Clutter From My Mind

Friday, May 21, 2004

Manmohan Singh

There they have it. India's next prime mister is claimed to be most qualified among all previous ones. He is claimed to be more reform oriented and all. What disheartens me still that when will our media grow up? Instead of contributing to his qualities and capabilities they are hailing him as "minority" and "Sikh" prime minister. Not that the media is wrong, but just do we need to think of all these at all when we praise a person for a post or work? Why can't we just forget and not mention all that. This is of course not the first time media is reacting like that. When current and last president were elected, most heard phrase were that a "muslim" and a "dalit" have acquired highest post. Even if people of India decide to move away from narrow communalism, I think media will not let them. For for it, that is "spice" and "flavour" of the news. Ask any kid of new generation, and you will find that his apathy is not just limited to country and government only, as I mentioned in my last article. He is apathetic to religion as well, and for good. Why don't we let them forget, and atleast try not to encourage the feeling of communalism. Very unfortunate, but I haven't read a single piece of news referring to Manmohan Singh without mentioning his caste/religion etc.

Thursday, May 20, 2004

Indian Loksabha Election, Massachusetts Same-Sex Marriage Law, and more ...

Over last couple of months there have been lots of things in my mind. But as usual, either I didn't get enough time or I was plain lazy, I didn't worked on my blog. Actually if you carefully notice than you will find that majority of web loggers start their blog cursing that it had been long before they did it. But of course, my laziness didn't prevent me from forming opinions which by now have accumulated to such an extent that if I didn't divulge them, I will forget them. Actually, what is the big deal in doing so is a reasonable question. But then whole purpose of blogging is lost. Though there comes one more question: Do people read other's blog? Actually, as I have perceived over the years and as Dale Carnegie in his book "How to Win Friend and Influence People" have noted, that most of the people are interested in their own stuff. And they will do only things they like. For example, my friend visited me last weekend, and I invited him to show my collection of pictures which I have proudly collected during my brief stay at MIT. But he didn't seem to be interested in what I wouldn't get tired watching, simply because they represented some memories for me, and nothing but a set of unknown people to him. On the other hand, he offered me to show his set of pictures, and to my surprise my reaction was not any different, though I didn't let it show. So we come to basic point of why would any body be interested in reading my thoughts. Actually, and truthfully I know that nobody, but of course, as I have mentioned time and again one more purpose of writing blogs is to save memory for yourself, from loses resulting from forgetfulness. So here I begin...

Lets see, what to start with. I want to talked about much-talked-about Indian election 2004, also about my semester which just concluded, and about my birthday, and about same-sex marriage laws passed into US recently, and other thoughts that I usually digress to.

Loksabha election have come and gone. And I have always the neck of following political news with keenness. Actually, in this regard I differ from many of my generation who are apolitical. Indeed this is the reason for younger generation of India to adopt complete apathy towards community goals - including voting. If you think that it is because 'all politicians are corrupt', then I should like to tell you that this similar nature has been observed during my stay at IITM as well. The reason is apathy to associate oneself above mean personal gains and think broader. Of course, this all will sound like "lecture" to many of you who think they are smartest people on earth and everybody - including all politicians, policy makers, administrators and others - are stupid set of people. Had they been given the rein of decision-making things would have been different. What they fail to reaslise that those who holds rein are among these only. There is no reason to believe that everybody will be happy when you will be making "smart" decisions.

Actually I had big debate over this with my roommate Vinod. Not that this was only topic I ever debated with him, but his response was that by not participating in voting, people are not avoiding their responsibilities but doing more favour to the country than those who chose to elect one among none of the competent candidates. Arguments goes like that: If enough people chose not to vote, then system have to change, and then their will a set of "honest" candidates which will be elected by those will-wishers of India. Actually complete logic is more convoluted, but the gist is this. One thing you can immediately spot in above and similar arguments is that these are utopian views. Yes, I will be more than happy if this were to happen, but then I don't want to wait for this to happen, I want to act now, and act with conscious judgment considering ground realities and practicality of the issue are. Dreams are necessary for progress, but realistic dreams are forerunner of improvement not the daydreaming.

