Gulzar Natarajan in Limits of macroeconomic policy making?:
"Unfortunate as it sounds, after reading reams of analysis of the ongoing financial and economic crisis, I cannot but get a distinct sense of helplessness, even hopelessness, about our present predicament."
In a similar vein "Paul Samuelson: Financial Crisis Work of 'Fiendish Monsters'":
"Q: What should be the appropriate spending policy this time around?
A: ...I don't know whether your roads, whether your railroads are or are not in need of new things. ... If you're very foolish you will spend where the lobbyists want you to, like building bridges to nowhere. But there are plenty of things, from windmills to nuclear plants, that are useful and worth spending money on.
Spending in the direction of the poor part of the population (is important) because those are the people who are most likely to re-spend. If you primarily spend in the direction of your millionaires, that won't make any difference."
And Toxic Leaders.
Somewhat better news:
Maybe De-Coupling Isn’t Dead links to Rogoff: The Exuberance of India.
P.S.From
Blanchard roundtable: In conclusion:
"We don't sound like expert diagnosticians debating which of several potential infections could be causing a patient's trouble. We sound like witch doctors who can't agree on just where in the body the lifeforce can be found."
And Refuted Economic Doctrines #1-5.
Monday, February 02, 2009
Ruchira Paul on her book reviews
From Bland Book Reviews :-) :
"Namit draws attention to Narayan's impassioned critique of the author's style and my own descriptive plot driven approach to the review of the same novel, Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh. In response to Namit's query I will attempt to explain to our readers why my book reviews come across more as précis style presentations than literary criticisms.
Although an avid reader from early childhood, I have never been a terribly literary person. I treat books very much like meals - to be examined, consumed, deriving whatever nutrition they offer and moving on. Some are relished like gourmet treats, some approached with playful or cautious interest and others summarily rejected after the first bite. No matter how deep an imprint a book leaves on my memory and my psyche, I feel little need to dwell too long on it or to connect it to a past or future reading experience in any formally meaningful way. Although I do recall with precision how a very good book managed to touch me, I don't feel compelled to recount the details of those feelings to others who may or may not agree with my assessment. Reading seems like a very private enjoyment. Therefore the lack of ardor in public."
And more. Bloggers often write about topics about which they do not have much expertise but are not entirely aloof from the topics they discuss, like to share and exchange information with others and move on. Seems like a sensible approach to me.
"Namit draws attention to Narayan's impassioned critique of the author's style and my own descriptive plot driven approach to the review of the same novel, Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh. In response to Namit's query I will attempt to explain to our readers why my book reviews come across more as précis style presentations than literary criticisms.
Although an avid reader from early childhood, I have never been a terribly literary person. I treat books very much like meals - to be examined, consumed, deriving whatever nutrition they offer and moving on. Some are relished like gourmet treats, some approached with playful or cautious interest and others summarily rejected after the first bite. No matter how deep an imprint a book leaves on my memory and my psyche, I feel little need to dwell too long on it or to connect it to a past or future reading experience in any formally meaningful way. Although I do recall with precision how a very good book managed to touch me, I don't feel compelled to recount the details of those feelings to others who may or may not agree with my assessment. Reading seems like a very private enjoyment. Therefore the lack of ardor in public."
And more. Bloggers often write about topics about which they do not have much expertise but are not entirely aloof from the topics they discuss, like to share and exchange information with others and move on. Seems like a sensible approach to me.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Indian mathematics miscellany
Sreenivas Paruchuri, organizer of racchabanda and other sites (and one of the most learned people I know on Indology topics) informs of the arrival of Mathematics in India: 500 BCE-1800 CE by Kim Plofker . Kim Plofter did her Ph.D. in 1995 with
David Pingree and wrote several scholarly articles about Indian mathematics . Many wondered why India has not been able to keep up with these wonderful achievements(see, in particular Kerala school of astronomy and mathematicsand the work of Madhava ). Frits Staal reviews some of this work and comes up with his own speculations in Artificial Languages Across Sciences and Civilizations and the briefer reports The Generosity of Artificial Languages and The Generosity of Artificial Languages in an Asian Perspective . Some excerpts from the later report:
"An illustration of our topics of discussion is the discovery by Madhava of Kerala, Southwest India, who lived around 1400 CE, of infinite power series that are expansions of pi and the trigonometric functions sine, etc. This took place almost three centuries before these same series were re-discovered in Europe by Newton and Leibniz. In Europe, that event led to the infinitesimal calculus, which could not have been expressed without the help of an artificial mathematical language. In India, that revolution in language did not take place: Madhava and his followers continued to write in Sanskrit or Malayalam, the Dravidian language of Kerala. The accompanying illustration depicts, on top, the infinite power series that expresses the circumference of a circle with diameter D (i.e., two times the radius R) in Sanskrit, followed by a translation into English by A. K. Bag. At the bottom is the series in its modern form which is basically the same as what was written by Newton.
...
Newton's laws were not always written in an artificial form. He formulated in cumbrous Latin, later disambiguated and clarified by Euler, the law of motion that is now taught to children as f = ma.
Absence of artificial notations and especially of the calculus go far towards explaining why modern science did not originate in India or China. Earlier forms of Asian mathematics inspired the algebra of the Arabs but to what extent was that an artificial language? India did develop a formal or artificial language but that was in linguistics and two millennia earlier."
From the longer paper (page 130):
"In Indian mathematics, infinite power series were discovered almost three centuries before it happened in Europe. Indian mathematics is, in this respect, as good as Newton's, but Samskrit was not artificial enough, it was not replaced by equations and the Indian development ground to a halt.
My next conclusion is more tentative. It is elicited by several questions. Indian grocers have combined the use of place value (already to known to the Babylonians) with Indian numerals including the zero that have been called the essential part of the development of civilization. But why did Indian mathematicians use cumbersome expressions derived from linguistics? Was it to add the prestige of the science of language to the humdrum activity of mathematical calculations? Was it because they thought of mathematics itself as a language, good for composing verse and telling stories and useful for doing sums? Was it for excluding outsiders? Was it for several or all of these reasons? I tend to think that India's lingustic skill may have been not merely irrelevant or superfluous, but detrimental to the development of her mathematics- brilliant as it was."
Perhaps the stupendous achievements of Panini have cast a long shadow. Similar questions about science in China (sometimes both China and India) are discussed under
titles like Needham question .
David Pingree and wrote several scholarly articles about Indian mathematics . Many wondered why India has not been able to keep up with these wonderful achievements(see, in particular Kerala school of astronomy and mathematicsand the work of Madhava ). Frits Staal reviews some of this work and comes up with his own speculations in Artificial Languages Across Sciences and Civilizations and the briefer reports The Generosity of Artificial Languages and The Generosity of Artificial Languages in an Asian Perspective . Some excerpts from the later report:
"An illustration of our topics of discussion is the discovery by Madhava of Kerala, Southwest India, who lived around 1400 CE, of infinite power series that are expansions of pi and the trigonometric functions sine, etc. This took place almost three centuries before these same series were re-discovered in Europe by Newton and Leibniz. In Europe, that event led to the infinitesimal calculus, which could not have been expressed without the help of an artificial mathematical language. In India, that revolution in language did not take place: Madhava and his followers continued to write in Sanskrit or Malayalam, the Dravidian language of Kerala. The accompanying illustration depicts, on top, the infinite power series that expresses the circumference of a circle with diameter D (i.e., two times the radius R) in Sanskrit, followed by a translation into English by A. K. Bag. At the bottom is the series in its modern form which is basically the same as what was written by Newton.
...
Newton's laws were not always written in an artificial form. He formulated in cumbrous Latin, later disambiguated and clarified by Euler, the law of motion that is now taught to children as f = ma.
Absence of artificial notations and especially of the calculus go far towards explaining why modern science did not originate in India or China. Earlier forms of Asian mathematics inspired the algebra of the Arabs but to what extent was that an artificial language? India did develop a formal or artificial language but that was in linguistics and two millennia earlier."
From the longer paper (page 130):
"In Indian mathematics, infinite power series were discovered almost three centuries before it happened in Europe. Indian mathematics is, in this respect, as good as Newton's, but Samskrit was not artificial enough, it was not replaced by equations and the Indian development ground to a halt.
My next conclusion is more tentative. It is elicited by several questions. Indian grocers have combined the use of place value (already to known to the Babylonians) with Indian numerals including the zero that have been called the essential part of the development of civilization. But why did Indian mathematicians use cumbersome expressions derived from linguistics? Was it to add the prestige of the science of language to the humdrum activity of mathematical calculations? Was it because they thought of mathematics itself as a language, good for composing verse and telling stories and useful for doing sums? Was it for excluding outsiders? Was it for several or all of these reasons? I tend to think that India's lingustic skill may have been not merely irrelevant or superfluous, but detrimental to the development of her mathematics- brilliant as it was."
Perhaps the stupendous achievements of Panini have cast a long shadow. Similar questions about science in China (sometimes both China and India) are discussed under
titles like Needham question .
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Longest Banana Cluster?
Longest Banana Cluster!via ఇంత పెద్ద "అరటి పళ్ళ గెల" ఎప్పుడయినా చూశారా? . For some reason, only the second allows enlargement.
Thinking about science
in 24 episodes how to think about science (via 3quarksdaily):
"Modern societies have tended to take science for granted as a way of knowing, ordering and controlling the world. Everything was subject to science, but science itself largely escaped scrutiny. This situation has changed dramatically in recent years. Historians, sociologists, philosophers and sometimes scientists themselves have begun to ask fundamental questions about how the institution of science is structured and how it knows what it knows. David Cayley talks to some of the leading lights of this new field of study.
"
"Modern societies have tended to take science for granted as a way of knowing, ordering and controlling the world. Everything was subject to science, but science itself largely escaped scrutiny. This situation has changed dramatically in recent years. Historians, sociologists, philosophers and sometimes scientists themselves have begun to ask fundamental questions about how the institution of science is structured and how it knows what it knows. David Cayley talks to some of the leading lights of this new field of study.
"
Friday, January 30, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Month of birth and children's health in India
Summary of a recent working paper from the World Bank Month of birth and children's health in India (viaMTEF is The Bayesian Heresy .
Summary: The authors use data from three waves of the India National Family Health Survey to explore the relationship between the month of birth and the health outcomes of young children in India. They find that children born during the monsoon months have lower anthropometric scores compared with children born during the fall and winter months. The authors propose and test four hypotheses that could explain such a correlation. The results emphasize the importance of seasonal variations in affecting environmental conditions at the time of birth and determining the health outcomes of young children in India. Policy interventions that affect these conditions could effectively impact the health and achievement of these children, in a manner similar to nutrition and micronutrient supplementation programs.
Summary: The authors use data from three waves of the India National Family Health Survey to explore the relationship between the month of birth and the health outcomes of young children in India. They find that children born during the monsoon months have lower anthropometric scores compared with children born during the fall and winter months. The authors propose and test four hypotheses that could explain such a correlation. The results emphasize the importance of seasonal variations in affecting environmental conditions at the time of birth and determining the health outcomes of young children in India. Policy interventions that affect these conditions could effectively impact the health and achievement of these children, in a manner similar to nutrition and micronutrient supplementation programs.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Some good out of Satyam
V Chowdary Jampala reports inRacchabanda:
"I did get a chance to visit Emergency Medicine Reseach Institute (EMRI), the not-for-profit organization founded by Ramalinga Raju that operates the 108 service which is similar to the US 911 service (as it was mentioned in this forum before, my brother is part of the leadership of this organization from the very begining). Actually, I had to call 108 a few days ago myself when I witnessed a scooteraccident with minor injuries (it turned out that I was not the only one to make the call).
When my brother first discussed this concept with me exactly four years ago, I was quite skeptical about the utility and feasibility of such a service in India. Now, I find that the use of this number has become ubiquitous throughout the state. The 108 ambulances at the ready are visible at major junctions and urban sites. The service which started about August 2005, now operates about 1650 ambulances and expanded to eight states through out the nation.
EMRI Headquarters is located near Kompalli, and exurb of Hyderabad in a large campus. It houses the corporate headquarters, the Call center for AP, and the national training center for EMTs. The call center has five physicians at any given time who are available to guide the EMTs regarding medical management of these emergencies (our 911 service does not have this). The call center handles about 65,000 calls per day including medical, police and fire emergencies with automated dispatch systems. It has excellent quality control and data gathering mechanisms in place as well as a system for feedback to callers regarding what happened with the incident that was called about. I got to see operatives taking calls and dispatching
ambulances and their case-report forms. In one of the incidents I reviewed, a person that attempted suicide by ingesting acid was taken by the ambulance and handed over to a teaching hospital that was 30 kilometers away within 60 minutes of the initial call - quite impressive by any standards. Both the call center and the ambulances meet the accreditation standards of international bodies. I got to examine both the well designed and well equipped ambulances as well as the training center for the EMTs. I am quite impressed. EMRI is an excellent operation and is an example of what
we are capable of achieving with the right vision and leadership and not compromising with mediocrity.
The truth about Ramalingaraju's actions and culpability with regards to the Satyam debacle will eventually emerge and the rumors and charges floating around may eventually be proven right. However, his contributions to the Indian society with EMRI certainly deserves commendation. His family has contributed about 10 million dollars to start up this operation and keep it running. Even after the state governments began to take over 95% of the cost of maintaining the ambulances, Satyam and Ramalingaraju's foundations were funding about 5% of the costs. Besides the monetary contibution itself, it was Ramalingaraju's insistence that this has to be a state of the art operation meeting the highest international standards that everybody at EMRI credits as being the key for this operation.
Now, it is not clear how that 5% would be made up with contributions from Satyam likely to be unavailable. For the sake of every citizen and resident of India, I hope that EMRI and 108 services continue to go on at the same level of quality."
"I did get a chance to visit Emergency Medicine Reseach Institute (EMRI), the not-for-profit organization founded by Ramalinga Raju that operates the 108 service which is similar to the US 911 service (as it was mentioned in this forum before, my brother is part of the leadership of this organization from the very begining). Actually, I had to call 108 a few days ago myself when I witnessed a scooteraccident with minor injuries (it turned out that I was not the only one to make the call).
When my brother first discussed this concept with me exactly four years ago, I was quite skeptical about the utility and feasibility of such a service in India. Now, I find that the use of this number has become ubiquitous throughout the state. The 108 ambulances at the ready are visible at major junctions and urban sites. The service which started about August 2005, now operates about 1650 ambulances and expanded to eight states through out the nation.
EMRI Headquarters is located near Kompalli, and exurb of Hyderabad in a large campus. It houses the corporate headquarters, the Call center for AP, and the national training center for EMTs. The call center has five physicians at any given time who are available to guide the EMTs regarding medical management of these emergencies (our 911 service does not have this). The call center handles about 65,000 calls per day including medical, police and fire emergencies with automated dispatch systems. It has excellent quality control and data gathering mechanisms in place as well as a system for feedback to callers regarding what happened with the incident that was called about. I got to see operatives taking calls and dispatching
ambulances and their case-report forms. In one of the incidents I reviewed, a person that attempted suicide by ingesting acid was taken by the ambulance and handed over to a teaching hospital that was 30 kilometers away within 60 minutes of the initial call - quite impressive by any standards. Both the call center and the ambulances meet the accreditation standards of international bodies. I got to examine both the well designed and well equipped ambulances as well as the training center for the EMTs. I am quite impressed. EMRI is an excellent operation and is an example of what
we are capable of achieving with the right vision and leadership and not compromising with mediocrity.
