Cosma Shalizi links to several posts of Mark Liberman One Must Imagine Liberman Happy starting with Can Derrida be "even wrong"?. Excerpt:
"My colleague would open one of Derrida's works to a random page, pick a random sentence, write it down, and then (above or below it) write a variant in which positive and negative were interchanged, or a word or phrase was replaced with one of opposite meaning. He would then challenge the assembled Derrida partisans to guess which was the original and which was the variant. The point was that Derrida's admirers are generally unable to distinguish his pronouncements from their opposites at better than chance level, suggesting that the content is a sophisticated form of white noise. On this view, as Wolfgang Pauli once said of someone else, Derrida is "not even wrong.". "
My friend Pavaman once cured Venkateswara Rao's addiction to philosophy by a random reading (mixing up phrases from different sentences and asking Rao to explain, which Rao patiently did)of Sartre.
The latest of the posts "debunking reactionary appropriations of neuroscience as carefully as though they were actual attempts to advance human knowledge, and not meretricious myth-making" by Liberman The defend-your-turf area?
P.S. More about Cosma Shalizi in the later half of the article The Tenure Tracts. Mark Liberman and Andrew Gelman should have also been mentioned in the article. Excerpt:
"If there’s one thing Shalizi can’t stand, it’s misinformation bandied about in the name of science. “A lot of the time, when I’m motivated enough to post something, it’s because I think someone is ‘being wrong on the Internet,’ as the saying goes—and this cannot stand,” Shalizi says. “It’s usually something I’ve read more than once and it seems such a pack of lies, or utter misunderstandings, that I feel like writing something. I wish I wasn’t so destructively motivated, but I am.”
When asked how much time and effort that takes, he says, “Quite a bit, to be honest. Part of that is the fact that I’m way over trained as an academic, and part is also wanting to leave people no excuse or way out,” Shalizi says. “If I can show that they’re just totally wrong, thoroughly wrong, then I will try to do that.”"
Sunday, April 04, 2010
Saturday, April 03, 2010
Some economics related links
Justin Fox in Wresting the Economic Debate Away from the Economists responding to
The Return of History by David Brooks:
"...about why economists had gained so much influence over the past half century and historians had lost so much.
One answer I offered was that economists had managed a remarkable balancing act between making the guts of their work totally incomprehensible — and thus forbiddingly impressive — to the outside world while continuing to offer reasonably straightforward conclusions. The basic form of an academic economics paper is a couple of comprehensible paragraphs at the beginning and a couple of comprehensible paragraphs at the end, with a bunch of really-hard-to-follow math or statistical analysis in the middle. An academic history paper, on the other hand, is often an uninterrupted cascade of semi-comprehensible jargon that neither impresses a lay reader nor offers any clear conclusions.
.....
Why does any of this matter? Mainly because the ways in which scholars interpret the world can (with a time lag and a lot lost in translation) have a big influence on the way the rest of us see things. Over the past half century, economists have come to utterly dominate thinking about economic matters, and begun to insinuate themselves into lots of other fields too. Business education, and business advice, has certainly become much more economics-oriented. Which isn't all bad. But even an economist would agree that we could use more competition in the marketplace of ideas. Right?"
Felix Salmon comments on Justin Fox post in Economics without mathematics with many interesting comments and links like Robert Waldman's comment:
"Often the plain English parts of papers exclusively reflect the preferences of the author(s) and are unrelated to the evidence or mathematics in the paper."
From The IMF's new wisdom:
"Most bad policies result from either the power of special interests or ideologically driven mistakes. The fund appears to be gradually rethinking some of its ideologically driven mistakes, which is a good thing for the institution – and because it is influential, for the world. But the problem is that it is still run by "special interests""
The Return of History by David Brooks:
"...about why economists had gained so much influence over the past half century and historians had lost so much.
One answer I offered was that economists had managed a remarkable balancing act between making the guts of their work totally incomprehensible — and thus forbiddingly impressive — to the outside world while continuing to offer reasonably straightforward conclusions. The basic form of an academic economics paper is a couple of comprehensible paragraphs at the beginning and a couple of comprehensible paragraphs at the end, with a bunch of really-hard-to-follow math or statistical analysis in the middle. An academic history paper, on the other hand, is often an uninterrupted cascade of semi-comprehensible jargon that neither impresses a lay reader nor offers any clear conclusions.
.....
Why does any of this matter? Mainly because the ways in which scholars interpret the world can (with a time lag and a lot lost in translation) have a big influence on the way the rest of us see things. Over the past half century, economists have come to utterly dominate thinking about economic matters, and begun to insinuate themselves into lots of other fields too. Business education, and business advice, has certainly become much more economics-oriented. Which isn't all bad. But even an economist would agree that we could use more competition in the marketplace of ideas. Right?"
Felix Salmon comments on Justin Fox post in Economics without mathematics with many interesting comments and links like Robert Waldman's comment:
"Often the plain English parts of papers exclusively reflect the preferences of the author(s) and are unrelated to the evidence or mathematics in the paper."
From The IMF's new wisdom:
"Most bad policies result from either the power of special interests or ideologically driven mistakes. The fund appears to be gradually rethinking some of its ideologically driven mistakes, which is a good thing for the institution – and because it is influential, for the world. But the problem is that it is still run by "special interests""
Nuclear liability Bill
A deeply flawed bill deferred at last minute seems to be facing further difficulties. See
India and U.S. likely to clash over nuclear liability bill by Siddharth Varadarajan, and
Design flaws in Westinghouse reactor may delay India contract.
From an earlier comment Capping nuclear liability is a non-starter by Soli J. Sorabjee, a former Attorney General for India says "There can be two views about the advantages or disadvantages of foreign investment in India in the nuclear energy sector. But there can be only one view: health well-being and protection of our people are paramount and must override dollar considerations. Foreign multinationals are not solicitors of the fundamental rights of our people. The Bhopal Gas case is a burning reminder.
Any legislation that attempts to dilute the Polluter Pays and Precautionary Principle and imposes a cap on liability is likely to be struck down as it would be in blatant defiance of the Supreme Court judgments. Moreover, it would be against the interests and the cherished fundamental right to life of the people of India whose protection should be the primary concern of any civilised democratic government."
India and U.S. likely to clash over nuclear liability bill by Siddharth Varadarajan, and
Design flaws in Westinghouse reactor may delay India contract.
From an earlier comment Capping nuclear liability is a non-starter by Soli J. Sorabjee, a former Attorney General for India says "There can be two views about the advantages or disadvantages of foreign investment in India in the nuclear energy sector. But there can be only one view: health well-being and protection of our people are paramount and must override dollar considerations. Foreign multinationals are not solicitors of the fundamental rights of our people. The Bhopal Gas case is a burning reminder.
Any legislation that attempts to dilute the Polluter Pays and Precautionary Principle and imposes a cap on liability is likely to be struck down as it would be in blatant defiance of the Supreme Court judgments. Moreover, it would be against the interests and the cherished fundamental right to life of the people of India whose protection should be the primary concern of any civilised democratic government."
Wordsmiths of Telugu films
Jyothi reminded me that the expression veeratadu came from the film Mayabazar వేసుకోండి వీరతాడు.
The dialogue writer was Pingali NagendraRao, who was quite famous for inventing new words, expressions from Pathalabhairavi onwards. I found a few more links to articles about some of the wordsmiths of telugu films whose phrases and lines from films have become part of the language now. Some of these are Arudra, Devulapalli Krishna Sastry, Malladi Ramakrishna Sastry,Srisri, Pingali of course, Kosaraju, Dasaradhi, Ravi Narayana Reddi.
తెలుగు సినిమా పాట
వీరతాళ్ళు వేస్తాం, వస్తారా?!
మాయాబజార్ – పాండవులు లేని భారతం
తెలుగు సినిమా పాటల్లో కొన్ని రచనా విశేషాలు
P.S. హలా అంటున్న గజ్జెలకోడి !!! links to a website dedicated to Pingali http://www.pingali.info/
The dialogue writer was Pingali NagendraRao, who was quite famous for inventing new words, expressions from Pathalabhairavi onwards. I found a few more links to articles about some of the wordsmiths of telugu films whose phrases and lines from films have become part of the language now. Some of these are Arudra, Devulapalli Krishna Sastry, Malladi Ramakrishna Sastry,Srisri, Pingali of course, Kosaraju, Dasaradhi, Ravi Narayana Reddi.
తెలుగు సినిమా పాట
వీరతాళ్ళు వేస్తాం, వస్తారా?!
మాయాబజార్ – పాండవులు లేని భారతం
తెలుగు సినిమా పాటల్లో కొన్ని రచనా విశేషాలు
P.S. హలా అంటున్న గజ్జెలకోడి !!! links to a website dedicated to Pingali http://www.pingali.info/
Thursday, April 01, 2010
Kalyan Mukherjea RIP
Kalyan Mukherjea passed away on the evening of March 31 after a few weeks of illness. I will miss him.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Rao Balasaraswati Devi interview
I wrote about Rao Balasaraswati Devi earlier. There is a recentINTERVIEW WITH LEGENDARY SINGER RAO BALASARASWATHI. I did not notice the comments in the earlier post (my apologies. I did not expect that my post will be noticed and that there will be queries. I usually write these to keep track of various things for myself and do not check for comments after a few days). Most of her songs are available at oldtelugsons , search under 'R.Balasarawati Devi', 'Rao Balsarasvati Devi', 'Rao Bala Sarasvati Devi', and 'Balasaraswati' (notice v,w changes in the spelling). Many old songs are also available at http://www.surasa.net/ . Another favourite singer is S.Varalakshmi . I think that most of Balasaraswati songs are available somewhere or other but it seems more difficult to get some of S.Varalakshmi songs, particularly those from her film Sati Sakkubai, often mistaken for a later Anjali Devi film with the same name. Many knowledgeable about telugu songs take part in discussions at http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/oldtelugusongs/.
Early differences in taste
I often play telugu songs when I babysit for my granddaughters(they speak English at home). While Leila liked more classical type songs like yedukondalavada when she was aroung one year old, Ava likes songs like jalakalatalalo and mutyala chamma chekka .
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Smoke Screen raises questions
Smoke Screen has an intersting post When a language (culture) tells its own story ... where she quotes from Girish Karard the reaction of Madras audience to a play of Arthur Miller:
"The audience watching the play in Madras was English educated, familiar with Western literature. Many of them frequently were abroad and had a living contact with the Western way of life. The production was a success. But most of the audience entirely missed the element of incest in the play; rather, they chose to ignore it as an unnecessary adjunct to an otherwise perfectly rational tale."
and raises the question "While one can concede the chasm between ‘Indian’ and ‘English’ cultures, is there a similar gap between the peoples of different linguistic groups in India? And, not to put too fine a point on it, is there, then, a cultural, perceptual, gap between speakers of different dialects of an Indian language? ", I think there are, even between different castes in the same region. I wonder whether different castes (or genders) have the same perception of Ramayana. There is a flippant story from a friend who got stuck in a forest and watched Ramlila performed by a tribal group. Rama, Sita, Ravana all got drunk. Rama, Ravana started fighting with Rama saying that Ravana should 'keep' Sita since she lived with him for long time and Ravana saying that Sita was Rama's wife and he should 'take' her back. I wonder whether such can happen in other main stream communities even if the actors got drunk, which is not unusual. In some regions of A,P. people say 'pellani teesuka vacchaanu' ( I brought my wife back) and in some others they say 'pellanni tolukocchanu'(I drove my wife back). There is some perceptual difference there though both seem to be using a term which implies 'property'.
See also Namit Arora' review Joothan: A Dalit's Life. An excerpt:
"Unlike in the dominant Hindu tradition—which Valmiki pointedly denigrates and wants no part of—widow remarriage was even in the 60s an accepted norm in his community. He describes in some detail how their gods were utterly different from Hindu gods and how different their religious rituals were."
"The audience watching the play in Madras was English educated, familiar with Western literature. Many of them frequently were abroad and had a living contact with the Western way of life. The production was a success. But most of the audience entirely missed the element of incest in the play; rather, they chose to ignore it as an unnecessary adjunct to an otherwise perfectly rational tale."
and raises the question "While one can concede the chasm between ‘Indian’ and ‘English’ cultures, is there a similar gap between the peoples of different linguistic groups in India? And, not to put too fine a point on it, is there, then, a cultural, perceptual, gap between speakers of different dialects of an Indian language? ", I think there are, even between different castes in the same region. I wonder whether different castes (or genders) have the same perception of Ramayana. There is a flippant story from a friend who got stuck in a forest and watched Ramlila performed by a tribal group. Rama, Sita, Ravana all got drunk. Rama, Ravana started fighting with Rama saying that Ravana should 'keep' Sita since she lived with him for long time and Ravana saying that Sita was Rama's wife and he should 'take' her back. I wonder whether such can happen in other main stream communities even if the actors got drunk, which is not unusual. In some regions of A,P. people say 'pellani teesuka vacchaanu' ( I brought my wife back) and in some others they say 'pellanni tolukocchanu'(I drove my wife back). There is some perceptual difference there though both seem to be using a term which implies 'property'.
See also Namit Arora' review Joothan: A Dalit's Life. An excerpt:
"Unlike in the dominant Hindu tradition—which Valmiki pointedly denigrates and wants no part of—widow remarriage was even in the 60s an accepted norm in his community. He describes in some detail how their gods were utterly different from Hindu gods and how different their religious rituals were."
Implementation of the Forest Rights Act 2006
Following up Arundhati Roy and Aditya Nigam articles mentioned article I came across this article Redressing 'historic injustice' through Forest Rights Act 2006: A Historical Institutional analysis of contemporary forest rights reform.The act was passed in December, 2006 and the rules have been finalised and issued in January, 2008. From the conclusion of the article:
"The Indian Forest Rights Act has begun to change the institutional ‘playing field’ in terms of undermining the historical basis for state enclosure of forest lands and
puts many aspects of the contemporary forest land administration on the wrong side of the law, therefore requiring reform.
...........
The breakthrough of the Forest Rights Act to an extent implies increasing political
inclusion in democratic processes. However the political processes and compromises necessary for securing reform have inevitably narrowed and diluted the scope of the
reform, in relation to the breadth of the problem.
.................
Firstly implementation of any reform involves effort and commitment to change established procedures and practices. This likely goes against the ‘path of least
resistance’ and so without dynamic leadership, consistent lobbying and substantial
resourcing implementation is inevitably a gradual process of change. Secondly, however, incumbent administrations are likely to have significant divergence of
interests from the interest groups favoured by reform, acutely so in the case of the FRA, and therefore may be actively hostile to full and proper implementation, at
least where discretionary opportunities to do so exist."
Here are a couple of news items about the implementation of the act which confirm some of the fears expressed in the article. From Endless Loop, an interview with documentary "Delayed Justice" maker Shriprakash:
"The purpose of the film was to document how the Act is being implemented. The Act is a radical one in Indian history and the film tackles how it is being implemented in all the regions of Andhra Pradesh (AP). “I chose AP because on the surface it had a pretty good track record,” says Shriprakash. Made in 2009, it is part of an ongoing research on the Act and produced by the University of East Anglia. “I thought AP is one of the few states where there is some governance but I found in the remote areas where I filmed, Marripalam for instance, things are the same,” he says. “If this Act cannot be properly implemented in a state like Andhra I wonder what is happening to it in the rest of the country,” he adds.............
In Marripalam village, which is six km from a road-head into the forest, the head of the FRC ( Forest Rights Committee) is confused about the number of claims from the area. Forest officials caught on hidden camera clearly voice their opinion against the Act and also add that the department is involved in large-scale timber smuggling. "
From a Kafila post:
"Mr. Avinash Kulkarni and Mr. Bharat Pawar, activists of long-standing repute, have been working relentlessly for the rights of the Adivasis of Gujarat, over the past 15 years. Based in Ahwa, Avinash and Bharat have been actively involved on issues pertaining to the empowerment and development of Adivasis, through the Dangi Lok Adhikar Samiti and the Dangi Mazdoor Union, in Dang district. Avinash and Bharat have played a significant role in the struggle for the Forest Rights Act and for people’s rights to use, manage and control forests and forest resources as part of the leadership of Adivasi Mahasabha Gujarat, both in the advocacy and struggle that brought about the Forests Rights Act and the monitoring of its implementation across the Adivasi areas of Gujarat. It is a well known fact that they have always worked for democratic and peaceful means of securing the rights and entitlements of the Adivasis and have stood by non-violent means of working for social change.