Anyway, so I was telling that I followed elections keenly. And media, which is ever powerful, chose to move from subjects to subjects too fast, and too vigorously that they nearly created mass hysteria. On personal basis, I do not like the way media functions in India. Importance of kalam over talwar is not new, but the fourth state in India continues for fail the responsibilities it beholds in such a vast country. Before I digress again in those reasons, let me trace back. Some news pieces which were neglected by the media are worth giving second thoughts. One was that one fellow name "jyonsho" was contesting elections from some constituency from Andhra Pradesh. The difference here is that he is independent, doesnâ€™t have a single follower and has been contending since 1985 or around. After resigning well-paid government job in electricity board, he started one-man crusade against corrupt political system. He has been contesting in every election - be central or ward - again and again, and unfortunately without win. What is admirable is the willingness, and sacrifices and efforts on part of one man. He has lost all his life savings on elections, but hasn't lost the hope. And we have people who think voting is time-wasting job.

Other news was the loyalties of Kashmiries in Indian democratic process. When terrorists have warned for boycott, around 30-35% voting was recorded in Srinagar. In some cases percentage went as high as 60% which more than educated middle class contributed in UP and Rajasthan. And the shock comes now, that about 15-20 people lost their lives while exercising their right to franchise. Losing a life has not been so much sympathetic in India anymore, but think of losing your life when you decided to go and vote even under life-threatening situations. My supposedly intellectual friends would like to call a waste of life for such a "useless process". Had I been there, perhaps I wouldn't have done that. But they did, and they deserve a full fledge salute. And we have generation which treat government with 'who cares' attitude.

What they fail to see is that however corrupt the government is, whatever it doesn't do for poor and public, still shapes countr'sy future in form of its policies. And long-term effects, good or bad, do percolate to poor. Country isn't running by itself. They fail to realize the importance of the priviledge since it is their birthright. Had they been born under dictator rule, they would have been striving for government to listen to people's voice. And we have the future of India which doesn't care about itself.

Not that voting is the only way you can do good, indeed their are millions of other ways, many much effective than this. But the act of voting is not as important as the ideology against it.

One very touching article I happened to read divulged that "In Gujarat Muslims Don't Matter". BJP knows that they won't vote for it whatever it does and Congress knows that they don't have any alternative but to vote for it whatever they do. What a pity, that Congress hasn't included any Muslim party worker so as not to "offend" Hindu votes, while this can hardly be expected of BJP in Gujarat.

Let me be frank. I have been pro-BJP. There are reasons, of course, for it. But recent series of incidents have left me wondering if I am right. Specially after Sonia Gandhi was about to be Prime Minister, the drama raised by Sushma Swaraj and Uma Bharati aroused in me nothing but deep disgust and hatred for these people. Be it foreign origin or not, BJP did and said whatever it wanted to before election. People listened, and gave their verdict. Now going against Sonia Gandhi is like going against verdict of People of India, which undermines the fundamental constitutional idea itself. Before you jump into saying that I am anti-national, let me make it clear that I 'personally' wouldn't want a foreigner running my government, but then this is my personal views. And everybody has right to express his/her opinions. But then when collective majority of people has expressed their personal opinions then who is BJP to go against it. Yes, people of India chose to elect a foreign-born-Indian-national to lead them, you or me may not like it, but then, in democracy majority wins.

Okay then, lets move on. On 17th of May, Massachusetts becomes the first state in USA to legalise same-sex-marriages, and joined few others including Nether land, Belgium and three of Canadian Provinces. Before I read, "Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps' by Allan and Barbara Pease, I used to think that same-sex attraction was behavioural problem. Many in India thinks like that. But unfortunately, it is not. It is not a behavioural problem but a medical one, on which the person has no control over. Unfortunately it cannot be cured either. Abhorring them is like punishing someone for not fault of his/her own. I, now, have sympathy with them. Though I still believe that problem is more enhanced by recognition it received. I mean, that those people who were slightly off normal - not in offensive sense - and who could adapt to normal practice by some therapeutic treatment and self-control, chose to move to other end because society accepted it. Not that it has been fully normalised in US as well, but still people do recognise this portion of human existence. Unlike India where gays and lesbians are fighting for recognition - for many Indians these people simply do not exist - they here are fighting for marriage and other social rights.

My second semester at MIT has just finished. It was comparatively more interesting as well more hectic. The courses this semester were all elective unlike previous semester when I had to do core courses. "Probability and Statistics in Engineering" has practically didn't teach me anything that I didn't know beforehand but it reinforced many concepts and formalised my knowledge in this area, which till now, I had learned indirectly in other courses as per need basis. Also, this was an easy course, so not much of workload as such but sure good grade! Other course, "Demand Modeling" opened area and applications of Statistics to me that I never knew existed. It taught me how to model demand by statistical and regression models, and how to predict market shares. Applications of this are aplenty, starting from Transportation demand of modes/destination etc. to most of marketing related applications. My interest in Operations Research continued after "System Optimization: Models and Computation", which taught me many advanced methods in Operations Research. Most important aspect of this course was that it helped me learn optimization related softwares which are practical necessity in any professional work. I am happy to learn MATLAB, OPL studio and AMPL programming languages. Apart from academics, this semester being second at MIT saw more of my involvement in general. I went to Skiing Trip with Transportation Students Group, as well acting as Treasurer for Indian Student Association - Sangam. Weather has been good in later part of the semester when summer begun.

