From Asia Times article by Siddarth Srivatsava:
"The Indian government formally approved the US$100 billion Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), the country's largest infrastructure project, ahead of the three-day visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this week.
.....
Business apart, India and Japan are also seeking each other as strategic partners in making a combined pitch for a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council and military and security cooperation in East Asia to check the influence of China. Beijing has been anxious about the "Quadrilateral Initiative" (Quad) involving India, the US, Japan and Australia.
India is looking to host its biggest multilateral exercise with navies of the four countries as well as Singapore in the Bay of Bengal next month. Twenty-five warships will include the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and the US nuclear submarine SSN Chicago. The US, Japan and India held similar exercises off the Japanese coast last year; this is the first time that the Australians will take part."
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Bayesian Heresy’s Friday Book Club
Bayesian Heresy’s Friday Book Clubwill start discussing Daniel Yergin'sThe Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power. I read the book, enjoyed it though I felt that it was sympathetic to the oil industry as the wikipedia article says.
There is a similar discussion in Marginal Revolution about 'A Farewell to Alms' but visit MR infrequently afterthis post.
There is a similar discussion in Marginal Revolution about 'A Farewell to Alms' but visit MR infrequently afterthis post.
Chris Dillow on the downside of inequality
Chris Dillow links to various articles on the downside of inequality. Some of them like Sapolsky's review article and the more recent research article discuss the effects on health. Further discussion at Economist's view.
More links to Sapolsky's work here. I am currently reading Sapolsky'sWhy Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.
More links to Sapolsky's work here. I am currently reading Sapolsky'sWhy Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.
From Shivam's blog
I cannot get over thisphotographfrom Shivam's blog. Apart from Shivam (?) picking his nose, the characters or lifetime experiences of some of the others seems etched on their faces.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Assorted links to Glenn Loury
In New York Review of Books, William McNeill reviewd Glenn Lowry's "The Anatomy of Racial Inequality" and two other books on race in America. Lowry, an African American professor was an opponent of affirmative action in his younger days and had considerably
changed his opinions by this time. McNeill is not convinced of the solutions offered and says
"My own opinion is that every human group, when seeking to consolidate internal cohesion, strengthens itself most effectually by engaging in conflicts with its outside rivals. Yet overall and across long periods of time, arrangements for accommodation and cooperation among different and rival groups prevail, simply because cooperation—sometimes willing, but often forcibly imposed—sustains the collective generation of wealth and power that most people prefer to their opposites. Disputes over how to distribute such wealth are perpetual; and cooperation on one scale always creates or intensifies conflict on another. That is why the race problem within American society may diminish if black manpower becomes vital in wartime; and why moral exhortation, even if rooted in religious conviction, is unlikely to make much difference, unless, or until, other Americans feel that joint action with blacks is needed for success in some sort of external conflict."
This seems to be a strange solution and even Iraq war supporters have not come up with this reason. Meanwhile Loury wonders Why Are So Many Americans in Prison?:
"Never before has a supposedly free country denied basic liberty to so many of its citizens. In December 2006, some 2.25 million persons were being held in the nearly 5,000 prisons and jails that are scattered across America’s urban and rural landscapes. One third of inmates in state prisons are violent criminals, convicted of homicide, rape, or robbery. But the other two thirds consist mainly of property and drug offenders. Inmates are disproportionately drawn from the most disadvantaged parts of society. On average, state inmates have fewer than 11 years of schooling. They are also vastly disproportionately black and brown.
...
A more convincing argument is that imprisonment rates have continued to rise while crime rates have fallen because we have become progressively more punitive: not because crime has continued to explode (it hasn’t), not because we made a smart policy choice, but because we have made a collective decision to increase the rate of punishment.
....
Despite a sharp national decline in crime, American criminal justice has become crueler and less caring than it has been at any other time in our modern history. Why?
The question has no simple answer, but the racial composition of prisons is a good place to start. The punitive turn in the nation’s social policy—intimately connected with public rhetoric about responsibility, dependency, social hygiene, and the reclamation of public order—can be fully grasped only when viewed against the backdrop of America’s often ugly and violent racial history: there is a reason why our inclination toward forgiveness and the extension of a second chance to those who have violated our behavioral strictures is so stunted, and why our mainstream political discourses are so bereft of self-examination and searching social criticism. This historical resonance between the stigma of race and the stigma of imprisonment serves to keep alive in our public culture the subordinating social meanings that have always been associated with blackness. Race helps to explain why the United States is exceptional among the democratic industrial societies in the severity and extent of its punitive policy and in the paucity of its social-welfare institutions. "
Update: (via 3quarksdaily)Adiscussion on "Why Are So Many Americans in Prison?" and a review of three recent books on prisons.
changed his opinions by this time. McNeill is not convinced of the solutions offered and says
"My own opinion is that every human group, when seeking to consolidate internal cohesion, strengthens itself most effectually by engaging in conflicts with its outside rivals. Yet overall and across long periods of time, arrangements for accommodation and cooperation among different and rival groups prevail, simply because cooperation—sometimes willing, but often forcibly imposed—sustains the collective generation of wealth and power that most people prefer to their opposites. Disputes over how to distribute such wealth are perpetual; and cooperation on one scale always creates or intensifies conflict on another. That is why the race problem within American society may diminish if black manpower becomes vital in wartime; and why moral exhortation, even if rooted in religious conviction, is unlikely to make much difference, unless, or until, other Americans feel that joint action with blacks is needed for success in some sort of external conflict."
This seems to be a strange solution and even Iraq war supporters have not come up with this reason. Meanwhile Loury wonders Why Are So Many Americans in Prison?:
"Never before has a supposedly free country denied basic liberty to so many of its citizens. In December 2006, some 2.25 million persons were being held in the nearly 5,000 prisons and jails that are scattered across America’s urban and rural landscapes. One third of inmates in state prisons are violent criminals, convicted of homicide, rape, or robbery. But the other two thirds consist mainly of property and drug offenders. Inmates are disproportionately drawn from the most disadvantaged parts of society. On average, state inmates have fewer than 11 years of schooling. They are also vastly disproportionately black and brown.
...
A more convincing argument is that imprisonment rates have continued to rise while crime rates have fallen because we have become progressively more punitive: not because crime has continued to explode (it hasn’t), not because we made a smart policy choice, but because we have made a collective decision to increase the rate of punishment.
....
Despite a sharp national decline in crime, American criminal justice has become crueler and less caring than it has been at any other time in our modern history. Why?
The question has no simple answer, but the racial composition of prisons is a good place to start. The punitive turn in the nation’s social policy—intimately connected with public rhetoric about responsibility, dependency, social hygiene, and the reclamation of public order—can be fully grasped only when viewed against the backdrop of America’s often ugly and violent racial history: there is a reason why our inclination toward forgiveness and the extension of a second chance to those who have violated our behavioral strictures is so stunted, and why our mainstream political discourses are so bereft of self-examination and searching social criticism. This historical resonance between the stigma of race and the stigma of imprisonment serves to keep alive in our public culture the subordinating social meanings that have always been associated with blackness. Race helps to explain why the United States is exceptional among the democratic industrial societies in the severity and extent of its punitive policy and in the paucity of its social-welfare institutions. "
Update: (via 3quarksdaily)Adiscussion on "Why Are So Many Americans in Prison?" and a review of three recent books on prisons.
Nepali teacher wins Magsaysay Award
From scidev.net
"Mahabir Pun, 52, from the remote village of Nangi in Nepal, will receive the 2007 Award for Community Leadership and a US$50,000 prize along with six other awardees in Manila, Philippines this month (31 August).
Pun started the project — The Nepal Wireless Networking Project — to meet the communication needs of his village, seven hours climb to the nearest road and without a telephone connection.
"I believe that better communication systems are important for the overall development of a community and a nation," Pun told SciDev.Net.
Under the project, villagers and a team of international volunteers initially powered several computers with small hydro-generators in a nearby stream.
They then linked them wirelessly to the Internet with a series of television dish antennas and mountaintop relay stations, using the nearest telephone connection in the town of Pokhara, a two-day trip away.
Pun said the project has so far provided 14 rural villages with access to services like telemedicine, distance learning, e-marketing of local products and telephone services."
From an editorial in scidev.net
"Almost unnoticed, Nepal is developing simple and cheap technologies that make the best of local resources and don't damage the environment.
Down a narrow alley in Kathmandu's historic heart, through a low door, you enter Akal Man Nakarmi's workshop. Nakarmi's surname means 'metalsmith' and the soft-spoken craftsman's ancestors crafted copper utensils and forged statues of deities in bronze.
Today, Nakarmi makes small turbines called Peltric Sets for micro-hydro electric generation plants across the Himalaya. He can't keep up with demand.
Nepal's successes in scientific application in recent decades aren't about grandiose hydropower dams or major infrastructure projects.
The new technologies that have worked have been indigenously designed, based on traditional skills and knowledge, and are cheap and easy to use and maintain. In fact, to visit Nepal these days is to see the 'small is beautiful' concept of development economist E. F. Schumacher in action."
"Mahabir Pun, 52, from the remote village of Nangi in Nepal, will receive the 2007 Award for Community Leadership and a US$50,000 prize along with six other awardees in Manila, Philippines this month (31 August).
Pun started the project — The Nepal Wireless Networking Project — to meet the communication needs of his village, seven hours climb to the nearest road and without a telephone connection.
"I believe that better communication systems are important for the overall development of a community and a nation," Pun told SciDev.Net.
Under the project, villagers and a team of international volunteers initially powered several computers with small hydro-generators in a nearby stream.
They then linked them wirelessly to the Internet with a series of television dish antennas and mountaintop relay stations, using the nearest telephone connection in the town of Pokhara, a two-day trip away.
Pun said the project has so far provided 14 rural villages with access to services like telemedicine, distance learning, e-marketing of local products and telephone services."
From an editorial in scidev.net
"Almost unnoticed, Nepal is developing simple and cheap technologies that make the best of local resources and don't damage the environment.
Down a narrow alley in Kathmandu's historic heart, through a low door, you enter Akal Man Nakarmi's workshop. Nakarmi's surname means 'metalsmith' and the soft-spoken craftsman's ancestors crafted copper utensils and forged statues of deities in bronze.
Today, Nakarmi makes small turbines called Peltric Sets for micro-hydro electric generation plants across the Himalaya. He can't keep up with demand.
Nepal's successes in scientific application in recent decades aren't about grandiose hydropower dams or major infrastructure projects.
The new technologies that have worked have been indigenously designed, based on traditional skills and knowledge, and are cheap and easy to use and maintain. In fact, to visit Nepal these days is to see the 'small is beautiful' concept of development economist E. F. Schumacher in action."
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Friday, August 17, 2007
A wide ranging article on American and Global Economy
in Harvard Magazine by Jonathan Shaw (via 3quarksdaily). Very readable. A sample excerpt:
"The global imbalances created by this dynamic of American borrowing and foreign lending appear stable for now, but if they slip suddenly, that could pose serious dangers for middle- and working-class Americans through soaring interest rates, a crash in the housing market, and sharply higher prices for anything no longer made domestically. Harvard economists and political scientists see possible threats to globalization (the opening of markets and trade that has made the economy a world phenomenon): the risk of rising protectionism; the potential for a world recession if market forces unwind the imbalances too quickly; and even the possibility that political considerations could trump shared economic interests, causing nations to use their international financial positions as weapons."
Not so typical excerpt:
"That last idea—that nations can wield power through their accumulation of currency reserves—is rooted in our own history. When President Dwight D. Eisenhower learned in 1956 that Britain, in collusion with France and Israel, had invaded Egypt without U.S. knowledge, he was infuriated. “Many people remember Suez,” notes Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel professor of capital formation and growth at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG), but few recall “the specific way that Eisenhower forced the British to back down.” At the time, there was a run on the pound sterling and he blocked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from stabilizing the currency. With sterling on the verge of collapse, says Frankel, “Eisenhower told them, ‘We are not going to bail out the pound unless you pull out of Suez.’” Facing bankruptcy, the British withdrew. This incident, notes Frankel, “marked the end of Great Britain’s ability to conduct an independent foreign policy.” "
"The global imbalances created by this dynamic of American borrowing and foreign lending appear stable for now, but if they slip suddenly, that could pose serious dangers for middle- and working-class Americans through soaring interest rates, a crash in the housing market, and sharply higher prices for anything no longer made domestically. Harvard economists and political scientists see possible threats to globalization (the opening of markets and trade that has made the economy a world phenomenon): the risk of rising protectionism; the potential for a world recession if market forces unwind the imbalances too quickly; and even the possibility that political considerations could trump shared economic interests, causing nations to use their international financial positions as weapons."
Not so typical excerpt:
"That last idea—that nations can wield power through their accumulation of currency reserves—is rooted in our own history. When President Dwight D. Eisenhower learned in 1956 that Britain, in collusion with France and Israel, had invaded Egypt without U.S. knowledge, he was infuriated. “Many people remember Suez,” notes Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel professor of capital formation and growth at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG), but few recall “the specific way that Eisenhower forced the British to back down.” At the time, there was a run on the pound sterling and he blocked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from stabilizing the currency. With sterling on the verge of collapse, says Frankel, “Eisenhower told them, ‘We are not going to bail out the pound unless you pull out of Suez.’” Facing bankruptcy, the British withdrew. This incident, notes Frankel, “marked the end of Great Britain’s ability to conduct an independent foreign policy.” "
SBS documentary on Noor Inayat Khan
today. From The Age:
"A beautiful Indian princess from a Sufi pacifist family holds "the principal and most dangerous post in France" during the Nazi occupation of Paris in the summer of 1943. Noor Inayat Khan was not a soldier but a radio operator, transmitting secrets between Paris and London, and working under the pseudonym Madeleine. It is astounding that Noor, a princess from a muslim family, came to be in such a precarious position.
Her success in the post, and her behaviour when captured by the Germans, earned her a George Cross - one of only three awarded to women in World War II. This documentary follows Noor's story, from her birth in Moscow and unconventional upbringing in Paris, to her training in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and eventual deployment to France."
More about Noor Inayat Khan at Wikipedia.
"A beautiful Indian princess from a Sufi pacifist family holds "the principal and most dangerous post in France" during the Nazi occupation of Paris in the summer of 1943. Noor Inayat Khan was not a soldier but a radio operator, transmitting secrets between Paris and London, and working under the pseudonym Madeleine. It is astounding that Noor, a princess from a muslim family, came to be in such a precarious position.
Her success in the post, and her behaviour when captured by the Germans, earned her a George Cross - one of only three awarded to women in World War II. This documentary follows Noor's story, from her birth in Moscow and unconventional upbringing in Paris, to her training in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and eventual deployment to France."
More about Noor Inayat Khan at Wikipedia.
Sarah O'Connor on Shah Rukh Khan
From The Age:
O'Connor, 22, was coming to terms with her new-found stardom when "Sporting Life" called yesterday. "I didn't know much about Bollywood, except they do a lot of dancing and singing. Now that I've seen it, I'm like, this is pretty big," said O'Connor, who has a speaking role in which she clashes with one of the Indian players at a cocktail party. "I play a bit of a bitch," she said. "I didn't know who he (Khan) was, but I'd heard he was the Brad Pitt of Bollywood, and then I met him and you could just tell. He had the look and the smell. As soon as he came out, it was like a rock concert. People were going mental, they baked cakes, brought flowers, some girls fainted. When I shook his hand, I thought maybe I shouldn't wash it."
Chak De India is like Bend It Like Beckham, with sticks. But it keeps Bollywood silliness to a minimum. "There's an underdog team and they come together and win. It's predictable, but it's good. It has a great storyline," O'Connor said. "It was funny, when I did the movie we had the big crowds, so you kind of feel what it would be like to play for Australia. Then a month after we finished filming, I got a call-up to go to Argentina with the Australian team for the Champions Trophy. I got all these emails from the Indian girls saying, 'This is the real thing'!"
O'Connor, 22, was coming to terms with her new-found stardom when "Sporting Life" called yesterday. "I didn't know much about Bollywood, except they do a lot of dancing and singing. Now that I've seen it, I'm like, this is pretty big," said O'Connor, who has a speaking role in which she clashes with one of the Indian players at a cocktail party. "I play a bit of a bitch," she said. "I didn't know who he (Khan) was, but I'd heard he was the Brad Pitt of Bollywood, and then I met him and you could just tell. He had the look and the smell. As soon as he came out, it was like a rock concert. People were going mental, they baked cakes, brought flowers, some girls fainted. When I shook his hand, I thought maybe I shouldn't wash it."
Chak De India is like Bend It Like Beckham, with sticks. But it keeps Bollywood silliness to a minimum. "There's an underdog team and they come together and win. It's predictable, but it's good. It has a great storyline," O'Connor said. "It was funny, when I did the movie we had the big crowds, so you kind of feel what it would be like to play for Australia. Then a month after we finished filming, I got a call-up to go to Argentina with the Australian team for the Champions Trophy. I got all these emails from the Indian girls saying, 'This is the real thing'!"
