I have interacted a little with various NGOs during the last couple of days at * మానవతా మిత్రమండలి - 5 వ సమావేశం B. C. T. / Bhagavathula chharitable Trust - ( యలమంచిలి దగ్గరే వున్న వెంకటాపురం గ్రామం ). This is in Visakhapatnam district. The activists from here, Vijayanagaram and Srikakulam districts; there are also some from Vijawada and Ongole. The impression I get is that these organisations, some old and some new, are in the process of developing self sustainable communities of various sizes based on cooperating groups of people. The first requirement seems food security. Then various other activities like providing employment within or near the community, communal activities like music, dances. The basic aim seems to be to develop self sustainable communities with outsiders playing some role with funds, stimulating activities both cultural and economic emphasising on cooperation. There seems to be emphasis on ’proper’ education from preprimary stage. They also try to use children to influence parents and community in activities like farming, group dynamics, stopping open defecation, drinking etc. For some reason, these seem more prevalent in this area, perhaps due to large number of tribals. With emergence of new groups, lot of them apolitical and prepared to work with government and other aid agencies, during the last few years gives some hope. But I am a new observer and have not really understood the range and scope of these activities.
Monday, December 11, 2017
Sunday, December 03, 2017
Steven Mithen reviews ‘Against the grain’ by James Scott
interesting review Why did we start farming?
“His account of the deep past doesn’t purport to be definitive, but it is surely more accurate than the one we’re used to, and it implicitly exposes the flaws in contemporary political ideas that ultimately rest on a narrative of human progress and on the ideal of the city/nation-state..... Why hunter-gatherers passed up their affluent lifestyle in favour of far more onerous and risky existences growing a narrow range of crops and managing livestock is a fundamental question to which we have no good answer. Was it by choice, or was that first sowing of seed a trap, locking people into a seasonal cycle of planting and harvesting from which we have been unable to escape?
......
In Scott’s picture, the barbarians and the city-states were entirely dependent on each other for their existence. They rose and fell together: the Huns and the Romans; the ‘Sea People’ and the Egyptians. And for the vast part of recorded history the majority of people lived in the barbarian world. Scott’s view is that the barbarian Golden Age ended as recently as four hundred years ago, when the power of the state finally became overwhelming, partly due to the invention of durable gunpowder. Which is, of course, a means to make fire sparked by flint – a return to the ‘moment’ 400,000 years earlier which marked the beginning not of the steady rise of civilisation, but rather the muddled and messy affair that is the human past.“
“His account of the deep past doesn’t purport to be definitive, but it is surely more accurate than the one we’re used to, and it implicitly exposes the flaws in contemporary political ideas that ultimately rest on a narrative of human progress and on the ideal of the city/nation-state..... Why hunter-gatherers passed up their affluent lifestyle in favour of far more onerous and risky existences growing a narrow range of crops and managing livestock is a fundamental question to which we have no good answer. Was it by choice, or was that first sowing of seed a trap, locking people into a seasonal cycle of planting and harvesting from which we have been unable to escape?
......
In Scott’s picture, the barbarians and the city-states were entirely dependent on each other for their existence. They rose and fell together: the Huns and the Romans; the ‘Sea People’ and the Egyptians. And for the vast part of recorded history the majority of people lived in the barbarian world. Scott’s view is that the barbarian Golden Age ended as recently as four hundred years ago, when the power of the state finally became overwhelming, partly due to the invention of durable gunpowder. Which is, of course, a means to make fire sparked by flint – a return to the ‘moment’ 400,000 years earlier which marked the beginning not of the steady rise of civilisation, but rather the muddled and messy affair that is the human past.“
Thursday, November 23, 2017
A marriage organised by APMAS
From November 20: APMAS (Andhra Pradesh Mahil Abhyudaya Samiti)organised the marriage. The family are quarry workers from Tamilnadu. The girl’s family spends some time in Tamilnadu, particularly the girl’s mother. The girl has a degree B.C.A and the boy has middle school education. They married in a temple without informing the parents and came to live with the boy. When she was around eight months pregnant, the parents offered to take the girl home from delivery and aborted the baby. They tried to marry the girl off. The girl escaped again and APMAS organised the marriage today. Meanwhile the mother registered a kidnap case against the boy and there is pressure from the police in her village to come back. It is not clear what will happen if they go back. The boy is from Kondtruthur and the girl from Dindivanam which are 120 kilometres apart. The case is now with Dindivanam police. I think that it is still a complaint and not registered yet. The fear is that if they do not go back soon, it may be registered. Meanwhile, the police here are trying to call her mother’s brother to warn him but so far, he refused to come.
Update: It seems to be reaching a happy conclusion with the help of DSP who seems to have taken the police officer who was giving trouble to task. The name of the pair Sathiyavelu and Sandhiya, may be approximate. I attended the marriage and am looking forward to their arrival here.
Aarogyasri
I was talking to a friend in Hyderabad who is currently undergoing radiation and chemotherapy treatments for cancer. She was very upbeat comparing the corresponding costs in US and here. According to a knowledgeable relative of hers, there is hardly any difference in the treatments and it costs less than one tenth in India. When she goes for treatment in Hyderabad, she gets to interact with other patients and she is very pleased that person with monthly salary of 11,000 rupees is essentially getting free treatment under Aarogyasri scheme. I do not know how it works in other states.
Here is the Wikipedia article Aarogyasri
Here is the Wikipedia article Aarogyasri
A dedicated lady
Aruna Tella has several formal and informal positions related to women’s welfare, short stay home and long ago women’s self help groups before they became organised. More than a few thousandwomen passed through these organisations, perhaps in the range of 3-5 thousand, including those who found housing through the organisations. I found a lady who comes to clean one of our places and inquired about her. It seems that she was a married woman with two children. At some stage, her husband got in to drinking habits and to cover his expenses introduced her to a friend of his. The affair continued and the new couple had even a sort of marriage in a temple. But the affair started drying up , and with his source of money gone her husband started abusing her. She finally gave up on her marriage and came to live opposite to the house of the person who she considered her new husband. But he too refused to marry her and started abusing her. After a while, her parents took the children away and she lives in one of the homes still obsessed with the new husband though both the men married again. She still celebrates her second husband’s birthdays and such occasions and in spite of treatment her obsession has not completely gone. She seems very dedicated in her service to other abused women and continues her work with them.
