Corey Pein on Sam Bowles. Excerpt:
"Among other projects, Community Action lobbies the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission on behalf of low-income residents, opposing rate increases by the Public Services Company of New Mexico. “Constantly,” Porter says, “it’s our voice against the suits.”
Her on-the-ground experience supports a message Bowles has pushed all these years in academia.
“Inequality,” she says, “really holds us back.”
Bowles offers a key reason why this is so. “Inequality breeds conflict, and conflict breeds wasted resources,” he says.
In short, in a very unequal society, the people at the top have to spend a lot of time and energy keeping the lower classes obedient and productive.
Inequality leads to an excess of what Bowles calls “guard labor.” In a 2007 paper on the subject, he and co-author Arjun Jayadev, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts, make an astonishing claim: Roughly 1 in 4 Americans is employed to keep fellow citizens in line and protect private wealth from would-be Robin Hoods."
Link via Profile of Sam Bowlesin MR which has more links and comments. There is also discussion in Crooked Timber.
SFI webpage of Sam Bowles
Webpage of his longtime collaborator Herbert Gintis
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Problems with data
Browsing through the links in Economist's View, I find these two articles.
From Entrepreneurship and the Economy:
"So what does entrepreneurship have to do with the recession? If we take what we know today, entrepreneurs and innovation play a vital role in the economy. But can they help us in the great recession? In other words, what policy should we be pursuing to move the unemployment rate below 10 percent and back into the neighborhood of 5 percent? We know that new firms are important. They create most of the net jobs. However, only a small percent, perhaps 4 percent, create almost all of the jobs in any given four-year period. And this seems to hold up in different times, different countries, and different industries.
So how do we forge a policy? Two stories are told out there. First we know that age and size are important variables. And we know that age appears to be more important than size. In other words, we should target firms based on age not size. The two stories out there are one by Zoltan Acs and the other by Carl Shramm. In a highly influential study, Acs found that the average high impact firm was about 20 years old and came in all sizes, small, medium, and large. Schramm, on the other hand, using a Census Bureau study, found that firms less than five years old created almost all of the jobs independent of size. They both cannot be right."
In a different context, from Can You Trust Census Data?By JUSTIN WOLFERS:
"The whole research community is waiting for the Census Bureau to do something about these problems."
Once, when I pointed out some data Kuffirsaid somethinglike "But the ground realities are different". Wise man!
From Entrepreneurship and the Economy:
"So what does entrepreneurship have to do with the recession? If we take what we know today, entrepreneurs and innovation play a vital role in the economy. But can they help us in the great recession? In other words, what policy should we be pursuing to move the unemployment rate below 10 percent and back into the neighborhood of 5 percent? We know that new firms are important. They create most of the net jobs. However, only a small percent, perhaps 4 percent, create almost all of the jobs in any given four-year period. And this seems to hold up in different times, different countries, and different industries.
So how do we forge a policy? Two stories are told out there. First we know that age and size are important variables. And we know that age appears to be more important than size. In other words, we should target firms based on age not size. The two stories out there are one by Zoltan Acs and the other by Carl Shramm. In a highly influential study, Acs found that the average high impact firm was about 20 years old and came in all sizes, small, medium, and large. Schramm, on the other hand, using a Census Bureau study, found that firms less than five years old created almost all of the jobs independent of size. They both cannot be right."
In a different context, from Can You Trust Census Data?By JUSTIN WOLFERS:
"The whole research community is waiting for the Census Bureau to do something about these problems."
Once, when I pointed out some data Kuffirsaid somethinglike "But the ground realities are different". Wise man!
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Some of Michael Artin's teaching experiences
from Recountings: Conversations with MIT Mathematicians edited by Joel Segel:
"I taught calculus in small classes for years, starting when I was a graduate student in Harvard. But the first time I tried to lecture one of the freshman calculus classes, it didn't work very well. I was too formal, probably. You're in front of 250 people or so. It's a short of show game, and I had a hard time. The last time I did it, it was fine, but I'd learned a lot. Before trying it again, I attended Arthur Mattuck's lectures for an entire semester, and I leaned a lot from him.
Another thing that really helped me was being videotaped. The first time I was videotaped it wasn't in the calculus, though I've been taped teaching those courses. It was an upper-class course. I looked at it, and I saw that I was doing something terrible. I avoided looking at the class. Even when I turned around, my gaze was down. It just stared at you in the face when you watched me. I decided that the reason was that looking at the class would break my concentration on what I was saying, I'm pretty sure that's what it was. But it was extremely difficult to stop doing it. I probably still do it, but not as much. One of my brothers-in-law suggested just programming looking at the class into my preparation. It was a good idea....
There was another problem that also I can't do anything about. When Arthur sees my tapes, he is very critical, because I sometimes skip steps. The reason I can't do anything about it is because it's really a brain function-my brain has skipped the step. But that's one reason that I prepare very carefully. I've written down everything out exactly the way it's going to go on the board, for instance, so my board has gotten pretty good. I still have this skipping steps, but it's probably not as bad as not turning around often enough to look at the class. I get reasonably good ratings, so these aren't terrible. It's just that you want to be perfect".
Interestingly, his father Emil Artin is a Feynman like figure in mathematics. Here is the Wikipedia article on Emil Artin .
The book has also an interview with Arthur Mattuck and his experiences with Emil Artin's teaching and guidance.
I won't to say anything about my teaching except that one of the first students remarked that I was whispering endearments to the blackboard and I do not think that it improved much.
I briefly met Michael Artin 1966 when he was visiting Bombay for conference and I was a graduate student. It was partly because Emil Artin's 'Galois Theory' was one of the first non-prescribed math. books that I read and probably never got out of that thrall of beautiful theories without examples. Then I saw Michael again in a conference in Japan around 1973 and was very surprised that he remembered me and introduced me to his mother as the Swarup from India.
"I taught calculus in small classes for years, starting when I was a graduate student in Harvard. But the first time I tried to lecture one of the freshman calculus classes, it didn't work very well. I was too formal, probably. You're in front of 250 people or so. It's a short of show game, and I had a hard time. The last time I did it, it was fine, but I'd learned a lot. Before trying it again, I attended Arthur Mattuck's lectures for an entire semester, and I leaned a lot from him.
Another thing that really helped me was being videotaped. The first time I was videotaped it wasn't in the calculus, though I've been taped teaching those courses. It was an upper-class course. I looked at it, and I saw that I was doing something terrible. I avoided looking at the class. Even when I turned around, my gaze was down. It just stared at you in the face when you watched me. I decided that the reason was that looking at the class would break my concentration on what I was saying, I'm pretty sure that's what it was. But it was extremely difficult to stop doing it. I probably still do it, but not as much. One of my brothers-in-law suggested just programming looking at the class into my preparation. It was a good idea....
There was another problem that also I can't do anything about. When Arthur sees my tapes, he is very critical, because I sometimes skip steps. The reason I can't do anything about it is because it's really a brain function-my brain has skipped the step. But that's one reason that I prepare very carefully. I've written down everything out exactly the way it's going to go on the board, for instance, so my board has gotten pretty good. I still have this skipping steps, but it's probably not as bad as not turning around often enough to look at the class. I get reasonably good ratings, so these aren't terrible. It's just that you want to be perfect".
Interestingly, his father Emil Artin is a Feynman like figure in mathematics. Here is the Wikipedia article on Emil Artin .
The book has also an interview with Arthur Mattuck and his experiences with Emil Artin's teaching and guidance.
I won't to say anything about my teaching except that one of the first students remarked that I was whispering endearments to the blackboard and I do not think that it improved much.
I briefly met Michael Artin 1966 when he was visiting Bombay for conference and I was a graduate student. It was partly because Emil Artin's 'Galois Theory' was one of the first non-prescribed math. books that I read and probably never got out of that thrall of beautiful theories without examples. Then I saw Michael again in a conference in Japan around 1973 and was very surprised that he remembered me and introduced me to his mother as the Swarup from India.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Two write-ups on Salinger
I liked this AN APPRECIATION
J.D. Salinger: a gift of words and silenceIn his greatest works, a clash between self-expression and self-effacement.
A more literary appreciation The Pre-Postmodernist .
(both via 3quarksdaily)
J.D. Salinger: a gift of words and silenceIn his greatest works, a clash between self-expression and self-effacement.
A more literary appreciation The Pre-Postmodernist .
(both via 3quarksdaily)
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Lyla on Leila
in this post.
Long ago I wrote to Lyla that my granddaughter Leila, after seeing the crescent moon said "The moon is broken". Recently she told her mother that she was angry with her. When the mother said that she should not be angry without any reason, the response was "Mom! I can get angry with you whenever I like". Lyla's resonse to the two comments is this:
బుల్లి మేధావీ
జాబిల్లి విరిగిందటా :-)
ఎందుకటా! ఎందుకటా?
అల్లరి ఆరిందావీ
అమ్మతోటె పోట్లాటా
మాటకు తిరుగు మాటా
ఎందుకటా! ఎందుకటా?
గులాబీ పూదావీ
ఆవేశం వేడియటా
ఆగ్రహం కూడదటా
అవునా? ఆనందబాంధవీ
Long ago I wrote to Lyla that my granddaughter Leila, after seeing the crescent moon said "The moon is broken". Recently she told her mother that she was angry with her. When the mother said that she should not be angry without any reason, the response was "Mom! I can get angry with you whenever I like". Lyla's resonse to the two comments is this:
బుల్లి మేధావీ
జాబిల్లి విరిగిందటా :-)
ఎందుకటా! ఎందుకటా?
అల్లరి ఆరిందావీ
అమ్మతోటె పోట్లాటా
మాటకు తిరుగు మాటా
ఎందుకటా! ఎందుకటా?
గులాబీ పూదావీ
ఆవేశం వేడియటా
ఆగ్రహం కూడదటా
అవునా? ఆనందబాంధవీ
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Gummadi no more
Veteran Telugu actor Gummadi Venkateswara Rao passed away on January 26, 2010.
Here is a long Interview With Gummadi Venkateswara Raoin nine parts from 2007.
Here is a long Interview With Gummadi Venkateswara Raoin nine parts from 2007.
Concentration of power
Jeff Strabone in Post-Shame:
"It seems to me that over the past decade, in the United States, the state and a narrow circle of powerful interests—banks, energy companies, and private health insurers in particular—have simply given up trying to persuade the rest of us that their interests were our interests. Could we be moving in the twenty-first century to a state that practices domination without hegemony? Or, to put it in plain English, will the state shamelessly turn itself completely over to serving the interests of a powerful few without bothering to pretend that it's not? And if it does, how should we respond?"
Arnold King in Why the U.S. is Ungovernable:
"The theory is that there is a discrepancy between trends in knowledge and power. Power in the United States is remarkably concentrated. We are creating increasingly specialized knowledge, which means that the information needed to make good decisions is located outside of Washington, D.C. And yet we have a central government attempting to do for 300 million people what governments in places like Singapore, Hong Kong, Denmark, and Switzerland do for many fewer people.
.....
These days, most of the people who complain that the U.S. is ungovernable are looking for solutions that would allow progressive technocrats to be even more powerful. I believe that the solution is to decentralize government, so that the U.S. becomes a federation of hundreds of Swiss-style cantons, each of which can be governed differently, but reasonably effectively."
"It seems to me that over the past decade, in the United States, the state and a narrow circle of powerful interests—banks, energy companies, and private health insurers in particular—have simply given up trying to persuade the rest of us that their interests were our interests. Could we be moving in the twenty-first century to a state that practices domination without hegemony? Or, to put it in plain English, will the state shamelessly turn itself completely over to serving the interests of a powerful few without bothering to pretend that it's not? And if it does, how should we respond?"
Arnold King in Why the U.S. is Ungovernable:
"The theory is that there is a discrepancy between trends in knowledge and power. Power in the United States is remarkably concentrated. We are creating increasingly specialized knowledge, which means that the information needed to make good decisions is located outside of Washington, D.C. And yet we have a central government attempting to do for 300 million people what governments in places like Singapore, Hong Kong, Denmark, and Switzerland do for many fewer people.
.....
These days, most of the people who complain that the U.S. is ungovernable are looking for solutions that would allow progressive technocrats to be even more powerful. I believe that the solution is to decentralize government, so that the U.S. becomes a federation of hundreds of Swiss-style cantons, each of which can be governed differently, but reasonably effectively."
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Inguva Mallikarjuna Sharma's blog
Kuffir links to this comprehensive artice My 2004 article on the Telangana issue
By Inguva Mallikarjuna Sharma. Updated versions started on December 18
I. Mallikarjuna Sharma's article: FOR A UNITED ANDHRA-TELANGANA-SEEMA (Part-1) in LAW ANIMATED WORLD, 15 December 2009 issue .
The comments in the post SEPARATION IS NO SOLUTION by I. Mallikarjuna Sharma has an interesting discussion on data and statistics. In Kuffir's post Ved has links to a study on India's most backward districts:
India’s most backward districts: List of 1997 Sarma Committee.
P.S. Anant Maringanti in EPW Telangana: Righting Historical Wrongs or Getting the Future Right?
By Inguva Mallikarjuna Sharma. Updated versions started on December 18
I. Mallikarjuna Sharma's article: FOR A UNITED ANDHRA-TELANGANA-SEEMA (Part-1) in LAW ANIMATED WORLD, 15 December 2009 issue .
The comments in the post SEPARATION IS NO SOLUTION by I. Mallikarjuna Sharma has an interesting discussion on data and statistics. In Kuffir's post Ved has links to a study on India's most backward districts:
India’s most backward districts: List of 1997 Sarma Committee.
P.S. Anant Maringanti in EPW Telangana: Righting Historical Wrongs or Getting the Future Right?
Friday, January 22, 2010
More than just crossed senses in synaesthesia
From MindHacks post Beyond crossed senses in synaesthesia:
"If colour-speech synaesthesia works only through crossed-senses then the McGurk effect should make no difference to the colours because the exact same sound is played each time, but if this form of synaesthesia is triggered by meaning, the colours should differ because the McGurk effect changes which words are perceived and understood, despite the identical sound.
This is exactly what the researchers found, providing additional evidence that synaesthesia is not just a sensory confusion, it is based in how the brain understands meaning."
P.S. Another intersting post in MindHacks Hard as Nails. Excerpt:
"A builder aged 29 came to the accident and emergency department having jumped down on to a 15 cm nail. As the smallest movement of the nail was painful he was sedated with fentanyl and midazolam. The nail was then pulled out from below. When his boot was removed a miraculous cure appeared to have taken place. Despite entering proximal to the steel toecap the nail had penetrated between the toes: the foot was entirely uninjured.
.....
This isn't really the nocebo effect, where 'side-effects' appear after having taken nothing but a placebo, but more similar to what doctors might describe in its persistent form as somatisation disorder where physical symptoms appear that aren't explained by tissue damage.
However, both are similar in that real pain arises from beliefs, expectations and perceptions. We now know that all pain has a significant mental component and, consequently, psychological therapy is an effective treatment for chronic pain."
"If colour-speech synaesthesia works only through crossed-senses then the McGurk effect should make no difference to the colours because the exact same sound is played each time, but if this form of synaesthesia is triggered by meaning, the colours should differ because the McGurk effect changes which words are perceived and understood, despite the identical sound.