The spiral of risk
This is a first attempt to understand the sub-prime problem; the posts linked below seem somewhat understandable. John Kay in Financial Times (via bayesianheresy):
"The financial economics I once taught treated risk as just another commodity. People bought and sold it in line with their varying preferences. The result, in the Panglossian world of efficient markets, was that risk was widely spread and held by those best able to bear it.
Real life led me to a different view. Risk markets are driven less by different tastes for risk than by differences in information and understanding. People who know a little of what they are doing pass risks to people who know less. Since ignorance is not evenly distributed, the result may be to concentrate risk rather than spread it. The truth began to dawn when I studied what happened at Lloyd’s two decades ago."
A comment inRoubini's postlinks to
a letter from J. Kyle Bass, Managing Partner of Hayman Capital . Excerpt:
"He told me that the “real money” (US insurance companies, pension funds, etc) accounts had stopped purchasing mezzanine tranches of US Subprime debt in late 2003 and that they needed a mechanism that could enable them to “mark up” these loans, package them opaquely, and EXPORT THE NEWLY PACKAGED RISK TO UNWITTING BUYERS IN ASIA AND CENTRAL EUROPE!!!! He told me with a straight face that these CDOs were the only way to get rid of the riskiest tranches of Subprime debt. "
There are aseveral posts on the topic in Information Processing. See in particular Profits from the meltdown and guide to the perplexed.
More at NY Times .
"The financial economics I once taught treated risk as just another commodity. People bought and sold it in line with their varying preferences. The result, in the Panglossian world of efficient markets, was that risk was widely spread and held by those best able to bear it.
Real life led me to a different view. Risk markets are driven less by different tastes for risk than by differences in information and understanding. People who know a little of what they are doing pass risks to people who know less. Since ignorance is not evenly distributed, the result may be to concentrate risk rather than spread it. The truth began to dawn when I studied what happened at Lloyd’s two decades ago."
A comment inRoubini's postlinks to
a letter from J. Kyle Bass, Managing Partner of Hayman Capital . Excerpt:
"He told me that the “real money” (US insurance companies, pension funds, etc) accounts had stopped purchasing mezzanine tranches of US Subprime debt in late 2003 and that they needed a mechanism that could enable them to “mark up” these loans, package them opaquely, and EXPORT THE NEWLY PACKAGED RISK TO UNWITTING BUYERS IN ASIA AND CENTRAL EUROPE!!!! He told me with a straight face that these CDOs were the only way to get rid of the riskiest tranches of Subprime debt. "
There are aseveral posts on the topic in Information Processing. See in particular Profits from the meltdown and guide to the perplexed.
More at NY Times .
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Mukul Kesavan on India's Unique Democracy
Mukul Kesavan in India's Model Democracy:
"Pluralism, a stratagem born of weakness (the early nationalist elite had no other way of demonstrating that they represented anyone but themselves), became the cornerstone of Indian political practice, because it legitimised the compromises essential for keeping hundreds of jostling identities aboard the good ship India.
This was the ultimate political goal: to keep the diversity of a subcontinent afloat in a democratic ark. Everything else was negotiable.
.....
If India didn't exist, no-one would have the imagination to invent it."
"Pluralism, a stratagem born of weakness (the early nationalist elite had no other way of demonstrating that they represented anyone but themselves), became the cornerstone of Indian political practice, because it legitimised the compromises essential for keeping hundreds of jostling identities aboard the good ship India.
This was the ultimate political goal: to keep the diversity of a subcontinent afloat in a democratic ark. Everything else was negotiable.
.....
If India didn't exist, no-one would have the imagination to invent it."
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
From an article of Mark Tully
Inthis article, Mark Tully says:
"Mahatma Gandhi said that he had never made a fetish of consistency. Hinduism for him was so broad that "every variety of belief found protection under its ample fold". It's not surprising that his country does not make a fetish of the efficiency which demands consistency and which, far from being capacious, only knows one way of doing anything."
I wonder whether some sort of secularism is embedded in Hinduism.
"Mahatma Gandhi said that he had never made a fetish of consistency. Hinduism for him was so broad that "every variety of belief found protection under its ample fold". It's not surprising that his country does not make a fetish of the efficiency which demands consistency and which, far from being capacious, only knows one way of doing anything."
I wonder whether some sort of secularism is embedded in Hinduism.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Emotional Memory Formation
From Information Processing:
"A mutation in the gene for the α2b-adrenoceptor improves the formation of memories of strong emotional events. Students in Zurich with the mutation performed twice as well on a controlled test. Rwandan refugees with the mutation tended to suffer significantly more often from flashbacks of traumatic events. So, the mutation affects cognitive function in a clear way. It's also distributed unevenly among different populations -- 30% of Swiss and 12% of Rwandans have the mutant allele."
For more links and excerpts from an interesting Economist article see Steve Hsu's post linked above. However, as the Economist article says:
"Whether that result has wider implications remains to be seen. Human genetics has a notorious history of jumping to extravagant conclusions from scant data, but that does not mean conclusions should be ducked if the data are good. In this case, the statistics suggest Rwanda may have been lucky: the long-term mental-health effects of the war may not be as widespread as they would have been in people with a different genetic mix. On the other hand, are those who easily forget the horrors of history condemned to repeat them?"
"A mutation in the gene for the α2b-adrenoceptor improves the formation of memories of strong emotional events. Students in Zurich with the mutation performed twice as well on a controlled test. Rwandan refugees with the mutation tended to suffer significantly more often from flashbacks of traumatic events. So, the mutation affects cognitive function in a clear way. It's also distributed unevenly among different populations -- 30% of Swiss and 12% of Rwandans have the mutant allele."
For more links and excerpts from an interesting Economist article see Steve Hsu's post linked above. However, as the Economist article says:
"Whether that result has wider implications remains to be seen. Human genetics has a notorious history of jumping to extravagant conclusions from scant data, but that does not mean conclusions should be ducked if the data are good. In this case, the statistics suggest Rwanda may have been lucky: the long-term mental-health effects of the war may not be as widespread as they would have been in people with a different genetic mix. On the other hand, are those who easily forget the horrors of history condemned to repeat them?"
Monday, August 13, 2007
An interview with P. Sainath
An interesting interview with Sainath via Kuffir. Excerpt:
"I have a problem with always looking back only to what was said in the 1920s and what was said during the civil disobedience movement or during the Quit India movement. I do not believe Gandhi was the only leader of the freedom struggle. If you’re looking at statues and reverence, you would find there are far more statues of Baba Saheb Ambedkar, a PhD from Columbia University who emerged from the untouchable classes of Indian society.
In fact, the difference between Ambedkar and any other Indian leader is that the statues of Ambedkar are put up by public subscription, not by government fatwa. The freedom struggle of India gave us many leaders and luminaries of enormous standing. However, I think that on many issues I would rather look at Gandhi and Ambedkar in terms of what would their stance or their understanding of the present situation be? How would they act now? On some of the central issues of our time—oppression of the poorer castes and the so-called untouchables—I think history has proven Ambedkar to be right. Ambedkar’s prognosis of the role that caste would play in democracy, of how a lack of economic democracy would damage political democracy, has been borne out by history. What would Gandhi say about the obscene inequality that you’re looking at in the world? A man who said that for those who die of hunger the only form in which God may dare appear is food. That’s the interesting thing for me."
Interestingly, from Mark Lindley's Life and Times of Gora, chapter 5:
"Gandhi wanted to be certain, however, that Manorama was acting freely. Early in 1946, when he had occasion to visit Madras, he asked Gora and Manorama (as well as Mythri) to meet him there, and he asked an orthodox caste-Hindu colleague who was fluent in Telugu to interview Manorama and see if she was under duress. But she was unequivocal: “We are working for social equality and the eradication of Untouchability.” So Gandhi declared, “Now they are my children. Let them wait for two years and in the meantime let us announce their engagement.” Arjun Rao, the groom whom Gora and Sara swa thi had chosen, was sent for and came to Madras. Gandhi found him presentable and fairly fluent in Hindi, which was the one language common to every one at Sevagram, so he invited him to spend the next two years there, while Manorama, who did not speak Hindi, would study at a nurses’ and midwives’ training center in Andhra. At Sevagram Gandhi told Arjun,
“You should become like Ambedkar. You should work for the re moval of Untouchability and caste. Untouchability must go at any cost.” "
P.S. Sainath says "Palagummi is the name of a now-nonexistent village in Andhra Pradesh. ... My granddad used to tell me that Palagummi was a village in the Godavari area," According to Wikipedia, there is still a village Palagummi in Razole Mandal of East Godavari District.
"I have a problem with always looking back only to what was said in the 1920s and what was said during the civil disobedience movement or during the Quit India movement. I do not believe Gandhi was the only leader of the freedom struggle. If you’re looking at statues and reverence, you would find there are far more statues of Baba Saheb Ambedkar, a PhD from Columbia University who emerged from the untouchable classes of Indian society.
In fact, the difference between Ambedkar and any other Indian leader is that the statues of Ambedkar are put up by public subscription, not by government fatwa. The freedom struggle of India gave us many leaders and luminaries of enormous standing. However, I think that on many issues I would rather look at Gandhi and Ambedkar in terms of what would their stance or their understanding of the present situation be? How would they act now? On some of the central issues of our time—oppression of the poorer castes and the so-called untouchables—I think history has proven Ambedkar to be right. Ambedkar’s prognosis of the role that caste would play in democracy, of how a lack of economic democracy would damage political democracy, has been borne out by history. What would Gandhi say about the obscene inequality that you’re looking at in the world? A man who said that for those who die of hunger the only form in which God may dare appear is food. That’s the interesting thing for me."
Interestingly, from Mark Lindley's Life and Times of Gora, chapter 5:
"Gandhi wanted to be certain, however, that Manorama was acting freely. Early in 1946, when he had occasion to visit Madras, he asked Gora and Manorama (as well as Mythri) to meet him there, and he asked an orthodox caste-Hindu colleague who was fluent in Telugu to interview Manorama and see if she was under duress. But she was unequivocal: “We are working for social equality and the eradication of Untouchability.” So Gandhi declared, “Now they are my children. Let them wait for two years and in the meantime let us announce their engagement.” Arjun Rao, the groom whom Gora and Sara swa thi had chosen, was sent for and came to Madras. Gandhi found him presentable and fairly fluent in Hindi, which was the one language common to every one at Sevagram, so he invited him to spend the next two years there, while Manorama, who did not speak Hindi, would study at a nurses’ and midwives’ training center in Andhra. At Sevagram Gandhi told Arjun,
“You should become like Ambedkar. You should work for the re moval of Untouchability and caste. Untouchability must go at any cost.” "
P.S. Sainath says "Palagummi is the name of a now-nonexistent village in Andhra Pradesh. ... My granddad used to tell me that Palagummi was a village in the Godavari area," According to Wikipedia, there is still a village Palagummi in Razole Mandal of East Godavari District.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
A passion for reading
Froman interview with Pankaj Mishra:
"Initially, I saw the life of the writer as a life of reading, which for me was really an extension of the life of idleness that I’d been living as an undergraduate at university. Reading gave me so much pleasure that I felt that maybe I could continue that life indefinitely. I basically went from day to day, reading a lot, loving most books I read and making notes about them. I was just hoping that nothing would happen—like having to apply for a job or think seriously about a career—that would put a stop to the wonderful life I was leading. And, miraculously, nothing stopped me.
......
Most of what I read now is for reviewing purposes or related to something I want to write about. It’s slightly utilitarian. I definitely miss that sense of being a disinterested reader who’s reading purely for the pleasure of imagining his way into emotional situations and vividly realized scenes in nineteenth-century France or late nineteenth-century Russia. Often I find that when I go back to those books by Flaubert or Chekhov—which I loved—I’m unable to summon up that same imaginative richness. That seems to me a huge loss. Now I’m thinking more about the craftsmanship of it—why did this paragraph end here—narrowly technical things.
......
(while discussing his book avout Budha)
Three books inspired me. One was Claude Lévi-Strauss’s Tristes Tropiques. It’s an extraordinarily radical book in that it’s the mid-twentieth century and he’s doing straightforward ethnography in Brazil while at the same time he’s looking at his own experience as a Frenchman and the larger encounter that’s happening between Western modernity and older cultures. The other book I had in mind was Native Realm by Czeslaw Milosz. It’s another hugely fascinating example of someone mixing personal history with a larger historical account. My experience was quite different from theirs, I was neither an academic like Lévi-Strauss nor someone coping with very fraught political situations the way Milosz was, but these books were inspirations if not models. Also [V. S. Naipaul’s] An Area of Darkness, which I think is one of the more interesting examples of experimental nonfiction: it’s an essay, a travelogue, it’s an instance of what today might be called cultural studies, it’s certainly a memoir—a very angry one at times—there is a range of moods and a range of tones."
"BLVR: If you could have every American read one book, what would it be?
PM: A House for Mr. Biswas. It’s quite removed from the glamorous notions of what a great novel should be. It’s about a man in the middle of nowhere working his way out of a background of deprivation and wanting a house of his own for his growing family. The frustration and partial fulfillment of that desire is described with great insight and humor, and, most extraordinarily, with no sentimentality. Apart from other things, reading that book makes you understand—intuitively—the violence in the world today."
"BLVR: Are you ambitious?
PM: Well, I feel very privileged to get to read and write and not to have to do things that I don’t like, and I don’t want to give that up. Everything else is just a bonus and often a distraction from the writing, reading, and traveling that gives me the most pleasure. I feel that I already have the life I love and I don’t see how it could be improved radically by any greater material success I might have—bigger advances, more prizes. It’s a kind of madness. And the culture of prize-giving is so corrupt. To think of what someone like Flaubert would have made of it, what kind of utter disgust and scorn it would have aroused in figures like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. What would they say if they were told they all had to compete for these little trinkets that were given out? Yet the longing for a very garish kind of success seems as widespread among writers as among investment bankers."
More links to Pankaj Mishra here.
"Initially, I saw the life of the writer as a life of reading, which for me was really an extension of the life of idleness that I’d been living as an undergraduate at university. Reading gave me so much pleasure that I felt that maybe I could continue that life indefinitely. I basically went from day to day, reading a lot, loving most books I read and making notes about them. I was just hoping that nothing would happen—like having to apply for a job or think seriously about a career—that would put a stop to the wonderful life I was leading. And, miraculously, nothing stopped me.
......
Most of what I read now is for reviewing purposes or related to something I want to write about. It’s slightly utilitarian. I definitely miss that sense of being a disinterested reader who’s reading purely for the pleasure of imagining his way into emotional situations and vividly realized scenes in nineteenth-century France or late nineteenth-century Russia. Often I find that when I go back to those books by Flaubert or Chekhov—which I loved—I’m unable to summon up that same imaginative richness. That seems to me a huge loss. Now I’m thinking more about the craftsmanship of it—why did this paragraph end here—narrowly technical things.
......
(while discussing his book avout Budha)
Three books inspired me. One was Claude Lévi-Strauss’s Tristes Tropiques. It’s an extraordinarily radical book in that it’s the mid-twentieth century and he’s doing straightforward ethnography in Brazil while at the same time he’s looking at his own experience as a Frenchman and the larger encounter that’s happening between Western modernity and older cultures. The other book I had in mind was Native Realm by Czeslaw Milosz. It’s another hugely fascinating example of someone mixing personal history with a larger historical account. My experience was quite different from theirs, I was neither an academic like Lévi-Strauss nor someone coping with very fraught political situations the way Milosz was, but these books were inspirations if not models. Also [V. S. Naipaul’s] An Area of Darkness, which I think is one of the more interesting examples of experimental nonfiction: it’s an essay, a travelogue, it’s an instance of what today might be called cultural studies, it’s certainly a memoir—a very angry one at times—there is a range of moods and a range of tones."
"BLVR: If you could have every American read one book, what would it be?
PM: A House for Mr. Biswas. It’s quite removed from the glamorous notions of what a great novel should be. It’s about a man in the middle of nowhere working his way out of a background of deprivation and wanting a house of his own for his growing family. The frustration and partial fulfillment of that desire is described with great insight and humor, and, most extraordinarily, with no sentimentality. Apart from other things, reading that book makes you understand—intuitively—the violence in the world today."
"BLVR: Are you ambitious?
PM: Well, I feel very privileged to get to read and write and not to have to do things that I don’t like, and I don’t want to give that up. Everything else is just a bonus and often a distraction from the writing, reading, and traveling that gives me the most pleasure. I feel that I already have the life I love and I don’t see how it could be improved radically by any greater material success I might have—bigger advances, more prizes. It’s a kind of madness. And the culture of prize-giving is so corrupt. To think of what someone like Flaubert would have made of it, what kind of utter disgust and scorn it would have aroused in figures like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. What would they say if they were told they all had to compete for these little trinkets that were given out? Yet the longing for a very garish kind of success seems as widespread among writers as among investment bankers."
More links to Pankaj Mishra here.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Assorted Telugu related articles
Nagaraju on the role of Rayalaseemain the development of Telugu.