That seems to be enough for now. At least I can't think of anything more. Oh yeah, my roommates have gifted me my favourite gifts for my birthday - books! And that too, my favourite author Issac Asimov. I can't hold reading, so bye for now.

Tuesday, March 30, 2004

Game theory & the Sachin decision [NEWS CLIP]

for 2004 Indo-Pak first Test Match Inning Declaration controversy

Economictimes Article

Comment... [NEWS CLIP]

Bihar has become a byword for the worst of India, of widespread and inescapable poverty, of corrupt politicians indistinguishable from mafia-dons they patronise, caste-ridden social order that has retained the worst feudal cruelties.

- The Economist

Monday, March 29, 2004

New York Trip

March 27-28, 2004. Group Size: 3

Pictures Here

The NewYork City (NYC) - the Big Apple of America and the third largest city in the world. We, myself and my friends, Jaykumar Sunderajan & Hemant Kumar Sahoo, visited this city on second weekend of spring break at MIT. The experience was amazing, not just because it was our first out-of-Boston tourist visit, but also because of NYC's aura, which stills lingers in memory. You have to walk down the fifth avenue to see the towering wonders of steel and concrete reminding one of, on one hand, the utter insignificance of human compared to environment around him, and on the hand, the pride of human race as creater of these monuments. I will try my best to recount my experience to give you the vicarious pleasure or sweet recollection of the experience.

DAY 1 - Friday 26th, 2004

We decided to go NYC by one of the cheapest options available, the Chinatown bus. Chinatown, as the name suggests, is locality in Boston which is mainly occupied by Chinese immigrants. Actually, similar "Chinatown" exists in NY as well, and may be in many other cities, that I might not be aware of. So they run buses between Chinatown of Boston to that of NY. And the fare if $10 for 4:30hr ride. Compared to train, $80, and plane, $50, this sure is the most desirable options for poor and students (usually the same!). We were planning to stay with Sahoo's friends in NY, and as a guest gesture we decided to take some gifts for them when we go. What else could better gift other than MIT T-Shirt's! We purchased two pieces from MIT COOP (cooperative society of MIT/Harvard) and boarded the Red Line, local train of Boston, to reach Chinatown. There we purchased tickets and boarded the bus at 5:00 PM. Though tickets are given for bus departing at printed time, you have to don your Indian shoes for a while and show your mettle to get on bus fighting with many others trying to make their way in.

Once in, we made our way to NY. As usual, a little nap and a lot of jokes kept us busy during the ride. This was also my second experience of freeways in America. Freeway are highest category of roads here, which often have 4 lanes in each direction. Speed achieved is equals to that of trains in India, 120kmph. As a transportaion engineer, this experience has little more than entertaining values for me. Anyway, we got down at Chinatown NY at 9:30 PM.

We wandered away for a while in search of nearest subway (local trains of NY) station to no avail. We asked for help, only to realise that we couldn't understand Chinese and Chinese English! Wonder how these people survive in US? Well, so we called our hosts and found our way to nearest subway. Ticket here is $2 per ride, not distance based, unlike India. And the entry to platform is permitted to ticket holders only, avoiding the need for ticket-checker. So we were given magnetic stripe card, like Credit Card, which when passed in a slot allowes one entry. Trains in NY are like Bombay local trains. Indeed, NY is much like Bombay. More on this later.

We got out at the Times Square. This is most lively and glamourous place in NY. Times Square is a intersection of roads which is very developed for shopping. What an experience! You could see buildings as high as you can see on both sides of road. Lots of crowd and hustle-bustle and noise. If you have been to Cannaught Place in New Delhi then you will know what I am talking about. Coloured and decorated posters and hoarding all around you. And there were lots of stalls on each side for variety of small things from posters to hand-made sketch to spray painting to honeyed nuts! This place is perennially crowded by tourists. Thats where we saw NYPD - New York Police Department - which are particularly know in US for their efficiency. Well, it was night 11PM by this time, so we decided to head for our stay.

