Chris Blattman has two posts, the first one responding to students who want to conduct research in post-conflict areas and a second one on Development Tourism. Excerpts from the second post:
"Can you "do development" in a two week trip? Unless you're a star surgeon or possess some other ultra-skill, my answer is an emphatic 'no'.
...
In Uganda, I see NGO workers, even heads of office, swing in and out in less than a year. Short tours of duty are understandable in true 'emergencies'. In any other context, this is cowboy development at its worst. Few emergencies are over in nine months. Neither, in that case, should be the positions.
One solution: hire more locals to senior positions. I've seen too little effort to train and promote local staff in too many international organizations. The glass ceiling is nearly opaque in some cases. The promotion of locals to senior positions is one of the few things I admire about UN field offices."
On the otherhand, I have seen some development work in Andhra from NRIs who spend very little time there. The NRIs mainly provide funds and work through local contacts they know like relatives and friends. Some of them seem to work well but A.P. leads in a black list of NGOs. I was recently talking to a friend working in a educational scholarship programme which also monitors the recepients of scholarships. He said that money was not a problem for them but the main problem is to find personnel to tour to do the monitoring work.
Ethan Zuckermanin in his Ted2008 series posted about Paul Collier's talk at Ted2008 and his book "The Bottom Billion" in the post TED2008: Paul Collier - Compassion and enlightened self-interest. He recommends the book but since it costs 45 Aus. dollars, for the time being, I will confine myself to his comments:
"“Now the challenge is different - reversing the divergence of the bottom billion. Is this easier or harder?” Collier advises we focus on governance, because money isn’t the problem. There’s a huge natural resource boom taking place - Uganda and Ghana have both discovered oil, and Guinea has a huge discovery of iron. “These new revenue flows dwarf aid.” In Angola, new oil revenues are $50 billion a year - total aid flows to the bottom billion nations is $34 billion a year.
So how do we ensure these flows of money make life better? Historically, they don’t - economists talk of “the resource curse.” In the short term, oil makes everyone a bit better off… and in the long-term, countries tend to end up worse off. The critical issue, he tells us, is the initial level of governance. “If your governance is good enough, there’s no resource boom.” That’s happened in places like Norway, Australia, and Canada. “The resource curse is entirely confined to a threshhold of governance.” Nigeria is a great example of what can go wrong if you don’t have enough governance. You need a level of governance around where Portugal was in the 1980s.
So, is the bottom billion above or below that threshhold? Collier hoped that the spread of democracy would help some of these nations. “And democracy has sigificant effects. But they’re adverse effects - democracies make even more of a mess of these booms than autocracies.” While Collier tells us he was tempted to give up his research at this point, he made a critical discovery. Democracies involve both elections and checks and balances. “It’s the electoral competition that does damage, but strong checks and balances make booms good.” Unfortunately, new democracies don’t have these checks and balances - they’re “instant democracies”.
There’s now an intense struggle to bring in these checks and balances. We need international standards, voluntary ones. He refers to resource extraction transparency standards that are currently being pushed in the developing world. Nigerian reformers printed some of these standards in local newspapers - there was so much interest that circulation in newspapers spiked.
What are these standards? Instead of letting an oil company fly in and meet with a minister, making a deal that’s good for the company, good for the minister, and not good for the country, why not have transparent auctions? The British treasury estimated that the rights to the 3G mobile spectrum were worth $2 billion - it sold at auction for $20 billion. “If the British treasury got it that wrong. imagine how the government of Sierra Leone will do.” And so the government of Sierra Leone immediately asked for help with running resource auctions.
Collier tells us that “unless we have an informed society, politicans will get away with gestures.” To build an informed citizenry, Collier “broke all the professional rules and wrote an Economics book you could read on a beach.” He tells us that a blogger once commented “Collier is not charismatic. But his arguments are compelling.” And that’s why, “if you agree with that comment, you realize that I need you.”
I disagree with that blogger. Collier may have been the best speaker at TED this year, despite some seriously stiff competition - powerful ideas presented compactly and compellingly. Read the damn book."
Finally M.Rajshekar in A development chronology of tihi has "...this latest sporadic offering to the blogging gods will focus on the agrarian history of tihi. it is the incidental outcome of some time I spent chatting with village elders, trying to understand what this hamlet was like in the days gone by. later, during a trip to delhi, i corroborated what they told me about crop prices and wage levels, famines and epidemics, forests and water levels, with the old district gazetteers."
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
What's holding India back?
An excerpt from an interesting article in The Economist:
"For years, it pottered along, weighed down by the regulations that made up the licence raj, producing only a feeble “Hindu” rate of growth. But over the past 15 years it has been transformed into a far more powerful beast. Its companies have become worldbeaters. Without India's strength, the world economy would have had far less to boast about.
Sadly, this achievement is more fragile than it looks. Many things restrain India's economy, from a government that depends on Communist support to the caste system, power cuts and rigid labour laws. But an enduring constraint is even more awkward: a state that makes a big claim on a poor country's resources but then uses them badly.
The state's cage
It is not unusual for a country's bureaucrats and politicians to be less efficient than its businesspeople; and the Indian civil servant, with his forms in triplicate, has been a caricature for so long that it is easy to forget the impossibility of many of the jobs involved (see article). But India's 10m-strong civil service is the size of a small country, and its unreformed public sector is a huge barrier to two things a growing population needs. The first is a faster rate of sustainable growth: the government's debts and its infrastructure failings set a lower-than-necessary speed-limit for the economy. The second is to spread the fruits of a growing economy to India's poor. By the government's own admission, most development spending fails to reach its intended recipients."
Similar threads appear in the discussion India: The Emerging Giant briefly discussed here.
"For years, it pottered along, weighed down by the regulations that made up the licence raj, producing only a feeble “Hindu” rate of growth. But over the past 15 years it has been transformed into a far more powerful beast. Its companies have become worldbeaters. Without India's strength, the world economy would have had far less to boast about.
Sadly, this achievement is more fragile than it looks. Many things restrain India's economy, from a government that depends on Communist support to the caste system, power cuts and rigid labour laws. But an enduring constraint is even more awkward: a state that makes a big claim on a poor country's resources but then uses them badly.
The state's cage
It is not unusual for a country's bureaucrats and politicians to be less efficient than its businesspeople; and the Indian civil servant, with his forms in triplicate, has been a caricature for so long that it is easy to forget the impossibility of many of the jobs involved (see article). But India's 10m-strong civil service is the size of a small country, and its unreformed public sector is a huge barrier to two things a growing population needs. The first is a faster rate of sustainable growth: the government's debts and its infrastructure failings set a lower-than-necessary speed-limit for the economy. The second is to spread the fruits of a growing economy to India's poor. By the government's own admission, most development spending fails to reach its intended recipients."
Similar threads appear in the discussion India: The Emerging Giant briefly discussed here.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Bumper crop
From Times of India:
" The extent to which desis have made an impact in the US was reeled off in the Rajya Sabha — as many as 12% scientists and 38% doctors in the US are Indians, and in Nasa, 36% or almost 4 out of 10 scientists are Indians.
If that's not proof enough of Indian scientific and corporate prowess, digest this: 34% employees at Microsoft, 28% at IBM, 17% at Intel and 13% at Xerox are Indians."
True?
P.S. Seems to be wrong:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Indians_in_NASA_Govt_falls_for_net_hoax/articleshow/2856295.cms
" The extent to which desis have made an impact in the US was reeled off in the Rajya Sabha — as many as 12% scientists and 38% doctors in the US are Indians, and in Nasa, 36% or almost 4 out of 10 scientists are Indians.
If that's not proof enough of Indian scientific and corporate prowess, digest this: 34% employees at Microsoft, 28% at IBM, 17% at Intel and 13% at Xerox are Indians."
True?
P.S. Seems to be wrong:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Indians_in_NASA_Govt_falls_for_net_hoax/articleshow/2856295.cms
Sunday, March 09, 2008
First 20/20 game?
This Cricinfo story about Usman Qadir links to the score card of a 20/20 exhibition match between India and Pakistan: 18-ball63 in which Sachin Tendulkar scored a 18-ball 63 but India lost the match.
Fear of snakes
What does this video tell us about the fear of snakes? This is from a discussion in Evo.Psych. group where this example was considered as a proof that humans have no instinctive fear of snakes. I thnk that, as usual, the problem is more complex.
Susan Mineka has pubished papers since 1980 on this topic. A short description of her experiments is here: "Mineka, along with University of Wisconsin psychologist Michael Cook, put the theory to a test in six rhesus monkeys. Reared in the lab, the animals had no prior exposure to snakes. The psychologists showed a videotape of wild-reared monkeys reacting with horror to snakes. Within 24 minutes, the lab monkeys acquired a fear of snakes.
The psychologists then edited fake flowers, a toy snake, a toy rabbit, and a toy crocodile into the video. Tests later showed that after 40 to 60 seconds of exposure to each object, the monkeys feared only the toy snakes and crocodiles."This work is also described by Matt Ridley in 'Nature via Nurture' Here is a recent
http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/peterson/psy334/Ohman%20A%20Malicious%20Serpe\
nt%20Current%20Directions%202003.pdf
paper on the topic by Susan Mineka and Arne Ohman.
P.S. The last link does not seem to work. Googling under 'The Malicious Serpent: Snakes as a Prototypical Stimulus ' sometimes gives the link. The paper appeared i 'Current Directions in Psychological Science', vol. 12, issue 1, pages 5-9, February 2003. Abstract here.
Susan Mineka has pubished papers since 1980 on this topic. A short description of her experiments is here: "Mineka, along with University of Wisconsin psychologist Michael Cook, put the theory to a test in six rhesus monkeys. Reared in the lab, the animals had no prior exposure to snakes. The psychologists showed a videotape of wild-reared monkeys reacting with horror to snakes. Within 24 minutes, the lab monkeys acquired a fear of snakes.
The psychologists then edited fake flowers, a toy snake, a toy rabbit, and a toy crocodile into the video. Tests later showed that after 40 to 60 seconds of exposure to each object, the monkeys feared only the toy snakes and crocodiles."This work is also described by Matt Ridley in 'Nature via Nurture' Here is a recent
http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/peterson/psy334/Ohman%20A%20Malicious%20Serpe\
nt%20Current%20Directions%202003.pdf
paper on the topic by Susan Mineka and Arne Ohman.
P.S. The last link does not seem to work. Googling under 'The Malicious Serpent: Snakes as a Prototypical Stimulus ' sometimes gives the link. The paper appeared i 'Current Directions in Psychological Science', vol. 12, issue 1, pages 5-9, February 2003. Abstract here.
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Some old telugu songs
On a recent trip to Andhra, I acquired some old telugu songs through some kind acquintances. I do not remember many of them or their background (year, lyricist, private or film song etc). I like most of the songs as well as the lyrics and it would be nice to know more about them. But the purpose here is to bring to the attention of other Telugus some old songs which seem nice to me. Some of these may be available in the standard sites. Here is a first list.
'Pasidi merugungula thalathalalu' by P.Bhanumati and B.Rajanikantharao
'ekkevura' by B.Rajanikantharao(sounds like a bhatiyali)
"Dorikenamma vennadonga' by Chittaranjan
"Chaligaali veechindi' by Videhi (sounds like Rao Balasaraswati Devi}
"Evaru Thandri' by A.V.Savithi
'Oopare oopai vuyyala' by H.Hemavathi
'Adunu dachina vayasulo' by M.S. Ramarao
'Chekku chedarani paapa' by M.S. Ramarao
'Cheli talupu muyagane' by M.S. Ramarao
'Eteru ninu cheredo' by M.S. Ramarao
'Nalo korkelu intele' by M.S. Ramarao
'Ninnakkada nedikkada' by M.S. Ramarao
'Pongeti chandana'by M.S. Ramarao
'thandanan bhala thandanana' by M.S. Ramarao
'ee samudra thatana' by M.S. Ramarao
'Pasidi merugungula thalathalalu' by P.Bhanumati and B.Rajanikantharao
'ekkevura' by B.Rajanikantharao(sounds like a bhatiyali)
"Dorikenamma vennadonga' by Chittaranjan
"Chaligaali veechindi' by Videhi (sounds like Rao Balasaraswati Devi}
"Evaru Thandri' by A.V.Savithi
'Oopare oopai vuyyala' by H.Hemavathi
'Adunu dachina vayasulo' by M.S. Ramarao
'Chekku chedarani paapa' by M.S. Ramarao
'Cheli talupu muyagane' by M.S. Ramarao
'Eteru ninu cheredo' by M.S. Ramarao
'Nalo korkelu intele' by M.S. Ramarao
'Ninnakkada nedikkada' by M.S. Ramarao
'Pongeti chandana'by M.S. Ramarao
'thandanan bhala thandanana' by M.S. Ramarao
'ee samudra thatana' by M.S. Ramarao
Thursday, March 06, 2008
High praise from Charles Darwin
Through Dilip D'Souza' blog Death Ends Fun, I came across this wonderful article-review of Henry Walter Bates's "The Naturalist on the River Amazons." Among other things ALEX SHOUMATOFF discusses the work of Wallace and has this passage quoting Darwin's comments: "Darwin urged Bates to write a memoir of his years in the Amazon and introduced him to the publisher John Murray, and in 1863 Murray brought out Bates's "The Naturalist on the River Amazons." (Bates preferred a literal translation of the river's Portuguese name, Rio Amazonas. The Amazons were a legendary female tribe said to have attacked the first Europeans to navigate the river.) The book was a tremendous success. It went through many editions and was translated into several languages. Darwin wrote Bates, "It is the best work of Natural History Travels ever published in England. Your style seems to me admirable. Nothing can be better than the discussion on the struggle for existence, and nothing better than the description of the Forest scenery. It is a grand book, and whether or not it sells quickly, it will last." John Gould, the American ornithologist and bird painter, who had been yearning to go to the Amazon, wrote, "Bates, I have read your book-I've seen the Amazons." Bates, typically, deprecated the achievement. He said he would rather spend another eleven years in the jungle than have to go through the ordeal of writing another book".
More ALEX SHOUMATOFF's dispatches here.
More ALEX SHOUMATOFF's dispatches here.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Another resource curse?
Chris Blattman has an interesting discussion on the article 'Oil, Islam and Women' by Michael Ross. Excerpt:
"If you ignore oil, Islam tends to be associated (statistically) with poor women’s rights. After accounting for oil, that Islam-women’s rights correlation goes away. Variation in oil production seems to explain much of the variation in women’s rights within the Middle East, as well as between the Middle East and the rest of the world."
I was reminded of Srinivasulu's paper Caste, Class and Social Articulation in Andhra Pradesh.. which suggested that the prosperity from the 'green revolution' paved the way for class conflicts in some regions and caste conflicts in others. Blattman concludes "Short story: programs seeking to increase worker wages and rights in the developing world (an important cause) may have need to strike a careful balance between rights and wages for a few now, versus rights and wages for many later. This is yet another example of the conundrums that makes the process of development so complex, difficult, and ethically vexing."
"If you ignore oil, Islam tends to be associated (statistically) with poor women’s rights. After accounting for oil, that Islam-women’s rights correlation goes away. Variation in oil production seems to explain much of the variation in women’s rights within the Middle East, as well as between the Middle East and the rest of the world."
I was reminded of Srinivasulu's paper Caste, Class and Social Articulation in Andhra Pradesh.. which suggested that the prosperity from the 'green revolution' paved the way for class conflicts in some regions and caste conflicts in others. Blattman concludes "Short story: programs seeking to increase worker wages and rights in the developing world (an important cause) may have need to strike a careful balance between rights and wages for a few now, versus rights and wages for many later. This is yet another example of the conundrums that makes the process of development so complex, difficult, and ethically vexing."
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Media and information
From Ethan Zuckerman's post Ted2008: Alisa Miller on Media Attention:
"The map is striking, and gets a round of applause immediately. It’s dominated by the US - which got 79% of news minutes - and by Iraq. Attention to India, Russia and China totalled less than 1% of stories. She points out that there were amazing international stories, including Indonesian flooding, international evidence of global warming, North Korean nuclear crises… and basically nothing but Iraq got picked up.