This is exactly what the researchers found, providing additional evidence that synaesthesia is not just a sensory confusion, it is based in how the brain understands meaning."
P.S. Another intersting post in MindHacks Hard as Nails. Excerpt:
"A builder aged 29 came to the accident and emergency department having jumped down on to a 15 cm nail. As the smallest movement of the nail was painful he was sedated with fentanyl and midazolam. The nail was then pulled out from below. When his boot was removed a miraculous cure appeared to have taken place. Despite entering proximal to the steel toecap the nail had penetrated between the toes: the foot was entirely uninjured.
.....
This isn't really the nocebo effect, where 'side-effects' appear after having taken nothing but a placebo, but more similar to what doctors might describe in its persistent form as somatisation disorder where physical symptoms appear that aren't explained by tissue damage.
However, both are similar in that real pain arises from beliefs, expectations and perceptions. We now know that all pain has a significant mental component and, consequently, psychological therapy is an effective treatment for chronic pain."
Thursday, January 21, 2010
A nation which helped Simon Bolivar
Monday, January 18, 2010
Two links, January 17, 2010
Daniel Little on some experimental findings in Civic engagement and formative institutions:
"These are surprising findings. The TFA (Teach For Ameria)population as a whole shows a higher level of civic engagement than the general population. But within the TFA population, the graduates lag. "
Felix Salmon in The limits of Mirofinane:
"Richard Rosenberg has a good new paper — short, clear, summarized here — saying that the jury is very much still out on whether or not microfinance helps improve the incomes of the poor. But even if it doesn’t help the poor out of poverty, it still does a great deal of good in terms of giving them tools to deal with poverty."
"These are surprising findings. The TFA (Teach For Ameria)population as a whole shows a higher level of civic engagement than the general population. But within the TFA population, the graduates lag. "
Felix Salmon in The limits of Mirofinane:
"Richard Rosenberg has a good new paper — short, clear, summarized here — saying that the jury is very much still out on whether or not microfinance helps improve the incomes of the poor. But even if it doesn’t help the poor out of poverty, it still does a great deal of good in terms of giving them tools to deal with poverty."
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Discussion on decentralization
Kuffir has several posts on Telangana and in the posts and some of the post comments, there are useful discussions on decentralization. As far as I can see from the posts, the thrust is to enpower people and some of the ideas are similar to those of Jayaprakash Narayan of Loksatta and the idea of subsidiarity. See in particular the discussion and comments in the posts it's the economy, stupid and dr.ambedkar on the reorganization of states
Friday, January 15, 2010
Sushi Das on Indian students in Australia
From It's simple: India doesn't want to see its citizens harmed by Sushi Das:
"... first, that Australia has a crime problem in the suburbs that it must attend to, and second, that India is within its rights to speak out when its citizens face danger."
There is also a discussion in Death Ends Fun during which Michiel Bass's thesis on Indian students in Australia covering the period 2005-2009 came up:Imagined Mobility. He has also two articles:Cash Cows from 2005 and Voices from Down Under written in June 2009. I have not yet read the thesis; the students he met seem to be mostly those who had English medium in schools. The thesis was completed in October 2009 and there is a postscript on the more recent outbreaks of violence. He seems to think there has been rapid change in the situation since 2005. I understand that there is an Australian blog with suburb wise statistics on the violence but I have not located it yet.
P.S. {January 20)From the Victorian police chief We've known for two years about Indian attacks: Overland :
"We recognised this problem a long time before it hit the public.
"We have known for two years that there has been this issue and we have been working away, at a number of levels around engaging with students, trying to make them understand the risks and how they keep themselves safe."
Mr Overland said police had detailed data on attacks involving Indians and said that while Indians were over represented when it came to robberies, the same could not be said for assaults.
About 50 per cent of assaults on Indians occurred in their workplace, mostly involving taxi drivers and convenience store clerks, he said.
Mr Overland said some of the attacks were racist.
"I have said from day one undoubtedly some of these attacks have a racist motive or there is racist elements to these attacks," he said.
"Regardless of who they are, what they are, what colour they are, what occupation they are, my job is to make the state as safe as I can for everyone."
P.P.S. (January 23rd) Sushi Das has two informative articles in The Age today:
Advice on Indian students ignored
Hard lessons to be learnt
Conservative leader's reaction:
Immigrant support hit by gangs: Abbott
"... first, that Australia has a crime problem in the suburbs that it must attend to, and second, that India is within its rights to speak out when its citizens face danger."
There is also a discussion in Death Ends Fun during which Michiel Bass's thesis on Indian students in Australia covering the period 2005-2009 came up:Imagined Mobility. He has also two articles:Cash Cows from 2005 and Voices from Down Under written in June 2009. I have not yet read the thesis; the students he met seem to be mostly those who had English medium in schools. The thesis was completed in October 2009 and there is a postscript on the more recent outbreaks of violence. He seems to think there has been rapid change in the situation since 2005. I understand that there is an Australian blog with suburb wise statistics on the violence but I have not located it yet.
P.S. {January 20)From the Victorian police chief We've known for two years about Indian attacks: Overland :
"We recognised this problem a long time before it hit the public.
"We have known for two years that there has been this issue and we have been working away, at a number of levels around engaging with students, trying to make them understand the risks and how they keep themselves safe."
Mr Overland said police had detailed data on attacks involving Indians and said that while Indians were over represented when it came to robberies, the same could not be said for assaults.
About 50 per cent of assaults on Indians occurred in their workplace, mostly involving taxi drivers and convenience store clerks, he said.
Mr Overland said some of the attacks were racist.
"I have said from day one undoubtedly some of these attacks have a racist motive or there is racist elements to these attacks," he said.
"Regardless of who they are, what they are, what colour they are, what occupation they are, my job is to make the state as safe as I can for everyone."
P.P.S. (January 23rd) Sushi Das has two informative articles in The Age today:
Advice on Indian students ignored
Hard lessons to be learnt
Conservative leader's reaction:
Immigrant support hit by gangs: Abbott
Monday, January 11, 2010
Perception of distance
In Motivated reality MindHacks links to two papers on how the 'perception of distance to an object was altered by how much someone wanted it' and to this post describing the
Desire influences visual perception describing a recent study. It seems that even if one cannot always get what one wants, it appears nearer than it is.
Desire influences visual perception describing a recent study. It seems that even if one cannot always get what one wants, it appears nearer than it is.
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Marxist views of the recent financial crisis
A survey by Joseph Choonara Marxist accounts of the current crisis. It is one of the several links from comments (72) in John Quiggin's CT post Marxian economics MIA?.
There is also a discussion of the topic in
John Quiggin's blog and Economist's View Can Marxian Economics Explain the Crisis?.
The 2009 March 28 issue of EPW (issue 13) has a few articles on the crisis including The Recent Crisis in Global Capitalism:Towards a Marxian Understanding by Vamsi Vakulabharanam.
P.S. Stanford Encyclopedia article on Karl Marx by Jonathan Wolff, the author of Why Read Marx Today?
P.S. A one paragraph comment in Who are these economists, anyway? by James Galbraith.
There is also a discussion of the topic in
John Quiggin's blog and Economist's View Can Marxian Economics Explain the Crisis?.
The 2009 March 28 issue of EPW (issue 13) has a few articles on the crisis including The Recent Crisis in Global Capitalism:Towards a Marxian Understanding by Vamsi Vakulabharanam.
P.S. Stanford Encyclopedia article on Karl Marx by Jonathan Wolff, the author of Why Read Marx Today?
P.S. A one paragraph comment in Who are these economists, anyway? by James Galbraith.
On neighbourhood diversity
Marginal Revolution links to a study in Hyderabad on mixed housing Evidence from India on neighborhood diversity. The paper says "As India expands public housing for the poor to accommodate rapid urbanization, deliberate mixing of religious groups can be a way of improving attitudes toward the religious minority." Muslims are about 40 percent in Hyderabad and thus not really a minority, but I like the recommendation.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Something to think about next year
The Limited Modesty of Subsidiarity by N.W.Barber (viaLaw and Other Things) and Elinor Ostrom's work.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Recovering from Chikungunya
Apparently, recovering from Chikungunya may take a long time for some. A friend from Hyderabad hsays that he recovered quickly after suffering for a couple of months using some unani medicine. It is available from shop called Arammasala kirana grocery (approximate name) near Nampalli station and is close to Arastu Lodge. Apparently one can ask for packets with a list of the ingredients and perhaps check for toxicity.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
In the season of giving
a discussion on giving by Peter Singer and William Easterly on Bloggingheads.tv via Christmas Charity Gift-Giving Video Edition: Peter Singer and I on Bloggingheads.tv. Questions like too much establishment costs of some organizations, keeping track of whether the money is spent for the causes given and the results are discussed and there are links to some reliable efforts (but what is reliable now may not be reliable tomorrow)and links to organizations which evaluate charities.
My own small efforts are through organizations in places I know where I can get feedback through friends and relatives and can visit once in a while. Two such I know which work mostly in Andhra Pradsh are:
http://www.friendsforeducation.org/
http://www.hopeforhumanitymd.org/, the first organized by Benjamin Kaila and friends and the second by Mrs Krishnarao and friends. Mrs. Krishnarao lives in Maryland and wants to start a blog to attract more people to their efforts and inform of the ongoing efforts. If any dody can help please contact her.
My own small efforts are through organizations in places I know where I can get feedback through friends and relatives and can visit once in a while. Two such I know which work mostly in Andhra Pradsh are:
http://www.friendsforeducation.org/
http://www.hopeforhumanitymd.org/, the first organized by Benjamin Kaila and friends and the second by Mrs Krishnarao and friends. Mrs. Krishnarao lives in Maryland and wants to start a blog to attract more people to their efforts and inform of the ongoing efforts. If any dody can help please contact her.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Deeptidhara (దీప్తి ధార) posts on e-telugu
with links to several blogs and photographs of bloggers and other notable internet Telugu personalities like Veeven, Paruchuri Sreenivas, Suresh Kolichala, Akkiraju Bhattiprolu,....:
పుస్తక ప్రదర్శనశాలలో e - తెలుగు
పుస్తకాల వరదలు -రెండవ రోజు
పుస్తక ప్రియుల కోసం పాదయాత్ర (మూడవ రోజు)
పుస్తకాలకై ప్రజావాహిని - నాలుగో రోజు
పుస్తక ప్రదర్శనశాలలో e - తెలుగు
పుస్తకాల వరదలు -రెండవ రోజు
పుస్తక ప్రియుల కోసం పాదయాత్ర (మూడవ రోజు)
పుస్తకాలకై ప్రజావాహిని - నాలుగో రోజు
Friday, December 25, 2009
Lok Satta on A.P. agitation
has several posts on the A.P. agiatation, suggestive of 'subsidiarity', including this Lok Satta pities Chiranjeevi’s ignorance. Excerpt:
"Talking to the media, party spokesmen Mr. Katari Srinivasa Rao, Mr. V.Laxman Balaji, Mrs. K.Geeta Murthy said that what all the Lok Satta had been agitating for is in accordance with the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution which envisaged transfer of powers, responsibilities, resources and personnel to local governments. The Lok Satta stand is in tune with Mahatma Gandhi’s dream of gram swaraj.
The Lok Satta has all along fought for empowerment of panchayats, mandal parishads, zilla parishads, municipalities and municipal corporations so that they would be at the service of citizens who are sovereign in a democracy. Governments existed for people and not the other way round. The era of power vesting in the PM, CM and the DM (prime minister, chief minister and district magistrate) should give way for power in the hands of governments elected at the local level.....
The traditional political parties should realize that the formation of a Telangana State is merely a means and not an end. There will not be any transformation in the lives of people unless they are empowered and corruption eliminated, and quality education, healthcare and livelihood opportunities provided to all without reference to the accident of their birth in a particular caste or religion or region."
See alsoTv9 Special Interview with Jayaprakash Narayana on Present Crisis :
http://ap7am.com/videoscript/videosplay.php?id=3074
"Talking to the media, party spokesmen Mr. Katari Srinivasa Rao, Mr. V.Laxman Balaji, Mrs. K.Geeta Murthy said that what all the Lok Satta had been agitating for is in accordance with the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution which envisaged transfer of powers, responsibilities, resources and personnel to local governments. The Lok Satta stand is in tune with Mahatma Gandhi’s dream of gram swaraj.
The Lok Satta has all along fought for empowerment of panchayats, mandal parishads, zilla parishads, municipalities and municipal corporations so that they would be at the service of citizens who are sovereign in a democracy. Governments existed for people and not the other way round. The era of power vesting in the PM, CM and the DM (prime minister, chief minister and district magistrate) should give way for power in the hands of governments elected at the local level.....
The traditional political parties should realize that the formation of a Telangana State is merely a means and not an end. There will not be any transformation in the lives of people unless they are empowered and corruption eliminated, and quality education, healthcare and livelihood opportunities provided to all without reference to the accident of their birth in a particular caste or religion or region."
See alsoTv9 Special Interview with Jayaprakash Narayana on Present Crisis :
http://ap7am.com/videoscript/videosplay.php?id=3074
Thursday, December 24, 2009
SRI blog
started recently: Global News and Views - System of Rice Intensification (SRI) . The latest post mentions introduction of SRI in Afghanistan.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Obama Ain't It
Who Will Be A Champion Of The Left We Can Believe In? As Bush-lite, Obama Ain't It
By Evert Cilliers
See also Glenn Greenwald's Greg Craig and Obama's worsening civil liberties record
(both via 3queaksdaily)
P.S. See also He’s not perfect but Obama deserves at least a B
By Evert Cilliers
See also Glenn Greenwald's Greg Craig and Obama's worsening civil liberties record
(both via 3queaksdaily)
P.S. See also He’s not perfect but Obama deserves at least a B
Joan Mencher on sustainable agriculture
Interviw in Frontline The right to food .Excerpt:
"There were three processes that destroyed the traditional face of Indian agriculture. First, the Green Revolution; second, the 1991 liberalisation of the Indian economy; and third, the George Bush-Manmohan Singh summit in July 2005 [U.S.-India Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture], which really gave free entry to large American food corporations into India.
But there are people trying to revive ways of traditional forms of agriculture. One of the important things to be aware of is that large corporations are spreading the idea that anyone who tries to oppose all these scientific innovations is anti-science, anti-technology, [and] anti-modern, whereas I would argue that what they are calling modernity is not modernity and, furthermore, they ignore the much more complicated discipline of eco-science completely. Colleges have a big deal of knowledge about what works, but they do not support ecological sciences. Even eco-sciences are often pressured to do absolutely simple research. Eco-scientists are testing only one part of a thing when they do research on it without understanding the larger implications of such work. It’s the synergy between various parts that matters. Research in the ecological sciences needs to be improved."
Arun Shrivastava has been saying similar things: Links to some of his articles.
As John Little quotes in Merton's Sociology Science "Scientists often choose problems for investigation that are vitally linked with major values and interests of the time." May be the recent financial crisis will bring a shift in the paradigms.
"There were three processes that destroyed the traditional face of Indian agriculture. First, the Green Revolution; second, the 1991 liberalisation of the Indian economy; and third, the George Bush-Manmohan Singh summit in July 2005 [U.S.-India Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture], which really gave free entry to large American food corporations into India.