Rohit and Shyam, our hosts, are students at City College of NY, sharing an apartment. They picked us up from the subway station 168th street. Let me, at this point, tell you the geographics of NY. NY is a collection of five islands surrounded by Hudson River and Atlantic Ocean. Main tourism attraction and developed place is Manhattan. Whole Manhattan is divided in grids, with "streets" (1 to 200+) and "avenues" (1 to 8) criss-crossing each other. After a little break, we walked to Washington Bridge. That's when we first saw NYC in nightlight. Multiple layers of roads, curving & crossing ramps, great length of greenery, fast running cars and cold air from Hudson River presented magnificent site. All bridges connecting five islands in NY are cable suspension bridges, and whole bridge used to vibrate whenever a heavy truck passed on it.

That night we slept at 1:30AM after finalizing our itenary for the next day with help of expert advises from Rohit & Shyam. A great day lies ahead.

DAY 2 - Saturday 27th, 2004

The second day started with us waking up lazily at 7AM plannig to leave at 9 for the tour. We had subway & NY maps ready with us and itenary was well planned thanks to our hosts at NYC. And in need, we had their cell number, just in case if we get lost! So went to nearest subway and purchased our daily unlimited subway travel pass for $7. Like I said earlier, this city is very much like Bombay. Hence we weren't surprised, in retrospect, to see two people blaking the train ticket while they somehow "fixed" the pass vending machine. Later we got passes and reached to South Ferry, our destination for Satute of Liberty. Did I tell you that I caught my hands in the automatic closing doors of train, luckily to be cleared without injury?

We walked to Battery Park to be welcomed by warm and sunny day for our wonderfull trip. There was little fog, which we later found was artificially created - don't know why?, which dimly provided us the glimps of Staute of Liberty farther in the Atlantic Ocean. Asking people here and there, we purchased our tickets and occupied our postions in the line waiting to be boarded on the ferry taking us to Statue of Liberty island. There were couple of Indian groups in the long queue, which was intercepted by few artist-cum-beggers. Incidently we had a Indian tourist group of 5-6 noticeable guys just ahead of us in line that attracted them (artists) to play Indian tunes. To out utter surprise and shock, one man played Indian National Anthem on violen, while other sang "Main tumse pyar karata hoon" in Hindi, explaining other people its literal translation. Not to be outdone, third man played "Mera joota he japani" on his inverted steel oval type of instrument. My friend gave some coins to him for playing his favourite song. After interesting wait for half an hour in line, we boarded a ferry and climbed to the top. Soon we were moving away from NYC towards Statue of Liberty. Though trip was only 15 minutes long, we experienced great skyline of NY and zooming-in view of the great monument of American Independence. Usually one is allowed to reach up crown of the statue by internal staircase, this was closed after terrorists bombing of Spetember 11th. It is said that the Statue is 22 storey high. The island was not very special, but surrounded by sea the view was very refreshing because of morning air.

After a while we departed back to Battery Park. This was about 2PM. Then we walked towards out next destination, the World Trade Center site. Walking in NYC on such weather-friendly day with tall buildings arround you is no less fun in itself. Soon we reached the place where humanity had suffered a severe blow not so long ago. The site is not very interesting now as such, but has big emotional issues. Currenly this place is geared for further construction and land is occupied with construction machinary and materials. Nearby, World Financial Center houses the memorial for the victims and the reconstruction plan for the WTC. This is a beautiful building and exhibits the timeline of events and efforts in selecting and implementing the memorial building that is planned to be constructed at WTC's place.

We next reached the famous Wall Street which encompasses the NY Stock Exchange, the first in the world. It being a Saturday, we just spent half-an-hour walking past the street and observed the NYSE from outside only. It was about 3PM now and we needed good lunch next. Well, fortunately for us, we found some good and cheap Indian restaurant, Bengal Curry. We had proper dhaba style naan and vegetables to our hearts content in just $4, much cheaper compared to Boston. Next stop for our tour was at Empire State Building.