Half a day with Aruna Tella
Before breakfast, she started telling me about her struggles with Vantavari colony (colony of cooks) which started in 1991. when she had to sell her jewels, stay in the colony for some time when it started as a swamp. Meanwhile a couple from Tamilnadu turned up. They had an intercaste marriage (Oops. It seems they are relatives but there is a family feud) in a temple and somehow landed in Ongole. When the lady was about eight months pregnant, her parents persuaded her to come home for delivery, aborted the baby and tried to marry her off. She managed to escape. She quickly made arrangements to handle it and had to attend a meeting. Meanwhile, she told me me a bit more of the story of the colony where all of the political parties seemed to be against it at some stage or other and the help came from some benevolent officials and friendly police officers. The police still seem to bring destitute ladies automatically in one of the houses managed by her and her friends. While she was attending the meeting, I went to the Vantavari Colony and checked as much of the story as I could. The youngest of the ladies is onLy 42 now and apparently in one of the houses organised by Aruna and saw me before. The colony is next to the Bus Stand, it is a prime location and a case is still going in the High Court. There are about 150 families in the colony now from a mixture of castes. Some have sold their houses and left but about forty of the original fami.ies are still there following their original profession of cooking. Since it is located next to the Bus Stand, it is easy for people from outside villages to meet them and arrange cooking engagements.
Monday, November 20, 2017
Domestication of rice
Rice so nice it was domesticated thrice “Rice is unique among wild plants for having been domesticated independently on three continents: Asia, Africa, and now South America, researchers have discovered. The New World variety, tamed about 4000 years ago, apparently was abandoned after Europeans arrived. But its genetic legacy could potentially help improve Oryza sativa, the Asian rice species that is now a dietary staple for half the world’s population.”
In Ongole now
I continue to be impressed by the splendid work that Aruna Tella has been doing for the past thirty five years. Eventhough one of my aims is to learn about education, I hope to gather some information of her work over the years. At the moment she is busy with several projects, one of which is running a short stay home for women. Some of them have stayed long, she adopted two of them. One of them is married and another soon. Some of these daughters will probably carry on her work. She runs the only such home in Ongole area ( among several other projects). I hope to collect some stories of her work and write about them off and on. The government only the bare minimum needs of the people in these houses. She provides good food borrowing money and lost a lot of her property by paying interest on these loans. The government grants come after years. Anyway, off and on I will post stories about this lady who is very little known outside Ongole area. She is the main reason for my coming here.
Friday, November 17, 2017
Leaving for Ongole.
After a week in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, leaving for Ongole tonight. The only vague aim is to visit a few schools and villages and learn how things are if possible. The plan is to spend about three months there if health permits.
A nice article on Shyama
From wire.in Shyama, the Impish Girl in the Dungarees, Is No More The article has links to some of her popular songs.
Friday, November 10, 2017
The trouble with scientists
The trouble with scientists by Philip Ball
Razib Khan write “.... have come to the conclusion most people are decent, but they’re also craven and intellectually unserious outside of their domain specificity when they are intellectual. Many of our institutions are quite corrupt, and those which are supposedly the torchbearers of the Enlightenment, such as science, are filled with people who are also blind to their own biases or dominated by those who will plainly lie to advance their professional prospects or retain esteem from colleagues.” In
The rising waters of human tribal nature
Razib Khan write “.... have come to the conclusion most people are decent, but they’re also craven and intellectually unserious outside of their domain specificity when they are intellectual. Many of our institutions are quite corrupt, and those which are supposedly the torchbearers of the Enlightenment, such as science, are filled with people who are also blind to their own biases or dominated by those who will plainly lie to advance their professional prospects or retain esteem from colleagues.” In
The rising waters of human tribal nature
Thursday, November 09, 2017
Paradise papers
If you think the Paradise and Panama papers are bad, wait until you hear about Delaware from qz.com. Yves Smith quote from the above:
“In fact, the US is one of the largest recipients of illicit financial flows from developing countries—money often smuggled out by corrupt politicians, drug dealers, or everyday criminals…
“In fact, the US is one of the largest recipients of illicit financial flows from developing countries—money often smuggled out by corrupt politicians, drug dealers, or everyday criminals…
Just as small countries tend to breed the political culture that allows corporate secrecy, sparsely populated US states have competed in a race to the bottom to attract corporate investment through lax disclosure requirements. The tiny state of Delaware, called an “on-shore tax haven” by critics, garners more than a quarter of its public revenue—just over a $1 billion—from its business registry.
This probably factors into the World Bank’s assessment of the US as one of the worst offenders (pdf) when it comes to corporate secrecy. In fact, a 2012 academic study reports that it is easier to form a shell company(pdf) in the US than it is in Panama—or indeed, anywhere else but Kenya. At the top of their list? Delaware and Nevada.”
What the Paradise Papers Tell Us About Global Business and Political Elites from Naked CapitalismTwo on neoliberalism
Rescuing economics from neoliberalism by Dani Rodrik
Michael Hudson responds to a question of RossAshcroft:
Ross: The common refrain that you hear is that economics has failed. Blame that on the current economic paradigm: neoliberalism.
Michael Hudson responds to a question of RossAshcroft:
Ross: The common refrain that you hear is that economics has failed. Blame that on the current economic paradigm: neoliberalism.
Wednesday, November 08, 2017
Wastelands vs commons
From Forlorn Wastelands to Thriving Commons in India
““What the villagers think is their land, the government says isn’t,” says Jagdeesh. “What the villagers see as useful land, the government calls wastelands.” This dynamic, common to many agrarian societies, is a holdover from the colonial era. Land that appeared to have little potential to generate revenue for the queen was given this relegated status.