....Unfortunately, Miller sees similarities in internet news as well - the top 24 stories on network news were the same ones studies saw on Google and Yahoo News."
Here is Alisa Miller's presentation. This type of distortion seems naural, for example, I would guess that India's small farmers will be more concerned with and have time only news about weather, prizes of seeds, pesticides, government programmes etc than global news even if it affects them sooner or later. What is more worrying is too much information, wrong information, conflicting information or information to promote policies of interest to certain groups. Even internet and blogs do not seem to be free from this. Chris Blattman's post The Bloggy Way links a picture in which there are a few thousand core blogs (Chris Blattman changes this to 'about a thousand')and other blogging communities connect to the core in one-way links. Zuckerman has also another post in his wonderful Ted 2008 posts about 'how much do people trust the media, old or new, and how does the media shape our view of the world.' Daniel Gilbert has an interesting comment:
"Gilbert is worried about people’s capacity to consume bad news. He offers an analogy to people’s eating habits: We know people have an unlimited appetite for fat and sugar. We evolved that way. We don’t want to take away anyone’s right to make high-fat icecream. The government has tried to level the playing field - information labels on food. We need to do as much for our information diet as we do for our physical diet. (This is an excellent idea, and something we’re trying to do at Berkman in the next few months - stay tuned.)"
"The map is striking, and gets a round of applause immediately. It’s dominated by the US - which got 79% of news minutes - and by Iraq. Attention to India, Russia and China totalled less than 1% of stories. She points out that there were amazing international stories, including Indonesian flooding, international evidence of global warming, North Korean nuclear crises… and basically nothing but Iraq got picked up.
....Unfortunately, Miller sees similarities in internet news as well - the top 24 stories on network news were the same ones studies saw on Google and Yahoo News."
Here is Alisa Miller's presentation. This type of distortion seems naural, for example, I would guess that India's small farmers will be more concerned with and have time only news about weather, prizes of seeds, pesticides, government programmes etc than global news even if it affects them sooner or later. What is more worrying is too much information, wrong information, conflicting information or information to promote policies of interest to certain groups. Even internet and blogs do not seem to be free from this. Chris Blattman's post The Bloggy Way links a picture in which there are a few thousand core blogs (Chris Blattman changes this to 'about a thousand')and other blogging communities connect to the core in one-way links. Zuckerman has also another post in his wonderful Ted 2008 posts about 'how much do people trust the media, old or new, and how does the media shape our view of the world.' Daniel Gilbert has an interesting comment:
"Gilbert is worried about people’s capacity to consume bad news. He offers an analogy to people’s eating habits: We know people have an unlimited appetite for fat and sugar. We evolved that way. We don’t want to take away anyone’s right to make high-fat icecream. The government has tried to level the playing field - information labels on food. We need to do as much for our information diet as we do for our physical diet. (This is an excellent idea, and something we’re trying to do at Berkman in the next few months - stay tuned.)"
Saul Alinsky, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama
I have not been paying much attention to the US primaries but Dreams from Obama gives the impression that Obama may be a different type of leader.
From today's Age articleby Guy Rundle:
"Clinton's bad luck was to be a candidate of the 1960s, or more particularly of the whole postwar period of confidence and forward-looking that crashed sometime around the late '70s. What made the '50s and '60s more similar than different — and what makes Clinton closer in many ways to John McCain than to Obama — was a belief that history was moving forward, that people were capable of shaping their collective destiny. This optimism was grounded in the fact that people's lives were still set within solid social connections: work, neighbourhood, unions, church and much more. Clinton's message presumes both that optimistic spirit, and that her audience has a reasonable grasp of how society works, a picture of it in their head.
Obama is of a different era, and he is talking to a different world. Most importantly, he knows it. Having trained as a community organiser in the southside Chicago group founded by the legendary organiser Saul Alinsky, he understands what has happened to the American public in the past 20 years. Put simply, society has collapsed, and with it, many people's sense of connection to others, and their ability to see themselves as an active force in their own world.
Alinsky taught that, before any political organisation of such people can take place, their sense of possibility must be revived, that they must be reached at their point of despair. Thus, what sounds like homily to the ears of a more professional political audience — "there is a time in history and the time is now, the fierce urgency of the present" and so on — is news to the vast numbers who have long felt that society is something that happens outside them, that they are simply a human surplus.
There is no need to specify a detailed program to them, because it is implicit in what "hope" is — of a health system where people are not sent home to die of easily curable diseases, of a minimum wage that is liveable, affordable study, an end to meaningless wars, and more.
It wouldn't matter what Clinton put up against this, or how good her organisation was, she simply doesn't have anything to match it."
From the Wikipedia article on Saul Alinsky:
"Alinsky was the subject of Hillary Rodham's senior honors thesis at Wellesley College, "There Is Only The Fight...": An Analysis of the Alinsky Model.[8] Rodham commented on Alinsky's "charm," but rejected grassroots community organizing as outdated. Once Hillary Rodham Clinton became First Lady of the United States, the thesis was suppressed by the White House for fear of being associated too closely with Alinsky's ideas.[9]
Alinsky also had a significant influence on Barack Obama, who is a United States Senator and candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.[8] Obama particularly used Alinsky's techniques while participating in Chicago community organizations in the 1980s."
From today's Age articleby Guy Rundle:
"Clinton's bad luck was to be a candidate of the 1960s, or more particularly of the whole postwar period of confidence and forward-looking that crashed sometime around the late '70s. What made the '50s and '60s more similar than different — and what makes Clinton closer in many ways to John McCain than to Obama — was a belief that history was moving forward, that people were capable of shaping their collective destiny. This optimism was grounded in the fact that people's lives were still set within solid social connections: work, neighbourhood, unions, church and much more. Clinton's message presumes both that optimistic spirit, and that her audience has a reasonable grasp of how society works, a picture of it in their head.
Obama is of a different era, and he is talking to a different world. Most importantly, he knows it. Having trained as a community organiser in the southside Chicago group founded by the legendary organiser Saul Alinsky, he understands what has happened to the American public in the past 20 years. Put simply, society has collapsed, and with it, many people's sense of connection to others, and their ability to see themselves as an active force in their own world.
Alinsky taught that, before any political organisation of such people can take place, their sense of possibility must be revived, that they must be reached at their point of despair. Thus, what sounds like homily to the ears of a more professional political audience — "there is a time in history and the time is now, the fierce urgency of the present" and so on — is news to the vast numbers who have long felt that society is something that happens outside them, that they are simply a human surplus.
There is no need to specify a detailed program to them, because it is implicit in what "hope" is — of a health system where people are not sent home to die of easily curable diseases, of a minimum wage that is liveable, affordable study, an end to meaningless wars, and more.
It wouldn't matter what Clinton put up against this, or how good her organisation was, she simply doesn't have anything to match it."
From the Wikipedia article on Saul Alinsky:
"Alinsky was the subject of Hillary Rodham's senior honors thesis at Wellesley College, "There Is Only The Fight...": An Analysis of the Alinsky Model.[8] Rodham commented on Alinsky's "charm," but rejected grassroots community organizing as outdated. Once Hillary Rodham Clinton became First Lady of the United States, the thesis was suppressed by the White House for fear of being associated too closely with Alinsky's ideas.[9]
Alinsky also had a significant influence on Barack Obama, who is a United States Senator and candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.[8] Obama particularly used Alinsky's techniques while participating in Chicago community organizations in the 1980s."
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Hinglaj
seems to be a meeting place of many threads ancient and modern. I came to know of Hinglaj through Lalita's post which owes a bit to my friend Kalyan's wonderful memory. From the Wikipedia article on Hinglaj: "Despite the partition and the increasing Islamic stance of the Pakistani Government and society, Hinglaj has survived and is in fact revered by local Muslims who call it 'Nani ki Mandir'. Muslims offer red or saffron clothes, incense, candles and a sweet preparation called 'Sirini' to the deity. The Muslims protected sites like Hinglaj which are the last vestiges of the Hindu society which once straddled the area.
Hingula means cinnabar (HgS Mercuric Sulphide). It was used in ancient India to cure snakebite and other poisonings and is still employed in traditional medicine. The Goddess Hingula is thus believed to possess powers which can cure poisoning and other diseases. The Muslim name 'Nani' is an abbreviation of the name of the ancient Goddess "Nanaia", whose Persian name is "Anahita"."
Some articles say that it is possibly a pre-Hindu place of worship. Lalita also links to this informative article on the connections to Bengal through a travelogue, a film and possibly due the presence a number of shaktipeethas in Bengal. Here are some wonderful photographs of a trip from Pakistan Animal Welfare Society and earlier photos from BBC News. Note the last one on bonded labourers.
Hingula means cinnabar (HgS Mercuric Sulphide). It was used in ancient India to cure snakebite and other poisonings and is still employed in traditional medicine. The Goddess Hingula is thus believed to possess powers which can cure poisoning and other diseases. The Muslim name 'Nani' is an abbreviation of the name of the ancient Goddess "Nanaia", whose Persian name is "Anahita"."
Some articles say that it is possibly a pre-Hindu place of worship. Lalita also links to this informative article on the connections to Bengal through a travelogue, a film and possibly due the presence a number of shaktipeethas in Bengal. Here are some wonderful photographs of a trip from Pakistan Animal Welfare Society and earlier photos from BBC News. Note the last one on bonded labourers.
Raguram Rajan's overview of Indian economic development
from ADB LLectures(via Bayesianheresy). From the concluding remarks of India: The Past and Its Future:
"Let me conclude with lessons I draw from India’s highly regulated past. First, India’s past policies relating to science and education, no matter how distorted, gave it capabilities in skilled manufacturing and in services, where its comparative advantage now lies. India should not sacrifice this advantage in a blind attempt to follow the East Asian path of unskilled, labor-intensive manufacturing. In particular, it should remove distortions that hold back its areas of strength: the overregulated higher education system and the sclerotic legal system. But it also needs to remove the disincentives for the creation of unskilled jobs, not just by getting rid of archaic job protection while building a genuine safety net for all workers, but also by improving infrastructure, especially in laggard states and rural areas so that they connect better to the larger economy.
Second, the government cannot simply legislate outcomes or achieve them by offering resources or subsidies, especially as the economy becomes more market-oriented. Indeed, such direction can be counterproductive. What the government intends and what materializes can be very different because of the way people react to policy. The government must focus instead on getting the environment right, and thus spread opportunity.
Third, the government, by and large, will not refocus in a vacuum. I do not believe that there will be a revolutionary change in government attitudes, because Indian society is not ready for it. Instead, I see a more evolutionary change⎯as more and more people in India obtain access and see opportunity in the market economy, they will press for a more enabling government, and Indian democracy will respond. The sooner this happens though⎯and reformers in government can play a role here in expanding access⎯the better it will be for India. For better governance and wider opportunity, rather than turning back from market-oriented reforms, will be the way to social justice and a more prosperous, fairer, India."
Bayesianheresy also links to Shanta Devarajan's post on "Why is service delivery particularly poor in India?". Excerpt:"First, especially compared with Bangladesh, India is an extremely heterogeneous society, with many castes, ethnic groups, languages and religions. There is some evidence that polarized societies find it more difficult to build political support for public goods. Second, to the extent that these services are transactions-intensive (a teacher has to spend time with students, docthttp://kufr.blogspot.com/2008/01/more-socialist-than-swedes.html#linksors with patients), caste or other differences may stand in the way of publicly-provided services working for some people. Low-caste people, for instance, have been excluded from some public schools and public clinics. They are able to obtain services in the private sector—because they pay for these services. Paradoxically, therefore, the fact that the Indian government mandated free and universal public education and health, and decided to finance and provide it from the public sector, may be the reason poor people are largely obtaining these services in the private sector."
P.S.(29th. Feb.) See Kuffir's response to Shanta Devarajan's post.And more here.
"Let me conclude with lessons I draw from India’s highly regulated past. First, India’s past policies relating to science and education, no matter how distorted, gave it capabilities in skilled manufacturing and in services, where its comparative advantage now lies. India should not sacrifice this advantage in a blind attempt to follow the East Asian path of unskilled, labor-intensive manufacturing. In particular, it should remove distortions that hold back its areas of strength: the overregulated higher education system and the sclerotic legal system. But it also needs to remove the disincentives for the creation of unskilled jobs, not just by getting rid of archaic job protection while building a genuine safety net for all workers, but also by improving infrastructure, especially in laggard states and rural areas so that they connect better to the larger economy.
Second, the government cannot simply legislate outcomes or achieve them by offering resources or subsidies, especially as the economy becomes more market-oriented. Indeed, such direction can be counterproductive. What the government intends and what materializes can be very different because of the way people react to policy. The government must focus instead on getting the environment right, and thus spread opportunity.
Third, the government, by and large, will not refocus in a vacuum. I do not believe that there will be a revolutionary change in government attitudes, because Indian society is not ready for it. Instead, I see a more evolutionary change⎯as more and more people in India obtain access and see opportunity in the market economy, they will press for a more enabling government, and Indian democracy will respond. The sooner this happens though⎯and reformers in government can play a role here in expanding access⎯the better it will be for India. For better governance and wider opportunity, rather than turning back from market-oriented reforms, will be the way to social justice and a more prosperous, fairer, India."
Bayesianheresy also links to Shanta Devarajan's post on "Why is service delivery particularly poor in India?". Excerpt:"First, especially compared with Bangladesh, India is an extremely heterogeneous society, with many castes, ethnic groups, languages and religions. There is some evidence that polarized societies find it more difficult to build political support for public goods. Second, to the extent that these services are transactions-intensive (a teacher has to spend time with students, docthttp://kufr.blogspot.com/2008/01/more-socialist-than-swedes.html#linksors with patients), caste or other differences may stand in the way of publicly-provided services working for some people. Low-caste people, for instance, have been excluded from some public schools and public clinics. They are able to obtain services in the private sector—because they pay for these services. Paradoxically, therefore, the fact that the Indian government mandated free and universal public education and health, and decided to finance and provide it from the public sector, may be the reason poor people are largely obtaining these services in the private sector."
P.S.(29th. Feb.) See Kuffir's response to Shanta Devarajan's post.And more here.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
LanguageLog urges caution
while reading science articles and reports.From an article on Nature nurture studies of ToM:
"Theory of mind is a term introduced by Premack and Woodruff (1978) to refer to a set of abilities that may be uniquely human: to attribute mental states such as beliefs, knowledge and emotions to self and others; to recognize that the mental states of others many differ from one's own; to use these attributed states to explain and predict behavior; and to predict how such mental states would be affected by hypothetical actions.
....there are many reasons to be interested in "twin studies" that are designed to tease apart the genetic and environmental influences on ToM abilities. And if such studies are set up to distinguish ToM abilities from general verbal abilities, so much the better.
Unfortunately, as we've mentioned a number of times recently, such studies are quite difficult to interpret. And in the course of looking for something else, I recently stumbled over a really suprising example of these problems.
....
I'm going to leave the detailed analysis for another post. But today, I want to set the stage by quoting the quantitative conclusions of two studies with the same first author, published six years apart, which used the same experimental design (ToM and verbal IQ tests on monozygotic vs. dizogotic twins) and the same statistical method (analysis of variance), but came up with radically different estimates of the genetic contribution to individual differences in ToM abilities."
"Theory of mind is a term introduced by Premack and Woodruff (1978) to refer to a set of abilities that may be uniquely human: to attribute mental states such as beliefs, knowledge and emotions to self and others; to recognize that the mental states of others many differ from one's own; to use these attributed states to explain and predict behavior; and to predict how such mental states would be affected by hypothetical actions.
....there are many reasons to be interested in "twin studies" that are designed to tease apart the genetic and environmental influences on ToM abilities. And if such studies are set up to distinguish ToM abilities from general verbal abilities, so much the better.
Unfortunately, as we've mentioned a number of times recently, such studies are quite difficult to interpret. And in the course of looking for something else, I recently stumbled over a really suprising example of these problems.
....
I'm going to leave the detailed analysis for another post. But today, I want to set the stage by quoting the quantitative conclusions of two studies with the same first author, published six years apart, which used the same experimental design (ToM and verbal IQ tests on monozygotic vs. dizogotic twins) and the same statistical method (analysis of variance), but came up with radically different estimates of the genetic contribution to individual differences in ToM abilities."
