Freeman Dyson passed away

Obituary in NYTimes.
Some videos of his contributions to physics and the last one about Fermi indicates a humble person but he was always quite independent while admiring others.

https://youtu.be/i3RcN5UGwgI Linking the ideas of Feynman, Schwinger and Tomonaga

https://youtu.be/pToteaNcIdk Richard Feynman and his work

https://youtu.be/hV41QEKiMlM fermi’s rejection of our work.
And one more on Richard Feynman ‘Meeting Feynman with .....’

M.S.Raghunanthan on Modi dispensation

https://youtu.be/vOkpT44y1_U

An old virus in Delhi

Mosque set on fire as violent protests continue across New Delhi 

Old news

1966 anti-cow slaughter agitation “ M. N. Srinivas commented that the episode solidly convinced him that the Hindus of North India had not evolved into modern people” but I have seen similar attitudes in South India too.
Tradition in modern India by J.Heesterman from 1963.

About the new Coronavirus Covid-19

You’re Likely to Get the Coronavirus from The Atlantic, a fairly comprehensive article.
Symptomless cases raise coronavirus control fears from SciDev.net

Sangeeta Sudha

English translations of Carnatic lyrics

100 most spoken languages in the world

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/100-most-spoken-languages/

An article on the brain

Take your brain for a walk

Vikram Chandra on Panini

Pāṇini: Catching the Ocean in a Cow’s Hoofprint Long read and worth several reads.

Emmy Noether

A short and comprehensive article on her influence.
Our introduction to modern mathematics was through Van der Waerden’s book ‘Modern Algebra’ which stayed that it was in part based on lectures by Emil Artin and army Noether. Do her name was familiar from the beginning. Here he describes the sources of his boo in which her father’s name is also mentioned. I remember when Emil Artin died in 1962, Fr. Racine probably had no one to share his grief. He came to my room in Loyola College hostel to tell me of the sad news. Now Facebook has changed that I think. We can share our emotion with distant people. On the sources of my book Modern Algebra 

Mistakes in mathematics

I probably did a Stallings. I spent the whole of last night ‘proving’ some thing which bothered me off and on for forty years. When the mind is calmer, mistakes will emerge but not in the current state. As Stallings said in  ‘How not to prove the Poincaré conjecture’ some excitement and blindness takes over: “I was unable to find flaws in my ‘proof’ for quite a while, even though the error is very obvious. It was a psychological problem, a blindness, an excitement, an inhibition of reasoning by an underlying fear of being wrong. Techniques leading to the abandonment of such inhibitions should be cultivated by every honest mathematician.” May be the body needs rest too. In any case I got some training from Stallings writing his Tata Notes which I wrote in 1967 adding many mistakes of mine to his. He describes the genesis of those Noted towards the end here in Remambering John Stallings
“Early in my career, when I was starting to teach at Princeton, I got to give some seminar talks on my work on PL manifolds, involving the Engulfing Theorem and high-dimensional Poincaré Conjecture. I did not do a good job of this; there were many details, such as general position, which I did not really know how to do; the typical proof was just by hand-waving. I do recall “great” topologists in the audience, such as Milnor. And I think I called it off eventually, finally getting the proofs of some details in my Tata notes of 1967 or so.”

A bit about Indian educational system

Gautam Menon from three years ago. For some reason I could not share the post. So, I copied and pasted. I saw while I was wondering why many in India including strong leftists who recommend Naxalism for others try to send their children and grand children abroad at considerable expense. This may explain part of the background. Here is the old post:

Some of you may remember my difficulties with the 'summer student' I wrote about a few weeks ago. The one who couldn't plot a graph, not even of y = x. I wish I could report that the situation had miraculously improved. Alas, after almost daily meetings in which we've tried to make some progress on these matters as well as marginally more advanced material, I continue to be mystified as to how she could have qualified for *any* degree in physics in the first place.

The situation is coming to a head now that her term here is drawing to an end and she must write a project report for her university. Apparently, the rule is that the report must be not less than 40 pages in length!  It doesn't matter what is in the report, really, provided it is of the appropriate length.

I honestly don't see what I could have done differently. If we were not going over really elementary material that she should have know from school, even, I might have ensured that she did something that might have qualified to be put into a report. Right now, the report can only be an undigested mishmash of copied material from a few chapters of a book that I suggested she read. I am sure that she will achieve a high grade for doing precisely that, just as I'm sure my signature will be required at some place in the report, to sign off on the statement that she did something while she was here.

I'm deeply embarrassed by this charade but, as I said, I don't see anything that I could have done differently. Should I refuse to sign the report? But what good would that do? If the whole system is so messed up that it puts out students who go through bachelors and masters degrees in science without gaining the slightest idea of what science is, gives them high marks and ranks in university exams, even gives them a completely inflated estimate of their own abilities, it seems unfair to penalize a particular student for what is a far more deep-rooted and systemic problem. Perhaps I could write to the head of the department who replied to me following my specific question in this regard, that this was a good student, interested in pursuing research and that she was being specifically recommended? Would I be able to get my point across? What good would it do?  Should I at least suggest that asking a student to prepare a 40-page report for a 6 week project is a silly thing to do, that even a 5 or 10 page report on something new that was learnt would be sufficient, if sincerely done?

(At least the student has learnt to plot simple functions which, all said and done, is a tentative first step towards something, although I'm not sure what.)

You are all welcome to weigh in - any advice is welcome.