Velcheru Narayana Rao in Coconut and Honey: Samskrit and Telugu in Medieval Andhrasuggests that Krishnadevaraya’s decision to encourage Telugu was a political decision. Very interesting article with lots more.
Narla Venkateswara Rao in ‘Idli Digvijayam’ (Telugu article) in Narla Rachanalu, vol.2 pp. 317-322 relates the decline of popularity of ‘idli’ with that of the Vijayanagara empire resulting in the decline of irrigation and availability of rice.
Idli seems to have come to India from Indonesia.
A recent article in Current Sciencestudies the rise and fall of the Vijayanagara empire in terms of control of resources and trade (at one place they seem to have used ‘nadir’ for ‘zenith’). They also suggest that a mini green revolution took place. A summary here.
K.Srinivasulu in Caste, Class and Social Articulation in Andhra Pradesh: Mapping Differential Regional Trajectories studies the effects of green revolution and different trajectories of class and caste struggles in different regions of A.P.
“In this paper we have examined the significance of class and caste on social mobilisation in Andhra Pradesh. The central question addressed here is: why have two of the State’s major regions, Telangana and coastal Andhra, differed in terms of social mobilisation, as class-based agrarian movement and dalit mobilisation have been gaining ground in these two regions respectively?”
Velcheru Narayana Rao in Coconut and Honey: Samskrit and Telugu in Medieval Andhrasuggests that Krishnadevaraya’s decision to encourage Telugu was a political decision. Very interesting article with lots more.
Narla Venkateswara Rao in ‘Idli Digvijayam’ (Telugu article) in Narla Rachanalu, vol.2 pp. 317-322 relates the decline of popularity of ‘idli’ with that of the Vijayanagara empire resulting in the decline of irrigation and availability of rice.
Idli seems to have come to India from Indonesia.
A recent article in Current Sciencestudies the rise and fall of the Vijayanagara empire in terms of control of resources and trade (at one place they seem to have used ‘nadir’ for ‘zenith’). They also suggest that a mini green revolution took place. A summary here.
K.Srinivasulu in Caste, Class and Social Articulation in Andhra Pradesh: Mapping Differential Regional Trajectories studies the effects of green revolution and different trajectories of class and caste struggles in different regions of A.P.
“In this paper we have examined the significance of class and caste on social mobilisation in Andhra Pradesh. The central question addressed here is: why have two of the State’s major regions, Telangana and coastal Andhra, differed in terms of social mobilisation, as class-based agrarian movement and dalit mobilisation have been gaining ground in these two regions respectively?”
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
A Farewell to Alms
by Gregory Clark is being touted as the next blockbuster. Here are some excerpts from
Tyler Cowen's review in New York Times
"Economists typically explain the wealth of a nation by pointing to good policies and the quality of a country’s institutions. But why do these differences exist in the first place?
In “A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World” (forthcoming, Princeton University Press, http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/FTA2006.pdf), Gregory Clark, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis, identifies the quality of labor as the fundamental factor behind economic growth. Poor labor quality discourages capital from flowing into a country, which means that poverty persists. Good institutions never have a chance to develop.
....
A simple example from Professor Clark shows the importance of labor in economic development. As early as the 19th century, textile factories in the West and in India had essentially the same machinery, and it was not hard to transport the final product. Yet the difference in cultures could be seen on the factory floor. Although Indian labor costs were many times lower, Indian labor was far less efficient at many basic tasks.
For instance, when it came to “doffing” (periodically removing spindles of yarn from machines), American workers were often six or more times as productive as their Indian counterparts, according to measures from the early to mid-20th century. Importing Western managers did not in general narrow these gaps. As a result, India failed to attract comparable capital investment.
Professor Clark’s argument implies that the current outsourcing trend is a small blip in a larger historical pattern of diverging productivity and living standards across nations. Wealthy countries face the most serious competitive challenges from other wealthy regions, or from nations on the cusp of development, and not from places with the lowest wages. Shortages of quality labor, for instance, are already holding back India in international competition."
I find it difficult to believe such differences remain constant and it reminds me of the speculation that the wealth of nations was determined by 1000 B.C.
UPDATE: Lively discussion at Economist's View .
Tyler Cowen's review in New York Times
"Economists typically explain the wealth of a nation by pointing to good policies and the quality of a country’s institutions. But why do these differences exist in the first place?
In “A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World” (forthcoming, Princeton University Press, http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/FTA2006.pdf), Gregory Clark, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis, identifies the quality of labor as the fundamental factor behind economic growth. Poor labor quality discourages capital from flowing into a country, which means that poverty persists. Good institutions never have a chance to develop.
....
A simple example from Professor Clark shows the importance of labor in economic development. As early as the 19th century, textile factories in the West and in India had essentially the same machinery, and it was not hard to transport the final product. Yet the difference in cultures could be seen on the factory floor. Although Indian labor costs were many times lower, Indian labor was far less efficient at many basic tasks.
For instance, when it came to “doffing” (periodically removing spindles of yarn from machines), American workers were often six or more times as productive as their Indian counterparts, according to measures from the early to mid-20th century. Importing Western managers did not in general narrow these gaps. As a result, India failed to attract comparable capital investment.
Professor Clark’s argument implies that the current outsourcing trend is a small blip in a larger historical pattern of diverging productivity and living standards across nations. Wealthy countries face the most serious competitive challenges from other wealthy regions, or from nations on the cusp of development, and not from places with the lowest wages. Shortages of quality labor, for instance, are already holding back India in international competition."
I find it difficult to believe such differences remain constant and it reminds me of the speculation that the wealth of nations was determined by 1000 B.C.
UPDATE: Lively discussion at Economist's View .
Chemists Without Borders
Bill Hooker in 3quarksdaily writes about new vaccines from Cuba, Groundwater Arsenic and new international efforts without borders: http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2007/08/is-there-a-chem.html
Excerpt
"Bego and co-founders Steve Chambreau and Lacy Brent are not the first to decide that doctors should not be the only profession without borders. There are also Laywers, Teachers, Sociologists, Builders, Engineers, Clowns and I daresay a good many other Professions Without Borders. All of them seek to do, within their own fields of expertise, something roughly on par with the mission of MSF. So really, the name of the organization largely explains what CWB are about:
Chemists Without Borders is a public benefit, non-profit, international humanitarian organization designed to alleviate human suffering through the use of proven chemical technologies and related skills. Our primary goals include, but are not limited to, providing affordable medicines and vaccines to those who need them most, supplying clean water in developing countries, facilitating sustainable energy technologies, and supporting chemistry education.
I became aware of CWB through their commitment to Open Chemistry, and then by taking part in their conference call series I learned about their interest in groundwater arsenic remediation, which is the problem I want to think about here."
Excerpt
"Bego and co-founders Steve Chambreau and Lacy Brent are not the first to decide that doctors should not be the only profession without borders. There are also Laywers, Teachers, Sociologists, Builders, Engineers, Clowns and I daresay a good many other Professions Without Borders. All of them seek to do, within their own fields of expertise, something roughly on par with the mission of MSF. So really, the name of the organization largely explains what CWB are about:
Chemists Without Borders is a public benefit, non-profit, international humanitarian organization designed to alleviate human suffering through the use of proven chemical technologies and related skills. Our primary goals include, but are not limited to, providing affordable medicines and vaccines to those who need them most, supplying clean water in developing countries, facilitating sustainable energy technologies, and supporting chemistry education.
I became aware of CWB through their commitment to Open Chemistry, and then by taking part in their conference call series I learned about their interest in groundwater arsenic remediation, which is the problem I want to think about here."
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Book Mules
The following is reminiscent of the work of Aravinda and Ravi of Aidindia in north coastal Andhra. From
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6929404.stm
"The idea of loading mules with books and taking them into the mountain villages was started by the University of Momboy, a small institution that prides itself on its community-based initiatives and on doing far more than universities in Venezuela are required to do by law.
....
The 23 children at the little school were very excited.
"Bibilomu-u-u-u-las," they shouted as the bags of books were unstrapped. They dived in eagerly, keen to grab the best titles and within minutes were being read to by Christina and Juana, two of the project leaders.
"Spreading the joy of reading is our main aim," Christina Vieras told me.
"But it's more than that. We're helping educate people about other important things like the environment. All the children are planting trees. Anything to improve the quality of life and connect these communities."
.........
As the project grows, it is using the latest technology.
Somehow there is already a limited mobile phone signal here, so the organisers are taking advantage of that and equipping the mules with laptops and projectors.
The book mules are becoming cyber mules and cine mules.
"We want to install wireless modems under the banana plants so the villagers can use the internet," says Robert Ramirez, the co-ordinator of the university's Network of Enterprising Rural Schools.
"Imagine if people in the poor towns in the valley can e-mail saying how many tomatoes they'll need next week, or how much celery.
"The farmers can reply telling them how much they can produce. It's blending localisation and globalisation." "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6929404.stm
"The idea of loading mules with books and taking them into the mountain villages was started by the University of Momboy, a small institution that prides itself on its community-based initiatives and on doing far more than universities in Venezuela are required to do by law.
....
The 23 children at the little school were very excited.
"Bibilomu-u-u-u-las," they shouted as the bags of books were unstrapped. They dived in eagerly, keen to grab the best titles and within minutes were being read to by Christina and Juana, two of the project leaders.
"Spreading the joy of reading is our main aim," Christina Vieras told me.
"But it's more than that. We're helping educate people about other important things like the environment. All the children are planting trees. Anything to improve the quality of life and connect these communities."
.........
As the project grows, it is using the latest technology.
Somehow there is already a limited mobile phone signal here, so the organisers are taking advantage of that and equipping the mules with laptops and projectors.
The book mules are becoming cyber mules and cine mules.
"We want to install wireless modems under the banana plants so the villagers can use the internet," says Robert Ramirez, the co-ordinator of the university's Network of Enterprising Rural Schools.
"Imagine if people in the poor towns in the valley can e-mail saying how many tomatoes they'll need next week, or how much celery.
"The farmers can reply telling them how much they can produce. It's blending localisation and globalisation." "
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Sensex falls
and Gulzar Natarajan connects the dots:
http://gulzar05.blogspot.com/2007/08/sub-prime-lending-now-private-equity.html
A longer article by Nouriel Roubini along similar lines but full access needs subscrption which I do not have:
http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/208166
UPDATE: See also the discussion (at my request) in http://retributions.wordpress.com/off-topic-forum/
and a general article on housing prices http://neweconomist.blogs.com/new_economist/2007/07/house-prices-fu.html
New Economist links to a New Statesman special issue on India: http://neweconomist.blogs.com/new_economist/2007/08/new-statesman.html
http://gulzar05.blogspot.com/2007/08/sub-prime-lending-now-private-equity.html
A longer article by Nouriel Roubini along similar lines but full access needs subscrption which I do not have:
http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/208166
UPDATE: See also the discussion (at my request) in http://retributions.wordpress.com/off-topic-forum/
and a general article on housing prices http://neweconomist.blogs.com/new_economist/2007/07/house-prices-fu.html
New Economist links to a New Statesman special issue on India: http://neweconomist.blogs.com/new_economist/2007/08/new-statesman.html
Images of 'ghost chilli'
with commentary from samachar.com http://samachar.com/showurl.php?rurl=http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14503492
See how meager the food is in image 4.
Update(Nov. 4, 2007): The link above is not working anymore. Try:
http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14503492&page=4
or google.
See how meager the food is in image 4.
Update(Nov. 4, 2007): The link above is not working anymore. Try:
http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14503492&page=4
or google.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Encouraging stories from 'Outlook'
Backward Babus http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20070806&fname=Cover+Story+%28F%29&sid=1
Excerpt:
'Who's Getting Into The Civil Services?
Less than 2 in 10 entrants were from a metro or a state capital in '04
More than 5 were born in a tehsil or district town in '04
One out of four are kids of fathers who have not studied beyond matriculation
4 in 10 were engineers, techies or medics
New recruits are older. About 50% in '05 were over 25.
4 in 10 now sit for the exam in Hindi, but English-types still have the upper hand
12 of top 50 rank-holders in the latest (2006) civil services exam are OBCs
32.5 % of IAS officers inducted in the last five years are OBCs
Despite reservation, only a tiny fraction of civil servants are first-generation learners
More women are making it to the IAS
Tamilians and UP-ites dominate the last three years' IAS intake"
The ninth point is the main discouraging one. OUTLOOK also has a write up on the Vice Presidential nominee Mamid Ansari by Arundhati Ghose:
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20070726&fname=arundhati&sid=1
He seems to be the second person from the Indian Foreign Service to earn such a nomination and may not have the communication skills of the president who apparently can communicate with some dead people.
Excerpt:
'Who's Getting Into The Civil Services?
Less than 2 in 10 entrants were from a metro or a state capital in '04
More than 5 were born in a tehsil or district town in '04
One out of four are kids of fathers who have not studied beyond matriculation
4 in 10 were engineers, techies or medics
New recruits are older. About 50% in '05 were over 25.
4 in 10 now sit for the exam in Hindi, but English-types still have the upper hand
12 of top 50 rank-holders in the latest (2006) civil services exam are OBCs
32.5 % of IAS officers inducted in the last five years are OBCs
Despite reservation, only a tiny fraction of civil servants are first-generation learners
More women are making it to the IAS
Tamilians and UP-ites dominate the last three years' IAS intake"
The ninth point is the main discouraging one. OUTLOOK also has a write up on the Vice Presidential nominee Mamid Ansari by Arundhati Ghose:
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20070726&fname=arundhati&sid=1
He seems to be the second person from the Indian Foreign Service to earn such a nomination and may not have the communication skills of the president who apparently can communicate with some dead people.
Tara Smith reviews Danica McKellar's
"Math Doesn't Suck" in http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/07/danica_mckelllars_math_doesnt.php
Danica is an actress (The Wonder years) who has a theorem to her name. See also the interview:
http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/07/interview_with_math_whiz_autho.php
Danica is an actress (The Wonder years) who has a theorem to her name. See also the interview:
http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/07/interview_with_math_whiz_autho.php
Emmy Noether and Hermann Weyl
Both are so well known in mathematics and physics circles that the following may come as a surprise to many. From:
http://www.weylmann.com/weyl+noether.pdf, a recent article by Peter Roquette posted in the site
http://www.weylmann.com/ honouring Weyl:
" The writing of the obituary was a very natural occurence. Hermann Weyl was considered by the mathematicians as the mathematical leader of the time and at the peak of his productivity and he had probably the greatest knowledge and understanding of her work. Einstein had begun to slow down and Von Neumann was relatively young and still growing. It was, therefore, obvious to all the mathematicians that Weyl should write the obituary which he did. He, furthermore, sent it to the New York Times, the New York Times asked who is Weyl? Have Einstein write something, he is the mathematician recognized by the world. This is how Einstein's article appeared. It was most certainly "inspired" by Weyl's draft.These facts were told to me at the time by Mrs. Wheeler who was indignant that the New York Times had not recognized the mathematical stature of Hermann Weyl."
Emmy Noether's contributions are described in several places and there is a brief description of her work and a link to an English translation of her famous "Invariante Variationsprobleme," in:
http://cwp.library.ucla.edu/Phase2/Noether,_Amalie_Emmy@861234567.html
http://www.weylmann.com/weyl+noether.pdf, a recent article by Peter Roquette posted in the site
http://www.weylmann.com/ honouring Weyl:
" The writing of the obituary was a very natural occurence. Hermann Weyl was considered by the mathematicians as the mathematical leader of the time and at the peak of his productivity and he had probably the greatest knowledge and understanding of her work. Einstein had begun to slow down and Von Neumann was relatively young and still growing. It was, therefore, obvious to all the mathematicians that Weyl should write the obituary which he did. He, furthermore, sent it to the New York Times, the New York Times asked who is Weyl? Have Einstein write something, he is the mathematician recognized by the world. This is how Einstein's article appeared. It was most certainly "inspired" by Weyl's draft.These facts were told to me at the time by Mrs. Wheeler who was indignant that the New York Times had not recognized the mathematical stature of Hermann Weyl."
Emmy Noether's contributions are described in several places and there is a brief description of her work and a link to an English translation of her famous "Invariante Variationsprobleme," in:
http://cwp.library.ucla.edu/Phase2/Noether,_Amalie_Emmy@861234567.html
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Watching Tendulkar
I watched Tendulkar bat after a long time. I grew up in villages without cricket and do not know much about cricket. My first acquintance with cricket was from Jack Fingeleton's articles in 'Sport & Pasttime" about the Australia-West Indies Series, the magical tied test in Adelaide, with some Indian names like Kanhai, Ramadhin popping up and articles by Neville Cardus on West Indian cricket with a picture of Kanhai hitting a six and falling on his back. But it never really caught on for me until Tendulkar came along. May be because he was just a middle class boy enjoying himself and gave pride and hope for so many Indians. I remember trying to follow Sharjah matches on the internet and dozing off and dreaming that Tendulkar scored 134 and India won the match and finding the next day that it did happen. From then on there have been too many disappointments and I tried not to watch much cricket since I felt too tense when Tendulkar was batting. I kept hoping that he would bat ok if I did not watch. I did watch last night. Rahul was soothing but I still felt tense when Tendulkar batted. He did not seem to be the same batsman as he was during Sharjah days. He did score a patient 50 and was still not out at the end of the day. Somehow, no other Indian sportsman enchanted me more since Dhyan Chand.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Abi seems to be expecting high standards
from bloggers http://nanopolitan.blogspot.com/2007/07/i-received-some-flak-for-previous-post.html
I use my blog mainly as a scrap book and do not plan to aspire to such standards.