Change in play, change in kids
Alix Spiegel in Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills(via Evo. Psych. discussion group):
"But during the second half of the 20th century, Chudacoff argues, play changed radically. Instead of spending their time in autonomous shifting make-believe, children were supplied with ever more specific toys for play and predetermined scripts. Essentially, instead of playing pirate with a tree branch they played Star Wars with a toy light saber. Chudacoff calls this the commercialization and co-optation of child's play — a trend which begins to shrink the size of children's imaginative space.
But commercialization isn't the only reason imagination comes under siege. In the second half of the 20th century, Chudacoff says, parents became increasingly concerned about safety, and were driven to create play environments that were secure and could not be penetrated by threats of the outside world. Karate classes, gymnastics, summer camps — these create safe environments for children, Chudacoff says. And they also do something more: for middle-class parents increasingly worried about achievement, they offer to enrich a child's mind.
Change in Play, Change in Kids
Clearly the way that children spend their time has changed. Here's the issue: A growing number of psychologists believe that these changes in what children do has also changed kids' cognitive and emotional development.It turns out that all that time spent playing make-believe actually helped children develop a critical cognitive skill called executive function. Executive function has a number of different elements, but a central one is the ability to self-regulate. Kids with good self-regulation are able to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline.
....
Sad because self-regulation is incredibly important. Poor executive function is associated with high dropout rates, drug use and crime. In fact, good executive function is a better predictor of success in school than a child's IQ."
And much more.
See also Getting Serious About Play.
"But during the second half of the 20th century, Chudacoff argues, play changed radically. Instead of spending their time in autonomous shifting make-believe, children were supplied with ever more specific toys for play and predetermined scripts. Essentially, instead of playing pirate with a tree branch they played Star Wars with a toy light saber. Chudacoff calls this the commercialization and co-optation of child's play — a trend which begins to shrink the size of children's imaginative space.
But commercialization isn't the only reason imagination comes under siege. In the second half of the 20th century, Chudacoff says, parents became increasingly concerned about safety, and were driven to create play environments that were secure and could not be penetrated by threats of the outside world. Karate classes, gymnastics, summer camps — these create safe environments for children, Chudacoff says. And they also do something more: for middle-class parents increasingly worried about achievement, they offer to enrich a child's mind.
Change in Play, Change in Kids
Clearly the way that children spend their time has changed. Here's the issue: A growing number of psychologists believe that these changes in what children do has also changed kids' cognitive and emotional development.It turns out that all that time spent playing make-believe actually helped children develop a critical cognitive skill called executive function. Executive function has a number of different elements, but a central one is the ability to self-regulate. Kids with good self-regulation are able to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline.
....
Sad because self-regulation is incredibly important. Poor executive function is associated with high dropout rates, drug use and crime. In fact, good executive function is a better predictor of success in school than a child's IQ."
And much more.
See also Getting Serious About Play.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Economics of regret
From Learning with Regret:
"Marchiori and Warglien used neural network models that incorporate "regret" to predict the outcomes of games played by humans. In this context, regret refers to the difference between outcomes attained and the best outcomes that might have been attained if the actor had chosen differently. The models' predictions are based not on conventional, forward-looking expectations of gain, the notion so long at the heart of economic theorizing, but instead on the action propensities that develop through a backward-looking learning process that is driven by regret.
This is an important step in the development of a workable new synthesis. Marchiori and Warglien show that a very simple, parameter-free model can do an excellent job of fitting the long-run tendencies of players in 21 different economic gaming experiments."
Abstract of the Marchiori-Warglien paper here. Unfortunately both the papers need subscription.
"Marchiori and Warglien used neural network models that incorporate "regret" to predict the outcomes of games played by humans. In this context, regret refers to the difference between outcomes attained and the best outcomes that might have been attained if the actor had chosen differently. The models' predictions are based not on conventional, forward-looking expectations of gain, the notion so long at the heart of economic theorizing, but instead on the action propensities that develop through a backward-looking learning process that is driven by regret.
This is an important step in the development of a workable new synthesis. Marchiori and Warglien show that a very simple, parameter-free model can do an excellent job of fitting the long-run tendencies of players in 21 different economic gaming experiments."
Abstract of the Marchiori-Warglien paper here. Unfortunately both the papers need subscription.
Social interaction
Abstract of Mental Exercising Through Simple Socializing: Social Interaction Promotes General Cognitive Functioning:
"Social interaction is a central feature of people’s life and engages a variety of cognitive resources. Thus, social interaction should facilitate general cognitive functioning. Previous studies suggest such a link, but they used special populations (e.g., elderly with cognitive impairment), measured social interaction indirectly (e.g., via marital status), and only assessed effects of extended interaction in correlational designs. Here the relationbetween mental functioning and direct indicators of social interaction was examined in a younger and healthier population. Study 1 using survey methodology found a positive relationship between social interaction, assessed via amount of actual social contact, and cognitive functioning in people from three age groups including younger adults. Study 2 using an experimental design found that a small amount of social interaction (10 min) can facilitate cognitive performance. The findings are discussed in the context of the benefits social relationships have for so many aspects of people’s lives."
While the results are appealing, they seem to be depend on the choice of indicators for social interaction and cognitive performance. As the authors say towards the end "One issue that remains unclear from the present research is whether all types of social interaction can have a positive effect on cognitive performance. Some available research, although varying in method from the present research, suggests that some social interactions can be cognitively depleting (Finkel et al., 2006; Richeson & Trawalter, 2005; Richeson, Trawalter, &Shelton, 2005). For example, using a measure of inhibition, Richeson et al. (2005) showed that individualshigh in prejudice or who had concerns about being viewed as prejudiced were worse at inhibiting interfering responses on a Stroop task."
Another paper The effect of hours of work on social interaction on the decline of special types of social interaction has drawn several comments here and here."
"Social interaction is a central feature of people’s life and engages a variety of cognitive resources. Thus, social interaction should facilitate general cognitive functioning. Previous studies suggest such a link, but they used special populations (e.g., elderly with cognitive impairment), measured social interaction indirectly (e.g., via marital status), and only assessed effects of extended interaction in correlational designs. Here the relationbetween mental functioning and direct indicators of social interaction was examined in a younger and healthier population. Study 1 using survey methodology found a positive relationship between social interaction, assessed via amount of actual social contact, and cognitive functioning in people from three age groups including younger adults. Study 2 using an experimental design found that a small amount of social interaction (10 min) can facilitate cognitive performance. The findings are discussed in the context of the benefits social relationships have for so many aspects of people’s lives."
While the results are appealing, they seem to be depend on the choice of indicators for social interaction and cognitive performance. As the authors say towards the end "One issue that remains unclear from the present research is whether all types of social interaction can have a positive effect on cognitive performance. Some available research, although varying in method from the present research, suggests that some social interactions can be cognitively depleting (Finkel et al., 2006; Richeson & Trawalter, 2005; Richeson, Trawalter, &Shelton, 2005). For example, using a measure of inhibition, Richeson et al. (2005) showed that individualshigh in prejudice or who had concerns about being viewed as prejudiced were worse at inhibiting interfering responses on a Stroop task."
Another paper The effect of hours of work on social interaction on the decline of special types of social interaction has drawn several comments here and here."
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Very Very Special
From Outlook:
"Hyderabad franchise too had wanted VVS Laxman as their icon player before withdrawing the demand a day before the players' auction. "Laxman has been named the captain of the Hyderabad team. He put the team interest before his own and gave away the icon status (which the franchise owners had demanded from the IPL Governing Council) as he wanted Hyderabad to have a larger budget (for buying players). He showed fine sportsman's spirit," P K Iyer, the managing director of franchise owners Deccan Chronicle, said after buying the veteran cricketer for USD 375,000."
Peter Roebuck: Franchises best for game in decline.
"Hyderabad franchise too had wanted VVS Laxman as their icon player before withdrawing the demand a day before the players' auction. "Laxman has been named the captain of the Hyderabad team. He put the team interest before his own and gave away the icon status (which the franchise owners had demanded from the IPL Governing Council) as he wanted Hyderabad to have a larger budget (for buying players). He showed fine sportsman's spirit," P K Iyer, the managing director of franchise owners Deccan Chronicle, said after buying the veteran cricketer for USD 375,000."
Peter Roebuck: Franchises best for game in decline.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Abbas Raza writes about
Muhammad Ali. There are lots of links and poem (apparently Ali describing how he prepared for the 'rumble in the jungle')that I did not know:
"I have wrestled with an alligator,
I have tussled with a whale,
I have handcuffed lighting,
Thrown thunder in jail.
Yesterday, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick.
I'm so mean I make medicine sick!"
"I have wrestled with an alligator,
I have tussled with a whale,
I have handcuffed lighting,
Thrown thunder in jail.
Yesterday, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick.
I'm so mean I make medicine sick!"
Special issue on cities
in Sciencemagazine. Unfortunately the articles need subscription, but one can read the abstracts by clicking on some of the the articles. For example, clicking on Urbanization and the Wealth of Nations gives:
"Urbanization and the Wealth of Nations
David E. Bloom,* David Canning, Günther Fink
The proportion of a country's population living in urban areas is highly correlated with its level of income. Urban areas offer economies of scale and richer market structures, and there is strong evidence that workers in urban areas are individually more productive, and earn more, than rural workers. However, rapid urbanization is also associated with crowding, environmental degradation, and other impediments to productivity. Overall, we find no evidence that the level of urbanization affects the rate of economic growth. Our findings weaken the rationale for either encouraging or discouraging urbanization as part of a strategy for economic growth. "
and Urbanization and the Wealth of NationsGlobal Change and the Ecology of Cities gives:
"Global Change and the Ecology of Cities
Nancy B. Grimm,1* Stanley H. Faeth,1 Nancy E. Golubiewski,2 Charles L. Redman,3 Jianguo Wu,1,3 Xuemei Bai,4 John M. Briggs1
Urban areas are hot spots that drive environmental change at multiple scales. Material demands of production and human consumption alter land use and cover, biodiversity, and hydrosystems locally to regionally, and urban waste discharge affects local to global biogeochemical cycles and climate. For urbanites, however, global environmental changes are swamped by dramatic changes in the local environment. Urban ecology integrates natural and social sciences to study these radically altered local environments and their regional and global effects. Cities themselves present both the problems and solutions to sustainability challenges of an increasingly urbanized world. "
"Urbanization and the Wealth of Nations
David E. Bloom,* David Canning, Günther Fink
The proportion of a country's population living in urban areas is highly correlated with its level of income. Urban areas offer economies of scale and richer market structures, and there is strong evidence that workers in urban areas are individually more productive, and earn more, than rural workers. However, rapid urbanization is also associated with crowding, environmental degradation, and other impediments to productivity. Overall, we find no evidence that the level of urbanization affects the rate of economic growth. Our findings weaken the rationale for either encouraging or discouraging urbanization as part of a strategy for economic growth. "
and Urbanization and the Wealth of NationsGlobal Change and the Ecology of Cities gives:
"Global Change and the Ecology of Cities
Nancy B. Grimm,1* Stanley H. Faeth,1 Nancy E. Golubiewski,2 Charles L. Redman,3 Jianguo Wu,1,3 Xuemei Bai,4 John M. Briggs1
Urban areas are hot spots that drive environmental change at multiple scales. Material demands of production and human consumption alter land use and cover, biodiversity, and hydrosystems locally to regionally, and urban waste discharge affects local to global biogeochemical cycles and climate. For urbanites, however, global environmental changes are swamped by dramatic changes in the local environment. Urban ecology integrates natural and social sciences to study these radically altered local environments and their regional and global effects. Cities themselves present both the problems and solutions to sustainability challenges of an increasingly urbanized world. "
Monday, February 18, 2008
Patterns in corruption
Michael Moynihan writes about Ben Olken's work in 'The American' (via The Bayesian Heresy):
"In his paper “The Simple Economics of Extortion,” co-written with Patrick Barron of the World Bank, Olken again traveled to Indonesia to study “if the way in which we think about pricing for firms also applies to corrupt officials.” In other words, do the crooked respond to market forces in the way a corporation would? To test this, Olken and Barron looked at the number of roadside checkpoints—which act, essentially, as illegal toll booths where the motorist is required to pay a bribe—in Aceh, a region on the northwestern tip of Sumatra long engaged in a guerilla war with separatist rebels.
“I looked at what happens when there is a change in the number of checkpoints along the road in Aceh. When I started data collection, you had to stop at, say, 90 checkpoints along a 600-kilometer route,” Olken says. “A lot of the checkpoints were associated with the military occupation. But when the peace agreement was signed [in 2005], the military pulled out, and the number of checkpoints declined. The question is: how do the prices at the remaining checkpoints change?”
There are three theories on how prices are set, he says. Is the bribe purely the product of cultural norms, influenced by customs specific to the region? Is the bribe simply an individual transaction, not affected by culture? Or is the bribe economy embedded within a bigger market? “Just as if there was a firm running a toll booth,” Olken says, “the firm would balance off how much revenue they are getting from the tolls, versus the fact that if they were charging more for the tolls there would be fewer cars driving through; they’ll be making an optimal trade-off. So, in fact, that bribe is the equilibrium of a firm’s price-setting decision.”
Olken and Barron found that when the number of checkpoints decreases, prices increase: “So it looks like the guys are behaving like a firm would behave.”
So what does all of this mean to institutions, like the World Bank, struggling against endemic corruption? There is often an understandable desire to go after “the big fish” in corrupt societies, thus making an example of those whose pockets are fullest. “What this paper shows is that there is a potential cost of doing it that way. If corruption is decentralized, the model predicts that the total amount of bribes is going to be higher than if there was a single, centralized person coordinating all the checkpoints.” Such results have broad implications for countries mired in corruption: “One policy that has been advocated in a lot of countries is simplifying the process of business registration. This theory predicts that that would be a good thing to do in reducing corruption because you would be moving from a decentralized corruption, where bribes are set independently, to a single, centralized person, and the total amount you would pay would be less.”
Olken also has looked at graft and corruption in road projects in Indonesia. In his April 2007 paper, “Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia,” he sought to determine the best method of reducing theft and graft in public works projects by doing controlled field experiments in 608 Indonesian villages.
Some village leaders involved in the building of roads were told that, upon completion of the project, they would be visited by government auditors, which increased “the probability of an external government audit in those villages from a baseline of about 4 percent to essentially 100 percent.” Other villages were chosen to participate in grassroots “accountability meetings,” during which project coordinators would publicly account for the use of government funds in a town-hall-like venue. Villagers would be offered anonymous forms to report graft.
Olken’s conclusion was that “increasing government audits…reduced missing expenditures, as measured by discrepancies between official project costs and an independent engineer’s estimate of costs, by eight percentage points. By contrast, increasing grassroots participation in monitoring had little average impact…. Overall, the results suggest that traditional top-down monitoring can play an important role in reducing corruption.” In short, to reduce the amount of corruption, it’s cost-effective to do more audits, not to trust the grassroots.
What’s the practical use of these results? Can they be applied to, say, corrupt countries in Africa? The study seems to suggest, Olken says, that, even in developing countries, “audit agencies might be more useful than people would have otherwise thought.” A widely held presumption was that auditors too were corrupt, and that they would only end up extracting more bribes, making the situation significantly worse.
The Indonesian study, he argues, might “suggest that that assumption is actually incorrect” and that when formulating an anti-corruption strategy, governments and institutions “shouldn’t dismiss the auditors out of hand.” Since minimizing corruption is often a key prerequisite in the development of democratic institutions, campaigners for clean government would do well to heed Olken’s advice."
Ben Olken has also written on whether leaders matter and on the effects of television on social capital. Links to Ben Olken's work discussed in popular press and Ben Olken's Home Page.
"In his paper “The Simple Economics of Extortion,” co-written with Patrick Barron of the World Bank, Olken again traveled to Indonesia to study “if the way in which we think about pricing for firms also applies to corrupt officials.” In other words, do the crooked respond to market forces in the way a corporation would? To test this, Olken and Barron looked at the number of roadside checkpoints—which act, essentially, as illegal toll booths where the motorist is required to pay a bribe—in Aceh, a region on the northwestern tip of Sumatra long engaged in a guerilla war with separatist rebels.