Peter Scott is visiting

I have been busy completing some mathematics work with Peter Scott who is in Melbourne for  a month. One paper which was first out in 2007 is nearing completion now with new material added during the last year. It is about 125 pages long on JSJ decomposition of Poincaré Duality pairs and deals with many loose ends that have bothered us. The second with the same theme ( Lawrence Reeves is also involved) is shorter and compares various such decomposition. These complete some of our long standing concerns. Then there is one more long paper which is essentially complete and has to be tidied up. These may not interest others but it is a satisfactory conclusion of problems that engaged us for a long time.

Seeing rain for the first time

https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2020/01/16/aussie-toddlers-overwhelmed-by-seeing-rain-for-the-first-time/#.XiOrcC_ZWf0
'She was in shock': Mum captures daughter's excitement at seeing rain for the first time 

Possibility of contagious diseases through microbiome

Cancer And Heart Disease Could Be Contagious Through Our Microbiomes, Scientists Argue

From a book on Buddha

‘The Buddha was a very wise man, but a man’ 

Vivekananda on inclusiveness

I read a lot on nonsense by Vivekananda. But this indicates different things. And then there is his enduring legacy Ramakrishna Mission which has monks of various religions. One of the monks is an old friend Mahan Maharaj. He liked this.
‘Our watchword will be acceptance and inclusion’: Nine memos from Vivekananda to Hindutva warriors 

A poem by Alisetty Prabhakara about his wife

‘‘కలగా పులగంగా కలసిపోయిన రోజుల్లో

ఇంచుమించు ఒకే కంచంలో

ఇంద్రధనస్సుల్ని తుంచుకుని తిన్న రోజుల్లో

మా గుండెల్లో సమస్యలు మండని రోజుల్లో

సిగరెట్‌ పీకలాంటి నన్ను

సిగలో తరుముకొని

గాజు కుప్పెల్లాంటి నా కళ్ళలోనే

ఆశల అగరొత్తులు వెలిగించుకుందే తప్ప

తులతూగే ఐశ్వర్యమో

తులం బంగారమో కావాలని

ఏనాడూ ప్రాధేయ పడలేదు''
More about him here https://te.wikipedia.org/wiki/అలిశెట్టి_ప్రభాకర్

A recent comment by Pramathanath Sastry

Pramathanath Sastry comments in a post of Balasubramanian Anantharaman on his Facebook wall.

The premise that the design of the constitution is such that terrible things were inevitable. Constitutions are always imperfect documents. And it is applied on the ground via interpretations. I don’t even know where to begin regarding your statement. Suggests because we are not a confederation it is all unnatural and hence this pox upon us. (Wake up and smell the coffee; every codification, every constitution, is in the end unnatural.) That certain high culture stuff like Bheeshma in Yudha Parva not being in the document or Ain-e-akbari not being in the document is the reason for the horrors visited upon us. Cynical me knows that the US constitution was interpreted in very different ways at different times without any amendments to the constitution. And that no document can cover the edges of the self perception of a nation (Manipur). In the end it is us who are the problem. Our bigotry. The churning. The centripetal forces towards the centre and the centrifugal forces (Kashmir, Manipur), no document could have taken care of them. Good people could have. A generous liberal people could have. Those are independent of the various constitutions which are possible from a broadly liberal menu. Sedition is not in the constitution. Article 372 which says that any existing law in the IPC would continue to be in force until modified, is why sedition is in the law books. The IPC could have easily been modified without amending the constitution. I am not defending the constitution. I just find this belief that it, not society, is the root cause just a bunch of nonsense. It could have been interpreted a million ways. But judges, ministers, policeman, are from our society and that whole thingamajig has a certain direction today. It is us. Rather than seeing a mismatch between the society and the constitution, I see actually a movement towards a match with the views of the dominant, something all judicial and political systems manage. The brief liberal court of the US (30 years at best in 245 years) was an anomaly.

An old article by Khushwant Singh

Came across this superb piece says Dipankar Khasnabish:

On Feb 15, 1970 Khushwant Singh wrote under the headline
'Why I am an Indian'.

I did not have any choice; I was born one. If the good Lord had consulted me on the subject I might have chosen a country more affluent, less crowded, less censorious in matters of food and drink, unconcerned with personal equations and free of religious bigotry.

Am I proud of being an India? I can't really answer this one. I can scarcely take credit for the achievements of my forefathers. And I have little reason to be proud of what we are doing today. On balance, I would say, 'No, I am not proud of being an Indian.'

'Why don't you get out and settle in some other country?' Once again, I have very little choice. All the countries I might like to live in have restricted quotas for emigrants; most of them are white and have prejudice against coloured people. In any case I feel more relaxed and at home in India. I dislike many things in my country--mostly the government. I know the government is never the same as the country, but it never stops trying to appear in that garb. This is where I belong, and this is where I intend to live and die. Of course, I like going abroad. Living is easier, wine and food are better, women are more forthcoming--it's more fun. However, I soon get tired of all those things and want to get back to my dung-heap and be among my loud-mouthed, sweaty, smelly countrymen. I am like my kinsmen in Africa and England and elsewhere. My head tells me it's better to live abroad, my belly tells me it is more fulfilling to be in 'phoren' but my heart tells me 'get back to Ind'. Each time I return home and drive through the stench of bare-bottomed defecators that line the road from Santa Crux airport to the city I ask myself:

"'Breathes there a man with soul so dead
who never to himself hath said
this is my own land, my native land?"

I can scarcely breathe, but I yell, 'Yeah, this is my native land. I don't like it, but I love it!'