The truth about Ramalingaraju's actions and culpability with regards to the Satyam debacle will eventually emerge and the rumors and charges floating around may eventually be proven right. However, his contributions to the Indian society with EMRI certainly deserves commendation. His family has contributed about 10 million dollars to start up this operation and keep it running. Even after the state governments began to take over 95% of the cost of maintaining the ambulances, Satyam and Ramalingaraju's foundations were funding about 5% of the costs. Besides the monetary contibution itself, it was Ramalingaraju's insistence that this has to be a state of the art operation meeting the highest international standards that everybody at EMRI credits as being the key for this operation.
Now, it is not clear how that 5% would be made up with contributions from Satyam likely to be unavailable. For the sake of every citizen and resident of India, I hope that EMRI and 108 services continue to go on at the same level of quality."
A readable book on brain plasticity
I finally completed reading The Brain That Changes Itself nearly two months after starting it. It seemed like an exciting new area with lots of real life examples and reports of actual research. Some of it seemed too good to be true and sometimes it seemed like a theory which explains everything. I thought that I should take it slowly and started googling some of the reports. Some of my misgivings are similar to those expressed in the review by Ruth Douillette:
"While it’s encouraging to realize that we do in fact have the ability to control and even manipulate brain function, it’s not quite as simple as that. The title suggests that the brain “changes itself.” It would be more accurate to say that the brain can be changed by significant intervention—therapy, self-talk, electronic devices—but left to itself most likely will continue in whatever rut it has settled into. Habits are hard to break.
Michael Merzenich, whom Doidge quotes liberally, has been studying the brain’s plasticity for nearly thirty years, according to his website. Merzenich leads a company, Posit Science, and we learn from Doidge the tremendous benefits he’s brought to his patients. What Doidge doesn’t mention, but a quick Google search discovers, is that Merzenich’s revolutionary program is quite pricey. Doidge stops just short of an infomercial."
The Wikipedia article onFast ForWord indicates that the resuts are not as consistently good as anticipated. But I still think that it is a wonderful book to explore the possibities of the power of the mind. More about brain plasticity here.
It will go on my list for rereading of some other popular science books : Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's "Mother Nature", Dan Gilbert's "Stumbling on Happiness", Matt Ridley's "The Red Queen", Frans de Waal's "Our Inner Ape" and of course Richard Dawkins.
"While it’s encouraging to realize that we do in fact have the ability to control and even manipulate brain function, it’s not quite as simple as that. The title suggests that the brain “changes itself.” It would be more accurate to say that the brain can be changed by significant intervention—therapy, self-talk, electronic devices—but left to itself most likely will continue in whatever rut it has settled into. Habits are hard to break.
Michael Merzenich, whom Doidge quotes liberally, has been studying the brain’s plasticity for nearly thirty years, according to his website. Merzenich leads a company, Posit Science, and we learn from Doidge the tremendous benefits he’s brought to his patients. What Doidge doesn’t mention, but a quick Google search discovers, is that Merzenich’s revolutionary program is quite pricey. Doidge stops just short of an infomercial."
The Wikipedia article onFast ForWord indicates that the resuts are not as consistently good as anticipated. But I still think that it is a wonderful book to explore the possibities of the power of the mind. More about brain plasticity here.
It will go on my list for rereading of some other popular science books : Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's "Mother Nature", Dan Gilbert's "Stumbling on Happiness", Matt Ridley's "The Red Queen", Frans de Waal's "Our Inner Ape" and of course Richard Dawkins.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Misc. links January 23rd
Abi at Nanopoitan has a series on Leelaavati's Daughters. One of the moving stories Lilavati's Daughters: 2. Dr. Anandibai Joshi .
Pakistan in Peril By William Dalrymple.
Steve Waldman has several links to nationalization (of banks) debates in Nationalize like real capitalists.
A New Meme: Blame It on Beijing (and Seoul, and Riyadh...) and Chinese Growth Plunges from Econbrowser.
How Far Can You Throw an Economist?from Mark Thoma's "Economist's View"
Global imbalances and the Triffin dilemma by John Kemp.
And a favourite topic. In The Last Professor Staney Fish reviews the book The Last Professors:The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities by Frank Donaghue. Discussion at Language Log Pure Fish (link via Abi of Nanopolitan). Strangely nobody mentions William Clark's "Academic Charisma and the origins of the Research University" reviewed in The Nutty Professorsor David Labaree's Understanding the Rise of American Higher Education....
Some speculations about future research by Freeman Dyson and David Brin.
Pakistan in Peril By William Dalrymple.
Steve Waldman has several links to nationalization (of banks) debates in Nationalize like real capitalists.
A New Meme: Blame It on Beijing (and Seoul, and Riyadh...) and Chinese Growth Plunges from Econbrowser.
How Far Can You Throw an Economist?from Mark Thoma's "Economist's View"
Global imbalances and the Triffin dilemma by John Kemp.
And a favourite topic. In The Last Professor Staney Fish reviews the book The Last Professors:The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities by Frank Donaghue. Discussion at Language Log Pure Fish (link via Abi of Nanopolitan). Strangely nobody mentions William Clark's "Academic Charisma and the origins of the Research University" reviewed in The Nutty Professorsor David Labaree's Understanding the Rise of American Higher Education....
Some speculations about future research by Freeman Dyson and David Brin.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Interesting thought
Excerpt from a comment in the post తెలుగు హిందూమతం : ఈనాటి చారిత్రిక అవసరం :
"సంస్కృతం రోజూ పావుగంట చదివితే చాలా వ్యాధులు కూడా నిరోధించబడతాయని శాస్త్రీయంగా పరిశోధనలద్వారా తెలుస్తున్నది."
Rough transation: "One learns from scientific investigations that reading Samskrit for fifteen minutes a day prevents many diseases"
"సంస్కృతం రోజూ పావుగంట చదివితే చాలా వ్యాధులు కూడా నిరోధించబడతాయని శాస్త్రీయంగా పరిశోధనలద్వారా తెలుస్తున్నది."
Rough transation: "One learns from scientific investigations that reading Samskrit for fifteen minutes a day prevents many diseases"
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
An interesting book about medieval Andhra
I have read only a few history books and do not know where Precolonial India in Practice: Society, Region, and Identity in Medieval Andhra by Cynthia Talbot stands but I found it engrossing.
She chose Andhra region since she felt that its historic experience is more representative of the historic experience of the subcontinent as a whole compared to the well studied core regions like Gangetic pains and Kaveri detlta (page 10) and the medieval period (in this case 1000-1650 and more often the Kakatiya period 1175-1325) because this period corresponds to the era during which the geographic contours of the modern linguistic region was established (page 4). The 1995 article Emergence of Regional Identity and Vernacular Literature: a Case Study in Telugu by S. Nagaraju seems reated. Off and on, I was aso reminded of Peter Turchin's book "War, Peace and War".
She chose Andhra region since she felt that its historic experience is more representative of the historic experience of the subcontinent as a whole compared to the well studied core regions like Gangetic pains and Kaveri detlta (page 10) and the medieval period (in this case 1000-1650 and more often the Kakatiya period 1175-1325) because this period corresponds to the era during which the geographic contours of the modern linguistic region was established (page 4). The 1995 article Emergence of Regional Identity and Vernacular Literature: a Case Study in Telugu by S. Nagaraju seems reated. Off and on, I was aso reminded of Peter Turchin's book "War, Peace and War".
Friday, January 16, 2009
A few of my favourite Hindi songs
After the Noor Jajan dhamaal, I started browsing the net for some of the Hindi (Urdu?) songs that I used to listen in the forties and fifties, some from my mother. Here is a variant of Meera bhajan sung by Lata from Nau Bahar AE RI MAIN TO PREM DEEWANI MERA DARD and the bhajan itself by Geeta Roy (Dutt)from Jogan AERI MAIN TO PREM DEEWANI. I still remember vividly some of the Jhoola scenes from this song in Ratan rhimjhim barse badarwa and my mother used to sing this Sawan Ke Badalo. This one from Madhosh with traces of rap(?) Meri Dil Ki Nagariya Mein Aana . And hundreds more though I do not understand Hindi well. These from Kismet Dheere Dheere Aa Re Badal - Amirbai, Dheere Dheere Aa Re Badal - duet spawned a few songs in Telugu films. Unfortunately Telugu film songs from nearly the same period are frequently removed from YouTube.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
A Noor Jahan Dhamaal
I have been listening to variants of LAL MERI PAT after seeing it in Crazyfinger a few days ago.
More Noor Jahan dhamaals including Sufi dances here.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan version Laal Meri Patt Rakhi Bala Jhoole Lal. Another version by him here. I cannot get rid of it yet.
More Noor Jahan dhamaals including Sufi dances here.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan version Laal Meri Patt Rakhi Bala Jhoole Lal. Another version by him here. I cannot get rid of it yet.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Various Ramayanas
Many Ramayanas:The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia edited by Paula Richman is available online.
From google books excerpts from Questioning Ramayanas edited by Paula Richman are available. In particular, most of Velcheru Narayana Rao's "the Politics of Telugu Ramanayas: Colonialism, Print Culture, and Literary Movements" is avaible except for references which are in the translation తెలుగు రామాయణాల రాజకీయాలు: తెలుగు రామాయణాల రాజకీయాలు: బ్రిటీష్ పాలన, ముద్రణ సంస్కృతి, సాహితీ ఉద్యమాలు publishhed in EemaaTa. The first book has "A Ramayana of Their Own: Women's Oral Tradition in Telugu" by Velcheru Narayana Rao.
I came across these while trying to follow a discussion on Viswanatha Satyanarayana in దీప్తి ధార . Part of the discussion was about Viswanatha's Ramayana and Velcheru's articles seem to put it in a broader context.
From google books excerpts from Questioning Ramayanas edited by Paula Richman are available. In particular, most of Velcheru Narayana Rao's "the Politics of Telugu Ramanayas: Colonialism, Print Culture, and Literary Movements" is avaible except for references which are in the translation తెలుగు రామాయణాల రాజకీయాలు: తెలుగు రామాయణాల రాజకీయాలు: బ్రిటీష్ పాలన, ముద్రణ సంస్కృతి, సాహితీ ఉద్యమాలు publishhed in EemaaTa. The first book has "A Ramayana of Their Own: Women's Oral Tradition in Telugu" by Velcheru Narayana Rao.
I came across these while trying to follow a discussion on Viswanatha Satyanarayana in దీప్తి ధార . Part of the discussion was about Viswanatha's Ramayana and Velcheru's articles seem to put it in a broader context.
Monday, January 12, 2009
And another wonderful link from Chapati Mystery
NAKED LUNCH: Blow daddy from the post Zionists made me forget my Arabic. Beginning of the poem:
"Daddy?
Yes, son.
Are we going to have a war with India?
Perhaps.
Oh, goody. We will thrash them, right? Like we did in 1857!
It wasn’t in 1857, son.
Oh, okay. But whom did we thrash in 1857?
The British, son…
And the Hindus too, right?
Well…"
The comments give a link to The Nadeem F. Paracha Work(s) Archive.
"Daddy?
Yes, son.
Are we going to have a war with India?
Perhaps.
Oh, goody. We will thrash them, right? Like we did in 1857!
It wasn’t in 1857, son.
Oh, okay. But whom did we thrash in 1857?
The British, son…
And the Hindus too, right?
Well…"
The comments give a link to The Nadeem F. Paracha Work(s) Archive.
Reading recommendations from Chris Blattman
I have only read bits and pieces of these. All of them look very interesting.
Science:Conjectures and Refutations by Karl Popper from the post What do Marx, Freud, and Adler have in common?
The Analysis of Household Surveys: A Microeconometric Approach to Development Policy by Angus Deaton from the post Only read this post if "development" and "econometrics" make you warm and tingly
New Development Economics:We Shall Experiment But How Shall We Learn by Dani Rodrik from the post So you want to be an impact evaluator? A cautionary tale
Endogeneous Presidentialism by James A. Robinson and Ragnar Torvik from the post The rise of Presidentialism
Apparently Chris Blattman spends only about half an hour a day blogging but it will take me a few monthe to learn some of this material.
Science:Conjectures and Refutations by Karl Popper from the post What do Marx, Freud, and Adler have in common?
The Analysis of Household Surveys: A Microeconometric Approach to Development Policy by Angus Deaton from the post Only read this post if "development" and "econometrics" make you warm and tingly
New Development Economics:We Shall Experiment But How Shall We Learn by Dani Rodrik from the post So you want to be an impact evaluator? A cautionary tale
Endogeneous Presidentialism by James A. Robinson and Ragnar Torvik from the post The rise of Presidentialism
Apparently Chris Blattman spends only about half an hour a day blogging but it will take me a few monthe to learn some of this material.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Interview with Sirivennela
I found this interview, in a form of English not uncommon in Andhra, fascinating : Interview with Sirivennela Seeta Rama Sastry by Jeevi . An excerpt:
"Checkout our Telugu Samethalu (idioms). Each Sametha is like a bullet in a gun. When it comes out, it does with a force that leaves its impact. Each Sametha is a totality of an excellent poem. Can you tell me who wrote those Samethalu? Nobody knows about that! But they are all very dear to us. When you write something that is very near to the life of a common man, he would adapt it in no time. This is the secret of success of Sirivennela Seetarama Sastry. Why do people accept me? I am no way superior to any body among my contemporaries or elders. There is a touch of reality in my songs. Somebody or the other would identify themselves with the feelings in my lyrics."
"Checkout our Telugu Samethalu (idioms). Each Sametha is like a bullet in a gun. When it comes out, it does with a force that leaves its impact. Each Sametha is a totality of an excellent poem. Can you tell me who wrote those Samethalu? Nobody knows about that! But they are all very dear to us. When you write something that is very near to the life of a common man, he would adapt it in no time. This is the secret of success of Sirivennela Seetarama Sastry. Why do people accept me? I am no way superior to any body among my contemporaries or elders. There is a touch of reality in my songs. Somebody or the other would identify themselves with the feelings in my lyrics."
Friday, January 09, 2009
A book on World Bank Reports
Development Economics through the Decades: A Critical Look at Thirty Years of the World Development Report by Shahid Yusuf . It seems to be available online after registration here and has comments by Angus Deaton and others.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Two on stimulus packages
From "The Big Picture" Porn Industry asks for TART Money
And Willem Buiter in FT Can the US economy afford a Keynesian stimulus? (via 3quarksdaily):
And Willem Buiter in FT Can the US economy afford a Keynesian stimulus? (via 3quarksdaily):
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Some Telugu related material online
at leat today
Classical Telugu Poetry, An Anthology TRANSLATED, EDITED, AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman
Buddhism in Modern Andhra: Literary Representations from Telugu by Velcheru Narayana Rao:
Abstract "This essay explores the hermeneutics of modern Buddhism in colonial and post-colonial Andhra, the Telugu speaking area of India. Using four literary works in Telugu: Buddhacaritramu by Chellapilla Venkata Sastri and Divakarla Tirupati Sastri (known as the Twin Poets), Saundaranandamu by Pingali and Katuri, a play Tisyaraksita by Buccibabu, and a short poem entitled ‘A Jataka Tale’ by Viswanatha Satyanarayana, the essay attempts to interpret each of the works in view of the social, political, and cultural background in which they were written. Each writer is introduced with brief information about his life and works, and each of the works is analysed for its literary ideology and impact. None of the writers were Buddhists and their works did not lead to a revival of Buddhism as a religion either.