But there are people trying to revive ways of traditional forms of agriculture. One of the important things to be aware of is that large corporations are spreading the idea that anyone who tries to oppose all these scientific innovations is anti-science, anti-technology, [and] anti-modern, whereas I would argue that what they are calling modernity is not modernity and, furthermore, they ignore the much more complicated discipline of eco-science completely. Colleges have a big deal of knowledge about what works, but they do not support ecological sciences. Even eco-sciences are often pressured to do absolutely simple research. Eco-scientists are testing only one part of a thing when they do research on it without understanding the larger implications of such work. It’s the synergy between various parts that matters. Research in the ecological sciences needs to be improved."
Arun Shrivastava has been saying similar things: Links to some of his articles.
As John Little quotes in Merton's Sociology Science "Scientists often choose problems for investigation that are vitally linked with major values and interests of the time." May be the recent financial crisis will bring a shift in the paradigms.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
A tax on short-term debt instead of Tobin tax
suggests Luigi Zingales in A tax on short-term debt would stabilise the system .
Arvind Subramanian blogs an aid and Dutch Disease
Arvind Subramanian in The Effects of Foreign Aid: Dutch Disease:
"Manufacturing exports has been the predominant mode for escape from underdevelopment for many developing countries, especially in Asia. So, what aid does to manufacturing exports can be one key piece of the puzzle in understanding the aggregate effect of aid.
In this paper forthcoming in the Journal of Development Economics, Raghuram Rajan and I show that aid tends to depress the growth of exportable goods. This will not be the last word on the subject because the methodology in this paper, as in much of the aid literature, could be improved.
But the innovation in this paper is not to look at the variation in the data across countries (which is what almost the entire aid literature does) but at the variation within countries across sectors. We categorize goods by how exportable they could be for low-income countries, and find that in countries that receive more aid, more exportable sectors grow substantially more slowly than less exportable ones. The numbers suggest that in countries that receive additional aid of 1 percent of GDP, exportable sectors grow more slowly by 0.5 percent per year (and clothing and footwear sectors that are particularly exportable in low-income countries grow slower by 1 percent per year).
We also provide suggestive evidence that the channel through which this effect is felt is the exchange rate. In other words, aid tends to make a country less competitive (reflected in an overvalued exchange rate) which in turn depresses the prospects of the more exportable sectors. In the jargon, this is the famous “Dutch Disease” effect of aid."
Further discussion by David Roodman of Center for Global Development Does Aid Cause Dutch Disease? and Subramanian's response:
"Whether and how manufacturing exports can be an engine of overall growth is still debated. But the historical experience is strongly suggestive that if export sectors grow slowly or grow slower than other sectors, overall growth is affected. So, our paper could be interpreted not as a lament about the effects of aid on export sectors but as a celebration of its effects on non-export sectors. But, in my view and also in the historical record, between export and non-export sectors as an engine of growth, there is no contest."
"Manufacturing exports has been the predominant mode for escape from underdevelopment for many developing countries, especially in Asia. So, what aid does to manufacturing exports can be one key piece of the puzzle in understanding the aggregate effect of aid.
In this paper forthcoming in the Journal of Development Economics, Raghuram Rajan and I show that aid tends to depress the growth of exportable goods. This will not be the last word on the subject because the methodology in this paper, as in much of the aid literature, could be improved.
But the innovation in this paper is not to look at the variation in the data across countries (which is what almost the entire aid literature does) but at the variation within countries across sectors. We categorize goods by how exportable they could be for low-income countries, and find that in countries that receive more aid, more exportable sectors grow substantially more slowly than less exportable ones. The numbers suggest that in countries that receive additional aid of 1 percent of GDP, exportable sectors grow more slowly by 0.5 percent per year (and clothing and footwear sectors that are particularly exportable in low-income countries grow slower by 1 percent per year).
We also provide suggestive evidence that the channel through which this effect is felt is the exchange rate. In other words, aid tends to make a country less competitive (reflected in an overvalued exchange rate) which in turn depresses the prospects of the more exportable sectors. In the jargon, this is the famous “Dutch Disease” effect of aid."
Further discussion by David Roodman of Center for Global Development Does Aid Cause Dutch Disease? and Subramanian's response:
"Whether and how manufacturing exports can be an engine of overall growth is still debated. But the historical experience is strongly suggestive that if export sectors grow slowly or grow slower than other sectors, overall growth is affected. So, our paper could be interpreted not as a lament about the effects of aid on export sectors but as a celebration of its effects on non-export sectors. But, in my view and also in the historical record, between export and non-export sectors as an engine of growth, there is no contest."
Friday, December 18, 2009
More on Telangana
Tarunabh Khaitan in Subsidiarity and State Formation links to several interesting articles related to the current discussions on Telangana and says "What is striking in all of these commentaries is that they ignore sub-nationalism as a possible basis for further state-formation. Instead, each of them analyses different aspects of democratic representation and efficiency---the twin pillars that underpin the principle of subsidiarity. The Telengana issue could well trigger the second wave of state formation in India: if this happens, subsidiarity should be a useful guide for the second states reorganisation commission. Of course, subsidiarity will also require far stronger local governments than we have at the moment--will our policy makers travel that far?"
The article about subsidiarity mentioned by Khaitan is behind a firewall. According to the Wikipedia article:
"Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. The Oxford English Dictionary defines subsidiarity as the idea that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level. The concept is applicable in the fields of government, political science, cybernetics, management, military (Mission Command) and, metaphorically, in the distribution of software module responsibilities in object-oriented programming (according to the Information expert design guideline). Subsidiarity is, ideally or in principle, one of the features of federalism, where it asserts the rights of the parts over the whole.
The word subsidiarity is derived from the Latin word subsidiarius and has its origins in Catholic social teaching (see Subsidiarity (Catholicism)).[1] The concept or principle is found in several constitutions around the world (see for example the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which asserts States rights.
It is presently best known as a fundamental principle of European Union law."
From the first of the articles mentioned From 27 to 45? by Bibek Debroi:
" First, India’s present organisation into states (and UTs) isn’t rational, if rationality is interpreted as delivering better governance. The word governance is much abused and different people mean different things when they use it. Governance is a process and it is also about delivering public goods and services (law and order, primary health, school education, roads, drinking and irrigation water, electricity). These are still areas characterised by some degree of market failure. In addition, there are anti-poverty programmes. In all these, trading off economies (of scale and scope) with diseconomies, there is an optimal level of administration at which these can be delivered. While there is a case for centralisation for defence and national security, there is a case for decentralisation for public goods. As a rough rule of the thumb, at least in India’s heartland, optimal governance requires population sizes smaller than 50 million (25 million is more like it) and geographical expanse less than 35,000 sq km.
Second, there is an empirical proposition. Across India’s 28 states and its UTs, work co-authored with Laveesh Bhandari shows smaller states perform better than larger states — on an average. Small states perform better than large states on physical infrastructure, social infrastructure, law and order and anti-poverty programmes. However, this is on an average and isn’t a finding specific to Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand or Uttarakhand. Nor is it the case that administrative restructuring alone solves all governance problems. For instance, the Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir have issues that administrative restructuring alone cannot solve. What of the three newly-formed states? A long enough data time-series doesn’t exist. Subject to that, the answer depends on indicators used. Across indicators, Uttarakhand performs better than UP. The Chhattisgarh-MP comparison is iffy, with Chhattisgarh performing better on some indicators and worse on others. For Bihar-Jharkhand, Bihar generally performs better than Jharkhand. If an argument about optimal administrative level is accepted, the question shouldn’t only be about carved-out states like Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand. Governance should also improve in what remains — MP, Bihar, UP. Since one cannot control for other variables, there is a post hoc ergo propter hoc danger. With this caveat, governance (however defined) has improved in MP, Bihar, UP....
In this controversy over Telangana, there is an impression that there is a great deal of controversy. However, if one thinks about it, there should be complete consensus on these seven propositions. Unfortunately, in its preference towards setting up commissions right, left and centre, the UPA didn’t set up the one it should have and the whirlwind is being reaped now.
Perhaps there is a moral there too. Governments are reluctant to delegate decision-making to commissions. Instead, there is a preference for arbitrary exercise of centralised power, exactly the opposite of what the Constitution intended."
Karthik Muralidharan in Too small to fail :
"As states get more involved in large-scale social protection programmes like the NREGA and RSBY, it may be desirable to increase investment in state capacity to deliver services effectively and one way of doing this may be to create new state administrations with more manageable jurisdictions. Smaller states can also experiment more easily with innovations in governance and service delivery, which can be replicated across states if found to be successful."
Pratap Bhanu Mehta in Sizeable matters :
"Two issues in particular need attention. The first is dealing with legitimate concerns over state size. Mayawati’s proposal for further dividing UP merits serious consideration for a number of reasons that have been reiterated on several occasions. But more than creating states, the focus should be on building states. The success of a state depends not on size, but on state capacity. This varies widely across India. But we understand little about the conditions under which different states are likely to acquire the requisite state capacity."
The article about subsidiarity mentioned by Khaitan is behind a firewall. According to the Wikipedia article:
"Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. The Oxford English Dictionary defines subsidiarity as the idea that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level. The concept is applicable in the fields of government, political science, cybernetics, management, military (Mission Command) and, metaphorically, in the distribution of software module responsibilities in object-oriented programming (according to the Information expert design guideline). Subsidiarity is, ideally or in principle, one of the features of federalism, where it asserts the rights of the parts over the whole.
The word subsidiarity is derived from the Latin word subsidiarius and has its origins in Catholic social teaching (see Subsidiarity (Catholicism)).[1] The concept or principle is found in several constitutions around the world (see for example the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which asserts States rights.
It is presently best known as a fundamental principle of European Union law."
From the first of the articles mentioned From 27 to 45? by Bibek Debroi:
" First, India’s present organisation into states (and UTs) isn’t rational, if rationality is interpreted as delivering better governance. The word governance is much abused and different people mean different things when they use it. Governance is a process and it is also about delivering public goods and services (law and order, primary health, school education, roads, drinking and irrigation water, electricity). These are still areas characterised by some degree of market failure. In addition, there are anti-poverty programmes. In all these, trading off economies (of scale and scope) with diseconomies, there is an optimal level of administration at which these can be delivered. While there is a case for centralisation for defence and national security, there is a case for decentralisation for public goods. As a rough rule of the thumb, at least in India’s heartland, optimal governance requires population sizes smaller than 50 million (25 million is more like it) and geographical expanse less than 35,000 sq km.
Second, there is an empirical proposition. Across India’s 28 states and its UTs, work co-authored with Laveesh Bhandari shows smaller states perform better than larger states — on an average. Small states perform better than large states on physical infrastructure, social infrastructure, law and order and anti-poverty programmes. However, this is on an average and isn’t a finding specific to Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand or Uttarakhand. Nor is it the case that administrative restructuring alone solves all governance problems. For instance, the Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir have issues that administrative restructuring alone cannot solve. What of the three newly-formed states? A long enough data time-series doesn’t exist. Subject to that, the answer depends on indicators used. Across indicators, Uttarakhand performs better than UP. The Chhattisgarh-MP comparison is iffy, with Chhattisgarh performing better on some indicators and worse on others. For Bihar-Jharkhand, Bihar generally performs better than Jharkhand. If an argument about optimal administrative level is accepted, the question shouldn’t only be about carved-out states like Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand. Governance should also improve in what remains — MP, Bihar, UP. Since one cannot control for other variables, there is a post hoc ergo propter hoc danger. With this caveat, governance (however defined) has improved in MP, Bihar, UP....
In this controversy over Telangana, there is an impression that there is a great deal of controversy. However, if one thinks about it, there should be complete consensus on these seven propositions. Unfortunately, in its preference towards setting up commissions right, left and centre, the UPA didn’t set up the one it should have and the whirlwind is being reaped now.
Perhaps there is a moral there too. Governments are reluctant to delegate decision-making to commissions. Instead, there is a preference for arbitrary exercise of centralised power, exactly the opposite of what the Constitution intended."
Karthik Muralidharan in Too small to fail :
"As states get more involved in large-scale social protection programmes like the NREGA and RSBY, it may be desirable to increase investment in state capacity to deliver services effectively and one way of doing this may be to create new state administrations with more manageable jurisdictions. Smaller states can also experiment more easily with innovations in governance and service delivery, which can be replicated across states if found to be successful."
Pratap Bhanu Mehta in Sizeable matters :
"Two issues in particular need attention. The first is dealing with legitimate concerns over state size. Mayawati’s proposal for further dividing UP merits serious consideration for a number of reasons that have been reiterated on several occasions. But more than creating states, the focus should be on building states. The success of a state depends not on size, but on state capacity. This varies widely across India. But we understand little about the conditions under which different states are likely to acquire the requisite state capacity."
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Some links 16th December, 2009
Jeffry Sachs on climate financing for the poor How to hold the rich to their word. Similar plans for Telangana and other 'underdeveloped' regions?
Felix Salmon reports on recent article As Microfinance Grows in India, So Do Its Rivals . The evidence seems to be mostly from Mahaboobnagar district and it seems that people are borrowing money from traditional lender to repay their micro loans.
Brenda Rosser on Bernanke's Saving's Glut Hypothesis. Contradiction Number One.
All the above links via Economist's View .
3qurksdaily discusses a Boston Globe article on the sacking of Uk's top drug advisor for saying that alcohol is more hazardous than many banned substancesYou can't handle the truth . One of the comments: "Anyone who has spent ANY time in the UK can attest to the extraordinary "enabling" social role that alcohol plays (for many people). I wonder if this was factored into the calculations? When Jim wanders down to his local pub after work to socialize and meet new friends, does this count as a "social benefit"? It had better count."
P.S. see also Gulzar Natarajan's post Are MFIs and moneylenders complements?
.
Felix Salmon reports on recent article As Microfinance Grows in India, So Do Its Rivals . The evidence seems to be mostly from Mahaboobnagar district and it seems that people are borrowing money from traditional lender to repay their micro loans.
Brenda Rosser on Bernanke's Saving's Glut Hypothesis. Contradiction Number One.
All the above links via Economist's View .
3qurksdaily discusses a Boston Globe article on the sacking of Uk's top drug advisor for saying that alcohol is more hazardous than many banned substancesYou can't handle the truth . One of the comments: "Anyone who has spent ANY time in the UK can attest to the extraordinary "enabling" social role that alcohol plays (for many people). I wonder if this was factored into the calculations? When Jim wanders down to his local pub after work to socialize and meet new friends, does this count as a "social benefit"? It had better count."
P.S. see also Gulzar Natarajan's post Are MFIs and moneylenders complements?
.
Human Genetic Diversity in Asia
Report on the recent paper Mapping Human Genetic Diversity in Asia in BBC News Genetic 'map' of Asia's diversity . Excerpts:
"The study found that, as expected, individuals who were from the same region, or who shared a common language also had a great deal in common genetically.
But it also answered a question about the origin of Asia's population. It showed that the continent was likely populated primarily through a single migration event from the south.
Previously, there has been some debate about whether Asia was populated in two waves - one to South East Asia, and a later one to central and north-east Asia, or whether only a single migration occurred."
More detailed discussion and links in Rajib Khan's post Are Chinese subsets of Southeast Asians? .
"The study found that, as expected, individuals who were from the same region, or who shared a common language also had a great deal in common genetically.
But it also answered a question about the origin of Asia's population. It showed that the continent was likely populated primarily through a single migration event from the south.