““What the villagers think is their land, the government says isn’t,” says Jagdeesh. “What the villagers see as useful land, the government calls wastelands.” This dynamic, common to many agrarian societies, is a holdover from the colonial era. Land that appeared to have little potential to generate revenue for the queen was given this relegated status.
The villagers depend on these marginalized lands for food, water, firewood, timber, and medicine to meet their daily needs. The government has rules and regulations for the land, but it has neither the reach nor the grasp to manage it effectively. “Villagers have no right to this land, so they have little interest in maintaining it,” says Jagdeesh, Chief Executive of Foundation for Ecological Security (2015 Skoll Awardee). “Eventually the land becomes degraded, and that is the tragedy.” The wasteland label becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy—a squandered and valuable resource that falls victim to competing worldviews.”
On revolutions
I am one of those who believe in resistance and not revolutions since according to my limited knowledge, revolutions tend to replace one corrupt regime with another. Still, my heart skipped a beat when my plane once landed in Moscow. I think that I stepped down to touch the ground but am not sure after so many years. Just remembered
100 Years Since the October Revolution Russia's Unloved Anniversary from Der Siegel:
“The schoolchildren couldn't tell him who Lenin was. When he asked them if they knew the name of Russia's last Czar they replied: "Putin."”
100 Years Since the October Revolution Russia's Unloved Anniversary from Der Siegel:
“The schoolchildren couldn't tell him who Lenin was. When he asked them if they knew the name of Russia's last Czar they replied: "Putin."”
The charter of the Forest
Why You’ve Never Heard of a Charter as Important as the Magna Carta
“Eight hundred years ago this month, after the death of a detested king and the defeat of a French invasion in the Battle of Lincoln, one of the foundation stones of the British constitution was laid down. It was the Charter of the Forest, sealed in St Paul’s on November 6, 1217, alongside a shortened Charter of Liberties from 2 years earlier (which became the Magna Carta).
“Eight hundred years ago this month, after the death of a detested king and the defeat of a French invasion in the Battle of Lincoln, one of the foundation stones of the British constitution was laid down. It was the Charter of the Forest, sealed in St Paul’s on November 6, 1217, alongside a shortened Charter of Liberties from 2 years earlier (which became the Magna Carta).
The Charter of the Forest was the first environmental charter forced on any government. It was the first to assert the rights of the property-less, of the commoners, and of the commons. It also made a modest advance for feminism, as it coincided with recognition of the rights of widows to have access to means of subsistence and to refuse to be remarried.
The Charter has the distinction of having been on the statute books for longer than any other piece of legislation. It was repealed 754 years later, in 1971, by a Tory government.”
Razib Khan on Saudi Arabia
The end of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia links to an article by Peter Turchin on elite overproduction.
Tuesday, November 07, 2017
A very old machine
Hi - I'm reading "A Very Old Machine: The Many Origins of the Cinema in India (SUNY series, Horizons of Cinema)" by Sudhir Mahadevan and wanted to share this quote with you.
"No technology dies a predictable death in India. Nor does it undergo an ordinary birth. Both are evident in the contraption I have just described. This book demonstrates how this axiom applies to the emergence of the cinema in South Asia. The title of the book therefore alludes to the Bioscope as an assemblage that is emblematic of film culture in India and how its history has been shaped. The Bioscope is a combination of past and present. It represents a key symbol of early cinema brushing against new and not so new media. It is the result of the refashioning of an “optical device” of still pictures well pre-dating the cinema in the nineteenth century, into a source of moving images with the help of domestic home viewing technology and digital formats. Finally, the assemblage performs and demands a public space and publicity for its viability. The embedded temporalities of just a single contraption capture I think, the complexity of India’s visual cultures, especially those centered on the cinema.
A Very Old Machine searches for antecedents to—or previous versions of—the imaginaries that have informed the cinema’s place in everyday life and the practices that have sustained its manifestations, both mainstream and idiosyncratic, in India. I investigate the emergence of the cinema in India from a variety of perspectives: as a screen practice that became viable as much through makeshift technologies as through capital intensive practices, as mass culture whose legitimacy was won in the nexus of commerce, culture, and the global traffic in images, as hybrid media that in tandem with photography and print culture registered the experience of modern life and thus established itself as a medium of topical relevance, and finally, as a form of social and cultural memory that has been particularly suited to a cinema whose many origins have made a single archive and a singular narrative impossible to produce and sustain."
"No technology dies a predictable death in India. Nor does it undergo an ordinary birth. Both are evident in the contraption I have just described. This book demonstrates how this axiom applies to the emergence of the cinema in South Asia. The title of the book therefore alludes to the Bioscope as an assemblage that is emblematic of film culture in India and how its history has been shaped. The Bioscope is a combination of past and present. It represents a key symbol of early cinema brushing against new and not so new media. It is the result of the refashioning of an “optical device” of still pictures well pre-dating the cinema in the nineteenth century, into a source of moving images with the help of domestic home viewing technology and digital formats. Finally, the assemblage performs and demands a public space and publicity for its viability. The embedded temporalities of just a single contraption capture I think, the complexity of India’s visual cultures, especially those centered on the cinema.
A Very Old Machine searches for antecedents to—or previous versions of—the imaginaries that have informed the cinema’s place in everyday life and the practices that have sustained its manifestations, both mainstream and idiosyncratic, in India. I investigate the emergence of the cinema in India from a variety of perspectives: as a screen practice that became viable as much through makeshift technologies as through capital intensive practices, as mass culture whose legitimacy was won in the nexus of commerce, culture, and the global traffic in images, as hybrid media that in tandem with photography and print culture registered the experience of modern life and thus established itself as a medium of topical relevance, and finally, as a form of social and cultural memory that has been particularly suited to a cinema whose many origins have made a single archive and a singular narrative impossible to produce and sustain."