As I mentioned earlier NY is just place is experience the magnificence of glamour, and all buildings compete with each other to force you break your neck. Nevertheless, the Empire State Building occupies the honor of achieving so, after the unfortunate collapse of twin-towers. This 109 floor tower has the power of humbling anyone not by its sheer size but also by beauty and aura. No doubt we had to wait for one hour to catch the lift to reach top most floor we were allowed to go, 86th floor. Actually one can not go higher than that since tower just steeply sharpens after that and doen not cantain floors, literally. On the 80th floor, we were photographed, the purpose of which we kept debating if it were for security reasons or for revenue collection, to realise later that later opinion was right. They were trying to sell that in $15, a ridiculously high price when one can get use and throw cameras for 27 pictures in $7! Nevertheless, the view of NYC at twilight and night was just superb and beyond all sensations. Temperature was low at this altitude, while we really felt pain in our ears while going up by lift. The only problem for me was now that every thing just looked same to me at this hight! And yes, we also experienced the 'Skyride' of NYC. This is great concept which gives your near-real simulation of NYC travel through air! We were seated on the chairs attached to movable floor, and lifesize screen ahead us moved with conjugation with floor and sounds to create sensation as if we were in helicopters. Zooming in-out, ups and down, tilting and avoiding buildings was all surprisingly real. A great value of money if you can't afford the real helicopters. And of course, we kept finding Indians wherever we went.

Next we headed to Times Square again, this time for Madame Tussad's wax museum. If you don't know what I am talking about, then here it is. Somebody called Madame Tussad - I don't know if their is any real person of this name - has a series of wax museums in London, HongKong, Las Vagas and NYC where they have life size extraordinarily real looking wax statues of famous personalities across the world. And believe me they are truely life life, you just can't tell the difference between real person and the statue! Indian personalities included are Mahatma Gandhi and Amitabh Bachchan. Actually we didn't go to the museus for its high fare and lack of time. Nonetheless we managed to capture few of dummies in our cameras before Rohit and Shyam joined us for the dinner. We had a greatly tasty dinner and headed back to their home for the good night's sleep after a happy seocnd day. Plans for day three? Ready already. Good night.

DAY 3 - Sunday 28th, 2004

On Sunday, we decided to finish of some of the remaining tourist attractions before we head back to our home in Boston. First came the Central Park. This is a very large chunk of greenery spread over miles on both directions located exactly in the middle of Manhattan. And that was the first place we could seek solitude in bustling NYC. Central Park is not very decorative per se in terms of trees and plantations but its pristince yet natural beauty is what attracts many tourists and New Yorkers to spend few calm moments and have a healthy fresh air in this highly polluted city. We visited a couple of lakes in the park for a while. After that while I relished the ecstacy of swinging on kid's swing after my last one about six years ago, my friends photographed variuous avian species flocking the park. However ridiculous it may sound, I must admit that I will remember that swing for long! Because of short availability of time we headed next to United Nations.

UN is an international organization aimed to develop peace and collaboration among nations of the world. UN offices in NYC resides few of its influencial suborganizations including General Assembly Hall and Security Council Chamber. As usually with all buildings in NY, about 50 storey UN holds working and administrave offices for various nations and UN. On the way we saw the building of Indian mission to UN, which was closed due to Sunday. One special, if not extraordinary, point to make here is that UN is outside of USA border. So as to say, property of UN is international territory and not under USA but belongs to all member nations. Hence it keeps its security and other facilities like fire fighting and electricty generation separate from US. After through security checks we went in and clubbed into a guided tour for $7 per person. Tour was lead by UN officials, a russian in our case, who showed us General Assembly hall - where UN holds its general meetings for all 190+ members - and Security Council Chambers - where most of international security related decisions are taken by a committee of 15 nations, 5 permanent and 10 yearly selected.

UN doen't have a lot of money simply because as a collective organizations UN is financially and otherwise dependent on its member nations. Thus though those halls and chambers were not very appealing in aesthetics or luxury as one would expect a place where world leaders preside should be, there was an air of importance of this place in the history of world and thereby humankind. Unfortunately, if that is so, many chairs were broken while main chairs for the national heads were not better than plastic chairs in our lawns! Nevertheless, walls were decorated by paintings of famous painters - donated by various nations. We also witnessed many gifts from nations to UN including ivory monument from china, which I particularily remembered. On the display was also Nobel Peace Prize of Kofi Annan, in contrast with reminders of world's ghastly human tragedy in form of radioactively decayed peices of clothes, metal, glass and stone statute from Hiroshima & Nagasaki in Japan. Tour ended with the information that some English movie "Interprator is being filmed in General Assembly on that day in which Nicole Kidman is actress.

About 2PM by this time, we directly went for lunch to a Indian restaurant that we saw on our way to UN, the 'Mallika'. This was little costlier than yesterday's but the owner was impressed (or pitied?) by us being student from MIT and offered us free pakodas! Well, time to wrap up now. We next went to Chanatown to purchase our return ticket for 5:30PM bus. After securing that, we wandered off to nearby Manhattan Bridge overlooking Hudson river. A beautiful place to feel. We occupied our seats in bus at 5:30 and bid farewell to NYC and carrying with us in collection more than 125 pictures for the trip.