Previously, there has been some debate about whether Asia was populated in two waves - one to South East Asia, and a later one to central and north-east Asia, or whether only a single migration occurred."
More detailed discussion and links in Rajib Khan's post Are Chinese subsets of Southeast Asians? .
Sunday, December 13, 2009
From the blogs
Brad DeLong in "Anyone Telling You Uncertainty About Climate Change Is a Reason for Inaction Is Either a Fool or a Scoundrel":
"There is one set of circumstances in which uncertainty is a reason for inaction: (a) the measures you would take would be expensive, (b) the measures you would take will be irreversible, and (c) you will get a lot of new information soon to help you judge the situation better.
That set of circumstances does not apply here."
What the wealth of nations is really built upon:
"Relying on game theory analysis, Dasgupta reached two conclusions. The first is that stable societies – that is, where cheats can be found and punished, if only by a refusal to do business with them in future – are a precondition for successful institutions. If every interaction is a one-off, co-operation is impossible, and all those wonderful investments in machinery, education and innovation will simply never happen.
The second conclusion was that co-operation is extremely fragile. Dasgupta’s game theory suggested that even a successful, co-operative society is always at risk of breaking down. “It is easier to destroy institutions than to build them,” he argued, and cited the Watts riots and the decline of many pre-modern civilisations. The credit crisis is, arguably, another example.
If true, this is very disturbing: it suggests that we should perhaps spend less effort thinking about how to develop poor countries, and more effort holding together our own fragile societies.
I was not totally convinced. Perhaps I am complacent, but the past 200 years of economic history contain far more examples of poor countries becoming rich than of rich countries becoming poor.
As Sir Partha patiently explained his algebra to a gaggle of admiring schoolchildren, I was left with more questions than answers about why we trust each other and our institutions, and how such trust is created and destroyed. That, I think, was exactly his aim."
Soutik Biswas in Does India need more states?:
"Also, many say, if you have nine "Hindi-speaking" states, why can't you have two "Telugu speaking ones"?
Others say new states don't serve any purpose. They end up benefiting entrenched local elites and the middle class, and leave the poor in the lurch. They point to Jharkhand which was carved out of southern Bihar in 2000 - nine years on, many of its people have turned to Maoists, and its politicians are embroiled in some of India's worst corruption.
A number of north-eastern states carved out of Assam are accused of becoming fiefs of local elites or kleptocracies. The issues of lack of development and growing corruption are untouched. Creating financially unstable states, critics say, can lead to even more problems.
Others say new states remain works in progress - among them Uttarkhand and Chattisgarh, despite the latter's current woes and a strong Maoist presence. It has taken some four decades for Haryana and Himachal Pradesh to turn into successful states. And India still has relatively few states given the size of its population: with some 300 million people, the US has 50 states; India with its billion-plus people has only 28."
Tarunabh Khaitan in Law and Other Things:
"Indeed, what ought to be the basis of devolving power? Nick Barber's excellent paper 'The Limited Modesty of Subsidiarity' compares subsidiarity and nationalism as two distinct reasons for doing so. Simply put, subsidiarity requires that power should be exercised at the smallest unit that can exercise it efficiently. There is a presumption in favour of smaller units, with the rider of efficiency. An important implication of subsidiarity is that one size need not fit all, that different regions can have different ways of sharing power (even our federal constitution admits and accommodates idiosyncratic circumstances of certain states under the provisions in Part XXI)."
P.S. A Telugu article by muppalla Ranganayakamma is reproduced in this blog http://venuvu.blogspot.com/2009/12/blog-post.html and also in తెలంగాణ పై రంగనాయకమ్మ గారి వ్యాసమ్
"There is one set of circumstances in which uncertainty is a reason for inaction: (a) the measures you would take would be expensive, (b) the measures you would take will be irreversible, and (c) you will get a lot of new information soon to help you judge the situation better.
That set of circumstances does not apply here."
What the wealth of nations is really built upon:
"Relying on game theory analysis, Dasgupta reached two conclusions. The first is that stable societies – that is, where cheats can be found and punished, if only by a refusal to do business with them in future – are a precondition for successful institutions. If every interaction is a one-off, co-operation is impossible, and all those wonderful investments in machinery, education and innovation will simply never happen.
The second conclusion was that co-operation is extremely fragile. Dasgupta’s game theory suggested that even a successful, co-operative society is always at risk of breaking down. “It is easier to destroy institutions than to build them,” he argued, and cited the Watts riots and the decline of many pre-modern civilisations. The credit crisis is, arguably, another example.
If true, this is very disturbing: it suggests that we should perhaps spend less effort thinking about how to develop poor countries, and more effort holding together our own fragile societies.
I was not totally convinced. Perhaps I am complacent, but the past 200 years of economic history contain far more examples of poor countries becoming rich than of rich countries becoming poor.
As Sir Partha patiently explained his algebra to a gaggle of admiring schoolchildren, I was left with more questions than answers about why we trust each other and our institutions, and how such trust is created and destroyed. That, I think, was exactly his aim."
Soutik Biswas in Does India need more states?:
"Also, many say, if you have nine "Hindi-speaking" states, why can't you have two "Telugu speaking ones"?
Others say new states don't serve any purpose. They end up benefiting entrenched local elites and the middle class, and leave the poor in the lurch. They point to Jharkhand which was carved out of southern Bihar in 2000 - nine years on, many of its people have turned to Maoists, and its politicians are embroiled in some of India's worst corruption.
A number of north-eastern states carved out of Assam are accused of becoming fiefs of local elites or kleptocracies. The issues of lack of development and growing corruption are untouched. Creating financially unstable states, critics say, can lead to even more problems.
Others say new states remain works in progress - among them Uttarkhand and Chattisgarh, despite the latter's current woes and a strong Maoist presence. It has taken some four decades for Haryana and Himachal Pradesh to turn into successful states. And India still has relatively few states given the size of its population: with some 300 million people, the US has 50 states; India with its billion-plus people has only 28."
Tarunabh Khaitan in Law and Other Things:
"Indeed, what ought to be the basis of devolving power? Nick Barber's excellent paper 'The Limited Modesty of Subsidiarity' compares subsidiarity and nationalism as two distinct reasons for doing so. Simply put, subsidiarity requires that power should be exercised at the smallest unit that can exercise it efficiently. There is a presumption in favour of smaller units, with the rider of efficiency. An important implication of subsidiarity is that one size need not fit all, that different regions can have different ways of sharing power (even our federal constitution admits and accommodates idiosyncratic circumstances of certain states under the provisions in Part XXI)."
P.S. A Telugu article by muppalla Ranganayakamma is reproduced in this blog http://venuvu.blogspot.com/2009/12/blog-post.html and also in తెలంగాణ పై రంగనాయకమ్మ గారి వ్యాసమ్
Saturday, December 12, 2009
The Indian consul-general in Melbourne
Anita Nayar interviewd. Portarait and interview in The Age The joy of the envoy.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Telangana
Ramachandra Guha says Telangana isn’t scary. From the Wikipedia article on Telangana :
"The States Reorganization Commission (SRC) was not in favour of merging the Telangana region with the then Andhra state. Para 382 of States Reorganization Commission Report (SRC) said "..opinion in Andhra is overwhelmingly in favour of the larger unit, public opinion in Telangana has still to crystallize itself. Important leaders of public opinion in Andhra themselves seem to appreciate that the unification of Telangana with Andhra, though desirable, should be based on a voluntary and willing association of the people and that it is primarily for the people of Telangana to take a decision about their future...". The concerns of Telanganas were manifold . The region had a less developed economy than Andhra, but with a larger revenue base (mostly because it taxed rather than prohibited alcoholic beverages), which Telanganas feared might be diverted for use in Andhra. They also feared that planned dam projects on the Krishna and Godavari rivers would not benefit Telangana proportionately even though Telanganas controlled the headwaters of the rivers. Telanganas feared too that the people of Andhra would have the advantage in jobs, particularly in government and education. Para 386 of States Reorganization Commission Report (SRC) said "After taking all these factors into consideration we have come to the conclusions that it will be in the interests of Andhra as well as Telangana area is to constitute into a separate State, which may be known as the Hyderabad State with provision for its unification with Andhra after the general elections likely to be held in or about 1961 if by a two thirds majority the legislature of the residency Hyderabad State expresses itself in favor of such unification."
The central government decided to ignore the SRC recommendations and established unified Andhra Pradesh on November 1, 1956. However, a "Gentlemen's agreement" provided reassurances to the Telangana people as well to Andhra people in terms of power sharing as well as administrative domicile rules and distribution of expenses of various regions. This agreement is known as Gentlemen's agreement of Andhra Pradesh (1956)."
From Gentlemen's agreement of Andhra Pradesh (1956):
"1. There will be one legislature for the whole of Andhra Pradesh which will be the sole law making body for the entire state and there be one Governor for the State aided and advised by the Council of Ministers responsible to the State Assembly for the entire field of Administration.
2. For the more convenient transaction of the business of Government with regard to some specified matters the Telangana area will be treated as one region.
3. For the Telangana region there will be a Regional Standing Committee of the state assembly consisting of the members of the State Assembly belonging to that region including the Ministers from that region but not including the Chief Minister.
4. Legislation relating to specified matters will be referred to the Regional committee. In respect of specified matters proposals may also be made by the Regional Committee to the State Government for legislation or with regard to the question of general policy not involving any financial commitments other than expenditure of a routine and incidental character.
5. The advice tendered by the Regional Committee will normally be accepted by the Government and the State Legislature. In case of difference of opinion, reference will be made to the Governor whose decision will be binding.
6. The Regional Committee will deal with following matters:
--Development and economic planning within the framework of the general development plans formulated by the State Legislature.
--Local Self Government, that is to say, the Constitutional powers of Municipal Corporations, Improvement Trusts, District Boards and district authorities for the purpose of Local Self Government or Village Administration.
--Public health and sanitation, local hospitals and dispensaries.
--Primary and secondary education.
--Regulation of admission to the educational institutions in the telangana region.
--Prohibition—Sale of agricultural lands.
--Cottage and small scale Industries, and Agriculture, Cooperative Societies, Markets and Fairs. Unless revised by agreement earlier this arrangement will be reviewed after ten years.
7. Domicile Rules : A temporary provision be made to ensure that for a period of five years, Telangana is regarded as a unit as far as recruitment to subordinate services is concerned; posts borne on the cadre of these services may be reserved for being filled up by persons who satisfy the domicile conditions as prescribed under the existing Hyderabad Mulki Rules. ( 12 years of Stay in Telangana area)
8. Distribution of expenditure between Telangana and Andhra Regions--- Allocation of expenditure with the resources of the state is a matter which falls within the purview of the State Government and the State Legislature.. Since , however, it has been agreed to the representatives of Andhra and Telangana that the expenditure of the new state on central and general administration should be borne proportionately by the two regions and the balance of income should be reserved for expenditure on the development of Telangana area, it is open to the state government to act in accordance with the terms of agreement in making budgetary allocations. The Government of India propose to invite the attention of the Chief Minister of Andhra to this particular understanding and to express the hope that it will be implemented.
9. The existing educational facilities including Technical Education in Telangana should be secured to the students of Telangana and further improved---
10. The cabinet will consist of members in proportion of 60:40 percent for Andhra and Telangana respectively, out of 40 % of Telangana ministers, one will be a Muslim from Telangana. If the Chief Minister is from one region the other region should be given Dy Chief Ministership."
It seems that at least some of these conditions have not been met, hence the continuing agatation.
"The States Reorganization Commission (SRC) was not in favour of merging the Telangana region with the then Andhra state. Para 382 of States Reorganization Commission Report (SRC) said "..opinion in Andhra is overwhelmingly in favour of the larger unit, public opinion in Telangana has still to crystallize itself. Important leaders of public opinion in Andhra themselves seem to appreciate that the unification of Telangana with Andhra, though desirable, should be based on a voluntary and willing association of the people and that it is primarily for the people of Telangana to take a decision about their future...". The concerns of Telanganas were manifold . The region had a less developed economy than Andhra, but with a larger revenue base (mostly because it taxed rather than prohibited alcoholic beverages), which Telanganas feared might be diverted for use in Andhra. They also feared that planned dam projects on the Krishna and Godavari rivers would not benefit Telangana proportionately even though Telanganas controlled the headwaters of the rivers. Telanganas feared too that the people of Andhra would have the advantage in jobs, particularly in government and education. Para 386 of States Reorganization Commission Report (SRC) said "After taking all these factors into consideration we have come to the conclusions that it will be in the interests of Andhra as well as Telangana area is to constitute into a separate State, which may be known as the Hyderabad State with provision for its unification with Andhra after the general elections likely to be held in or about 1961 if by a two thirds majority the legislature of the residency Hyderabad State expresses itself in favor of such unification."
The central government decided to ignore the SRC recommendations and established unified Andhra Pradesh on November 1, 1956. However, a "Gentlemen's agreement" provided reassurances to the Telangana people as well to Andhra people in terms of power sharing as well as administrative domicile rules and distribution of expenses of various regions. This agreement is known as Gentlemen's agreement of Andhra Pradesh (1956)."
From Gentlemen's agreement of Andhra Pradesh (1956):
"1. There will be one legislature for the whole of Andhra Pradesh which will be the sole law making body for the entire state and there be one Governor for the State aided and advised by the Council of Ministers responsible to the State Assembly for the entire field of Administration.
2. For the more convenient transaction of the business of Government with regard to some specified matters the Telangana area will be treated as one region.
3. For the Telangana region there will be a Regional Standing Committee of the state assembly consisting of the members of the State Assembly belonging to that region including the Ministers from that region but not including the Chief Minister.
4. Legislation relating to specified matters will be referred to the Regional committee. In respect of specified matters proposals may also be made by the Regional Committee to the State Government for legislation or with regard to the question of general policy not involving any financial commitments other than expenditure of a routine and incidental character.
5. The advice tendered by the Regional Committee will normally be accepted by the Government and the State Legislature. In case of difference of opinion, reference will be made to the Governor whose decision will be binding.
6. The Regional Committee will deal with following matters:
--Development and economic planning within the framework of the general development plans formulated by the State Legislature.
--Local Self Government, that is to say, the Constitutional powers of Municipal Corporations, Improvement Trusts, District Boards and district authorities for the purpose of Local Self Government or Village Administration.
--Public health and sanitation, local hospitals and dispensaries.
--Primary and secondary education.
--Regulation of admission to the educational institutions in the telangana region.
--Prohibition—Sale of agricultural lands.
--Cottage and small scale Industries, and Agriculture, Cooperative Societies, Markets and Fairs. Unless revised by agreement earlier this arrangement will be reviewed after ten years.
7. Domicile Rules : A temporary provision be made to ensure that for a period of five years, Telangana is regarded as a unit as far as recruitment to subordinate services is concerned; posts borne on the cadre of these services may be reserved for being filled up by persons who satisfy the domicile conditions as prescribed under the existing Hyderabad Mulki Rules. ( 12 years of Stay in Telangana area)
8. Distribution of expenditure between Telangana and Andhra Regions--- Allocation of expenditure with the resources of the state is a matter which falls within the purview of the State Government and the State Legislature.. Since , however, it has been agreed to the representatives of Andhra and Telangana that the expenditure of the new state on central and general administration should be borne proportionately by the two regions and the balance of income should be reserved for expenditure on the development of Telangana area, it is open to the state government to act in accordance with the terms of agreement in making budgetary allocations. The Government of India propose to invite the attention of the Chief Minister of Andhra to this particular understanding and to express the hope that it will be implemented.