In the afternoon of 21st March, 2010, about 2 P.M Avinash was picked up by Dy. S. P. Shri Patil under the pretext of questioning and took him to an undisclosed location, without giving any information to his family members or colleagues as to where they were taking him or giving him the right of contacting his advocate. Bharat Pawar also was detained the same evening in a similar fashion by policemen from the DSP office of Ahwa, Dangs. This is a clear violation of Justice D. K. Basu Guideline of Supreme Court."
"The Indian Forest Rights Act has begun to change the institutional ‘playing field’ in terms of undermining the historical basis for state enclosure of forest lands and
puts many aspects of the contemporary forest land administration on the wrong side of the law, therefore requiring reform.
...........
The breakthrough of the Forest Rights Act to an extent implies increasing political
inclusion in democratic processes. However the political processes and compromises necessary for securing reform have inevitably narrowed and diluted the scope of the
reform, in relation to the breadth of the problem.
.................
Firstly implementation of any reform involves effort and commitment to change established procedures and practices. This likely goes against the ‘path of least
resistance’ and so without dynamic leadership, consistent lobbying and substantial
resourcing implementation is inevitably a gradual process of change. Secondly, however, incumbent administrations are likely to have significant divergence of
interests from the interest groups favoured by reform, acutely so in the case of the FRA, and therefore may be actively hostile to full and proper implementation, at
least where discretionary opportunities to do so exist."
Here are a couple of news items about the implementation of the act which confirm some of the fears expressed in the article. From Endless Loop, an interview with documentary "Delayed Justice" maker Shriprakash:
"The purpose of the film was to document how the Act is being implemented. The Act is a radical one in Indian history and the film tackles how it is being implemented in all the regions of Andhra Pradesh (AP). “I chose AP because on the surface it had a pretty good track record,” says Shriprakash. Made in 2009, it is part of an ongoing research on the Act and produced by the University of East Anglia. “I thought AP is one of the few states where there is some governance but I found in the remote areas where I filmed, Marripalam for instance, things are the same,” he says. “If this Act cannot be properly implemented in a state like Andhra I wonder what is happening to it in the rest of the country,” he adds.............
In Marripalam village, which is six km from a road-head into the forest, the head of the FRC ( Forest Rights Committee) is confused about the number of claims from the area. Forest officials caught on hidden camera clearly voice their opinion against the Act and also add that the department is involved in large-scale timber smuggling. "
From a Kafila post:
"Mr. Avinash Kulkarni and Mr. Bharat Pawar, activists of long-standing repute, have been working relentlessly for the rights of the Adivasis of Gujarat, over the past 15 years. Based in Ahwa, Avinash and Bharat have been actively involved on issues pertaining to the empowerment and development of Adivasis, through the Dangi Lok Adhikar Samiti and the Dangi Mazdoor Union, in Dang district. Avinash and Bharat have played a significant role in the struggle for the Forest Rights Act and for people’s rights to use, manage and control forests and forest resources as part of the leadership of Adivasi Mahasabha Gujarat, both in the advocacy and struggle that brought about the Forests Rights Act and the monitoring of its implementation across the Adivasi areas of Gujarat. It is a well known fact that they have always worked for democratic and peaceful means of securing the rights and entitlements of the Adivasis and have stood by non-violent means of working for social change.
In the afternoon of 21st March, 2010, about 2 P.M Avinash was picked up by Dy. S. P. Shri Patil under the pretext of questioning and took him to an undisclosed location, without giving any information to his family members or colleagues as to where they were taking him or giving him the right of contacting his advocate. Bharat Pawar also was detained the same evening in a similar fashion by policemen from the DSP office of Ahwa, Dangs. This is a clear violation of Justice D. K. Basu Guideline of Supreme Court."
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Progress in low dimensional topology
This message and comments have various links about the progress on some outstanding problems, including the virtual Haken conjecture.
P.S. A couple of the relevant papers:
Immersed almost geodesic surfaces in a closed hyperbolic three manifold by Jeremy Kahn and Vladimir Markovic
Some notes on recent work of Dani Wise by Thomas Koberda
P.S. A couple of the relevant papers:
Immersed almost geodesic surfaces in a closed hyperbolic three manifold by Jeremy Kahn and Vladimir Markovic
Some notes on recent work of Dani Wise by Thomas Koberda
Friday, March 26, 2010
Research blogging awards in science
From Research Blogging Awards 2010:
"Seed Media Group's Research Blogging Awards honor the outstanding bloggers who discuss peer-reviewed research. With over 1,000 blogs registered at ResearchBlogging.org and 10,000 posts about peer-reviewed journal articles collected, it is time to recognize the best of the best.
By February 11, 2010, readers had made over 400 nominations. Then our expert panel of judges painstakingly assessed the nominees to select 5 to 10 finalists in each of 20 categories. Then our registered bloggers chose the winners. Congratulations to the winners and finalists, who represent the best blogging about peer-reviewed research on the Internet!"
The links to finalists and winners are in the post.
Interview with the best blog winner Ed Yong here.
"Seed Media Group's Research Blogging Awards honor the outstanding bloggers who discuss peer-reviewed research. With over 1,000 blogs registered at ResearchBlogging.org and 10,000 posts about peer-reviewed journal articles collected, it is time to recognize the best of the best.
By February 11, 2010, readers had made over 400 nominations. Then our expert panel of judges painstakingly assessed the nominees to select 5 to 10 finalists in each of 20 categories. Then our registered bloggers chose the winners. Congratulations to the winners and finalists, who represent the best blogging about peer-reviewed research on the Internet!"
The links to finalists and winners are in the post.
Interview with the best blog winner Ed Yong here.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Aditya Nigam on the rumours of Maoism
Perhaps an indirect response to Arundhati Roy's article of the previous post, after several strange responses in Kafila. From Rumours of Maoism:
"....it would appear that it is rather the frenzied drive towards development that is breeding Maoist politics.
.......
It is important to understand that, at one level, it is not Maoism that is really at issue here, as both the state and the Maoist-aligned intellectuals would have us believe. It is really Indian democracy that is at issue. I have argued elsewhere that a deep split structures the Indian polity – a split between ’sovereignty’ and the rule of the extraordinary and the impulse of democracy.
The rule of the extraordinary, as evidenced in the rule through laws like AFSPA or UAPA/POTA/TADA on the one hand, and the indiscriminate manner in which violence becomes the primary mode of dealing with social struggles and dissent on the other, now structures our politics. Thus, even while Indian democracy can become the vehicle for the political rise of the dalits and lower castes, the seduction of violence at its peripheries always remains powerful for that is precisely where democracy gives way to a complete lawlessness of the Law."
P.S. related articles:
Endless Loop from The Hindu about the documentary "Delayed Justice" by Shriprakash:
"Delayed Justice” poignantly captures how the Forest Rights Act, in spite of being a radical one on paper, is seriously flawed in implementation… Filmmaker Shriprakash talks about his documentary to Meena Menon. "
Redressing 'historic injustice' through Forest Rights Act 2006: A Historical Institutional analysis of contemporary forest rights reform IPPG (Research Programme Consorttium for improving Institutions for Pro-Poor Growth)Discussion Paper Number twenty-seven.
"....it would appear that it is rather the frenzied drive towards development that is breeding Maoist politics.
.......
It is important to understand that, at one level, it is not Maoism that is really at issue here, as both the state and the Maoist-aligned intellectuals would have us believe. It is really Indian democracy that is at issue. I have argued elsewhere that a deep split structures the Indian polity – a split between ’sovereignty’ and the rule of the extraordinary and the impulse of democracy.
The rule of the extraordinary, as evidenced in the rule through laws like AFSPA or UAPA/POTA/TADA on the one hand, and the indiscriminate manner in which violence becomes the primary mode of dealing with social struggles and dissent on the other, now structures our politics. Thus, even while Indian democracy can become the vehicle for the political rise of the dalits and lower castes, the seduction of violence at its peripheries always remains powerful for that is precisely where democracy gives way to a complete lawlessness of the Law."
P.S. related articles:
Endless Loop from The Hindu about the documentary "Delayed Justice" by Shriprakash:
"Delayed Justice” poignantly captures how the Forest Rights Act, in spite of being a radical one on paper, is seriously flawed in implementation… Filmmaker Shriprakash talks about his documentary to Meena Menon. "
Redressing 'historic injustice' through Forest Rights Act 2006: A Historical Institutional analysis of contemporary forest rights reform IPPG (Research Programme Consorttium for improving Institutions for Pro-Poor Growth)Discussion Paper Number twenty-seven.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Strategic Hamleting
I saw srategic hamleting in Mizoram around 1977 and wondered how it started. Arundhati Roy explains in Walking With The Comrades:
"Unlike the Jan Jagran Abhiyaan, the Salwa Judum was a ground-clearing operation, meant to move people out of their villages into roadside camps, where they could be policed and controlled. In military terms, it’s called Strategic Hamleting. It was devised by General Sir Harold Briggs in 1950 when the British were at war against the communists in Malaya. The Briggs Plan became very popular with the Indian army, which has used it in Nagaland, Mizoram and in Telangana. The BJP chief minister of Chhattisgarh, Raman Singh, announced that as far as his government was concerned, villagers who did not move into the camps would be considered Maoists. So, in Bastar, for an ordinary villager, just staying at home became the equivalent of indulging in dangerous terrorist activity."
P.S. See also Nandini Bedi's comment ( Comment number 207 in the Outlook article)on a different side of Maoists in the same area.
"Unlike the Jan Jagran Abhiyaan, the Salwa Judum was a ground-clearing operation, meant to move people out of their villages into roadside camps, where they could be policed and controlled. In military terms, it’s called Strategic Hamleting. It was devised by General Sir Harold Briggs in 1950 when the British were at war against the communists in Malaya. The Briggs Plan became very popular with the Indian army, which has used it in Nagaland, Mizoram and in Telangana. The BJP chief minister of Chhattisgarh, Raman Singh, announced that as far as his government was concerned, villagers who did not move into the camps would be considered Maoists. So, in Bastar, for an ordinary villager, just staying at home became the equivalent of indulging in dangerous terrorist activity."
P.S. See also Nandini Bedi's comment ( Comment number 207 in the Outlook article)on a different side of Maoists in the same area.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Chillies from my garden
A photo in the photos section. Only after growing chillies, I realized that chillies differ not only in hotness but also in taste. The tastiest from my garden are not very hot and are shown at the left bottom end of the photo. I do not know the names of any of them. Some are bought from nurseries years ago and are now from the seeds they gave and some are grown from the seeds given by friends.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Latent talent abundance
From NY Times review How to Be Brilliant (via 3quarksdaily) of The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You've Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ Is Wrong by David Shenk:
"Shenk doesn’t neglect the take-home point we’re all waiting for, even titling a chapter “How to Be a Genius (or Merely Great).” The answer has less in common with the bromides of motivational speakers than with the old saw about how to get to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice. .............
It’s in this self-help section that two weaknesses in Shenk’s argument become evident. The first is the matter of where the extreme drive and discipline that greatness requires are supposed to come from. .......
Shenk is also evasive about just what restrictions individual biology places on achievement. He is careful to say that we are not born without limits — it’s just that none of us can know what those limits are “before we’ve applied enormous resources and invested vast amounts of time.” He ducks the implication that these limits will, eventually, reveal themselves, and that they will stop most of us well short of Mozart territory. "
I think that the first point is valid but am not too sure of the second. We may fall short of Mozart territory but every bit contributes, provides diversity and finally gives the individual satisfaction or whatever of striving and doing. The point is that we do not know our limitations. Of course, meanwhile there is a simple problem of making a living.
"Shenk doesn’t neglect the take-home point we’re all waiting for, even titling a chapter “How to Be a Genius (or Merely Great).” The answer has less in common with the bromides of motivational speakers than with the old saw about how to get to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice. .............
It’s in this self-help section that two weaknesses in Shenk’s argument become evident. The first is the matter of where the extreme drive and discipline that greatness requires are supposed to come from. .......
Shenk is also evasive about just what restrictions individual biology places on achievement. He is careful to say that we are not born without limits — it’s just that none of us can know what those limits are “before we’ve applied enormous resources and invested vast amounts of time.” He ducks the implication that these limits will, eventually, reveal themselves, and that they will stop most of us well short of Mozart territory. "
I think that the first point is valid but am not too sure of the second. We may fall short of Mozart territory but every bit contributes, provides diversity and finally gives the individual satisfaction or whatever of striving and doing. The point is that we do not know our limitations. Of course, meanwhile there is a simple problem of making a living.
Telugu people in basic research
I got a letter from somebody who found that I was in the School of Mathematics, TIFR and wonders "...very few Telugu people are found at such institutes.Is it any lack of interest shown by telugu people towards basic sciences or any discrimination.But the fact remains that there is something that remains under achieved by telugu people."
The simple answer is that I do not know. I got in to mathematics by accident. I was not of the right age to do Engineering and so my father sent me do mathematics. His reason was that it was easier to score higher marks in mathematics to enter IAS. Then I read "Men of Mathematics" by E.T. Bell and was bitten by the mathematics bug. I also rember Gopal Prasad (from U.P.) telling me that though he was doing well in his studies, his father did not want him to do a degree and wanted to him to go in to family business. Then his father's mother intervened and his father agreed. Out of his nine brothers three became excellent mathematics and and one a theoretical physicist. At one time there were a lot of statisticians from Andhra possibly because Andhra University was one of the first (may be the first) to introduce a masters degree in statistics. So there might have been several family, cultural, economic and chance factors and of course opportunities involved in these developments.
P.s. It is difficult to associate a definite linguistic identity to some of the well known mathematicians like S. Minakshisundaram (about whom I posted earlier) , K.G. Ramanathan (http://matwbn.icm.edu.pl/ksiazki/aa/aa64/aa6411.pdf), Madhav Nori and many others.
The simple answer is that I do not know. I got in to mathematics by accident. I was not of the right age to do Engineering and so my father sent me do mathematics. His reason was that it was easier to score higher marks in mathematics to enter IAS. Then I read "Men of Mathematics" by E.T. Bell and was bitten by the mathematics bug. I also rember Gopal Prasad (from U.P.) telling me that though he was doing well in his studies, his father did not want him to do a degree and wanted to him to go in to family business. Then his father's mother intervened and his father agreed. Out of his nine brothers three became excellent mathematics and and one a theoretical physicist. At one time there were a lot of statisticians from Andhra possibly because Andhra University was one of the first (may be the first) to introduce a masters degree in statistics. So there might have been several family, cultural, economic and chance factors and of course opportunities involved in these developments.
P.s. It is difficult to associate a definite linguistic identity to some of the well known mathematicians like S. Minakshisundaram (about whom I posted earlier) , K.G. Ramanathan (http://matwbn.icm.edu.pl/ksiazki/aa/aa64/aa6411.pdf), Madhav Nori and many others.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Some books that I liked
There have been various lists of Assorted links about influential books. I find that I have not read most of these but started thinking about books I read and keep remembering some parts or themes from them. Since I have not read on any topic systematically and am an off and on reader ( Some I start and cannot finish like books of R.K. Narayan and Salman Rushdie), the books I remember seem to be odd collection and possibly varies from time to time. Here is a first list.
The first books I remember are Telugu books and translations in to Telugu of Indian fiction. Some of these I remember and still read :
1" Gurajada Apparao: Mutyalasaraalu, Kanyasulkam and many other writings.
2)Srisri: Mahaprasthanam,
3) Tripuraneni Gopichand: Asamarthuni Jeevayaatra.
4)Sarat Chandra Chatterjee: Paderdhaabi (Bharati in Telugu), Seshprasna, Mahesh.
5)Premchand: Nirmala, Godan.
6) Various books of Nehru and Gandhi's "My experiments with Truth".
Other books.
1) Tolstoy: War and Peace, supplemented by "The Hedhehog and the Fox". Short stories by Tolstoy.
2) The Brothers Karamazov
3) The Communist Manifesto
4) SCience books like E.T. Bell's "Men of Mathematics", Eddington's "The Nature of the Physical World" and various books of James Jeans, Faraday's 'Experiments with Electricity and Magnetism"
5) Various books of B. Russell , V.S. Naipaul, paricularly " Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy", "The History of Western Philosophy", "A House for Mr. Biswas", "A Million Mutinees Now". Orwell's essays.