Monday, November 06, 2017
Sunday, November 05, 2017
Been music from Nagin 1954
Been music from Nagin by Shyamanuha from the blog’Nothing to declare’ via D.P.Rangan at ‘Songs of Yore’:
“Nevertheless, I could not resist asking the question to the maestro himself when I met him in November 2011, just a few months before his death. (I actually did a post, Ravi: The Master of Situational Songs, based on some interesting perspective that I got from that interview). He, of course, vehemently denied any major contribution from Kalyanji and reiterated that the music was played on Harmonium by him, while acknowledging that Kalyanji did accompany on Clavoline.
“Nevertheless, I could not resist asking the question to the maestro himself when I met him in November 2011, just a few months before his death. (I actually did a post, Ravi: The Master of Situational Songs, based on some interesting perspective that I got from that interview). He, of course, vehemently denied any major contribution from Kalyanji and reiterated that the music was played on Harmonium by him, while acknowledging that Kalyanji did accompany on Clavoline.
But then he added something that caught my attention. “Actually, it was created by Lucila. But it sounded a little Western, so I changed it like this,” he said demonstrating it immediately on the Harmonium which accompanied him right through the entire interview, “to make it sound more Indian.””
On plant intelligence
The most balanced seems to be this 2013 article by Michael Pollan
The intelligent plant
A 2012 article on the work of J.C.Bose:
AT THE ROOTS OF PLANT NEUROBIOLOGY: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BIOPHYSICAL RESEARCH OF J.C. BOSE
Stephanie Manusuco Ted Talks
The intelligent plant
A 2012 article on the work of J.C.Bose:
AT THE ROOTS OF PLANT NEUROBIOLOGY: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BIOPHYSICAL RESEARCH OF J.C. BOSE
Stephanie Manusuco Ted Talks
Kenneth Rogoff on the voice of federal chair
Kenneth Rogoff in Project Syndicate Donald Trumpt’s Federal Reserve “For example, so-called quantitative easing involves having the Fed issue short-term debt to buy up long-term government debt. But the US Treasury owns the Fed, and can carry out such debt purchases perfectly well by itself.
A maverick in the area Stephanie Menusuco Ted Talks One And slightly shorter Two
Some argue for “helicopter money,” whereby the Fed prints money and hands it out. But this, too, is smoke and mirrors. The Fed has neither the legal authority nor the political mandate to run fiscal policy; if it tries to do so, it runs the risk of forever losing its independence.”
The difference between fiscal and monetary policiesA maverick in the area Stephanie Menusuco Ted Talks One And slightly shorter Two
Eadu action, trust and economic measurement
“Elsewhere in political economics, this handy 2012 analysis of the European Social Survey found that levels of education are correlated with trust in institutions — except for countries with high levels of corruption, where more education was correlated with mistrust. That’s a pretty compelling argument for education, unless you’re a corrupt politician.” from Education, trust and economic measurement ( registration or google search may me needed).
Saturday, November 04, 2017
A strange article by Lant Pritchett
Is he really saying this or have I misunderstood him?
The Perils of Partial Attribution: Let’s All Play for Team Development
The Perils of Partial Attribution: Let’s All Play for Team Development
The economic consequences of Martin Luther
“ Five hundred years ago today, Martin Luther posted 95 theses on the Wittenberg Castle church door critiquing Catholic Church corruption, setting off the Protestant Reformation. This column argues that the Reformation not only transformed Western Europe’s religious landscape, but also led to an immediate and large secularisation of Europe’s political economy.“
Thursday, November 02, 2017
A quote from Tristes Tropiques
" My hypothesis, if correct, would oblige us to recognize the fact that the primary function of written communication is to facilitate slavery. The use of writing for disinterested purposes, and as a source of intellectual and aesthetic pleasure, is a secondary result, and more often than not it may even be turned into a means of strengthening, justifying or concealing the other. (p. 299)"
P.S. A response from Ramarao Kanneganti to the above post on Facebook:
The initial written communications were for accounting, to support private property. It also is used for organizing and governing people. As such, it supported and enabled the existing governance structures: slavery, monarchy, feudalism, colonialism, imperialism etc.
It also enabled opposition to the existing governance. Which is why, it was controlled in the olden times. For example, reading and writing were controlled in Egyptian and Indian civilizations. In Sumerian times, it was controlled by a guild.
Incidentally, in Sanskrit, writing is considered inferior and looked down upon. It was the elaborate oral traditions that sustained the memory of the traditions, not writing. It exerted more control over dissemination of the information than writing ever did.
When the control was challenged, say like Martin Luther (with the advent of printing press), it led to fight against the existing governance structures. What we see with twitter and FB is exactly that. Brexit, Trump is the outcome of challenge to the existing controls and traditions.
Next, we understand there is a secondary purpose to writing: literature, preserving history, culture, arts and such. The big question is, are they intertwined with the primary? That is, does Indian classical music support caste system?
The facts look indisputable. Like any German alive during the WW II are guilty either by action or inaction, any literature that does not talk about slavery (or caste system) is complicit in it. Anything positive that art does reflects positively on status quo, which is built on a hierarchical system that is exploitative. That is what Sri Sri meant, perhaps “గతమంతా తడిసెను రక్తంతో కాకుంటే కన్నీళులతో”.
Still, it is a difficult question. We have only one history, even if we interpret in radically different ways with the current day assumptions. Most reform movements are about changing the primary function, retaining and embellishing the secondary function of writing. For example, when we retell Mahabharata from the perspective of Ekalavya, or from the perspective of Chitrangada, we are trying to change the primary function of writing.
I see the conflicts between marxists, Progressives, and Dalit intellectuals on these separation and acceptance of primary and secondary functions of written communication, in particular its history.
P.S. A response from Ramarao Kanneganti to the above post on Facebook:
The initial written communications were for accounting, to support private property. It also is used for organizing and governing people. As such, it supported and enabled the existing governance structures: slavery, monarchy, feudalism, colonialism, imperialism etc.
It also enabled opposition to the existing governance. Which is why, it was controlled in the olden times. For example, reading and writing were controlled in Egyptian and Indian civilizations. In Sumerian times, it was controlled by a guild.