Are you an Indian first and a Punjabi or Sikh second? Or is it the other round? I don't like the way those questions are framed. I am all three at the same time. If I was denied my Punjabiness or my community tradition, I would refuse to call myself Indian. I am Indian, Punjabi and Sikh. And even so I have a patriotic kinship one who says I am 'Indian, Hindu and Haryanvi' or 'I am Indian, Moplah Muslim and Malayali' or 'I am Indian, Christian and Assamese'. I want to retain my religious and linguistic identity without in any way making them exclusive.

I am convinced that in our guaranteed diversity is our strength as a nation. As soon as you try to obliterate regional languages in favour of one 'national' language or religion, in the name of some one Indian credo, you will destroy the unity of the country. Twice was our Indianness challenged: in 1962 by the Chinese; in 1965 by the Pakistanis. Then, despite our many differences of language, religion and faith, we rose as one to defend our country. In the ultimate analysis, it is the consciousness of the frontiers that makes a nation. We have proved that we are one nation.

What then this talk about Indianising people who are already Indian? And has anyone any right to arrogate to himself the right to decide who is and who is not a good Indian?

(Khushwant Singh's Editor's Page, Edited by Rahul Singh, IBH)

Night rider

Night rider: 21 years sleeping on a London bus

More on anti-CAA protests

Anti-CAA protests: A reiteration of people power over political muscle by Ankur Bhardwaj
Some earlier articles from the middleDecember 2019:
Scars of CAB protests will further burn bridges between northeast and rest of India Suhas Palshikar
The morning after CAB: It will be a mistake to rely just on Supreme Court by Pratap Bhanu Mehta

Arjun Appadurai on the current situation in India

Three Observations From India's Past to Contextualise the Present Struggle Seems to be a perceptive article but I am not sure whether he gets the whole picture and whether it is a guide to what is coming. To me an earlier article What Women from a Slum Near AMU Can Teach CAA-NRC Protesters  is more perceptive.
Check also Mukul Kesavan article posted earlier An evil hour. A quote “ According to him [Suhas
Alshikar] the problem with liberals is that they expected abstract ideas to win political victories whereas the truth was that in real life “[d]emocratic struggles for high principles do not happen in a vacuum.” The only way that liberals can prevail against the BJP’s clear-headed majoritarianism is if their “... principles [were] married  to lived realities and actual group anxieties.”“

Top risks of 2020

Eurasiagroup’s top risks of 2020 with Modification at 5

Georgi Abratov’s prescient warning

“ In 1987, Georgi Arbatov, a senior adviser to the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, had warned: “We are going to do a terrible thing to you – we are going to deprive you of an enemy.”” from Freedom without constraints: how the US squandered its cold war victory by Andrew Bacevich.

Photo essay on women left behind

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/30/world/africa/migrants-women-work.html
Left Behind by Migrant Husbands, Women Break the Rules and Go to Work 

Reconciling capitalism and socialism

Sort of political economy in a single lesson by Seth Ackerman The Red and Black “ What is needed is a structure that allows autonomous firms to produce and trade goods for the market, aiming to generate a surplus of output over input — while keeping those firms public and preventing their surplus from being appropriated by a narrow class of capitalists. Under this type of system, workers can assume any degree of control they like over the management of their firms, and any “profits” can be socialized— that is, they can truly function as a signal, rather than as a motive force. But the precondition of such a system is the socialization of the means of production — structured in a way that preserves the existence of a capital market. How can all this be done?
......
The lesson here is that the transformation to a different system does not have to be catastrophic. Of course, the situation I’m describing would be a revolutionary one — but it wouldn’t have to involve the total collapse of the old society and the Promethean conjuring of something entirely unrecognizable in its place.“
Can this sort of thing be accomplished without bureaucracy by some sort of block chain mechanism?
The Light on the Hill: A Reply to Seth Ackerman by John Quiggin. Some more can be found google search.

An overview of Saudi-Iran conflict

In four parts A Tale of Oil and Fire: The Saudi-Iran Conflict from Brown Pundits.

Perepa Joshi remembering his father.

Prepa Puran Chandra Joshi was a classmate and friend since 1964. I found these videos uploaded by his son in a meeting remembering Perela Mrityanjayudu.

https://youtu.be/01h9EgyfofE

https://youtu.be/IAxXvCvHUIQ

A report about the current protests in India about CAA

More from the grass roots level What Women from a Slum Near AMU Can Teach CAA-NRC Protesters. It seems different from the posts by academics. Possibly this kind of development has better chances of surviving and thriving.

The death of Osama Bin Laden

It an old story but I missed it The Killing of Osama bin Laden by Seymour M. Hersh

Bushfires in Australia

Why firefighters are so worried about the inferno to come Mostly about Victoria.

From NSW Amid the ruins of the NSW bushfires, this pharmacist is keeping his doors open

From Victoria Thanks dhal: Sikh group to the rescue with hundreds of free curries
And from somewhere https://i.redd.it/85wma5kdmj841.jpg

An opinion piece on Suleimani assassination

The Suleimani assassination goes against Trump’s policy – but not his character “ That he will get away with this, despite all the bien pensantwails and warnings, just as he got away with the Jerusalem embassy move. That while an expert such as Sanam Vakil of Chatham House might say that “this time the gloves will be off”, and that Iran will no longer hide behind the plausible deniability offered by proxies but will “strike back and strike back directly”, there is nothing to fear because Tehran will be smart enough to know its own limits, restrained by the certainty that the US could answer any attempt at retaliation with devastating force.”

Finland ends homelessness

Finland ends homelessness and provides shelter for all in need

Tyler Cowen with Abhijit Banerjee

My conversation with Abhijit Banerjee. A little part:
“COWEN: How well do you think economists understand economic growth more generally?