I use my blog mainly as a scrap book and do not plan to aspire to such standards.
New blog from Australia?
http://bayesianheresy.blogspot.com/ may be from Australia. It usually gives lots of links, links to free downloads e.g.
http://bayesianheresy.blogspot.com/2007/07/course-in-microeconomics.html
and very few opinions apart from the quality of some of the products. Off and on it has links to Indian topics. After a while, I found many standard blogs like Marginal Revolution, Greg Mankiw boring and trying new blogs like this and 3quarksdaily.
http://bayesianheresy.blogspot.com/2007/07/course-in-microeconomics.html
and very few opinions apart from the quality of some of the products. Off and on it has links to Indian topics. After a while, I found many standard blogs like Marginal Revolution, Greg Mankiw boring and trying new blogs like this and 3quarksdaily.
That is math
From http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/07/science_and_math_in_the_high_s.php
"Oh, and the gray bars in the graph? That's math. Math is the #1 most effective preparation for doing well in all sciences, across the board; the more math you can get in high school, the better you're going to do in any science class you might want to take. Look at those giant gray bars — it makes almost a 2-grade point difference to be all caught up in math before you start college. Parents, if you want your kids to be doctors or rocket scientists, the best thing you can do is make sure they take calculus in high school."
I remember being quite avearage in school (it is not that I am a great success now); may be doing algebra thrice in the 9th grage helped. Here is a proof that my math brain is still functioning http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/0703.5890. But the problem seems to be thinking about other areas where the methodology is not so clear cut.
"Oh, and the gray bars in the graph? That's math. Math is the #1 most effective preparation for doing well in all sciences, across the board; the more math you can get in high school, the better you're going to do in any science class you might want to take. Look at those giant gray bars — it makes almost a 2-grade point difference to be all caught up in math before you start college. Parents, if you want your kids to be doctors or rocket scientists, the best thing you can do is make sure they take calculus in high school."
I remember being quite avearage in school (it is not that I am a great success now); may be doing algebra thrice in the 9th grage helped. Here is a proof that my math brain is still functioning http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/0703.5890. But the problem seems to be thinking about other areas where the methodology is not so clear cut.
Girl Scientist on the scent of death
From http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2007/07/can_animals_predict_impending.php#more
"According to an article that was just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, a two-year-old cat that lives in Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, can correctly predict impending death among the residents. Oscar the cat has a habit of curling up next to patients who are in their final hours, and so far, he has been observed to be correct in 25 cases.
...
However, I know that many mammals (and even a few bird species) have a very acute sense of smell, and are probably relying smell to detect small biochemical changes in sweat, for example, that enables them predict health events in humans such as impending death or seizures, or to detect malignant cancers."
Look at the comments too'
Also lots of articles on bonobos in science blogs. Here is a link to one by a young researcher who actually worked with them:
http://primatediaries.blogspot.com/2005/11/bonobos-behind-enemy-lines.html
"According to an article that was just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, a two-year-old cat that lives in Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, can correctly predict impending death among the residents. Oscar the cat has a habit of curling up next to patients who are in their final hours, and so far, he has been observed to be correct in 25 cases.
...
However, I know that many mammals (and even a few bird species) have a very acute sense of smell, and are probably relying smell to detect small biochemical changes in sweat, for example, that enables them predict health events in humans such as impending death or seizures, or to detect malignant cancers."
Look at the comments too'
Also lots of articles on bonobos in science blogs. Here is a link to one by a young researcher who actually worked with them:
http://primatediaries.blogspot.com/2005/11/bonobos-behind-enemy-lines.html
Friday, July 27, 2007
Victorian Premier Steve Bracks quits
at the age of 52 follwed by Victorian Deputy Premier John Thwaites. From
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/07/27/1185339209648.html?from=top5
"He said he had given "everything" to the job.
"I have given everything, body and soul to this job. I love what we achieved. I couldn't have given any more than I have given over the past eight years to this state."
Mr Bracks then confirmed that family reasons were a part of his decision.
His son Nick was in the news earlier this month after he was involved in a car crash near their Williamstown home while allegedly driving drunk.
"The events of the last couple of weeks meant that I made that decision at an early juncture," he said."
We wish him good luck and happy years with his family.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/07/27/1185339209648.html?from=top5
"He said he had given "everything" to the job.
"I have given everything, body and soul to this job. I love what we achieved. I couldn't have given any more than I have given over the past eight years to this state."
Mr Bracks then confirmed that family reasons were a part of his decision.
His son Nick was in the news earlier this month after he was involved in a car crash near their Williamstown home while allegedly driving drunk.
"The events of the last couple of weeks meant that I made that decision at an early juncture," he said."
We wish him good luck and happy years with his family.
Krishna Dt. in the news
The current issue of Frontline ( July 14-27) http://www.flonnet.com/ has some news about the developments in Krishna District ( my father was from Krishna Dt. and worked in Guntur Dt. I was born on a small island in the river). While I seem to be still strongly rooted in rural Andhra and my heart still skips a beat when I listen to Telugu conversations in foreign countries, I am sucker for diversity. It is pleasing to find names like Navin Mittal (District Collector), Gulzar Natarajan ( Vijayawada Municipal Commissioner) among the names of the officials. Natarajan has an economics blog http://gulzar05.blogspot.com/
I still hanker for the multilingulal states of my younger days.
I still hanker for the multilingulal states of my younger days.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Grandmothers and evolution
From http://sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=C0D3CD91-E7F2-99DF-3D5399013D3691D5&sc=WR_20070724\
"The 33-year-old Finnish biologist, aided by genealogists, has pored through centuries-old tomes (and microfiche) for birth, marriage and death records, which ended up providing glimpses of evolution at work in humanity's recent ancestors. Among them: that male twins disrupt the mating potential of their female siblings by prenatally rendering them more masculine; mothers of sons die sooner than those of daughters, because rearing the former takes a greater toll; and grandmothers are important to the survival of grandchildren. "I'm trying to understand human reproductive behavior from an evolutionary perspective," Lummaa says."
"The 33-year-old Finnish biologist, aided by genealogists, has pored through centuries-old tomes (and microfiche) for birth, marriage and death records, which ended up providing glimpses of evolution at work in humanity's recent ancestors. Among them: that male twins disrupt the mating potential of their female siblings by prenatally rendering them more masculine; mothers of sons die sooner than those of daughters, because rearing the former takes a greater toll; and grandmothers are important to the survival of grandchildren. "I'm trying to understand human reproductive behavior from an evolutionary perspective," Lummaa says."
Nidadavolu Malathi discusses Malapalli
in the July 2007 issue of Thulika: Telugu stories in English http://www.thulika.net/
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Julie Rehmeyer on 'Math as Civil Right'
From http://blog.sciencenews.org/mathtrek/2007/07/math_as_a_civil_right.html:
"Mathematics literacy is a new civil rights battleground, according to the renowned activist and political organizer Robert Parris Moses. Using the same ideas and methods that he once used to fight for voting rights in the South, Moses is working to increase access to quality mathematics education through the Algebra Project, a nationwide program that he founded.
.....
The ubiquity of computers makes abstract, quantitative reasoning skills critical to a wide range of job opportunities. "Information age technology put math on the table as a literacy requirement in the same way that industrialism made reading literacy a requirement," says Moses. For that reason, he says, the country needs to raise math education standards for all students.
Moses founded the Algebra Project in 1982 with funds from a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" that he received for his work on voting rights. Initially, he focused on the goal of making sure that all students learn algebra, which he calls "the gatekeeper of citizenship." When students learn algebra, he says, they make a leap in their ability to manipulate abstract symbolic representations.
......
In Jackson, Miss. and Miami, Fla., Moses has started a program for ninth-graders who are performing in the bottom quartile of their peer group. Students commit to spending 90 minutes a day in math class throughout their four years of high school, including six weeks each summer. In 2003, the most recent year for which data are available, 56 percent of students in Jackson who participate in the Algebra Project passed the state algebra test, compared to only 38 percent of their peers who are not taking part."
My father was transferred thrice when I was in 9th grade. The syallabus was covered in different orders in the three schools and I ended up studying algebra thrice that year. May be that helped. But Calculus was more difficult.
I got the link from http://bayesianheresy.blogspot.com/2007/07/algebra-and-civil-rights.html which gives a few more links to math. literacy.
"Mathematics literacy is a new civil rights battleground, according to the renowned activist and political organizer Robert Parris Moses. Using the same ideas and methods that he once used to fight for voting rights in the South, Moses is working to increase access to quality mathematics education through the Algebra Project, a nationwide program that he founded.
.....
The ubiquity of computers makes abstract, quantitative reasoning skills critical to a wide range of job opportunities. "Information age technology put math on the table as a literacy requirement in the same way that industrialism made reading literacy a requirement," says Moses. For that reason, he says, the country needs to raise math education standards for all students.
Moses founded the Algebra Project in 1982 with funds from a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" that he received for his work on voting rights. Initially, he focused on the goal of making sure that all students learn algebra, which he calls "the gatekeeper of citizenship." When students learn algebra, he says, they make a leap in their ability to manipulate abstract symbolic representations.
......
In Jackson, Miss. and Miami, Fla., Moses has started a program for ninth-graders who are performing in the bottom quartile of their peer group. Students commit to spending 90 minutes a day in math class throughout their four years of high school, including six weeks each summer. In 2003, the most recent year for which data are available, 56 percent of students in Jackson who participate in the Algebra Project passed the state algebra test, compared to only 38 percent of their peers who are not taking part."
My father was transferred thrice when I was in 9th grade. The syallabus was covered in different orders in the three schools and I ended up studying algebra thrice that year. May be that helped. But Calculus was more difficult.
I got the link from http://bayesianheresy.blogspot.com/2007/07/algebra-and-civil-rights.html which gives a few more links to math. literacy.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Mahe Jabeen in Melbourne
I have uploaded some photographs, mostly taken during a lunch for Mahe Jabeen hosted by Mustapha Sayyad on 22nd July and some from a dinner in my house on 24th July.
'Sesh Prasna' by Sarat
When I was growing up in coastal Andhra (40s and 50s) Sarat Chandra Chatterjee was one of the most popular novelists. I remember that his novels were full of 'padadhuli' and tears with women putting up with all kinds of nonsense. One of his novels which was different was 'Sesh Prasna'. I do not remember much of the novel now except the protogonist Kamal was unconventional and there were lot of 'intellectual' discussions and Kamal saying towards the end "This is the price people pay for stupidity; let us go Ramdhin." I remember mentioning the novel to Kalyan Mukherjea a few years ago and his response was that his mother did not allow him to read that novel. It would be interesting to read it again. I find that it has been translated in to English. A review is here:
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2002/20020505/spectrum/book2.htm
Excerpt:
"Perhaps it is the woman protagonist, Kamal, who is the most memorable of the lot. Clearly, she is emancipated, much ahead of her times and manages to jolt the polite Agra society out of its complacencies. It is she who makes them (and also the reader) take a second look at patriarchal norms that go unchallenged in society, questioning traditions that have been followed blindly. Upholding the banner of female emancipation, she lives by no rules but her own, frequently changing partners, ripping apart the fabric of social hypocrisy, flinging reality in the face of orthodoxy. Kamal is the one who gives life to an otherwise placid narrative, highlighting the problems of the individual in relation to love and marriage, nationhood, society, and womanhood.
Here, perhaps, lies the answer to a very pertinent question that may confront the reader: why was this novel, first published in 1931, not translated earlier? We are aware that Saratchandra’s popularity has been unflagging right from the beginning of his career. Sesh Prasna, however, was an exception: widely appreciated by women readers, the conservative (read male) reader strongly disapproved of the avant garde ideas presented through its heroine. Perhaps for this reason the novel had to wait for 70-odd years to be available to the reader in English."
Some other stories and novels I remember from those are "Mahesh" by Sarat, "Nirmala" by Prem Chand and "Asamardhuni Jeevayatra" by Gopichand and the perennial favourite "Sreekant" by Sarat.
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2002/20020505/spectrum/book2.htm
Excerpt:
"Perhaps it is the woman protagonist, Kamal, who is the most memorable of the lot. Clearly, she is emancipated, much ahead of her times and manages to jolt the polite Agra society out of its complacencies. It is she who makes them (and also the reader) take a second look at patriarchal norms that go unchallenged in society, questioning traditions that have been followed blindly. Upholding the banner of female emancipation, she lives by no rules but her own, frequently changing partners, ripping apart the fabric of social hypocrisy, flinging reality in the face of orthodoxy. Kamal is the one who gives life to an otherwise placid narrative, highlighting the problems of the individual in relation to love and marriage, nationhood, society, and womanhood.
Here, perhaps, lies the answer to a very pertinent question that may confront the reader: why was this novel, first published in 1931, not translated earlier? We are aware that Saratchandra’s popularity has been unflagging right from the beginning of his career. Sesh Prasna, however, was an exception: widely appreciated by women readers, the conservative (read male) reader strongly disapproved of the avant garde ideas presented through its heroine. Perhaps for this reason the novel had to wait for 70-odd years to be available to the reader in English."
Some other stories and novels I remember from those are "Mahesh" by Sarat, "Nirmala" by Prem Chand and "Asamardhuni Jeevayatra" by Gopichand and the perennial favourite "Sreekant" by Sarat.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
An economics blog from Vijayawada,
one of the towns where I studied (54-56): http://gulzar05.blogspot.com/
Looks impressive. Found it via http://bayesianheresy.blogspot.com/
The blogger Sri Gulzar Natarajan seems to be the Municipal Commissioner of the Vijayawada corporation and there is a link to the corporation website: http://www.ourvmc.org/
Looks impressive. Found it via http://bayesianheresy.blogspot.com/
The blogger Sri Gulzar Natarajan seems to be the Municipal Commissioner of the Vijayawada corporation and there is a link to the corporation website: http://www.ourvmc.org/
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Links July 18, 07
1) Steve Hsu gives several links to the Many world theory of Hugh Everitt http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2007/07/50-years-of-many-worlds.html and quotes extensively from Max tegmark's aricle in recent Nature.
2) Steve Hsu discusses Behavioural Economics http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2007/07/behavioral-economics.html
3) John Quiggin on the risk management aspects of social democracy http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2007/07/16/risk-and-social-democracy/
4) 3quarksdaily links to Matt Castle's article on William Coley's cancer killing concoction http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2007/07/coleys-cancer-k.html
5) Mark Thoma links to an article by James Galbraith on the decline of good governance in the US http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/07/government-will.html
6) Mirror neurons again. From http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-07/uoc--urs071607.php (via Mark Thoma):
"The researcher’s used two actors, one an American, the other a Nicaraguan, to perform a series of gestures--American, Nicaraguan, and meaningless hand gestures, to a group of American subjects. A procedure called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was used to measure the levels of so-called “corticospinal excitability” (CSE)—which scientists use to probe the activity of mirror neurons.
They found that the American participants demonstrated higher mirror neuron activity while observing the American making gestures compared to the Nicaraguan. And when the Nicaraguan actor performed American gestures, the mirror neuron activation of the observers dropped.
“We believe these are some of the first data to show neurobiological responses to culture-specific stimuli,” said Molnar-Szakacs. “Our data show that both ethnicity and culture interact to influence activity in the brain, specifically within the mirror neuron network involved in social communication and interaction.”"
2) Steve Hsu discusses Behavioural Economics http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2007/07/behavioral-economics.html
3) John Quiggin on the risk management aspects of social democracy http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2007/07/16/risk-and-social-democracy/
4) 3quarksdaily links to Matt Castle's article on William Coley's cancer killing concoction http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2007/07/coleys-cancer-k.html
5) Mark Thoma links to an article by James Galbraith on the decline of good governance in the US http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/07/government-will.html
6) Mirror neurons again. From http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-07/uoc--urs071607.php (via Mark Thoma):
"The researcher’s used two actors, one an American, the other a Nicaraguan, to perform a series of gestures--American, Nicaraguan, and meaningless hand gestures, to a group of American subjects. A procedure called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was used to measure the levels of so-called “corticospinal excitability” (CSE)—which scientists use to probe the activity of mirror neurons.
They found that the American participants demonstrated higher mirror neuron activity while observing the American making gestures compared to the Nicaraguan. And when the Nicaraguan actor performed American gestures, the mirror neuron activation of the observers dropped.
“We believe these are some of the first data to show neurobiological responses to culture-specific stimuli,” said Molnar-Szakacs. “Our data show that both ethnicity and culture interact to influence activity in the brain, specifically within the mirror neuron network involved in social communication and interaction.”"