Incidentally, in Sanskrit, writing is considered inferior and looked down upon. It was the elaborate oral traditions that sustained the memory of the traditions, not writing. It exerted more control over dissemination of the information than writing ever did.
When the control was challenged, say like Martin Luther (with the advent of printing press), it led to fight against the existing governance structures. What we see with twitter and FB is exactly that. Brexit, Trump is the outcome of challenge to the existing controls and traditions.
Next, we understand there is a secondary purpose to writing: literature, preserving history, culture, arts and such. The big question is, are they intertwined with the primary? That is, does Indian classical music support caste system?
The facts look indisputable. Like any German alive during the WW II are guilty either by action or inaction, any literature that does not talk about slavery (or caste system) is complicit in it. Anything positive that art does reflects positively on status quo, which is built on a hierarchical system that is exploitative. That is what Sri Sri meant, perhaps “గతమంతా తడిసెను రక్తంతో కాకుంటే కన్నీళులతో”.
Still, it is a difficult question. We have only one history, even if we interpret in radically different ways with the current day assumptions. Most reform movements are about changing the primary function, retaining and embellishing the secondary function of writing. For example, when we retell Mahabharata from the perspective of Ekalavya, or from the perspective of Chitrangada, we are trying to change the primary function of writing.
I see the conflicts between marxists, Progressives, and Dalit intellectuals on these separation and acceptance of primary and secondary functions of written communication, in particular its history.
Wednesday, November 01, 2017
An interesting site for Telugu podcasts
https://www.listennotes.com/channels/220209/dasubhashitam-telugu-sangeeta-saahitya-sravana-sanchika/?previous_pub_date=1475712000000 fun by Tulasidas Konduru He is also on Facebook and blogs.
Debating where tech is taking finance
Debating where tech is taking finance, a dialogue between Tyler Cowen and Matt Levine via Marginal Revolution which has comments and a brief description:
Matt: …I think the possible surprise here lies in the connection between finance and identity. People are sort of inchoately aware of it now; we use the term “identity theft” to mean “someone using your name and Social Security number to get a credit card.” But most people don’t really think of their credit report as being central to their identity. Really ambitious proponents of blockchain technology, though, envision a world in which a lot of identity information — your citizenship and marital status and college degrees and employment and certifications and whatnot, maybe your fingerprints and retinas and DNA, as well as of course your credit information — are encoded on a blockchain and used in every aspect of your life. (India has a governmental system a little bit like this, and China is building one, though the blockchain vision usually involves decentralized non-governmental systems.)
I think that the idea that financial intermediaries should be the keepers of identity is pretty uncomfortable, but then, the idea that Facebook would be the keeper of identity seems like it would be uncomfortable, and in fact Facebook has quickly taken over a lot of the work of verifying identity, at least online. One thing that we might see in the next 20 years is a fight between financial institutions and social networks and decentralized blockchain builders over who gets to be the keeper and verifier of everyone’s identity.
Kudumbashree
Kudumbashree: How Re-Thinking Poverty & Gender Changed 5 Million Lives in Kerala
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Today, nearly 5 million women are a part of Kudumbashree, making it the world’s largest women empowerment project. And all this in a state one-tenth the size of California.”
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
UNCTAD report
UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism” Michael Hudson has been warning us about this for a long time. He calls it the FIRE sector.
P.S. Related Accounting fact of the day by Gulzar Natarajan
P.S. Related Accounting fact of the day by Gulzar Natarajan
Small farmers in Indian agriculture
Dan Little reviews a new book How do small farmers fare: Evidence from village studies in India by Madhura Swaminathan and Sandip Baksi. Excerpts from the book:
“The levels of income received by small farmer households were low, in both absolute and relative terms. The average incomes received by small farmers were not much higher than the minimum wages in agriculture stipulated by State governments. Minimum wage in India is defined as subsistence wage; hence incomes received by small farmer households were inadequate to meet investments or any requirements other than daily consumption needs.
.....
While small farmer households are the worst off among the peasantry, there exist disparities and differences within the class of small farmers on the basis of social identity. The analysis presented in this chapter shows that SC, ST, and Muslim households among small farmers are far more deprived in terms of housing and access to basic household amenities than households belonging to other social groups. This points to the fact that in Indian society, and more so in rural society, deprivation is not merely economic but social as well. Even though a uniform criterion was used to define small farmer households, we find that higher levels of deprivation among SC, ST, and Muslim households are an outcome of the historical exclusion and accumulated disadvantages faced and inherited by these social groups. Continued practices of untouchability, physical and residential segregation, and isolation shape current outcomes for these groups.”
Reviewer’s conclusion:”This volume is a very important contribution to development studies in India and other parts of South and Southeast Asia. The dynamics of agriculture remain a critical factor in the social progress of these countries, and this careful and detailed research will provide a basis for constructing more effective development policies in India and elsewhere. And the data suggest that the situation of the rural sector in India is in crisis: incomes for small farmers and landless workers are extremely low with few indications of improvement, and measures of quality of life mirror these findings.”
“The levels of income received by small farmer households were low, in both absolute and relative terms. The average incomes received by small farmers were not much higher than the minimum wages in agriculture stipulated by State governments. Minimum wage in India is defined as subsistence wage; hence incomes received by small farmer households were inadequate to meet investments or any requirements other than daily consumption needs.
.....
While small farmer households are the worst off among the peasantry, there exist disparities and differences within the class of small farmers on the basis of social identity. The analysis presented in this chapter shows that SC, ST, and Muslim households among small farmers are far more deprived in terms of housing and access to basic household amenities than households belonging to other social groups. This points to the fact that in Indian society, and more so in rural society, deprivation is not merely economic but social as well. Even though a uniform criterion was used to define small farmer households, we find that higher levels of deprivation among SC, ST, and Muslim households are an outcome of the historical exclusion and accumulated disadvantages faced and inherited by these social groups. Continued practices of untouchability, physical and residential segregation, and isolation shape current outcomes for these groups.”