9. The existing educational facilities including Technical Education in Telangana should be secured to the students of Telangana and further improved---
10. The cabinet will consist of members in proportion of 60:40 percent for Andhra and Telangana respectively, out of 40 % of Telangana ministers, one will be a Muslim from Telangana. If the Chief Minister is from one region the other region should be given Dy Chief Ministership."
It seems that at least some of these conditions have not been met, hence the continuing agatation.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
College education in USA
While the article by David Orr What Is Education For? mentioned in a previous post calls for new paradigms in education, That Old College Lie by Kevin Carey considers the failures of the American education with the existing paradigms about learning and training. Some passages:
"The near-total lack of useful information about teaching and learning has three main effects, all bad for students. First, it creates distortions in the higher-education market that drive up prices. Second, it gives colleges free rein to ignore their teaching obligations in favor of a mad contest for status and self-gratification. Third, it leaves colleges that serve the most disadvantaged students with the fewest resources.
The information deficit turns college into what economists call a "reputational good." If you go to the store and buy a shirt, you can learn pretty much everything you need to know before you buy it: the material, where it was made, how to clean it, and so on. College is different. You’re paying up-front for professors you’ve never met and degree programs you probably haven’t even chosen yet. Instead, you rely on what other people think of the college. Of course, some students simply have to go the college that’s nearest to them or least expensive. But if you have the luxury of choosing, in all likelihood, you choose based on reputation.......
Ten percent of the U.S. News rankings are based on spending per student, with additional points for high faculty salaries and other costly items. If an innovative college found a way to become more efficient and charge less while maintaining academic quality, its U.S. News ranking would actually go down.......
The information deficit also acts as a powerful impediment to reform. Anyone who has ever attended college knows that many college teachers are terrible at their jobs. Universities like to pretend that great scholars make great instructors, but one indifferent, outdated lecture from a tenured professor is enough to conclude otherwise. Because scholarly outcomes are visible, in the form of publications and citations, while teaching outcomes are currently not, colleges privilege the former above the latter. Tenure-track professors are routinely discouraged from spending too much time teaching, lest students distract from the mandate to publish. Legitimate evaluations of professorial teaching skill are practically unknown.
Putting the scholarly and teaching missions in better balance would require a confrontation with traditionally autonomous academic departments. That inevitably creates controversy, and controversy is poisonous in a market that depends so heavily on hazy, decades-old reputations."
Hr goes on to suggest some solutions and lobbies standing in the way of reform. Link via Felix Salmon who discussed the article in America’s broken colleges.
"The near-total lack of useful information about teaching and learning has three main effects, all bad for students. First, it creates distortions in the higher-education market that drive up prices. Second, it gives colleges free rein to ignore their teaching obligations in favor of a mad contest for status and self-gratification. Third, it leaves colleges that serve the most disadvantaged students with the fewest resources.
The information deficit turns college into what economists call a "reputational good." If you go to the store and buy a shirt, you can learn pretty much everything you need to know before you buy it: the material, where it was made, how to clean it, and so on. College is different. You’re paying up-front for professors you’ve never met and degree programs you probably haven’t even chosen yet. Instead, you rely on what other people think of the college. Of course, some students simply have to go the college that’s nearest to them or least expensive. But if you have the luxury of choosing, in all likelihood, you choose based on reputation.......
Ten percent of the U.S. News rankings are based on spending per student, with additional points for high faculty salaries and other costly items. If an innovative college found a way to become more efficient and charge less while maintaining academic quality, its U.S. News ranking would actually go down.......
The information deficit also acts as a powerful impediment to reform. Anyone who has ever attended college knows that many college teachers are terrible at their jobs. Universities like to pretend that great scholars make great instructors, but one indifferent, outdated lecture from a tenured professor is enough to conclude otherwise. Because scholarly outcomes are visible, in the form of publications and citations, while teaching outcomes are currently not, colleges privilege the former above the latter. Tenure-track professors are routinely discouraged from spending too much time teaching, lest students distract from the mandate to publish. Legitimate evaluations of professorial teaching skill are practically unknown.
Putting the scholarly and teaching missions in better balance would require a confrontation with traditionally autonomous academic departments. That inevitably creates controversy, and controversy is poisonous in a market that depends so heavily on hazy, decades-old reputations."
Hr goes on to suggest some solutions and lobbies standing in the way of reform. Link via Felix Salmon who discussed the article in America’s broken colleges.
Paper batteries
Batteries made from nanotubes ... and paper :
"Scientists have made batteries and supercapacitors with little more than ordinary office paper and some carbon and silver nanomaterials. The research, published online December 7 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, brings scientists closer to lightweight printable batteries that may one day be molded into computers, cell phones or solar panels."
See also the first comment. There is also a BBC report on the topic Battery made of paper charges up .
"Scientists have made batteries and supercapacitors with little more than ordinary office paper and some carbon and silver nanomaterials. The research, published online December 7 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, brings scientists closer to lightweight printable batteries that may one day be molded into computers, cell phones or solar panels."
See also the first comment. There is also a BBC report on the topic Battery made of paper charges up .
David Orr on education
From an old article by David W. Orr on education What Is Education For? (via Anil Kumar):
". No student should graduate from this or any other educational institution without a basic comprehension of: • the laws of thermodynamics • the basic principles of ecology • carrying capacity • energetics • least-cost, end-use analysis • how to live well in a place • limits of technology • appropriate scale • sustainable agriculture and forestry • steady-state economics • environmental ethics
Do graduates of this college, in Aldo Leopold's words, know that "they are only cogs in an ecological mechanism such that, if they will work with that mechanism, their mental wealth and material wealth can expand indefinitely (and) if they refuse to work with it, it will ultimately grind them to dust." Leopold asked: "If education does not teach us these things, then what is education for?""
". No student should graduate from this or any other educational institution without a basic comprehension of: • the laws of thermodynamics • the basic principles of ecology • carrying capacity • energetics • least-cost, end-use analysis • how to live well in a place • limits of technology • appropriate scale • sustainable agriculture and forestry • steady-state economics • environmental ethics
Do graduates of this college, in Aldo Leopold's words, know that "they are only cogs in an ecological mechanism such that, if they will work with that mechanism, their mental wealth and material wealth can expand indefinitely (and) if they refuse to work with it, it will ultimately grind them to dust." Leopold asked: "If education does not teach us these things, then what is education for?""
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Two articles on development
Daniel Little in Alleviating rural poverty:
"We need to put the poor first. However, I also believe that our ability to achieve this goal is highly sensitive to the distributive structures and property systems that exist in poor countries. The property institutions of developing countries have enormous impact on the full human development of the poor. As a result, ethically desirable human development goals are difficult to attain within any social system in which the antecedent property relations are highly stratified and in which political power is largely in the hands of the existing elites."
He goes on to give the example of distribution of benefits during the green revolution in Malayasia. More detailed discussion in Institutions,Inequality and Well-being Distributive Determinants of Rural Development
Abstract of Is Relative Size of Minority Population Linked to Underdevelopment? by Mohd Sanjeer Alam:
"West Bengal provides a good context to examine whether the relative size of a minority population is linked to underdevelopment. The association between the size of the Muslim population and deficiency in social and physical infrastructure remains consistent at all levels in the state. No matter what the scale or context, the relative size of the Muslim population is inversely associated with the availability of amenities, a pattern that defies theoretical expectations and calls for further investigation."
"We need to put the poor first. However, I also believe that our ability to achieve this goal is highly sensitive to the distributive structures and property systems that exist in poor countries. The property institutions of developing countries have enormous impact on the full human development of the poor. As a result, ethically desirable human development goals are difficult to attain within any social system in which the antecedent property relations are highly stratified and in which political power is largely in the hands of the existing elites."
He goes on to give the example of distribution of benefits during the green revolution in Malayasia. More detailed discussion in Institutions,Inequality and Well-being Distributive Determinants of Rural Development
Abstract of Is Relative Size of Minority Population Linked to Underdevelopment? by Mohd Sanjeer Alam:
"West Bengal provides a good context to examine whether the relative size of a minority population is linked to underdevelopment. The association between the size of the Muslim population and deficiency in social and physical infrastructure remains consistent at all levels in the state. No matter what the scale or context, the relative size of the Muslim population is inversely associated with the availability of amenities, a pattern that defies theoretical expectations and calls for further investigation."
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Weather and growth of plants
We consume a lot of coriander leaves and for the past few years I have been trying to grow coriander in all kinds of seasons; generally summer is supposed to be the good season for vegetables in Melbourne. One year I sowed the seeds in the middle of April so that the plants were established before the onset of winter. Generally they have been lasting until November. Thet start seeding in Ocober but the lower leaves are edible until the middle of November. Generally they seem to grow quite big, some were about 6-7 feet tall this year. Those I sowed in November grew only one foot tall and have seeded already. Time to sow the coriander seeds again.
Cosanguinity marriage and depression
may be related according to a pilot study Relationship between consanguinity and depression in a south Indian population published in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry.
P.S. I found this journal through a link in MindHacks. At the moment it is freely available online.
P.S. I found this journal through a link in MindHacks. At the moment it is freely available online.
Heat Meditation
From g Tum-mo heat meditation:
"Monks in Tibet-that mountainous country so blessed with oddities-can consciously raise the temperature in their hands and feet 6-7º C (10-12º F), in laboratory conditions (Benson, et al., 1982). There appear to be several methods of g Tum-mo meditation, as described by Alexandra David-Neel (1965), but all seem to involve the visualization of oneself filled with fire. Whether, for adepts, such visualization is necessary for control of body temperature is not clear to me, because Benson reports that one of his research participants began undergoing g-Tummo changes every time he sat down. Monks will even have little contests where they spend a night on a river bank, repeatedly draping themselves with wet sheets, and seeing who can dry the most. I get cold just thinking about it.
It presumably takes some time to develop this ability, but apparently not so much that it is rare in Tibet: David-Neel claims that most Tibetans have the knowledge of how to do it, and that they put it to practical use.
What interests me about this is not simply that the mind has considerable control over the body-that is a familiar refrain from many areas of research. What interests me is that we could have this ability and not know it unless someone teaches us. No one had to teach me how to shiver, or to raise little body hairs, or to contract my blood vessels. So, if we are capable of mentally warming our extremities, why should we not automatically know how to do it? It seems that boundary in the temperature regulation system between what is automatic and what is susceptible to willed intervention is strangely situated."
"Monks in Tibet-that mountainous country so blessed with oddities-can consciously raise the temperature in their hands and feet 6-7º C (10-12º F), in laboratory conditions (Benson, et al., 1982). There appear to be several methods of g Tum-mo meditation, as described by Alexandra David-Neel (1965), but all seem to involve the visualization of oneself filled with fire. Whether, for adepts, such visualization is necessary for control of body temperature is not clear to me, because Benson reports that one of his research participants began undergoing g-Tummo changes every time he sat down. Monks will even have little contests where they spend a night on a river bank, repeatedly draping themselves with wet sheets, and seeing who can dry the most. I get cold just thinking about it.
It presumably takes some time to develop this ability, but apparently not so much that it is rare in Tibet: David-Neel claims that most Tibetans have the knowledge of how to do it, and that they put it to practical use.
What interests me about this is not simply that the mind has considerable control over the body-that is a familiar refrain from many areas of research. What interests me is that we could have this ability and not know it unless someone teaches us. No one had to teach me how to shiver, or to raise little body hairs, or to contract my blood vessels. So, if we are capable of mentally warming our extremities, why should we not automatically know how to do it? It seems that boundary in the temperature regulation system between what is automatic and what is susceptible to willed intervention is strangely situated."
Friday, December 04, 2009
I hope that this report is not true
Twenty five years after the Bhopal ragedy , this reort India absolves US N-suppliers of damages:
NEW DELHI: The Indian government has absolved American nuclear companies of liability in case of a possible accident during the building and installation of nuclear reactors and facilities in India. A Civil Nuclear Liability bill cleared by the Union Cabinet late on Thursday presents India’s desire to work with the American firms. Washington has been asking New Delhi that the nuclear deal the two countries signed last year would be futile as the American companies, and most Western firms, would not do business with India unless the liability law was promulgated. Most American companies see huge investment potential in India and only want it to have a law to limit the claims for damages in the wake of an accident that may occur before they hand over a nuclear plant to the country. In the bill, the Indian government is seeking to bear the entire compensation for any nuclear accident. iftikhar gilani
Update 14th Dec. 09 Capping nuclear liability is a non-starter :
"The government proposes to introduce a Civil Nuclear Liability Bill to appease foreign investors. Any legislation that attempts to dilute the Polluter Pays and Precautionary Principle and imposes a cap on liability will be in blatant defiance of Supreme Court judgments and is likely to be struck down."
NEW DELHI: The Indian government has absolved American nuclear companies of liability in case of a possible accident during the building and installation of nuclear reactors and facilities in India. A Civil Nuclear Liability bill cleared by the Union Cabinet late on Thursday presents India’s desire to work with the American firms. Washington has been asking New Delhi that the nuclear deal the two countries signed last year would be futile as the American companies, and most Western firms, would not do business with India unless the liability law was promulgated. Most American companies see huge investment potential in India and only want it to have a law to limit the claims for damages in the wake of an accident that may occur before they hand over a nuclear plant to the country. In the bill, the Indian government is seeking to bear the entire compensation for any nuclear accident. iftikhar gilani
Update 14th Dec. 09 Capping nuclear liability is a non-starter :
"The government proposes to introduce a Civil Nuclear Liability Bill to appease foreign investors. Any legislation that attempts to dilute the Polluter Pays and Precautionary Principle and imposes a cap on liability will be in blatant defiance of Supreme Court judgments and is likely to be struck down."
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
A new book about structures
John Levi Marin's Social Structures is drawing some attention from academics RIP levi-strauss, long live structuralism. A nice review by Gagan Sood appeared in the Science Magazine Asking About Origins, but is behind the paywall. Here is the conclusion of Sood's review:
"It is too early to tell whether Martin's explanation of where structures come from will stand. "But if we are to see whether structural analysis can make a contribution to a general sociology, even simple initial accounts are encouraging." From this vantage, there are many reasons to be encouraged by—and to applaud—this work. The value of the book and of its larger research agenda might, thus, lie not in having produced clear answers to the questions posed at its outset but in suggesting powerful and promising ways in which that fundamental topic might be approached. For this alone, Social Structures deserves a wide readership and its ideas a sympathetic hearing."
"It is too early to tell whether Martin's explanation of where structures come from will stand. "But if we are to see whether structural analysis can make a contribution to a general sociology, even simple initial accounts are encouraging." From this vantage, there are many reasons to be encouraged by—and to applaud—this work. The value of the book and of its larger research agenda might, thus, lie not in having produced clear answers to the questions posed at its outset but in suggesting powerful and promising ways in which that fundamental topic might be approached. For this alone, Social Structures deserves a wide readership and its ideas a sympathetic hearing."
Monday, November 30, 2009
Life in Auschwitz
The man who smuggled himself into Auschwitz :
"He describes Auschwitz as "hell on earth" and says he would lie awake at night listening to the ramblings and screams of prisoners.