Recent (last ten years) readinga:
1) Pankaj Mishra : "Edmund Wilson in Benares", Review of Jhumpa Lahiri's " The Namesake" and "Temptations of the West".
2) Bernard Cohn's Omnibus
4) Cynthia Talbot's "History of Medieval Andhra:
5)Amitav Ghosh:" In an Antique Land"
6) Sheldon PollocK: "The Language of Gods in the World of Men"
7) Velcheru NarayanaRao, David Shulman, Sanjay Subrahmanyan : "Textures of Time"
8) Heilbronner: "The Worldly Philosophers" ,Leo Huberman's "Man's Worldly Goods", Partha Dasgupta's primer on economics.
9) Alice Albinia "The Empires of The Indus"
And books on cognitive dissonance, haphazard mind , evolution like
1) Dan Gilbert: "Stumbling on Happiness"
2) David Linden: "The Accidental Mind"
3)Matt Ridley: Nature Via Nurture,
4) Boyd and Richerson "Not by genes alone"
And blogs like 3quarksdaily, Chhapati Mystery. Still waiting for a book to the cure the disease of trying to understand the world. David Linden's comes closest.
The first books I remember are Telugu books and translations in to Telugu of Indian fiction. Some of these I remember and still read :
1" Gurajada Apparao: Mutyalasaraalu, Kanyasulkam and many other writings.
2)Srisri: Mahaprasthanam,
3) Tripuraneni Gopichand: Asamarthuni Jeevayaatra.
4)Sarat Chandra Chatterjee: Paderdhaabi (Bharati in Telugu), Seshprasna, Mahesh.
5)Premchand: Nirmala, Godan.
6) Various books of Nehru and Gandhi's "My experiments with Truth".
Other books.
1) Tolstoy: War and Peace, supplemented by "The Hedhehog and the Fox". Short stories by Tolstoy.
2) The Brothers Karamazov
3) The Communist Manifesto
4) SCience books like E.T. Bell's "Men of Mathematics", Eddington's "The Nature of the Physical World" and various books of James Jeans, Faraday's 'Experiments with Electricity and Magnetism"
5) Various books of B. Russell , V.S. Naipaul, paricularly " Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy", "The History of Western Philosophy", "A House for Mr. Biswas", "A Million Mutinees Now". Orwell's essays.
Recent (last ten years) readinga:
1) Pankaj Mishra : "Edmund Wilson in Benares", Review of Jhumpa Lahiri's " The Namesake" and "Temptations of the West".
2) Bernard Cohn's Omnibus
4) Cynthia Talbot's "History of Medieval Andhra:
5)Amitav Ghosh:" In an Antique Land"
6) Sheldon PollocK: "The Language of Gods in the World of Men"
7) Velcheru NarayanaRao, David Shulman, Sanjay Subrahmanyan : "Textures of Time"
8) Heilbronner: "The Worldly Philosophers" ,Leo Huberman's "Man's Worldly Goods", Partha Dasgupta's primer on economics.
9) Alice Albinia "The Empires of The Indus"
And books on cognitive dissonance, haphazard mind , evolution like
1) Dan Gilbert: "Stumbling on Happiness"
2) David Linden: "The Accidental Mind"
3)Matt Ridley: Nature Via Nurture,
4) Boyd and Richerson "Not by genes alone"
And blogs like 3quarksdaily, Chhapati Mystery. Still waiting for a book to the cure the disease of trying to understand the world. David Linden's comes closest.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Some trouble with numbers
I have some difficulty understanding the numbers from the various news reports from India about the Women's Reservation Bill.
Radhika Ramaseshan in 'The Telegraph' Quota queries: Everything you wanted to know about the bill:
"Will the sub-quota seats for SC/ST women come into being over and above the current 22 per cent SC/ST quota that is open to both genders?
Yes. This means, of course, that nearly 30 per cent of Lok Sabha and Assembly seats will now practically be reserved for the SC/STs.
So what will be the total quota volume after the women’s bill is passed?
Fifty five per cent — 33 per cent for women plus the existing 22 per cent for SC/STs."
Smita Gupta in 'The Outlook' Now, The Better Third:
Devil's Advocate: Moily on Women's quota says "As for SC/ST women, they will get a third of the seats reserved for SC/STs—from their current 16 in the present Lok Sabha, SC/ST women will be guaranteed at least 42 seats once the bill comes into force. The reason why the RJD, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party and Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party are still demanding a sub-quota for SC/ST women is simple, and no different from that which prevails in any other party—they do not want to share the current SC/ST quota with the women of these communities.....
Total Lok Sabha seats 545*
Seats reserved for SCs/STs: 122
Seats to be reserved for women: 181
Unreserved: 240 "
"Karan Thapar: Look then, minister, at the problems that are occurring. To begin with, the 33 percent legislation that you are legislating come on top of 22.5 [percent] for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and although there is a small overlap between the two, you are still going to end up with 48.5 percent seats in the Lok Sabha reserved one way or the another. In a democracy, is such a high level of reservation of Lok Sabha seats acceptable?
Veerappa Moily: No, you are talking on a flat consideration. Women reservations cut across Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.--
Karan Thapar: --I have taken that into account--
Veerappa Moily: --No. That can't be done.--
Karan Thapar: --I have taken into account that one cuts across the other to end up with 48.5 percent seats reserved.
Veerappa Moily: This will not be an offensive that it cuts across caste, community, creed, anything.
Karan Thapar: I'll tell you why it would be offensive. If you look specifically at the case of non-Scheduled Caste and non-Scheduled Tribe men, which is 78 percent of the male population, they can only now contest for 51.5 percent of the seats. From their point of view, it is grossly unfair."
Assuming that two out of three are correct about one third of the seats in SC/ST quota go to women and the figure of 48.5 perecent in the interview is (approximately) correct, one third of the rest of the 77.5 percent seats are reserved for women and so about 51.5 percent are open seats which everybody can contest. This contradicts the number 240 of unreserved seats given by Smita Gupta. Then Karan Thapar says that 78 perecent of the male population can contest only 51.5 percent of the seats forgetting that 78 percent of the male population is only about 39 perecent of the total population.
May be, correct numbers will emerge.
Radhika Ramaseshan in 'The Telegraph' Quota queries: Everything you wanted to know about the bill:
"Will the sub-quota seats for SC/ST women come into being over and above the current 22 per cent SC/ST quota that is open to both genders?
Yes. This means, of course, that nearly 30 per cent of Lok Sabha and Assembly seats will now practically be reserved for the SC/STs.
So what will be the total quota volume after the women’s bill is passed?
Fifty five per cent — 33 per cent for women plus the existing 22 per cent for SC/STs."
Smita Gupta in 'The Outlook' Now, The Better Third:
Devil's Advocate: Moily on Women's quota says "As for SC/ST women, they will get a third of the seats reserved for SC/STs—from their current 16 in the present Lok Sabha, SC/ST women will be guaranteed at least 42 seats once the bill comes into force. The reason why the RJD, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party and Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party are still demanding a sub-quota for SC/ST women is simple, and no different from that which prevails in any other party—they do not want to share the current SC/ST quota with the women of these communities.....
Total Lok Sabha seats 545*
Seats reserved for SCs/STs: 122
Seats to be reserved for women: 181
Unreserved: 240 "
"Karan Thapar: Look then, minister, at the problems that are occurring. To begin with, the 33 percent legislation that you are legislating come on top of 22.5 [percent] for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and although there is a small overlap between the two, you are still going to end up with 48.5 percent seats in the Lok Sabha reserved one way or the another. In a democracy, is such a high level of reservation of Lok Sabha seats acceptable?
Veerappa Moily: No, you are talking on a flat consideration. Women reservations cut across Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.--
Karan Thapar: --I have taken that into account--
Veerappa Moily: --No. That can't be done.--
Karan Thapar: --I have taken into account that one cuts across the other to end up with 48.5 percent seats reserved.
Veerappa Moily: This will not be an offensive that it cuts across caste, community, creed, anything.
Karan Thapar: I'll tell you why it would be offensive. If you look specifically at the case of non-Scheduled Caste and non-Scheduled Tribe men, which is 78 percent of the male population, they can only now contest for 51.5 percent of the seats. From their point of view, it is grossly unfair."
Assuming that two out of three are correct about one third of the seats in SC/ST quota go to women and the figure of 48.5 perecent in the interview is (approximately) correct, one third of the rest of the 77.5 percent seats are reserved for women and so about 51.5 percent are open seats which everybody can contest. This contradicts the number 240 of unreserved seats given by Smita Gupta. Then Karan Thapar says that 78 perecent of the male population can contest only 51.5 percent of the seats forgetting that 78 percent of the male population is only about 39 perecent of the total population.
May be, correct numbers will emerge.
Another nice article in 3quarksdaily
Rousseau Meets Japanese Primatology by Frans de Waal
(Ava is crying; I have to go)
(Ava is crying; I have to go)
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Chikungunya again
Earlier I wrote about Recovering from Chikungunya which I heard from some friends in Hyderabad. Recently a friend's mother came to Melbourne still suffering from joint pains after a bout of Chikungunya. We got the medicine from Hyderabad ( fourteen doses for a week costing 100 rupees). The family says that she is much better now. The medicine is Ayurvedic ( not Unani as I said ealier) and produced in Punjab. It may be useful for rheumatic pains and may be worth a try.
P.S. See also Gambhir, Nehra thank Rajapaksa for facilitating ayurvedic treatment . It seems that there may be many such worth investigating.
P.S. See also Gambhir, Nehra thank Rajapaksa for facilitating ayurvedic treatment . It seems that there may be many such worth investigating.
A recent paper on religion
From a recent paper The origins of religion : evolved adaptation or by-product? by Ilkka Pyysiäinen1and Marc Hauser:
"Considerable debate has surrounded the question of the origins and evolution of religion. One proposal views religion as an adaptation for cooperation, whereas an alternative proposal views religion as a by-product of evolved, non-religious, cognitive functions. We critically evaluate each approach, explore the link between religion and morality in particular, and argue that recent empirical work in moral psychology provides stronger support for the by-product approach. Specifically, despite differences in religious background, individuals show no difference in the pattern of their moral judgments for unfamiliar moral scenarios. These findings suggest that religion evolved from pre-existing cognitive functions, but that it may then have been subject to selection, creating an adaptively designed system for solving the problem of cooperation."
Discussion of the paper by P.Z. Myers here. Discussion of the paper as well as other theories is in the Seed Magazine article
Why We Believe by Dave Munger. The following appeals to me as it does to the author:
"I’m a little more convinced by Linden’s explanation of religious behavior. He claims it’s a result of the natural tendency of the human cognitive system to fill in gaps. For instance, patients whose brains have been damaged so that their two hemispheres cannot communicate with one another will consistently fabricate elaborate explanations for why one isolated hemisphere acted in a particular way. Similarly, the human visual system works by preserving the illusion that we process an entire scene at once, when in fact we are only able to focus on a tiny portion of our visual field. We simply and subconsciously fill in the rest with our imagination, believing it to be manifest truth. Such may also be the case with religion.
Linden ultimately argues that these beliefs are not incompatible with science, and that science itself is full of beliefs that, like religious beliefs, cannot be proved. I’m quite sure that atheists like Myers would strongly disagree with Linden on this statement. The debate over religion and science—and whether we can study religion scientifically—is likely to continue on for the foreseeable future."
The views of David Linden are apparently expressed in his book 'The Accidental Mind' reviewed here.
A link to Marc Hauser's papers is in the Cognitive Evolution Laboratory site.
"Considerable debate has surrounded the question of the origins and evolution of religion. One proposal views religion as an adaptation for cooperation, whereas an alternative proposal views religion as a by-product of evolved, non-religious, cognitive functions. We critically evaluate each approach, explore the link between religion and morality in particular, and argue that recent empirical work in moral psychology provides stronger support for the by-product approach. Specifically, despite differences in religious background, individuals show no difference in the pattern of their moral judgments for unfamiliar moral scenarios. These findings suggest that religion evolved from pre-existing cognitive functions, but that it may then have been subject to selection, creating an adaptively designed system for solving the problem of cooperation."
Discussion of the paper by P.Z. Myers here. Discussion of the paper as well as other theories is in the Seed Magazine article
Why We Believe by Dave Munger. The following appeals to me as it does to the author:
"I’m a little more convinced by Linden’s explanation of religious behavior. He claims it’s a result of the natural tendency of the human cognitive system to fill in gaps. For instance, patients whose brains have been damaged so that their two hemispheres cannot communicate with one another will consistently fabricate elaborate explanations for why one isolated hemisphere acted in a particular way. Similarly, the human visual system works by preserving the illusion that we process an entire scene at once, when in fact we are only able to focus on a tiny portion of our visual field. We simply and subconsciously fill in the rest with our imagination, believing it to be manifest truth. Such may also be the case with religion.
Linden ultimately argues that these beliefs are not incompatible with science, and that science itself is full of beliefs that, like religious beliefs, cannot be proved. I’m quite sure that atheists like Myers would strongly disagree with Linden on this statement. The debate over religion and science—and whether we can study religion scientifically—is likely to continue on for the foreseeable future."
The views of David Linden are apparently expressed in his book 'The Accidental Mind' reviewed here.
A link to Marc Hauser's papers is in the Cognitive Evolution Laboratory site.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Some links to women quotas
From About Quotas:
"This website reveals that the use of electoral quotas for women is much more widespread than is commonly held. An increasing number of countries are currently introducing various types of gender quotas for public elections: In fact, half of the countries of the world today use some type of electoral quota for their parliament.
Today women constitute 18.4 percent of the members of parliaments around the world. Recently, Rwanda superseded Sweden at the number one in the world in terms of women’s parliamentary representation — 56.3 percent women against Sweden’s 47.3 percent. Rwanda is an example of the new trend to use electoral gender quotas as a fast track to gender balance in politics. Other parliaments, however, still have very few women elected."
A Female Parliamentary Majority in Just One Country: Rwanda
The World’s Best Countries for Women gives links to various women empowerment indices.
From one such in 2007 India ranks 114 among 128 listed, below Qatar (at 109), recent destination of M.F.Husain.
P.S. Some information about proposed Indian quotas here(via Nanoploitan). A quote:
"Does such a quota exist anywhere else in the world?
Yes, in Argentina, Pakistan, Uganda, Bangladesh, Eritrea and Tanzania."
I am not sure what this means in view of the assertion in the first reference about hlf the countries having some sort of quota for women and the case of Rwanda. May be it means over 33 percent. Another interesting point, the big parties and the communist parties are for it whereas some of the parties representing weaker sections are against it.
More comprehensive links in OUTLOOK: Now, The Better Third
"This website reveals that the use of electoral quotas for women is much more widespread than is commonly held. An increasing number of countries are currently introducing various types of gender quotas for public elections: In fact, half of the countries of the world today use some type of electoral quota for their parliament.
Today women constitute 18.4 percent of the members of parliaments around the world. Recently, Rwanda superseded Sweden at the number one in the world in terms of women’s parliamentary representation — 56.3 percent women against Sweden’s 47.3 percent. Rwanda is an example of the new trend to use electoral gender quotas as a fast track to gender balance in politics. Other parliaments, however, still have very few women elected."
A Female Parliamentary Majority in Just One Country: Rwanda
The World’s Best Countries for Women gives links to various women empowerment indices.
From one such in 2007 India ranks 114 among 128 listed, below Qatar (at 109), recent destination of M.F.Husain.
P.S. Some information about proposed Indian quotas here(via Nanoploitan). A quote:
"Does such a quota exist anywhere else in the world?
Yes, in Argentina, Pakistan, Uganda, Bangladesh, Eritrea and Tanzania."
I am not sure what this means in view of the assertion in the first reference about hlf the countries having some sort of quota for women and the case of Rwanda. May be it means over 33 percent. Another interesting point, the big parties and the communist parties are for it whereas some of the parties representing weaker sections are against it.
More comprehensive links in OUTLOOK: Now, The Better Third
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
More resource curse
Abstract of The political resource curse:
"Is the discovery of natural resources necessarily a good thing? Examining data from Brazil, this column finds that a 10% windfall in government revenues leads to a 12 percentage point increase in corruption and a 3 percentage point reduction in the probability that politicians have a degree. The chance that an incumbent is reelected raises by over 4 percentage points."