Bus dropped us at Boston in night 9:30PM, and we were back home at 10:30PM. Great journey! Except Brookleyn bridge we nearly visited all major attractions of NYC. Anyway, one can never see a place like this in two days. May be next time. Indians kept smiling on us wherever we went in NY. Many were NRIs or their parents, gratification on their face on familier colour & face was very satisfying.

Why NYC is very much like Bombay?

This city dulled the image of America that I had percieved in Boston a little and gave me (sadistic) satisfaction that we are not far behind! Few things that I noticed in NY as first time in US are: beggers in the train, uncleaned trains and platforms, dirty roads and garbage in the streets, stinking garbage bags lying uncleared, pothols on the roads, unorganised traffic, astray padestrians, commotion on intersections, disregard of traffic signals, honking of car's horns, open fruit vendors, cycle rikshaw on the roads, street side vendors for all what you can imagine..... Nevertheless, I liked the city. Lets see what will be next destination?

I hope you enjoyed the dissertation!

Monday, March 22, 2004

Does America need fear outsourcing? Other side's perspective. [NEWS CLIP]

No threat to US jobs because America alone can be the birthplace of ideas. Bangalore techies can only help them reach the market quicker can only help them reach the market quicker. Yamini Narayanan is an Indian-born 35-year-old with a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Oklahoma. After graduation, she worked for a US computer company in Virginia and recently moved back to Bangalore with her husband to be closer to family. When I asked her how she felt about the outsourcing of jobs from her adopted country, America, to her native country, India, she responded with a revealing story: I just read about a guy in America who lost his job to India and he made a T-shirt that said, I lost my job to India and all I got was this (lousy) T-shirt! And he made all kinds of money (by selling that)!!

Only in America, she said, shaking her head, would someone figure out how to profit from his own unemployment. And that, she insisted, was the reason America need not fear outsourcing to India: America is so much more innovative a place than any other country. There is a reason the "next big thing" almost always comes out of America, said Narayanan. When she and her husband came back to live in Bangalore and enrolled their son in a good private school, he found himself totally stifled because of the emphasis on rote learning rather than the independent thinking he was exposed to in his US school. They had to take him out and look for another, more avant-garde private school. America allows you to explore your mind, she said.

The whole concept of outsourcing was actually invented in America, added her husband, Sean, because no one else figured it out. The Narayanans are worth listening to at this time of rising insecurity over white-collar job losses to India. America is the greatest engine of innovation that has ever existed, and it can't be duplicated anytime soon, because it is the product of a multitude of factors: extreme freedom of thought, an emphasis on independent thinking, a steady immigration of new minds, a risk-taking culture with no stigma attached to trying and failing, a non corrupt bureaucracy, and financial markets and a venture capital system that are unrivalled at taking new ideas and turning them into global products.

You have this whole ecosystem (that constitutes) a unique crucible for innovation, said Nandan Nilekani, the CEO of Infosys, India's IBM. I was in Europe the other day and they were commiserating about the 400,000 (European) knowledge workers who have gone to live in the US because of the innovative environment there. The whole process where people get an idea and put together a team, raise the capital, create a product and mainstream it that can only be done in the US. It can't be done sitting in India. The Indian part of the equation (is to help) these innovative (US) companies bring their products to the market quicker, cheaper and better, which increases the innovative cycle there. It is a complimentarily we need to enhance.That is so right.

As Robert Hof, a tech writer for Business Week, noted, US tech workers must keep creating leading edge technologies that make their companies more productive especially innovations that spark entirely new markets. The same tech innovations that produced outsourcing, he noted, also produced eBay, Amazon.com, Google and thousands of new jobs along with them. This is America's real edge. Sure, Bangalore has a lot of engineering schools, but the local government is rife with corruption; half the city has no sidewalks; there are constant electricity blackouts; the rivers are choked with pollution; the public school system is dysfunctional; beggars dart in and out of the traffic, which is in constant gridlock; and the whole infrastructure is falling apart. The big hi-tech firms here reside on beautiful, walled campuses, because they maintain their own water, electricity and communications systems. They thrive by defying their political-economic environment, not by emerging from it.

What would Indian techies give for just one day of America's rule of law; its dependable, regulated financial markets; its efficient, non corrupt bureaucracy; and its best public schools and universities? They'd give a lot. These institutions, which nurture innovation, are our real crown jewels that must be protected not the 1 per cent of jobs that might be outsourced.