"It was pretty ghastly at night, you got this terrible stench," he says.
He talked to Jewish prisoners but says they rarely spoke of their previous life, instead they were focused on the hell they were living and the work they were forced to do in factories outside the camp.
"There were nearly three million human beings worked to death in different factories," says Mr Avey. "They knew at that rate they'd last about five months.
"They very seldom talk about their civil life. They only talked about the situation, the punishments they were getting, the work they were made to do."
He says he would ask where people he'd met previously had gone and he would be told they'd "gone up the chimney".
"It was so impersonal. Auschwitz was evil, everything about it was wrong." "
P.S. Frontline Vol. 26 :: No. 24 Nov 21 - Dec 04, 2009 has several articles on Dalit life in India.
"He describes Auschwitz as "hell on earth" and says he would lie awake at night listening to the ramblings and screams of prisoners.
"It was pretty ghastly at night, you got this terrible stench," he says.
He talked to Jewish prisoners but says they rarely spoke of their previous life, instead they were focused on the hell they were living and the work they were forced to do in factories outside the camp.
"There were nearly three million human beings worked to death in different factories," says Mr Avey. "They knew at that rate they'd last about five months.
"They very seldom talk about their civil life. They only talked about the situation, the punishments they were getting, the work they were made to do."
He says he would ask where people he'd met previously had gone and he would be told they'd "gone up the chimney".
"It was so impersonal. Auschwitz was evil, everything about it was wrong." "
P.S. Frontline Vol. 26 :: No. 24 Nov 21 - Dec 04, 2009 has several articles on Dalit life in India.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Problems for pedestrians in India
by Madhav Badami in The Hindu:Where the pedestrian is a third class citizen .
In Hyderabad I have seen people who drove long distances to Brahamanda Reddi Park for safe walking exercise in the mornings.
In Hyderabad I have seen people who drove long distances to Brahamanda Reddi Park for safe walking exercise in the mornings.
Two links to Indian writers
Amitava Kumar on Suketu Mehta Suketu Mehta One Story High
Review of Roadrunner: An Indian Quest in America by Dilip D'Souza
Review of Roadrunner: An Indian Quest in America by Dilip D'Souza
Tadepalli about the influence of Sanskrit on Telugu
From [తెలుగుపదం] తెలుగులో క్తాంతాలు - చరిత్ర, కల్పన:
"అచ్చతెలుగులో కూడా ఇలాంటి నిర్మాణాలు చెయ్యడానికి అవకాశం ఉందని కొన్ని పదాల ద్వారా తెలుస్తోంది. కానీ అలాంటి నిర్మాణాల సూత్రీకరణకి సాంప్రదాయిక తెలుగు వ్యాకరణాల్లో స్థానమివ్వడం జఱగలేదు. కారణం - ఒకటి, ఈ అవకాశం ఉన్నట్లు మన పూర్వీకులు గ్రహించక పోవడం. గ్రహించక పోవడానికి కారణం - ఆ పదాల మార్గంలో నూతనపదాల కల్పన అప్పటికే స్తంభించిపోయి ఉండడం. సంస్కృతం నుంచి అన్ని పదాల్నీ యథాతథంగా దిగుమతి చేసుకోవడానికి అలవాటుపడి ఉండడం. రెండోది, మన పూర్వుల్లో అధికసంఖ్యాకులు వల్లమాలిన సంస్కృతాభిమానం చేత అంధీకృతులు. ఈ పిచ్చి అభిమానం మాతృభాషని ఇతోఽధికంగా పరిశోధించడానికి అప్పట్లో ఒక పెద్ద మానసిక ఆటంకం (mental barrier) గా మారింది. ఆ శోధించిన కొద్దిపాటి భాషని కూడా సంస్కృత పద్ధతుల్లోనే శోధించడానికి మొగ్గుచూపారు. తెలుగుని ఒక ప్రత్యేక వ్యక్తిత్వం ఉన్న భాషగా వారు పరిగణించలేదు. తెలుగుభాషకే సొంతమైన, విలక్షణమైన అనేక విషయాలు సంస్కృత వైయాకరణ పరిభాషతో వివరించడానికి సాధ్యం కాకపోవడంతో అవి అపరిష్కృతంగా, అసూత్రీకృతంగా మిగిలిపోయాయి. తత్ఫలితంగా ఆంధ్రభాషాభూషణం ఒక్కటి మినహాయిస్తే అహోబలపండితీయము మొ||న మన ప్రాచీన వ్యాకరణాలు సైతం సంస్కృతంలోనే సంస్కృత పద్ధతుల్లో వ్రాయబడ్డాయి."
"అచ్చతెలుగులో కూడా ఇలాంటి నిర్మాణాలు చెయ్యడానికి అవకాశం ఉందని కొన్ని పదాల ద్వారా తెలుస్తోంది. కానీ అలాంటి నిర్మాణాల సూత్రీకరణకి సాంప్రదాయిక తెలుగు వ్యాకరణాల్లో స్థానమివ్వడం జఱగలేదు. కారణం - ఒకటి, ఈ అవకాశం ఉన్నట్లు మన పూర్వీకులు గ్రహించక పోవడం. గ్రహించక పోవడానికి కారణం - ఆ పదాల మార్గంలో నూతనపదాల కల్పన అప్పటికే స్తంభించిపోయి ఉండడం. సంస్కృతం నుంచి అన్ని పదాల్నీ యథాతథంగా దిగుమతి చేసుకోవడానికి అలవాటుపడి ఉండడం. రెండోది, మన పూర్వుల్లో అధికసంఖ్యాకులు వల్లమాలిన సంస్కృతాభిమానం చేత అంధీకృతులు. ఈ పిచ్చి అభిమానం మాతృభాషని ఇతోఽధికంగా పరిశోధించడానికి అప్పట్లో ఒక పెద్ద మానసిక ఆటంకం (mental barrier) గా మారింది. ఆ శోధించిన కొద్దిపాటి భాషని కూడా సంస్కృత పద్ధతుల్లోనే శోధించడానికి మొగ్గుచూపారు. తెలుగుని ఒక ప్రత్యేక వ్యక్తిత్వం ఉన్న భాషగా వారు పరిగణించలేదు. తెలుగుభాషకే సొంతమైన, విలక్షణమైన అనేక విషయాలు సంస్కృత వైయాకరణ పరిభాషతో వివరించడానికి సాధ్యం కాకపోవడంతో అవి అపరిష్కృతంగా, అసూత్రీకృతంగా మిగిలిపోయాయి. తత్ఫలితంగా ఆంధ్రభాషాభూషణం ఒక్కటి మినహాయిస్తే అహోబలపండితీయము మొ||న మన ప్రాచీన వ్యాకరణాలు సైతం సంస్కృతంలోనే సంస్కృత పద్ధతుల్లో వ్రాయబడ్డాయి."
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Science books for kids (and grownups)
"As times have changed, so has the science - and so should science books. Just in time for holiday giving, here's a selection of books for kids (and grownups) that incorporate recent developments on the scientific frontiers". Here is a selection by Alan Boyle Science by the book (via 3quarksdaily).
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Sharing information with colleagues
Do academic scientists share information with their colleagues? Not necessarily from a survey of bio=scientists:
"“Every scientist knows that science advances only if knowledge is shared,” (Warnick and Wojick 2009). Science is a cumulative process, so its progress and benefits to society hinge critically on multiple scientists testing and building on each others’ work. However, the contribution to the “scientific commons” (Merton 1973) is challenged by individual scientists’ self-interest. While a scientist who shares her results during the research process provides the stepping stones for discovery by others, they may not acknowledge her contribution. Indeed, misappropriation of scientific research and increased reluctance to share information and materials is considered a major problem in science (Cohen and Walsh 2008, Couzin-Frankel and Grom 2009).................
the higher is the reward for solving the problem, the less willing are scientists to share information through conferences and working papers.
Our models emphasise very different aspects of sharing – with the sole exception of the competitive environment. This is important because it means that the important policy question is not “whether open science” is practiced, but rather is “how open science can be supported in different environments.” We find that in both models the competitive environments reduce the practice of open science. Note that competition increases with value of the returns, or prize, for scientific solutions. This means that introducing valuable prizes may induce scientists to increase their research efforts, but it also is likely to stifle their willingness to openly share – one-on-one or with everyone. It also supports recommendations such as that of Rennie et al. (1997) that papers should acknowledge the work that is done by all contributors, where a contributor is a person who "has added usefully to the work", because such acknowledgement would, to some extent, mitigate competition.
It is also important to realise that both the commercial and intellectual value of prizes may stifle the practice of open science. While concerns over open science have escalated as scientists recognise the commercial potential of their work, the dampening effect of competition on sharing need not depend on commercial value. Prizes that enhance scientific reputation also dampen the incentive to share. Indeed, for the bio-scientists in our sample, intellectual prizes, rather than patents or engagement with industry through consulting (which we would expect to be related to commercial potential), reduce the likelihood of one-to-one sharing. In contrast, patents and consulting both decrease the likelihood of general sharing by the bio-scientists in our sample. Similarly, scientists who consider their research to be applied are less likely to generally share.
Conclusion
These results suggest that increased government research funding is likely to promote information sharing. However, our analysis shows that this is only true to the extent that increased research funding relaxes competition. Increased funding makes it more likely that individual scientists working on a problem will receive funding, but it is also likely to draw more scientists to work on the problem."
In areas like mathematics where data sharing is not so significant, there re other problems. There is a tendency to pre-empt others by putting out sketchy papers and then trying for years to prove them.
"“Every scientist knows that science advances only if knowledge is shared,” (Warnick and Wojick 2009). Science is a cumulative process, so its progress and benefits to society hinge critically on multiple scientists testing and building on each others’ work. However, the contribution to the “scientific commons” (Merton 1973) is challenged by individual scientists’ self-interest. While a scientist who shares her results during the research process provides the stepping stones for discovery by others, they may not acknowledge her contribution. Indeed, misappropriation of scientific research and increased reluctance to share information and materials is considered a major problem in science (Cohen and Walsh 2008, Couzin-Frankel and Grom 2009).................
the higher is the reward for solving the problem, the less willing are scientists to share information through conferences and working papers.
Our models emphasise very different aspects of sharing – with the sole exception of the competitive environment. This is important because it means that the important policy question is not “whether open science” is practiced, but rather is “how open science can be supported in different environments.” We find that in both models the competitive environments reduce the practice of open science. Note that competition increases with value of the returns, or prize, for scientific solutions. This means that introducing valuable prizes may induce scientists to increase their research efforts, but it also is likely to stifle their willingness to openly share – one-on-one or with everyone. It also supports recommendations such as that of Rennie et al. (1997) that papers should acknowledge the work that is done by all contributors, where a contributor is a person who "has added usefully to the work", because such acknowledgement would, to some extent, mitigate competition.
It is also important to realise that both the commercial and intellectual value of prizes may stifle the practice of open science. While concerns over open science have escalated as scientists recognise the commercial potential of their work, the dampening effect of competition on sharing need not depend on commercial value. Prizes that enhance scientific reputation also dampen the incentive to share. Indeed, for the bio-scientists in our sample, intellectual prizes, rather than patents or engagement with industry through consulting (which we would expect to be related to commercial potential), reduce the likelihood of one-to-one sharing. In contrast, patents and consulting both decrease the likelihood of general sharing by the bio-scientists in our sample. Similarly, scientists who consider their research to be applied are less likely to generally share.
Conclusion
These results suggest that increased government research funding is likely to promote information sharing. However, our analysis shows that this is only true to the extent that increased research funding relaxes competition. Increased funding makes it more likely that individual scientists working on a problem will receive funding, but it is also likely to draw more scientists to work on the problem."
In areas like mathematics where data sharing is not so significant, there re other problems. There is a tendency to pre-empt others by putting out sketchy papers and then trying for years to prove them.
Private college fiasco in Australia
From The Age Private college system a fiasco in need of a fix by Sushi Das:
"Even as the rot in international education is laid bare, the Victorian Brumby Government would like us to believe the problems with private colleges are restricted to a handful of small, fly-by-night operators. Rubbish.
The recent closure of nine colleges in Melbourne and Sydney left nearly 3000 stranded foreign students clinging on to nothing more than hope.
Known collectively as the Meridian colleges, some had been operating since 2006, and one since 1999. All were owned by Global Campus Management, which is in turn owned by the big Cayman Islands-based SinoEd Group.
These colleges were neither small, nor fly-by-night. They closed because Global Campus Management went into voluntary administration after investors lost confidence in the colleges' survival on projected student numbers. Undoubtedly, a business decision that not only put profit before the quality of education, but also showed callous disregard for students, some of whom were just weeks away from finishing their courses.
Nobody is saying the bigger private colleges are taking under-the-counter payments for certificates or issuing fake work-experience documents, as some smaller colleges are accused of doing. But the fact remains that students have as many complaints about the big colleges as they do about the small ones.
And many of these complaints arise from college operators putting profits ahead of education and welfare - something federal and state governments have condemned.
Despite the business-led closures, the Victorian Government, which only months ago refused to acknowledge there was a looming crisis, now wants us to believe the mess is being cleaned up by an official crackdown. The truth is the Meridian colleges were not even targets of the Government's current emergency audit of 41 "high-risk" colleges.
So far this year, a total of nine private colleges for domestic and foreign students have closed in Victoria alone: eight prompted by financial concerns and one forced by the education regulator because of failure to comply with course and teaching regulations.
Belatedly, the Government is trying to bring about changes to boost the power of the regulator to close colleges sooner. These measures, while welcome, should have been taken years ago - when industry insiders were screaming about major systemic problems in vocational education; when students were lodging complaints; and when news reports were regularly exposing rorts and scams.
Skills Minister Jacinta Allan has presided over a $5.4 billion export industry that has allowed private college operators to grow rich on the back of exploitation of students from developing countries. And up until about a week ago, she did not lift a finger to improve the workings of the regulator, the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority.
The regulator's limp-wristed approach has allowed people to open colleges without rigorous scrutiny. Operating at the moment are colleges whose chief executives know nothing about education, colleges managed by people still in their 20s, colleges that teach automotive training from the ninth floor of a building, colleges that do not keep proper records and colleges that threaten to have students deported unless they pay fees in advance of the due date.
Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard has blamed state regulators for the crisis. But the Brumby Government has yet to acknowledge its part in the fiasco that now undermines Victoria's biggest export earner.
As colleges collapse, and more are predicted to close, increasing numbers of displaced students must be provided with alternative colleges or be given a refund. It is their legal entitlement.
Many are being absorbed by bigger private colleges. But could these colleges collapse too? There is certainly no shortage of students complaining about being ripped off, mistreated and generally messed about by them.
Two of the bigger colleges taking on displaced students are Cambridge International College and Carrick Institute. They have their own problems. In August, The Age revealed that Cambridge, run by Roger Ferrett, was struggling to deal with a crisis in its welfare course. There were allegations that hundreds of students were being shunted through sub-standard workplace training.
Carrick Institute is also dealing with unhappy students, including one who is seeking $90,000 damages in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal after his student visa was revoked and then returned by the Department of Immigration. The visa fiasco resulted from the college's alleged failure to keep proper attendance records.