"Is the discovery of natural resources necessarily a good thing? Examining data from Brazil, this column finds that a 10% windfall in government revenues leads to a 12 percentage point increase in corruption and a 3 percentage point reduction in the probability that politicians have a degree. The chance that an incumbent is reelected raises by over 4 percentage points."
The other Oppenheimer
I have not heard of Frank Friedman Oppenheimer before but resd two articles about him this week A Hero of Science, After All (behind a firewall in NYRB) and
In the Exploratorium's distorted room in MindHacks.
The first is a review of the biography Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens: Frank Oppenheimer and the world he made up by K.C. Cole.Excerpts:
"The physicist Frank Oppenheimer is remembered today, insofar as he is remembered at all, as the younger brother of J. Robert Oppenheimer, leader of the Manhattan Project scientists who built the atomic bomb. Some also recall that Frank was drummed out of academic life for lying about whether he had belonged to the Communist Party yet went on to found the Exploratorium, San Francisco's innovative science museum. But there is far more to his story, as K.C. Cole's able biography makes clear.....
He insisted that the Exploratorium's workshop be located near the entrance and have no walls, so that visitors could see exhibits being built and repaired and "smell the oil from a lathe." "We both agreed that physics was grubby," said Stanford's Wolfgang Panofsky, one of the many major scientists Oppenheimer dragooned into helping him build the Exploratorium:
"It shouldn't be pretty and under glass. The visitor should learn that experiments break, and fail, and you've got to fix it. Shops should be part of the museum. Because that is the way that physics is done. Things break. You fix them. You repair them. You change them. You improve them."
Oppenheimer called the Exploratorium "a kind of woods of natural phenomena," a place where you went more to explore than to have things explained to you. He liked to say that he built it for the same reason that people build parks—because there aren't enough trees around—and insisted that it have no guards and as few rules as possible. Children should be free to run around as they pleased; if they broke something, so what? "The whole point of the Exploratorium," he said,
"is to make it possible for people to feel they can understand the world around them. I think a lot of people have given up with that understanding—and if they give it up with the physical world around them, they give it up with the social and political world as well."
.....
Still, when we consider that Robert Oppenheimer's greatest accomplishment was to build a bomb that just about everybody wants there to be fewer of, while his younger brother advanced techniques in science education that almost everybody wants there to be more of, we may wonder which brother will, in the long run, have the more enduring legacy."
The post in MindHacks has a short description of the Exploratorium's 'distorted room' together with a video and some links : "
The San Francisco Exploratorium is the Mind Hacks of science museums - every exhibit is hands on, giving you the chance to experiment with and experience for yourself scientific principles."
Website of the Exploratorium
In the Exploratorium's distorted room in MindHacks.
The first is a review of the biography Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens: Frank Oppenheimer and the world he made up by K.C. Cole.Excerpts:
"The physicist Frank Oppenheimer is remembered today, insofar as he is remembered at all, as the younger brother of J. Robert Oppenheimer, leader of the Manhattan Project scientists who built the atomic bomb. Some also recall that Frank was drummed out of academic life for lying about whether he had belonged to the Communist Party yet went on to found the Exploratorium, San Francisco's innovative science museum. But there is far more to his story, as K.C. Cole's able biography makes clear.....
He insisted that the Exploratorium's workshop be located near the entrance and have no walls, so that visitors could see exhibits being built and repaired and "smell the oil from a lathe." "We both agreed that physics was grubby," said Stanford's Wolfgang Panofsky, one of the many major scientists Oppenheimer dragooned into helping him build the Exploratorium:
"It shouldn't be pretty and under glass. The visitor should learn that experiments break, and fail, and you've got to fix it. Shops should be part of the museum. Because that is the way that physics is done. Things break. You fix them. You repair them. You change them. You improve them."
Oppenheimer called the Exploratorium "a kind of woods of natural phenomena," a place where you went more to explore than to have things explained to you. He liked to say that he built it for the same reason that people build parks—because there aren't enough trees around—and insisted that it have no guards and as few rules as possible. Children should be free to run around as they pleased; if they broke something, so what? "The whole point of the Exploratorium," he said,
"is to make it possible for people to feel they can understand the world around them. I think a lot of people have given up with that understanding—and if they give it up with the physical world around them, they give it up with the social and political world as well."
.....
Still, when we consider that Robert Oppenheimer's greatest accomplishment was to build a bomb that just about everybody wants there to be fewer of, while his younger brother advanced techniques in science education that almost everybody wants there to be more of, we may wonder which brother will, in the long run, have the more enduring legacy."
The post in MindHacks has a short description of the Exploratorium's 'distorted room' together with a video and some links : "
The San Francisco Exploratorium is the Mind Hacks of science museums - every exhibit is hands on, giving you the chance to experiment with and experience for yourself scientific principles."
Website of the Exploratorium
Monday, March 08, 2010
A small selection from MindHacks
How reliable are fMRI results?:
"A new study has looked at the reliability of fMRI brain scanning results over time, finding that the same experiment will only only be moderately reproducible when conducted at two different times, suggesting that fMRI is much less reliable than most researchers assume."
It links Neurocritics response Depression's Cognitive Downside to Jonah Lehrer's article Depression’s Upside . Excerpts:
"It should be obvious that a transient, slightly sad state is drastically different from a prolonged major depressive episode......The analytical rumination hypothesis even has the potential to be harmful. Belief in the glorious "upside" of their ailment could prevent some severely depressed individuals from getting proper treatment, placing them at greater risk of suicide and other adverse events. Needless to say, such an outcome would be of no evolutionary advantage."
MindHacks is a bit more enthusiastic about Jonah Lehrer's pose Inequality Aversion. Excerpt from the post:
"The lesson, then, is that while we are inequality averse, it's a fragile kind of aversion. Even a hint of meritocracy can erase our guilt."
See also the comments. Hoever, it is not so straight forward. See Does Culture Matter in Economic Behavior? Ultimatum Game Bargaining in Machiguenga of the Peruvian Amazon. Boyd and Richerson have been telling us for some time the importance of culture Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution .
"A new study has looked at the reliability of fMRI brain scanning results over time, finding that the same experiment will only only be moderately reproducible when conducted at two different times, suggesting that fMRI is much less reliable than most researchers assume."
It links Neurocritics response Depression's Cognitive Downside to Jonah Lehrer's article Depression’s Upside . Excerpts:
"It should be obvious that a transient, slightly sad state is drastically different from a prolonged major depressive episode......The analytical rumination hypothesis even has the potential to be harmful. Belief in the glorious "upside" of their ailment could prevent some severely depressed individuals from getting proper treatment, placing them at greater risk of suicide and other adverse events. Needless to say, such an outcome would be of no evolutionary advantage."
MindHacks is a bit more enthusiastic about Jonah Lehrer's pose Inequality Aversion. Excerpt from the post:
"The lesson, then, is that while we are inequality averse, it's a fragile kind of aversion. Even a hint of meritocracy can erase our guilt."
See also the comments. Hoever, it is not so straight forward. See Does Culture Matter in Economic Behavior? Ultimatum Game Bargaining in Machiguenga of the Peruvian Amazon. Boyd and Richerson have been telling us for some time the importance of culture Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution .
Sunday, March 07, 2010
BT saga contiues
Bt cotton ineffective against pest in parts of Gujarat, admits Monsanto
Furore over silencing clause in Indian biotech bill
See also
Interview with Prof. Govindarajan Padmanabhan, former Director of the Indian Institute of Science and Pulls and pressures . More articles from the same issue of Frontline.
Furore over silencing clause in Indian biotech bill
See also
Interview with Prof. Govindarajan Padmanabhan, former Director of the Indian Institute of Science and Pulls and pressures . More articles from the same issue of Frontline.
Friday, March 05, 2010
Primordial memories
From a curious article Echoes of Naipaul-Nadira affair (http://hindunet.org/hvk/articles/0202/186.html):
http://www.hvk.org/2002/0202/186.html
"Iqbal's pride in Brahmin ancestry
Iqbal, a third generation convert from Sapru Pandits of Kashmir had once in a verse challenged a Syed, the highest caste Muslim directly descended from the Prophet's clan, to dare match him in superior philosophic wisdom inherited from Iqbal's Shiva-worshipping Kashmiri Pandit forefathers as follows:
Main asal ka Somnati
Aaba meray Lati aur Manaati
Tu Syed Hashmi ki aulad
Meri khaak kaf-e-Brahmin zaad
Hai philosophy meri rag rag main Poshida hai resh-a-gul main.
�I am the descendant of a family of true worshippers of Somnath (Shiva). My Kashmiri Pandit ancestors were devotees of the gods named Lam and Manaat (whose idols were removed from Kaaba by Prophet Muhammad after conquest of Mecca). You may belong to the highest Muslim caste of Hashmi Syeds. But my mortal body of five elements (panchbhut) has been incarnated in a Brahmin family. Philosophy is, suffused (hidden) in every vein of my body, blossoming like a flower in its every atom.�"
http://www.hvk.org/2002/0202/186.html
"Iqbal's pride in Brahmin ancestry
Iqbal, a third generation convert from Sapru Pandits of Kashmir had once in a verse challenged a Syed, the highest caste Muslim directly descended from the Prophet's clan, to dare match him in superior philosophic wisdom inherited from Iqbal's Shiva-worshipping Kashmiri Pandit forefathers as follows:
Main asal ka Somnati
Aaba meray Lati aur Manaati
Tu Syed Hashmi ki aulad
Meri khaak kaf-e-Brahmin zaad
Hai philosophy meri rag rag main Poshida hai resh-a-gul main.
�I am the descendant of a family of true worshippers of Somnath (Shiva). My Kashmiri Pandit ancestors were devotees of the gods named Lam and Manaat (whose idols were removed from Kaaba by Prophet Muhammad after conquest of Mecca). You may belong to the highest Muslim caste of Hashmi Syeds. But my mortal body of five elements (panchbhut) has been incarnated in a Brahmin family. Philosophy is, suffused (hidden) in every vein of my body, blossoming like a flower in its every atom.�"
Misc. from Telugu blogs and such
Jajimalli makes a trip to Madigagudem నా మాదిగ గూడెం యాత్రా విశేషాలు and finds that in many cases men drink and play cards whereas women take care of themselves, children and also feed husbands. That is when there is some work to do. She enquires about what they do when there is no work, They go the dabha near the road; presumably for prostitution. Jajimalli is skocked and exclaims that they will get all sorts of diseases and die. The reply is that they have to each day to surive.
From Inclusive Growth in Andhra Pradesh: Challenges in Agriculture, Poverty, Social Sector and
Regional Disparities :
"Most of the problems of the farmers relate to credit and debt. The 59th Round Survey of NSS provides information on outstanding debt of farmers. Table 6 provides percentage of indebtedness households and by source of loan. At the all India level around 49% of the farmer hhs. were indebted (col.2 in Table 6). The levels of indebtedness vary from state to state. Andhra Pradesh has the highest percentage of indebtedness (82%) while Meghalaya has the lowest percentage (only 4% are indebted). However, we are more interested in the source of loan because institutional credit is important for farmers.
The percentage of indebted farmer hhs. by source of loan (cols.3 and 4 in Table 6) shows 56% of indebted farmer hhs. obtain loan from formal sources and 64% from
informal sources. The total percentage is more than 100 (120%) because farmers take loans from multiple sources. The shares in formal and informal sources vary from state to state. In Andhra Pradesh, 54% of the indebted farmer hhs obtain loans from formal and 77% from informal sources (total is 130%)"
Many shift to towns to educate their children so they can get jobs. During marriage discussions, they are comments like "The salary is about 5,000 rupees a month but he can make another 20,000 (presumably from bribes)". That must be from govt. jobs. Salaries of private school teachers tend be low; a couple of years ago I have known of teachers getting about 1100 rupees a month. Middle class farmers sometimes sell lands to educate the children. That shifts the problem to another group of farmers, sometimes from lower castes. In any case, there are only so many jobs. This may be the root of some of the current agitations.
In ఆంధ్ర ప్రదేశ్ లో ఆంగ్ల భాష Rehamtullah says that there is a reluctance of including English words in Telugu dictionaries eventhough they are frequently used in everyday conversations and official work.
P.S. From Mosquito Noses and Baby BrainsFindings Log /, seems to be a preliminary report:
"The Basis for Bilingual Babies
A study published last week in Psychological Science looked at the effect a mother’s bilingualism has on her unborn child’s language abilities. The researchers followed three groups of mothers: those who spoke English and Tagalog, those who spoke English and Chinese, and those who only spoke English. Comparing the language abilities of these mothers’ newborns, the researchers found that, just as babies with monolingual mothers are capable at birth of identifying their native language, babies with bilingual mothers are capable of identifying both of their native languages. What is most compelling about this finding is that it suggests we may not be evolutionarily wired to have only one native language. Instead, we may have an innate ability to recognize fundamental distinctions between languages like English and Tagalog. While still in the womb, we could be developing a sensitivity to the rhythm of the words being spoken around us. It makes you wonder what else we learn in there."
Reprt in Sciencedaily: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100216142330.htm
From Inclusive Growth in Andhra Pradesh: Challenges in Agriculture, Poverty, Social Sector and
Regional Disparities :
"Most of the problems of the farmers relate to credit and debt. The 59th Round Survey of NSS provides information on outstanding debt of farmers. Table 6 provides percentage of indebtedness households and by source of loan. At the all India level around 49% of the farmer hhs. were indebted (col.2 in Table 6). The levels of indebtedness vary from state to state. Andhra Pradesh has the highest percentage of indebtedness (82%) while Meghalaya has the lowest percentage (only 4% are indebted). However, we are more interested in the source of loan because institutional credit is important for farmers.
The percentage of indebted farmer hhs. by source of loan (cols.3 and 4 in Table 6) shows 56% of indebted farmer hhs. obtain loan from formal sources and 64% from
informal sources. The total percentage is more than 100 (120%) because farmers take loans from multiple sources. The shares in formal and informal sources vary from state to state. In Andhra Pradesh, 54% of the indebted farmer hhs obtain loans from formal and 77% from informal sources (total is 130%)"
Many shift to towns to educate their children so they can get jobs. During marriage discussions, they are comments like "The salary is about 5,000 rupees a month but he can make another 20,000 (presumably from bribes)". That must be from govt. jobs. Salaries of private school teachers tend be low; a couple of years ago I have known of teachers getting about 1100 rupees a month. Middle class farmers sometimes sell lands to educate the children. That shifts the problem to another group of farmers, sometimes from lower castes. In any case, there are only so many jobs. This may be the root of some of the current agitations.
In ఆంధ్ర ప్రదేశ్ లో ఆంగ్ల భాష Rehamtullah says that there is a reluctance of including English words in Telugu dictionaries eventhough they are frequently used in everyday conversations and official work.
P.S. From Mosquito Noses and Baby BrainsFindings Log /, seems to be a preliminary report:
"The Basis for Bilingual Babies
A study published last week in Psychological Science looked at the effect a mother’s bilingualism has on her unborn child’s language abilities. The researchers followed three groups of mothers: those who spoke English and Tagalog, those who spoke English and Chinese, and those who only spoke English. Comparing the language abilities of these mothers’ newborns, the researchers found that, just as babies with monolingual mothers are capable at birth of identifying their native language, babies with bilingual mothers are capable of identifying both of their native languages. What is most compelling about this finding is that it suggests we may not be evolutionarily wired to have only one native language. Instead, we may have an innate ability to recognize fundamental distinctions between languages like English and Tagalog. While still in the womb, we could be developing a sensitivity to the rhythm of the words being spoken around us. It makes you wonder what else we learn in there."
Reprt in Sciencedaily: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100216142330.htm
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Some articles relevant to Telangana issue
Somebody has kindly sent me this list Telangana: Reading List on Telangana Issue . A few of them that I read before, I found them excellent. I look forward to reading as many of them as possible.
Another innovation for the poor
Is it a bag, is it a toilet? No, it's a Peepoo:
"''People will say, 'It's valuable to me, but well priced,' '' he said. He plans to sell it for about two or three cents - comparable to the cost of an ordinary plastic bag. In the developing world, an estimated 2.6 billion people, or about 40 per cent of the earth's population, do not have access to a toilet, according to United Nations figures.