Ichthyotherapy as Alternative Treatment for Patients with Psoriasis
(via New Scientist) http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/3/4/483
Abstract:
Ichthyotherapy (therapy with the so-called ‘Doctorfish of Kangal’, Garra rufa) has been shown to be effective in patients with psoriasis in the Kangal hot springs in Turkey. This study evaluates the efficacy and safety of ichthyotherapy in combination with short-term ultraviolet A sunbed radiation in the treatment of psoriasis under controlled conditions. We retrospectively analyzed 67 patients diagnosed with psoriasis who underwent 3 weeks of ichthyotherapy at an outpatient treatment facility in Lower Austria between 2002 and 2004. Main outcome measures are as follows: overall relative reduction in Psoriasis Area Severity Index (PASI) score; proportion of patients with an improvement in their PASI score of 75% (PASI-75) and 50% (PASI-50); patient-reported outcomes assessed with a custom questionnaire; and patient follow-up with a questionnaire sent out in March 2005. Safety was evaluated by reviewing adverse events and vital signs. Overall there was a 71.7% reduction in PASI score compared to baseline (P < 0.0001). Of the 67 patients studied, 31 (46.3%) achieved PASI-75 and 61 patients (91%) achieved at least PASI-50. Patients reported substantial satisfaction with the treatment. The reported mean remission period was 8.58 months [95% confidence interval (CI) 6.05–11.11]. A total of 87.5% of patients reported a more favorable outcome with ichthyotherapy, when asked to compare ichthyotherapy to other previously tried therapies. Sixty-five percent stated that after the relapse their symptoms were less severe than before treatment. There were no significant adverse events. The benefit demonstrated in this study along with the favorable safety profile suggests that ichthyotherapy could provide a viable treatment option for patients with psoriasis.
Abstract:
Ichthyotherapy (therapy with the so-called ‘Doctorfish of Kangal’, Garra rufa) has been shown to be effective in patients with psoriasis in the Kangal hot springs in Turkey. This study evaluates the efficacy and safety of ichthyotherapy in combination with short-term ultraviolet A sunbed radiation in the treatment of psoriasis under controlled conditions. We retrospectively analyzed 67 patients diagnosed with psoriasis who underwent 3 weeks of ichthyotherapy at an outpatient treatment facility in Lower Austria between 2002 and 2004. Main outcome measures are as follows: overall relative reduction in Psoriasis Area Severity Index (PASI) score; proportion of patients with an improvement in their PASI score of 75% (PASI-75) and 50% (PASI-50); patient-reported outcomes assessed with a custom questionnaire; and patient follow-up with a questionnaire sent out in March 2005. Safety was evaluated by reviewing adverse events and vital signs. Overall there was a 71.7% reduction in PASI score compared to baseline (P < 0.0001). Of the 67 patients studied, 31 (46.3%) achieved PASI-75 and 61 patients (91%) achieved at least PASI-50. Patients reported substantial satisfaction with the treatment. The reported mean remission period was 8.58 months [95% confidence interval (CI) 6.05–11.11]. A total of 87.5% of patients reported a more favorable outcome with ichthyotherapy, when asked to compare ichthyotherapy to other previously tried therapies. Sixty-five percent stated that after the relapse their symptoms were less severe than before treatment. There were no significant adverse events. The benefit demonstrated in this study along with the favorable safety profile suggests that ichthyotherapy could provide a viable treatment option for patients with psoriasis.
Athar Osama on Cluster Policy Interventions
from http://www.scidev.net/Opinions/index.cfm?fuseaction=readOpinions&itemid=641&language=1:
"There is no certain recipe for successfully creating and sustaining clusters of technology-based industries.
Yet time and again new initiatives are announced. They purport to create synergies and efficiencies, share best practices and reduce the overall cost of doing business. Yet many of these are little more than glorified real-estate projects designed to attract foreign investment or empty sloganeering aimed at gaining political mileage. Few come to fruition and even fewer can claim to have mirrored Silicon Valley's success.
Taking a fresh look
This poor record does not mean the concept itself should be rejected. But a change in approach is needed.
Policymakers should focus on helping clusters develop naturally, rather than attempting to create them from scratch."
More at : http://tbed-journal.blogspot.com/ and http://techno-economics.blogspot.com/
"There is no certain recipe for successfully creating and sustaining clusters of technology-based industries.
Yet time and again new initiatives are announced. They purport to create synergies and efficiencies, share best practices and reduce the overall cost of doing business. Yet many of these are little more than glorified real-estate projects designed to attract foreign investment or empty sloganeering aimed at gaining political mileage. Few come to fruition and even fewer can claim to have mirrored Silicon Valley's success.
Taking a fresh look
This poor record does not mean the concept itself should be rejected. But a change in approach is needed.
Policymakers should focus on helping clusters develop naturally, rather than attempting to create them from scratch."
More at : http://tbed-journal.blogspot.com/ and http://techno-economics.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Intercropping
From http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readNews&itemid=3751&language=1
"The practice of intercropping — which Chinese farmers have practised for thousands of years — involves growing two or more crops in alternate rows in the same place and at same time, and can greatly increase grain yields.
In many intercropping practices, legumes are planted with crops. The legumes fix nitrogen in the soils, which then fertilises the crops grown with them.
But other benefits of legumes in intercropping are not clearly understood.
..........
They carried out field trials in the western Chinese province of Gansu over four years, and showed that intercropping with faba bean increased the maize yield by an average of 43 per cent.
"The benefits are obvious when they grow together. The underground biological processes play an important role in yield increase," Li told SciDev.Net.
The researchers found that the roots of the faba bean plant released organic acids into the soil, which increases the solubility of inorganic phosphorus, a plant nutrient. Plants take up soluble phosphorus more readily, which explains the increase in the crops' yields.
Enzymes released by the faba bean plant into the soil also decomposed organic phosphorus into an inorganic form, which could then be used by both plants.
Faba bean yield increased by 26 per cent due to more available phosphorous, its roots being a different length to those of maize, and the crops having different growth seasons."
"The practice of intercropping — which Chinese farmers have practised for thousands of years — involves growing two or more crops in alternate rows in the same place and at same time, and can greatly increase grain yields.
In many intercropping practices, legumes are planted with crops. The legumes fix nitrogen in the soils, which then fertilises the crops grown with them.
But other benefits of legumes in intercropping are not clearly understood.
..........
They carried out field trials in the western Chinese province of Gansu over four years, and showed that intercropping with faba bean increased the maize yield by an average of 43 per cent.
"The benefits are obvious when they grow together. The underground biological processes play an important role in yield increase," Li told SciDev.Net.
The researchers found that the roots of the faba bean plant released organic acids into the soil, which increases the solubility of inorganic phosphorus, a plant nutrient. Plants take up soluble phosphorus more readily, which explains the increase in the crops' yields.
Enzymes released by the faba bean plant into the soil also decomposed organic phosphorus into an inorganic form, which could then be used by both plants.
Faba bean yield increased by 26 per cent due to more available phosphorous, its roots being a different length to those of maize, and the crops having different growth seasons."
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Links: July 15, 2007
1) The software used by Hans Rosling in "http://roslingsblogger.blogspot.com/2007/06/debunking-myths-about-world.html
is freely available at http://www.gapminder.org/
More about Hans Rosling here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Rosling
2) Mark Thirwell of Lowry Insitute discusses the rise of China, India and developing protectionism in the west:
http://www.lowyinstitute.com/Publication.asp?pid=614
and an earlier artcle "Roaring Tiger or Lumbering Elephant" about India here:
http://svc168.wic006v.server-web.com/Publication.asp?pid=452
Another optimistic post here: http://bayesianheresy.blogspot.com/2007/07/it-makes-sense-to-invest-in-india.html
3) Indranil Dasgupta and Ravi Kanbur say that 'Philonthropic acts do not necessarily reduce inequality':
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/342
Preprint here: http://www.arts.cornell.edu/poverty/kanbur/EgalExpropPhil.pdf
See http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/critics/2000/kanbur2.htm about 'Ravi Kanbur's Resignation as World Development Report Lead Author'.
is freely available at http://www.gapminder.org/
More about Hans Rosling here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Rosling
2) Mark Thirwell of Lowry Insitute discusses the rise of China, India and developing protectionism in the west:
http://www.lowyinstitute.com/Publication.asp?pid=614
and an earlier artcle "Roaring Tiger or Lumbering Elephant" about India here:
http://svc168.wic006v.server-web.com/Publication.asp?pid=452
Another optimistic post here: http://bayesianheresy.blogspot.com/2007/07/it-makes-sense-to-invest-in-india.html
3) Indranil Dasgupta and Ravi Kanbur say that 'Philonthropic acts do not necessarily reduce inequality':
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/342
Preprint here: http://www.arts.cornell.edu/poverty/kanbur/EgalExpropPhil.pdf
See http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/critics/2000/kanbur2.htm about 'Ravi Kanbur's Resignation as World Development Report Lead Author'.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Dr. Mohammed Haneef charged
From http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/07/14/1978526.htm:
"He has been charged with recklessly supplying a mobile phone sim card to a terrorist organisation.
.....
Commissioner Keelty says the AFP has had more than 300 lawyers and police working on the investigation, who had to examine a considerable amount of material.
"The allegation is that Dr Haneef provided support to a terrorist group, the specific allegation involves recklessness rather than intention, the allegation being that he was reckless about some of the support he provided to that group in particular the provision of his sim card for the use of the group," he ( Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty) said."
Some updates here:http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20070723&fname=Cover+Story+%28F%29&sid=1
Update (17 July, 07). From http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/07/17/1980469.htm
"Decision 'politically popular'
Meanwhile, a former Liberal politician says the Government's decision to revoke the visa of Haneef will be politically popular.
Former New South Wales attorney-general John Dowd, who is now with the International Committee of Jurists, says the decision will appeal to sections of the public.
"This is a vote-winner for the Government," he said.
"There's no doubt that the people, a lot of the people out there - they say 'yes, well he ought to be kept away', and how the Government's got to protect us and so on - this is politically astute.""
A current news poll says that 60% people support the Aust. Gov. decision.
Update 27th July: Hanef to be released http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/haneef-will-be-released/2007/07/27/1185339232877.html
"He has been charged with recklessly supplying a mobile phone sim card to a terrorist organisation.
.....
Commissioner Keelty says the AFP has had more than 300 lawyers and police working on the investigation, who had to examine a considerable amount of material.
"The allegation is that Dr Haneef provided support to a terrorist group, the specific allegation involves recklessness rather than intention, the allegation being that he was reckless about some of the support he provided to that group in particular the provision of his sim card for the use of the group," he ( Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty) said."
Some updates here:http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20070723&fname=Cover+Story+%28F%29&sid=1
Update (17 July, 07). From http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/07/17/1980469.htm
"Decision 'politically popular'
Meanwhile, a former Liberal politician says the Government's decision to revoke the visa of Haneef will be politically popular.
Former New South Wales attorney-general John Dowd, who is now with the International Committee of Jurists, says the decision will appeal to sections of the public.
"This is a vote-winner for the Government," he said.
"There's no doubt that the people, a lot of the people out there - they say 'yes, well he ought to be kept away', and how the Government's got to protect us and so on - this is politically astute.""
A current news poll says that 60% people support the Aust. Gov. decision.
Update 27th July: Hanef to be released http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/haneef-will-be-released/2007/07/27/1185339232877.html
Friday, July 13, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Competition in science
Bill Hooker starts with a quote from a political blog about corporate America and discusses competition in science:
http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2007/07/competition-in-.html
The post has several links to misconduct in science including a special issue of Nature this year. The article ends with a quote from Brian Martinson "Competition and privatization are the great American way, but we've not stopped to ask ourselves whether we may have engendered a level of competition in science that has some dysfunctional consequences."
Seed magazine discusses Ioannidis' essay entitled "Why most published research findings are false":
http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2007/05/dirty_little_secret.php
For those with statistics background the aricle 'The most dangerous equation in the world" by Howard Wainer may be of interest: http://stat.wharton.upenn.edu/~hwainer/2007-05Wainer_rev.pdf
http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2007/07/competition-in-.html
The post has several links to misconduct in science including a special issue of Nature this year. The article ends with a quote from Brian Martinson "Competition and privatization are the great American way, but we've not stopped to ask ourselves whether we may have engendered a level of competition in science that has some dysfunctional consequences."
Seed magazine discusses Ioannidis' essay entitled "Why most published research findings are false":
http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2007/05/dirty_little_secret.php
For those with statistics background the aricle 'The most dangerous equation in the world" by Howard Wainer may be of interest: http://stat.wharton.upenn.edu/~hwainer/2007-05Wainer_rev.pdf
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Locating some science blogs
There seems to be a tagging game going on:
http://evilutionarybiologist.blogspot.com/2007/06/8-random-facts.html
This seems to be one way to locate some interesting science blogs. One of the blogs that I occasionally visit is "This week in Evolution" and it was tagged in the above post.
http://evilutionarybiologist.blogspot.com/2007/06/8-random-facts.html
This seems to be one way to locate some interesting science blogs. One of the blogs that I occasionally visit is "This week in Evolution" and it was tagged in the above post.
Neckties in summertime
From http://www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2007/07/la_cravate_a_la_lanterne.php (via Ezra Klein):
"Today's FT reports that the European Commission is proposing to ban the wearing of neckties by Eurocrats in the summertime. The excuse is energy conservation; men with open collars (and no jackets) presumably can tolerate warmer offices, saving on air-conditioning."
I am pleased since I do not have a jacket or a necktie.
"Today's FT reports that the European Commission is proposing to ban the wearing of neckties by Eurocrats in the summertime. The excuse is energy conservation; men with open collars (and no jackets) presumably can tolerate warmer offices, saving on air-conditioning."
I am pleased since I do not have a jacket or a necktie.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Desalination in Karavatti
From scidev.net http://www.scidev.net/Features/index.cfm?fuseaction=readFeatures&itemid=625&language=1:
"The Karavatti plant, built by India's National Institute of Ocean Technology, uses a process akin to rain formation. Warm surface water is pumped into an onshore vacuum chamber, where some of the water vaporises.
Cold water drawn from 350 metres below the sea's surface then condenses the vapour in an adjoining chamber.
Using this process, called low-temperature thermal desalination, the plant produces 100,000 litres of fresh water a day. Although the process consumes 30 per cent more energy than its rival technologies, installing more chambers should make it more efficient and — at US$1 per 1,000 litres — cheaper."
P.S. The usual name is "KAVARATTI"
"The Karavatti plant, built by India's National Institute of Ocean Technology, uses a process akin to rain formation. Warm surface water is pumped into an onshore vacuum chamber, where some of the water vaporises.
Cold water drawn from 350 metres below the sea's surface then condenses the vapour in an adjoining chamber.
Using this process, called low-temperature thermal desalination, the plant produces 100,000 litres of fresh water a day. Although the process consumes 30 per cent more energy than its rival technologies, installing more chambers should make it more efficient and — at US$1 per 1,000 litres — cheaper."
P.S. The usual name is "KAVARATTI"
Chagossians still waiting to go home
From http://www.flonnet.com/stories/20070713001205000.htm:
"Between 1845 and 1965, Diego Garcia and the surrounding islands were the territory of Mauritius. In 1965, when the Mauritians were negotiating for independence, the British made it clear that Diego Garcia would have to be ceded in perpetuity. The British and United States governments secretly made the decision in the early 1960s to convert it into a military base. Just before granting Mauritius independence in 1968, the British government unilaterally handed over Diego Garcia to the US. After that, they went ahead with their plans to depopulate the islands. More than 2,000 Chagossians, as the islanders are called, were evicted between 1967 and 1971. They were packed off to Mauritius, with only one item of baggage each. The British government claimed that the Chagossians were actually migrant workers from Mauritius, more than 2,000 km away.
"It was an act of late colonial arrogance, breathtaking in its execution," a British commentator observed. The Chagossians are the descendants of the African and Indian indentured labourers who worked on French plantations. According to colonial records, the first inhabitants settled in Diego Garcia in the early 18th century.
Diego Garcia today hosts one of the US's biggest military bases and a satellite spy station. The base played a key role in US military actions in both Gulf Wars and in Afghanistan. If hostilities again break out in the Gulf region, planes and ships based in Diego Garcia will play a pivotal role. More than 2,000 US troops and 30 warships are stationed there. Chagossians, in the course of their long fight for justice, gave up their claims to being resettled on the island on which the base exists. They are willing to set up home on other islands, which are more than 200 km away from it. US and British officials have objected to this, arguing that their presence would be inimical to the security of the base and that secrecy about the movement of ships and planes would be endangered. A US State Department official said last year that allowing civilians on the archipelago could "potentially lead to terrorists infiltrating the islands".
Seven years ago, the British High Court ruled that the expulsions were illegal, but the British government continues with its stonewalling tactics. In 2004, the government resorted to an archaic law, "the Order of Council", to prevent the islanders from ever returning home. The centuries-old royal prerogative allowed the government to overrule court judgments. In May 2006, the High Court described the government's conduct in the case as "outrageous, unlawful and a breach of accepted moral standards".