Reviewer’s conclusion:”This volume is a very important contribution to development studies in India and other parts of South and Southeast Asia. The dynamics of agriculture remain a critical factor in the social progress of these countries, and this careful and detailed research will provide a basis for constructing more effective development policies in India and elsewhere. And the data suggest that the situation of the rural sector in India is in crisis: incomes for small farmers and landless workers are extremely low with few indications of improvement, and measures of quality of life mirror these findings.”
Pandukal people
From The stone bead industry of Southern India
“This burial practice is believed by some scholars to be intrusive to India and these people were
“This burial practice is believed by some scholars to be intrusive to India and these people were
possibly outsiders. They may have entered what is now India early in the second millennium B.C. and were settled in the central peninsula by the middle to late second millennium. Another early date for them (905-780 B.C.) is at Korkhai, at the very tip of the peninsula, once the center of pearl fishing (Moorti 1994:4-5).
As the Pandukal people moved into South India, they introduced several traits : horsemanship, iron and gold technologies, and stone beadmaking.”
Saturday, October 28, 2017
Friday, October 27, 2017
The battle between public and private money
Where is money headed? “As US policy analyst Pippa Malgrem observes, governments are scrambling to control the new forms of currency; there is a battle looming between private and public control of money. What governments fear is that transactions will go offline and be invisible to their oversight.........The total value of cryptocurrencies is currently only about $US100 billion, so it is still small. But the threat is nevertheless real. There is a very high chance that what we mean by money will become very different in the future and it will threaten current power structure.”
Saturday, October 21, 2017
Feynman’s clock
Old but I came across it only today.
Feynman’s clock
Another Love After Life: Nobel-Winning Physicist Richard Feynman’s Extraordinary Letter to His Departed Wife
Feynman’s clock
Another Love After Life: Nobel-Winning Physicist Richard Feynman’s Extraordinary Letter to His Departed Wife
Friday, October 20, 2017
Michael Hudson on socialism
Michael Hudson: Socialism, Land and Banking: 2017 Compared to 1917
As usual very readable. There is along discussion on failures in Rissia and ashorter one problems ahead for China. He seems to be focussing mainly on land rents. He also responds to questions in the comments section.
p.S. https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/03/why-michael-hudson-is-the-worlds-best-economist/
As usual very readable. There is along discussion on failures in Rissia and ashorter one problems ahead for China. He seems to be focussing mainly on land rents. He also responds to questions in the comments section.
p.S. https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/03/why-michael-hudson-is-the-worlds-best-economist/
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Romans and multiplication
Roman Numericals and Arithmetic “Multiplication using roman numerals is not particularly easy or obvious. You can do the trivial thing, which is repeated addition. But it should be pretty obvious that that’s not practical for large numbers. The trick that they used was actually pretty nifty. It’s basically a strange version of binary multiplication. You need to be able to add and divide by two, but those are both pretty easy things to do. So here goes:
.....
Division is the biggest problem in roman numerals. There is no good trick that works in general. It really comes down to repeated subtraction. The only thing you can do to simplify is variations on finding a common factor of both numbers that’s easy to factor out. For example, if both numbers are even, you can divide each of them by two before starting the repeated subtraction. It’s also fairly easy to recognize when both numbers are multiples of 5 or 10, and to do the division by 5 or 10 on both numbers. But beyond that, you take a guess, do the multiplication, subtract, repeat.“
Monday, October 16, 2017
An oldish article about Alexander Marshack
I thought that I already posted this.
After the Ice Age: How Calendar-keeping shaped Early Social Structuring by Michael Hudson
After the Ice Age: How Calendar-keeping shaped Early Social Structuring by Michael Hudson
New book again
It seems that I have been reading the dissertation. The actual book can be downloaded from here.
Language of the Snakes
Prakrit, Sanskrit, and the Language Order of Premodern India
Andrew Ollett (Author)
Saturday, October 14, 2017
Interesting new book
For a few days downloadable, check rightand top corner.
Language of the Snakes: Prakrit, Sanskrit, and the Language Order of Premodern India Andrew Strand Ollett
Area:
Asia
Abstract:
Language of the Snakes is a biography of Prakrit, one of premodern India’s most important and most neglected literary languages. Prakrit was the language of a literary tradition that flourished roughly from the 1st to the 12th century. During this period, it served as a counterpart to Sanskrit, the preeminent language of literature and learning in India. Together, Sanskrit and Prakrit were the foundation for an enduring “language order” that governed the way that people thought of and used language. Language of the Snakes traces the history of this language order through the historical articulations of Prakrit, which are set out here for the first time: its invention and cultivation among the royal courts of central India around the 1st century, its representation in classical Sanskrit and Prakrit texts, the ways it is made into an object of systematic knowledge, and ultimately its displacement from the language practices of literature. Prakrit is shown to have played a critical role in the establishment of the cultural-political formation now called the “Sanskrit cosmopolis,” as shown through a genealogy of its two key practices, courtly literature (kāvya-) and royal eulogy (praśasti-). It played a similarly critical role in the emergence of vernacular textuality, as it provided a model for language practices that diverged from Sanskrit but nevertheless possessed an identity and regularity of their own. Language of the Snakes thus offers a cultural history of Prakrit in contrast to the natural-history framework of previous studies of the language. It uses Prakrit to formulate a theory of literary language as embedded in an ordered set of cultural practices rather than by contrast to spoken language.
Language of the Snakes: Prakrit, Sanskrit, and the Language Order of Premodern India Andrew Strand Ollett
Friday, October 13, 2017
Mom
V.B.Sowmya on her wall:
“After all these years, the first thing I could think of when I face some issue is: "ask mom", irrespective of whether it is something relevant to her life experiences or not.”