BANERJEE: I think they don’t understand it. This is the point we make in the book. I think we understand some very basic insights, one being the one that my colleague, Bob Solow, made very clear, which is that growth has a tendency to run out, that once you used up your best talent and your best capital and your best locations, there’s going to be less and less so. And I think that’s probably the only thing which has been pretty consistently borne out: that fast growth slows down. China’s slowing now.

And there’s nothing tragic about it. It’s a normal way of things. I think that the question is more — the thing that we don’t understand is what makes that happen sooner or later, more or less, et cetera. Brazil grew for 20 years, extremely fast, between 1960 and 1980, and then essentially stopped for 20 years. Why do those kinds of things happen? That we don’t understand. I think we’re lousy at predicting growth in general.”

Tyler Cowen on Modi

Tyler Cowen in a recent post What to think of Modi these days:
 “Nonetheless I find most of the extant commentary on Modi fairly misleading and/or naive.

As this outsider sees it, India’s secular democracy was never liberal.  It had certain de facto liberal elements, but largely out of low levels of state capacity, necessitating a kind of tolerance but of course also leading to a very sub-par infrastructure.  Furthermore, it has been commonly described by political scientists as a “democracy without accountability.”  National voting has so much to do with religion, caste, and other particularistic principles that Indian democracy never enforced superior practical performance as it should have.”

“Low dishonest decade”

https://poets.org/poem/september-1-1939

Changers

Meet the Intellectual Founder of Brazil’s Far Right An interview with Olavo de Carvalho. There seem to be similar figures in India starting with ‘Veer ‘ Savarkar.

Ramachandra Guha on bilingualism in India

One of the best articles in my opinion of the current problems in India is one by Mukul Kesavan called ‘An evil hour’, posted earlier. Trying to find more about him, I saw this article by Ramachandra Guha from 2010. It starts with Mukul Kesavan but is about bilingualism in India. Things have changed a bit since then with some states turning to English education. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE BILINGUAL INTELLECTUAL 

An opinion piece on Hindutva

A Hindu critique of Hinditva “Yet, a careful look at India’s culture and society would indicate that religion is all-pervasive: it can be seen in beliefs, rituals as well as in the dangerous stereotypes we nurture about others. Hence, the mere act of debunking religion will not help.”

Two popular US ambassadors to India,

John Kenneth Galbraith reviews a book of Chester Bowles Promises to keep . Chester Bowles book Promises to keep : My earns in public life 1941-1969

An encouraging post on Facebook

Saw this on Facebook from a young man in India. Reminded me of my younger days. I did not have a job but a huge dowry offer because the girl was tall.
“5:00 PM: If you are not interested in this project you can leave! (Boss)

5:03 PM: Hands out resignation. 🙂🙂🙂

I have come this far, on basis of my skill. I never got in to comfort zone. And most importantly money never mattered to me as long as I am learning something new.

I would be happy making 10000Rs a month provided I will have the opportunity to learn something new on regular basis.

Now I am getting paid some 3,00,000 inr a month and I had to sacrifice something I love, my Passion. So I said to myself well screw it I am out of here.

An Impulsive decision

So now after coming home, while celebrating my bravery with a Pizza. I realised what I have done is totally right! Quitting a well paying Job, going back to make peanuts might sound like a bad idea. But money isn’t everything. Money is just something I need to survive I calculated everything and came up with 60,000 inr a month If I have to move back.

But at this very moment I am the happiest person in this world, Its like shawshank Redemption. Getting out of prison through a tunnel full of shit and tunnelling through shit is absolutely worth It.”

Don’t be a Sucker

The full video https://youtu.be/sAu41SpYtl4
An article on the video incorporating some later research:
This 1943 anti-Nazi film keeps going viral. It may be less effective than it seems.

Distrust of elites

i have been accused of this. It seems to becoming common in large parts of the world. Elites seem to have benefited from globalisation and in spite of sprouting eqality and fraternity, they seem to look after their own interests. An article Mukul Kesavan on the ongoing citizenship controversy in India An evil hour mentions some of it: “...the problem with liberals is that they expected abstract ideas to win political victories whereas the truth was that in real life “[d]emocratic struggles for high principles do not happen in a vacuum.” The only way that liberals can prevail against the BJP’s clear-headed majoritarianism is if their “... principles [were] married to lived realities and actual group anxieties.””
Another piece How liberalism became ‘the god that failed’ in eastern Europe by Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes from their book The light that failed.

Three mafias

Meaning and Mayhem from NYReview of books.”’Ndrangheta rites also invoke ancient nature-related symbols, such as the moon and stars, as well as national heroes, such as patriots or generals who helped Italy achieve independence and whom the members consider their precursors: “In the name of Garibaldi, Mazzini, and La Marmora, with words of humility I create the Holy Society.” The ’Ndrangheta has appropriated religious rituals, mythological symbols, patriots, and even saints, much as it has taken possession of certain words, completely changing their meaning—honor, family, mamma—and in so doing has created around itself an aura of mystery and wonder that makes it attractive in the eyes of new initiates, especially the youngest. Symbols and codes serve to create a sense of belonging and to hand down an identity so powerful that its members are even willing to die for ”

Selling Keynesianism

Selling Keynesianism Very readable but it may be ignoring the limits of growth.

On the Brahmin left

The ‘Brahmin left’ vs the ‘Merchant right’: A comment on Thomas Piketty’s new book Seems to make sense. We have seen the shift to aBJP in India and the left occupying plum jobs in India and abroad and preaching rebellion in India.