The government is still playing for time in the hope that there will be very few Chagossians left to return to their homeland. Many of them have died; the survivors are over 50. But there is a young generation, of more than 4,000, that is keen to return to the land of its forefathers. The bench that ruled in the petitioners' favour ordered the British government to pay their legal costs. The government has already announced its intention to appeal to the House of Lords to thwart the refugees' return. It could take some more time for the islanders' dreams to be fulfilled. They may never be able to see Diego Garcia, but they could be resettled on other nearby islands."
"Between 1845 and 1965, Diego Garcia and the surrounding islands were the territory of Mauritius. In 1965, when the Mauritians were negotiating for independence, the British made it clear that Diego Garcia would have to be ceded in perpetuity. The British and United States governments secretly made the decision in the early 1960s to convert it into a military base. Just before granting Mauritius independence in 1968, the British government unilaterally handed over Diego Garcia to the US. After that, they went ahead with their plans to depopulate the islands. More than 2,000 Chagossians, as the islanders are called, were evicted between 1967 and 1971. They were packed off to Mauritius, with only one item of baggage each. The British government claimed that the Chagossians were actually migrant workers from Mauritius, more than 2,000 km away.
"It was an act of late colonial arrogance, breathtaking in its execution," a British commentator observed. The Chagossians are the descendants of the African and Indian indentured labourers who worked on French plantations. According to colonial records, the first inhabitants settled in Diego Garcia in the early 18th century.
Diego Garcia today hosts one of the US's biggest military bases and a satellite spy station. The base played a key role in US military actions in both Gulf Wars and in Afghanistan. If hostilities again break out in the Gulf region, planes and ships based in Diego Garcia will play a pivotal role. More than 2,000 US troops and 30 warships are stationed there. Chagossians, in the course of their long fight for justice, gave up their claims to being resettled on the island on which the base exists. They are willing to set up home on other islands, which are more than 200 km away from it. US and British officials have objected to this, arguing that their presence would be inimical to the security of the base and that secrecy about the movement of ships and planes would be endangered. A US State Department official said last year that allowing civilians on the archipelago could "potentially lead to terrorists infiltrating the islands".
Seven years ago, the British High Court ruled that the expulsions were illegal, but the British government continues with its stonewalling tactics. In 2004, the government resorted to an archaic law, "the Order of Council", to prevent the islanders from ever returning home. The centuries-old royal prerogative allowed the government to overrule court judgments. In May 2006, the High Court described the government's conduct in the case as "outrageous, unlawful and a breach of accepted moral standards".
The government is still playing for time in the hope that there will be very few Chagossians left to return to their homeland. Many of them have died; the survivors are over 50. But there is a young generation, of more than 4,000, that is keen to return to the land of its forefathers. The bench that ruled in the petitioners' favour ordered the British government to pay their legal costs. The government has already announced its intention to appeal to the House of Lords to thwart the refugees' return. It could take some more time for the islanders' dreams to be fulfilled. They may never be able to see Diego Garcia, but they could be resettled on other nearby islands."
Monday, July 09, 2007
Publicity as a deterrent to corruption
From http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/345:
"The authors study a newspaper campaign in Uganda, which aimed at reducing capture of public funds by providing schools with information to monitor local officials’ handling of a large education program. Survey evidence showed that on average only 20% of the funds for primary schools’ expenditure reached the schools in the mid-1990s, most schools received nothing and the bulk of the grants was captured by local government officials in charge of the distribution. Traditionally, anticorruption programs target the problem through building legal and financial institution for control, however in poor countries these prove to be weak and among the most corrupt. For this reason, the Ugandan government decided to begin publicizing information on amount and timing of disbursement of the school grants.
The authors find that public access to information can indeed be a powerful deterrent to capture of funds at the local level. Head teachers in schools closer to a newspaper outlet were found to be more knowledgeable of the rules governing the grant program and the timing of releases by the central government. These schools also managed to claim a significantly larger part of their entitlement after the newspaper campaign was initiated. Furthermore, the reduction in capture had a positive effect on both enrolment and student learning."
The authors are Ritva Reinikka Jakob Svensson and a non-gated version of their paper "The Returns from Reducing Corruption: Evidence from Education in Uganda" is available here:
http://econ.lse.ac.uk/staff/rburgess/eea/svenssonjeea.pdf
"The authors study a newspaper campaign in Uganda, which aimed at reducing capture of public funds by providing schools with information to monitor local officials’ handling of a large education program. Survey evidence showed that on average only 20% of the funds for primary schools’ expenditure reached the schools in the mid-1990s, most schools received nothing and the bulk of the grants was captured by local government officials in charge of the distribution. Traditionally, anticorruption programs target the problem through building legal and financial institution for control, however in poor countries these prove to be weak and among the most corrupt. For this reason, the Ugandan government decided to begin publicizing information on amount and timing of disbursement of the school grants.
The authors find that public access to information can indeed be a powerful deterrent to capture of funds at the local level. Head teachers in schools closer to a newspaper outlet were found to be more knowledgeable of the rules governing the grant program and the timing of releases by the central government. These schools also managed to claim a significantly larger part of their entitlement after the newspaper campaign was initiated. Furthermore, the reduction in capture had a positive effect on both enrolment and student learning."
The authors are Ritva Reinikka Jakob Svensson and a non-gated version of their paper "The Returns from Reducing Corruption: Evidence from Education in Uganda" is available here:
http://econ.lse.ac.uk/staff/rburgess/eea/svenssonjeea.pdf
Will Gordon Brown change Iraq policy?
From Jhttp://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,1702674,00.html:
"Gordon Brown has personally endorsed a new book on faith in politics which lambasts the 'unjust' Iraq war - and portrays the Chancellor as a great spiritual thinker."
From http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/101704A.shtml
" A few months later, on Feb. 1, 2002, Jim Wallis of the Sojourners stood in the Roosevelt Room for the introduction of Jim Towey as head of the president's faith-based and community initiative. John DiIulio, the original head, had left the job feeling that the initiative was not about "compassionate conservatism," as originally promised, but rather a political giveaway to the Christian right, a way to consolidate and energize that part of the base.
Moments after the ceremony, Bush saw Wallis. He bounded over and grabbed the cheeks of his face, one in each hand, and squeezed. "Jim, how ya doin', how ya doin'!" he exclaimed. Wallis was taken aback. Bush excitedly said that his massage therapist had given him Wallis's book, "Faith Works." His joy at seeing Wallis, as Wallis and others remember it, was palpable - a president, wrestling with faith and its role at a time of peril, seeing that rare bird: an independent counselor. Wallis recalls telling Bush he was doing fine, "'but in the State of the Union address a few days before, you said that unless we devote all our energies, our focus, our resources on this war on terrorism, we're going to lose.' I said, 'Mr. President, if we don't devote our energy, our focus and our time on also overcoming global poverty and desperation, we will lose not only the war on poverty, but we'll lose the war on terrorism."'
Bush replied that that was why America needed the leadership of Wallis and other members of the clergy.
"No, Mr. President," Wallis says he told Bush, "We need your leadership on this question, and all of us will then commit to support you. Unless we drain the swamp of injustice in which the mosquitoes of terrorism breed, we'll never defeat the threat of terrorism."
Bush looked quizzically at the minister, Wallis recalls. They never spoke again after that."
But that was another book and another leader.
"Gordon Brown has personally endorsed a new book on faith in politics which lambasts the 'unjust' Iraq war - and portrays the Chancellor as a great spiritual thinker."
From http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/101704A.shtml
" A few months later, on Feb. 1, 2002, Jim Wallis of the Sojourners stood in the Roosevelt Room for the introduction of Jim Towey as head of the president's faith-based and community initiative. John DiIulio, the original head, had left the job feeling that the initiative was not about "compassionate conservatism," as originally promised, but rather a political giveaway to the Christian right, a way to consolidate and energize that part of the base.
Moments after the ceremony, Bush saw Wallis. He bounded over and grabbed the cheeks of his face, one in each hand, and squeezed. "Jim, how ya doin', how ya doin'!" he exclaimed. Wallis was taken aback. Bush excitedly said that his massage therapist had given him Wallis's book, "Faith Works." His joy at seeing Wallis, as Wallis and others remember it, was palpable - a president, wrestling with faith and its role at a time of peril, seeing that rare bird: an independent counselor. Wallis recalls telling Bush he was doing fine, "'but in the State of the Union address a few days before, you said that unless we devote all our energies, our focus, our resources on this war on terrorism, we're going to lose.' I said, 'Mr. President, if we don't devote our energy, our focus and our time on also overcoming global poverty and desperation, we will lose not only the war on poverty, but we'll lose the war on terrorism."'
Bush replied that that was why America needed the leadership of Wallis and other members of the clergy.
"No, Mr. President," Wallis says he told Bush, "We need your leadership on this question, and all of us will then commit to support you. Unless we drain the swamp of injustice in which the mosquitoes of terrorism breed, we'll never defeat the threat of terrorism."
Bush looked quizzically at the minister, Wallis recalls. They never spoke again after that."
But that was another book and another leader.
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Growth of Music in Tamil South India
From link in http://www.tamilnation.org/culture/drama/index.htm (check also http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/3596/1/MusicIntheAgeofMechanicalReproduction.pdf) about the article "Music in the age of mechanical reproduction: Drama, gramophone and the beginnings of Tamil cinema" by Stephen Putnam Hughes":
"This paper takes on the issues of why and how film songs became such an important and persistent feature of Tamil cinema. The specific focus is on how the relationship between Tamil musical drama and the south Indian gramophone business preceded, mediated and was, eventually, transformed by the emergence of Tamil cinema as a dominant commercial entertainment during the 1930s. This is, in part, an attempt to reconsider conventional explanations for why the first Indian talkies featured songs as the main, if not defining appeal of their entertainment. "
The paper does not seem to be freely accessible now. I have downloaded a copy when it was free and it is an interesting article.
"This paper takes on the issues of why and how film songs became such an important and persistent feature of Tamil cinema. The specific focus is on how the relationship between Tamil musical drama and the south Indian gramophone business preceded, mediated and was, eventually, transformed by the emergence of Tamil cinema as a dominant commercial entertainment during the 1930s. This is, in part, an attempt to reconsider conventional explanations for why the first Indian talkies featured songs as the main, if not defining appeal of their entertainment. "
The paper does not seem to be freely accessible now. I have downloaded a copy when it was free and it is an interesting article.
Managing waste
Video from vkas Kendra (courtesy of Rahul Banerjee):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8600337152533335705&pr=goog-sl
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8600337152533335705&pr=goog-sl
Friday, July 06, 2007
A site for Indian topics
http://www.ignca.nic.in/new_main.htm
(Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts). The section http://www.ignca.nic.in/ebk_0001.htm
contains some downloadable books.
The book "Life Style and Ecology" (http://www.ignca.nic.in/cd_08.htm) has a paper "Sacred Groves and Sacred Trees of Uttara Kannada" by M.D. Subash Chandran and Madhav Gadgil discusses in passing the origins of temples but it is not an exhaustive discussion.
(Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts). The section http://www.ignca.nic.in/ebk_0001.htm
contains some downloadable books.
The book "Life Style and Ecology" (http://www.ignca.nic.in/cd_08.htm) has a paper "Sacred Groves and Sacred Trees of Uttara Kannada" by M.D. Subash Chandran and Madhav Gadgil discusses in passing the origins of temples but it is not an exhaustive discussion.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Oil news from Australia
From http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,22021450-601,00.html
“THE government has admitted the need to secure oil supplies is a factor in Australia's continued military involvement in Iraq.
Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said today oil was a factor in Australia's contribution to the unpopular war, as "energy security" and stability in the Middle East would be crucial to the nation's future.
Speaking ahead of a key foreign policy speech today by Prime Minister John Howard, Dr Nelson said defence was about protecting the economy as well as physical security, and it was important to support the "prestige" of the US and UK.”
From http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/mideast-crucial-to-our-future/2007/07/05/1183351341853.html
“In an address to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra today, Mr Howard highlighted the fight against terrorism and the need to secure a major oil supply as reasons to stay the course in Iraq.”
Updare: From http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6272168.stm
"In comments to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Mr Nelson admitted that the supply of oil had influenced Australia's strategic planning in the region.
"Obviously the Middle East itself, not only Iraq but the entire region, is an important supplier of energy, oil in particular, to the rest of the world," he said.
"Australians and all of us need to think what would happen if there were a premature withdrawal from Iraq.
"It's in our interests, our security interests, to make sure that we leave the Middle East, and leave Iraq in particular, in a position of sustainable security."
This is thought to be the first time the Australian government has admitted any link between troop deployment in Iraq and securing energy resources.
But Prime Minister John Howard was quick to play down the significance of his defence minister's comments."
Meanwhile a poll by Sky News said that at one stage 47 perecent of the people polled supported the idea of linking energy security with withdrawal from Iraq.
“THE government has admitted the need to secure oil supplies is a factor in Australia's continued military involvement in Iraq.
Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said today oil was a factor in Australia's contribution to the unpopular war, as "energy security" and stability in the Middle East would be crucial to the nation's future.
Speaking ahead of a key foreign policy speech today by Prime Minister John Howard, Dr Nelson said defence was about protecting the economy as well as physical security, and it was important to support the "prestige" of the US and UK.”
From http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/mideast-crucial-to-our-future/2007/07/05/1183351341853.html
“In an address to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra today, Mr Howard highlighted the fight against terrorism and the need to secure a major oil supply as reasons to stay the course in Iraq.”
Updare: From http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6272168.stm
"In comments to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Mr Nelson admitted that the supply of oil had influenced Australia's strategic planning in the region.
"Obviously the Middle East itself, not only Iraq but the entire region, is an important supplier of energy, oil in particular, to the rest of the world," he said.
"Australians and all of us need to think what would happen if there were a premature withdrawal from Iraq.
"It's in our interests, our security interests, to make sure that we leave the Middle East, and leave Iraq in particular, in a position of sustainable security."
This is thought to be the first time the Australian government has admitted any link between troop deployment in Iraq and securing energy resources.
But Prime Minister John Howard was quick to play down the significance of his defence minister's comments."
Meanwhile a poll by Sky News said that at one stage 47 perecent of the people polled supported the idea of linking energy security with withdrawal from Iraq.
Could you pass 8th grade science?
See http://mingle2.com/science-quiz. I passed but did not do too well. More links at the same site.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
More on blogging economists
Andrew Leonard in http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2007/07/03/net_economists/index.html:
"The econo-blogosphere is more than a collegial coffee-room discussion. It's closer to an internationally-distributed graduate seminar, in which the lucky students get to watch -- and participate in -- a round-robin debate featuring scores of professors duking it out. It is also an early-warning system for new academic papers of note and an instant provider of context and analysis for each new blip of economic data. It is, to put it most simply, an education.
Does that mean it has an impact on policy? That's where it gets tricky. Politics, especially as practiced in the United States, appears to care little for the consensus opinion of economists, especially when that runs counter to polling data and focus group results. But maybe it's just too early in the history of the Internet to make a definitive call. We need more data."
More links before I loose them. Jared Bernstein Responds in The Coffee House to "Why are Economists’ Predictions So Often Wrong?" http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jul/02/predicting_with_a_handicap_why_are_economists_predictions_so_often_wrong
An excerpt "There are other things economists do well. Our empirical methods, in the right hands, can be highly informative and useful. But, like Yogi said, prediction is hard, especially when it comes to the future. When you’re carrying all this baggage along with you, it’s even harder."
More links at http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2007/07/more-on-old-joke-about-why-economists.html
But economics is more than weather prediction and economists and bankers seem to be getting better at preventing big disasters. See the views of Brad De long and Mark Thoma in http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/07/brad-delong-hat.html
Another interesting post on morality and economics http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/07/morality-and-ec.html goes back to Adam Smith. P.J.O'Rourke says in http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/401ngehx.asp "It's a mistake to read The Wealth of Nations as a justification of amoral greed. Wealth was Smith's further attempt to make life better. In Moral Sentiments he wrote, "To love our neighbor as we love ourselves is the great law of Christianity." But note the simile that Christ used and Smith cited. The Theory of Moral Sentiments was about the neighbor. The Wealth of Nations was about the other half of the equation: us.
It is assumed, apparently at the highest level of moral arbitration, that we should care about ourselves. And logically we need to. In Moral Sentiments Smith insisted, paraphrasing Zeno, that each of us "is first and principally recommended to his own care." A broke, naked, starving self is of no use to anyone in the neighborhood. In Wealth Smith insisted that in order to take care of ourselves we must be free to do so. The Theory of Moral Sentiments showed us how the imagination can make us care about other people. The Wealth of Nations showed us how the imagination can make us dinner and a pair of pants."
Apparently 'the invisible hand' already appears in "The Theory of Moral sentiments":
"[The rich] consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity…they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species."