“I looked at what happens when there is a change in the number of checkpoints along the road in Aceh. When I started data collection, you had to stop at, say, 90 checkpoints along a 600-kilometer route,” Olken says. “A lot of the checkpoints were associated with the military occupation. But when the peace agreement was signed [in 2005], the military pulled out, and the number of checkpoints declined. The question is: how do the prices at the remaining checkpoints change?”
There are three theories on how prices are set, he says. Is the bribe purely the product of cultural norms, influenced by customs specific to the region? Is the bribe simply an individual transaction, not affected by culture? Or is the bribe economy embedded within a bigger market? “Just as if there was a firm running a toll booth,” Olken says, “the firm would balance off how much revenue they are getting from the tolls, versus the fact that if they were charging more for the tolls there would be fewer cars driving through; they’ll be making an optimal trade-off. So, in fact, that bribe is the equilibrium of a firm’s price-setting decision.”
Olken and Barron found that when the number of checkpoints decreases, prices increase: “So it looks like the guys are behaving like a firm would behave.”
So what does all of this mean to institutions, like the World Bank, struggling against endemic corruption? There is often an understandable desire to go after “the big fish” in corrupt societies, thus making an example of those whose pockets are fullest. “What this paper shows is that there is a potential cost of doing it that way. If corruption is decentralized, the model predicts that the total amount of bribes is going to be higher than if there was a single, centralized person coordinating all the checkpoints.” Such results have broad implications for countries mired in corruption: “One policy that has been advocated in a lot of countries is simplifying the process of business registration. This theory predicts that that would be a good thing to do in reducing corruption because you would be moving from a decentralized corruption, where bribes are set independently, to a single, centralized person, and the total amount you would pay would be less.”
Olken also has looked at graft and corruption in road projects in Indonesia. In his April 2007 paper, “Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia,” he sought to determine the best method of reducing theft and graft in public works projects by doing controlled field experiments in 608 Indonesian villages.
Some village leaders involved in the building of roads were told that, upon completion of the project, they would be visited by government auditors, which increased “the probability of an external government audit in those villages from a baseline of about 4 percent to essentially 100 percent.” Other villages were chosen to participate in grassroots “accountability meetings,” during which project coordinators would publicly account for the use of government funds in a town-hall-like venue. Villagers would be offered anonymous forms to report graft.
Olken’s conclusion was that “increasing government audits…reduced missing expenditures, as measured by discrepancies between official project costs and an independent engineer’s estimate of costs, by eight percentage points. By contrast, increasing grassroots participation in monitoring had little average impact…. Overall, the results suggest that traditional top-down monitoring can play an important role in reducing corruption.” In short, to reduce the amount of corruption, it’s cost-effective to do more audits, not to trust the grassroots.
What’s the practical use of these results? Can they be applied to, say, corrupt countries in Africa? The study seems to suggest, Olken says, that, even in developing countries, “audit agencies might be more useful than people would have otherwise thought.” A widely held presumption was that auditors too were corrupt, and that they would only end up extracting more bribes, making the situation significantly worse.
The Indonesian study, he argues, might “suggest that that assumption is actually incorrect” and that when formulating an anti-corruption strategy, governments and institutions “shouldn’t dismiss the auditors out of hand.” Since minimizing corruption is often a key prerequisite in the development of democratic institutions, campaigners for clean government would do well to heed Olken’s advice."
Ben Olken has also written on whether leaders matter and on the effects of television on social capital. Links to Ben Olken's work discussed in popular press and Ben Olken's Home Page.
Donkey suicides?
From Chris Blattman's blog: http://chrisblattman.blogspot.com/2008/02/suicidal-donkeys-indian-peacekeepers-in.html
For Indian Army peacekeepers in the Sudan, the plight of the simple donkey has gone unnoticed by an international community preoccupied with ending mass killing and the destruction of a nation.
This neglect ended in tragedy this week with the unexpected suicide of two donkeys. A new UN mission report by Major Shambhu Saran Singh, reported by the Indian Express, describes the unfolding donkitarian crisis:
A donkey, who had decided to end his miserable and wretched life, ran towards the Nile. As he approached the banks, he plunged into the river and moved towards the current and the strong current of the mighty river swept it to a watery grave.
In a second instance reported by Major Singh, an overworked donkey preferred to be beaten to death by his master rather than pulling a heavily loaded cart through the market.
Indian army veterinarians are urging the people and government of Sudan to provide donkeys with a week's rest and a good diet of grain to drive away the “suicidal tendencies”. After 20 years of war and displacement, and amidst daily human rights violations , experts warn that donkey welfare will not get the attention it deserves.
Fortunately, Indian peacekeepers, who comprise close to one third of the 10,000-strong peacekeeping force in sourthern Sudan, appear to be making donkey welfare a chief priority
For Indian Army peacekeepers in the Sudan, the plight of the simple donkey has gone unnoticed by an international community preoccupied with ending mass killing and the destruction of a nation.
This neglect ended in tragedy this week with the unexpected suicide of two donkeys. A new UN mission report by Major Shambhu Saran Singh, reported by the Indian Express, describes the unfolding donkitarian crisis:
A donkey, who had decided to end his miserable and wretched life, ran towards the Nile. As he approached the banks, he plunged into the river and moved towards the current and the strong current of the mighty river swept it to a watery grave.
In a second instance reported by Major Singh, an overworked donkey preferred to be beaten to death by his master rather than pulling a heavily loaded cart through the market.
Indian army veterinarians are urging the people and government of Sudan to provide donkeys with a week's rest and a good diet of grain to drive away the “suicidal tendencies”. After 20 years of war and displacement, and amidst daily human rights violations , experts warn that donkey welfare will not get the attention it deserves.
Fortunately, Indian peacekeepers, who comprise close to one third of the 10,000-strong peacekeeping force in sourthern Sudan, appear to be making donkey welfare a chief priority
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Some micro finance beneficiaries
I have uploaded a few photographs of the beneficiaries of the microfinance programme organized by Benjamin Kaila and Rev. P. Sundar. Some of the work was described in earlier posts like 'A micro effort'.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
A story from Baba Amte's life
Churumuri links to an article of L.C. Jain on Baba Amte at http://churumuri.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/the-sickening-weight-on-the-backs-of-outcasts/. I repeat their quote:
"He once organised a scavengers’ (night soil collectors) union, but when they struck for higher wages while he was still vice chairman of the municipality, he refused their demands because the town committee lacked funds. The strikers charged he was unsympathetic because he had never carried a pan of night soil on his head.
“Imagine our plight during the monsoon,” they pleaded.
They challenged him to do the job and then reconsider. Baba Amte accepted the challenge and was assigned 40 latrines. Daily he collected the steel pans of excrement from the backs of houses and carried them on his head to the disposal sites. It was revolting and sickening labour and affected him profoundly, deepening his regard for, and commitment to, these outcasts. The scavengers received their raise."
"He once organised a scavengers’ (night soil collectors) union, but when they struck for higher wages while he was still vice chairman of the municipality, he refused their demands because the town committee lacked funds. The strikers charged he was unsympathetic because he had never carried a pan of night soil on his head.
“Imagine our plight during the monsoon,” they pleaded.
They challenged him to do the job and then reconsider. Baba Amte accepted the challenge and was assigned 40 latrines. Daily he collected the steel pans of excrement from the backs of houses and carried them on his head to the disposal sites. It was revolting and sickening labour and affected him profoundly, deepening his regard for, and commitment to, these outcasts. The scavengers received their raise."
Why companies should hire female stars
From Harvard Business Review (via Evolutionary Psychology discussion group):
"About four years ago, with the war for talent in high gear, my colleagues and I wrote an article in these pages warning managers of the risks in hiring star performers away from competitors. After studying the fortunes of more than 1,000 star stock analysts, we found that when a star switches companies, not only does his performance plunge, but so does the market value of his new company. What’s more, these players don’t tend to stay with their new organizations for very long, despite the generous pay packages that lured them in. Everybody loses out.
But further analysis of the data, which I’ve done over the past three years, reveals that it’s not that simple. One group of analysts reliably maintained their stardom after changing employers: women. Unlike their male counterparts, female stars (189 star women, 18% of the star analysts in the original study) who switched firms performed just as well, in the aggregate, as those who stayed put. And while investors appear to believe that companies are overpaying for male stars or anticipate a drop in performance for men, this is not so for female stars. Firms acquiring male stars experienced a significant share-price loss of 0.93%, whereas the acquisitions of female stars generated a nonsignificant share-price increase of 0.07%."
"About four years ago, with the war for talent in high gear, my colleagues and I wrote an article in these pages warning managers of the risks in hiring star performers away from competitors. After studying the fortunes of more than 1,000 star stock analysts, we found that when a star switches companies, not only does his performance plunge, but so does the market value of his new company. What’s more, these players don’t tend to stay with their new organizations for very long, despite the generous pay packages that lured them in. Everybody loses out.
But further analysis of the data, which I’ve done over the past three years, reveals that it’s not that simple. One group of analysts reliably maintained their stardom after changing employers: women. Unlike their male counterparts, female stars (189 star women, 18% of the star analysts in the original study) who switched firms performed just as well, in the aggregate, as those who stayed put. And while investors appear to believe that companies are overpaying for male stars or anticipate a drop in performance for men, this is not so for female stars. Firms acquiring male stars experienced a significant share-price loss of 0.93%, whereas the acquisitions of female stars generated a nonsignificant share-price increase of 0.07%."
Some reports on 'Sorry'
From ABC News:
"More than 1,000 people braved pouring rain to gather outside the local Community Centre in the inner Sydney suburb of Redfern to watch the national apology to the Stolen Generations on a giant screen.
They were at the local community centre, not far from the Block and from where Paul Keating gave his famous speech on reconciliation back in 1992.
There was of course a heavy representation of Indigenous people in the crowd but there were also people of all ages and all ethnic mixes.
Some were dressed casually and some were in suits, presumably on their way to work.
Three schoolgirls travelled to Redfern from one of Sydney's more affluent areas.
"We study our regional studies and also it's a day of history," one said. "We want to be here to see it happening. We support it really."
"I personally think it is a really important issue and it has been a long time coming and I just think it is really important that everyone gets to come out see it happen," another said.
"I think it is definitely a starting point to head towards the future because at least now we are heading towards a common goal ... for reconciliation."
Redfern's history
Residents viewed today's apology through the suburb's place in Aboriginal history, particularly in relation to the landmark Redfern speech by Mr Keating, 16 years ago.
In 1992, Mr Keating admitted wrong. He did not say sorry but he prepared the way for saying sorry.
Resident Shireen Malamoo says Prime Minister Kevin Rudd should be applauded for building on Mr Keating's work.
"The Labor Party had a big hand in these previous policies towards Aboriginal people," she said.
"You know what, Aboriginal people have always wondered about this cautiousness about the truth."
However she says Mr Rudd came to terms with the truth today.
"I think that was marvellous, that was marvellous, and people would be content,' she said.
However she says there is still the issue of reparation, and she is concerned that Mr Rudd stopped short of offering compensation.
"To a lot of people, sorry means reparation too," she said."
Another report here.
"More than 1,000 people braved pouring rain to gather outside the local Community Centre in the inner Sydney suburb of Redfern to watch the national apology to the Stolen Generations on a giant screen.
They were at the local community centre, not far from the Block and from where Paul Keating gave his famous speech on reconciliation back in 1992.
There was of course a heavy representation of Indigenous people in the crowd but there were also people of all ages and all ethnic mixes.
Some were dressed casually and some were in suits, presumably on their way to work.
Three schoolgirls travelled to Redfern from one of Sydney's more affluent areas.
"We study our regional studies and also it's a day of history," one said. "We want to be here to see it happening. We support it really."
"I personally think it is a really important issue and it has been a long time coming and I just think it is really important that everyone gets to come out see it happen," another said.
"I think it is definitely a starting point to head towards the future because at least now we are heading towards a common goal ... for reconciliation."
Redfern's history
Residents viewed today's apology through the suburb's place in Aboriginal history, particularly in relation to the landmark Redfern speech by Mr Keating, 16 years ago.
In 1992, Mr Keating admitted wrong. He did not say sorry but he prepared the way for saying sorry.
Resident Shireen Malamoo says Prime Minister Kevin Rudd should be applauded for building on Mr Keating's work.
"The Labor Party had a big hand in these previous policies towards Aboriginal people," she said.
"You know what, Aboriginal people have always wondered about this cautiousness about the truth."
However she says Mr Rudd came to terms with the truth today.
"I think that was marvellous, that was marvellous, and people would be content,' she said.
However she says there is still the issue of reparation, and she is concerned that Mr Rudd stopped short of offering compensation.
"To a lot of people, sorry means reparation too," she said."
Another report here.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
A new BPA study
From Science News:
"or the new study, scientists analyzed urine from some 2,500 people who had been recruited between 2003 and 2004 for the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Roughly 92 percent of the individuals hosted measurable amounts of BPA, according to a report in the January Environmental Health Perspectives. It's the first study to measure the pollutant in a representative cross-section of the U.S. population."
"or the new study, scientists analyzed urine from some 2,500 people who had been recruited between 2003 and 2004 for the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Roughly 92 percent of the individuals hosted measurable amounts of BPA, according to a report in the January Environmental Health Perspectives. It's the first study to measure the pollutant in a representative cross-section of the U.S. population."
Only known recording of a live Woody Guthrie performance restored
From Mathtrek :
"What she finally heard was a bootleg recording of her father singing a live performance in 1949. It was the first time she had ever heard him perform in front of a live audience. He had developed Huntington's chorea and stopped performing when she was a child, and she thought he had never been recorded live.
So she was determined to preserve the recording. For the first step, she and a team of engineers transferred it into digital format. It was a hair-raising experience. "The wire was really flimsy," says Jamie Howarth, a sound engineer on the job. "It was frustratingly, maddeningly fragile." It snapped over and over, and with every snap, a moment of the recording was lost. And when it didn't snap, it kinked and snarled.
.....
Fortunately, math can help. Howarth had developed algorithms to correct these recordings.
....
"When it was done, we were all just awed by this recording," Howarth says. "It was miraculous." Despite all the difficulties in the process, the wire recording was in many ways surprisingly good. "It sounds really, really, really good for its time," he says."
"What she finally heard was a bootleg recording of her father singing a live performance in 1949. It was the first time she had ever heard him perform in front of a live audience. He had developed Huntington's chorea and stopped performing when she was a child, and she thought he had never been recorded live.
So she was determined to preserve the recording. For the first step, she and a team of engineers transferred it into digital format. It was a hair-raising experience. "The wire was really flimsy," says Jamie Howarth, a sound engineer on the job. "It was frustratingly, maddeningly fragile." It snapped over and over, and with every snap, a moment of the recording was lost. And when it didn't snap, it kinked and snarled.
.....
Fortunately, math can help. Howarth had developed algorithms to correct these recordings.
....
"When it was done, we were all just awed by this recording," Howarth says. "It was miraculous." Despite all the difficulties in the process, the wire recording was in many ways surprisingly good. "It sounds really, really, really good for its time," he says."
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Michael Leunig on education
The Age cartoonist Michael Leunig has an article on education which is close to what I feel about education. Here is an excerpt from the article:
"Schooling does not necessarily foster wisdom or conscience, nor does it promise courage, compassion or integrity — in fact, it often diminishes such capacities because somewhere along the line, in spite of all the claims, a school may ever-so-nicely require a student to forsake their unique, intuitive joy: a developmental disaster that produces a frustrated, repressed and compliant swat in the system, a clever, "successful" and fearful seeker after status and security.
It is said that many people sell their souls and live with good conscience on the proceeds. I know for a fact there are rats in good schools.
But education excellence or not, intelligence suits us all, and intelligence may be just another word for sensitivity as far as I can understand.
You have to grow it whenever and wherever you can and sometimes you have to survive an education system, an academy or any web of convention, authority or conformity to do it. Life's a long time and that's the achievement, that's what matters in the end — to come through, not necessarily with excellence and brilliance, but with soul."