Symbols

Meaning and mayhem from NYReview of books on Mafia organisations.”The ’Ndrangheta has appropriated religious rituals, mythological symbols, patriots, and even saints, much as it has taken possession of certain words, completely changing their meaning—honor, family, mamma—and in so doing has created around itself an aura of mystery and wonder that makes it attractive in the eyes of new initiates, especially the youngest. Symbols and codes serve to create a sense of belonging and to hand down an identity so powerful that its members are even willing to die for the organization.”

Shailendra

A recent article Shailendra — the Leftist poet and Dalit genius whose lyrics define beauty of simplicity despite what the article says, it was known that he was a Dalit. “Babu Jagjivan Ram, on his birthday, on August 30, 1966, said he was the most popular ‘Harijan’ poet of India after Sant Ravi Das.” From https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/entertainment/shailendra-poet-of-the-masses-not-given-his-due-in-hindi-literature

Another quote from Bronkhorst book on Brahmins

“Brahmins, in their self-understanding, owed their special status to the fact that they knew and preserved the Veda, which includes numerous mantras that are supposed to be effective if correctly pronounced in the right circumstances. Their particular concern with the correct pronunciation of those mantras is responsible for their interest in phonetics, and for the composition of treatises dealing with this topic, either in general or focused on specific Vedic texts. The effectiveness of those mantras, furthermore, showed that these mantras, and the language of these mantras, had a close affinity with reality. Sanskrit and reality were, in their opinion, closely connected, and this is a theme that comes up again and again in Brahmanical thought.
This fundamental conviction found expression in a single encompassing vision, in which both the Sanskrit language and the Veda had their place. In this vision, Sanskrit was eternal, i.e., without beginning in time; other lan- guages were at best corruptions of the only language that really existed, viz. Sanskrit. The Veda, too, was without beginning in time, and therefore without author. It needed no author, because the Veda was the pure expression of the Sanskrit language.Studying Sanskrit and studying the Veda were therefore two sides of the same coin. This issue will be taken up in the present section.” 
And more from Bronkhorst “An innovation introduced by the new Brahmanism is the belief that the Sanskrit language—i.e., its words and sounds—are eternal, and therefore without beginning and end. Patañjali the grammarian did so, but he was not the first. Already Kātyāyana held that belief, as is clear from vārttikas such as P. 1.1.56 vt. 12: anupapannaṃ sthānyādeśatvaṃ nityatvāt. There is, on the other hand, no indication that Pāṇini had accepted it. Nor had Yāska, who uses the word nitya a few times in his Nirukta, but never in the sense ‘eternal’.216 Assuming, for simplicity’s sake, that all Brahmins adopted this new conviction of the eternality of words more or less simultaneously, and considering that Yāska is almost certainly more recent than Pāṇini,this would have happened at some time between Yāska and Kātyāyana.”

From Anis Kidwai to Johannes Bronkhorst

The quote earlier from Kidwai and a comment on Facebook led me to the book  How the Brahmins Won: From Alexander to the Guptas by Johannes Bronkhorst
Here are some preliminary comments from the book, as sort of unintended consequences of introspection.  “As a matter of fact, much if not most of Brahmanical literature from this period [Alexander to Guptas] is directed at Brahmins and deals with exclusively Brahmanical concerns. It appears, indeed, that Brahmins of that time made major efforts to create a separate identity for themselves, an identity they could maintain in circumstances where they could not count on a tradition of respect....These ideas about society can be looked upon as natural extensions of the ideas Brahmins had developed about themselves: Brahmanical standards of purity became applicable in society at large; Brahmanical ritual practices came to accompany the lives of many non-Brahmins; Brahmanical ideas of the Brahmins’ posi- tion in society were extended so as to provide a template for society at large; Brahmanical claims to royal protection turned into manuals of statecraft; etc.
...Brahmanism, then, should be thought of as a homogeneous vision of Brahmins and their position in the world, and primarily the result of the self- centered preoccupation of Brahmins during a difficult period in which their traditional position in the world was under threat. This self-centered preoccu- pation became the basis of features that in due time transformed an important part of the world. But those successful features cannot be understood without an understanding of the self-centered preoccupation from which they arose. This means that Brahmanism has to be looked upon as a whole that cannot be grasped by cherrypicking and excluding aspects of our choosing.”
In my reading, I am also keeping in mind Emmanuel Todd’s work on family systems and The Language of the Gods in the World of Men Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India by Sheldon Pollock

Another quote from ‘In Freedom’s Shade’ by Anis Kidwai

“Chaudhary Ridaulvi gloated: ‘It’s all there in an article I wrote—the brahmin has always been dominant in India. Buddhism prospered but Brahminism ensured its ultimate obliteration. Islam shone only briefly, soon losing its identity to be coloured in the same hues as Brahminism. Christianity too bowed before Brahminism in the shape of the Theosophical Society, which acknowledges brahmin supremacy. Brahminism is hegemonic by nature. However much Gandhi may struggle, and all of you rant and rave, India will never be free of the Brahminical order.’”
A book with a similar theme https://www.amazon.com/How-Brahmins-Won-Alexander-Handbook/dp/9004315195 byJohannes Bronkhorst

Conservatism and Boris Johnson

“I wonder whether Boris Johnson and his squalid associates are Conservatives at all. The Conservativism I understand is about public duty, generosity, the instinct to conserve what is good in our society; the importance of the rule of law and of institutions; suspicion of leaps in the dark. I am thinking of the Conservatism of Burke, Lord Salisbury, Oakeshott.“ from Boris Johnson wants to destroy the Britain I love. I cannot vote Conservative by Peter Osborne.