And, in an unbelievably audacious twist, owner Catherine Carrick wants taxpayers to help bail out private colleges because they are burdened by displaced students.
Turmoil, uncertainty and fear plague the international education industry. Three things are now urgently needed: an industry-wide solution to the crisis; a complete rethink on whether private colleges in a deregulated environment are the way forward for vocational education; and an education regulator that has the power and the will to do its job properly."
"Even as the rot in international education is laid bare, the Victorian Brumby Government would like us to believe the problems with private colleges are restricted to a handful of small, fly-by-night operators. Rubbish.
The recent closure of nine colleges in Melbourne and Sydney left nearly 3000 stranded foreign students clinging on to nothing more than hope.
Known collectively as the Meridian colleges, some had been operating since 2006, and one since 1999. All were owned by Global Campus Management, which is in turn owned by the big Cayman Islands-based SinoEd Group.
These colleges were neither small, nor fly-by-night. They closed because Global Campus Management went into voluntary administration after investors lost confidence in the colleges' survival on projected student numbers. Undoubtedly, a business decision that not only put profit before the quality of education, but also showed callous disregard for students, some of whom were just weeks away from finishing their courses.
Nobody is saying the bigger private colleges are taking under-the-counter payments for certificates or issuing fake work-experience documents, as some smaller colleges are accused of doing. But the fact remains that students have as many complaints about the big colleges as they do about the small ones.
And many of these complaints arise from college operators putting profits ahead of education and welfare - something federal and state governments have condemned.
Despite the business-led closures, the Victorian Government, which only months ago refused to acknowledge there was a looming crisis, now wants us to believe the mess is being cleaned up by an official crackdown. The truth is the Meridian colleges were not even targets of the Government's current emergency audit of 41 "high-risk" colleges.
So far this year, a total of nine private colleges for domestic and foreign students have closed in Victoria alone: eight prompted by financial concerns and one forced by the education regulator because of failure to comply with course and teaching regulations.
Belatedly, the Government is trying to bring about changes to boost the power of the regulator to close colleges sooner. These measures, while welcome, should have been taken years ago - when industry insiders were screaming about major systemic problems in vocational education; when students were lodging complaints; and when news reports were regularly exposing rorts and scams.
Skills Minister Jacinta Allan has presided over a $5.4 billion export industry that has allowed private college operators to grow rich on the back of exploitation of students from developing countries. And up until about a week ago, she did not lift a finger to improve the workings of the regulator, the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority.
The regulator's limp-wristed approach has allowed people to open colleges without rigorous scrutiny. Operating at the moment are colleges whose chief executives know nothing about education, colleges managed by people still in their 20s, colleges that teach automotive training from the ninth floor of a building, colleges that do not keep proper records and colleges that threaten to have students deported unless they pay fees in advance of the due date.
Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard has blamed state regulators for the crisis. But the Brumby Government has yet to acknowledge its part in the fiasco that now undermines Victoria's biggest export earner.
As colleges collapse, and more are predicted to close, increasing numbers of displaced students must be provided with alternative colleges or be given a refund. It is their legal entitlement.
Many are being absorbed by bigger private colleges. But could these colleges collapse too? There is certainly no shortage of students complaining about being ripped off, mistreated and generally messed about by them.
Two of the bigger colleges taking on displaced students are Cambridge International College and Carrick Institute. They have their own problems. In August, The Age revealed that Cambridge, run by Roger Ferrett, was struggling to deal with a crisis in its welfare course. There were allegations that hundreds of students were being shunted through sub-standard workplace training.
Carrick Institute is also dealing with unhappy students, including one who is seeking $90,000 damages in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal after his student visa was revoked and then returned by the Department of Immigration. The visa fiasco resulted from the college's alleged failure to keep proper attendance records.
And, in an unbelievably audacious twist, owner Catherine Carrick wants taxpayers to help bail out private colleges because they are burdened by displaced students.
Turmoil, uncertainty and fear plague the international education industry. Three things are now urgently needed: an industry-wide solution to the crisis; a complete rethink on whether private colleges in a deregulated environment are the way forward for vocational education; and an education regulator that has the power and the will to do its job properly."
Monday, November 23, 2009
What Makes a Nation Rich?
What Makes a Nation Rich? One Economist's Big Answer (via Greg Mankiw):
"Say you're a world leader and you want your country's economy to prosper. According to this Clark Medal winner from MIT, there's a simple solution: start with free elections."
Related: Elections in developing countries: do they improve economic policy? .
"Say you're a world leader and you want your country's economy to prosper. According to this Clark Medal winner from MIT, there's a simple solution: start with free elections."
Related: Elections in developing countries: do they improve economic policy? .
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Kannabiran on Balagopal
Kannabiran in A One in a Century Rights Activist briefly discusses a point that I have been wondering about:
"In an interview published in Prajatantra in March 2001 on the Telugu novel Rago,
Balagopal expressed the view that the Marxist world view is deficient in certain
respects and that his philosophical investigations had reached a certain satisfactory stage. However, having said that, he never completed the task of elaborating upon his philosophical position."
I remember reading a telugu article which suggested that Balagopal might have been thinking about the work of Raymond Williams and Theodor Adorno .
"In an interview published in Prajatantra in March 2001 on the Telugu novel Rago,
Balagopal expressed the view that the Marxist world view is deficient in certain
respects and that his philosophical investigations had reached a certain satisfactory stage. However, having said that, he never completed the task of elaborating upon his philosophical position."
I remember reading a telugu article which suggested that Balagopal might have been thinking about the work of Raymond Williams and Theodor Adorno .
The sister has crossed the line
Video and transcript of an interview with Malalai Joya.
An excerpt from her book A Woman Among Warlords (links from Pavaman).
An excerpt from her book A Woman Among Warlords (links from Pavaman).
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Rajib reviews
The Faith Instinct by Nicholas Wade. The review has also a number of links and in one of the comments Rajib says "...every nation i've seen in the WVS has religious people either matching, or more often surpassing, the non-religious in total fertility. i won't hypothesize the mechanism, but it's a robust finding."
In an From population genetics to linguistics Rajib has quick preview of the studies of the relationship between language families and gene families and discusses a recent paper on the linguistic diversity of Sahul using population genetics.
In an From population genetics to linguistics Rajib has quick preview of the studies of the relationship between language families and gene families and discusses a recent paper on the linguistic diversity of Sahul using population genetics.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
తెలుగుపరిశోధన
Many online Telugu books and pdf files available at తెలుగుపరిశోధన . For dictionaries check here . For some other dictionaries see the earlier post .
Universe in our own backyards
MindHacks discusses some recent papers on The illusion of a universe in our own back yard: . Among them:
"Science News covers a revealing new study on the Hadza people of Tanzania that has the potential shake up some of the rusty thinking in evolutionary psychology.
A common line of argument in this field is to suggest that sexual preferences for certain body types exist because we've evolved these desires to maximise our chances of mating with the most fertile or healthiest partner.
For example, studies have interpreted the fact that taller men are more likely to attract mates and reproduce in terms of evolutionary pressures on sexual desire. But most of these and similar studies have been completed on Western samples, while the authors draw conclusions about the 'universal' nature of these 'evolutionary' pressures.
To test how universal these body preferences really are, anthropologists Rebecca Sear and Frank Marlowe looked at whether similar preferences existed in the Hadza people, a hunter-gather tribe from Tanzania.
It turns out, these supposedly 'universal preferences' don't exist in the Hadza."
Another:
"The problems with relying on Western college students as participants in psychology studies is also addressed by a new paper just released by Behavioural and Brain Sciences which you can read online as a pdf.
The article reviews data from psychology experiments and argues that not only are college students a very restricted subset of society, but they are actually wildly atypical in comparison to the rest of the world's population.
In fact, the authors state that "The findings suggest that members of WEIRD [Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic] societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans"."
Links in the MindHacks article.
"Science News covers a revealing new study on the Hadza people of Tanzania that has the potential shake up some of the rusty thinking in evolutionary psychology.
A common line of argument in this field is to suggest that sexual preferences for certain body types exist because we've evolved these desires to maximise our chances of mating with the most fertile or healthiest partner.
For example, studies have interpreted the fact that taller men are more likely to attract mates and reproduce in terms of evolutionary pressures on sexual desire. But most of these and similar studies have been completed on Western samples, while the authors draw conclusions about the 'universal' nature of these 'evolutionary' pressures.
To test how universal these body preferences really are, anthropologists Rebecca Sear and Frank Marlowe looked at whether similar preferences existed in the Hadza people, a hunter-gather tribe from Tanzania.
It turns out, these supposedly 'universal preferences' don't exist in the Hadza."
Another:
"The problems with relying on Western college students as participants in psychology studies is also addressed by a new paper just released by Behavioural and Brain Sciences which you can read online as a pdf.
The article reviews data from psychology experiments and argues that not only are college students a very restricted subset of society, but they are actually wildly atypical in comparison to the rest of the world's population.
In fact, the authors state that "The findings suggest that members of WEIRD [Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic] societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans"."
Links in the MindHacks article.
The marketplace of ideas
A must read article says Abi at Nanopolitan: The Ph.D. Problem by Louis Menand. From the editors' introduction:
"His new book, The Marketplace of Ideas, to be published in December by W.W. Norton, is informed in part by his recent service as faculty co-leader in the development of Harvard College’s new General Education curriculum, introduced this fall (the book is dedicated to his colleagues in that protracted task).
In this work, Menand examines general education, the state of the humanities, the tensions between disciplinary and interdisciplinary work, and, in chapter four, “Why Do Professors All Think Alike?” The following excerpts, from the third and fourth chapters and his conclusion, probe the professionalization of a research-oriented professoriate and the practice and consequences of contemporary doctoral education, and the resulting implications for liberal-arts colleges, universities, and the wider society."
"His new book, The Marketplace of Ideas, to be published in December by W.W. Norton, is informed in part by his recent service as faculty co-leader in the development of Harvard College’s new General Education curriculum, introduced this fall (the book is dedicated to his colleagues in that protracted task).
In this work, Menand examines general education, the state of the humanities, the tensions between disciplinary and interdisciplinary work, and, in chapter four, “Why Do Professors All Think Alike?” The following excerpts, from the third and fourth chapters and his conclusion, probe the professionalization of a research-oriented professoriate and the practice and consequences of contemporary doctoral education, and the resulting implications for liberal-arts colleges, universities, and the wider society."
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Books about India
After reading the recent controvery about GM brinjal , I tried to look the history of brinjal in India and found this list: Ten Best Book List:KC recommends good Indian readings for expats . The link is K.T. Acharya. Here are some articles about his contributions:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/seta/2002/09/26/stories/2002092600010200.htm
http://www.hinduonnet.com/seta/2004/10/21/stories/2004102100111600.htm
http://www.hindu.com/seta/2004/11/04/stories/2004110400061500.htm
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/seta/2002/09/26/stories/2002092600010200.htm
http://www.hinduonnet.com/seta/2004/10/21/stories/2004102100111600.htm
http://www.hindu.com/seta/2004/11/04/stories/2004110400061500.htm
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Monday, November 09, 2009
Ambedkar Sanskrit Fellowship
In Next Generations Manan Ahmad points to some new scholarships for graduate studies about South Asia and among them:
"Applications are sought for the Ambedkar Sanskrit Fellowship at Columbia University in the City of New York. This is a five-year award covering tuition and stipend. One fellowship will be awarded for the academic year 2010-11 (deadline for application to the Department of Middle East, South Asia, and African Studies is January 4, 2010), and, it is anticipated, two more in each of the following two years. Applicants are expected to have completed work at the Master’s level prior to admission. Preliminary inquiries, including a brief statement of purpose explaining what the applicant intends to study and why that course of study, may be directed to Sheldon Pollock, sp2356@columbia.edu"
P.S. From google search, I see that Ambedkar not only learnt Sanskrit in his later years (apparently his teachers refused to teach him in school and he studied Persian instead) but also advocated Sanskrit as a national language for India. I have been off and on looking at science writing in Telugu and technical dictionaries in a few Indian languages. Finding systematic terminology for science writing seems to be a problem and it seems easier to borrow from Sanskrit. I wonder whether Sanskrit can play a role similar to Latin for unifying scientific terminology for Indian languages.
"Applications are sought for the Ambedkar Sanskrit Fellowship at Columbia University in the City of New York. This is a five-year award covering tuition and stipend. One fellowship will be awarded for the academic year 2010-11 (deadline for application to the Department of Middle East, South Asia, and African Studies is January 4, 2010), and, it is anticipated, two more in each of the following two years. Applicants are expected to have completed work at the Master’s level prior to admission. Preliminary inquiries, including a brief statement of purpose explaining what the applicant intends to study and why that course of study, may be directed to Sheldon Pollock, sp2356@columbia.edu"
P.S. From google search, I see that Ambedkar not only learnt Sanskrit in his later years (apparently his teachers refused to teach him in school and he studied Persian instead) but also advocated Sanskrit as a national language for India. I have been off and on looking at science writing in Telugu and technical dictionaries in a few Indian languages. Finding systematic terminology for science writing seems to be a problem and it seems easier to borrow from Sanskrit. I wonder whether Sanskrit can play a role similar to Latin for unifying scientific terminology for Indian languages.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Some reviews
Soutik Biswas discusses Dalrymple's 'Nine Lives' in Faith and Pelf and Dilip D'Souza points to some of the lapses in the book India Untold . Dilip's comment:
"Nine Lives is proof that Dalrymple knows this country better than most Indians, but it also displays a creeping complacency in writing about it."
Amitava Kumar and V.V. Ganeshananthan discuss South Asian diaspora literature, war, and conflict—and their fiction selections for Guernica in I Don’t Want To Fight:
"Amitava Kumar: You are asking what is South Asian writing. It is fiction which has at least three of the following: a large family or two, arranged marriage, misery, some violence, Bollywood, the interior design of nostalgia which uses the furniture of loss. You can choose the stylistic beverage-to-go: verbal exuberance or hushed poetry.
This is a caricature. But only partly. Give me an example of a novel you’ve read recently by a South Asian or about South Asia that departs from this model."
"Nine Lives is proof that Dalrymple knows this country better than most Indians, but it also displays a creeping complacency in writing about it."
Amitava Kumar and V.V. Ganeshananthan discuss South Asian diaspora literature, war, and conflict—and their fiction selections for Guernica in I Don’t Want To Fight:
"Amitava Kumar: You are asking what is South Asian writing. It is fiction which has at least three of the following: a large family or two, arranged marriage, misery, some violence, Bollywood, the interior design of nostalgia which uses the furniture of loss. You can choose the stylistic beverage-to-go: verbal exuberance or hushed poetry.
This is a caricature. But only partly. Give me an example of a novel you’ve read recently by a South Asian or about South Asia that departs from this model."
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Telugupadam
front page has been updated మొదటి పేజీ. Some of the tools are in మార్గదర్శకాలు and check(from the list on the left) to see what is available like ప్రత్యేక పేజీలు. It has been a problem to find Telugu equivalents of many English words used everyday and there is a paucity of online dictionaries (See the discussion in తెలుగు నిఘంటువు గురించి…) in Telugu. The site seems to be an effort by many bloggers, particularly Veeven, to find suitable Telugu equivalents of frequently used English words. It is not clear to me how this is to going to fulfil the need for terminology in writing science books in Telugu but the governmental efforts in this direction seem fragmentary and taking a long time. In view of this, the brave effort by Veeven and other bloggers fills a gap and is worth supporting; I hope that more people will participate.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Claude Levi-Strauss RIP
news via 3quarksdaily. One of the posts from a new blog about his work On the Anthropology of Levi-Strauss.