I remember back around 1958-59, I was rusticated because I was too interested in mathematics, stopped attending classes since I felt they were teaching too much rubbish. I was home with a few math books, one on abstract algebra and the other ‘Introduction to mathematical philosophy’ by Bertrand Russell. In the village, there was nobody to discuss mathematics. I often sat in the kitchen and used to tell my mother about all these exciting ideas. Much before that she had her own life, reading, drawing singing and so on. But now I was thrown out of college, she became very protective and used to listen to me. And talking to somebody helped some. Finally I had to go back to college to get credentials and facilities to do mathematics. But the empathetic understanding from my mother, whether she understood the mathematics I was telling her about, helped me at various stages. Now I see the same with my wife and children.
“After all these years, the first thing I could think of when I face some issue is: "ask mom", irrespective of whether it is something relevant to her life experiences or not.”
I remember back around 1958-59, I was rusticated because I was too interested in mathematics, stopped attending classes since I felt they were teaching too much rubbish. I was home with a few math books, one on abstract algebra and the other ‘Introduction to mathematical philosophy’ by Bertrand Russell. In the village, there was nobody to discuss mathematics. I often sat in the kitchen and used to tell my mother about all these exciting ideas. Much before that she had her own life, reading, drawing singing and so on. But now I was thrown out of college, she became very protective and used to listen to me. And talking to somebody helped some. Finally I had to go back to college to get credentials and facilities to do mathematics. But the empathetic understanding from my mother, whether she understood the mathematics I was telling her about, helped me at various stages. Now I see the same with my wife and children.
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Noah Smith defends Richard Thaler
Defending Thaler from guerilla resistance But I keep getting this doubt expressed in one of the comments:
"Aren’t nudge advocates forgetting the minor detail that, given that governments (and nudge units) are made of people, they, very much as the people they want to nudge, are not immune to biases in the first place? Who will nudge the nudgers?"
P.S. some articles from Australia Articles on Nudhe Unit The most recent article in the series
Government behavioural economics ‘nudge unit’ needs a shove in a new direction
"Aren’t nudge advocates forgetting the minor detail that, given that governments (and nudge units) are made of people, they, very much as the people they want to nudge, are not immune to biases in the first place? Who will nudge the nudgers?"
P.S. some articles from Australia Articles on Nudhe Unit The most recent article in the series
Government behavioural economics ‘nudge unit’ needs a shove in a new direction
Extreme virtue
“Meet R.Jalaja and K.Janardhanan, a rare couple, living on a quarter of their income so they can spend the rest in changing lives of others.”
A case of extreme virtue in The Hindu.
A case of extreme virtue in The Hindu.
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Jim Shimabukuro articles
https://etcjournal.com/2008/10/01/jim-shimabukuro/ about online learning and related topics.
A sample articlefrom 2013 about Sugata Mitra:
https://etcjournal.com/2013/03/26/sugata-mitra-moocs-and-minimally-invasive-education/
A sample articlefrom 2013 about Sugata Mitra:
https://etcjournal.com/2013/03/26/sugata-mitra-moocs-and-minimally-invasive-education/
A math problem for fourth grade kids in Melbourne
“If 5 * 3 = 4
2 * 8 = 2
5 * 1 = 6
6 * 3 = 3
find the value of 1 * 7 = ?“
Sent to me by my daughter. It took me full fifteen minutes to solve it.
From the Facebook Feed
I saw an interesting suggestion for India in the Facebook feed today, it may be old but I have not seen it before. A strong form of nudge?:
’Restrict government jobs to those who studied in government schools’.
’Restrict government jobs to those who studied in government schools’.
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Monday, October 09, 2017
Fascism in India
Why civil rights activist K Balagopal’s analysis of ‘fascism in India’ remains relevant today
Morning reading: the two articles of K.Balagopal mentioned here. I cannot say that I understood them well, the first because of lack of familiarity with the names and events mentioned there. The second is more abstract and clearly sees the coming of Hindutva. The author seems to make a fair summary of the two articles, and connects them to the current events.
Morning reading: the two articles of K.Balagopal mentioned here. I cannot say that I understood them well, the first because of lack of familiarity with the names and events mentioned there. The second is more abstract and clearly sees the coming of Hindutva. The author seems to make a fair summary of the two articles, and connects them to the current events.
Sunday, October 08, 2017
Friday, October 06, 2017
Thursday, October 05, 2017
Links, October 5, 2017, mostly science
Does evolution bring the same results no matter what?, a review of “Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution.” by Jonathan Losos
A new era in the study of evolution, an interview with Jonathan Losos
A review of Life’s Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code by Matthew Cobb. This book has been mentioned before but I missed this review by Allen Orr
New Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry by Ashutosh Jogalekar
The circadian rhythm research that just won a Nobel prize in medicine, explained
Vast animal-feed crops to satisfy our meat needs are destroying planet from The Guardian
A new era in the study of evolution, an interview with Jonathan Losos
A review of Life’s Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code by Matthew Cobb. This book has been mentioned before but I missed this review by Allen Orr
New Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry by Ashutosh Jogalekar
The circadian rhythm research that just won a Nobel prize in medicine, explained
Vast animal-feed crops to satisfy our meat needs are destroying planet from The Guardian
My daughter Lalita who painted it said "Who is Rousseau?"
 |
| Lalita started painting at the age of 41 while helping her children with homework |
Tariq Thachil on indian politics
Tammany Hall in India, the Rise of Machine Politics: A Conversation with Tariq Thachil
He says “Increasingly, it is popular as a site where one can field large-scale randomized interventions cheaply, but many of these studies have little interest in advancing specific knowledge about how politics in India works. So vital questions of local everyday politics—the kind routinely studied regarding US politics—are often difficult sells within the American academy. The result is that most Indians find the questions that US-based scholars ask about India to be frankly uninteresting. Doing work that is publishable in the US, but that is actually of interest to India—bridging that divide has been one of the biggest challenges I have faced. Most work within my discipline is only able to do one or the other. It’s a challenge, it’s exciting, but it’s also frustrating.” and then goes on two discuss two topics of his research. They are discussed in more detail in
The social service wings of RSS played a big role in BJP's rise to power: Yale professor
and
Do rural migrants favour class or caste in the city?