"The econo-blogosphere is more than a collegial coffee-room discussion. It's closer to an internationally-distributed graduate seminar, in which the lucky students get to watch -- and participate in -- a round-robin debate featuring scores of professors duking it out. It is also an early-warning system for new academic papers of note and an instant provider of context and analysis for each new blip of economic data. It is, to put it most simply, an education.
Does that mean it has an impact on policy? That's where it gets tricky. Politics, especially as practiced in the United States, appears to care little for the consensus opinion of economists, especially when that runs counter to polling data and focus group results. But maybe it's just too early in the history of the Internet to make a definitive call. We need more data."
More links before I loose them. Jared Bernstein Responds in The Coffee House to "Why are Economists’ Predictions So Often Wrong?" http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jul/02/predicting_with_a_handicap_why_are_economists_predictions_so_often_wrong
An excerpt "There are other things economists do well. Our empirical methods, in the right hands, can be highly informative and useful. But, like Yogi said, prediction is hard, especially when it comes to the future. When you’re carrying all this baggage along with you, it’s even harder."
More links at http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2007/07/more-on-old-joke-about-why-economists.html
But economics is more than weather prediction and economists and bankers seem to be getting better at preventing big disasters. See the views of Brad De long and Mark Thoma in http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/07/brad-delong-hat.html
Another interesting post on morality and economics http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/07/morality-and-ec.html goes back to Adam Smith. P.J.O'Rourke says in http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/401ngehx.asp "It's a mistake to read The Wealth of Nations as a justification of amoral greed. Wealth was Smith's further attempt to make life better. In Moral Sentiments he wrote, "To love our neighbor as we love ourselves is the great law of Christianity." But note the simile that Christ used and Smith cited. The Theory of Moral Sentiments was about the neighbor. The Wealth of Nations was about the other half of the equation: us.
It is assumed, apparently at the highest level of moral arbitration, that we should care about ourselves. And logically we need to. In Moral Sentiments Smith insisted, paraphrasing Zeno, that each of us "is first and principally recommended to his own care." A broke, naked, starving self is of no use to anyone in the neighborhood. In Wealth Smith insisted that in order to take care of ourselves we must be free to do so. The Theory of Moral Sentiments showed us how the imagination can make us care about other people. The Wealth of Nations showed us how the imagination can make us dinner and a pair of pants."
Apparently 'the invisible hand' already appears in "The Theory of Moral sentiments":
"[The rich] consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity…they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species."
Scott Bayman about his 14 years in India
Excerpts from a speech delivered by Scott Bayman, the outgoing chief of GE India, after 14 years in the country http://www.ciionline.org/events/3087/sb.pdf:
"Some argue that India's path has distinct advantages. MIT'sYasheng Huang points out that India's companies use their
capital far more efficiently than China's; they benchmark to global standards and are better managed than Chinese firms are.
Despite being much poorer than China, India has produced dozens of privately owned excellent companies like Infosys,
Ranbaxy, Tata Steel, Bharat Forge and Reliance. Huang attributes this difference to the fact that India has a real and deep
private sector (unlike China's many state-owned and statefunded companies.) India has a well-developed, well-regulated
financial system and a rule of law. Jeff Immelt explains, “China got the infrastructure right. Its government is superb at
developing infrastructure. However, China has not developed a banking system, rule of law or private enterprise to the extent
India has. India’s government, on the other hand, has failed to deliver the infrastructure that governments typically are required to supply in developing countries. But, its executives are proving to be world class. Their abilities to build and lead businesses far exceed what we see in China.
Another example: every year Japan awards the coveted Deming Prizes for managerial innovation. Over the last four years, 12
Indian companies won the award… more than any other country, including Japan.
......
I don’t dispute the fact that the country must tackle huge social issues as pointed out in the Mishra article. I also don’t dispute that more could have been done and more needs to be done. However, there is progress. The incidence of
poverty has declined from 44% in the 1980s to 36% in the 1990s to 26% in 2000. Literacy rates improved from 44% in the 1980s to 52% in the 1990s to 65% in 2000. In addition, over this same period, life expectancy increased from 56 years
to 60 to 69.
In India, we have a woman born a Catholic / leading the most popular party /stepping aside so a Muslim president / could swear in a Sikh as Prime Minister / to lead a nation that is 82% Hindu / but has the second largest Muslim population
in the world. And by the way, some of the wealthier Indians residing in the country are Muslim. I defy anyone to cite another country with such diversity and tolerance."
P.S. The article was sent to me by an economist Grama Sitaram. A list Deming Application prizes:
http://www.juse.or.jp/e/deming/10_prizelist.html#02
More about Deming prizes at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deming_Prize
"Some argue that India's path has distinct advantages. MIT'sYasheng Huang points out that India's companies use their
capital far more efficiently than China's; they benchmark to global standards and are better managed than Chinese firms are.
Despite being much poorer than China, India has produced dozens of privately owned excellent companies like Infosys,
Ranbaxy, Tata Steel, Bharat Forge and Reliance. Huang attributes this difference to the fact that India has a real and deep
private sector (unlike China's many state-owned and statefunded companies.) India has a well-developed, well-regulated
financial system and a rule of law. Jeff Immelt explains, “China got the infrastructure right. Its government is superb at
developing infrastructure. However, China has not developed a banking system, rule of law or private enterprise to the extent
India has. India’s government, on the other hand, has failed to deliver the infrastructure that governments typically are required to supply in developing countries. But, its executives are proving to be world class. Their abilities to build and lead businesses far exceed what we see in China.
Another example: every year Japan awards the coveted Deming Prizes for managerial innovation. Over the last four years, 12
Indian companies won the award… more than any other country, including Japan.
......
I don’t dispute the fact that the country must tackle huge social issues as pointed out in the Mishra article. I also don’t dispute that more could have been done and more needs to be done. However, there is progress. The incidence of
poverty has declined from 44% in the 1980s to 36% in the 1990s to 26% in 2000. Literacy rates improved from 44% in the 1980s to 52% in the 1990s to 65% in 2000. In addition, over this same period, life expectancy increased from 56 years
to 60 to 69.
In India, we have a woman born a Catholic / leading the most popular party /stepping aside so a Muslim president / could swear in a Sikh as Prime Minister / to lead a nation that is 82% Hindu / but has the second largest Muslim population
in the world. And by the way, some of the wealthier Indians residing in the country are Muslim. I defy anyone to cite another country with such diversity and tolerance."
P.S. The article was sent to me by an economist Grama Sitaram. A list Deming Application prizes:
http://www.juse.or.jp/e/deming/10_prizelist.html#02
More about Deming prizes at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deming_Prize
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Mahe Jabeen is coming to Australia
This may be of interest only to Telugus living in Australia. Mahe Jabeen is the author of Akuralu Kalam; some of her poems in Telugu are here http://www.bhaavana.net/chaitanya/mahejabeen.html and in tranlation here http://www.geocities.com/kavitayan/mahejabeen.html. She is also a trained social worker and runs an organization 'Phoenix organization for woman and child'. She is visiting Australia to attend a feminist meeting in Townsville from July 17 to July 20:
http://www.feministagenda.org.au/Summit/summitIndex.html
Mahe Jabeen has kindly agred to stop in Melbourne after the conference and hold discussions with some of her well wishers. On the way to Townsville, she has a day's wait in Sydney for the connecting flight. If anybody in Sydney is interested in meeting her, they can contact her at hyd2_jabeen@sancharnet.in
http://www.feministagenda.org.au/Summit/summitIndex.html
Mahe Jabeen has kindly agred to stop in Melbourne after the conference and hold discussions with some of her well wishers. On the way to Townsville, she has a day's wait in Sydney for the connecting flight. If anybody in Sydney is interested in meeting her, they can contact her at hyd2_jabeen@sancharnet.in
Dani Rodrik's 'Impossibility Theorem"
Dani Rodrik has an interesting post:
http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2007/06/the-inescapable.html
Excerpt: " I have an "impossibility theorem" for the global economy that is like that. It says that democracy, national sovereignty and global economic integration are mutually incompatible: we can combine any two of the three, but never have all three simultaneously and in full."
Perhaps, more open borders may lessen the incompatibility.
http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2007/06/the-inescapable.html
Excerpt: " I have an "impossibility theorem" for the global economy that is like that. It says that democracy, national sovereignty and global economic integration are mutually incompatible: we can combine any two of the three, but never have all three simultaneously and in full."
Perhaps, more open borders may lessen the incompatibility.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Altruism in chimps
There is a nice site for discussion of recent research on science topics http://notexactlyrocketscience.wordpress.com/. The post on June 25, 2007 discusses some recent research on altruism in chimps:
"Many scientists have argued that only humans show true altruistic behaviour. But a group of Ugandan chimps is set to change all that by showing clear signs of true selflessness, helping other unrelated chimps with no desire for reward.
.....
Now, Felix Warneken and colleagues form the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have found compelling evidence that we are not alone. Contrary to previous studies, they have found that chimps also behave altruistically in a very human way. They help out unrelated strangers without expectation of reward, and even go to great lengths to do so.
......
It’s particularly fascinating that rewards in the first two tests didn’t affect the chimps’ behaviour. This suggests that chimps don’t continually analyse the pros and cons of helping their fellow – if they did, the reward would have motivated them to help even more often.
Instead, de Waal believes that the chimps have evolved psychological systems that steer them towards selflessness. In essence, natural selection has done the analysis for them and decided that altruistic behaviour works to its advantage in the long run. Selfless behaviour then, can evolve for selfish reasons, and that strikes to the very core of the debate on altruism."
See also the June 23 post on "Resistance to an extinct virus makes us more vulnerable to HIV" which is also discussed by Carl Zimmer in "The Loom" on June 21:http://scienceblogs.com/loom/
"Many scientists have argued that only humans show true altruistic behaviour. But a group of Ugandan chimps is set to change all that by showing clear signs of true selflessness, helping other unrelated chimps with no desire for reward.
.....
Now, Felix Warneken and colleagues form the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have found compelling evidence that we are not alone. Contrary to previous studies, they have found that chimps also behave altruistically in a very human way. They help out unrelated strangers without expectation of reward, and even go to great lengths to do so.
......
It’s particularly fascinating that rewards in the first two tests didn’t affect the chimps’ behaviour. This suggests that chimps don’t continually analyse the pros and cons of helping their fellow – if they did, the reward would have motivated them to help even more often.
Instead, de Waal believes that the chimps have evolved psychological systems that steer them towards selflessness. In essence, natural selection has done the analysis for them and decided that altruistic behaviour works to its advantage in the long run. Selfless behaviour then, can evolve for selfish reasons, and that strikes to the very core of the debate on altruism."
See also the June 23 post on "Resistance to an extinct virus makes us more vulnerable to HIV" which is also discussed by Carl Zimmer in "The Loom" on June 21:http://scienceblogs.com/loom/
District Gazatteers of India
While reading Robert Putnam's article on diversity, I was reminded of Nasik Gazatteer which I browsed through long ago:
http://www.maharashtra.gov.in/english/gazetteer/nasik/
It was first published in 1883 and various sections have been revised since. The section "The People" contains descriptions of communities which migrated from times immemorial to few decades ago (before 1883) from various parts of India and abroad and retained some sort of identities through out. I wonder whether this section has been updated and how these communities are adopting in the information age. More information about other districts can be found by google search under " District Gazatteers of India" or some such heading. Wikipedia does not have much on this topic though it links to some gazatteers when seaching for specific districts. There is a link to an interesting article http://www.boloji.com/environment/21.htm by Kumud Biswas.
Recently I visited a small town Foster in South Gippsland where a couple of Telugu dentists decided to treat their uncle. The conversations shifted seemelessly from technical to family matters in coastal village Telugu.
http://www.maharashtra.gov.in/english/gazetteer/nasik/
It was first published in 1883 and various sections have been revised since. The section "The People" contains descriptions of communities which migrated from times immemorial to few decades ago (before 1883) from various parts of India and abroad and retained some sort of identities through out. I wonder whether this section has been updated and how these communities are adopting in the information age. More information about other districts can be found by google search under " District Gazatteers of India" or some such heading. Wikipedia does not have much on this topic though it links to some gazatteers when seaching for specific districts. There is a link to an interesting article http://www.boloji.com/environment/21.htm by Kumud Biswas.
Recently I visited a small town Foster in South Gippsland where a couple of Telugu dentists decided to treat their uncle. The conversations shifted seemelessly from technical to family matters in coastal village Telugu.
Some sustainable energy news from scidev.net
From http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readNews&itemid=3694&language=1:
"The first commercial batch of biofuel from the stalks of a new sweet sorghum hybrid has been produced this month (13 June) at a distillery in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India.
Ethanol is produced from the sweet juice in the stalk of the sweet sorghum. The researchers responsible for the hybrid say by using sorghum, resource-poor farmers will still be able to use the sorghum grain and protect food security, while earning an additional income from selling the stalks."
From http://www.ashdenawards.org/finalists_2007:
"Winner of Outstanding Achievement Award 2007
SELCO-India. Making solar energy affordable yet commercially viable
SELCO is a private business, based in Bangalore, which provides solar-home-systems (SHS) and other solar services to low-income households and institutions. Its network of local sales and service centres are set up where micro-finance organisations can provide loans to customers. All systems are sold on a commercial basis, but SELCO is committed to providing the highest quality services to poor people on financial terms they can afford.
SELCO used the 2005 Ashden Award to create an innovation department, establish new partnership arrangements with microfinance organisations, develop a five-year business plan with the aim of reaching an additional 200,000 customers by 2010, and set up a pilot fund to guarantee the deposits on solar systems for very poor households."
Check the above link for more winners from India and other developing countries.
"The first commercial batch of biofuel from the stalks of a new sweet sorghum hybrid has been produced this month (13 June) at a distillery in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India.
Ethanol is produced from the sweet juice in the stalk of the sweet sorghum. The researchers responsible for the hybrid say by using sorghum, resource-poor farmers will still be able to use the sorghum grain and protect food security, while earning an additional income from selling the stalks."
From http://www.ashdenawards.org/finalists_2007:
"Winner of Outstanding Achievement Award 2007
SELCO-India. Making solar energy affordable yet commercially viable
SELCO is a private business, based in Bangalore, which provides solar-home-systems (SHS) and other solar services to low-income households and institutions. Its network of local sales and service centres are set up where micro-finance organisations can provide loans to customers. All systems are sold on a commercial basis, but SELCO is committed to providing the highest quality services to poor people on financial terms they can afford.
SELCO used the 2005 Ashden Award to create an innovation department, establish new partnership arrangements with microfinance organisations, develop a five-year business plan with the aim of reaching an additional 200,000 customers by 2010, and set up a pilot fund to guarantee the deposits on solar systems for very poor households."
Check the above link for more winners from India and other developing countries.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Robert Putnam on diversity and 'Social Capital'
Robert Putnam's recent article is bound to generate a lot of discussion among academics as well as politicians. Abstract:
"Ethnic diversity is increasing in most advanced countries, driven mostly by sharp increases in immigration. In the long run immigration and diversity are likely to have important cultural, economic, fiscal, and developmental benefits. In the short run, however, immigration and ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital. New evidence from the US suggests that in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’. Trust (even of one's own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer. In the long run, however, successful immigrant societies have overcome such fragmentation by creating new, cross-cutting forms of social solidarity and more encompassing identities. Illustrations of becoming comfortable with diversity are drawn from the US military, religious institutions, and earlier waves of American immigration."
A nice summary of the article by Madeleine Bunting and interesting comments in The Guardian.
I came across Putnam's article through a post of Andrew Leigh in his blog. Andrew Leigh also links to asimilar study by himself. Another summary of Putnam's study here.
"Ethnic diversity is increasing in most advanced countries, driven mostly by sharp increases in immigration. In the long run immigration and diversity are likely to have important cultural, economic, fiscal, and developmental benefits. In the short run, however, immigration and ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital. New evidence from the US suggests that in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’. Trust (even of one's own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer. In the long run, however, successful immigrant societies have overcome such fragmentation by creating new, cross-cutting forms of social solidarity and more encompassing identities. Illustrations of becoming comfortable with diversity are drawn from the US military, religious institutions, and earlier waves of American immigration."
A nice summary of the article by Madeleine Bunting and interesting comments in The Guardian.
I came across Putnam's article through a post of Andrew Leigh in his blog. Andrew Leigh also links to asimilar study by himself. Another summary of Putnam's study here.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Vacuum-packed food
is not that safe according to http://www.livescience.com/health/070614_mean_bacteria.html. Excerpt:"Vacuum-packed foods are deprived of oxygen to keep them fresh and boost their shelf life, but the same strategy is a boon for Listeria monocytogenes, a bacterium responsible for a kind of food poisoning that kills 25 percent of the people it infects. "
See also about a new form of synesthesia in http://www.livescience.com/health/070617_touching_faces.html:
"A brain anomaly can make the saying "I know how you feel" literally true in hyper-empathetic people who actually sense that they are being touched when they witness others being touched.