But it is precisely these crown jewels that can be squandered if we become lazy, or engage in mindless protectionism, or persist in radical tax cutting that can only erode the strength and quality of our government and educational institutions. Our competitors know the secret of our sauce. But do we?

New York Times

Benford's Law

This is not suppose to be a mathematical discourse, but what follows is truely amazing fact. I recenly read a Sharlock Holmes book on cases involving probabilities. One simple conclusion is that 'randomness' does not imply uniformity. Meaning that if you are asked to select 10 random numbers between 1 and 50, by nature of human mind, one will always end up selecting uniformly distributed numbers. Think, isn't that true? By simple logical thinking you would not like to select some number which has already been selected because of associated small probability, and consequently end up selecting unformly separated series. So this is the way to distinguish true random numbers from imaginary random numbers. Of course, result will be probabilisticlly true, since after all, with a finite probability any given set of "random" numbers can be achieved in output of true random numbers. Overall, though, each number is equally likely and in large enough sample all qill occur uniformly.

However, and here comes the twist, if you note down first digit of any number you come across in a day - in newspaper, TV, talk, bus number, phone, label - just anything, and write it down and count the occurance of 1's,2's...9's etc., you will find - loo and behold - non uniform distribution, a direct contracdition to what I just said! Before I give explanation, lets credit this to its original founder BENFORD. He postulated that

Probability that first digit is 's' in any randomly selected number = ln(1 + 1/s)

That is digit 1 is about 2 times as likely as digit 9. Same holds if you go to a supermarket and note down first digit of prices of all items. Now the reason: Proportion changes slower initially and faster later! That is if the inflation rate is 5% constant and price of some item is 1 Rs today, than if you calculate price for next 100 years, you will find similar thing happening. It means that price digit will change from 1 to 2 in 14 years, from 2 to 3 in 8 years, ..., from 8 to 9 in 2 years, from 9 to 10(hence 1) in 1 year.

Another reason is discretization of things. That is you go to buy a packet of sweets. You would see that available packings are 50g, 100g, 250g, 500g, 1kg, 2kg, 5kg... did you find something strange? That different in packing size initially is 50 g, but we don't have packings of 1.05kg??? Hence again, small denominations are more fine tuned. Thats the nature's way of keeping things simple. I will finish with last "natural" example. Go to a bottomhill, and measure the diameters of all stones lying there. You will realise that smaller stones are more fine tuned with small difference in diameter, while the difference becomes large for large stones. Otherwise there will be too many diameters to keep track of, if the 1 meter boulder incremented by 1mm to 2 meter boulder!

Sunday, March 21, 2004

New dimensions of problems

It is not just that being in America is all about technology, glamour, money and developement - though it is so too - but to problems which are too different than what we in India have. Things are different here, more because of people, culture and attitude, but also because issue they deal with are too different. For example recently ministry of food here have issued notices to all restaurent too include calorie content in menus. Reason being that they recognize that second most curable deadly disease facing americans is obesity. Wonder when out health ministry is fighting with basic hospitalizations and epidemics like polio, issue like obesity come too far when people are even struggling for feeding themselves. One thing is sure I have noticed that these people are obcessed with with health issues. Perhaps the reson is that when people are well fed and have enough money, they digress to unimportant issues. Not that I say health is irrelevent, but the approach here seems very ridiculous to me. They prefer eating tablets and injections but not basic exersise, running or daily hard work. And be whatever the stage, only benefit anybody seems to get are these corporations. Funny that advertisement, products tune themselve to lure people for whatever they are worth. May be because economy is capitalism here, but it seems to be the trend that will govern human concerns all along. Recently I heard the news the prision industry in america is privatised. Hmm, "prison industry". Actually US imprisionment rate is highest of 7 inmated per 1000 residents - though crime is falling, perception of crime is becoming less tolerent, and also not to say that most of criminals do get punished. So whatever, corporations have found a new way to cut costs. Packing, manufacturing, and all that cheap labour work is contracted to these private prisions, at pittance of rate of normal wage. Idea is simple, inmates are not organised, no over time, no compensation, no vacations, no sick leave.....and what more Guards ensures productivity and hard-work. And managers of these corporations have control over their punishment..isn't it strange?

Tuesday, March 2, 2004

India Shining : From Pakistani Writer's Pen [NEWS CLIP]

"Beyond the edge by Masood Hasan."