The essay argues that two of the above works, Buddhacaritramu and Saundaranandamu, written under the influence of Edwin Arnold and Mahatma Gandhi, create a modern version of Buddhism that blends into a modern Hinduism. The essay also describes how the Nehruvian ideology of Indian nationalism incorporates both religions as integral parts of India’s great culture. The play by Buccibabu and ‘A Jataka Tale’ by Viswanatha Satyanarayana attempt a critique of Buddhism from a modernist and Brahminic point of view respectively, but they have not made a serious difference to the general nationalist approval of Buddhism."
Notes on political Thought in medieval and early Modern South India by Velcheru Narayana rao and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (This link does not seem to work, perhaps googling directly may)
Disclaimer: I enjoy reading Velcheru narayana Rao's writings. As with much work on hisory, sociology, anthropolgy etc, I do not have the competence to judge the material and am not always covinced. Some more links to Telugu related articles in cluding one article by Velcheru are in an earlier post.
P.S. I googled "velcheru on budhist plays in telugu" and found the above article by Velcheru and Sanjay Subrahmanyam on page 3 under "Notes on Political Thought in Medieval and Early Modern South India". If I click on it, the paper appears but if I save the URL and try again, it does not appear. I wonder whether somebody knows how to give the link in this situation.
P.P.S. Sreenivas Paruchuri gives this link in Racchabanda and says that the article of Velcheru and Sanjay Subrahmanyam can be downloaded until the end of February 28.
Classical Telugu Poetry, An Anthology TRANSLATED, EDITED, AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman
Buddhism in Modern Andhra: Literary Representations from Telugu by Velcheru Narayana Rao:
Abstract "This essay explores the hermeneutics of modern Buddhism in colonial and post-colonial Andhra, the Telugu speaking area of India. Using four literary works in Telugu: Buddhacaritramu by Chellapilla Venkata Sastri and Divakarla Tirupati Sastri (known as the Twin Poets), Saundaranandamu by Pingali and Katuri, a play Tisyaraksita by Buccibabu, and a short poem entitled ‘A Jataka Tale’ by Viswanatha Satyanarayana, the essay attempts to interpret each of the works in view of the social, political, and cultural background in which they were written. Each writer is introduced with brief information about his life and works, and each of the works is analysed for its literary ideology and impact. None of the writers were Buddhists and their works did not lead to a revival of Buddhism as a religion either.
The essay argues that two of the above works, Buddhacaritramu and Saundaranandamu, written under the influence of Edwin Arnold and Mahatma Gandhi, create a modern version of Buddhism that blends into a modern Hinduism. The essay also describes how the Nehruvian ideology of Indian nationalism incorporates both religions as integral parts of India’s great culture. The play by Buccibabu and ‘A Jataka Tale’ by Viswanatha Satyanarayana attempt a critique of Buddhism from a modernist and Brahminic point of view respectively, but they have not made a serious difference to the general nationalist approval of Buddhism."
Notes on political Thought in medieval and early Modern South India by Velcheru Narayana rao and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (This link does not seem to work, perhaps googling directly may)
Disclaimer: I enjoy reading Velcheru narayana Rao's writings. As with much work on hisory, sociology, anthropolgy etc, I do not have the competence to judge the material and am not always covinced. Some more links to Telugu related articles in cluding one article by Velcheru are in an earlier post.
P.S. I googled "velcheru on budhist plays in telugu" and found the above article by Velcheru and Sanjay Subrahmanyam on page 3 under "Notes on Political Thought in Medieval and Early Modern South India". If I click on it, the paper appears but if I save the URL and try again, it does not appear. I wonder whether somebody knows how to give the link in this situation.
P.P.S. Sreenivas Paruchuri gives this link in Racchabanda and says that the article of Velcheru and Sanjay Subrahmanyam can be downloaded until the end of February 28.
Best and worst jobs in US
Doing the Math to Find the Good Jobs :
"The study, to be released Tuesday from CareerCast.com, a new job site, evaluates 200 professions to determine the best and worst according to five criteria inherent to every job: environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands and stress.
...........
According to the study, mathematicians fared best in part because they typically work in favorable conditions -- indoors and in places free of toxic fumes or noise -- unlike those toward the bottom of the list like sewage-plant operator, painter and bricklayer. They also aren't expected to do any heavy lifting, crawling or crouching -- attributes associated with occupations such as firefighter, auto mechanic and plumber."
Part of the chart:
The Best The Worst
1. Mathematician 200. Lumberjack
2. Actuary 199. Dairy Farmer
3. Statistician 198. Taxi Driver
4. Biologist 197. Seaman
5. Software Engineer 196. EMT
6. Computer Systems Analyst 195. Garbage Collector
7. Historian 194. Welder
8. Sociologist 193. Roustabout
9. Industrial Designer 192. Ironworker
10. Accountant 191. Construction Worker
11. Economist 190. Mail Carrier
12. Philosopher 189. Sheet Metal Worker
13. Physicist
(via Felix Salmon )
"The study, to be released Tuesday from CareerCast.com, a new job site, evaluates 200 professions to determine the best and worst according to five criteria inherent to every job: environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands and stress.
...........
According to the study, mathematicians fared best in part because they typically work in favorable conditions -- indoors and in places free of toxic fumes or noise -- unlike those toward the bottom of the list like sewage-plant operator, painter and bricklayer. They also aren't expected to do any heavy lifting, crawling or crouching -- attributes associated with occupations such as firefighter, auto mechanic and plumber."
Part of the chart:
The Best The Worst
1. Mathematician 200. Lumberjack
2. Actuary 199. Dairy Farmer
3. Statistician 198. Taxi Driver
4. Biologist 197. Seaman
5. Software Engineer 196. EMT
6. Computer Systems Analyst 195. Garbage Collector
7. Historian 194. Welder
8. Sociologist 193. Roustabout
9. Industrial Designer 192. Ironworker
10. Accountant 191. Construction Worker
11. Economist 190. Mail Carrier
12. Philosopher 189. Sheet Metal Worker
13. Physicist
(via Felix Salmon )
Saturday, January 03, 2009
A view from Pakistan
From Violence without limits and Pakistan's challenge (via 3quarksdaily):
"Put simply, to effectively meet the Islamist challenge, the Pakistani state must finally accept and fully exercise its responsibility to maintain peace, provide justice, foster democracy and participation, and make available in an equitable manner the resources necessary for economic and social development. Pakistan’s neighbours and the world will need to help."
P.S. (8th January) Amitav Kumar links to an article by Mohammed Hanif Ten myths about Pakistan which presents a very different picture. This does not mention any thing about Dawood's stay in Pakistan or the status of minorities. It is possible that for certain groups life is 'normal' in Pakistan like in many other countries
"Put simply, to effectively meet the Islamist challenge, the Pakistani state must finally accept and fully exercise its responsibility to maintain peace, provide justice, foster democracy and participation, and make available in an equitable manner the resources necessary for economic and social development. Pakistan’s neighbours and the world will need to help."
P.S. (8th January) Amitav Kumar links to an article by Mohammed Hanif Ten myths about Pakistan which presents a very different picture. This does not mention any thing about Dawood's stay in Pakistan or the status of minorities. It is possible that for certain groups life is 'normal' in Pakistan like in many other countries
A Glenn Greenwald quote
More oddities in the U.S. "debate" over Israel/Gaza:
"I have little appreciation for those who believe, one way or the other, that they can reliably predict what Obama is going to do -- either on this issue or others. That requires a clairvoyance which I believe people lack."
"I have little appreciation for those who believe, one way or the other, that they can reliably predict what Obama is going to do -- either on this issue or others. That requires a clairvoyance which I believe people lack."
Lazy journalism?
In The Next World Order Gurucharan Das states "The speed with which India is creating world-class companies is also a shock to the Chinese, whose corporate structure is based on state-owned and foreign companies.
I have no satisfactory explanation for all this, but I think it may have something to do with India’s much-reviled caste system. Vaishyas, members of the merchant caste, who have learned over generations how to accumulate capital, give the nation a competitive advantage. Classical liberals may be right in thinking that commerce is a natural trait, but it helps if there is a devoted group of risk-taking entrepreneurs around to take advantage of the opportunity. Not surprisingly, Vaishyas still dominate the Forbes list of Indian billionaires."
This sounds plausible but I wish that he has given some numbers, sources and more evidence instead of just a list of billionaires. One could have also said that Indian democracy unleashed entrepreneurial forces kept in check under colonialism or caste system or whatever. In any case, browsing through an old paper of John Harriss (THE GREAT TRADITION GLOBALIZES: REFLECTIONS ON TWO STUDIES OF .THE INDUSTRIAL LEADERS. OF MADRAS ), I find:
"Much in the business world of Madras/Chennai appears to be little changed. Most of the major companies of Singer's time are still important today; and the pre-eminence
of Brahman families amongst the business leaders of Chennai is as marked as it was in 19641. Amongst his 17 industrial leaders Singer found nine Tamil Brahmans(seven Smarta Brahmans, or Iyers; and two Srivaisnava Brahmans, or Iyengars); four Chettiars; one Mudaliar; one Kamma; two Muslims; one from a Gujarati merchant Hindu family; and one from a Syrian Christian family. The nineteen family or other ownership groups. which I identified amongst the 31 leading companies include: eight Tamil Brahmans (six Iyers and two Iyengars); three Chettiars; three Reddys; one Saiva Mudaliar (not the same as in 1964); one Kamma (the same family as in 1964); one Syrian Christian (the same as in 1964); one Raja and one Marwari. The Brahman-
owned family businesses of 1964 have, with only one exception (that of the ill-fated
Standard Motor Company), consolidated their positions; and they have been joined by
highly successful new companies, in software products and in chemicals, also owned
by Brahmans. The largest single group of the new software entrepreneurs is constituted by Brahmans. This new generation of Brahman entrepreneurs comes generally from a different social background, however, from that of the first
generation of Brahman industrialists. Singer referred to the fact that Four of the
Brahman families had come from such localities of Tirunelveli District as
Kallidaikkuricci and Alvarkkuricci, where Brahmans have been noted as traders and
bankers for more than 300 years, and others also came from relatively privileged backgrounds. The new generation of Brahman entrepreneurs comes, however, from families of white collar workers, minor officials, or smaller business."
This was a 2003 preprint published later. There is a more recent book by Harish damodaran India's new capitalists: Caste, Business, and Industry in a Modern Nation which I have not read. From the index here, it appears to be more of study of south and west India.
Businessworld reviewhere, The Hindu review here and
The Telegraph review here. The last review was discussed in Entertaining Research.
According to the Businessworld review "The Central Statistical Organisation’s 1998 economic census (that reviewed business ownership) provides some startling data. The census itself was enormous — it covered over 30 million businesses engaged in all forms of business activity except hard-core agriculture — construction, trading, hospitality, finance and other services. Other backward castes, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes owned almost 45 per cent of all business enterprises."
An interview with Harish Damodaran here.Excerpt: "Simply put, what I saw was a diversity of ownership by caste in the South, unlike in the North where every industrialist is a Bania or Khatri. In the South, the farmer could be Gounder or a Kamma, as much an industrialist could be from these castes. All this set me thinking and, around mid-2004, I started researching and examining the database of BSE-listed companies to try and trace the caste origins of the promoters. I ended up creating a database of around 5,000 companies and all this eventually led to my writing the book." Much more in the interview.
I have no satisfactory explanation for all this, but I think it may have something to do with India’s much-reviled caste system. Vaishyas, members of the merchant caste, who have learned over generations how to accumulate capital, give the nation a competitive advantage. Classical liberals may be right in thinking that commerce is a natural trait, but it helps if there is a devoted group of risk-taking entrepreneurs around to take advantage of the opportunity. Not surprisingly, Vaishyas still dominate the Forbes list of Indian billionaires."
This sounds plausible but I wish that he has given some numbers, sources and more evidence instead of just a list of billionaires. One could have also said that Indian democracy unleashed entrepreneurial forces kept in check under colonialism or caste system or whatever. In any case, browsing through an old paper of John Harriss (THE GREAT TRADITION GLOBALIZES: REFLECTIONS ON TWO STUDIES OF .THE INDUSTRIAL LEADERS. OF MADRAS ), I find:
"Much in the business world of Madras/Chennai appears to be little changed. Most of the major companies of Singer's time are still important today; and the pre-eminence
of Brahman families amongst the business leaders of Chennai is as marked as it was in 19641. Amongst his 17 industrial leaders Singer found nine Tamil Brahmans(seven Smarta Brahmans, or Iyers; and two Srivaisnava Brahmans, or Iyengars); four Chettiars; one Mudaliar; one Kamma; two Muslims; one from a Gujarati merchant Hindu family; and one from a Syrian Christian family. The nineteen family or other ownership groups. which I identified amongst the 31 leading companies include: eight Tamil Brahmans (six Iyers and two Iyengars); three Chettiars; three Reddys; one Saiva Mudaliar (not the same as in 1964); one Kamma (the same family as in 1964); one Syrian Christian (the same as in 1964); one Raja and one Marwari. The Brahman-
owned family businesses of 1964 have, with only one exception (that of the ill-fated
Standard Motor Company), consolidated their positions; and they have been joined by
highly successful new companies, in software products and in chemicals, also owned
by Brahmans. The largest single group of the new software entrepreneurs is constituted by Brahmans. This new generation of Brahman entrepreneurs comes generally from a different social background, however, from that of the first
generation of Brahman industrialists. Singer referred to the fact that Four of the
Brahman families had come from such localities of Tirunelveli District as
Kallidaikkuricci and Alvarkkuricci, where Brahmans have been noted as traders and
bankers for more than 300 years, and others also came from relatively privileged backgrounds. The new generation of Brahman entrepreneurs comes, however, from families of white collar workers, minor officials, or smaller business."
This was a 2003 preprint published later. There is a more recent book by Harish damodaran India's new capitalists: Caste, Business, and Industry in a Modern Nation which I have not read. From the index here, it appears to be more of study of south and west India.
Businessworld reviewhere, The Hindu review here and
The Telegraph review here. The last review was discussed in Entertaining Research.
According to the Businessworld review "The Central Statistical Organisation’s 1998 economic census (that reviewed business ownership) provides some startling data. The census itself was enormous — it covered over 30 million businesses engaged in all forms of business activity except hard-core agriculture — construction, trading, hospitality, finance and other services. Other backward castes, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes owned almost 45 per cent of all business enterprises."
An interview with Harish Damodaran here.Excerpt: "Simply put, what I saw was a diversity of ownership by caste in the South, unlike in the North where every industrialist is a Bania or Khatri. In the South, the farmer could be Gounder or a Kamma, as much an industrialist could be from these castes. All this set me thinking and, around mid-2004, I started researching and examining the database of BSE-listed companies to try and trace the caste origins of the promoters. I ended up creating a database of around 5,000 companies and all this eventually led to my writing the book." Much more in the interview.
Imamuddin Khan Babi
From Indogram article Death of a Patriot by Rupa Abdi :
"On the 24th of February, 2008, the body of a 94 year old poet prince was led to rest. He was Imamuddin Khan Babi, who wrote poetry by the pen name of Ruswa Mazloom, and was the erstwhile ruler of Pajod, a small jagir in Junagadh district of Gujarat. Few in India have heard his name, and even fewer know that in spite of being the jagirdaar of one of the smallest princely states in India he towered above the other princes of pre-independence India.