It is a public health crisis: open defecation can contaminate drinking water, and an estimated 1.5 million children worldwide die yearly from diarrhoea, largely because of poor sanitation and hygiene.
To mitigate this, the UN has a goal to reduce by half the number of people without access to toilets by 2015.
The market for low-cost toilets in the developing world is about a trillion dollars, according to Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organisation, a sanitation advocacy group.
As far as toilets go, ''the people in the middle class have reached saturation in consumption,'' said Sim, a fan of the Peepoo. ''This has created a new need of looking for a new customer.''"
"''People will say, 'It's valuable to me, but well priced,' '' he said. He plans to sell it for about two or three cents - comparable to the cost of an ordinary plastic bag. In the developing world, an estimated 2.6 billion people, or about 40 per cent of the earth's population, do not have access to a toilet, according to United Nations figures.
It is a public health crisis: open defecation can contaminate drinking water, and an estimated 1.5 million children worldwide die yearly from diarrhoea, largely because of poor sanitation and hygiene.
To mitigate this, the UN has a goal to reduce by half the number of people without access to toilets by 2015.
The market for low-cost toilets in the developing world is about a trillion dollars, according to Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organisation, a sanitation advocacy group.
As far as toilets go, ''the people in the middle class have reached saturation in consumption,'' said Sim, a fan of the Peepoo. ''This has created a new need of looking for a new customer.''"
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
On inclusive growth in Andhra Pradesh
Abstract of Inclusive Growth in Andhra Pradesh: Challenges in Agriculture, Poverty, Social Sector and
Regional Disparities by S. Mahendra Dev:
This paper deals with inclusive growth in Andhra Pradesh. Growth may be higher in the last two decades but inclusive growth or equitable development has been missing. It is like running a train with engine only without connecting bogies and people to the engine. According to us, important elements of inclusive growth are: agricultural growth, employment generation and poverty reduction, social sector (health and education) and reduction in regional and other disparities. In this paper, we concentrate on these four elements of inclusive growth.
There seems to be some 'turn around' in the gross state domestic product (GSDP) of A.P. in the last five years. The average annual growth rate was 6.9% during 2002-07 and 7.8% during 2003-07. However, there are problems in the four elements of inclusive growth. Growth of agriculture particularly crop sector is very low. Employment growth in the post-reform period (1993-94 to 2004-05) is the lowest in the country. The recent data shows that literacy levels are also low as compared to many other states. The National Family Health survey (NFHS III) indicate that A.P.'s rank for infant mortality is 11 out of 17 states in the year 2005-06.
Growth rates in district domestic product (DDP) and per capita DDP shows that 7 districts of Telangana (Ranga Reddy, Nizamabad, Khammam, Hyderabad, Mahbubnagar, Warangal and Medak) and 2 districts of North Coastal (Visakhapatnam and Srikakulam) recorded higher growth rates than that of state average. On the other hand, all the districts in South Coastal and Rayalaseema and three districts of Telangana and one district of North Coastal showed lower growth than that of state average. However, one has to see the quality of growth in Telangana and Rayalaseema districts.
We have examined whether A.P. can achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It is
depressing to note that Andhra Pradesh will not meet MDGs in 10 out of 14 indicators. Thus, except in poverty, enrolment of boys and girls and drinking water, A.P. may not achieve millennium development goals in crucial indicators of education, health and sanitation at current rates of progress. The progress in MDGs for some regions and socially deprived sections like SCs and STs has been slower than the state average.
This paper suggests several policies for improving inclusive growth in A.P. Economic
growth may be improving but A.P. is lagging behind in agriculture, employment, human
development and in reducing regional disparities. There is a need to operationalize a plan for achieving inclusive growth during the 11th Five Year Plan period and beyond in Andhra Pradesh. The action plan should cover the priority areas like agriculture, employment and social sectors. It should have a plan for removing economic and social deprivation across all regions. Also it should have a plan for socially disadvantaged sections.
Regional Disparities by S. Mahendra Dev:
This paper deals with inclusive growth in Andhra Pradesh. Growth may be higher in the last two decades but inclusive growth or equitable development has been missing. It is like running a train with engine only without connecting bogies and people to the engine. According to us, important elements of inclusive growth are: agricultural growth, employment generation and poverty reduction, social sector (health and education) and reduction in regional and other disparities. In this paper, we concentrate on these four elements of inclusive growth.
There seems to be some 'turn around' in the gross state domestic product (GSDP) of A.P. in the last five years. The average annual growth rate was 6.9% during 2002-07 and 7.8% during 2003-07. However, there are problems in the four elements of inclusive growth. Growth of agriculture particularly crop sector is very low. Employment growth in the post-reform period (1993-94 to 2004-05) is the lowest in the country. The recent data shows that literacy levels are also low as compared to many other states. The National Family Health survey (NFHS III) indicate that A.P.'s rank for infant mortality is 11 out of 17 states in the year 2005-06.
Growth rates in district domestic product (DDP) and per capita DDP shows that 7 districts of Telangana (Ranga Reddy, Nizamabad, Khammam, Hyderabad, Mahbubnagar, Warangal and Medak) and 2 districts of North Coastal (Visakhapatnam and Srikakulam) recorded higher growth rates than that of state average. On the other hand, all the districts in South Coastal and Rayalaseema and three districts of Telangana and one district of North Coastal showed lower growth than that of state average. However, one has to see the quality of growth in Telangana and Rayalaseema districts.
We have examined whether A.P. can achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It is
depressing to note that Andhra Pradesh will not meet MDGs in 10 out of 14 indicators. Thus, except in poverty, enrolment of boys and girls and drinking water, A.P. may not achieve millennium development goals in crucial indicators of education, health and sanitation at current rates of progress. The progress in MDGs for some regions and socially deprived sections like SCs and STs has been slower than the state average.
This paper suggests several policies for improving inclusive growth in A.P. Economic
growth may be improving but A.P. is lagging behind in agriculture, employment, human
development and in reducing regional disparities. There is a need to operationalize a plan for achieving inclusive growth during the 11th Five Year Plan period and beyond in Andhra Pradesh. The action plan should cover the priority areas like agriculture, employment and social sectors. It should have a plan for removing economic and social deprivation across all regions. Also it should have a plan for socially disadvantaged sections.
The Gaddes of Avanigadda
seem to have spread around the world. I recd. a letter saying that one Ramaprasad Gadde is entitled to about 700 dollars and if does not collect it soon, he will loose it. I do not know who he is. Today I also recd. a family tree of the Gaddes of Avanigadda ( earlier Avaneejapuram, later Avaneepuram) and I do not know most of them. Apparently, there was an attempt in 1914 by Gadde Kotaiah Naidu who migrated to Madras area and made it. He was supposed to have donated about one and half acres for Madras Central Station and built a railway station Anupampattu near his village Pudikuppam. Another Gadde Rangaiah Naidu also migrated to Madras and became the mayor (municilal councillor ?) of Madras. I remember seeing a street in Madras named after him. According to the family tree prepared by Kotaiah Naidu in 1914, the Gaddes of Avanigadda came 394 years before that from 'Gaddevaarigudem' near Nellur. One Potaraju Mukkanna (daskatdar of Avanigadda, I do not know what daskatdar means)visited Kotappakonda nearby for Sivaratri festivals, met some Gaddes, felt that they were good farmers and invited them to come and cultivate temple lands in avanigadda. That is how, approximately, 500 years ago two families of Gaddes (of dhanyala gotram) came to Avanigadda. The early marriage alliances were with Paruchuri, Kota, Yarlagadda and Thumati families. Apart from some who made money and some local bigwigs, There do not seem to be any illustrious Gaddes. The nearest is Avula Sambasiva Rao, A.P High Court Chief Justice and a rationalist writer who is claimed as a nephew of the Gaddes. Now they seem to have spread to all the continents (though I have not heard of any in Africa).
From what I remember most of our families were middle class struggling to send children to college and many of them could not. Many of the current ones seem relatively affluent who can afford foreign vacations, eat in relatively expensive restaurants etc. Compared to them, many from the poorer castes in the same area are still struggling to make a living. Caste connections are probably useful in this acquisition of prosperity and I hope that some of them will try to spread the prosperity to others.
From what I remember most of our families were middle class struggling to send children to college and many of them could not. Many of the current ones seem relatively affluent who can afford foreign vacations, eat in relatively expensive restaurants etc. Compared to them, many from the poorer castes in the same area are still struggling to make a living. Caste connections are probably useful in this acquisition of prosperity and I hope that some of them will try to spread the prosperity to others.
Monday, March 01, 2010
Ethnic affinity ?
Ethnic affinity :
Steve Hsu quotes Robert Reich:
"The essence of ethnic affinity:
“We have never met before, but I instantly know him. One look, one phrase, and I know where he grew up, how he grew up, where he got his drive and his sense of humor. He is New York. He is Jewish. He looks like my uncle Louis, his voice is my uncle Sam. I feel we’ve been together at countless weddings, bar mitzvahs, and funerals. I know his genetic structure. I’m certain that within the last five hundred years—perhaps even more recently—we shared the same ancestor.”
--- Robert Reich, Clinton administration Secretary of Labor, on his first face-to-face meeting with Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan."
May be there is something in it. Yesterday, I had a similar experience in Footscray, one of the suburbs which was much in news about the recent problems of Indian students in Melbourne. We stopped in a small Indian restaurant 'vanakkam India' which specialises in Hyderabad Biryani and dosa(i). There were about twenty young people in the restaurant and I immediately knew that a few in one corner were were from Guntur-Krishna area. As I overheard the conversation, it became more clear though I did not enquire since the young people seemed to be really enjoying their weekend meal. I find similar things when I visit other places. It seems so easy to build some sort of rapport and even 'business' contacts and alliances. May be one should not read too much into these things. Anyway, the good news is : the food is ok, not expensive and there are forty types of dosa from paper dosa to schezwenchilly masaladosa. The restaurant is located at 198, Nicholoson Street, Footscray (phone number: 9687 2233).
Steve Hsu quotes Robert Reich:
"The essence of ethnic affinity:
“We have never met before, but I instantly know him. One look, one phrase, and I know where he grew up, how he grew up, where he got his drive and his sense of humor. He is New York. He is Jewish. He looks like my uncle Louis, his voice is my uncle Sam. I feel we’ve been together at countless weddings, bar mitzvahs, and funerals. I know his genetic structure. I’m certain that within the last five hundred years—perhaps even more recently—we shared the same ancestor.”
--- Robert Reich, Clinton administration Secretary of Labor, on his first face-to-face meeting with Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan."
May be there is something in it. Yesterday, I had a similar experience in Footscray, one of the suburbs which was much in news about the recent problems of Indian students in Melbourne. We stopped in a small Indian restaurant 'vanakkam India' which specialises in Hyderabad Biryani and dosa(i). There were about twenty young people in the restaurant and I immediately knew that a few in one corner were were from Guntur-Krishna area. As I overheard the conversation, it became more clear though I did not enquire since the young people seemed to be really enjoying their weekend meal. I find similar things when I visit other places. It seems so easy to build some sort of rapport and even 'business' contacts and alliances. May be one should not read too much into these things. Anyway, the good news is : the food is ok, not expensive and there are forty types of dosa from paper dosa to schezwenchilly masaladosa. The restaurant is located at 198, Nicholoson Street, Footscray (phone number: 9687 2233).
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Lapata on authenticity in Indian English fiction
From Flyover Country:
"To my mind, the so-called “authenticity debate” is a red-herring. Authenticity is a slippery quality that seems better suited to descriptions of food (“that restaurant serves a truly authentic Paella”) or artisanal crafts (“her wall-hangings are made with authentic Native American wools and dyes”) than for characterization and dialogue in fiction-writing. What seems to me to be at stake, beyond the upper class guilt of his accusers that Chandra cites, or the exile’s distanced perspective that troubles Kumar, is the art and craft of creating a realist narrative. Kumar seems to move just shy of this conclusion when he continues:
"Unlike Chandra, I don’t think there is freedom at hand from the entire question of authenticity, largely because there is no escape from the yearning for the real. The painfully real, the brilliantly, euphorically real, the emphatically real. Either in our lives, or in our writing."
Realism is not reportage, and even in a novel such as Home Products, which is told from the narrative perspective of a reporter, the inclusion of Binod’s journalistic assignments, his reactions to them, his interviews with subjects of his stories is a form of realistic (meaning in the realist mode) writing. In Kumar’s critique of Adiga’s stereotyped portrayals of Biharis in The White Tiger, he is not saying that these portrayals are ‘inauthentic,’ he is saying that in their obvious cartoonishness, they are unsuccessful (and in their de-humanizing stereotyping, also offensive) in the art of realism.
Writing realism set in India is a special challenge, and the arguments about authenticity as well as ongoing discussions about whether or not an author has ‘captured’ (as a snapshot) a particular slice of life successfully seem more to do with the endless obstacles in using one language spoken by a relative few to create the illusion of even just one small corner of a society that is deeply multi-layered in terms of language, culture and class. Like a bas-relief sculptor, an author must make us feel that we are seeing multiple dimensions while using what amounts to a possibly limiting single layer of language. Even if words from Indian languages are thrown in, there are limits to how much this can be done before the narration gets bogged down under the weight of too many words from other languages.
I don’t wish to end on a note that implies that one kind of story-telling, or one kind of aesthetic, is objectively better than another. Reading literature is not running a science experiment and ultimately we will read whatever books subjectively please us. On the other hand, a novel like Home Products is not only an excellent read, but it also avoids reifying the dehumanizing and possibly dangerous stereotypes about an under-privileged area, while simultaneously opening up for readers all around the world the complexities of the every day lives of people living in the flyover country that is Bihar. If you like that sort of thing."
"To my mind, the so-called “authenticity debate” is a red-herring. Authenticity is a slippery quality that seems better suited to descriptions of food (“that restaurant serves a truly authentic Paella”) or artisanal crafts (“her wall-hangings are made with authentic Native American wools and dyes”) than for characterization and dialogue in fiction-writing. What seems to me to be at stake, beyond the upper class guilt of his accusers that Chandra cites, or the exile’s distanced perspective that troubles Kumar, is the art and craft of creating a realist narrative. Kumar seems to move just shy of this conclusion when he continues:
"Unlike Chandra, I don’t think there is freedom at hand from the entire question of authenticity, largely because there is no escape from the yearning for the real. The painfully real, the brilliantly, euphorically real, the emphatically real. Either in our lives, or in our writing."
Realism is not reportage, and even in a novel such as Home Products, which is told from the narrative perspective of a reporter, the inclusion of Binod’s journalistic assignments, his reactions to them, his interviews with subjects of his stories is a form of realistic (meaning in the realist mode) writing. In Kumar’s critique of Adiga’s stereotyped portrayals of Biharis in The White Tiger, he is not saying that these portrayals are ‘inauthentic,’ he is saying that in their obvious cartoonishness, they are unsuccessful (and in their de-humanizing stereotyping, also offensive) in the art of realism.
Writing realism set in India is a special challenge, and the arguments about authenticity as well as ongoing discussions about whether or not an author has ‘captured’ (as a snapshot) a particular slice of life successfully seem more to do with the endless obstacles in using one language spoken by a relative few to create the illusion of even just one small corner of a society that is deeply multi-layered in terms of language, culture and class. Like a bas-relief sculptor, an author must make us feel that we are seeing multiple dimensions while using what amounts to a possibly limiting single layer of language. Even if words from Indian languages are thrown in, there are limits to how much this can be done before the narration gets bogged down under the weight of too many words from other languages.
I don’t wish to end on a note that implies that one kind of story-telling, or one kind of aesthetic, is objectively better than another. Reading literature is not running a science experiment and ultimately we will read whatever books subjectively please us. On the other hand, a novel like Home Products is not only an excellent read, but it also avoids reifying the dehumanizing and possibly dangerous stereotypes about an under-privileged area, while simultaneously opening up for readers all around the world the complexities of the every day lives of people living in the flyover country that is Bihar. If you like that sort of thing."
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Another urban legend?
Variants of this appear in several places including newspapers Discover hockey's answer to Pele:
"The people of Vienna paid tribute to Chand by erecting a statue of him. The statue has four hands and four sticks to signify his awesome ball."