Centre to state funding in India

The general scheme is described here How do states get revenue from centre? But often there are arguments about unfair allotments. Even when the money is delivered, there seem to be delays in the distribution and sometimes the money is blocked: Andhra Pradesh Funds Blocked Over Not Filing Necessary Paperwork: Report “Non-submission of UCs could be mainly because of two reasons. Either the central funds were not fully utilised in time or used for other purposes. Given the severe financial crunch faced by the state, 'adjustment' of funds is not uncommon," a senior official in the finance department said.
The above mentioned adjustment seems to be that the state diverted these funds to one location (during Naidu’s time on the advice of his son Lokesh) from which they release in manner that they consider appropriate. The current state government has not changed the procedure yet. This means that the recipients have to go through two bureaucratic agencies with delays and possible bribes at both places. With the change of government at the state level, the centre seems to be releasing more funds https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/with-jagan-at-helm-centre-extends-over-rs-4-000-crore-to-andhra-pradesh/story-gt0rRG60LNxDyknR9ZAkXJ.html
From a case that I followed, a women’s welfare Organization has not received funds for two and half years. Funds were blocked in April this year since they were not spent in time. By the time they were released, Lokesh came up with the above scheme and now they have to be released again from a central bureaucracy in the state. And the funds may be frozen again if they are not spent by next March. Meanwhile the Organization borrows at the rate of 2-3 percent for month.
Why do the welfare organisations still do such work? My guess is that some of them do out of genuine concern for others. Some skimp on expenses and try to make profits.

Arjun Appadurai on current India

A Syndrome of Aspirational Hatred Is Pervading India

Anis Kidwai from partition days

is translated. I just acquired a copy. An excerpt here Did Sardar Patel order the eviction of Muslims from Delhi villages? it seems that he did. A quote:
“Kidwai, along with two activists, visited ziledar Trikha Ram who said he had no animus against Jaitpur’s Muslims as they belonged to his caste and gotra (clan). Kidwai records Ram telling her: “When the government announced that no Muslim was to live in India, we told our Muslim brothers, ‘Now that it has been decided that only Hindus can live in India, why don’t you all become Hindus, so we don’t lose each other.’” Unwilling to convert, Jaitpur’s Muslims trooped out to Humayun’s Tomb after being given a teary farewell on the village outskirts.

When told the government had not made any announcement that India was for Hindus alone, Ram said he was willing to get them back. However, Ehsan turned down the offer. Kidwai notes, “Whether deriving from mistaken beliefs or a lack of trust or the possibility of a forced conversion, he (Ehsan) refused to return.””

Habib’s presidential address at Indian historical congress 1947

The present and the past, our approach to history recalled recently by Ramachandra Guha History against sectarianism

Dalit women

The Spectre Haunting Hindutva: An Assertive Dalit Woman

Schools and children

BIOLOGYEDUCATION Mismatch Between Our Biologically Evolved Educative Instincts and Culturally Evolved Schools

Not all mosquitoes are bad

The secret world of mosquitoes reveals their larger role in our environment

“Mosquitoes have many functions in the ecosystem that are overlooked. Indiscriminate mass elimination of mosquitoes would impact everything from pollination to biomass transfer to food webs.

There are about 3,500 mosquito species, many of which want nothing to do with biting humans or any other animal. Even in species that bite, it is only the females that do so and just to develop their eggs.“

Mobility in America

The Typical American Lives Only 18 Miles From Mom

One of the greatest goals

https://youtu.be/o8wGN5uDaVg I used watch his games on TV during 1968-69. Genius.
Compare the more recent greats https://youtu.be/TmcezBlz2KM

Mother tongue

As a child, Lily Iervasi remembers her grandmother speaking Motu, one of more than 800 distinct indigenous languages that make up Papua New Guinea’s rich linguistic tapestry (possibly a promotional article from ANU) “Lily’s grandmother hailed from Hanuabada, a small town outside Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea. She met Lily’s white Australian grandfather there post-WW2, and they married, eventually returning to Australia to raise their family. They agreed that their children would only speak English; assimilation was the cultural fashion at the time, Lily says. “They wanted their children to fit in.”

Her grandmother learned to assimilate too. A quick learner, she picked up English from her children and wide social network.

A few years ago, she was diagnosed with dementia. As the end neared, she started losing her adopted language. English words and phrases slipped through the cracks of memory. Eventually, all she was left with was her original tongue, Motu.”

Mukul Kesvan writes about his father’s death (posted before)in Do anglophones paddle in the shallows? “But the middle-of-the-night question—what language do you scream in when you’re tumbled from your bed at 2am by an earthquake—remains. In the last week of my father’s life, his mind abandoned his hospital bed present, and ranged back to his childhood. He called to his mother, who had died when he was a boy, and spoke to his grandfather, who had raised him. For all the languages he had learnt over a very long life, and despite his own acknowledgment of the primacy of English, he died in Tamil.”

Rapes in different contexts

Hawke urged daughter to keep rape allegations secret: report

Father Killed In Jail & Aunt Dead In Mishap, Is Unnao Rape Victim Paying Price For Accusing BJP MLA?

Problems with growth

Forget 'developing' poor countries, it's time to 'de-develop' rich countries 

Fascinating discussion on Brexit and other things

https://youtu.be/xdtssXITXuE

Removing paan stains

Mumbai Girls’ Brilliant Way to Remove Paan Stains Could Save Railways Crores Every Year

Speaking to The Better India, Nishtha said, “For the competition, we had genetically modified a microorganism, bacteria to be precise so that it produces specific enzymes which could degrade or remove the pan stains. But as the release of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) in the environment is not safe and has various government regulations and keeping in mind the suggestions given from industries we decided to move it to an ‘enzyme based application system’ which will remove these stains in an effective way.”