Links to some more articles by Leunig here.
"Schooling does not necessarily foster wisdom or conscience, nor does it promise courage, compassion or integrity — in fact, it often diminishes such capacities because somewhere along the line, in spite of all the claims, a school may ever-so-nicely require a student to forsake their unique, intuitive joy: a developmental disaster that produces a frustrated, repressed and compliant swat in the system, a clever, "successful" and fearful seeker after status and security.
It is said that many people sell their souls and live with good conscience on the proceeds. I know for a fact there are rats in good schools.
But education excellence or not, intelligence suits us all, and intelligence may be just another word for sensitivity as far as I can understand.
You have to grow it whenever and wherever you can and sometimes you have to survive an education system, an academy or any web of convention, authority or conformity to do it. Life's a long time and that's the achievement, that's what matters in the end — to come through, not necessarily with excellence and brilliance, but with soul."
Links to some more articles by Leunig here.
Friday, February 08, 2008
News from Khasi society
From Freakonmics Blog:
"Their results are summarized as follows:
Our experimental results reveal interesting differences in competitiveness: in the patriarchal society women are less competitive than men, a result consistent with student data drawn from Western cultures. Yet, this result reverses in the matrilineal society, where we find that women are more competitive than men. Perhaps surprisingly, Khasi women are even slightly more competitive than Maasai men, but this difference is not statistically significant at conventional levels under any of our formal statistical tests."
Via BBC and Evolutionary Psychology group:
"An Indian politician has been stripped of his status as a tribesman and may be barred from contesting elections because he took his father's surname.
Leaders of the Khasi tribe in the north-east Indian state of Meghalaya have told Waibha Kyndiah that he has "ceased" to be a Khasi.
The Khasis are a matrilineal society and their legal code does not recognise anyone who uses a paternal surname.
Mr Kyndiah was planning to contest an assembly seat reserved for tribes."
"Their results are summarized as follows:
Our experimental results reveal interesting differences in competitiveness: in the patriarchal society women are less competitive than men, a result consistent with student data drawn from Western cultures. Yet, this result reverses in the matrilineal society, where we find that women are more competitive than men. Perhaps surprisingly, Khasi women are even slightly more competitive than Maasai men, but this difference is not statistically significant at conventional levels under any of our formal statistical tests."
Via BBC and Evolutionary Psychology group:
"An Indian politician has been stripped of his status as a tribesman and may be barred from contesting elections because he took his father's surname.
Leaders of the Khasi tribe in the north-east Indian state of Meghalaya have told Waibha Kyndiah that he has "ceased" to be a Khasi.
The Khasis are a matrilineal society and their legal code does not recognise anyone who uses a paternal surname.
Mr Kyndiah was planning to contest an assembly seat reserved for tribes."
Social monogamy
From http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080206/full/451617a.html:
By traditionalist standards, prairie-vole couples may enjoy the ideal relationship: the rodents form lifelong partnerships — a highly unusual practice in mammals. Males help raise the children; females help build the nest. As for their sex life, let's just say it far exceeds the efforts required for procreation.
But the respectable public behaviour of North American prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster ) may hide a bed-hopping double life. Paternity tests published last week indicate that the animals touted as paragons of monogamy frequently cheat on their partners (A. G. Ophir et al. Anim. Behav. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2007.09.022; 2008). “Ironically”, the study's authors conclude, “the dissociation of social and sexual fidelity leads us to suggest that prairie voles are even better models of human attachment than has been appreciated.”
Studies on prairie voles have led scientists to look at the role of hormones such as vasopressin and oxytocin in strengthening human relationships. Revelations of infidelity in the creatures will not change the significance of that research, but may make the voles a little less popular among political agitators for sexual abstinence. (Eric Keroack, who headed a government family-planning committee in the United States, even used the monogamous voles as evidence to support his view that people who have extramarital sex damage their oxytocin signalling mechanisms.)
“Humans want to believe in sexual monogamy.”
Over the past few decades researchers have learned to distinguish between 'social monogamy' — in which a pair lives and tends their young together — and 'sexual monogamy', in which a couple mates exclusively with each other. “You may have a partner you come home to every night,” says Alexander Ophir, a biologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, “but that's not necessarily the one that you're mating with.”
Ophir and his colleagues found that infidelity had no effect on reproductive success: a cheating vole was just as likely to reproduce as a faithful one, so long as the cheater maintained a socially monogamous relationship. Sue Carter, a biologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says that these findings highlight the importance of social bonding. “Humans want to believe in sexual monogamy,” says Carter. That focus may have distracted people from the relative importance of social monogamy, she says.
Carter has observed philandering voles in her own lab, and notes that the infidelity did not disrupt pre-existing partnerships. When a female initiates contact with an outside male, for example, the relationship remains strictly sexual. “She mated with him,” says Carter, “and then she attacked him, ran him off and went back to her established partner.”
By traditionalist standards, prairie-vole couples may enjoy the ideal relationship: the rodents form lifelong partnerships — a highly unusual practice in mammals. Males help raise the children; females help build the nest. As for their sex life, let's just say it far exceeds the efforts required for procreation.
But the respectable public behaviour of North American prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster ) may hide a bed-hopping double life. Paternity tests published last week indicate that the animals touted as paragons of monogamy frequently cheat on their partners (A. G. Ophir et al. Anim. Behav. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2007.09.022; 2008). “Ironically”, the study's authors conclude, “the dissociation of social and sexual fidelity leads us to suggest that prairie voles are even better models of human attachment than has been appreciated.”
Studies on prairie voles have led scientists to look at the role of hormones such as vasopressin and oxytocin in strengthening human relationships. Revelations of infidelity in the creatures will not change the significance of that research, but may make the voles a little less popular among political agitators for sexual abstinence. (Eric Keroack, who headed a government family-planning committee in the United States, even used the monogamous voles as evidence to support his view that people who have extramarital sex damage their oxytocin signalling mechanisms.)
“Humans want to believe in sexual monogamy.”
Over the past few decades researchers have learned to distinguish between 'social monogamy' — in which a pair lives and tends their young together — and 'sexual monogamy', in which a couple mates exclusively with each other. “You may have a partner you come home to every night,” says Alexander Ophir, a biologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, “but that's not necessarily the one that you're mating with.”
Ophir and his colleagues found that infidelity had no effect on reproductive success: a cheating vole was just as likely to reproduce as a faithful one, so long as the cheater maintained a socially monogamous relationship. Sue Carter, a biologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says that these findings highlight the importance of social bonding. “Humans want to believe in sexual monogamy,” says Carter. That focus may have distracted people from the relative importance of social monogamy, she says.
Carter has observed philandering voles in her own lab, and notes that the infidelity did not disrupt pre-existing partnerships. When a female initiates contact with an outside male, for example, the relationship remains strictly sexual. “She mated with him,” says Carter, “and then she attacked him, ran him off and went back to her established partner.”
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Gurram Jashua
Gurram Jashuva was one of father's favourite poets and I remeber attending with my father a 'kanakabhishekam' ceremony for him around 1952. Recently I went to study a micro finance project in Modukuru and was pleased to find that the only library in the village is named after himand is in the Dalit part of the village. Eecerpt from the Wikipedia article:
"Gurram Jashuva or G Joshua (b. 28 September 1895-d. 24 July 1971) was a popular Telugu poet, born into a poor Christian family in Vinukonda, Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh, India. He was discriminated as an untouchable in school, college and professional life.
Jashuva was born to Virayya and Lingamma. Because of the intercaste alliance of his parents, their poverty and their caste, his childhood was spent in alienation from close relatives, undergoing severe hardships and being subjected to inhuman treatment from the society which considered his caste untouchable. His parents raised him as a Christian. In spite of this, Jashuva often drew his inspiration from Hinduism and Hindu mythological epics. This angered his Christian society, which was quick to proscribe Jashuva's family from their community. This did not deter Jashuva who continued to write excellent poetry in Telugu."
Trying to see whether there is some follow up of his work, I found that his daughter Hemalata married Gora's son Lavanam and both Lavanam and Hamalata carried on their parents' work:
An autobiographical account of Lavanam and some of their work. Earlier posts with links to Gora and Gandhi.
A recent blog postabout Gurram Jashuva. Three poems including 'smasanavatika'
and Andhra mata
English translations of some of his poems by Velcheru Narayana Rao are in
'Hibiscus on the Lake'.
"Gurram Jashuva or G Joshua (b. 28 September 1895-d. 24 July 1971) was a popular Telugu poet, born into a poor Christian family in Vinukonda, Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh, India. He was discriminated as an untouchable in school, college and professional life.
Jashuva was born to Virayya and Lingamma. Because of the intercaste alliance of his parents, their poverty and their caste, his childhood was spent in alienation from close relatives, undergoing severe hardships and being subjected to inhuman treatment from the society which considered his caste untouchable. His parents raised him as a Christian. In spite of this, Jashuva often drew his inspiration from Hinduism and Hindu mythological epics. This angered his Christian society, which was quick to proscribe Jashuva's family from their community. This did not deter Jashuva who continued to write excellent poetry in Telugu."
Trying to see whether there is some follow up of his work, I found that his daughter Hemalata married Gora's son Lavanam and both Lavanam and Hamalata carried on their parents' work:
An autobiographical account of Lavanam and some of their work. Earlier posts with links to Gora and Gandhi.
A recent blog postabout Gurram Jashuva. Three poems including 'smasanavatika'
and Andhra mata
English translations of some of his poems by Velcheru Narayana Rao are in
'Hibiscus on the Lake'.
Monday, February 04, 2008
John Howard's parting gift?
From BBC News:
"To others, the award of extra points to fluent English speakers is more sinister, with shades of the monocultural "white Australia policy", the umbrella term for a swathe of policies and laws engineered to limit non-white immigration which finally petered out in the early 1970s.
"I do see this as an attack on multiculturalism," complains Kate Gauthier, from the group A Just Australia.
................
Australia claims to be the most successfully multicultural country in the world. According to the 2001 census, 23% of the population were born overseas, while 43% of the population were either born overseas or had at least one parent born overseas.
But gaining citizenship is just about to get tougher, and applicants will be soon required to take a test on the country's history and values.
......
For British applicants, Australia is about to become more welcoming - but is it at the cost of migrants from other countries? "
"To others, the award of extra points to fluent English speakers is more sinister, with shades of the monocultural "white Australia policy", the umbrella term for a swathe of policies and laws engineered to limit non-white immigration which finally petered out in the early 1970s.
"I do see this as an attack on multiculturalism," complains Kate Gauthier, from the group A Just Australia.
................
Australia claims to be the most successfully multicultural country in the world. According to the 2001 census, 23% of the population were born overseas, while 43% of the population were either born overseas or had at least one parent born overseas.
But gaining citizenship is just about to get tougher, and applicants will be soon required to take a test on the country's history and values.
......
For British applicants, Australia is about to become more welcoming - but is it at the cost of migrants from other countries? "
Tabula Rasa looks back
In the post 'Rear-view', Tabula Rasa contemplates on some of his favourite posts. I missed some of them but remember fondly this and this. Some of the travel posts are on my reading list.
A link to the past
and may be to the future too. Following up a post in 'churumuri' on R.K. Karnanjia, I came across three interesting articles by Alexander Cockburn in the series 'Travels with Sainath'. I seem to have been in the some of the places travelled by Sainath at different times: coastal Andhra, Madras Layola College, Bombay and Delhi. Anyway, here are the pieces.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
'Dark Hope' by David Dean Shulman
Avishai Margalit's reviews David Shulman's 'Dark Hope' in New York Review of Books. Excerpt from the book:
"There is something infuriating about the notion that we can go on as usual,teaching our irrelevancies, drinking coffee in the faculty club, reading Telugu poetry, sitting on committees, whatever, and next door to us - a Palestian ghetto of our own - that is, the army's - making."
Another review of different books about Israel.
Here is a list of books by David Dean Shulman and a couple of articles in Hindu about him
here and here.
P.S.Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman won theA.K. Ramanujam tranlation prize in 2004 for their"Classical Telugu Poetry: An Anthology".
"There is something infuriating about the notion that we can go on as usual,teaching our irrelevancies, drinking coffee in the faculty club, reading Telugu poetry, sitting on committees, whatever, and next door to us - a Palestian ghetto of our own - that is, the army's - making."
Another review of different books about Israel.
Here is a list of books by David Dean Shulman and a couple of articles in Hindu about him
here and here.
P.S.Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman won theA.K. Ramanujam tranlation prize in 2004 for their"Classical Telugu Poetry: An Anthology".
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
CNC-IBN Indian of the Year 2007 For E.Sreedharan
From The Hindu:"Delhi Metro Chief E Sreedharan was on Tuesday adjudged as the "Indian of the Year for 2007" by CNN-IBN news channel. "
More about Sreedharan here.I attended a function in Vijayawada when E. Sreedharan was awarded
Dr. Pinnamaneni and Smt. Seethadevi Foundation award for 2007. He mentioned during the speech (from the link above):
"Dr. Sreedharan said small and lean teams of dedicated professionals were major contributing factors behind the successful implementation of the first phase of Delhi Metro much in advance of the scheduled time.
It was ensured that there were no clerks or peons in the system to the extent that officials of the rank of joint secretary to the Government had to fend for themselves, which worked wonders in avoiding corruption and enabling fast-paced decision making, he added."
I also remember him saying that the contractors were paid 75 perecent as soon as they submitted the bills and the rest with in 10 days. The money from the awards he wins goes to a charitable foundation.
More about Sreedharan here.I attended a function in Vijayawada when E. Sreedharan was awarded
Dr. Pinnamaneni and Smt. Seethadevi Foundation award for 2007. He mentioned during the speech (from the link above):
"Dr. Sreedharan said small and lean teams of dedicated professionals were major contributing factors behind the successful implementation of the first phase of Delhi Metro much in advance of the scheduled time.
It was ensured that there were no clerks or peons in the system to the extent that officials of the rank of joint secretary to the Government had to fend for themselves, which worked wonders in avoiding corruption and enabling fast-paced decision making, he added."
I also remember him saying that the contractors were paid 75 perecent as soon as they submitted the bills and the rest with in 10 days. The money from the awards he wins goes to a charitable foundation.
What did Harbhajan say?
According to Times of India :
"Reports said that Harbhajan admitted at the hearing that he had abused Symonds with a hindi word which sounded like 'monkey'.
When the Counsel for the Australian players asked Harbhajan what he had said, Harbhajan said "I admit I abused Symonds and said m- - - - (an abusive word in Hindi).
The Indian officials at the hearing burst out laughing when Harbhajan disclosed the word.
Judge Hansen confirmed the meaning of the word from Tendulkar and the dropped the charge of racial abuse against the Indian spinner. "
Harbhajan's mother:"I knew God was with us and I had full faith that my son would come out clean", according to TOI again.
More from CricketInformation:
"Unlike Mike Procter, who thought Tendulkar was not in a position to hear what was uttered, Hansen said "extensive video footage" establishes that Tendulkar "was within earshot and could have heard the words".
Tendulkar said he heard Harbhajan "use a term in his native tongue "teri maa ki" which appears to be pronounced with an "n". He said this is a term that sounds like "monkey" and could be misrepresented for it."
Symonds couldn't recall if he had heard Harbhajan use that particular Hindi abuse and accepted that it was a possibility. He also didn't find favour with the judge with his explanation for abusing Harbhajan after he had patted Brett Lee on the back side. Symonds said he had objected because "a Test match is no place to be friendly with an opposition player" but Hansen dismissed that explanation ("If that is his view I hope it is not one shared by all international cricketers").
Michael Clarke's account was critical, considering that it did not coincide favourably with the rest. "It is not without significance that the Australian players maintain other than Mr Symonds that they did not hear any other words spoken, only the ones that are said to be of significance to this hearing," Hansen said.
"This is a little surprising in the context where there was a reasonably prolonged heated exchange. Indeed Mr Clarke went so far as to say that he did not hear Mr Symonds say anything. Given Mr Symonds' own acceptance that he initiated the exchange and was abusive towards Mr Singh, that is surprising. This failure to identify any other words could be because some of what they were hearing was not in English." "
Cognitive dissonance?