But I have not seen a single photo of the supposed statue of Dhyan Chand.
"The people of Vienna paid tribute to Chand by erecting a statue of him. The statue has four hands and four sticks to signify his awesome ball."
But I have not seen a single photo of the supposed statue of Dhyan Chand.
Subbaramaiah Minakshisundaram
is considered one of the best Indian mathematicians of the last century. His ancestors migrated from Andhra to Kerala, he grew up in Kerala and Madras and worked in Andhra university through most of his working career. Through one of his granddaughters, I came to know of this website started by his family members:
Dr. S. Minakshisundaram
There are several articles about his work by and his life by scientists and his family members. There are also interesting photographs and copies of some correspondence about his stay in Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Like many who studied in Madras in the late thirties and later, there seems to be some influence of Fr. C. Racine . His contemporary Komaravolu Chandrasekharan might have played a role in his visit to Princeton. I remember reading somewhere that G.Kallianpur visited Guntur and stayed for a month or so to learn about summability from Minakshi.
Dr. S. Minakshisundaram
There are several articles about his work by and his life by scientists and his family members. There are also interesting photographs and copies of some correspondence about his stay in Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Like many who studied in Madras in the late thirties and later, there seems to be some influence of Fr. C. Racine . His contemporary Komaravolu Chandrasekharan might have played a role in his visit to Princeton. I remember reading somewhere that G.Kallianpur visited Guntur and stayed for a month or so to learn about summability from Minakshi.
Veeven
Veeven started in వీవెనుడి టెక్కునిక్కులు a new series of posts మీ రోజువారి సమాచార/విషయ వినిమయంలో తెలుగు శాతం ఎంత?,
రోజువారీ సమాచార వినియోగంలో తెలుగు — నా ఆకాంక్షలు with the aims:
"రెండు రోజుల క్రితం నేను మొదలుపెట్టిన తెలుగు సమాచార వినియోగంపై అభిప్రాయ సేకరణలో అడిగిన ప్రశ్నలు ఇవీ:
మీ సమాచారం వినియోగంలో తెలుగు శాతం పెరగాలనుకుంటున్నారా? లేదా, మీ తెలుగు వినియోగ ధోరణితో (నెమ్మదిగా అయినా పెరుగుతుందనే అనుకుంటున్నాను) మీరు సంతృప్తిగా ఉన్నారా?
ఇంకా మీరు తెలుగులో ఏయే సమాచారం/విషయాల్ని (ప్రత్యేకించి జాలంలో) చూడాలనుకుంటున్నారు? మరో రకంగా, మీకు తెలుగులో దొరకని సమాచారం ఏముంది?
వాటికి సంబంధించి నా జవాబులూ ఆకాంక్షలు ఇవీ:
నేను బ్లాగులోకంలో అడుగుపెట్టినప్పటికీ ఇప్పటికీ జాలంలో తెలుగు సమాచారం చాలా పెరిగింది. పెరుగుదల రేటు కూడా గణణీయంగానే ఉంది. ఏదైనా విషయం గురించి తెలుసుకోవాల్సివచ్చినప్పుడు, నేను ముందుగా తెలుగులో గూగిలిస్తున్నాను. మొన్నామధ్య హెపటైటిస్ బీ గురించి తెసుకుందామని సందేహిస్తూనే (అనగా, నేరుగా ఇంగ్లీషు వికీపీడియాకి వెళ్ళకుండా) తెలుగులో వెతికాను. నాక్కావలసిన సమాచారం తెవికీలో దొరికింది. కానీ ఇంకా చాలా విషయాల్లో తెలుగులో సమాచారం అందుబాటులో ఉండాలనుకుంటున్నాను. వివిధ రంగాల వారీగా చూద్దాం:...."
Veeven is the originator of lekhini and initiated several e-efforts in Telugu, many of them of aggregator nature which allow diversity of opinion and efforts. In my opinion Veeven is doing much more for increasing the effective uses of Telugu than many arbiters of taste and government officials. Have a look. Some of the efforts in which Veeven participates are mentioned on the right in the above blog.
రోజువారీ సమాచార వినియోగంలో తెలుగు — నా ఆకాంక్షలు with the aims:
"రెండు రోజుల క్రితం నేను మొదలుపెట్టిన తెలుగు సమాచార వినియోగంపై అభిప్రాయ సేకరణలో అడిగిన ప్రశ్నలు ఇవీ:
మీ సమాచారం వినియోగంలో తెలుగు శాతం పెరగాలనుకుంటున్నారా? లేదా, మీ తెలుగు వినియోగ ధోరణితో (నెమ్మదిగా అయినా పెరుగుతుందనే అనుకుంటున్నాను) మీరు సంతృప్తిగా ఉన్నారా?
ఇంకా మీరు తెలుగులో ఏయే సమాచారం/విషయాల్ని (ప్రత్యేకించి జాలంలో) చూడాలనుకుంటున్నారు? మరో రకంగా, మీకు తెలుగులో దొరకని సమాచారం ఏముంది?
వాటికి సంబంధించి నా జవాబులూ ఆకాంక్షలు ఇవీ:
నేను బ్లాగులోకంలో అడుగుపెట్టినప్పటికీ ఇప్పటికీ జాలంలో తెలుగు సమాచారం చాలా పెరిగింది. పెరుగుదల రేటు కూడా గణణీయంగానే ఉంది. ఏదైనా విషయం గురించి తెలుసుకోవాల్సివచ్చినప్పుడు, నేను ముందుగా తెలుగులో గూగిలిస్తున్నాను. మొన్నామధ్య హెపటైటిస్ బీ గురించి తెసుకుందామని సందేహిస్తూనే (అనగా, నేరుగా ఇంగ్లీషు వికీపీడియాకి వెళ్ళకుండా) తెలుగులో వెతికాను. నాక్కావలసిన సమాచారం తెవికీలో దొరికింది. కానీ ఇంకా చాలా విషయాల్లో తెలుగులో సమాచారం అందుబాటులో ఉండాలనుకుంటున్నాను. వివిధ రంగాల వారీగా చూద్దాం:...."
Veeven is the originator of lekhini and initiated several e-efforts in Telugu, many of them of aggregator nature which allow diversity of opinion and efforts. In my opinion Veeven is doing much more for increasing the effective uses of Telugu than many arbiters of taste and government officials. Have a look. Some of the efforts in which Veeven participates are mentioned on the right in the above blog.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Links...
Martin Wolf is Very Gloomy, and With Good Reason
from Naked Capitalism. Excerpt:
"The implicit conclusion of what Wolf and Johnson write is that we going forward need dirigiste economies and national and regional scale of types and magnitude that we have not seen before (or at least not in a very long time). In addition, the dirigisme would have to be closely co-ordinated globally."
Laura Freschi in Paying for school on $2 a day reminds us of James Tooley's work which has been discussed by several people before, for example, in India Together:School choice looms for poor students . Some seem to be using Tooley's book to push for privatization of primary education but there seem to be various choices and or a mixture of choices. From the comment by Chris Prottas in Aid Watch:
"I agree with the general enthusiasm for independent schools accountable to parents. I do have two points to be made based on the experience of private/non-profit schools in India. First, local market research (series of qualitative interviews) has shown that the “market” for education is not highly functional. Many parents equate quality with price, and will send their child to the most expensive school they can. Otherwise, they might judge a school’s quality by the amount of English the child speaks at home. While parents do realize that public schools are inferior to private schools, parents do not have good tools for sorting between different private school options. Presumably, the market would be more robust and cost-competitive if there were cost-neutral school performance (or student improvement) metrics accessible for the parents: it would certainly be better than now.
Second, while private education has the potential to greatly help many in India, I disagree with Mr Tooley that it is a solution for India’s poorest. 70% of India’s population has a per capita daily income of $ 1/ day or less. For many of these families, even school fees above 30-50 Rs a month are too much.
In order to reach these students, either NGOs or the government needs to provide schooling free of charge (either directly or through vouchers).
Private schools are truly important. However, poor countries should not be seen as markets for private-school advocates to exploit, but rather as societies with variable abilities to pay that may or may not be able to pay for an education. Private school have a place, but the emphasis should be on increasing school choice, school autonomy, and information on performance while ensuring access."
There seem to new projects being studied by James Tooley himself in colloboration with Sugata Mitra (of 'Hole in the Wall' fame) and others:
Competition, Innovation and Change in Education Markets for the Poor in Developing Countries. A preliminary article of a different nature on distance learning in post primary education here.
from Naked Capitalism. Excerpt:
"The implicit conclusion of what Wolf and Johnson write is that we going forward need dirigiste economies and national and regional scale of types and magnitude that we have not seen before (or at least not in a very long time). In addition, the dirigisme would have to be closely co-ordinated globally."
Laura Freschi in Paying for school on $2 a day reminds us of James Tooley's work which has been discussed by several people before, for example, in India Together:School choice looms for poor students . Some seem to be using Tooley's book to push for privatization of primary education but there seem to be various choices and or a mixture of choices. From the comment by Chris Prottas in Aid Watch:
"I agree with the general enthusiasm for independent schools accountable to parents. I do have two points to be made based on the experience of private/non-profit schools in India. First, local market research (series of qualitative interviews) has shown that the “market” for education is not highly functional. Many parents equate quality with price, and will send their child to the most expensive school they can. Otherwise, they might judge a school’s quality by the amount of English the child speaks at home. While parents do realize that public schools are inferior to private schools, parents do not have good tools for sorting between different private school options. Presumably, the market would be more robust and cost-competitive if there were cost-neutral school performance (or student improvement) metrics accessible for the parents: it would certainly be better than now.
Second, while private education has the potential to greatly help many in India, I disagree with Mr Tooley that it is a solution for India’s poorest. 70% of India’s population has a per capita daily income of $ 1/ day or less. For many of these families, even school fees above 30-50 Rs a month are too much.
In order to reach these students, either NGOs or the government needs to provide schooling free of charge (either directly or through vouchers).
Private schools are truly important. However, poor countries should not be seen as markets for private-school advocates to exploit, but rather as societies with variable abilities to pay that may or may not be able to pay for an education. Private school have a place, but the emphasis should be on increasing school choice, school autonomy, and information on performance while ensuring access."
There seem to new projects being studied by James Tooley himself in colloboration with Sugata Mitra (of 'Hole in the Wall' fame) and others:
Competition, Innovation and Change in Education Markets for the Poor in Developing Countries. A preliminary article of a different nature on distance learning in post primary education here.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Getting the hang of the game after 20 years
From 'The Australian'Sachin Tendulkar first to score one-day international double ton
"Is it possible that after 20 years in international cricket, Tendulkar, the darling of Mumbai and scorer of more than 30,000 runs for India, is just getting the hang of the game? Since entering his third decade at the top in November, Tendulkar has a batting average of more than 90 from 13 international matches."
More reactions here
"Is it possible that after 20 years in international cricket, Tendulkar, the darling of Mumbai and scorer of more than 30,000 runs for India, is just getting the hang of the game? Since entering his third decade at the top in November, Tendulkar has a batting average of more than 90 from 13 international matches."
More reactions here
Monday, February 22, 2010
Fact and fiction
Lapata says in Particularities of Partition II "But fiction does not fill the gaps in the historical record, good historiography does."
Chandra Latha says in ఇనుప గజ్జెల తల్లి 3 "Let us now examine the realistic nature of these discourses.
We understand that in fiction , it is not possible to narrate the reality as in formal or scientific language The language used in the narrative is not transparent that can carry a single meaning , as compare to that of scientific discourse. In the other words, language used in reality fiction is not neutral but polyphonic. This plurality helps both writer and the reader for whom language is more than ‘just a medium of thought’ .
Story is art of fiction .Art of narration.
Can the reality fiction over come the hyperbole of the creativity? Can transparent language make fiction into reality ? Can we agree that the narrative , with usage of plural, complex and aesthetic language or simply ,literary language ,be classified as reality fiction ?
This has been discussed in detail by literary critics.
” It does not mean the all writing is absolutely transparent, but rather that the narration , the dominant discourse , is able to establish itself as a truth .The narration does not appear to be the voice of an author ,its source appears to be a true reality which speaks.”" And much more.
Whatever Historiography is, as a layman, I would like to get some feel in a limited amount of time for what happened as a guide to what might happen, and perhaps as a guide to action. Possibly academic studies, with their emphasis on clear meanings, categorization, reduction etc loose some of the power that language shows in fiction. The story Mahesh by Sarat Chandra Chatterjee, conveys so much about the practices of caste, religion,about drought and the existing extractive systems during certain period in parts of India which seems to be to be difficult to covey in any academic study of similar length. Of course then the problem is to recognize such fiction. It is possible that these days very few read this story of Sarat.
Chandra Latha says in ఇనుప గజ్జెల తల్లి 3 "Let us now examine the realistic nature of these discourses.
We understand that in fiction , it is not possible to narrate the reality as in formal or scientific language The language used in the narrative is not transparent that can carry a single meaning , as compare to that of scientific discourse. In the other words, language used in reality fiction is not neutral but polyphonic. This plurality helps both writer and the reader for whom language is more than ‘just a medium of thought’ .
Story is art of fiction .Art of narration.
Can the reality fiction over come the hyperbole of the creativity? Can transparent language make fiction into reality ? Can we agree that the narrative , with usage of plural, complex and aesthetic language or simply ,literary language ,be classified as reality fiction ?
This has been discussed in detail by literary critics.
” It does not mean the all writing is absolutely transparent, but rather that the narration , the dominant discourse , is able to establish itself as a truth .The narration does not appear to be the voice of an author ,its source appears to be a true reality which speaks.”" And much more.
Whatever Historiography is, as a layman, I would like to get some feel in a limited amount of time for what happened as a guide to what might happen, and perhaps as a guide to action. Possibly academic studies, with their emphasis on clear meanings, categorization, reduction etc loose some of the power that language shows in fiction. The story Mahesh by Sarat Chandra Chatterjee, conveys so much about the practices of caste, religion,about drought and the existing extractive systems during certain period in parts of India which seems to be to be difficult to covey in any academic study of similar length. Of course then the problem is to recognize such fiction. It is possible that these days very few read this story of Sarat.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Book Recommendations from 'The Bayesian Heresy '
The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses
Natural Experiments of History edited by Jarred Diamond and James Robinson. Both have links to free chapters.
There is also a link David Warsh's comments on the book with special emphasis on What Can Be Done for Haiti?
Natural Experiments of History edited by Jarred Diamond and James Robinson. Both have links to free chapters.
There is also a link David Warsh's comments on the book with special emphasis on What Can Be Done for Haiti?
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Two stories
Translation of Mahesh by Sarat Chandra Chatterjee
Toba Tek Singh
by Sadat Hasan Manto (via Particularities of Partition Literature I by Lapata)
P.S. From Particularities of Partition II by Lapata:
"Manto’s Siya Hashiye and Yashpal’s Jhutha Sac may in some ways capture the experience of pain or cope with the tragedy of the Partition, but it is also important to look at the imperatives of the individual narratives and those of their authorial and literary contexts. Much of the current movement toward scholarship on the Partition and writing about Partition literature is driven by the very real urgency of the political and social climate of communalism today in South Asia. Many authors write of the shocking repetition of patterns of violence which have spurred on their work: Godra, the Babri Masjid, the 1974 anti-Sikh violence, all of these inform our understanding of the legacy of Partition today. But as we seek to inform, remember and educate about the Partition, we should also try not to lose the specificity of individual voices. Partition literature does not bear witness to the events of 1947 in the same way as eyewitness accounts, journalism and oral histories. While “Toba Tek Singh” and other works of fiction may be an excellent way to open up discussion in the classroom, they are not shortcuts to grasping the trauma of displacement and violence during the Partition.
Major historical events lend themselves to fictional narratives precisely because massive population displacements caused by war or other disasters open up spaces in which to experiment with rearranging social hierarchies and imagining unexpected combinations of characters. Such events also bring out the extremes of human behavior, both the valorous and the base. The American Civil War, the Holocaust and the French Revolution, just to name a few, have all inspired a rich and various literature as well. This is not to impugn the motivations or the importance of the growing body of literature set during the Partition, or to imply that the works of Yashpal, for example, should be seen in the same category as some potboiler Civil War romance. But fiction does not fill the gaps in the historical record, good historiography does."