One Brexit fear

One of Brits' Biggest Brexit Fears Is That They'll Have to—Oof—Eat American Food I would go further. Keynes in 1933 Via Gautam Menon. As Keynes said in 1933:
“Ideas, knowledge, science, hospitality, travel – these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible, and, above all, let finance be primarily national.
For these strong reasons, therefore, I am inclined to the belief that a greater measure of national self-sufficiency and economic isolation among countries may tend to serve the cause of peace, rather than otherwise." I would go further and go for local self sufficiency even with in countries as much as possible. That may one way to counteract the tyranny of the state including one’s own.

From the review of a book on pandemics

How pandemics shape social evolution “As Snowden discusses, by restricting the land available to people of colour, apartheid accelerated the growth of a migrant labour system that divided black families. It also encouraged new forms of social and sexual behaviour. Both developments, in turn, hastened the spread of AIDS once it arrived. Young men growing up away from their families, for instance, often developed standards of masculinity that promoted sexual conquest and violence; South Africa now has one of the highest rates of rape in the world (K. Naidoo S. Afr. Med. J. 103, 210–211; 2013). ” This seems to have parallels in some Indian sexual violence cases.

On violence against women

Some links via Pramathanath Sastry.
Are men more violent than women?
Socialization Isn’t Responsible for Greater Male Violence
Some links about societies where women have more say:
International Women's Day: What are matriarchies, and where are they now?
What does a society run by women look like?
These links were found in the discussions about the rape, murder and burning of Priyanka Reddy near Hyderabad. Depressingly similar to Nirbhaya case.

An opinion piece from Haaretz on Corbyn

The contract on Corbyn

Remembering C.P.Ramanujam

From The Wikipedia article “Just after his death a commemorative hall was named after him in the former Istituto di Matematica (Institute of Mathematics) of the university of Genoa.” The context may be this. He was one of the few people who studied Italian geometers as well as Grothendieck. Italian geometry from those days was supposed to be interesting but full of gaps and mistakes. Ramanujam was probably one of those who could appreciate what was good in Italian geometry and could justify some of it with modern techniques. I think that some of the Italian mathematicians who met him appreciated this and named the hall after him. He was deep scholar and learner. Even after became a professor, he used to learn a lot of stuff. He felt that his knowledge of Topology was deficient and when Spanier’s book on Algebraic ToPology came out, he read it cover to cover doing all the exercises. Once he said to me ‘ Even though I myself say it, I know algebraic surfaces well”. Coming from such a modest man, it was some statement.

Before one of his breakdowns, I was around and could see it coming. I stayed with him most of a night drinking and talking. Even that state, he was polite. He said “Shall I fight with you?”.

Boris Johnson predicted to win

Johnson Says There’ll Be No U.S. Trade Deal if It Includes the NHS “Boris Johnson is heading for a 68-seat majority in the House of Commons, a mandate not seen since the height of the Margaret Thatcher years, according to the most hotly-anticipated poll of the election campaign. A margin that size would allow him to ratify his Brexit deal ahead of the Jan. 31 deadline, and potentially give him some breathing space to compromise in subsequent trade negotiations with the European Union.”
But Corbyn reveals secret documents that ‘confirm Tory plot to sell off NHS in US trade talks with Trump’ 

Passion for playing the piano

Experience: I learned to play the piano without a piano

Apparently a quote Of Charles Darwin

"If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin"

Branko Milanovic on the current state of capitalism

The ‘crisis of capitalism’ is not the one Europeans think it is “The facts show capitalism to be not in crisis at all. It is stronger than ever, both in terms of its geographical coverage and expansion to areas (such as leisure time, or social media) where it has created entirely new markets and commodified things that were never historically objects of transaction.” 
And
“There is however another issue that does seem to affect most countries, and it is to do with the functioning of political systems. In principle, politics, no more than leisure time, was never regarded as an area of market transaction. But both have become so. This has made politics more corrupt. Even if a politician does not engage in explicit corruption during their time in office, they tend to use the connections acquired to make money afterwards. Such commodification has created widespread cynicism and disenchantment with mainstream politics and politicians.”

On the universality of music

Universality and diversity in human song, a recent research paper. A brief note on the same https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03567-4

Henrietta Locks portrait unveiled

The Smithsonian unveils a portrait of Henrietta Lacks, the black farmer whose cells led to medical miracles

Female authority

What does female authority sound like? Marie Yovanovitch and Fiona Hill just showed us.
And The Guardian on Fiona Hill https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/21/fiona-hill-the-durham-miners-daughter-creating-waves-in-dc? The last link posted yesterday.

David Graeber reviews Robert Skidelsky’s new book

Against economics by David Graeber in NewYork Review of Books. Richard Werner’s work mentioned in the article is described here A lost century in economics: Three theories of banking and the conclusive evidence. The question arises why mainstream economics continues to be popular. Possibly hegemony aligned with the interests of dominant countries as described by Marion Fourcade  
The construction of a global profession: transnationalization of economics. She seems to have softened her stand since then described in this post by Tim Taylor Reviled because it matters.

The attraction of US

In spite of trumps Fiona Hill: the Durham miner's daughter creating waves in DC : “This country has offered for me opportunities I never would have had in England. I grew up poor with a very distinctive working-class accent. In England in the 1980s and 1990s, this would have impeded my professional development." It must be similar for many underprivileged in India. But many who migrate from India seem to be from the privileged classes and those from the underprivileged classes face discrimination from other Indians similar to what they face in India. 