....
During the communal riots of 1947, a dargah in Pajod, was destroyed by rioters. Instead of rebuilding the dargah, Imamuddin Khan chose to build a library there. This library stands today as a lesson to every Indian who talks about destroying or rebuilding temples and mosques in disputed areas.
....
During his brief rule of twelve years, Imamuddin Khan provided his subjects with electricity, established a full fledged hospital in his mother, Zenab Bibi’s name. The doctors of this hospital would offer free services to their patients and even visit them at home. Imamuddin Khan also established a school for Harijans, started a sports club by the name of ‘Isharat’. He appointed a Harijan woman as its secretary. He also formed a volley ball team of his state and trained two Harijans to become a part of this team. At the time when the king was the owner of the entire land of his kingdom, Imamuddin Khan introduced a law whereby the farmer who tilled the land became its sole owner.
After independence, he became a member of Congress Seva Dal and continued to work for the progress of his erstwhile state."
"On the 24th of February, 2008, the body of a 94 year old poet prince was led to rest. He was Imamuddin Khan Babi, who wrote poetry by the pen name of Ruswa Mazloom, and was the erstwhile ruler of Pajod, a small jagir in Junagadh district of Gujarat. Few in India have heard his name, and even fewer know that in spite of being the jagirdaar of one of the smallest princely states in India he towered above the other princes of pre-independence India.
....
During the communal riots of 1947, a dargah in Pajod, was destroyed by rioters. Instead of rebuilding the dargah, Imamuddin Khan chose to build a library there. This library stands today as a lesson to every Indian who talks about destroying or rebuilding temples and mosques in disputed areas.
....
During his brief rule of twelve years, Imamuddin Khan provided his subjects with electricity, established a full fledged hospital in his mother, Zenab Bibi’s name. The doctors of this hospital would offer free services to their patients and even visit them at home. Imamuddin Khan also established a school for Harijans, started a sports club by the name of ‘Isharat’. He appointed a Harijan woman as its secretary. He also formed a volley ball team of his state and trained two Harijans to become a part of this team. At the time when the king was the owner of the entire land of his kingdom, Imamuddin Khan introduced a law whereby the farmer who tilled the land became its sole owner.
After independence, he became a member of Congress Seva Dal and continued to work for the progress of his erstwhile state."
Friday, January 02, 2009
V.S. Ramachandran on self awareness
From SELF AWARENESS: THE LAST FRONTIER:
"• Even odder is a phenomenon called "The telephone syndrome". The patient (I'll call him John) will display akinetic mutism—no visual consciousness—when seeing his (say) father in person. But if he receives a phone call from his father he suddenly becomes conscious and starts conversing with him normally. (S. Sriram and Orrin Devinsky, personal communication.) It's as if there are two Johns—the visual John who is only partially conscious and the auditory John (with his own self) who talks over the phone. This implies a degree of segregation of selves—all the way from sensory areas to motor output—that no one would have suspected.
We will now consider two aspects of self that are considered almost axiomatic. First its essentially private nature. You can empathise with someone but never to the point of experiencing her sensations or dissolving into her (except in pathological states like folie a duex and romantic love). Second, it is aware of its own existence. A self that negates itself is an oxymoron. Yet both these axioms can fall apart in disease; without affecting other aspects of self. An amputee can literally feel his phantom limb being touched when he merely watches a normal person being touched. A person with Cotard's syndrome will deny that he exists; claiming that his body is a mere empty shell. Explaining these disorders in neural terms can help illuminate how the normal self is constructed.
To account for some of these syndromes we need to invoke mirror neurons discovered by Giacomo Rizzolatti, Victorio Gallase and Marco Iacoboni."
The thesis seems to be that the problem of self can be studied empirically and mirror neurons "could be the neural basis of introspection, and of the reciprocity of self awareness and other awareness."
Readable essay and there is a discussion at the end with Marc Hauser.
"• Even odder is a phenomenon called "The telephone syndrome". The patient (I'll call him John) will display akinetic mutism—no visual consciousness—when seeing his (say) father in person. But if he receives a phone call from his father he suddenly becomes conscious and starts conversing with him normally. (S. Sriram and Orrin Devinsky, personal communication.) It's as if there are two Johns—the visual John who is only partially conscious and the auditory John (with his own self) who talks over the phone. This implies a degree of segregation of selves—all the way from sensory areas to motor output—that no one would have suspected.
We will now consider two aspects of self that are considered almost axiomatic. First its essentially private nature. You can empathise with someone but never to the point of experiencing her sensations or dissolving into her (except in pathological states like folie a duex and romantic love). Second, it is aware of its own existence. A self that negates itself is an oxymoron. Yet both these axioms can fall apart in disease; without affecting other aspects of self. An amputee can literally feel his phantom limb being touched when he merely watches a normal person being touched. A person with Cotard's syndrome will deny that he exists; claiming that his body is a mere empty shell. Explaining these disorders in neural terms can help illuminate how the normal self is constructed.
To account for some of these syndromes we need to invoke mirror neurons discovered by Giacomo Rizzolatti, Victorio Gallase and Marco Iacoboni."
The thesis seems to be that the problem of self can be studied empirically and mirror neurons "could be the neural basis of introspection, and of the reciprocity of self awareness and other awareness."
Readable essay and there is a discussion at the end with Marc Hauser.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Planting flowers and vegetables together
may not be such a bad idea (I have been doing this) says Buzzing bees protect plant leaves :
"In tents with bees flying over plants without fruit, caterpillars did less damage to leaves than in quiet tents, the researchers report.
.....
Whatever the history, it makes a good example of hard-to-spot indirect relationships between species in ecosystems, Tautz says.
Also, he says he can imagine that gardeners might someday take advantage of this effect. “Alternating rows of vegetables and flowers not only look beautiful, they may reduce the use of pesticides,” he says."
"In tents with bees flying over plants without fruit, caterpillars did less damage to leaves than in quiet tents, the researchers report.
.....
Whatever the history, it makes a good example of hard-to-spot indirect relationships between species in ecosystems, Tautz says.
Also, he says he can imagine that gardeners might someday take advantage of this effect. “Alternating rows of vegetables and flowers not only look beautiful, they may reduce the use of pesticides,” he says."
Book recommenations from Chapati Mystery
In State of the field, Sepoy lists significant books published since 2000 about Indian history. More recommendations in comments. I read only two of them and just planning to read Cynthia Talbot's book after reading some excerpts on the internet.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Jatropha-fuelled flight
From Jatropha-fuelled plane touches down after successful test flight :
"An Air New Zealand jumbo jet left Auckland just before midnight GMT with a 50-50 mix of jet fuel and oil from jatropha trees in one of its four engines. The two-hour test flight, which took the Boeing 747 over the Hauraki Gulf, showed that the jatropha biofuel was suitable for use in airplanes without the need for any modifications of the engines. It forms part of the airline's plan to source 10% of its fuel from sustainable sources by 2013.
....
Air New Zealand's biofuel was made from jatropha nuts, which are up to 40% oil, harvested from trees grown on marginal land in India, Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania. The fuel was pre-tested to show that it was suitable for airplanes, freezing at -47C and burning at 38C.
....
"One of the reasons we chose algae and jatropha is that both are not food sources and can be grown in arid regions and virtually anywhere," said Leah Rayne, managing director of global affairs at Continental. "So they do not compete with food crops for water.""
"An Air New Zealand jumbo jet left Auckland just before midnight GMT with a 50-50 mix of jet fuel and oil from jatropha trees in one of its four engines. The two-hour test flight, which took the Boeing 747 over the Hauraki Gulf, showed that the jatropha biofuel was suitable for use in airplanes without the need for any modifications of the engines. It forms part of the airline's plan to source 10% of its fuel from sustainable sources by 2013.
....
Air New Zealand's biofuel was made from jatropha nuts, which are up to 40% oil, harvested from trees grown on marginal land in India, Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania. The fuel was pre-tested to show that it was suitable for airplanes, freezing at -47C and burning at 38C.
....
"One of the reasons we chose algae and jatropha is that both are not food sources and can be grown in arid regions and virtually anywhere," said Leah Rayne, managing director of global affairs at Continental. "So they do not compete with food crops for water.""
After seeing Gaza pictures
of children, I am reminded of these lines from Arudra
"చిట్టీ పొట్టీ వరాల మూట గుమ్మడిపండు గో గి పూవు
నీకూ నాకూ ఏవేళైనా ఎడబాటే లేదమ్మా
ఏమంటావే బొమ్మా
..........
ఊసులన్నీ నీతోనే ఆశలన్నీ నీ మీదే
నీవే దగ్గర లేకపొతే ఏమోతానోనమ్మా
నే నేమౌతానే బొమ్మా "
"చిట్టీ పొట్టీ వరాల మూట గుమ్మడిపండు గో గి పూవు
నీకూ నాకూ ఏవేళైనా ఎడబాటే లేదమ్మా
ఏమంటావే బొమ్మా
..........
ఊసులన్నీ నీతోనే ఆశలన్నీ నీ మీదే
నీవే దగ్గర లేకపొతే ఏమోతానోనమ్మా
నే నేమౌతానే బొమ్మా "
Monday, December 29, 2008
Native Place
Mark Tully in Rooting for Home from the series My Native Placein Outlook:
"But from my earliest childhood, although I was living in Calcutta, I was left under no illusions about where I ought to locate my native place. I was consistently reminded by my European nanny that I was a little English boy. She had been employed to ensure I didn’t come under the influence of "the servants".
.....
But when I returned to India at the age of 30, more by chance than by intention, I soon discovered that my native place was in doubt. India came back from my subconscious with a bang. The very first day I returned, after being away for 20 of the most influential years of my life, I had a startling experience. When I smelt the smoke from malis cooking their lunch in the garden of my Delhi hotel, the whole of my childhood charged through my mind like a train rushing through a station at full speed. From that day I felt, like Hardy and Nehru, that my native place, the place I was born, was at least as important as any place I might have lived thereafter."
For me, it is also the sounds of Telugu which bring a rush of such memories.
"But from my earliest childhood, although I was living in Calcutta, I was left under no illusions about where I ought to locate my native place. I was consistently reminded by my European nanny that I was a little English boy. She had been employed to ensure I didn’t come under the influence of "the servants".
.....
But when I returned to India at the age of 30, more by chance than by intention, I soon discovered that my native place was in doubt. India came back from my subconscious with a bang. The very first day I returned, after being away for 20 of the most influential years of my life, I had a startling experience. When I smelt the smoke from malis cooking their lunch in the garden of my Delhi hotel, the whole of my childhood charged through my mind like a train rushing through a station at full speed. From that day I felt, like Hardy and Nehru, that my native place, the place I was born, was at least as important as any place I might have lived thereafter."
For me, it is also the sounds of Telugu which bring a rush of such memories.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Start growing your own food
From Food needs 'fundamental rethink' :
"Mr Blanc warned that food prices were likely to continue to rise in the future, which was likely to prompt more people to start growing their own food."
I have been haphazardly trying to do this more out of enthusiam for gardening than anything else. One problem is by the time you grow them, they seem cheaper in the market. Other is lack of expertise; the crops seem to depend more on the weather than any thing I do. Thirdly they need constant attention and water. Water is getting scarce and because they need almost daily attention, one cannot leave home for extended periods. But there are some successes so far. I have several varieties of chillies and they seem to go on for a few years. Some of the leafy vegetables loke silverbeet, spinach are easy to grow and do not need much attention. Many can be grown in the pots too and one can keep changing the position of the pots to suit their growth. One problem is glut. Possibly one has to make arrangements with neighbours or friends to share. Otherwise, it seems to be silverbeet every day for the present, the birds are getting the tomatoes.
"Mr Blanc warned that food prices were likely to continue to rise in the future, which was likely to prompt more people to start growing their own food."
I have been haphazardly trying to do this more out of enthusiam for gardening than anything else. One problem is by the time you grow them, they seem cheaper in the market. Other is lack of expertise; the crops seem to depend more on the weather than any thing I do. Thirdly they need constant attention and water. Water is getting scarce and because they need almost daily attention, one cannot leave home for extended periods. But there are some successes so far. I have several varieties of chillies and they seem to go on for a few years. Some of the leafy vegetables loke silverbeet, spinach are easy to grow and do not need much attention. Many can be grown in the pots too and one can keep changing the position of the pots to suit their growth. One problem is glut. Possibly one has to make arrangements with neighbours or friends to share. Otherwise, it seems to be silverbeet every day for the present, the birds are getting the tomatoes.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Do policies matter?
From the summary of a recent paper in the post It's the policies that matter?:
"Since their property rights and legal systems are virtually identical, recent theories of development cannot explain the divergence between Barbados and Jamaica. Differences in macroeconomic policy choices, not differences in institutions, account for the heterogeneous growth experiences of these two Caribbean nations."
"Since their property rights and legal systems are virtually identical, recent theories of development cannot explain the divergence between Barbados and Jamaica. Differences in macroeconomic policy choices, not differences in institutions, account for the heterogeneous growth experiences of these two Caribbean nations."
Favourite Story of 2008?
Yves Smith has an open thread Favorite Story of 2008.
3quarksdaily links to 50 Things We Know Now (We Didn't Know This Time Last Year): 2008 Edition.
One of the comments in the first post links to Top 100 Stories of 2008 from Discover magazine.
An interesting remark that I came across today. From an economist's response to CAN SCIENCE HELP SOLVE THE ECONOMIC CRISIS?:
"Imagine that fires were devastating the world's forests and you came across this manifesto:
The forest crisis has to be stabilized immediately. This has to be carried out pragmatically, without undue ideology, and without reliance on the failed ideas and assumptions that led to the crisis. Complexity science can help here. For example, it is wrong to speak of "restoring the forests to equilibrium," because forests have never been in equilibrium. We are way ahead if we speak of "restoring forests to a stable, self-organizing critical state."
Would this convince you that only complexity science can prevent forest fires?
With one tweak, this is the first paragraph from the pull-quote for this piece. All I've done is change "market" to "forest." "
My favourite story (which developed over several years but I came to know about it this year)Can kids teach themselves?
3quarksdaily links to 50 Things We Know Now (We Didn't Know This Time Last Year): 2008 Edition.
One of the comments in the first post links to Top 100 Stories of 2008 from Discover magazine.
An interesting remark that I came across today. From an economist's response to CAN SCIENCE HELP SOLVE THE ECONOMIC CRISIS?:
"Imagine that fires were devastating the world's forests and you came across this manifesto:
The forest crisis has to be stabilized immediately. This has to be carried out pragmatically, without undue ideology, and without reliance on the failed ideas and assumptions that led to the crisis. Complexity science can help here. For example, it is wrong to speak of "restoring the forests to equilibrium," because forests have never been in equilibrium. We are way ahead if we speak of "restoring forests to a stable, self-organizing critical state."
Would this convince you that only complexity science can prevent forest fires?
With one tweak, this is the first paragraph from the pull-quote for this piece. All I've done is change "market" to "forest." "
My favourite story (which developed over several years but I came to know about it this year)Can kids teach themselves?