He says “Increasingly, it is popular as a site where one can field large-scale randomized interventions cheaply, but many of these studies have little interest in advancing specific knowledge about how politics in India works. So vital questions of local everyday politics—the kind routinely studied regarding US politics—are often difficult sells within the American academy. The result is that most Indians find the questions that US-based scholars ask about India to be frankly uninteresting. Doing work that is publishable in the US, but that is actually of interest to India—bridging that divide has been one of the biggest challenges I have faced. Most work within my discipline is only able to do one or the other. It’s a challenge, it’s exciting, but it’s also frustrating.” and then goes on two discuss two topics of his research. They are discussed in more detail in
The social service wings of RSS played a big role in BJP's rise to power: Yale professor
and
Do rural migrants favour class or caste in the city?
Wednesday, October 04, 2017
Some efforts in india
Rahul Nanerjee ‘Faithless inIndia’ reminds us of Sisyphus. Reminded me partly of the efforts of Glacier man of Ladakh Chewang Norphel. There are continuations of his efforts by others. See also the Video.
Sunday, October 01, 2017
A recent interview with Michael Hudson
Putting an end to the rent economy
“You are advocating a revival of classical economics. What did the classical economists understand by a free economy?
“You are advocating a revival of classical economics. What did the classical economists understand by a free economy?
They all defined a free economy as one that is free from land rent, free from unearned income. Many also said that a free economy had to be free from private banking. They advocated full taxation of economic rent. Today’s idea of free market economics is the diametric opposite. In an Orwellian doublethink language, a free market now means an economy free for rent extractors, free for predators to make money, and essentially free for financial and corporate crime. The Obama Administration de-criminalized fraud. This has attracted the biggest criminals – and the wealthiest families – to the banking sector, because that’s where the money is. Crooks want to rob banks, and the best way to rob a bank is to own one. So criminals become bankers. You can look at Iceland, at HSBC, or at Citibank and Wells-Fargo in the news today. Their repeated lawbreaking and criminal activities have been shown tob e endemic in the US. But nobody goes to jail. You can steal as much money as you want, and you’ll never go to jail if you’re a banker and pay off the political parties with campaign contribution. It’s much like drug dealers paying off crooked police forces. So crime is pouring into the financial system.
I think this is what’s going to cause a return to classical economics – the realization that you need government banks. Of course, government banks also can be corrupted, so you need some kind of checks and balances. What you need is an honest legal system. If you don’t have a legal system that throws crooks in jail, your economy is going to be transformed into something unpleasant. That’s what is happening today. I think that most Europeans don’t want to acknowledge that that’s what happened in America (USA). There is such an admiration of America that there is a hesitancy to see that it has been taken over by financial predators (a.k.a. “the market”).”
Some links to James C. Scott
I just finished reading ‘Against the grain’ by James Scott but have not read any of his other books. I find a review by him of a Jared Diamond book from 2013 where he is much more clear about his view but is more tentative in the new book. Here is a link to the review
Crops, towns, government, a review of The World until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? by Jared Diamond. From the conclusion:
“The fact is that slaving was at the very centre of state-making. It is impossible to exaggerate the massive effects of this human commodity on stateless societies. Wars between states became a kind of booty capitalism, where the major prize was human traffic. The slave trade then completely transformed the non-state ‘tribal zone’. Some groups specialised in slave-raiding, mounting expeditions against weaker and more isolated groups and then selling them to intermediaries or directly at slave markets. The oldest members of highland groups in Laos, Thailand, Malaysia and Burma can recall their parents’ and grandparents’ memories of slave raids. The fortified, hilltop villages, with thorny, twisting and hidden approaches that early colonists found in parts of South-East Asia and Africa were largely a response to the slave trade.
Crops, towns, government, a review of The World until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? by Jared Diamond. From the conclusion:
“The fact is that slaving was at the very centre of state-making. It is impossible to exaggerate the massive effects of this human commodity on stateless societies. Wars between states became a kind of booty capitalism, where the major prize was human traffic. The slave trade then completely transformed the non-state ‘tribal zone’. Some groups specialised in slave-raiding, mounting expeditions against weaker and more isolated groups and then selling them to intermediaries or directly at slave markets. The oldest members of highland groups in Laos, Thailand, Malaysia and Burma can recall their parents’ and grandparents’ memories of slave raids. The fortified, hilltop villages, with thorny, twisting and hidden approaches that early colonists found in parts of South-East Asia and Africa were largely a response to the slave trade.
There is plenty of violence in the world of hunter-gatherers, though it is hardly illuminated by resorting to statistical comparisons between the mortality rates of a tiny tribal war in Kalimantan and the Battle of the Somme or the Holocaust. This violence, however, is almost entirely a state-effect. It simply cannot be understood historically from 4000 BC forward apart from the appetite of states for trade goods, slaves and precious ores, any more than the contemporary threat to remote indigenous groups can be understood apart from the appetite of capitalism and the modern state for rare minerals, hydroelectric sites, plantation crops and timber on the lands of these peoples. Papua New Guinea is today the scene of a particularly violent race for minerals, aided by states and their militias and, as Stuart Kirsch’s Mining Capitalism shows, its indigenous politics can be understood only in this context. Contemporary hunter-gatherer life can tell us a great deal about the world of states and empires but it can tell us nothing at all about our prehistory. We have virtually no credible evidence about the world until yesterday and, until we do, the only defensible intellectual position is to shut up.“
From the new book:
"Unlike many historians, I wonder whether the frequent abandonment of early state centers might often have been a boon to the health and safety of their populations rather than a “dark age” signaling the collapse of a civilization. And finally, I ask whether those populations that remained outside state centers for millennia after the first states were established may not have remained there (or fled there) because they found conditions better. All of these implications I draw from my reading of the evidence are meant to be provocations. They are intended to stimulate further reflection and research. Where I have been stumped, I try to indicate so frankly. Where the evidence is thin and I stray into speculation, I try to signal that as well."
Wikipedia on his earlier book Seeing like a state and comments by Chris Blattman.
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