A book review by Alex Tabarrok of MR

The Anarchy by William Dalrymple. The full review http://eh.net/book_reviews/the-anarchy-the-relentless-rise-of-the-east-india-company/ Recommended.

Interview with Rahul Banerjee

RAHUL BANERJEE KHEDUT MAZDOOR CHETNA SANGATHAN (KMCS), INDORE, MADHYA PRADESH (M.P.). Long, over 1hour forty minutes.  YouTube link https://youtu.be/JhaEgu8EQEQ

An overview of some of the work of George Price

The mathematics of kindness Several other links have been posted before.

Two women

https://youtu.be/SuNkgyuD1Uk
And the current ‘acting’ president of Bolivia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanine_%C3%81%C3%B1ez “In a deleted Twitter post from 2013, Áñez called an indigenous ritual of the Aymara people "satanic" and said that no belief system is better than the Christian God.^[22]”

Energy Swaraj, by Chetan Singh Solanki

https://youtu.be/HZAQrVIjAxU

Individual vs group

When the Strong Outbreed the Weak: An Interview with William Muir
“Muir’s experiments reveal a tremendous naiveté in the idea that creating a good society is merely a matter of selecting the “best” individuals. A good society requires members working together to create what cannot be produced alone, or at least to refrain from exploiting each other.  Human societies approach this ideal to varying degrees, but there is always an element of unfairness that results in some profiting at the expense of others. If these individuals are allowed to breed, and if their profiteering ways are heritable, then selecting the “best” individuals will cause a cooperative society to collapse. It’s a good thing that the early eugenicists did not have their way!

Muir’s experiments also challenge what it means for a trait to be regarded as an individual trait.  If by “individual trait” we mean a trait that can be measured in an individual, then egg productivity in hens qualifies. You just count the number of eggs that emerge from the hind end of a hen. If by “individual trait” we mean the process that resulted in the trait, then egg productivity in hens does not qualify. Instead, it is a social trait that depends not only on the properties of the individual hen but also on the properties of the hen’s social environment.”

Al-Assad on Trump

Syria’s Al-Assad: Trump, Openly Criminal, is the best US President we could Wish for

On sad Bollywood songs

Ranjish Hi Sahi: How Sad Bollywood Songs Make Life Bearable by Manjri Indurkar. One of the gloomiest songs is supposed to be Gloomy Sunday originally in Hungarian. Billie Holidayversion in English https://youtu.be/KUCyjDOlnPU

Janelle Shane on AI

The danger of AI is weirder than you think

Longer version 

AlisonGopnik interview

The mind at work: Alison Gopnik on learning like children Right combination of nurture and autonomy “Parents, it turns out, have an important role in fostering curiosity and exploration. Gopnik describes a recent study from Columbia University psychologist Nim Tottenham’s lab that updates classical theories of avoidance learning. If you put an adult rat in a maze and it goes down one end and gets a shock, it never goes down that end of the maze again. But young rats actually prefer the arm of the maze that leads to the shock—when their mother is present. And Tottenham replicated this result with three- and four-year-old children as well. If the child feels safe, they are more motivated by exploration than by a predictable outcome.”

Free downlads from California uni. Press

About 90 books, I downloaded this and a few more https://www.luminosoa.org/site/books/10.1525/luminos.72/

Cellular life

Cellular Life, Death and Everything in Between “We now know that cells can flirt dangerously with the boundary of death — and perhaps even cross it entirely — yet regain their lost function.”

Indian brains smaller

'Indian brain is smaller': IIIT-Hyderabad researchers create Indian Brain Atlas “The average Indian brain is smaller in height, width, and volume as compared to the western and eastern population like the Chinese and Korean according to the first-ever ‘Indian Brain Atlas’ created by researchers of the International Institute of Information Technology-Hyderabad (IIITH).” Research for medical purposes.
Check also The Human Brain Has been Getting Smaller Since the Stone Age and Neanderthals Had Bigger Brains Than Modern Humans — Why Are We Smarter?

Developing local self sufficiency in USA

The US city preparing itself for the collapse of capitalism

Facing water problems in Madhya Pradesh

Meet the IAS Officer Who Helped MP Farmers Battle Drought With Over 16,000 Ponds

Free bus rides for women in Delhi

Delhi’s free bus rides for women are welcome. Other cities should follow its example

Razib Khan on Indian Americans

The native and coconut civilization Not quite Macaulay’s children says Razib Khan.

Fighting back

Women From Haryana Are Leading A Campaign To Stop Wearing The Veil

Comrade

To demonstrate how the figure of the comrade can be a figure for us, an operator for a politics of those engaged in emancipatory egalitarian struggle, I’ve offered four theses:

1. “Comrade” names a relation characterized by sameness, equality, and solidarity. For communists, this sameness, equality, and solidarity is utopian, cutting through the determinations of capitalist society.
2. Anyone but not everyone can be a comrade.
3. The Individual (as a locus of identity) is the “other” of the comrade.
4. The relation between comrades is mediated by fidelity to a truth. Practices of comradeship materialize this fidelity, building its truth into the world.

Together they articulate a generic political component activated through divisive fidelity to the emancipatory egalitarian struggle for communism. A comrade is one of many fighting on the same side. From Four theses on the comrade by Jodi Dean, a review of her recent book Comrade: An Essay on Political Belonging (Verso) by Macmillan Alvarez.