Here is a downloadable version of Tristes tropiques which has several passages about India.
P.S. A very readable article about philosophy and Claude Levi-Strauss in 3quarksdaily.
Here is a downloadable version of Tristes tropiques which has several passages about India.
P.S. A very readable article about philosophy and Claude Levi-Strauss in 3quarksdaily.
One day at a time for the glacier man
Chewang Norphel's work which was mentioned in 'Glacier man' Chewang Norphel seems to be getting more attention. There is a long article in Science (requires ubscription)Profile: Chewang Norphel: Glacier Man and a report in Hindustan Times A lonely struggle for the Iceman. From the Hindustan Times report:
"Earlier this year, Norphel finally received Rs 13 lakh from the Department of Science & Technology to build and maintain two glaciers for the next two years.
Another Rs 10 lakh for three more glaciers will come from the Indian Army in Jammu & Kashmir, under its people-friendly project Operation Sadbhavana (Good Intentions), which funds small-scale projects supported by local populations.
“It’s a simple concept that can be managed with local manpower and materials,” says Dr V.C. Goyal, a senior scientist and hydrologist with the Department of Science and Technology. “If it works, then it could be applied across various regions in the Himalayan belt, since there’s a tremendous water shortage across all these hilly regions due to the receding glaciers.”
The Department has now involved the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council and respective village heads.
All small steps, but about time.
According to a United Nations Environment Programme report released in March 2008, trends in glacial melt suggest that the Ganga, Indus and Brahmaputra — which contribute more than 60 per cent of the water for all the rivers of India — may become seasonal as a consequence of climate change.
For Norphel, the solution is in taking it one day at a time.
“I am now building five more glaciers with the money I have received from the government,” he says, as he takes hurried steps across the brown mountains at a project site. “I’m also planning to train villagers with instruction CDs that I have made, so that I can pass on the knowledge before I die.” "
From the Science magazine article:
"A new climate threat
Norphel's glaciers are site specific—they require a certain altitude, water flow, and surface area temperature, so they are not suitable for every location, notes Andreas Schild, head of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development in Kathmandu. "Nevertheless, we are going to have to do some serious out-of-the-box thinking when it comes to sustainable water storage and investigate the efficiency of artificial-glacier technology," Schild says.
Norphel notes that he has already had interest in his glaciers from nongovernmental organizations working in Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. "In some areas, reservoirs are a much more practical solution," he says. "But in terms of water storage and release at the irrigation season, you can't beat artificial glaciers."
Despite his success, there has been little attention from the academic world. "I could do with some scientific help from specialists," Norphel says. "I am trying to collect data on how and where the glacier forms best, and which parts precipitate first and why, so that I can improve on them and people can use the technique elsewhere.
This September day, Norphel and his glaciers receive their first scientific visitor. Adina Racoviteanu, a geography graduate student at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is passing through Stakmo en route to her glacier field stations farther east. When she offers to make Norphel a topographic map of the artificial glacier site using her hand-held GPS monitor, a $3000 device, his eyes light up. The pair spend the next several hours taking readings across the site, achieving what would take Norphel weeks to do with his tape measure and plumb line.
Later that day, as Norphel leaps nimbly across the boulders above Stakmo village, he points out his latest design tweaks. In 2006, when it rained for a week and the Zanskar River, which freezes over each winter, melted ahead of time, flash floods and landslides devastated his glacier here. "Blocking walls and canals were damaged by floods," recalls Norphel. "I'm still at the experimental stage, but I've been able to completely redesign this glacier site to make it withstand floods better.
The Stakmo site will soon have three artificial glaciers at increasing altitudes, so by the time the lowest one is spent, the one above it will have begun melting, and then the highest before the natural one at the top starts to liquidize. Norphel points out his latest seepage-avoidance technology: a 200-meter cement chamber that will be connected to the artificial glacier with 2- to 3-meter-long pipe. This will help distribute and freeze sheets of water evenly in the artificial glacier as well as providing a water reservoir for later in the year. "Creating the first such chamber is difficult in terms of design and funding," he says. "The rest will still be expensive but easy to replicate."
Money remains a huge problem. Norphel says that 75 other nearby villages are in suitable locations for his artificial-glacier technique, but he lacks funds, and what funds are promised do not typically arrive in full. The watershed development program allots $50,000 per project per village, but so far, only $12,000 has been released in two installments over the past 6 years.
And there's another problem: continued climate change. There is less and less snowfall during wintertime, when it is needed to contribute to Norphel's artificial glaciers. Instead, rain is arriving in September, ruining the harvests. It's a worrying trend. "These glaciers are not magic formations. They need that water over winter," says Norphel.
As the "retired" engineer makes his way up the mountain to his glacial work site, singing drifts up the valley from the villagers in the fields below, who are harvesting the last of this year's barley with simple scythes. It's a scene that must have played out for centuries. Without the Glacier Man, this village might well have fallen silent a decade ago."
"Earlier this year, Norphel finally received Rs 13 lakh from the Department of Science & Technology to build and maintain two glaciers for the next two years.
Another Rs 10 lakh for three more glaciers will come from the Indian Army in Jammu & Kashmir, under its people-friendly project Operation Sadbhavana (Good Intentions), which funds small-scale projects supported by local populations.
“It’s a simple concept that can be managed with local manpower and materials,” says Dr V.C. Goyal, a senior scientist and hydrologist with the Department of Science and Technology. “If it works, then it could be applied across various regions in the Himalayan belt, since there’s a tremendous water shortage across all these hilly regions due to the receding glaciers.”
The Department has now involved the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council and respective village heads.
All small steps, but about time.
According to a United Nations Environment Programme report released in March 2008, trends in glacial melt suggest that the Ganga, Indus and Brahmaputra — which contribute more than 60 per cent of the water for all the rivers of India — may become seasonal as a consequence of climate change.
For Norphel, the solution is in taking it one day at a time.
“I am now building five more glaciers with the money I have received from the government,” he says, as he takes hurried steps across the brown mountains at a project site. “I’m also planning to train villagers with instruction CDs that I have made, so that I can pass on the knowledge before I die.” "
From the Science magazine article:
"A new climate threat
Norphel's glaciers are site specific—they require a certain altitude, water flow, and surface area temperature, so they are not suitable for every location, notes Andreas Schild, head of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development in Kathmandu. "Nevertheless, we are going to have to do some serious out-of-the-box thinking when it comes to sustainable water storage and investigate the efficiency of artificial-glacier technology," Schild says.
Norphel notes that he has already had interest in his glaciers from nongovernmental organizations working in Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. "In some areas, reservoirs are a much more practical solution," he says. "But in terms of water storage and release at the irrigation season, you can't beat artificial glaciers."
Despite his success, there has been little attention from the academic world. "I could do with some scientific help from specialists," Norphel says. "I am trying to collect data on how and where the glacier forms best, and which parts precipitate first and why, so that I can improve on them and people can use the technique elsewhere.
This September day, Norphel and his glaciers receive their first scientific visitor. Adina Racoviteanu, a geography graduate student at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is passing through Stakmo en route to her glacier field stations farther east. When she offers to make Norphel a topographic map of the artificial glacier site using her hand-held GPS monitor, a $3000 device, his eyes light up. The pair spend the next several hours taking readings across the site, achieving what would take Norphel weeks to do with his tape measure and plumb line.
Later that day, as Norphel leaps nimbly across the boulders above Stakmo village, he points out his latest design tweaks. In 2006, when it rained for a week and the Zanskar River, which freezes over each winter, melted ahead of time, flash floods and landslides devastated his glacier here. "Blocking walls and canals were damaged by floods," recalls Norphel. "I'm still at the experimental stage, but I've been able to completely redesign this glacier site to make it withstand floods better.
The Stakmo site will soon have three artificial glaciers at increasing altitudes, so by the time the lowest one is spent, the one above it will have begun melting, and then the highest before the natural one at the top starts to liquidize. Norphel points out his latest seepage-avoidance technology: a 200-meter cement chamber that will be connected to the artificial glacier with 2- to 3-meter-long pipe. This will help distribute and freeze sheets of water evenly in the artificial glacier as well as providing a water reservoir for later in the year. "Creating the first such chamber is difficult in terms of design and funding," he says. "The rest will still be expensive but easy to replicate."
Money remains a huge problem. Norphel says that 75 other nearby villages are in suitable locations for his artificial-glacier technique, but he lacks funds, and what funds are promised do not typically arrive in full. The watershed development program allots $50,000 per project per village, but so far, only $12,000 has been released in two installments over the past 6 years.
And there's another problem: continued climate change. There is less and less snowfall during wintertime, when it is needed to contribute to Norphel's artificial glaciers. Instead, rain is arriving in September, ruining the harvests. It's a worrying trend. "These glaciers are not magic formations. They need that water over winter," says Norphel.
As the "retired" engineer makes his way up the mountain to his glacial work site, singing drifts up the valley from the villagers in the fields below, who are harvesting the last of this year's barley with simple scythes. It's a scene that must have played out for centuries. Without the Glacier Man, this village might well have fallen silent a decade ago."
Development challenges in extremist areas
Excerpts from Planning Commission Expert Groups Report "Development Challenges in Extremist Areas"are in Madhukar Shukla's post "The "Greatest Threat to India's Internal Security" !!?? .
Related:
Arundhati Roy The heart of India is under attack and Rohit Copra's post and possibly The Long March.
Related:
Arundhati Roy The heart of India is under attack and Rohit Copra's post and possibly The Long March.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Wealth transmission in small-scale socities
From ScienceDaily reportInequality, 'Silver Spoon' Effect Found In Ancient Societies:
"The researchers also showed that levels of inequality are influenced both by the types of wealth important to a society and the governing rules and regulations. Hunter-gatherers rely on their wits, social connections and strength to make a living. In these economies, wealth inheritance is modest because wits and social connections can be transferred only to a certain degree. The level of economic inequality in hunter-gatherer societies is on a par with the most egalitarian modern democratic economies."
Despite the ScienceDaily title, the study is based on 21 contemporary and recent populations. The populations studied are of four types hunter-gatherer, horticultural, pastoral, and agricultural populations (the main difference between hoticultural and agricultural seems to be the use of plough).
The paper (needs access)Intergenerational Wealth Transmission and the Dynamics of Inequality in Small-Scale Societies with supporting supplement online material is free access are in Science magazine. Rajib Khan has long post which has much material from the paper To crush your enemies, and steal their cattle for your sons! . The three of wealth transferred is categorized "embodied (body weight, grip strength, practical skills, and, in predemographic transition populations, reproductive success); material (land, livestock, and household goods); and relational (social ties in food-sharing networks and other forms of assistance)."
They do not consider other forms "heritable determinants of well-being such as ritual knowledge, an important source of institutionalized inequality in some populations." and it is not clear how much it applies to societies like Indian.
From the paper:
"Our principal conclusion is that there exist substantial differences among economic systems in the intergenerational transmission of wealth and that these arise because material wealth is more important in agricultural and pastoral societies and because, in these systems, material wealth is substantially more heritable than embodied and relational wealth. By way of comparison, the degree of intergenerational transmission of wealth in hunter-gatherer and horticultural populations is comparable to the intergenerational transmission of earnings in the Nordic social democratic countries (5)—the average β for earnings in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway is 0.18—whereas the agricultural and pastoral societies in our data set are comparable to economies in which inequalities are inherited most strongly across generations, the United States and Italy, where the average β for earnings is 0.43. Concerning wealth inequality, the Gini measure in the hunter-gatherer and horticultural populations is almost exactly the average of the Gini measure of disposable income for Denmark, Norway, and Finland (0.24); the pastoral and agricultural populations are substantially more unequal than the most unequal of the high-income nations, the United States, whose Gini coefficient is 0.37 (21). "
In the same issue, Acegmolu and Robinson explain their take on the paper Foundations of Societal Inequality:
"...results of Borgerhoff Mulder et al., which show substantial differences in inheritability of assets and inequality not only between, but also within hunter-gather, horticultural, pastoral, and agricultural societies."
They attribute to this to the difference in institutions "What makes the findings important for social science is the link between inequality and institutions that regulate the inheritability of assets."
P.S. A summary of the results is available in the papers section of:
http://www.santafe.edu/~bowles/
(New Data on the Roots of Inequality Reveal Key Role of Wealth Inheritance)
"The researchers also showed that levels of inequality are influenced both by the types of wealth important to a society and the governing rules and regulations. Hunter-gatherers rely on their wits, social connections and strength to make a living. In these economies, wealth inheritance is modest because wits and social connections can be transferred only to a certain degree. The level of economic inequality in hunter-gatherer societies is on a par with the most egalitarian modern democratic economies."
Despite the ScienceDaily title, the study is based on 21 contemporary and recent populations. The populations studied are of four types hunter-gatherer, horticultural, pastoral, and agricultural populations (the main difference between hoticultural and agricultural seems to be the use of plough).
The paper (needs access)Intergenerational Wealth Transmission and the Dynamics of Inequality in Small-Scale Societies with supporting supplement online material is free access are in Science magazine. Rajib Khan has long post which has much material from the paper To crush your enemies, and steal their cattle for your sons! . The three of wealth transferred is categorized "embodied (body weight, grip strength, practical skills, and, in predemographic transition populations, reproductive success); material (land, livestock, and household goods); and relational (social ties in food-sharing networks and other forms of assistance)."
They do not consider other forms "heritable determinants of well-being such as ritual knowledge, an important source of institutionalized inequality in some populations." and it is not clear how much it applies to societies like Indian.
From the paper:
"Our principal conclusion is that there exist substantial differences among economic systems in the intergenerational transmission of wealth and that these arise because material wealth is more important in agricultural and pastoral societies and because, in these systems, material wealth is substantially more heritable than embodied and relational wealth. By way of comparison, the degree of intergenerational transmission of wealth in hunter-gatherer and horticultural populations is comparable to the intergenerational transmission of earnings in the Nordic social democratic countries (5)—the average β for earnings in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway is 0.18—whereas the agricultural and pastoral societies in our data set are comparable to economies in which inequalities are inherited most strongly across generations, the United States and Italy, where the average β for earnings is 0.43. Concerning wealth inequality, the Gini measure in the hunter-gatherer and horticultural populations is almost exactly the average of the Gini measure of disposable income for Denmark, Norway, and Finland (0.24); the pastoral and agricultural populations are substantially more unequal than the most unequal of the high-income nations, the United States, whose Gini coefficient is 0.37 (21). "
In the same issue, Acegmolu and Robinson explain their take on the paper Foundations of Societal Inequality:
"...results of Borgerhoff Mulder et al., which show substantial differences in inheritability of assets and inequality not only between, but also within hunter-gather, horticultural, pastoral, and agricultural societies."
They attribute to this to the difference in institutions "What makes the findings important for social science is the link between inequality and institutions that regulate the inheritability of assets."
P.S. A summary of the results is available in the papers section of:
http://www.santafe.edu/~bowles/
(New Data on the Roots of Inequality Reveal Key Role of Wealth Inheritance)
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