P.S.1) Text of Hansen's decision and afterthought.
2)Rohul Sidhardhan notes some inconsistencies in Symond's statements.
"Reports said that Harbhajan admitted at the hearing that he had abused Symonds with a hindi word which sounded like 'monkey'.
When the Counsel for the Australian players asked Harbhajan what he had said, Harbhajan said "I admit I abused Symonds and said m- - - - (an abusive word in Hindi).
The Indian officials at the hearing burst out laughing when Harbhajan disclosed the word.
Judge Hansen confirmed the meaning of the word from Tendulkar and the dropped the charge of racial abuse against the Indian spinner. "
Harbhajan's mother:"I knew God was with us and I had full faith that my son would come out clean", according to TOI again.
More from CricketInformation:
"Unlike Mike Procter, who thought Tendulkar was not in a position to hear what was uttered, Hansen said "extensive video footage" establishes that Tendulkar "was within earshot and could have heard the words".
Tendulkar said he heard Harbhajan "use a term in his native tongue "teri maa ki" which appears to be pronounced with an "n". He said this is a term that sounds like "monkey" and could be misrepresented for it."
Symonds couldn't recall if he had heard Harbhajan use that particular Hindi abuse and accepted that it was a possibility. He also didn't find favour with the judge with his explanation for abusing Harbhajan after he had patted Brett Lee on the back side. Symonds said he had objected because "a Test match is no place to be friendly with an opposition player" but Hansen dismissed that explanation ("If that is his view I hope it is not one shared by all international cricketers").
Michael Clarke's account was critical, considering that it did not coincide favourably with the rest. "It is not without significance that the Australian players maintain other than Mr Symonds that they did not hear any other words spoken, only the ones that are said to be of significance to this hearing," Hansen said.
"This is a little surprising in the context where there was a reasonably prolonged heated exchange. Indeed Mr Clarke went so far as to say that he did not hear Mr Symonds say anything. Given Mr Symonds' own acceptance that he initiated the exchange and was abusive towards Mr Singh, that is surprising. This failure to identify any other words could be because some of what they were hearing was not in English." "
Cognitive dissonance?
P.S.1) Text of Hansen's decision and afterthought.
2)Rohul Sidhardhan notes some inconsistencies in Symond's statements.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
An Australian innovation
From http://discovermagazine.com/blogs/discoblog/archive/2008/01/23/when-australians-invade:
"Finding Cancer in Hair
Last, but not least, Fermiscan, a company with the alternative to the mammogram, stole the show today and, consequently, took the prize money. David Young, managing director touted his company’s unique technique to discover breast cancer with a simple, non-invasive pluck of (dye-free) hair. Once removed, the hair is shipped to one of 40 synchrotron—or a sub-atomic particle accelerator—facilities worldwide where molecular x-ray patterns are compared. It turns out breast cancer can be detected by changes in the structure of hair—so far with 80% accuracy, according to the current 2,000 patient trial. All the imaging work for Fermiscan is already being done in U.S. labs (With a home in Chicago), and with a 7 to 10 day turnaround, the breast cancer detection could prove to be a relatively simple, and more accurate, alternative to a mammogram. That is, unless you dye your hair, in which case you might have to plan to grow out your roots every 4 weeks or so."
"Finding Cancer in Hair
Last, but not least, Fermiscan, a company with the alternative to the mammogram, stole the show today and, consequently, took the prize money. David Young, managing director touted his company’s unique technique to discover breast cancer with a simple, non-invasive pluck of (dye-free) hair. Once removed, the hair is shipped to one of 40 synchrotron—or a sub-atomic particle accelerator—facilities worldwide where molecular x-ray patterns are compared. It turns out breast cancer can be detected by changes in the structure of hair—so far with 80% accuracy, according to the current 2,000 patient trial. All the imaging work for Fermiscan is already being done in U.S. labs (With a home in Chicago), and with a 7 to 10 day turnaround, the breast cancer detection could prove to be a relatively simple, and more accurate, alternative to a mammogram. That is, unless you dye your hair, in which case you might have to plan to grow out your roots every 4 weeks or so."
Several links on rising food prices
in bayesianheresy.The one from The Economist is interesting. Most seem to be concerned about biofuels. Perhaps the reasons vary from country to country and I am not sure how much these articles apply to India. As I noted before, in coastal Andhra Pradesh "Due to the uncertainity of returns from rice farming, some farmers have shifted to other crops and even eucalyptus plantations on the land that they were using for rice farming. Some predict that there will be food crisis in the next five years."
Steve Waugh's recent comments
on Indian cricketers (from http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23124244-5001023,00.html).
On Ishant Sharma:
"INDIA have something special in Ishant Sharma if managed correctly.
The danger in such a cricket- crazy country is the pedestal that is slipped under one's feet the moment any inkling of success occurs.
In the blink of an eye massive endorsements, instant stardom and invites to all the happening events can quickly dilute on-field performance.
This kid reminds me of a young McGrath in his attitude towards learning, trajectory of delivery, temperament and the rapid improvement he has shown in a short space of time."
On Virenra Sehwag:
"His game-saving fourth innings in Adelaide revealed a cricketer who has finally realised that talent alone doesn't guarantee consistent results.
He has always been a debonair, swashbuckling type who refused to dilute his instinctive play, but in Adelaide he elevated his game by adjusting to the conditions and showing his teammates that the team result came before his ego."
On Sachin Tendulkar:
"Tendulkar found something from within to turn back the clock after struggling in recent years against quality bowling, to once again be the batsman the rest of the team bat around.
He set himself for a stellar series, focusing in on technique and channelled concentration and never appeared rushed in his shots or harassed by the bowlers.
He mixed text book shot-making with a variety of unorthodox sweeps to regularly ask questions of his opponents and single-handedly took on the responsibility to stop Australia's momentum by occupying the crease and making two scores in excess of 150."
On Ishant Sharma:
"INDIA have something special in Ishant Sharma if managed correctly.
The danger in such a cricket- crazy country is the pedestal that is slipped under one's feet the moment any inkling of success occurs.
In the blink of an eye massive endorsements, instant stardom and invites to all the happening events can quickly dilute on-field performance.
This kid reminds me of a young McGrath in his attitude towards learning, trajectory of delivery, temperament and the rapid improvement he has shown in a short space of time."
On Virenra Sehwag:
"His game-saving fourth innings in Adelaide revealed a cricketer who has finally realised that talent alone doesn't guarantee consistent results.
He has always been a debonair, swashbuckling type who refused to dilute his instinctive play, but in Adelaide he elevated his game by adjusting to the conditions and showing his teammates that the team result came before his ego."
On Sachin Tendulkar:
"Tendulkar found something from within to turn back the clock after struggling in recent years against quality bowling, to once again be the batsman the rest of the team bat around.
He set himself for a stellar series, focusing in on technique and channelled concentration and never appeared rushed in his shots or harassed by the bowlers.
He mixed text book shot-making with a variety of unorthodox sweeps to regularly ask questions of his opponents and single-handedly took on the responsibility to stop Australia's momentum by occupying the crease and making two scores in excess of 150."
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Jan Bremen's "The Poverty Regime in Village India:.."
reviewd by D. Narasimha Reddy in Frontline: http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/stories/20080201506207600.htm
Concluding paragraphs of the review:
"The idea of undeserving poor has taken root in the minds of those who are rich, more in these years of reforms. The rich, thus, neither feel guilty nor are afraid of any mobilisation by the poor in acute destitution because of the absence of solidarity among them. The result is that the landless, footloose rural proletariat lead a nomadic existence, following the seasonal, sectoral, and local fluctuations in the economy with occupational multiplicity. This, according to Breman, is not a temporary imbalance but a structural crisis, of which the enormous reserve army of land-poor and landless are the victims (page 206).
INCLUSIVE GROWTH
In the last chapter of the book, Breman engages in the present debate on “inclusive growth”. He believes that one of the critical inputs in making the rural landless poor move out of the present state is access to land. “Making land accessible to households which had been made landless in the near or more distant past would put an end to their exclusion from right to property” (page 414). He shows how Dhodias, another tribal group with access to land, though marginal, are able to achieve a little more of stability, gain access to education, and experience improvement in living conditions. The present stirrings and mobilisation of the rural poor in all parts of the country, one hopes, marks the beginning of the second wave of land reforms, which becomes imperative.
The book shows that the expectation that the landless would leave the village seeking better life in non-agricultural and urban occupations and relieve pressure on land did not happen. On the contrary, it shows the irrational phenomenon of people having land acquiring skills and moving to lucrative non-agricultural occupations without leaving their hold on their land. The landless poor thus suffer “double denial”.
The book, which is a product of long years of dedicated, unparalleled fieldwork , has been brought out with a great deal of care, supported by valuable photographs to drive home the message in a telling manner. It would be a difficult, but eye–opening, reading for policymakers, and rewarding in method and substance to students trying to understand poverty in all its dimensions. "
Concluding paragraphs of the review:
"The idea of undeserving poor has taken root in the minds of those who are rich, more in these years of reforms. The rich, thus, neither feel guilty nor are afraid of any mobilisation by the poor in acute destitution because of the absence of solidarity among them. The result is that the landless, footloose rural proletariat lead a nomadic existence, following the seasonal, sectoral, and local fluctuations in the economy with occupational multiplicity. This, according to Breman, is not a temporary imbalance but a structural crisis, of which the enormous reserve army of land-poor and landless are the victims (page 206).
INCLUSIVE GROWTH
In the last chapter of the book, Breman engages in the present debate on “inclusive growth”. He believes that one of the critical inputs in making the rural landless poor move out of the present state is access to land. “Making land accessible to households which had been made landless in the near or more distant past would put an end to their exclusion from right to property” (page 414). He shows how Dhodias, another tribal group with access to land, though marginal, are able to achieve a little more of stability, gain access to education, and experience improvement in living conditions. The present stirrings and mobilisation of the rural poor in all parts of the country, one hopes, marks the beginning of the second wave of land reforms, which becomes imperative.
The book shows that the expectation that the landless would leave the village seeking better life in non-agricultural and urban occupations and relieve pressure on land did not happen. On the contrary, it shows the irrational phenomenon of people having land acquiring skills and moving to lucrative non-agricultural occupations without leaving their hold on their land. The landless poor thus suffer “double denial”.
The book, which is a product of long years of dedicated, unparalleled fieldwork , has been brought out with a great deal of care, supported by valuable photographs to drive home the message in a telling manner. It would be a difficult, but eye–opening, reading for policymakers, and rewarding in method and substance to students trying to understand poverty in all its dimensions. "
Another paper on the Great Divergence
here.Rodrik's comment:
"Aside from an interesting historical discussion, Galor and Mountford provide some striking evidence on the contemporary relationship between trade, on the one hand, and fertility and education, on the other. Controlling for endogeneity and other possible problems, they show that larger trade shares are associated with lower fertility and greater investment in education in the OECD economies, but with higher fertility and lower education in developing economies.
I am more convinced by the historical discussion than by the contemporary evidence (for one thing, the skill premium has generally risen--not fallen--in most developing economies opening up to trade in recent decades). But I do find these scatter plots intriguing. "
"Aside from an interesting historical discussion, Galor and Mountford provide some striking evidence on the contemporary relationship between trade, on the one hand, and fertility and education, on the other. Controlling for endogeneity and other possible problems, they show that larger trade shares are associated with lower fertility and greater investment in education in the OECD economies, but with higher fertility and lower education in developing economies.
I am more convinced by the historical discussion than by the contemporary evidence (for one thing, the skill premium has generally risen--not fallen--in most developing economies opening up to trade in recent decades). But I do find these scatter plots intriguing. "
Andrew Leonard on decoupling
in this post:
"What seems remarkable at this juncture is that the decoupling thesis ever gained any traction in the first place. While it is undoubtedly true that Europe, the U.S. and Japan are no longer the sole pillars holding up the global economy, the fact that there has been a wide diffusion of economic vitality does not necessarily imply that the separate pieces now have separate destinies. If anything, the opposite is true.
Globalization is built not just out of the telecommunication and computer network linkages that make financial markets anywhere accessible from your iPhone. The bricks-and-mortar of global production supply chains have turned that iPhone into a product requiring the efforts of multiple nations and multiple companies. An earthquake in Taiwan affects Dell's quarterly earnings. High corn prices in Iowa lead to an expansion of soybean farming in Brazil. Bad investment bets by New York bankers lead to an infusion of funds from Singapore and Abu Dhabi and bankruptcies in small towns in Norway. In every direction one looks the linkages are multiplying.
The decoupling thesis suggested that if the U.S. stumbled, China could keep on running. It would be lovely if this were true. It is not a happy thought to think that the welfare of hundreds of millions of poor people around the world depends on the buying power of American consumers with maxed-out credit cards teetering on the brink of foreclosure. But the jitters visible in global markets this week tell us that when the king stubs his toe, everyone starts limping."
"What seems remarkable at this juncture is that the decoupling thesis ever gained any traction in the first place. While it is undoubtedly true that Europe, the U.S. and Japan are no longer the sole pillars holding up the global economy, the fact that there has been a wide diffusion of economic vitality does not necessarily imply that the separate pieces now have separate destinies. If anything, the opposite is true.
Globalization is built not just out of the telecommunication and computer network linkages that make financial markets anywhere accessible from your iPhone. The bricks-and-mortar of global production supply chains have turned that iPhone into a product requiring the efforts of multiple nations and multiple companies. An earthquake in Taiwan affects Dell's quarterly earnings. High corn prices in Iowa lead to an expansion of soybean farming in Brazil. Bad investment bets by New York bankers lead to an infusion of funds from Singapore and Abu Dhabi and bankruptcies in small towns in Norway. In every direction one looks the linkages are multiplying.
The decoupling thesis suggested that if the U.S. stumbled, China could keep on running. It would be lovely if this were true. It is not a happy thought to think that the welfare of hundreds of millions of poor people around the world depends on the buying power of American consumers with maxed-out credit cards teetering on the brink of foreclosure. But the jitters visible in global markets this week tell us that when the king stubs his toe, everyone starts limping."
Friday, January 25, 2008
It is time to remember Ganguly's gesture
in the 2003 Adelaide testbetween India and Australia:
"Ganguly replaced Tendulkar in the batting line-up on Saturday night after Australia had taken two quick wickets.
Tendulkar has struggled in this series and Ganguly says it made sense to save him from batting late in the afternoon.
"Sachin is the best batsman in the world," he said.
"He's one of our key members and there are times in your career when you have to look after certain people and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
"We want him to fire."
Ganguly says the "Little Master" should be given every chance to find form.
"As a batsman, I also know that it's (the end of the day) not the best time to come in and bat," he said.
"He said he wouldn't mind and I said fair enough and he deserves it with the amount of runs he's scored for the country, he deserves it (not to have to come in)."
"Ganguly replaced Tendulkar in the batting line-up on Saturday night after Australia had taken two quick wickets.
Tendulkar has struggled in this series and Ganguly says it made sense to save him from batting late in the afternoon.
"Sachin is the best batsman in the world," he said.
"He's one of our key members and there are times in your career when you have to look after certain people and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
"We want him to fire."
Ganguly says the "Little Master" should be given every chance to find form.
"As a batsman, I also know that it's (the end of the day) not the best time to come in and bat," he said.
"He said he wouldn't mind and I said fair enough and he deserves it with the amount of runs he's scored for the country, he deserves it (not to have to come in)."
Thursday, January 24, 2008
When U.S Sneezes
Rest of the World Gets the Cold, says Nouriel Roubini. Excerpt:
"First, the US recession is unavoidable and has already started; and this recession will be ugly, deep and severe, much more severe than the mild 8-month recessions in 1990-91 and 2001.
Second, the rest of the world will not decouple from the US since – as discussed in detail below – many trade, financial, currency, policy, confidence links – lead to a transmission of negative growth shocks in the US to the rest of the world that will lead to a sharp global growth slowdown: 2008 will be the year of recoupling rather than decoupling.
Third, the US stock market has already started to reflect in the last few weeks the consequences on earnings and corporate profitability of a severe US recession.