The condition, known as mirror-touch synesthesia, is related to the activity of mirror neurons, cells recently discovered to fire not only when some animals perform some behavior, such as climbing a tree, but also when they watch another animal do the behavior. For "synesthetes," it's as if their mirror neurons are on overdrive. "
See also about a new form of synesthesia in http://www.livescience.com/health/070617_touching_faces.html:
"A brain anomaly can make the saying "I know how you feel" literally true in hyper-empathetic people who actually sense that they are being touched when they witness others being touched.
The condition, known as mirror-touch synesthesia, is related to the activity of mirror neurons, cells recently discovered to fire not only when some animals perform some behavior, such as climbing a tree, but also when they watch another animal do the behavior. For "synesthetes," it's as if their mirror neurons are on overdrive. "
Friday, June 15, 2007
Discover interviews David Brin
I have read some of David Brin's articles and visited his web site off and on but never read his books. Apparently, his 1998 book "The transparent Society" contains the following passage:
“Suppose at some point we take a major hit and, for example, terrorists ever brought down both World Trade Center Towers. What would the Attorney General ask for?”
In the Discover interview http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/the-discover-interview-david-brin, he goes on to say: "Then I went through what basically was a mild and more reasonable version of the Patriot Act, because I never pictured John Ashcroft. I suppose I could say, “I told you so.” But by now I would have expected some of the other aspects I predicted to be a little stronger, like vigorous activity by whistle-blowers."
Some more excerpts:
"That’s my main theme—it’s not about fast-paced changes in how small or big or penetrating we can see individually. What’s very fast-paced is the spreading of seeing in parallel. It’s happening in biochemistry. It’s happening in astronomy. It’s happening in almost every source of perception."
For somebody like me who is pessimistic about a lot of universitiy research, this next quotation offers some hope: "This will be the age of amateurs."
"It may seem ironic, but for privacy and freedom to survive, we’ll need a civilization that is mostly open and transparent, so that each of us may catch the would-be voyeurs and Big Brothers. "
"Jonas Salk said our top job is to be “good ancestors.” If we in this era meet the challenges of our time, then our heirs may have powers that would seem godlike to us—the way we take for granted miracles like flying through the sky or witnessing events far across the globe. If those descendants do turn out to be better, wiser people than us, will they marvel that primitive beings managed so well, the same way we’re awed by the best of our ancestors? I hope so. It’s poignant consolation for not getting to be a demigod. "
Read the whole interview again.
“Suppose at some point we take a major hit and, for example, terrorists ever brought down both World Trade Center Towers. What would the Attorney General ask for?”
In the Discover interview http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/the-discover-interview-david-brin, he goes on to say: "Then I went through what basically was a mild and more reasonable version of the Patriot Act, because I never pictured John Ashcroft. I suppose I could say, “I told you so.” But by now I would have expected some of the other aspects I predicted to be a little stronger, like vigorous activity by whistle-blowers."
Some more excerpts:
"That’s my main theme—it’s not about fast-paced changes in how small or big or penetrating we can see individually. What’s very fast-paced is the spreading of seeing in parallel. It’s happening in biochemistry. It’s happening in astronomy. It’s happening in almost every source of perception."
For somebody like me who is pessimistic about a lot of universitiy research, this next quotation offers some hope: "This will be the age of amateurs."
"It may seem ironic, but for privacy and freedom to survive, we’ll need a civilization that is mostly open and transparent, so that each of us may catch the would-be voyeurs and Big Brothers. "
"Jonas Salk said our top job is to be “good ancestors.” If we in this era meet the challenges of our time, then our heirs may have powers that would seem godlike to us—the way we take for granted miracles like flying through the sky or witnessing events far across the globe. If those descendants do turn out to be better, wiser people than us, will they marvel that primitive beings managed so well, the same way we’re awed by the best of our ancestors? I hope so. It’s poignant consolation for not getting to be a demigod. "
Read the whole interview again.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Links June 13,2007
1) Yegor Gaidor's article on Soviet collapse is discussed by Felix Salmon and Tyler Cowen, the later has several interesting comments.
2) Roderick MacFarquhar reviews "Nixon and Mao; The Week that Changed the World" by Margaret MacMillan in The New York Review of Books. Andrew Leonard wonders whether Taiwan screwed up China's chances of democracy.
3) Pankaj Mishra reviews Martha Nussbaum's"The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future".
4) Tyler Cowen and his readers recommend some books that may help learn economics in spare time. Pardha Dasgupta's "Economics, A very short introduction' is not mentioned but looks promising. Some of these I have read and it did not help. Perhaps not surprising in view of the recent discussions. For the latest round, see Mark Thoma and Steve Waldman.
Studies by sociologists Mike Reay and Marion Fourcade of economists are also worth remembering.
5) Andrew Leonard has twopostson microfinance. The best that I have read so far on this topic is Rajshekhar's postin fracturedearth.
6) Guru and Tabula Rasahave posts on 're-reading books'.
2) Roderick MacFarquhar reviews "Nixon and Mao; The Week that Changed the World" by Margaret MacMillan in The New York Review of Books. Andrew Leonard wonders whether Taiwan screwed up China's chances of democracy.
3) Pankaj Mishra reviews Martha Nussbaum's"The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future".
4) Tyler Cowen and his readers recommend some books that may help learn economics in spare time. Pardha Dasgupta's "Economics, A very short introduction' is not mentioned but looks promising. Some of these I have read and it did not help. Perhaps not surprising in view of the recent discussions. For the latest round, see Mark Thoma and Steve Waldman.
Studies by sociologists Mike Reay and Marion Fourcade of economists are also worth remembering.
5) Andrew Leonard has twopostson microfinance. The best that I have read so far on this topic is Rajshekhar's postin fracturedearth.
6) Guru and Tabula Rasahave posts on 're-reading books'.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Spotlight on Agri-biotech
in sub-Saharan Africa from scidev.net. Check: www.scidev.net/agribiotech/sub-saharan_africa
More general information at: www.scidev.net/agribiotech
More general information at: www.scidev.net/agribiotech
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Remembering my father
This may be my last trip to USA and I have been meeting more relatives and friends than usual. I have been hearing some stories about my father that I did not know. Very early in my life our interests and tastes diverged and though I kept in touch with my father, I never got to know him well. I knew that many of his students liked him; they even erected a statue in his honour after his death. Some came from distant villages to study in his school, some stayed in our house and many spoke of his help in studies and jobs. He could be charming and was sometimes an engaging speaker quoting from Chalam to Shakespeare but for me he was silly, weak and insufferable. I was always irritated by the way he rubbed shoulders with the rich and famous. One group of very rich relatives were only related by his first marriage and I was always surprised by the regard and affection they showed him.
On this trip, I learnt the story about his first marriage from two different sources. It seems that the marriage to K, who came from a rich family, was very brief and took place around 1937-38. The first night after marriage, K told my father that she was in love with a muslim boy and was married against her will. Apparently my father realized that in that society even after a divorce it would be difficult for her to marry the one she loved and took upon himself to arrange her marriage and succeeded.
The next incident happened around 1992 about two years before my father’s death and when my father was old and sick. He seems to have met K again at a common relative’s wedding. K had children but her marriage did not last long. Apparently K expressed her regrets and felt that she made a mistake. She introduced her children who started calling my father ‘nanna garu’. They gave their addresses and requested him to visit them in Hyderabad. May be my father felt that he would not be able to make it; he left the addresses with my cousin and asked him to look them up some time. My cousin says that he tried to do that on his next trip to Hyderabad, could find the street but could not locate the factory that K’s children owned.
My brother seems to have inherited my father’s helping nature and I hope that I have inherited some of his qualities.
P.S. (6/12/07) After a few days of mulling over it, I still find it difficult to believe the story above but it may be true. According to my brother, the sources were my father himself and a nephew of K who explained to my brother the high regard their family had for my father. Another cousin says that he saw some pre-independence correspondence between my father and his friends which was very different from his later letters which always started with "By the grace of Lord Venkateswara...". May be big events and youth bring out the best in some people and family and responsibilities weigh them down.
On this trip, I learnt the story about his first marriage from two different sources. It seems that the marriage to K, who came from a rich family, was very brief and took place around 1937-38. The first night after marriage, K told my father that she was in love with a muslim boy and was married against her will. Apparently my father realized that in that society even after a divorce it would be difficult for her to marry the one she loved and took upon himself to arrange her marriage and succeeded.
The next incident happened around 1992 about two years before my father’s death and when my father was old and sick. He seems to have met K again at a common relative’s wedding. K had children but her marriage did not last long. Apparently K expressed her regrets and felt that she made a mistake. She introduced her children who started calling my father ‘nanna garu’. They gave their addresses and requested him to visit them in Hyderabad. May be my father felt that he would not be able to make it; he left the addresses with my cousin and asked him to look them up some time. My cousin says that he tried to do that on his next trip to Hyderabad, could find the street but could not locate the factory that K’s children owned.
My brother seems to have inherited my father’s helping nature and I hope that I have inherited some of his qualities.
P.S. (6/12/07) After a few days of mulling over it, I still find it difficult to believe the story above but it may be true. According to my brother, the sources were my father himself and a nephew of K who explained to my brother the high regard their family had for my father. Another cousin says that he saw some pre-independence correspondence between my father and his friends which was very different from his later letters which always started with "By the grace of Lord Venkateswara...". May be big events and youth bring out the best in some people and family and responsibilities weigh them down.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Glocalization
Excerpts from http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/newsletters/ifpriforum/if200703.asp (via Yahoogroups FDRI, IFPRI stands for International Food Policy Research Institute):
“Joachim von Braun, director general of IFPRI, sees this trend toward decentralization as driven not only by democracy, but also by economic globalization. "Globalization requires local decisionmaking power that will efficiently provide the infrastructure and services demanded by investors," he says. "This economic necessity drives 'glocalisation'—the combination of globalization with localization and decentralization."
When it works properly, decentralization can help to alleviate poverty and food insecurity by providing infrastructure and services that poor people require, like drinking water, roads, schooling, and health care. "The goal is to bring government closer to the people, with the hope of giving poor people a greater voice and making government more effective and more accountable," says IFPRI senior research fellow Regina Birner. Given that most poor people in developing countries live in rural areas, out of sight of the political elites in national capitals, "decentralization can be the single most important governance reform for rural areas," she says.
But making decentralization work effectively for poor people is a challenge, and it takes time. A 2004 study from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) examined the impact of decentralization on poverty in 18 developing countries and 3 states of India. Decentralization helped to reduce poverty in only one-third of the cases, and in some of the poorest countries with weak institutions and post-conflict situations decentralization worsened poverty.
……….
It is perhaps understandable that central governments become reluctant to go all the way with decentralization. Faguet points out that decentralization is not a policy prescription with predictable results, like, say, lowering tariffs. "It's a process with very uncertain outcomes," he says. "The center has to let go of power and resources and pass them to local government. You don't know what's going to happen, and you have to live with that."
……
When local governments gain power, do they actually empower poor people? Are their decisions about delivery of infrastructure and services any different from those of central governments? Research shows that in many cases local governments are indeed more responsive to the poor.
…
Where transparency is lacking, poor people have been less satisfied with the services provided by local government, a study from India shows. IFPRI's Regina Birner and others examined local governance and poverty in two Gram Panchayats (village councils) in the state of Karnataka, India. In the case of drainage, for example, village residents expressed high levels of dissatisfaction, and one-third to one-half of them did not know who was responsible for drainage service in their community.
……
"It's also possible that decentralizing government functions will decentralize corruption," explains IFPRI's Birner. Poor people may be no better off under a corrupt local government than under a corrupt centralized one. Corruption is often more visible, however, at the local level, she points out. People see, for example, who can suddenly afford a big house. Therefore, decentralization may increase the possibilities for fighting corruption. “
“Joachim von Braun, director general of IFPRI, sees this trend toward decentralization as driven not only by democracy, but also by economic globalization. "Globalization requires local decisionmaking power that will efficiently provide the infrastructure and services demanded by investors," he says. "This economic necessity drives 'glocalisation'—the combination of globalization with localization and decentralization."
When it works properly, decentralization can help to alleviate poverty and food insecurity by providing infrastructure and services that poor people require, like drinking water, roads, schooling, and health care. "The goal is to bring government closer to the people, with the hope of giving poor people a greater voice and making government more effective and more accountable," says IFPRI senior research fellow Regina Birner. Given that most poor people in developing countries live in rural areas, out of sight of the political elites in national capitals, "decentralization can be the single most important governance reform for rural areas," she says.
But making decentralization work effectively for poor people is a challenge, and it takes time. A 2004 study from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) examined the impact of decentralization on poverty in 18 developing countries and 3 states of India. Decentralization helped to reduce poverty in only one-third of the cases, and in some of the poorest countries with weak institutions and post-conflict situations decentralization worsened poverty.
……….
It is perhaps understandable that central governments become reluctant to go all the way with decentralization. Faguet points out that decentralization is not a policy prescription with predictable results, like, say, lowering tariffs. "It's a process with very uncertain outcomes," he says. "The center has to let go of power and resources and pass them to local government. You don't know what's going to happen, and you have to live with that."
……
When local governments gain power, do they actually empower poor people? Are their decisions about delivery of infrastructure and services any different from those of central governments? Research shows that in many cases local governments are indeed more responsive to the poor.
…
Where transparency is lacking, poor people have been less satisfied with the services provided by local government, a study from India shows. IFPRI's Regina Birner and others examined local governance and poverty in two Gram Panchayats (village councils) in the state of Karnataka, India. In the case of drainage, for example, village residents expressed high levels of dissatisfaction, and one-third to one-half of them did not know who was responsible for drainage service in their community.
……
"It's also possible that decentralizing government functions will decentralize corruption," explains IFPRI's Birner. Poor people may be no better off under a corrupt local government than under a corrupt centralized one. Corruption is often more visible, however, at the local level, she points out. People see, for example, who can suddenly afford a big house. Therefore, decentralization may increase the possibilities for fighting corruption. “
Monday, June 04, 2007
Red-haired family
forced to move http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tyne/6714735.stm
Excerpt:
"A Newcastle family claim they have been forced from two homes by thugs who have targeted them over their ginger hair.
Kevin and Barbara Chapman say they and their four children, aged between 10 and 13, have endured years of taunts, smashed windows and violence.
They said they moved from Walker to Newbiggin Hall to try to escape the bullying, and then again to Kenton Bar.
Son Kevin, 11, said he was recently punched in a street attack. Newcastle Council is "discussing the situation".
Mr Chapman, 49, said his 10-year-old daughter Ryelle and sons Daniel, 10, and Jordan, 13, have also been badly affected.
He said each time the family received abuse they moved home.
The family also say they have endured their homes being daubed in graffiti."
We had similar experiences in Australia durng late 80 and early 90's; called 'black dogs' , 'go back to your country' on the streets and 'black c..ts' written in front of our house. Some academics advised how to remove the graffitti. We moved house.
Excerpt:
"A Newcastle family claim they have been forced from two homes by thugs who have targeted them over their ginger hair.
Kevin and Barbara Chapman say they and their four children, aged between 10 and 13, have endured years of taunts, smashed windows and violence.
They said they moved from Walker to Newbiggin Hall to try to escape the bullying, and then again to Kenton Bar.
Son Kevin, 11, said he was recently punched in a street attack. Newcastle Council is "discussing the situation".
Mr Chapman, 49, said his 10-year-old daughter Ryelle and sons Daniel, 10, and Jordan, 13, have also been badly affected.
He said each time the family received abuse they moved home.
The family also say they have endured their homes being daubed in graffiti."
We had similar experiences in Australia durng late 80 and early 90's; called 'black dogs' , 'go back to your country' on the streets and 'black c..ts' written in front of our house. Some academics advised how to remove the graffitti. We moved house.
Annie Zaidi
continues to write prose poems 'as lyrical as a curl of smoke'. Enjoy http://www.anniezaidi.com/
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Two dimensional political compass
instead of just left and right, recommended by Dani Rodrik is here:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
My co-ordinates are (-4.25,-4.92); they seem to be fairly close to those of Dalai Lama.
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
My co-ordinates are (-4.25,-4.92); they seem to be fairly close to those of Dalai Lama.
Glenn Davis Stone's recent paper
"The birth and death of traditional knowledge: paradoxical effects of biotechnolgy in India" is now available at his site:
http://artsci.wustl.edu/~anthro/blurb/b_gds.html
Some of the paper covers the same ground as his earlier paper "Agricultural Deskilling and the Spread of Genetically Modified Cotton in Warangal." Current Anthropology 48:67-103; but the new material is about the Gujarat experience in BT cotton. Both papers are discussed by Andrew Leonard in salon.com http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2007/02/08/gujarat/
http://artsci.wustl.edu/~anthro/blurb/b_gds.html
Some of the paper covers the same ground as his earlier paper "Agricultural Deskilling and the Spread of Genetically Modified Cotton in Warangal." Current Anthropology 48:67-103; but the new material is about the Gujarat experience in BT cotton. Both papers are discussed by Andrew Leonard in salon.com http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2007/02/08/gujarat/
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