Lekhini
Interview with Veeven of Lekhini fame తెలుగురత్నం వీవెన్ తో ముఖాముఖి (via Vizag Daily). It is a Telugu script generator which is making it possible to write in Telugu even for people like me who did not write Telugu for nearly forty years. Instructions on YouTube Telugu Lekhini. This may be more useful for the development of Telugu than many of the govt. commisions.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
David Brin on net effects
One of the smarter guys out there in Is the Web helping us evolve?:
"So, is the Google era empowering us to be better, smarter, more agile thinkers? Or devolving us into distracted, manic scatterbrains? Is technology-improved discourse going to turn us all into avid, participatory problem solvers? Or will the Web's centrifugal effects spin us all into little islands of shared conviction -- midget Nuremberg rallies -- where facts become irrelevant and any opinion can be a memic god?
Alas, both sides are right."
As they say, read the whole piece.
"So, is the Google era empowering us to be better, smarter, more agile thinkers? Or devolving us into distracted, manic scatterbrains? Is technology-improved discourse going to turn us all into avid, participatory problem solvers? Or will the Web's centrifugal effects spin us all into little islands of shared conviction -- midget Nuremberg rallies -- where facts become irrelevant and any opinion can be a memic god?
Alas, both sides are right."
As they say, read the whole piece.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Some articles on microfinance
India Development Blog has links and discussion about several articles on microfinance and has a post about CMF E-library and recommended articles. There are a couple of posts on a readable overall view by Tim HarfodThe battle for the soul of microfinance. One excerpt from Tim Harford's article:
"Microfinance is a way of harnessing market forces to bring basic financial services to the poor, but many microfinance institutions do much more than that. Using donor funds or reinvested profits, coupled with their reach into remote villages, they provide subsidised education, healthcare and business advice. There is a risk that commercial logic could threaten these subsidised services by repelling donors or poaching the best customers. There is also the risk that competition misfires, leaving the poor paying higher interest rates, rather than lower ones."
He also that there is lack of serious research in to what works and lack of tranparency about interest rates. However even APRs (annual percentage rates) as high as 200 perecent proved successful with some classes of customers. There is much more in the article. In another post Microfinance Must Reads there is link to a surveyHow Do Microfinance Clients Understand Their Loans?. Finally, the postOne Argument Against Microfinance discusses a follow up to Tim Harford's article by another economics professor Milford BatemanMicrofinance’s ‘iron law’ – local economies reduced to poverty which concludes "Economics 101 shows conclusively how critical savings are to development, but only if intermediated into growth- and productivity-enhancing projects. If it all goes into rickshaws, kiosks, 30 chicken farms, traders, and so on, then that country simply will not develop and sustainably reduce poverty." The post in 'India Development Blog' has also a response from Prfessor Bateman.
P.S. More discussion of bateman's remarks in The Problem With Microfinanceby Niranjan Rajadhyaksha and Lessons from Micro-finance II by Glulzar Natarajan.
"Microfinance is a way of harnessing market forces to bring basic financial services to the poor, but many microfinance institutions do much more than that. Using donor funds or reinvested profits, coupled with their reach into remote villages, they provide subsidised education, healthcare and business advice. There is a risk that commercial logic could threaten these subsidised services by repelling donors or poaching the best customers. There is also the risk that competition misfires, leaving the poor paying higher interest rates, rather than lower ones."
He also that there is lack of serious research in to what works and lack of tranparency about interest rates. However even APRs (annual percentage rates) as high as 200 perecent proved successful with some classes of customers. There is much more in the article. In another post Microfinance Must Reads there is link to a surveyHow Do Microfinance Clients Understand Their Loans?. Finally, the postOne Argument Against Microfinance discusses a follow up to Tim Harford's article by another economics professor Milford BatemanMicrofinance’s ‘iron law’ – local economies reduced to poverty which concludes "Economics 101 shows conclusively how critical savings are to development, but only if intermediated into growth- and productivity-enhancing projects. If it all goes into rickshaws, kiosks, 30 chicken farms, traders, and so on, then that country simply will not develop and sustainably reduce poverty." The post in 'India Development Blog' has also a response from Prfessor Bateman.
P.S. More discussion of bateman's remarks in The Problem With Microfinanceby Niranjan Rajadhyaksha and Lessons from Micro-finance II by Glulzar Natarajan.
Monday, December 22, 2008
A terrific project
says Jo about Inventor's 2020 vision: to help 1bn of the world's poorest see better:
"Silver has devised a pair of glasses which rely on the principle that the fatter a lens the more powerful it becomes. Inside the device's tough plastic lenses are two clear circular sacs filled with fluid, each of which is connected to a small syringe attached to either arm of the spectacles.
The wearer adjusts a dial on the syringe to add or reduce amount of fluid in the membrane, thus changing the power of the lens. When the wearer is happy with the strength of each lens the membrane is sealed by twisting a small screw, and the syringes removed. The principle is so simple, the team has discovered, that with very little guidance people are perfectly capable of creating glasses to their own prescription.
....
For the Indian project he has joined forces with Mehmood Khan, a businessman whose family trust runs a humanitarian programme based in 500 villages in the northern state of Haryana, from where he originates.
There will be no shortage of takers in the region, Khan says. "One million in one year is straightaway peanuts for me. In the districts where we are working, one district alone will have half a million people [who need the technology]." Khan's day job is as Global Leader of Innovation for Unilever, and though his employer will have no direct connection with the scheme, having contact with 150m consumers a day, as he points out, means he is used to dealing with large numbers.
But surely finding funding on this scale will be impossible? "I share a vision with Josh," says Khan. "A thing like this, once it works, you create awareness, you enrol governments and the UN, and the model becomes scaleable. People begin to believe." And from a business point of view, he notes wryly, when poor people become more economically developed they also become potential customers."
Wikipedia article on Joshua Silverandadaptive-eyecare site/.
"Silver has devised a pair of glasses which rely on the principle that the fatter a lens the more powerful it becomes. Inside the device's tough plastic lenses are two clear circular sacs filled with fluid, each of which is connected to a small syringe attached to either arm of the spectacles.
The wearer adjusts a dial on the syringe to add or reduce amount of fluid in the membrane, thus changing the power of the lens. When the wearer is happy with the strength of each lens the membrane is sealed by twisting a small screw, and the syringes removed. The principle is so simple, the team has discovered, that with very little guidance people are perfectly capable of creating glasses to their own prescription.
....
For the Indian project he has joined forces with Mehmood Khan, a businessman whose family trust runs a humanitarian programme based in 500 villages in the northern state of Haryana, from where he originates.
There will be no shortage of takers in the region, Khan says. "One million in one year is straightaway peanuts for me. In the districts where we are working, one district alone will have half a million people [who need the technology]." Khan's day job is as Global Leader of Innovation for Unilever, and though his employer will have no direct connection with the scheme, having contact with 150m consumers a day, as he points out, means he is used to dealing with large numbers.
But surely finding funding on this scale will be impossible? "I share a vision with Josh," says Khan. "A thing like this, once it works, you create awareness, you enrol governments and the UN, and the model becomes scaleable. People begin to believe." And from a business point of view, he notes wryly, when poor people become more economically developed they also become potential customers."
Wikipedia article on Joshua Silverandadaptive-eyecare site/.
Oportunidades
Gulzar Natarajan summarizes in Oportunidades and the role of CCTs Tina Rosenberg's NYT article A Payoff Out of Poverty?. From Natarajan's summary:
"The program gives the poor cash, but unlike traditional welfare programs, it conditions the receipt of that cash on activities designed to break the culture of poverty and keep the poor from transmitting that culture to their children. Its success has catapulted Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) schemes to the forefront of poverty fighting strategies throughout the world.
Oportunidades focuses on providing cash grant to parents for sending children to school (and maintaining good attendance); basic food grant if children and ante-natal women attend regular health checkups, take nutrition supplements, besides attending a monthly workshop on a health topic, like purifying drinking water. The cash payments are made to the women, ... It forces the poor to imbibe many of the structural and behavioural traits that the middle class takes for granted. It seeks to offer the "new paternalism" of the State in the form of "tough love", instead of unconditional love of the old nanny state. It enforces outcomes and dispenses off with targets and impersonal subsidies. "
The original article says that "At least 30 countries have now adopted Oportunidades, most of them in Latin America, but not all: countries now using or experimenting with some form of conditional payments include Turkey, Cambodia and Bangladesh. Last year, officials from Indonesia, South Africa, Ethiopia and China contacted or visited Mexico to investigate. Perhaps the most startling iteration is in New York City. Opportunity NYC, a pilot program begun last year after Mayor Michael Bloomberg visited Mexico, will test whether the Oportunidades model can help the New York neighborhoods where poverty is passed down from parent to child."
"The program gives the poor cash, but unlike traditional welfare programs, it conditions the receipt of that cash on activities designed to break the culture of poverty and keep the poor from transmitting that culture to their children. Its success has catapulted Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) schemes to the forefront of poverty fighting strategies throughout the world.
Oportunidades focuses on providing cash grant to parents for sending children to school (and maintaining good attendance); basic food grant if children and ante-natal women attend regular health checkups, take nutrition supplements, besides attending a monthly workshop on a health topic, like purifying drinking water. The cash payments are made to the women, ... It forces the poor to imbibe many of the structural and behavioural traits that the middle class takes for granted. It seeks to offer the "new paternalism" of the State in the form of "tough love", instead of unconditional love of the old nanny state. It enforces outcomes and dispenses off with targets and impersonal subsidies. "
The original article says that "At least 30 countries have now adopted Oportunidades, most of them in Latin America, but not all: countries now using or experimenting with some form of conditional payments include Turkey, Cambodia and Bangladesh. Last year, officials from Indonesia, South Africa, Ethiopia and China contacted or visited Mexico to investigate. Perhaps the most startling iteration is in New York City. Opportunity NYC, a pilot program begun last year after Mayor Michael Bloomberg visited Mexico, will test whether the Oportunidades model can help the New York neighborhoods where poverty is passed down from parent to child."
Friday, December 19, 2008
Pedda cheruvu
A while ago, I posted about Dr. Prakasam Tata's efforts of water purification with Pedda cheruvu near Vizianagaram. The link to his article 'Dreaming in color' is no longer working but the article can be found in found in other places, for example,
here, on pages 6 onwards and and a few other places by googling 'Dreaming in Color- Dr. Prakasam Tata'.A felicitation for Dr. Tatarao and views of pedda cheruvu here.
here, on pages 6 onwards and and a few other places by googling 'Dreaming in Color- Dr. Prakasam Tata'.A felicitation for Dr. Tatarao and views of pedda cheruvu here.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Popularity of Bollywood outside India
I have not seen many Bollywood movies after the fifties. Around 1988, I went to buy a second hand sofa from an old Greek lady who migrated to Melbourne and she started talking about Nargis and Raj Kapoor. Slowly, it became clear that Bollywood movies have been popular in many countries ouside India. It was not clear to me why since I did not like the few I saw that were made after the fifties. Amitav Ghosh met many Egptians who were familiar with Hindi movies and songs around 1980 and wonders whether this is due to non aligned movement.In Confessions Of A Xenophile he says "But it needs to be acknowledged here that neither I nor any of the other elements of India that were present in rural Beheira – the pumps and the Hindi film songs – would have been able to find a place there if not for the existence of the Non-aligned Movement." While not taking any thing away from the general thrust of Ghosh's essay, popularity of Bollywood films and songs in many countries seem to be due to other reasons. Brian Larkin says in Bollywood Comes To Nigeria "Ever since Lebanese distributors began importing Indian movies in the 1950s, though, Hausa viewers have recognized the strong visual, social and even political similarities between the two cultures. By the early 1960s, when television was first introduced, Hausa fans were already demanding (over British objections) that Indian movies be shown on TV." Apparently, this medium was first introduced by the British in Nigeria for 'propoganda' purposes : to show the supriority of their various projects for progress and thus partly justifying their rule. The introduction by Lebanese traders was a commercial move and Larkin sees the popularity of Bollywood as an unintended consequence which opened up space for many younger Husa. The corresponding transformations are described in much detail and depth in his recent book 'Signal and Noise'. Some pages of the book are available here. In Itineraries of Indian Cinema: African Videos,Bollywood and Global Media Larkin discusses the popularity of Bollywood in other countries (but mainly in Nigeria), but the paper was written in 2003 and the picture might have changed. I wonder whether one approach toPakistan is through films, cricket and more contacts.
Gojjangi
I finally acquired from an internet acquintance a copy of 'Saraswatalokam'( సారస్వతా లోకము) by Rallapalli Ananthakrishna Sarma, published by Triveni Publications in 1966. In the very first article 'Rayalanati rasikata'(రాయలనాటి రసికత) Rallapalli mentions 'gojjangi neeru' and 'gojjangi' on pages 6 and 12, (pages 4,5 are missing in the copy). On page 12, he says that it is not known what these flowers are and that some speculate that these may be roses. A quick google search shows that this may be 'mogali poovu' ketak:
"BOTANICAL NAME PANDANUS ODOROTISSIMUS
FAMILY PANDANACEAE
SUBSTITUTE PANDANUS TECTORIUS
OTHER NAMES
• SANSKRIT • Ketak, Suchipushp, Ketaki
• HINDI • Kevda, Kewra
• BENGALI • Ketaki, Keya
• ENGLISH • Screw pine
• MALYALAM • Kaida-taddi, Pukkaita
• KANNADA • Kaida, Katthaale, Kedage, Kedige, Ketike, Mandige, Thaale, Kadige
• MARATHI • Kaeoda, Kaeora, Kaethaki, Kaevada, Paandar kaevda
• TAMIL • Thazhai, Tazhai
• TELGU • Gaajangi, Gedaji, Gedangimogali, Gojjangi, Kaethaki, Mogli chettu, Mugali"
From Ketaki’ — a cursed but useful flower by H.C. Gera:
"The male fluorscence's are valued for the fragrance emitted by the tender white spates covering the flowers. Valuable attar is obtained from them. The flowers are also used for hair decoration. The commercial use of this plant is mainly centered mostly around Kollapali, Meghra and Agrraran in Ganjam district of Orissa. Flowers are used for extraction of "kweda attar" and "kewra water" and kewda oil. It is estimated that there are 300 to 400 thousands trees in Ganjam district.
"Kewda attar" is one of the most popular perfumes extracted and used in India since ancient times. It blends well with almost all types of fancy perfumes and is used for scenting clothes, bouquets, lotions, cosmetics, soaps, hair oils, tobacco and agarbati. Kewda water is used for flavouring various foods, sweets syrups and soft drinks. The use of kewda water is very common on festival occasion, weddings and other social functions in North India."
Brown's dictionary says that gojjangi is the female version of ketaki but whether this distinction in names is maintained is not clear.
The google search lso led to some pleasant surprises:
kshetryya padaalu and nice Hindi songs like this and thenthis. These last ones may be due to an advertisement on the pages.
"BOTANICAL NAME PANDANUS ODOROTISSIMUS
FAMILY PANDANACEAE
SUBSTITUTE PANDANUS TECTORIUS
OTHER NAMES
• SANSKRIT • Ketak, Suchipushp, Ketaki
• HINDI • Kevda, Kewra
• BENGALI • Ketaki, Keya
• ENGLISH • Screw pine
• MALYALAM • Kaida-taddi, Pukkaita
• KANNADA • Kaida, Katthaale, Kedage, Kedige, Ketike, Mandige, Thaale, Kadige
• MARATHI • Kaeoda, Kaeora, Kaethaki, Kaevada, Paandar kaevda
• TAMIL • Thazhai, Tazhai
• TELGU • Gaajangi, Gedaji, Gedangimogali, Gojjangi, Kaethaki, Mogli chettu, Mugali"
From Ketaki’ — a cursed but useful flower by H.C. Gera:
"The male fluorscence's are valued for the fragrance emitted by the tender white spates covering the flowers. Valuable attar is obtained from them. The flowers are also used for hair decoration. The commercial use of this plant is mainly centered mostly around Kollapali, Meghra and Agrraran in Ganjam district of Orissa. Flowers are used for extraction of "kweda attar" and "kewra water" and kewda oil. It is estimated that there are 300 to 400 thousands trees in Ganjam district.