Fourth, a growing realization that even aggressive Fed easing will not prevent this severe recession, i.e. that we are at the last leg of the stock market’s sucker’s rally and that the Bernanke put has very little value as massive financial losses will increase regardless of what the Fed does.
Fifth, now other global stock markets are now starting to price the effects of the US hard landing on the rest of the world growth, the phenomenon of recoupling. "
But Gulzar Natarajan in this post, and T.T.Ram Mohan in "US crisis does not spell crisis for world economy" think that India wo'nt be too affected.
"First, the US recession is unavoidable and has already started; and this recession will be ugly, deep and severe, much more severe than the mild 8-month recessions in 1990-91 and 2001.
Second, the rest of the world will not decouple from the US since – as discussed in detail below – many trade, financial, currency, policy, confidence links – lead to a transmission of negative growth shocks in the US to the rest of the world that will lead to a sharp global growth slowdown: 2008 will be the year of recoupling rather than decoupling.
Third, the US stock market has already started to reflect in the last few weeks the consequences on earnings and corporate profitability of a severe US recession.
Fourth, a growing realization that even aggressive Fed easing will not prevent this severe recession, i.e. that we are at the last leg of the stock market’s sucker’s rally and that the Bernanke put has very little value as massive financial losses will increase regardless of what the Fed does.
Fifth, now other global stock markets are now starting to price the effects of the US hard landing on the rest of the world growth, the phenomenon of recoupling. "
But Gulzar Natarajan in this post, and T.T.Ram Mohan in "US crisis does not spell crisis for world economy" think that India wo'nt be too affected.
Pataudi Jr. says
"Pataudi has a radical idea, something sledgers of the world would likely unite to oppose. "The fielders should not be allowed to say anything in the hearing of the batsman," he declares. "It's a sport. Shut up and get on with it. If a team tries to gain an unfair advantage by sledging, it must not be allowed." Rather radical, and perhaps too much so. It might make the sport sterile, but there won't be any race rows at least. "
From Outlook article http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20080128&fname=Cricket+%28F%29&sid=1 by Rohit Mahajan.
John Traicos seems to agree (From Sidhartha Vaidyanathan's Australian Diaryhttp://blogs.cricinfo.com/tourdiaries/archives/2008/01/an_encounter_wi_1.php ):
"I don’t believe the atmosphere of sledging has helped at all. I don’t believe you need to sledge as a systematic process, simply because it gets to abuse. Everybody plays the game hard, and you play a bit of a prank now and than, but there’s a different between that and a systematic mental
rattling. It’s a systematic feature of cricket that has to be eradicated.”
From Outlook article http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20080128&fname=Cricket+%28F%29&sid=1 by Rohit Mahajan.
John Traicos seems to agree (From Sidhartha Vaidyanathan's Australian Diaryhttp://blogs.cricinfo.com/tourdiaries/archives/2008/01/an_encounter_wi_1.php ):
"I don’t believe the atmosphere of sledging has helped at all. I don’t believe you need to sledge as a systematic process, simply because it gets to abuse. Everybody plays the game hard, and you play a bit of a prank now and than, but there’s a different between that and a systematic mental
rattling. It’s a systematic feature of cricket that has to be eradicated.”
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
India aims for
'quantum jump' in science. Excerpt:
"“We are planning to fund 30 new Central Universities, five new Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, eight new Indian Institutes of Technology, and 20 new Indian Institutes of Information Technology,” Singh said. In the next five years, he added, India will also be launching 1,600 polytechnics, 10,000 vocational schools and 50,000 skill-development centres. One million schoolchildren will receive science innovation scholarships of 5,000 rupees (US$130) each over the next five years, and 10,000 scholarships of 100,000 rupees per year will go to those enrolling on science degree courses." Lots of comments too.
"“We are planning to fund 30 new Central Universities, five new Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, eight new Indian Institutes of Technology, and 20 new Indian Institutes of Information Technology,” Singh said. In the next five years, he added, India will also be launching 1,600 polytechnics, 10,000 vocational schools and 50,000 skill-development centres. One million schoolchildren will receive science innovation scholarships of 5,000 rupees (US$130) each over the next five years, and 10,000 scholarships of 100,000 rupees per year will go to those enrolling on science degree courses." Lots of comments too.
Eric Wargo on stress
The following excellent artcle on stress by Eric Wargo seems to have appeared in part in several places(including The Hindu), often without acknowledgement. Conclusion:
" So Nietzsche’s strenuous view of life, “whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” just plain isn’t true. Stressors that don’t kill you in the short run may yet shorten your life or drastically lessen its quality.
But quit your moping and look on the bright side: The newly refined science of stress could lead to new drug therapies that can control stress or inhibit its effects on health. Also, depression and anxiety are not only results of stress, but also causes, and existing therapeutic and medical treatments for these conditions can help change how people perceive threats, put their life challenges in context, and cut stressors down to manageable size. The cycle doesn’t have to be vicious, in other words.
What’s more, the confirmation that the mind directly affects the body can work as much in our favor as it does to our detriment, as the personality-and-stress research above indicates. As APS Fellow Carol Dweck, Stanford University, has argued, personality is mutable (see Herbert, 2007); if our outlooks and beliefs about ourselves can be changed, so (theoretically) can our vulnerability to life’s slings and arrows.
The bottom line: Stress is not inevitable. Even with more than one’s fair share of vulnerability genes, there’s plenty of room to take one’s life and one’s mind in a less stressful direction. Relaxation techniques such as meditation and yoga, for example, have been confirmed to quell stress demons. Even if you are a determined workaholic glued to your cell phone or a fearful and angry urban neurotic like Woody Allen, stress-reduction methods are readily available to cope with stress in the short term and even alter perceptions of stressors in the long term.
Meyer Friedman, co-discoverer of the link between “Type A” behavior and heart disease, is a case in point. A self-described Type-A personality, Friedman wound up suffering a heart-attack at age 55. He made the conscious choice to change his ways in accordance with his own discoveries — including following his own prescription by reading the classics. To get more in touch with his slow, patient, and creative side, he read Proust’s languid seven-volume opus Remembrance of Things Past three times. In short, he trained himself to relax and enjoy life, and he had the last laugh at stress by living to the ripe old age of 90. "
Eric Wargo is the Managing Editor of "Psychological Science in the Public Interest", and has written popular pieces on Daniel Gilbert, Philip Zimbardo and others.
" So Nietzsche’s strenuous view of life, “whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” just plain isn’t true. Stressors that don’t kill you in the short run may yet shorten your life or drastically lessen its quality.
But quit your moping and look on the bright side: The newly refined science of stress could lead to new drug therapies that can control stress or inhibit its effects on health. Also, depression and anxiety are not only results of stress, but also causes, and existing therapeutic and medical treatments for these conditions can help change how people perceive threats, put their life challenges in context, and cut stressors down to manageable size. The cycle doesn’t have to be vicious, in other words.
What’s more, the confirmation that the mind directly affects the body can work as much in our favor as it does to our detriment, as the personality-and-stress research above indicates. As APS Fellow Carol Dweck, Stanford University, has argued, personality is mutable (see Herbert, 2007); if our outlooks and beliefs about ourselves can be changed, so (theoretically) can our vulnerability to life’s slings and arrows.
The bottom line: Stress is not inevitable. Even with more than one’s fair share of vulnerability genes, there’s plenty of room to take one’s life and one’s mind in a less stressful direction. Relaxation techniques such as meditation and yoga, for example, have been confirmed to quell stress demons. Even if you are a determined workaholic glued to your cell phone or a fearful and angry urban neurotic like Woody Allen, stress-reduction methods are readily available to cope with stress in the short term and even alter perceptions of stressors in the long term.
Meyer Friedman, co-discoverer of the link between “Type A” behavior and heart disease, is a case in point. A self-described Type-A personality, Friedman wound up suffering a heart-attack at age 55. He made the conscious choice to change his ways in accordance with his own discoveries — including following his own prescription by reading the classics. To get more in touch with his slow, patient, and creative side, he read Proust’s languid seven-volume opus Remembrance of Things Past three times. In short, he trained himself to relax and enjoy life, and he had the last laugh at stress by living to the ripe old age of 90. "
Eric Wargo is the Managing Editor of "Psychological Science in the Public Interest", and has written popular pieces on Daniel Gilbert, Philip Zimbardo and others.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Breadsociety news for January
here. Excerpt:
"BREAD Society had just completed awarding about a thousand scholarships – 569 fresh scholarships and 422 renewals on November 25, 2007. The Society had the biggest surprise waiting at its doorstep. Here comes a noble soul offering it a donation of Rs. 1.25 crore for the award of fresh scholarships. He wanted the entire donation to be utilized for giving scholarships."
The site for the breadsociety is www.breadsocietyindia.org and it does not seem to be working at the moment. A few days ago, I was in Hyderabad and expressed the desire to know the workings of the society which I heard gave scholarships without considerations of caste or crees. The secretary Ramamohan Rao Kakani came to see me at 7:30 in the morning on his motorcycle and explained their work over 3 hours. He is 70 yeard old and finds it is easier and faster to travel on motorcycle in Hyderabad traffic. From what I could gather, it was an informal group of senior govt. officials, many of them from Andhra villages, who felt that many poor, bright students in their villages missed out on educational opporunities and started the organization about 12 years ago. The criteria for giving scholarships and minitoring process have been evolving over years. Originally they depended on income certificates from local officials to decide eligible candidates. Later they realized that many from relatively affluent families were able to produce those certificates and decided to give the scholarships mainly to those from govt. funded schools. Funds seem to have increased in the last four years and last year, they gave over 500scholarships. They have now a database for the scholarship to students so that they can guage their progress over years and their careers later on. Monitoring is done by examining four reports an year from the beneficiaries and periodic visits from the members of the organization. It is my understanding that these visits, mainly by Mr. Kakani and other organizers, are at their own expense and they can do with more volunteers. Some more details are in my earlier post "Some useful organizations" and Mr. Kakani and others can be contacted for any clarifications. But one wonders about the life span of these organizations and whether they will survive after such people.
"BREAD Society had just completed awarding about a thousand scholarships – 569 fresh scholarships and 422 renewals on November 25, 2007. The Society had the biggest surprise waiting at its doorstep. Here comes a noble soul offering it a donation of Rs. 1.25 crore for the award of fresh scholarships. He wanted the entire donation to be utilized for giving scholarships."
The site for the breadsociety is www.breadsocietyindia.org and it does not seem to be working at the moment. A few days ago, I was in Hyderabad and expressed the desire to know the workings of the society which I heard gave scholarships without considerations of caste or crees. The secretary Ramamohan Rao Kakani came to see me at 7:30 in the morning on his motorcycle and explained their work over 3 hours. He is 70 yeard old and finds it is easier and faster to travel on motorcycle in Hyderabad traffic. From what I could gather, it was an informal group of senior govt. officials, many of them from Andhra villages, who felt that many poor, bright students in their villages missed out on educational opporunities and started the organization about 12 years ago. The criteria for giving scholarships and minitoring process have been evolving over years. Originally they depended on income certificates from local officials to decide eligible candidates. Later they realized that many from relatively affluent families were able to produce those certificates and decided to give the scholarships mainly to those from govt. funded schools. Funds seem to have increased in the last four years and last year, they gave over 500scholarships. They have now a database for the scholarship to students so that they can guage their progress over years and their careers later on. Monitoring is done by examining four reports an year from the beneficiaries and periodic visits from the members of the organization. It is my understanding that these visits, mainly by Mr. Kakani and other organizers, are at their own expense and they can do with more volunteers. Some more details are in my earlier post "Some useful organizations" and Mr. Kakani and others can be contacted for any clarifications. But one wonders about the life span of these organizations and whether they will survive after such people.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Follow up of "A micro effort"
There has been some response to my earlier post on micro finance from some friends of my brother Kamalakar.
A brief summary of the requirements:
"The one I am keen about at the moment is a small micro-finance effort with no name organized by P.Sunder, a cousin of Benjamin Kaila. I wrote about this in my blog. Benjamin started this on an experimental basis with fund of Rs. 12,500. The current efforts :
a) 50,000 rupees for Velur projects, current and new,
b) 35,000 rupees for Jamudupadu projects, current and new,
c)35,000 rupees for Modukur projects, new.
In addition, there is plan for a sewing training school in Modukur but this is planned for the coming summer. There is no estimate of the costs yet.
I gave 50,000 rupees so far and am trying to raise the remaining 70,000. I met Sunder a few times and spoke to the beneficiaries as well as applicants on two days. I think that I can monitor the projects, if necessary, through relatives and during my trips."
Here is an excerpt from one of the responses:
"I just wanted to let you know that we mailed a check payable to IREF for $1,000 to Kamalakar Gadde's attention yesterday. Supporting the Micro Finance project is so well worth it. I am very much impressed to read the details about this work and efforts through P.Sunder. I guess when IREF gets the check, they know where to send it to for this project (at least that's what I am assuming). If we can get the details of the work and the names of the beneficiaries, I will strongly recommend our board members to support with more funding in the near future."
My impression is that there are many who want to contribute ( on the recent trip to Andhra one group which organizes educational scholarships told me that a person they did not know at all came up with a contribution of one crore and twenty five lakhs rupees} but want be sure that the money is well spent. The one I identified is a small struggling organization at the grass roots level and the hope is that this small help will make it self sustaining. These are at the level that Shanta Devrajan talks about in this post. Excerpt:
"I left Champaben’s house with a renewed appreciation of how both markets and governments have failed poor people; how poor people are essentially helping each other; and how they do so with charm, grace--and humor. I want to go back."
P.S. This post is not a request for more funds. The current effort seems to be getting enough funds. There are many NRIs from Andhra who come from villages and periodically visit their villages and there are many efforts from them to improve their villages. This is just an example of a similar effort except that I am not from any of the villages mentioned.
A brief summary of the requirements:
"The one I am keen about at the moment is a small micro-finance effort with no name organized by P.Sunder, a cousin of Benjamin Kaila. I wrote about this in my blog. Benjamin started this on an experimental basis with fund of Rs. 12,500. The current efforts :
a) 50,000 rupees for Velur projects, current and new,
b) 35,000 rupees for Jamudupadu projects, current and new,
c)35,000 rupees for Modukur projects, new.
In addition, there is plan for a sewing training school in Modukur but this is planned for the coming summer. There is no estimate of the costs yet.
I gave 50,000 rupees so far and am trying to raise the remaining 70,000. I met Sunder a few times and spoke to the beneficiaries as well as applicants on two days. I think that I can monitor the projects, if necessary, through relatives and during my trips."
Here is an excerpt from one of the responses:
"I just wanted to let you know that we mailed a check payable to IREF for $1,000 to Kamalakar Gadde's attention yesterday. Supporting the Micro Finance project is so well worth it. I am very much impressed to read the details about this work and efforts through P.Sunder. I guess when IREF gets the check, they know where to send it to for this project (at least that's what I am assuming). If we can get the details of the work and the names of the beneficiaries, I will strongly recommend our board members to support with more funding in the near future."
My impression is that there are many who want to contribute ( on the recent trip to Andhra one group which organizes educational scholarships told me that a person they did not know at all came up with a contribution of one crore and twenty five lakhs rupees} but want be sure that the money is well spent. The one I identified is a small struggling organization at the grass roots level and the hope is that this small help will make it self sustaining. These are at the level that Shanta Devrajan talks about in this post. Excerpt:
"I left Champaben’s house with a renewed appreciation of how both markets and governments have failed poor people; how poor people are essentially helping each other; and how they do so with charm, grace--and humor. I want to go back."
