the plant and the company have gone away scot free. The engineers who were directly responsible for the fiasco – I don’t even know who they were or even their names! Do you? The company is US based and will remain “immune” for all I know. The ‘compensation’ has not brought justice.

This high profile case illustrates the crucial failure of the “Doctrine of pleasure” incorporated in the Indian Constitution to protect government servants by giving them almost total everlasting unqualified immunity. I never fail to recoil at the word government servant. How can a person who is not accountable to you and me be a servant? Some will be quick to point out that they are called government servants, not yours or mine. LOL

That only means government, in our democracy, isn’t the servant of the people.

Since the government isn’t standing for elections, only politicians. Then too, can a whole election be run on the basis of some injustice or should they be contested on the basis of policies and goals? How, even by the most stretched of imagination, can you and I get accountability and justice for the different atrocities and scams committed by various officials, when some distant elected representative stands for re-election, possibly in a different constituency? And should we be voting for political parties or individual candidates? I could go on, but I’m sure you will agree that this bogey of politicians being held accountable doesn’t cut ice when it comes to accountability for failures in government, especially local ones. Parties are changed in government for much larger issues.

Thus, there is no accountability of government. And that’s where all corruption starts. No accountability. Specific accountability, not general, vague, ‘answerable to the people’ kind of accountability. And majority in an election does not absolve anyone from guilt, only the courts do.

I suggest that at the very heart of our endemic corruption lies Article 311 in our constitution. This is where it all starts, nOT the ‘funding of elections’ that is so often suggested as the reason why such large amounts of unaccounted money is generated. I’ll share more on this red herring thrown down to us by the powers that be in a subsequent post on this subject. However, if you take this hypothesis as true, then:

The magic cure for eradicating endemic corruption in India is to drop this unqualified, everlasting, personal immunity to each and every civil servant from being a constitutional right.

I started out by saying I’m no legal expert. I end by saying, again, that I’m no legal expert. The legal brains can figure out how it’s all to be done. But the important thing is to eliminate the protection against accountability to stakeholders being restored.

There is no doubt in my mind that many, many, many people before me have pointed this out. Many may have well been legal brains and social scientists, but that does not mean I must abstain. As a Nifty Futures trader, I can never tell when the market may turn in my (idea’s) favour. That is the purpose of this post.

If you think it makes sense, use the power of social networks you are in to spread the word. Retweet, as we say on Twitter. If you can have your local voters group campaign for this amendment. In short, take it up.

IIM CAT Snafu Continues - Mismanagement and Inconvenience

Aaman Lamba — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:19:45 EST

The first online Common Admission Test (CAT) for the Indian Institutes of Management presented a poor showing for the institutes and the company conducting the test, Prometric, as problems continued to plague some test centres, impacting a number of students across the country.

Problems started on the first day of the CAT, which runs up to December 7th, with students being unable to log in to the test, and a variety of excuses being made by the test centres and IIMs, ranging from hardware problems and virus attacks. Test examiners and invigilators did not appear to have been well trained. Often, computers hung while tests were underway, creating an unfair advantage for the student. The central server is reportedly affected by a virus or malware, and it is strange there was no backup server. Fail safes and alternatives did not seem to have been sufficiently planned, and students were mostly left in the lurch with little to no clarity about students taking the test at alternate dates. Many students travel across the country, take leaves, and generally prepare mentally for the test, thus new slots might be inconvenient in various ways, and affect the general outcome.

Over 50 out of the 360 labs were reportedly closed and problems have continued on day 3. A press conference convened by the IIM Convenor and Prometric representatives seemed to have nothing concrete to offer, apart from platitudes and promises to accommodate all the unfortunate students who had faced problems. The convener seemed to have not taken care of even basic courtesies like turning off his cell phone before the conference and provided generic answers to questions, before trying to pass the buck to the test vendor, Prometric, not best practices from a management institute. As the Wall Street Journal put it, the IIMs need to practice what they are supposed to preach,

The weekend CAT fiasco, in which 50 of the 360 centres had systems fail and students could not take the test, has reinforced the perception of poor coordination and collaboration of IIMs. Going by feedback from some of the candidates who took the test , it seems they not only failed to manage the technical aspects of the test but also did a bad job in training the staff present in various centres. If good management is about reducing uncertainty and systematic errors, then the IIMs have failed that test .The way the coordination committee of the IIMs reacted to the fiasco is also a matter of concern.

The HRD Ministry, under whom the IIMs function, has sent a letter to the IIMs and the CAT Convenor, Professor Satish Deodhar, asking for a factual report on the disruptions of the Test.

The CAT fiasco also creates a problem for broader adoption of computer-aided testing, that is expected to be a major growth industry for test-happy India.