"Kewda attar" is one of the most popular perfumes extracted and used in India since ancient times. It blends well with almost all types of fancy perfumes and is used for scenting clothes, bouquets, lotions, cosmetics, soaps, hair oils, tobacco and agarbati. Kewda water is used for flavouring various foods, sweets syrups and soft drinks. The use of kewda water is very common on festival occasion, weddings and other social functions in North India."
Brown's dictionary says that gojjangi is the female version of ketaki but whether this distinction in names is maintained is not clear.
The google search lso led to some pleasant surprises:
kshetryya padaalu and nice Hindi songs like this and thenthis. These last ones may be due to an advertisement on the pages.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Can one trust proofs by mathematicians?
"Gonthier believes that ordinary mathematicians may start formally verifying their proofs within the decade" according to Julie Rehmeyer in How to (really) trust a mathematical proof .
I have given several false proofs myself. Here is a nice article by my guru John Stallings HOW NOT TO PROVE THE POINCARE CONJECTURE . Excerpts:
"I have committed the sin of falsely proving Poincare's Conjecture. But that was in another country; and besides, until now no one has known about it. Now, in hope of deterring others from making similar mistakes, I shall describe my mistaken proof....
There are two points about this incorrect proof worthy of note.
The first is that when we try to prove Theorem 0 in dimension two, we always run up against the problem of trying to simplify, by some geometric trick, the situation. But any little homotopy that would simplify the picture always in fact, greatly complicates it. This phenomenon has characterized every attempt that I have made or heard of to prove Poincare's Conjecture. This is the place to look for flaws in any asserted "proof".
The second point is that I was unable to find flaws in my 'proof" for quite a while, even though the error is very obvious. It was a psychological problem, a blindness, an excitement, an inhibition of reasoning by an underlying fear of being wrong. Techniques leading to the abandonment of such inhibitions should be
cultivated by every honest mathematician."
The first two sentences in the quote are a take off on lines from "The Jew of Malta" by Christopher Marlowe quoted by T.S. Eliot. Stallings originally wanted to be a poet but took some aptitude tests in school which suggested that he would do well in mathematics or physics.
I have given several false proofs myself. Here is a nice article by my guru John Stallings HOW NOT TO PROVE THE POINCARE CONJECTURE . Excerpts:
"I have committed the sin of falsely proving Poincare's Conjecture. But that was in another country; and besides, until now no one has known about it. Now, in hope of deterring others from making similar mistakes, I shall describe my mistaken proof....
There are two points about this incorrect proof worthy of note.
The first is that when we try to prove Theorem 0 in dimension two, we always run up against the problem of trying to simplify, by some geometric trick, the situation. But any little homotopy that would simplify the picture always in fact, greatly complicates it. This phenomenon has characterized every attempt that I have made or heard of to prove Poincare's Conjecture. This is the place to look for flaws in any asserted "proof".
The second point is that I was unable to find flaws in my 'proof" for quite a while, even though the error is very obvious. It was a psychological problem, a blindness, an excitement, an inhibition of reasoning by an underlying fear of being wrong. Techniques leading to the abandonment of such inhibitions should be
cultivated by every honest mathematician."
The first two sentences in the quote are a take off on lines from "The Jew of Malta" by Christopher Marlowe quoted by T.S. Eliot. Stallings originally wanted to be a poet but took some aptitude tests in school which suggested that he would do well in mathematics or physics.
Contagious research
From The happiness virus :
"It’s too good an idea to resist: Happiness is contagious. A new study published online Dec. 4 in the British Medical Journal shows it.
Maybe you’d be more inclined to resist these ideas, though: Headaches are contagious. Acne is contagious. Height is contagious.
According to another study published the same day in the same journal, by Ethan Cohen-Cole of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and Jason Fletcher of Yale University, these latter claims are nearly as likely as the first. The researchers “proved” them using the same methodology."
"It’s too good an idea to resist: Happiness is contagious. A new study published online Dec. 4 in the British Medical Journal shows it.
Maybe you’d be more inclined to resist these ideas, though: Headaches are contagious. Acne is contagious. Height is contagious.
According to another study published the same day in the same journal, by Ethan Cohen-Cole of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and Jason Fletcher of Yale University, these latter claims are nearly as likely as the first. The researchers “proved” them using the same methodology."
Steven Shapin on today's scientists
From a long and thoughtful essay Who are the scientists of today? Where do they work? What motivates them? As science increasingly shapes our cultural moment, the identity of its practitioners is also evolving by Steven Shapin, some excerpts:
"The transformation of science from a calling to a job happened largely during the course of the past century.
....
Science is now widely understood as an engine of economic growth, so it is remarkable that there are still many who associate the scientific life with institutions of higher education conceived on the model of the Ivory Tower. This was not the case in the early part of the previous century, nor is it the case now. Today almost two-thirds of all American science and engineering degree-holders are working either in the forprofit sector or are self-employed; only 9 percent work for colleges or universities. Even pure science has long had a significant presence outside academia.
....
The dissolution of boundaries between academia and industry has given enormous strength to modern American science: resources to do what scientists want to do, time (substantially freed from academic teaching and administration) to do it, and the reputation that comes from aligning science with the concrete goods — better communications, better health, more energy-efficient products, and enhanced national security — so evidently valued by citizens who may have little or no concern for the pursuit of knowledge "for its own sake." But two problems seem to flow from this success story.........
The second problem concerns the integrity associated with the scientific life and the authority of scientists. The increasing alignment of science with commercial institutions carries a risk: the loss in the public mind of the idea of an independent scientific voice — not truth speaking to power but power shaping what counts as truth. Thus, we have the Bush administration's attempt to muzzle one of its leading climate scientists, reports of routine political interference in the scientific work of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Big Pharma ghostwriting papers supporting the efficacy of new drugs. Yet the enfolding of science into institutions of wealth generation and power projection makes independence that much harder to recognize and to acknowledge. And when scientific knowledge becomes patentable property, a state secret, or a plaything of political ideology, then science loses its independence from civic institutions. We're still a long way from the general "corruption" of science — witness the moral outrage attending stories about commercial or political incursions into science. But if it came to pass that these associations count as normal, then the scientific voice would no longer sound independent. The material utility of science that is a substantial basis for its success would then undermine itself. To be a modern scientist is to be an employee, but the job must have a degree of autonomy or scientists will be of no use — to the institutions that engage their services or to the public.
..........
As we enter the 21st century, new institutional configurations for doing science emerge, together with new scientific agendas and new conceptions of what it is to be a scientist. Some participants and observers of the scene celebrate these changes; others are seriously worried about them. We can be sure of only one thing: The identity of the modern scientist is, in every possible sense, a work in progress."
"The transformation of science from a calling to a job happened largely during the course of the past century.
....
Science is now widely understood as an engine of economic growth, so it is remarkable that there are still many who associate the scientific life with institutions of higher education conceived on the model of the Ivory Tower. This was not the case in the early part of the previous century, nor is it the case now. Today almost two-thirds of all American science and engineering degree-holders are working either in the forprofit sector or are self-employed; only 9 percent work for colleges or universities. Even pure science has long had a significant presence outside academia.
....
The dissolution of boundaries between academia and industry has given enormous strength to modern American science: resources to do what scientists want to do, time (substantially freed from academic teaching and administration) to do it, and the reputation that comes from aligning science with the concrete goods — better communications, better health, more energy-efficient products, and enhanced national security — so evidently valued by citizens who may have little or no concern for the pursuit of knowledge "for its own sake." But two problems seem to flow from this success story.........
The second problem concerns the integrity associated with the scientific life and the authority of scientists. The increasing alignment of science with commercial institutions carries a risk: the loss in the public mind of the idea of an independent scientific voice — not truth speaking to power but power shaping what counts as truth. Thus, we have the Bush administration's attempt to muzzle one of its leading climate scientists, reports of routine political interference in the scientific work of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Big Pharma ghostwriting papers supporting the efficacy of new drugs. Yet the enfolding of science into institutions of wealth generation and power projection makes independence that much harder to recognize and to acknowledge. And when scientific knowledge becomes patentable property, a state secret, or a plaything of political ideology, then science loses its independence from civic institutions. We're still a long way from the general "corruption" of science — witness the moral outrage attending stories about commercial or political incursions into science. But if it came to pass that these associations count as normal, then the scientific voice would no longer sound independent. The material utility of science that is a substantial basis for its success would then undermine itself. To be a modern scientist is to be an employee, but the job must have a degree of autonomy or scientists will be of no use — to the institutions that engage their services or to the public.
..........
As we enter the 21st century, new institutional configurations for doing science emerge, together with new scientific agendas and new conceptions of what it is to be a scientist. Some participants and observers of the scene celebrate these changes; others are seriously worried about them. We can be sure of only one thing: The identity of the modern scientist is, in every possible sense, a work in progress."
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
From Telugu blogs-2
I just started growing a type of beans common in A.P. Just in time there is a recipe from a Telugu blog Nala Bheema Pakam సిక్కుడుకాయ కూర ఇదానంబెట్టిదనగా . The recipe may be from a different region than the one I come from; still trying to find what వెళ్లి రెబ్బలు means.
Even Sehwag needs some space
After India's remarkable cricket win over in Chennai(two of several reports:'People are enjoying cricket again' - Tendulkar and England's critics should hold their ire and hail India's triumph in a Test to celebrate ), Man of the Match, Verender Sehwag in an interview Just cannot keep Sehwag down :
"In this hour of glory, Sehwag pays glowing tribute to coach Gary Kirsten. “He is one of the best I have seen. He has supported me hugely and helped me raise my self-belief.
He helped me change my mindset. He told me he can’t teach me how to bat but can assure me my place in the side. He gave me space to shine and made sure that I did not feel insecure. Thanks Gary,” acknowledges Sehwag."
P.S. A collection of articles on the Sehwag special:Sehwag changes the course. A couple of previous posts on Sehwag :hereand here.
"In this hour of glory, Sehwag pays glowing tribute to coach Gary Kirsten. “He is one of the best I have seen. He has supported me hugely and helped me raise my self-belief.
He helped me change my mindset. He told me he can’t teach me how to bat but can assure me my place in the side. He gave me space to shine and made sure that I did not feel insecure. Thanks Gary,” acknowledges Sehwag."
P.S. A collection of articles on the Sehwag special:Sehwag changes the course. A couple of previous posts on Sehwag :hereand here.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Population movements and inequality
Two papers in VoxEU by Louis Putterman and David N. Weil. The first Post-Columbian population movements and the roots of world inequality has abstract:
"This column introduces a five century migration matrix indicating the 1500 countries of residence of ancestors of each country’s current population. The power of regional origins is illustrated by the fact that 44% of the variance in 2000 per capita GDPs is accounted for by the share of the population’s ancestors that lived in Europe in 1500."
The second Ancestors and incomes: More on the roots of world inequality has abstract:
"Inequality within countries is explained by the past history of populations more than by ethno-linguistic differences and linguistic distance. This column suggests what matters is the history of the people who live in a country today, more than the history of the country itself."
"This column introduces a five century migration matrix indicating the 1500 countries of residence of ancestors of each country’s current population. The power of regional origins is illustrated by the fact that 44% of the variance in 2000 per capita GDPs is accounted for by the share of the population’s ancestors that lived in Europe in 1500."
The second Ancestors and incomes: More on the roots of world inequality has abstract:
"Inequality within countries is explained by the past history of populations more than by ethno-linguistic differences and linguistic distance. This column suggests what matters is the history of the people who live in a country today, more than the history of the country itself."
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Opprtunity for developing countries
says Dani Rodrik in Let developing nations rule . Excerpts:
"First, they should push for new rules that make financial crises less likely and their consequences less severe. Left to their own devices, global financial markets provide too much credit at too cheap a price in good times, and too little credit in bad times. The only effective response is counter-cyclical capital-account management: discouraging foreign borrowing during economic upswings and preventing capital flight during downswings.
So, instead of frowning on capital controls and pushing for financial openness, the International Monetary Fund should be in the business of actively helping countries implement such policies. It should also enlarge its emergency credit lines to act more as a lender of last resort to developing nations hit by financial whiplash.
The crisis is an opportunity to achieve greater transparency on all fronts, including banking practices in rich countries that facilitate tax evasion in developing nations. Wealthy citizens in the developing world evade more than $100 billion worth of taxes in their home countries each year, thanks to bank accounts in Zurich, Miami, London, and elsewhere. Developing countries’ governments should request and be given information about their nationals’ accounts.
Developing nations should also push for a Tobin tax – a tax on global foreign currency transactions. Set at a low enough level – say, 0.25% – such a tax would have little adverse effect on the global economy while raising considerable revenue. At worst, the efficiency costs would be minor; at best, the tax would discourage excessive short-term speculation.
....
Developing nations also need to enshrine the notion of “policy space” in the World Trade Organization. The goal would be to ensure that developing countries can employ the kind of trade and industrial policies needed to restructure and diversify their economies and set the stage for economic growth. All countries that have successfully globalized have used such policies, many of which (e.g., subsidies, domestic-content rules, reverse engineering of patented products) are currently not allowed under WTO rules.
Policy space is also required to ensure that important social and political ends — such as food security — are compatible with international trade rules. Developing nations should argue that recognizing these economic and political realities makes the global trade regime not weaker and more susceptible to protectionism, but healthier and more sustainable.
....Developing countries should say no to obvious trade protectionism, but they should be willing to negotiate to avoid regulatory races to the bottom in such areas as labor standards or corporate taxation. This is in their long-term self-interest. Without support from the middle classes of rich nations, it will be difficult to maintain a global trade regime as open as the one we have had in recent years."
"First, they should push for new rules that make financial crises less likely and their consequences less severe. Left to their own devices, global financial markets provide too much credit at too cheap a price in good times, and too little credit in bad times. The only effective response is counter-cyclical capital-account management: discouraging foreign borrowing during economic upswings and preventing capital flight during downswings.
So, instead of frowning on capital controls and pushing for financial openness, the International Monetary Fund should be in the business of actively helping countries implement such policies. It should also enlarge its emergency credit lines to act more as a lender of last resort to developing nations hit by financial whiplash.
The crisis is an opportunity to achieve greater transparency on all fronts, including banking practices in rich countries that facilitate tax evasion in developing nations. Wealthy citizens in the developing world evade more than $100 billion worth of taxes in their home countries each year, thanks to bank accounts in Zurich, Miami, London, and elsewhere. Developing countries’ governments should request and be given information about their nationals’ accounts.
Developing nations should also push for a Tobin tax – a tax on global foreign currency transactions. Set at a low enough level – say, 0.25% – such a tax would have little adverse effect on the global economy while raising considerable revenue. At worst, the efficiency costs would be minor; at best, the tax would discourage excessive short-term speculation.
....