Toba Tek Singh
by Sadat Hasan Manto (via Particularities of Partition Literature I by Lapata)
P.S. From Particularities of Partition II by Lapata:
"Manto’s Siya Hashiye and Yashpal’s Jhutha Sac may in some ways capture the experience of pain or cope with the tragedy of the Partition, but it is also important to look at the imperatives of the individual narratives and those of their authorial and literary contexts. Much of the current movement toward scholarship on the Partition and writing about Partition literature is driven by the very real urgency of the political and social climate of communalism today in South Asia. Many authors write of the shocking repetition of patterns of violence which have spurred on their work: Godra, the Babri Masjid, the 1974 anti-Sikh violence, all of these inform our understanding of the legacy of Partition today. But as we seek to inform, remember and educate about the Partition, we should also try not to lose the specificity of individual voices. Partition literature does not bear witness to the events of 1947 in the same way as eyewitness accounts, journalism and oral histories. While “Toba Tek Singh” and other works of fiction may be an excellent way to open up discussion in the classroom, they are not shortcuts to grasping the trauma of displacement and violence during the Partition.
Major historical events lend themselves to fictional narratives precisely because massive population displacements caused by war or other disasters open up spaces in which to experiment with rearranging social hierarchies and imagining unexpected combinations of characters. Such events also bring out the extremes of human behavior, both the valorous and the base. The American Civil War, the Holocaust and the French Revolution, just to name a few, have all inspired a rich and various literature as well. This is not to impugn the motivations or the importance of the growing body of literature set during the Partition, or to imply that the works of Yashpal, for example, should be seen in the same category as some potboiler Civil War romance. But fiction does not fill the gaps in the historical record, good historiography does."
On smell
From The sweet smell of morality
How scent can shape our thinking (via 3quarksdaily):
"The idea that a smell can affect something as complex as ethical behavior seems surprising, not least because smell has long been seen as a “lower” sense, playing on our emotions and instincts while our reason and judgment operate on another plane. But research increasingly shows that smell doesn’t just affect how we feel: It affects how we think, in ways that are just beginning to be understood."
I remember that some of the books published by MIR in the 50's had some strong unpleasant smell and so I never read the collected works of Marx and Engels. Perhaps one can experiment with children's books to make study more appetizing.
How scent can shape our thinking (via 3quarksdaily):
"The idea that a smell can affect something as complex as ethical behavior seems surprising, not least because smell has long been seen as a “lower” sense, playing on our emotions and instincts while our reason and judgment operate on another plane. But research increasingly shows that smell doesn’t just affect how we feel: It affects how we think, in ways that are just beginning to be understood."
I remember that some of the books published by MIR in the 50's had some strong unpleasant smell and so I never read the collected works of Marx and Engels. Perhaps one can experiment with children's books to make study more appetizing.
Friday, February 19, 2010
David Brin on climate change
From The Real Struggle Behind Climate Change - A War on Expertise:
"-- all the major recommended actions to deal with Global Climate Change are things we should be doing, anyway."
P.S. David Brin has also comments on the decline of civilizations and mentions Toynbee's view:
"...Arnold Toynbee, who I believe got it right. After studying dozens of past cycles, he declared that civilizations thrive when they invest faith and hope in their creative minorities. When they see the future as a destination and willingly adapt new ways to reach it.
Toynbee -- after surveying many tales of rise and fall -- concluded that cultures start to fail when those creative minorities become distrusted, or are starved of capital, or left out in the cold. Or when they are shunned by those in power."
"-- all the major recommended actions to deal with Global Climate Change are things we should be doing, anyway."
P.S. David Brin has also comments on the decline of civilizations and mentions Toynbee's view:
"...Arnold Toynbee, who I believe got it right. After studying dozens of past cycles, he declared that civilizations thrive when they invest faith and hope in their creative minorities. When they see the future as a destination and willingly adapt new ways to reach it.
Toynbee -- after surveying many tales of rise and fall -- concluded that cultures start to fail when those creative minorities become distrusted, or are starved of capital, or left out in the cold. Or when they are shunned by those in power."
Thursday, February 18, 2010
తెలుగు మీద చిన్న చిన్న ఆలోచనలు
నా సంగతి. నాకు భాషలను గురించి పెద్దగా తెలియదు; నలుగురితితో మాట్లాడుకోటానికి, నాకు అవసరమయినవి రాసులోటానికీ, ఏరాయి ఐతే ఏమి అన్నట్లుగా ఉంటూ ఉండేవాడిని. చేసేది లెక్కలు కాబట్టి ఆంగ్లమే ఎక్కువ అలవాటయ్యింది. కాని చిన్నప్పుడు తెలుగు మీడియంలో చదువుకున్నాము. వయస్సు ఎక్కువైన తరువాత ఉన్నట్లుండి చిన్నప్పుడు విన్న తెలుగు పాటలు గుర్తుకు రావటం మొదలు పెత్తయి. ఇవి ఎక్కువగా తెలుగుపదాలు ఉన్న పాటలు (ఆరుద్ర, మల్లాది సినిమా పాటలు, వేమన, కొన్ని చిన్న పిల్లల పాటలు, జానపద గేయాలు..). ఛిన్నఫ్ఫుడు బట్టీపట్టిన పద్యాలు కూడా కొన్ని గుర్తుకుకు వచ్చినయ్యి; మను చరిత్రలో 'అటజని కాంచె భూమీసురుడు..'. కాని తరువాత అంతా సంస్క్రుతంలో ఉంది. అర్థం కాదు. కొన్ని అన్నమాచార్యులు పదాలు, శ్రీనాధుడి చాటు పద్యాలు తేలికగా ఉన్నయ్యి కాని మిగతా క్లాసిక్స్ చాలా వరకు సంస్క్రుత మయం. అర్థం కావు. శ్రీశ్రీ కూడా కొన్ని పద్యాల్లో శబ్దాలు వింటానికి బాగుంటయ్యి కాని అర్థం కావు. విశ్వనాథ చెప్పవసరం లేదు (చెలియలికట్ట లాంటివి తప్పిస్తే). ఈమధ్య ఒక మాదిగ పాతల పుస్తకం చదివితే మళ్ళి బాగానే అర్థమయింది.ఎక్కడో ప్రజలు మట్లాడే భాషకూ పేరున్న రచయతలు రాసే భాషకు తేడాలు వచ్చినట్లున్నాయ్యి.
నా సంగతి వదిలేయండి. కొంతమంది తాము మాములుగా వాడే పదాలకి తెలుగు మాటలు ఏమిటా అని 'తెలుగుపదం' అనే సైటులో ప్రయత్నిస్తున్నారు. వీళ్లు బాగా చదువుకున్నవాళ్ళు తెలుగుకి సంబధించని ఉద్యోగాలలో ఉన్నవాళ్ళు. మరి ఎందుకో తెలుగుమీద ప్రేమ ఉన్నామని చెప్పేవాళ్ళు చాలామంది అలాంటి సైట్లు జోలికి రారు. ఈతెలియని వాళ్ళతో చర్చలు చేస్తే కాలం పాడు ఔతందనేమో ?
ఈచదువుకున్న ఎలైట్ల మాట వదిలేసి, మాములు రైతులు కూలీల విషయం ఆలోచించండి. ప్రొద్దుటినుంచీ బ్యాంకులు, ఆఫీసులు, కోర్టులు, అప్ప్లికేషనులు, ఫోనులు అన్నిట్లో కొద్దో గొప్పో ఆంగ్లం కావాలిసి వస్తుంది. ప్రభుత్వం ఏమి చేయపొతూందో తెలిసుకోవాలంటే పేపర్లు చూడాలి. ఇందులో చాలా పదాలు ఆంగ్లంలో ఉంటాయి. బూదరాజు రాధా క్రిష్నలాంటి వారు కష్టపడి కొంతవరకు పదాలు సేకరించారు. కాని అంత త్రుప్తికరంగాలేవు. తరువాత కొన్ని బ్లాగులొలోనే (తెలుగుపదం, తెలుగుథీసిస్, తాడేపల్లి వగైరా) ప్రయత్నాలు కనపడుతున్నవి. ఇంతకీ చెప్పొచిందేంటటే ప్రజలు రోజూ మాట్లడే, అవసరమైన భాషకూ, రచయితల భాషకూ విచ్చేదనము ఉంది. కొంతవరకూ బ్లాగులు వంతెనలాగ ఉపయోపడుతున్నవి. పండితులేమి చేస్తున్నారో నాకు తెలియదు.
పూర్వకాలంలో పరిస్తితులు ఎలా ఉండేవో? నన్నయకు పుర్వం లీలగా కుర్క్యాల శాసనాలవల్ల తెలుస్తున్నవి. తరువాత రాయలనాటి వైభవం, నాయకులనాటి సంగతులు విన్నాము. రాజుల ఆదరణ లేక భాష వ్రుద్ధి కాలేంటారు. కాని ప్రజలు ఏదొ ఒక రకం తెలుగు మాట్లాడూనే ఉన్నారు. అది చాలాబాగుందని విదేశీయులు నిఘంటువులు వగైరా రాయటం మొదలెట్టారు. ఉర్దూ, ఆంగ్లం లాంటి భాషలనుంచి చాల మాటలు తెలుగులోకి వచ్చాయి. నేననుకోటం అందరకూ ఇతర భాషలు పూర్తిగా నేర్చుకొవటం కష్టం. కాని కొంచెం కొంచెం మారుతూ తెలుగు నిలుస్తూనే ఉంది. గోరాటి వెంకన్న లాంటివారు వస్తూనే ఉంటారు. తెలుగు ఎలాగోలా కొనసాగుతూనే ఉంటుంది.
నా సంగతి వదిలేయండి. కొంతమంది తాము మాములుగా వాడే పదాలకి తెలుగు మాటలు ఏమిటా అని 'తెలుగుపదం' అనే సైటులో ప్రయత్నిస్తున్నారు. వీళ్లు బాగా చదువుకున్నవాళ్ళు తెలుగుకి సంబధించని ఉద్యోగాలలో ఉన్నవాళ్ళు. మరి ఎందుకో తెలుగుమీద ప్రేమ ఉన్నామని చెప్పేవాళ్ళు చాలామంది అలాంటి సైట్లు జోలికి రారు. ఈతెలియని వాళ్ళతో చర్చలు చేస్తే కాలం పాడు ఔతందనేమో ?
ఈచదువుకున్న ఎలైట్ల మాట వదిలేసి, మాములు రైతులు కూలీల విషయం ఆలోచించండి. ప్రొద్దుటినుంచీ బ్యాంకులు, ఆఫీసులు, కోర్టులు, అప్ప్లికేషనులు, ఫోనులు అన్నిట్లో కొద్దో గొప్పో ఆంగ్లం కావాలిసి వస్తుంది. ప్రభుత్వం ఏమి చేయపొతూందో తెలిసుకోవాలంటే పేపర్లు చూడాలి. ఇందులో చాలా పదాలు ఆంగ్లంలో ఉంటాయి. బూదరాజు రాధా క్రిష్నలాంటి వారు కష్టపడి కొంతవరకు పదాలు సేకరించారు. కాని అంత త్రుప్తికరంగాలేవు. తరువాత కొన్ని బ్లాగులొలోనే (తెలుగుపదం, తెలుగుథీసిస్, తాడేపల్లి వగైరా) ప్రయత్నాలు కనపడుతున్నవి. ఇంతకీ చెప్పొచిందేంటటే ప్రజలు రోజూ మాట్లడే, అవసరమైన భాషకూ, రచయితల భాషకూ విచ్చేదనము ఉంది. కొంతవరకూ బ్లాగులు వంతెనలాగ ఉపయోపడుతున్నవి. పండితులేమి చేస్తున్నారో నాకు తెలియదు.
పూర్వకాలంలో పరిస్తితులు ఎలా ఉండేవో? నన్నయకు పుర్వం లీలగా కుర్క్యాల శాసనాలవల్ల తెలుస్తున్నవి. తరువాత రాయలనాటి వైభవం, నాయకులనాటి సంగతులు విన్నాము. రాజుల ఆదరణ లేక భాష వ్రుద్ధి కాలేంటారు. కాని ప్రజలు ఏదొ ఒక రకం తెలుగు మాట్లాడూనే ఉన్నారు. అది చాలాబాగుందని విదేశీయులు నిఘంటువులు వగైరా రాయటం మొదలెట్టారు. ఉర్దూ, ఆంగ్లం లాంటి భాషలనుంచి చాల మాటలు తెలుగులోకి వచ్చాయి. నేననుకోటం అందరకూ ఇతర భాషలు పూర్తిగా నేర్చుకొవటం కష్టం. కాని కొంచెం కొంచెం మారుతూ తెలుగు నిలుస్తూనే ఉంది. గోరాటి వెంకన్న లాంటివారు వస్తూనే ఉంటారు. తెలుగు ఎలాగోలా కొనసాగుతూనే ఉంటుంది.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Interesting papers on colonial legacies
The first "History, Institutions and Economic Performance: The Legacy of Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India" by A. Banerjee and L. Iyer available from
Abhijit Banerjee's Home Page.
Summary from a review paper The Importance of History
for Economic Development by Nathan Nunn (section 2.2):
"Like Dell (2008), Banerjee & Iyer (2005) also analyze the long-term effects of colonial institutions, but they examine differences in revenue collection institutions across districts within colonial India. The authors compared districts where revenue was historically collected directly by British officials against districts where revenue was collected by native landlords. They found that, after independence, districts with nonlandlord systems have higher levels of health, education, and agricultural technology investments relative to those levels in landlord systems.
....
Although the analysis of Banerjee & Iyer(2005)and Dell(2008)provide evidence of the long-term impacts of initial colonial institutions, the studies do differ from that by Acemoglu et al. (2001) because the transmission mechanism is not the persistence of these initially implemented institutions. In Dell (2008), the hypothesized mechanism is the concentration of wealth and power and the resulting provision of public goods. Similarly, in the analysis by Banerjee & Iyer the transmission mechanism is not through the persistence of these initially implemented institutions, because the differences in colonial land revenue collection systems no longer exist."
The other work mentioned is "The Persistent Effects of Peru's Mining Mita" by Melissa Dell which is also available online ( but the later discussion towards the end of section 2.3 by Nunn of Dell's work does not seem to be correct)http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/3144 or http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/news/forums/index/cageseminars/dell.pdf
Abhijit Banerjee's Home Page.
Summary from a review paper The Importance of History
for Economic Development by Nathan Nunn (section 2.2):
"Like Dell (2008), Banerjee & Iyer (2005) also analyze the long-term effects of colonial institutions, but they examine differences in revenue collection institutions across districts within colonial India. The authors compared districts where revenue was historically collected directly by British officials against districts where revenue was collected by native landlords. They found that, after independence, districts with nonlandlord systems have higher levels of health, education, and agricultural technology investments relative to those levels in landlord systems.
....
Although the analysis of Banerjee & Iyer(2005)and Dell(2008)provide evidence of the long-term impacts of initial colonial institutions, the studies do differ from that by Acemoglu et al. (2001) because the transmission mechanism is not the persistence of these initially implemented institutions. In Dell (2008), the hypothesized mechanism is the concentration of wealth and power and the resulting provision of public goods. Similarly, in the analysis by Banerjee & Iyer the transmission mechanism is not through the persistence of these initially implemented institutions, because the differences in colonial land revenue collection systems no longer exist."
The other work mentioned is "The Persistent Effects of Peru's Mining Mita" by Melissa Dell which is also available online ( but the later discussion towards the end of section 2.3 by Nunn of Dell's work does not seem to be correct)http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/3144 or http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/news/forums/index/cageseminars/dell.pdf
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Kuffir discusses data
in these learned purveyors of bazaar gossip. From a comment in the post:
"Given that amongst the signatories there are knowledgeable social scientists, doubt if they have cooked up the figures."
We have from a recent post Problems with data "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."
See also Can You Trust Census Data? By JUSTIN WOLFERS
After the recent economic crisis, we have respected economists, some of them Nobel prize winners, still arguing about causes and remedies. I feel that all should be quesioned and analyzed. One of the good things emerging out of the current debate in A.P. is the discussion about data and its connection with the ground realities. I hope that these discussions will continue.
"Given that amongst the signatories there are knowledgeable social scientists, doubt if they have cooked up the figures."