P.S. This post is not a request for more funds. The current effort seems to be getting enough funds. There are many NRIs from Andhra who come from villages and periodically visit their villages and there are many efforts from them to improve their villages. This is just an example of a similar effort except that I am not from any of the villages mentioned.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Friday, January 11, 2008
A strategic proof
that real numbers are not countable here, exposition of M.H.Bakers's new proof by Julie Rehmeyer.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Letter to Bimol
To a friend who after years of research in Physics experimented with farming for nine years and who wanted to know my impressions from the recent trip to A.P.:
Dear Bimol,
Among my relatives and friends that I visited all except those in agriculture seem to be doing ok. Many of these have jobs or professionals like doctors or are businessmen or contractors. When I was kid, having about 10 acres of property in coastal A.P. (where there is water facility) was considered good. Now, even those with ten acres seem to be looking for part time jobs outside. Some of the rice farmers have turned to Eucalyptus farming for more reliable income.One nephew manages 35 acres and another is tenant farmer. Both say that they just get by. I also spoke to some agricultural labourers (in the course of examing a micro-finance project), two friends (one of them with a Ph.D in economics) who are hobby farmers, some professors of agriculture from Acharya N.G. Ranga University. In addition I visited D. Rama Naidu Institute for Rural Development in Tuniki. Rama Naidu like Ramoji Rao comes from a farming family and both seem to be contributing a bit to the farming community. Ramoji Rao manages a subsidized magazine "Annadatha" for farmers, the diary which comes with it has the addresses of various govt. depts and organizations related to agriculture. He also has an excellent daily programme on ETV which, according to the friend with economics Ph.D, has been doing more for farmers than many govt. depts. Most of these are from Kamma community to which I belong. My views may be biased by them and my reading of Glenn Davis Stone.First I will confine myself to what I heard. The concensus seems to be:
1) The cost of farming has gone up with new seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and more water.
For somebody who depends on his own labour (I spoke to some agricultural labourers who want to lease land for farming), the minimum cost for one acre for rice growing is around 10,000 rupees. For those who employ others, labour costs are higher than before.
2)The research support and advice with new technology is not easily available (govt. organizations do not work well and need bribes), conflicting advice from businessmen and NGOs committed to self sustaing agriculture. So farmers learn from others who experiment or are adventurous.
3)The returns are still weather dependent and indebtedness grows with failure and interest rates are very high. In villages they seem to start with 20 percent per annum and usually the interest is subtracted before the loan is given (That is if you borrow 10,000 rupees, you get only 8,000 in hand). The govt. schemes ,if any, involve bribes.
4) No guaranteed prices. Where there are minimum support prices, they do not seem good enough. Farmers sell when prices are low and buy the lentils etc they need at high prices.
5)The cost of labour has gone up and the quality has gone down. Some attribute this to drinking with shops in almost every village. The govt. seems to be quite happy with the revenue and unlikely to make any change. I heard that one chief minister had a target for new year drinking revenue.
These are the sort of comments that I heard. The general feeling is that prices are controlled by middlemen and that the politicians and govt. servants respond better to those with money. In spite of farmers' voting power, the others would like cheap food. With some rice farmers turning to Eucalyptus farming and other safer cash crops, some feel that there will a food crisis in the next five years. Others say that it does not matter; as long as the GDP grows, India can buy food from other countries. In Hyderabad, I have met some people who left their work as farm labourers and have come to Hyderabad to work as domestic help. They say that they are doing better now. With pollution increasing in Hyd. I am not sure about their long term prospects. But medical help is nearby if they can afford and that seems to be one reason which many retired people prefer to live in cities. One of the hobby farmers that I mentioned has his own mini plan. On part of his farm, he wants to keep accounts and make it as an example of sustainable farming and persuade some nearby villagers. He had some success 20 years ago and it is possible that he may pull it off for a few years. His wife is a doctor and he is planning on a mobile hospital for 3 days a week in the area where he is farming.
I also met some seed sellers who say that the ideas of sustainable development of DDS and such groups is anti-science and other battles with the involvement multinationals seem to be brewing. I myself feel that there is nothing wrong with GT seeds as long as they are sufficiently tested and farmers properly trained in the new technologies.
That is all for now.
With best regards,
Swarup
Dear Bimol,
Among my relatives and friends that I visited all except those in agriculture seem to be doing ok. Many of these have jobs or professionals like doctors or are businessmen or contractors. When I was kid, having about 10 acres of property in coastal A.P. (where there is water facility) was considered good. Now, even those with ten acres seem to be looking for part time jobs outside. Some of the rice farmers have turned to Eucalyptus farming for more reliable income.One nephew manages 35 acres and another is tenant farmer. Both say that they just get by. I also spoke to some agricultural labourers (in the course of examing a micro-finance project), two friends (one of them with a Ph.D in economics) who are hobby farmers, some professors of agriculture from Acharya N.G. Ranga University. In addition I visited D. Rama Naidu Institute for Rural Development in Tuniki. Rama Naidu like Ramoji Rao comes from a farming family and both seem to be contributing a bit to the farming community. Ramoji Rao manages a subsidized magazine "Annadatha" for farmers, the diary which comes with it has the addresses of various govt. depts and organizations related to agriculture. He also has an excellent daily programme on ETV which, according to the friend with economics Ph.D, has been doing more for farmers than many govt. depts. Most of these are from Kamma community to which I belong. My views may be biased by them and my reading of Glenn Davis Stone.First I will confine myself to what I heard. The concensus seems to be:
1) The cost of farming has gone up with new seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and more water.
For somebody who depends on his own labour (I spoke to some agricultural labourers who want to lease land for farming), the minimum cost for one acre for rice growing is around 10,000 rupees. For those who employ others, labour costs are higher than before.
2)The research support and advice with new technology is not easily available (govt. organizations do not work well and need bribes), conflicting advice from businessmen and NGOs committed to self sustaing agriculture. So farmers learn from others who experiment or are adventurous.
3)The returns are still weather dependent and indebtedness grows with failure and interest rates are very high. In villages they seem to start with 20 percent per annum and usually the interest is subtracted before the loan is given (That is if you borrow 10,000 rupees, you get only 8,000 in hand). The govt. schemes ,if any, involve bribes.
4) No guaranteed prices. Where there are minimum support prices, they do not seem good enough. Farmers sell when prices are low and buy the lentils etc they need at high prices.
5)The cost of labour has gone up and the quality has gone down. Some attribute this to drinking with shops in almost every village. The govt. seems to be quite happy with the revenue and unlikely to make any change. I heard that one chief minister had a target for new year drinking revenue.
These are the sort of comments that I heard. The general feeling is that prices are controlled by middlemen and that the politicians and govt. servants respond better to those with money. In spite of farmers' voting power, the others would like cheap food. With some rice farmers turning to Eucalyptus farming and other safer cash crops, some feel that there will a food crisis in the next five years. Others say that it does not matter; as long as the GDP grows, India can buy food from other countries. In Hyderabad, I have met some people who left their work as farm labourers and have come to Hyderabad to work as domestic help. They say that they are doing better now. With pollution increasing in Hyd. I am not sure about their long term prospects. But medical help is nearby if they can afford and that seems to be one reason which many retired people prefer to live in cities. One of the hobby farmers that I mentioned has his own mini plan. On part of his farm, he wants to keep accounts and make it as an example of sustainable farming and persuade some nearby villagers. He had some success 20 years ago and it is possible that he may pull it off for a few years. His wife is a doctor and he is planning on a mobile hospital for 3 days a week in the area where he is farming.
I also met some seed sellers who say that the ideas of sustainable development of DDS and such groups is anti-science and other battles with the involvement multinationals seem to be brewing. I myself feel that there is nothing wrong with GT seeds as long as they are sufficiently tested and farmers properly trained in the new technologies.
That is all for now.
With best regards,
Swarup
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Raj Chetty wins an award
From 'The American':
"James K Glassman, editor-in-chief of The American magazine, announced today that Raj Chetty, an associate professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, is the winner of the The American magazine’s 2008 Young Economist Award, a research grant of $100,000 provided by the Searle Freedom Trust. The American is a publication of the American Enterprise Institute.
To be eligible for the award, economists have to be featured in the magazine’s bimonthly column entitled “The Young Economist,” which profiles talented economists under the age of forty doing groundbreaking original research. In the year since the launch of The American in November 2006, up to September 2007, six economists have been profiled.
A jury of economists awarded Chetty the grant for his proposal to empirically “identify a set of policy changes that will make low-income support programs more effective per dollar spent.”
Chetty, who is twenty-eight, did his undergraduate and PhD work at Harvard, became an assistant professor of economics at Berkeley at age twenty-three and an associate professor at age twenty-seven.
Chetty has done extensive research on taxation, unemployment, risk preferences and social insurance. Among his notable published research includes “Dividend Taxes and Corporate Behavior: Evidence from the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut,” with Emmanuel Saez, published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. The study found not only that more companies paid out dividends after tax rates were lowered but also that they were likelier to pay dividends if top executives had substantial shareholdings in the firm.
He serves on the board of editors for the Journal of Economic Literature and is a coeditor for the Journal of Public Economics. He is also a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research."
"James K Glassman, editor-in-chief of The American magazine, announced today that Raj Chetty, an associate professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, is the winner of the The American magazine’s 2008 Young Economist Award, a research grant of $100,000 provided by the Searle Freedom Trust. The American is a publication of the American Enterprise Institute.
To be eligible for the award, economists have to be featured in the magazine’s bimonthly column entitled “The Young Economist,” which profiles talented economists under the age of forty doing groundbreaking original research. In the year since the launch of The American in November 2006, up to September 2007, six economists have been profiled.
A jury of economists awarded Chetty the grant for his proposal to empirically “identify a set of policy changes that will make low-income support programs more effective per dollar spent.”
Chetty, who is twenty-eight, did his undergraduate and PhD work at Harvard, became an assistant professor of economics at Berkeley at age twenty-three and an associate professor at age twenty-seven.
Chetty has done extensive research on taxation, unemployment, risk preferences and social insurance. Among his notable published research includes “Dividend Taxes and Corporate Behavior: Evidence from the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut,” with Emmanuel Saez, published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. The study found not only that more companies paid out dividends after tax rates were lowered but also that they were likelier to pay dividends if top executives had substantial shareholdings in the firm.
He serves on the board of editors for the Journal of Economic Literature and is a coeditor for the Journal of Public Economics. He is also a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research."
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Dilip's question
Dilip D'Souza in his blog wonders why conversions anger and threaten so many people. I have seen a bit of this anger and fear recently and have also been wondering about it. A few weeks ago, I contributed a bit of money to a micro-finance effort organized a village pastor P.Sunder (I have made similar small contributions to other efforts headed by Hindus and Moslems). Since then, I have been assailed by various relatives and friends that this money will be used for conversions and that a lot of money has been pouring in from abroad for conversions to Christianity. This may be true but I have seen very little evidence of this money reaching the few villages that I visited. I heard some stories in Hyderabad of money coming from in Germany but eaten up by middlemen and fake reports to satify the donors. In any case, that people feel threatened about some conversions seems to be true.
In an article on a related issue 'The Fundamentalist Challenge' ( from the collection "The Imam and the Indian"), Amitav Ghosh suggests a plausible cause: " I believe that it is an incarnation of a demon that has stalked liberal democracy troughout this (20th) century: an ideology, for want of a better word, I shall call supremacism. It consists essentially in the belief that a group cannot ensure its continuity except exerting absolute cultural and demographic control over particular stretch of geography." But why such a reaction now more than before is not clear to me. Is it due to recent prosperity and better communication systems? At another place in the article, he suggests:" ...the market ideal as a cultural absolute, untempered by any other ethical, political, or spiritual ideals, is often so inhuman and predatory in its effects that it cannot but generate dissent"
I have met many old people during this trip, many of them relatively prosperous. They seem to attribute their prosperity, not even in part to some sort of luck, but to their cultural and value systems and are very eager to impart them to others, particularly youngsters (It scares me because I too am old). May be similar things are true for groups that have survived.
P.S. (12th January, 2008) Annie Zaidi too ponders about Dilip's question.
In an article on a related issue 'The Fundamentalist Challenge' ( from the collection "The Imam and the Indian"), Amitav Ghosh suggests a plausible cause: " I believe that it is an incarnation of a demon that has stalked liberal democracy troughout this (20th) century: an ideology, for want of a better word, I shall call supremacism. It consists essentially in the belief that a group cannot ensure its continuity except exerting absolute cultural and demographic control over particular stretch of geography." But why such a reaction now more than before is not clear to me. Is it due to recent prosperity and better communication systems? At another place in the article, he suggests:" ...the market ideal as a cultural absolute, untempered by any other ethical, political, or spiritual ideals, is often so inhuman and predatory in its effects that it cannot but generate dissent"
I have met many old people during this trip, many of them relatively prosperous. They seem to attribute their prosperity, not even in part to some sort of luck, but to their cultural and value systems and are very eager to impart them to others, particularly youngsters (It scares me because I too am old). May be similar things are true for groups that have survived.
P.S. (12th January, 2008) Annie Zaidi too ponders about Dilip's question.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Some useful organizations
DRNVJIRD (Dr. Rama Naidu Vignana Jyothi Institute of Rural Development) is located near Tuniki vilage, Kowdipally Mandal, Narsapur, Medak District, e-mail:drnvjird@hotail.com. It is about 70 kilometers from Hyderbad, has an office in Hyderabad: 209, Sree Ramakrishna Towers, Nagarjuna Nagar, Ameerpet, Hyderabad-500 073, Phone:(040)23740933.
One of their programmes is an yearly course and a three monthly course to train young farmers who have finished 10th grade in modern mehods of farming. Both courses start on January 17th but the director Dr. K.N. Rao informed me that they allow a few days of delay. It seems that there were more than 120 students two years ago. The original idea was that they would go back to villages and implement modern methods of farming. But all of them got jobs with agricultural and other firms. Last year, due to lack of publicity and recruting staff, there were less than 30 students. Both courses carry a stipend. Lodging and boarding are provided. It seems a good opportunity and not too late, particularly for Telangana students. There are also some programmes in colloboration with Acharya Ranga Agriculural University.
I understnd that there are other similar institutes (one named after Ramanand Tirhda) ner Hyderabad. The diary provided with Annadatha monthly has a list of various got. offices relatd to agriultural matters in the state of A.P.
I have also come acoss an organization called Bread Society which provides educational scholarships to poor students of merit irrespective of caste and creed. The number of scholarships is rapidly increasing. Originaly they were planning to fund about 450 scholarships this year, but that has increased to 900 due to generous contributions. They have also developed a system of monitoring the progress of students which seems reasonable. As far as I know, most of the people who are working in distributing the fellowships are older peope who spend their own money for travel and oter incidental expenses. Their website is: www.breadsocietyindia.org
Their office address: 403, Prashantiram Towers, 8-3-319/8, Yellareddyguda, Yousuguda Main Road, Hyderabad 500073. The secretary's phone numbers are (040)65887177 and (Cell)9391357141. The Present secretary's name is Ramamohana Rao Kakani. He retired as Dy. Advisor to the Planning Commission and is an energetic 70 year old gentleman.
One of their programmes is an yearly course and a three monthly course to train young farmers who have finished 10th grade in modern mehods of farming. Both courses start on January 17th but the director Dr. K.N. Rao informed me that they allow a few days of delay. It seems that there were more than 120 students two years ago. The original idea was that they would go back to villages and implement modern methods of farming. But all of them got jobs with agricultural and other firms. Last year, due to lack of publicity and recruting staff, there were less than 30 students. Both courses carry a stipend. Lodging and boarding are provided. It seems a good opportunity and not too late, particularly for Telangana students. There are also some programmes in colloboration with Acharya Ranga Agriculural University.
I understnd that there are other similar institutes (one named after Ramanand Tirhda) ner Hyderabad. The diary provided with Annadatha monthly has a list of various got. offices relatd to agriultural matters in the state of A.P.
I have also come acoss an organization called Bread Society which provides educational scholarships to poor students of merit irrespective of caste and creed. The number of scholarships is rapidly increasing. Originaly they were planning to fund about 450 scholarships this year, but that has increased to 900 due to generous contributions. They have also developed a system of monitoring the progress of students which seems reasonable. As far as I know, most of the people who are working in distributing the fellowships are older peope who spend their own money for travel and oter incidental expenses. Their website is: www.breadsocietyindia.org
Their office address: 403, Prashantiram Towers, 8-3-319/8, Yellareddyguda, Yousuguda Main Road, Hyderabad 500073. The secretary's phone numbers are (040)65887177 and (Cell)9391357141. The Present secretary's name is Ramamohana Rao Kakani. He retired as Dy. Advisor to the Planning Commission and is an energetic 70 year old gentleman.
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