Developing nations also need to enshrine the notion of “policy space” in the World Trade Organization. The goal would be to ensure that developing countries can employ the kind of trade and industrial policies needed to restructure and diversify their economies and set the stage for economic growth. All countries that have successfully globalized have used such policies, many of which (e.g., subsidies, domestic-content rules, reverse engineering of patented products) are currently not allowed under WTO rules.
Policy space is also required to ensure that important social and political ends — such as food security — are compatible with international trade rules. Developing nations should argue that recognizing these economic and political realities makes the global trade regime not weaker and more susceptible to protectionism, but healthier and more sustainable.
....Developing countries should say no to obvious trade protectionism, but they should be willing to negotiate to avoid regulatory races to the bottom in such areas as labor standards or corporate taxation. This is in their long-term self-interest. Without support from the middle classes of rich nations, it will be difficult to maintain a global trade regime as open as the one we have had in recent years."
Keynes and stimilus packages
From ROBERT SKIDELSKY's The Remedist (via Steven Hsu's postKeynes):
"Keynes created an economics whose starting point was that not all future events could be reduced to measurable risk. There was a residue of genuine uncertainty, and this made disaster an ever-present possibility, not a once-in-a-lifetime “shock.” Investment was more an act of faith than a scientific calculation of probabilities. And in this fact lay the possibility of huge systemic mistakes.
The basic question Keynes asked was: How do rational people behave under conditions of uncertainty? The answer he gave was profound and extends far beyond economics. People fall back on “conventions,” which give them the assurance that they are doing the right thing. The chief of these are the assumptions that the future will be like the past (witness all the financial models that assumed housing prices wouldn’t fall) and that current prices correctly sum up “future prospects.” Above all, we run with the crowd. A master of aphorism, Keynes wrote that a “sound banker” is one who, “when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way.” (Today, you might add a further convention — the belief that mathematics can conjure certainty out of uncertainty.)
But any view of the future based on what Keynes called “so flimsy a foundation” is liable to “sudden and violent changes” when the news changes. Investors do not process new information efficiently because they don’t know which information is relevant. Conventional behavior easily turns into herd behavior. Financial markets are punctuated by alternating currents of euphoria and panic.
Keynes’s prescriptions were guided by his conception of money, which plays a disturbing role in his economics. Most economists have seen money simply as a means of payment, an improvement on barter. Keynes emphasized its role as a “store of value.” Why, he asked, should anyone outside a lunatic asylum wish to “hold” money? The answer he gave was that “holding” money was a way of postponing transactions. The “desire to hold money as a store of wealth is a barometer of the degree of our distrust of our own calculations and conventions concerning the future. . . . The possession of actual money lulls our disquietude; and the premium we require to make us part with money is a measure of the degree of our disquietude.” The same reliance on “conventional” thinking that leads investors to spend profligately at certain times leads them to be highly cautious at others. Even a relatively weak dollar may, at moments of high uncertainty, seem more “secure” than any other asset, as we are currently seeing.
It is this flight into cash that makes interest-rate policy such an uncertain agent of recovery. If the managers of banks and companies hold pessimistic views about the future, they will raise the price they charge for “giving up liquidity,” even though the central bank might be flooding the economy with cash. That is why Keynes did not think that cutting the central bank’s interest rate would necessarily — and certainly not quickly — lower the interest rates charged on different types of loans. This was his main argument for the use of government stimulus to fight a depression. There was only one sure way to get an increase in spending in the face of an extreme private-sector reluctance to spend, and that was for the government to spend the money itself. Spend on pyramids, spend on hospitals, but spend it must.
This, in a nutshell, was Keynes’s economics."
There is a discussion in Economist's View Which is Best, Monetary Policy, Government Spending, or Tax Cuts?
Several economists including Raj Chetty on The Ideal Stimulus Package for US (via V.K. Chetty).
"Keynes created an economics whose starting point was that not all future events could be reduced to measurable risk. There was a residue of genuine uncertainty, and this made disaster an ever-present possibility, not a once-in-a-lifetime “shock.” Investment was more an act of faith than a scientific calculation of probabilities. And in this fact lay the possibility of huge systemic mistakes.
The basic question Keynes asked was: How do rational people behave under conditions of uncertainty? The answer he gave was profound and extends far beyond economics. People fall back on “conventions,” which give them the assurance that they are doing the right thing. The chief of these are the assumptions that the future will be like the past (witness all the financial models that assumed housing prices wouldn’t fall) and that current prices correctly sum up “future prospects.” Above all, we run with the crowd. A master of aphorism, Keynes wrote that a “sound banker” is one who, “when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way.” (Today, you might add a further convention — the belief that mathematics can conjure certainty out of uncertainty.)
But any view of the future based on what Keynes called “so flimsy a foundation” is liable to “sudden and violent changes” when the news changes. Investors do not process new information efficiently because they don’t know which information is relevant. Conventional behavior easily turns into herd behavior. Financial markets are punctuated by alternating currents of euphoria and panic.
Keynes’s prescriptions were guided by his conception of money, which plays a disturbing role in his economics. Most economists have seen money simply as a means of payment, an improvement on barter. Keynes emphasized its role as a “store of value.” Why, he asked, should anyone outside a lunatic asylum wish to “hold” money? The answer he gave was that “holding” money was a way of postponing transactions. The “desire to hold money as a store of wealth is a barometer of the degree of our distrust of our own calculations and conventions concerning the future. . . . The possession of actual money lulls our disquietude; and the premium we require to make us part with money is a measure of the degree of our disquietude.” The same reliance on “conventional” thinking that leads investors to spend profligately at certain times leads them to be highly cautious at others. Even a relatively weak dollar may, at moments of high uncertainty, seem more “secure” than any other asset, as we are currently seeing.
It is this flight into cash that makes interest-rate policy such an uncertain agent of recovery. If the managers of banks and companies hold pessimistic views about the future, they will raise the price they charge for “giving up liquidity,” even though the central bank might be flooding the economy with cash. That is why Keynes did not think that cutting the central bank’s interest rate would necessarily — and certainly not quickly — lower the interest rates charged on different types of loans. This was his main argument for the use of government stimulus to fight a depression. There was only one sure way to get an increase in spending in the face of an extreme private-sector reluctance to spend, and that was for the government to spend the money itself. Spend on pyramids, spend on hospitals, but spend it must.
This, in a nutshell, was Keynes’s economics."
There is a discussion in Economist's View Which is Best, Monetary Policy, Government Spending, or Tax Cuts?
Several economists including Raj Chetty on The Ideal Stimulus Package for US (via V.K. Chetty).
Friday, December 12, 2008
The next US Secretary of Energy?
From the Cosmic Variance post Steven Chu Nominated to be Secretary of Energy :
" This is fantastic news. Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and 1997 Nobel Laureate in Physics for his work in laser cooling of atoms, has been nominated to be the next Secretary of Energy in the Obama administration. This post is enormously important for science in general and physics in particular, as the DOE is responsible for much of the funding in physics and a lot of other R&D work. It’s also, needless to say, a crucial position for determining the country’s energy policy at a time when strong and imaginative leadership in this area is crucial."
From an article in in WattHead :Energy News and Commentary. A sustainable, just, and prosperous energy future is possible. We can make it happen.
"Last year, Chu was the co-chair of an InterAcademic Council Paper entitled Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future. The report proposes "best practices for a global transition to a clean, affordable and sustainable energy supply in both developing and developed countries," focusing on policies to support the development and deployment of technologies "that can transform the landscape of energy supply and demand around the globe." If Lighting the Way is reflective of Chu's understanding of the energy challenge, he clearly sees it as a technology-driven global development challenge, a good sign that Chu is the right pick to head up DOE and it's many energy RD&D programs.
Speaking at this summer's National Clean Energy Summit convened by Senator Harry Reid, Dr. Chu also evidences a keen understanding of the potentials of energy efficiency and the need for breakthrough renewable energy technologies. "Another myth is [that] we have all the technologies we need to solve the energy challenge. It's only a matter of political will," he says. "I think political will is absolutely necessary... but we need new technologies to transform the [energy] landscape." "
The comments in The Oil Drum are also enthusiastic.
" This is fantastic news. Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and 1997 Nobel Laureate in Physics for his work in laser cooling of atoms, has been nominated to be the next Secretary of Energy in the Obama administration. This post is enormously important for science in general and physics in particular, as the DOE is responsible for much of the funding in physics and a lot of other R&D work. It’s also, needless to say, a crucial position for determining the country’s energy policy at a time when strong and imaginative leadership in this area is crucial."
From an article in in WattHead :Energy News and Commentary. A sustainable, just, and prosperous energy future is possible. We can make it happen.
"Last year, Chu was the co-chair of an InterAcademic Council Paper entitled Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future. The report proposes "best practices for a global transition to a clean, affordable and sustainable energy supply in both developing and developed countries," focusing on policies to support the development and deployment of technologies "that can transform the landscape of energy supply and demand around the globe." If Lighting the Way is reflective of Chu's understanding of the energy challenge, he clearly sees it as a technology-driven global development challenge, a good sign that Chu is the right pick to head up DOE and it's many energy RD&D programs.
Speaking at this summer's National Clean Energy Summit convened by Senator Harry Reid, Dr. Chu also evidences a keen understanding of the potentials of energy efficiency and the need for breakthrough renewable energy technologies. "Another myth is [that] we have all the technologies we need to solve the energy challenge. It's only a matter of political will," he says. "I think political will is absolutely necessary... but we need new technologies to transform the [energy] landscape." "
The comments in The Oil Drum are also enthusiastic.
Mumbai 26/11 related articles
Juan Cole Does Obama understand his biggest foreign-policy challenge?
Excerpt:
"A consensus is emerging among intelligence analysts and pundits that Pakistan may be President-elect Barack Obama's greatest policy challenge. A base for terrorist groups, the country has a fragile new civilian government and a long history of military coups. The dramatic attack on Mumbai by members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e Tayiba, the continued Taliban insurgency on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the frailty of the new civilian government, and the country's status as a nuclear-armed state have all put Islamabad on the incoming administration's front burner.
But does Obama understand what he's getting into? In his "Meet the Press" interview with Tom Brokaw on Sunday, Obama said, "We need a strategic partnership with all the parties in the region -- Pakistan and India and the Afghan government -- to stamp out the kind of militant, violent, terrorist extremists that have set up base camps and that are operating in ways that threaten the security of everybody in the international community." Obama's scenario assumes that the Pakistani government is a single, undifferentiated thing, and that all parts of the government would be willing to "stamp out" terrorists. Both of those assumptions are incorrect."
Ramachandra Guhs's India's Dangerous Divide has this Nehru quote:
"a Muslim minority who are so large in numbers that they cannot, even if they want, go anywhere else. That is a basic fact about which there can be no argument. Whatever the provocation from Pakistan and whatever the indignities and horrors inflicted on non-Muslims there, we have got to deal with this minority in a civilized manner. We must give them security and the rights of citizens in a democratic State."
The Immanent Frame has several articles in Mumbai 11/26 by Dipesh Chakraaorty, Arjun Appadurai and others.
The links are through 3quarksdaily, Anti-History / In Another Life and Chapati Mystery which have several links to articles on the topic. Suketu Mehta's "The Maximum City" also has much information.
P.S. Arundhati Roy: Mumbai was not our 9/11 (via Crazyfinger)
Excerpt:
"A consensus is emerging among intelligence analysts and pundits that Pakistan may be President-elect Barack Obama's greatest policy challenge. A base for terrorist groups, the country has a fragile new civilian government and a long history of military coups. The dramatic attack on Mumbai by members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e Tayiba, the continued Taliban insurgency on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the frailty of the new civilian government, and the country's status as a nuclear-armed state have all put Islamabad on the incoming administration's front burner.
But does Obama understand what he's getting into? In his "Meet the Press" interview with Tom Brokaw on Sunday, Obama said, "We need a strategic partnership with all the parties in the region -- Pakistan and India and the Afghan government -- to stamp out the kind of militant, violent, terrorist extremists that have set up base camps and that are operating in ways that threaten the security of everybody in the international community." Obama's scenario assumes that the Pakistani government is a single, undifferentiated thing, and that all parts of the government would be willing to "stamp out" terrorists. Both of those assumptions are incorrect."
Ramachandra Guhs's India's Dangerous Divide has this Nehru quote:
"a Muslim minority who are so large in numbers that they cannot, even if they want, go anywhere else. That is a basic fact about which there can be no argument. Whatever the provocation from Pakistan and whatever the indignities and horrors inflicted on non-Muslims there, we have got to deal with this minority in a civilized manner. We must give them security and the rights of citizens in a democratic State."
The Immanent Frame has several articles in Mumbai 11/26 by Dipesh Chakraaorty, Arjun Appadurai and others.
The links are through 3quarksdaily, Anti-History / In Another Life and Chapati Mystery which have several links to articles on the topic. Suketu Mehta's "The Maximum City" also has much information.
P.S. Arundhati Roy: Mumbai was not our 9/11 (via Crazyfinger)
Nimble feet
Rajanala (Kalliah Naidu or Kaleswara Rao) as katikapari (also here )in Satya harischandra. For a heavy man, he seems quite nimble. See the feet movements around thirty seconds in to the video. I remember the screen lighting up when he entered but that is not too clear in this video. A Kannada version here (different actor).A few more songs from the Telugu version here .
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Indian edition of Rahul Banerjee's book
Recovering the Lost Tongue: Memoirs of a Romantic among the Bhils is now published by
Joshi PPC,
Prachee Publications,
3-3-859/1/A, lane opp. Arya samaj,
Kachiguda,Hyderabad 500 027
Phone:(O)040-2460 2009 (11:00 a.m.to 5:00 p.m.)
mobile 093466 89306
Joshi PPC,
Prachee Publications,
3-3-859/1/A, lane opp. Arya samaj,
Kachiguda,Hyderabad 500 027
Phone:(O)040-2460 2009 (11:00 a.m.to 5:00 p.m.)
mobile 093466 89306
Monday, December 08, 2008
John Robert Stallings (1935-2008)
John R.Stallings passed away on november 24, 2008. He visited the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in 1967 and I was asked to wrote his lecture notes on 'Polyhedral Toplogy'. By that time my interests were established and I was planning to work in Algebraic Topology and Dufferential Toplogy. Before he came, I read many of his papers and during the two months of his stay, I was in contact with him almost daily discussing his lectures. Towards the end of his stay, he mentioned that Papakyriokopoulos did some great work in 3-dimensional topology, a topic which I never looked at before. After he left, I read half dozen papers in the topic and suddenly started working in that area. Working in relative isolation, I did not know what was relevant and just went on with problems that bugged me. Then over years, I found that whatever I did had some connection to Stallings' work. Perhaps, coming in to contact with a first rate mind early in my career unknowingly influenced me and I do not think that there is a single paper of mine not influenced by Stallings. Appropriately I am listed among his Ph.D. Students in the Mathematics Geneology project though I was never officially his student. My official guide was another wonderful mathematician M.S. Narasimhan who let me do whatever I liked and often entertained me with beer and insights about mathematics.
P.S. Photo here and more
here
My only published paper with a dedication (so far) here
P.S. Photo here and more
here
My only published paper with a dedication (so far) here
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Reading
Sukeu Mehta's Maximum City. The first few chapters seem to give a preview of what can happen in Mumbai(sample pages 154-170. Some excerpts from later pages are here). Here is a review by Amitava Kumar and here is Suketu Mehta's site. There is an interesting review by Panjaj Mishra Bombay: The Lower Depths but it needs subscription.