We have from a recent post Problems with data "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."
See also Can You Trust Census Data? By JUSTIN WOLFERS
After the recent economic crisis, we have respected economists, some of them Nobel prize winners, still arguing about causes and remedies. I feel that all should be quesioned and analyzed. One of the good things emerging out of the current debate in A.P. is the discussion about data and its connection with the ground realities. I hope that these discussions will continue.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Some posts on BT brinjal
A Brinjal Brouhaha By Sujata in 'An Accidental Blogger'. Several detailed posts in Telugu are in Chandra Latha's Telugu blog మడత పేజీ . Two of the posts have many details in English:
మీరు ఏమి చేయ గలరు? has excerpts of a letter from from S.Panini of Emory University School of Medicine,Atlanta, Georgia. He also discusses BTcorn.
The second వారేమన్నారంటే has excerpts of a letter from Dr.Sitaramayya Ari, Professor of Chemistry,Oakland University. He also discusses BT soyabeen.
మీరు ఏమి చేయ గలరు? has excerpts of a letter from from S.Panini of Emory University School of Medicine,Atlanta, Georgia. He also discusses BTcorn.
The second వారేమన్నారంటే has excerpts of a letter from Dr.Sitaramayya Ari, Professor of Chemistry,Oakland University. He also discusses BT soyabeen.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Madhukar Shukla on three maps of India
and Chidambaram's offer of Suspending all memorandums of understanding with mining companies in a bid to persuade Maiosts to lay down their weapons Mao-ists vs. MoU-ists .
25 mm rain in a couple of hours and this can happen
City streets flooded, commuter delays as storms sweep through city . Our trains also fail if the temoerature goes to mid thirties or above. I remember a day with 22 inches of rain, most of it in the night, in Bombay.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Indian students, racism and a debate spiralling out of control
Says Paul Austin in The Age Opinion Column:
"John Brumby has lost control of the violence-against-Indians debate. That's scary for a premier who likes to be in control. Scarier still that it's happening in an election year.
Brumby wants to play down the idea that the recent spate of bashings and stabbings of Indians is evidence that racism is on the rise in Victoria.
He adopts this position for three main reasons. First, and fundamentally, he thinks the idea is wrong and repugnant.
But there are also financial and political considerations.
The multibillion-dollar international student industry is a big earner for Victoria - a state not blessed with mineral resources like Queensland and Western Australia - and, naturally, Brumby wants to protect it.
And the political interest of any premier is best served if their community has a self-image as a safe, welcoming, tolerant place.
The problem for Brumby is that a growing list of people are refusing to adopt his sotto voce approach. The danger for the Premier is that as more people speak out about the problem of racism in Victoria, and accuse the government of an inadequate response, he will be seen as unrealistic and isolated."
Meanwhile Police keep lid on stats for Indians :
"POLICE Chief Commissioner Simon Overland has admitted there are ''limitations'' in the statistics he and Premier John Brumby have been relying on to inform the public about Indians as victims of crime - and he won't release them.
He said information about a victim's race was based on a subjective assessment of their appearance - and Indians were included in the broad category of ''south Asian appearance''. Such a category could also include those from countries other than India such as Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
Mr Overland is refusing to release the statistics on the grounds that they are ''subjective and open to interpretation''."
Update (Feb.13th)
The politics of violence by Sushi Das
Brumby, Baillieu clash over state's crime level
From Victoria in a state of denial
"Professor Marginson, who has studied similar targeting of foreign students in other countries, said Victoria had been far slower to recognise the race issue than was New Zealand when it faced attacks on Chinese students and the US with students of Middle Eastern origin.
Mr Overland said recently that the police had been aware of the unusually high level of attacks on Indians for the past two years. However, it was only when the issue received widespread coverage in the middle of last year that the Brumby government and the police launched a series of visible initiatives to try to stop the attacks. Since then, measures have been steadily introduced, ranging from sentencing laws for hate crimes, a 24-hour student care service and a targeting of hot spots. Yet Mr Brumby has not given Mr Overland what he needs most to combat the problem: a surge in police numbers to enable officers to be stationed permanently at night at train stations, on trains and in the streets of poorer suburbs where the attacks are taking place. Mr Brumby last year announced he would lift police numbers by 120 officers, barely enough to combat the general rise in violent crime across Melbourne, much less crimes specifically directed against Indian students.
"The chief commissioner is clearly not getting the resources to manage the situation," Mr Gupta said. "I think this will come back to haunt the government at the next election.""
"John Brumby has lost control of the violence-against-Indians debate. That's scary for a premier who likes to be in control. Scarier still that it's happening in an election year.
Brumby wants to play down the idea that the recent spate of bashings and stabbings of Indians is evidence that racism is on the rise in Victoria.
He adopts this position for three main reasons. First, and fundamentally, he thinks the idea is wrong and repugnant.
But there are also financial and political considerations.
The multibillion-dollar international student industry is a big earner for Victoria - a state not blessed with mineral resources like Queensland and Western Australia - and, naturally, Brumby wants to protect it.
And the political interest of any premier is best served if their community has a self-image as a safe, welcoming, tolerant place.
The problem for Brumby is that a growing list of people are refusing to adopt his sotto voce approach. The danger for the Premier is that as more people speak out about the problem of racism in Victoria, and accuse the government of an inadequate response, he will be seen as unrealistic and isolated."
Meanwhile Police keep lid on stats for Indians :
"POLICE Chief Commissioner Simon Overland has admitted there are ''limitations'' in the statistics he and Premier John Brumby have been relying on to inform the public about Indians as victims of crime - and he won't release them.
He said information about a victim's race was based on a subjective assessment of their appearance - and Indians were included in the broad category of ''south Asian appearance''. Such a category could also include those from countries other than India such as Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
Mr Overland is refusing to release the statistics on the grounds that they are ''subjective and open to interpretation''."
Update (Feb.13th)
The politics of violence by Sushi Das
Brumby, Baillieu clash over state's crime level
From Victoria in a state of denial
"Professor Marginson, who has studied similar targeting of foreign students in other countries, said Victoria had been far slower to recognise the race issue than was New Zealand when it faced attacks on Chinese students and the US with students of Middle Eastern origin.
Mr Overland said recently that the police had been aware of the unusually high level of attacks on Indians for the past two years. However, it was only when the issue received widespread coverage in the middle of last year that the Brumby government and the police launched a series of visible initiatives to try to stop the attacks. Since then, measures have been steadily introduced, ranging from sentencing laws for hate crimes, a 24-hour student care service and a targeting of hot spots. Yet Mr Brumby has not given Mr Overland what he needs most to combat the problem: a surge in police numbers to enable officers to be stationed permanently at night at train stations, on trains and in the streets of poorer suburbs where the attacks are taking place. Mr Brumby last year announced he would lift police numbers by 120 officers, barely enough to combat the general rise in violent crime across Melbourne, much less crimes specifically directed against Indian students.
"The chief commissioner is clearly not getting the resources to manage the situation," Mr Gupta said. "I think this will come back to haunt the government at the next election.""
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Abdul Qadir's Australian sojourn
Abbamania from Cricinfo. ( Missed it until it is linked in Chapati Mystery). Excerpt:
""Great," Larkin thought, "I'm off the mark and I've seen his wrong'un. I'll be right from here."
Qadir's second ball was faster; wicketkeeper Micky Butera rocked back instinctively on his heels. It was also wider. "Very close to the edge of the pitch," says Larkin. It was too wide to make mayhem, so wide that the umpire cleared his throat and gave a preliminary twitch of his arms. Larkin flung his own arms high, his bat even higher - "to allow the ball to travel through harmlessly".
Instead the ball dipped - swooped, more like - as if by remote control. It landed, veered headlong in the wrong direction, then hit middle stump, like Shane Warne dumbfounding Mike Gatting all over again. In reverse.
"Abdul spun this wrong'un one and a half feet," gasps Butera. "Sounds ridiculous when you say it."
"I would play that ball the same way a hundred times out of a hundred," believes Larkin.
"There was an element of luck in the Warne ball," Cook points out. "Whereas Abdul's was absolutely contrived."
The only person not surprised was the contriver himself. Deep down, Qadir knew that by rights he should have been in Peshawar that Saturday, playing for his country not a suburb. His Carlton team-mates knew that he knew it. He did not need to say so; though sometimes he said it anyway. There was and remained only one wonder of Pakistani spin."
P.S. A couple of friends liked the above piece by Christian Ryan:
One of them writes that Sunil Gavaskar got his only test wicket by imitatating Abdul Qadir:
"It was during a Bangalore Test in 84 coming to a pointless and boring draw; Gavaskar was given the ball 15 minutes before the end and he bowled the first ball with a 40 yard runup and it was a wide. For the second ball he mimicked the peculiar dancing gait of Abdul Qadir coming in to bowl and probably in his efforts to
not burst out laughing Zaheer missed an innocuous and straight ball and was bowled."
Another writes "Christian Ryan seems to be in the finest tradition of writers on cricket and the story of Abdul Qadir is splendid."
My response to the second:
"There seem to be some Australian writers who come up with pieces like that. There are usually not prolific, usually going about some business or other, then come up with such pieces and do not really seem to care about building a career as writers. I read a book "Roads to Xanadu" about China by John Merson who apparently teaches history in some college. Lot of the time he takes part in some local environmental activities and probably a family man. The book is not publicized, it is not available any more. He might have written one or two more books but instead of career pursues life I guess. I remember another writer Matt Price who writes about politics and suddenly come up with pieces like that about cricket and does not even bother to make books out of them."
I learnt that Matt Price passed away in 2007 and there is a published book of some of his writings.
""Great," Larkin thought, "I'm off the mark and I've seen his wrong'un. I'll be right from here."
Qadir's second ball was faster; wicketkeeper Micky Butera rocked back instinctively on his heels. It was also wider. "Very close to the edge of the pitch," says Larkin. It was too wide to make mayhem, so wide that the umpire cleared his throat and gave a preliminary twitch of his arms. Larkin flung his own arms high, his bat even higher - "to allow the ball to travel through harmlessly".
Instead the ball dipped - swooped, more like - as if by remote control. It landed, veered headlong in the wrong direction, then hit middle stump, like Shane Warne dumbfounding Mike Gatting all over again. In reverse.
"Abdul spun this wrong'un one and a half feet," gasps Butera. "Sounds ridiculous when you say it."
"I would play that ball the same way a hundred times out of a hundred," believes Larkin.
"There was an element of luck in the Warne ball," Cook points out. "Whereas Abdul's was absolutely contrived."
The only person not surprised was the contriver himself. Deep down, Qadir knew that by rights he should have been in Peshawar that Saturday, playing for his country not a suburb. His Carlton team-mates knew that he knew it. He did not need to say so; though sometimes he said it anyway. There was and remained only one wonder of Pakistani spin."
P.S. A couple of friends liked the above piece by Christian Ryan:
One of them writes that Sunil Gavaskar got his only test wicket by imitatating Abdul Qadir:
"It was during a Bangalore Test in 84 coming to a pointless and boring draw; Gavaskar was given the ball 15 minutes before the end and he bowled the first ball with a 40 yard runup and it was a wide. For the second ball he mimicked the peculiar dancing gait of Abdul Qadir coming in to bowl and probably in his efforts to
not burst out laughing Zaheer missed an innocuous and straight ball and was bowled."
Another writes "Christian Ryan seems to be in the finest tradition of writers on cricket and the story of Abdul Qadir is splendid."
My response to the second:
"There seem to be some Australian writers who come up with pieces like that. There are usually not prolific, usually going about some business or other, then come up with such pieces and do not really seem to care about building a career as writers. I read a book "Roads to Xanadu" about China by John Merson who apparently teaches history in some college. Lot of the time he takes part in some local environmental activities and probably a family man. The book is not publicized, it is not available any more. He might have written one or two more books but instead of career pursues life I guess. I remember another writer Matt Price who writes about politics and suddenly come up with pieces like that about cricket and does not even bother to make books out of them."
I learnt that Matt Price passed away in 2007 and there is a published book of some of his writings.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Dirac too
seems to be a victim of his intellectual prejudices. From the review Silent Quantum Genius By Freeman Dyson
"The doctrine of mathematical beauty is itself beautiful, and there is no doubt that Dirac believed it to be true. But it does not agree well with the historical facts. During the wonder years when he was making his great discoveries, his thinking was more concerned with practical details and less with abstract beauty. And during the long second half of Dirac's life, when he was preaching the doctrine of mathematical beauty, it did not lead him to important new discoveries.
During Dirac's middle years, the grand edifice of modern particle physics was growing up around him, with discoveries of new particles and new symmetries bursting out in rapid succession. Nature was screaming at him to pay attention to her revelations. But his love for abstract beauty told him to stay aloof. He ignored the new discoveries of particles and symmetries, because he judged them to be too complicated, not beautiful enough to be true. Instead of listening to Nature, he was telling Nature how to behave. As a result, the second half of his life was comparatively sterile."
"The doctrine of mathematical beauty is itself beautiful, and there is no doubt that Dirac believed it to be true. But it does not agree well with the historical facts. During the wonder years when he was making his great discoveries, his thinking was more concerned with practical details and less with abstract beauty. And during the long second half of Dirac's life, when he was preaching the doctrine of mathematical beauty, it did not lead him to important new discoveries.
During Dirac's middle years, the grand edifice of modern particle physics was growing up around him, with discoveries of new particles and new symmetries bursting out in rapid succession. Nature was screaming at him to pay attention to her revelations. But his love for abstract beauty told him to stay aloof. He ignored the new discoveries of particles and symmetries, because he judged them to be too complicated, not beautiful enough to be true. Instead of listening to Nature, he was telling Nature how to behave. As a result, the second half of his life was comparatively sterile."
Sunday, February 07, 2010
Ellen Langer on aging
BBC article Can the power of thought stop you ageing? . A review of her book Counterclockwise
Let's Live Forever!, with a link to the first chapter. Her website and blog.
Let's Live Forever!, with a link to the first chapter. Her website and blog.
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Regional disturbances and internet
In a 2001 article Regional Disturbances, Richard asks:
"Americans get anorexia. Nigerians get 'brain fag.' Malaysians suffer from 'hyperstartle syndrome.' How culturally specific is mental illness?"
He goes on to discuss a Malay malady latah among other maladies and says:
"There is one thing that remains constant for all latah sufferers. Upon becoming afflicted, latahs become permanently sensitive to startling. It is a lifetime condition. Scholars have only encountered a few latahs who have overcome their symptoms. Even if latah is spread primarily by culture, then, it is a potent virus.
Indeed, the power of culture to propagate mental illness has become a subject of increasing fascination in the West. In recent years, scholars have seen mysterious maladies proliferate in a way that echoes the spread of latah. Multiple-personality disorder, for example, flourished among white, middle-class American women in the 1980's. And more recently, American and European psychologists have begun tracking apotemnophilia -- a new, disturbing condition in which sufferers desire to amputate one of their own limbs. The Internet, medical anthropologists say, is helping spread the condition globally. As with latah, there is no cure. "
I came across latah in an post by Justin Smith who has been promisiing to write about Indian Philosophy(?). There are beginnings in one post What Is 'Non-Western' Philosophy?
"Americans get anorexia. Nigerians get 'brain fag.' Malaysians suffer from 'hyperstartle syndrome.' How culturally specific is mental illness?"
He goes on to discuss a Malay malady latah among other maladies and says:
"There is one thing that remains constant for all latah sufferers. Upon becoming afflicted, latahs become permanently sensitive to startling. It is a lifetime condition. Scholars have only encountered a few latahs who have overcome their symptoms. Even if latah is spread primarily by culture, then, it is a potent virus.
Indeed, the power of culture to propagate mental illness has become a subject of increasing fascination in the West. In recent years, scholars have seen mysterious maladies proliferate in a way that echoes the spread of latah. Multiple-personality disorder, for example, flourished among white, middle-class American women in the 1980's. And more recently, American and European psychologists have begun tracking apotemnophilia -- a new, disturbing condition in which sufferers desire to amputate one of their own limbs. The Internet, medical anthropologists say, is helping spread the condition globally. As with latah, there is no cure. "
I came across latah in an post by Justin Smith who has been promisiing to write about Indian Philosophy(?). There are beginnings in one post What Is 'Non-Western' Philosophy?
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Sam Bowles
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
"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
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)