P.S. Another review and an interview
P.P.S. (December 6th) Completed the first reading. I think that it is a wonderful book. Though I spent 15 years in Bombay until 1979, I saw very little of what was in this book. I guess that my interests were well determined by that time and I was not too open to much outside mathematics.
P.S. Another review and an interview
P.P.S. (December 6th) Completed the first reading. I think that it is a wonderful book. Though I spent 15 years in Bombay until 1979, I saw very little of what was in this book. I guess that my interests were well determined by that time and I was not too open to much outside mathematics.
Monday, December 01, 2008
From 'The Big Picture'
T.T. RAM MOHAN has a thoughtful post on Mumbai attack Mumbai attack and its aftermath :
"Key institutions of the state, notably the police and the judiciary, suffer from both corruption and poor governance. Strong anti-terror laws, in such a situation, will simply become weapons for persecution and extortion.
....
Without an overhaul of governance, without greater accountability, it is hard to see how terrorism can be fought effectively. It is the democratic process and the rule of law that need to be strengthened for these to happen.
''''''
The gloomy conclusion that emerges is that India will try to emulate the tough methods adopted by countries such as the US and Israel without having the commensurate governance or enforcement capability. This can only lead on to a downward spiral where terrorism is concerned."
Jo from UK forwards this article This was not global jihad. Its roots are far closer to home:
"The Mumbai attacks were not about global jihad. The attacks on foreign tourists at the Taj and the Oberoi, and on the Lubavitch centre, were designed to secure maximum publicity - a strategy that worked splendidly. Yet the roots of this nightmarish event are to be found elsewhere: in the deterioration in relations between Hindus and Muslims in Mumbai and India since the late 1980s, and in regional relations between India and Pakistan.
The operational key to the Mumbai attacks, however, is almost certainly held by D-Company, the sprawling and hugely effective organised criminal syndicate that is steered from the Pakistani port city of Karachi by the most powerful figure in Mumbai's fabled underworld, Dawood Ibrahim. It is virtually impossible that Dawood was unaware of the preparation of the attack, given the D-Company's extensive intelligence network (which in several past instances has proved more effective than the Indian state's intelligence capacity).
India's security services have begun investigating Dawood's possible role in the attack because he controls most of the smuggling routes into India's great commercial centre. In 1993, he put his network at the disposal of the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service, to let it smuggle in huge amounts of the explosive RDX. As the Mumbai author, Hussain Zaidi, demonstrates in his extraordinary book, Black Friday, the RDX was then used for the terrorist attacks in March 1993, in which 257 people died, still the single highest death toll in any of the atrocities visited upon Mumbai in recent years. Dozens of co-conspirators have been convicted, largely thanks to the evidence of some bombers who became state witnesses, revealing the terrorist plans in minute detail."
Misha Glenny is the author of McMafia: Crime Without Frontiers reviewd here and here. There is an excellent review The International Crooks Now in Power in New York Review of Books but it needs subscription.
P.S. Another thoughtful post Thanksgiving weekend from Nomolical Net.
P.P.S. Bruce Riedel, one of Obama's policy advisors, in Terrorism in India and the Global Jihadsays " In December 2001 JeM, possibly with help from LeT, was behind an attack on the Indian parliament. This attack was designed to create a crisis between India and Pakistan by killing the senior echelon of the Indian government and legislators. It succeeded in provoking a tense standoff that would last over a year and during which more than a million Indian and Pakistani soldiers were deployed in forward positions along their border. By focusing Pakistan’s army on its eastern border with India the attack also left the western border with Afghanistan open to the retreating al Qaeda and Taliban leadership including bin Laden, Zawahiri and Mullah Omar who were fleeing the American Operation Enduring Freedom forces in Afghanistan. This was undoubtedly not a coincidence. Like LeT, Jaish has been outlawed in Pakistan but continues to operate under various cover names. The extent of its existing ties to the ISI is also much debated..... ... Al Qaeda and its allies like LeT and JeM would see this easing of tensions as a threat to their interests. They want conflict between India and Pakistan today just as they did in 2001. They thrive on the hatred the Indo-Pakistan conflict produces. If they are involved in the Mumbai attacks it would be in part to disrupt any chance at easing tensions in the subcontinent and perhaps also to divert Pakistan’s army away from the badlands along the border with Afghanistan to the border with India, again as in 2001."
"Key institutions of the state, notably the police and the judiciary, suffer from both corruption and poor governance. Strong anti-terror laws, in such a situation, will simply become weapons for persecution and extortion.
....
Without an overhaul of governance, without greater accountability, it is hard to see how terrorism can be fought effectively. It is the democratic process and the rule of law that need to be strengthened for these to happen.
''''''
The gloomy conclusion that emerges is that India will try to emulate the tough methods adopted by countries such as the US and Israel without having the commensurate governance or enforcement capability. This can only lead on to a downward spiral where terrorism is concerned."
Jo from UK forwards this article This was not global jihad. Its roots are far closer to home:
"The Mumbai attacks were not about global jihad. The attacks on foreign tourists at the Taj and the Oberoi, and on the Lubavitch centre, were designed to secure maximum publicity - a strategy that worked splendidly. Yet the roots of this nightmarish event are to be found elsewhere: in the deterioration in relations between Hindus and Muslims in Mumbai and India since the late 1980s, and in regional relations between India and Pakistan.
The operational key to the Mumbai attacks, however, is almost certainly held by D-Company, the sprawling and hugely effective organised criminal syndicate that is steered from the Pakistani port city of Karachi by the most powerful figure in Mumbai's fabled underworld, Dawood Ibrahim. It is virtually impossible that Dawood was unaware of the preparation of the attack, given the D-Company's extensive intelligence network (which in several past instances has proved more effective than the Indian state's intelligence capacity).
India's security services have begun investigating Dawood's possible role in the attack because he controls most of the smuggling routes into India's great commercial centre. In 1993, he put his network at the disposal of the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service, to let it smuggle in huge amounts of the explosive RDX. As the Mumbai author, Hussain Zaidi, demonstrates in his extraordinary book, Black Friday, the RDX was then used for the terrorist attacks in March 1993, in which 257 people died, still the single highest death toll in any of the atrocities visited upon Mumbai in recent years. Dozens of co-conspirators have been convicted, largely thanks to the evidence of some bombers who became state witnesses, revealing the terrorist plans in minute detail."
Misha Glenny is the author of McMafia: Crime Without Frontiers reviewd here and here. There is an excellent review The International Crooks Now in Power in New York Review of Books but it needs subscription.
P.S. Another thoughtful post Thanksgiving weekend from Nomolical Net.
P.P.S. Bruce Riedel, one of Obama's policy advisors, in Terrorism in India and the Global Jihadsays " In December 2001 JeM, possibly with help from LeT, was behind an attack on the Indian parliament. This attack was designed to create a crisis between India and Pakistan by killing the senior echelon of the Indian government and legislators. It succeeded in provoking a tense standoff that would last over a year and during which more than a million Indian and Pakistani soldiers were deployed in forward positions along their border. By focusing Pakistan’s army on its eastern border with India the attack also left the western border with Afghanistan open to the retreating al Qaeda and Taliban leadership including bin Laden, Zawahiri and Mullah Omar who were fleeing the American Operation Enduring Freedom forces in Afghanistan. This was undoubtedly not a coincidence. Like LeT, Jaish has been outlawed in Pakistan but continues to operate under various cover names. The extent of its existing ties to the ISI is also much debated..... ... Al Qaeda and its allies like LeT and JeM would see this easing of tensions as a threat to their interests. They want conflict between India and Pakistan today just as they did in 2001. They thrive on the hatred the Indo-Pakistan conflict produces. If they are involved in the Mumbai attacks it would be in part to disrupt any chance at easing tensions in the subcontinent and perhaps also to divert Pakistan’s army away from the badlands along the border with Afghanistan to the border with India, again as in 2001."
Pankaj Mishra disagrees
in Hindi or Hinglish with Sanjay Subrahmanyam take on Adiga's 'The White Tiger' :
"Literary criticism may not be Subrahmanyam’s thing. But the ethnographic authority he invokes while describing the ‘falsity’ of Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger doesn’t persuade either. He seems to think it wholly implausible that Adiga’s ‘subaltern’ narrator Balram Halwai (I would rather call him a shrewd member of globalising India’s lumpen proletariat) should know of books by James Hadley Chase, Kahlil Gibran and Hitler. He has clearly not visited Indian mofussil bookstalls where No Orchids for Miss Blandish, The Prophet and, alas, Mein Kampf have long been ubiquitous in Hindi translation, or in cheap English editions (Hadley Chase in especially lurid covers).
Subrahmanyam mocks Halwai, who cannot read Urdu, for claiming Mirza Ghalib as his favourite poet. But North Indians who cannot read Urdu have long had access to the great writers of that language in Devanagari script. According to Subrahmanyam, the expression ‘“kissing some god’s arse” . . . doesn’t exist in any North Indian language.’ How does he know? In actuality, millions of speakers of Hindi, or Hinglish, improvise such commonplace idioms daily, too prodigiously, perhaps, to be archived at the American university where Subrahmanyam teaches history."
Literary criticism is not my thing either but I read and liked 'The White Tiger'. Among several wonderful passages from Vikram Chandra's The Cult of Authenticity, I recall "Be fearless, speak fearlessly to your readers, wherever they are, and be aware that as you speak, you will inevitably be attacked by some critics for being not Indian enough, for being too Indian, too Westernized, too exoticized, too rich, for being a foreigner, an agent of the CIA. This is also wholly irrelevant."
"Literary criticism may not be Subrahmanyam’s thing. But the ethnographic authority he invokes while describing the ‘falsity’ of Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger doesn’t persuade either. He seems to think it wholly implausible that Adiga’s ‘subaltern’ narrator Balram Halwai (I would rather call him a shrewd member of globalising India’s lumpen proletariat) should know of books by James Hadley Chase, Kahlil Gibran and Hitler. He has clearly not visited Indian mofussil bookstalls where No Orchids for Miss Blandish, The Prophet and, alas, Mein Kampf have long been ubiquitous in Hindi translation, or in cheap English editions (Hadley Chase in especially lurid covers).
Subrahmanyam mocks Halwai, who cannot read Urdu, for claiming Mirza Ghalib as his favourite poet. But North Indians who cannot read Urdu have long had access to the great writers of that language in Devanagari script. According to Subrahmanyam, the expression ‘“kissing some god’s arse” . . . doesn’t exist in any North Indian language.’ How does he know? In actuality, millions of speakers of Hindi, or Hinglish, improvise such commonplace idioms daily, too prodigiously, perhaps, to be archived at the American university where Subrahmanyam teaches history."
Literary criticism is not my thing either but I read and liked 'The White Tiger'. Among several wonderful passages from Vikram Chandra's The Cult of Authenticity, I recall "Be fearless, speak fearlessly to your readers, wherever they are, and be aware that as you speak, you will inevitably be attacked by some critics for being not Indian enough, for being too Indian, too Westernized, too exoticized, too rich, for being a foreigner, an agent of the CIA. This is also wholly irrelevant."
Amar Bhide's new book
The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World is drawing good reviews from some quarters The Austrian Economists:
"This is a brilliant work and some be on everyone's reading list for the holidays. Seriously. Bhide demonstrates through detailed examinaton of the facts how the mechanisms of innovation actually work to spread knowledged, realize the gains from trade and realize the gains from innovation throughout the globe. His work seriously challenges the policy consensus in Washington about technological innovation. To put it bluntly, economic progress is a function not of state funded basic research, but of the development of technological applications in commercial endeavors."
Here is a more critical review from The Economist A gathering storm?:
"So does the relative decline of America as a technology powerhouse really amount to a threat to its prosperity? Nonsense, insists Amar Bhidé of Columbia Business School. In “The Venturesome Economy”, a provocative new book, he explains why he thinks this gloomy thesis misunderstands innovation in several fundamental ways.
First, he argues that the obsession with the number of doctorates and technical graduates is misplaced because the “high-level” inventions and ideas such boffins come up with travel easily across national borders. Even if China spends a fortune to train more scientists, it cannot prevent America from capitalising on their inventions with better business models.
That points to his next insight, that the commercialisation, diffusion and use of inventions is of more value to companies and societies than the initial bright spark. America’s sophisticated marketing, distribution, sales and customer-service systems have long given it a decisive advantage over rivals, such as Japan in the 1980s, that began to catch up with its technological prowess. For America to retain this sort of edge, then, what the country needs is better MBAs, not more PhDs.
America also has another advantage: the extraordinary willingness of its consumers to try new things. Mr Bhidé insists that such “venturesome consumption” is a vital counterpart to the country’s entrepreneurial business culture.
Is he right? The lack of long-term data means this has become “a quasi-theological dispute”, says Robert Litan of the Kauffman Foundation, a charity that provided some funding for Mr Bhidé’s work. But the contrarian should not be dismissed out of hand. For a start, he is right to argue against making a fetish of invention. Edison did not invent the light bulb and Ford did not think up the motor car, but both came up with the business-model innovations required to profit from those marvels."
Here is Amar Bhide's webpage with more links and an interesting article by him on current financial crisis An Accident Waiting to Happen.
Yves Smith of 'Naked Capitalism' says "the author of the research, Amar Bhide, is a friend of mine, and also unfailingly smart and provocative"
"This is a brilliant work and some be on everyone's reading list for the holidays. Seriously. Bhide demonstrates through detailed examinaton of the facts how the mechanisms of innovation actually work to spread knowledged, realize the gains from trade and realize the gains from innovation throughout the globe. His work seriously challenges the policy consensus in Washington about technological innovation. To put it bluntly, economic progress is a function not of state funded basic research, but of the development of technological applications in commercial endeavors."
Here is a more critical review from The Economist A gathering storm?:
"So does the relative decline of America as a technology powerhouse really amount to a threat to its prosperity? Nonsense, insists Amar Bhidé of Columbia Business School. In “The Venturesome Economy”, a provocative new book, he explains why he thinks this gloomy thesis misunderstands innovation in several fundamental ways.
First, he argues that the obsession with the number of doctorates and technical graduates is misplaced because the “high-level” inventions and ideas such boffins come up with travel easily across national borders. Even if China spends a fortune to train more scientists, it cannot prevent America from capitalising on their inventions with better business models.
That points to his next insight, that the commercialisation, diffusion and use of inventions is of more value to companies and societies than the initial bright spark. America’s sophisticated marketing, distribution, sales and customer-service systems have long given it a decisive advantage over rivals, such as Japan in the 1980s, that began to catch up with its technological prowess. For America to retain this sort of edge, then, what the country needs is better MBAs, not more PhDs.
America also has another advantage: the extraordinary willingness of its consumers to try new things. Mr Bhidé insists that such “venturesome consumption” is a vital counterpart to the country’s entrepreneurial business culture.
Is he right? The lack of long-term data means this has become “a quasi-theological dispute”, says Robert Litan of the Kauffman Foundation, a charity that provided some funding for Mr Bhidé’s work. But the contrarian should not be dismissed out of hand. For a start, he is right to argue against making a fetish of invention. Edison did not invent the light bulb and Ford did not think up the motor car, but both came up with the business-model innovations required to profit from those marvels."
Here is Amar Bhide's webpage with more links and an interesting article by him on current financial crisis An Accident Waiting to Happen.
Yves Smith of 'Naked Capitalism' says "the author of the research, Amar Bhide, is a friend of mine, and also unfailingly smart and provocative"
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