(The writer is a Lahore-based columnist and a well-known journalist , his contact email address is masood_news@hotmail.com)

THE NEWS INTERNATIONAL (Pakistani Newspaper)

DECEMBER 14, 2003

The sight of Indian actress Urmilla on the rooftops of the old city of Lahore is a sight for sore eyes any time of the day. This week another 270 delegates from India among which are Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi, are expected to cross over into Pakistan. As both countries take a series of steps, gingerly to start with, there is just that little light at the end of the dark and endless tunnel that has held us "prisoners of our own device" - as The Eagles put it in the famous number Hotel California. Will these measures lead to peace is a question for which even Tauqir Zia has no answers. All we can do is hope, pray and contribute in whatever way we can to normalise relations and bury the many hatchets that we have brandished for the last half-century.

Travelling last week on the Wazirabad-Sambrial road towards Sialkot, the potholes and bumps on that narrow ribbon strip road began to revive memories of long forgotten journeys made on that same road. I could have, after a few violent and rib-shaking miles, sworn these holes and craters were the same when one was in Kindergarten. Nothing seemed to have changed except that the dust was thicker, the pollution dismal and the people in numbers too large to comprehend. Perhaps in most of India the situation is not very much different and our much-touted smirking observations that India has huge problems might have given us years of self-induced smugness, but things across the divide are changing at a speed that baffles the mind. Some years ago, an Indian said to a Pakistani, "It is true we are both in the gutter. The difference is, we are looking at the stars. You are looking at the gutter." Many of us associate India's new progress with its IT revolution and it is partly true. Indian companies only Rs 1,000 crore - Indian rupees I might add. This firm sells data-storage products to seven of the world's top 10 CD-R producers. There is another unknown Tandon Electronics. Its hardware exports are Rs 4,000 crore.

There is more depressing data, all of it quite true and impartial. 15 of the world's major automobile makers are obtaining components from Indian companies. This business fetched India $375 million last year and in 2003 the number will be $1.5 billion. In half a decade, they will reach $15 billion. Hero Honda with 17 lakh motorcycles a year is now the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world. The prestigious UK automaker, Rover is marketing 1 lakh Indica cars made by Tata in Europe, under, wait a minute, its own name. Bharat Forge has the world's largest single-location forging facility. It produces 1.2 lakh tonnes per annum and its clients include Honda, Toyota and Volvo among others.

Asian Paints now owns 22 production facilities over 5 continents and is the market leader in 11 of these countries. Hindustan Inks has the world's largest single stream fully integrated ink plant of 1-lakh tones per annum capacity and 100% owned subsidiaries in USA and Austria. EsselPropack is the world's largest laminated tube manufacturer with presence in 11 countries and a global marketing share of 25% already. Ford has just presented its Gold World Excellence Award to India's Cooper Tyres. Other industries are winning equally prestigious awards all the time.While on cars, Aston Martin has contracted prototyping its latest luxury sports car to an Indian-based designer and is set to produce thecheapest Aston Martin ever. Suzuki, which makes Maruti in India has decided to make India its manufacturing, export and research hub outside Japan. Hyundai India is set to become the global small car hub for the Korean giant and will produce 25,000 Santros to start with. By 2010 it is set to supply half a million cars to Hyundai Korea. HMI and Ford.

Indians are leaping ahead, posting astonishing results in the global markets from Brazil to China. The Indian pharmaceutical industry is blazing ahead too. At $6.5 billion and growing at 8-10% annually, it is the 4th largest pharmaceutical industry in the world. Its exports are over $2 billion. India is among the top five bulk drug makers and at home, the local industry has edged out the MNCs whose share of 75% in the market is down to 35%. Trade of medicinal plants has crossed Rs 4,000 crore already. As for technology, India is among the three countries that have built supercomputers on their own. The other two are USA and Japan. Not a bad club to be in, is it? India is among six countries that launch satellites and do so even for Germany and Belgium. India's INSAT is among the world's largest domestic satellite communication systems. Here are more depressing facts. India is one of the world's largest diamond cutting and polishing centres. About 9 out of 10 stones sold anywhere in the world, pass through India. With China, India's arch enemy, trade has grown by 104% in the past year and in the first 5 months of 2003, India has amassed a surplus in trade close to half a million dollars. In the recession-hit West, Indian exports are up by 19% this year and the country's foreign exchange reserves stand at an all-time high of $82 (Now over 100) billion. India is dishing out aid to 11 countries, pre-paying their debt and loaned IMF $300 million!! And since we think banning fashion shows is the way ahead, it might be interesting to know that Wal-Mart sources $1 billion worth of goods from India - half its apparel, GAP about $600 million and Hilfiger $100 million. These success stories are not propaganda and haven't happened overnight or by good fortune. The Indians have the same bureaucracy and many of the politicians simply play politics, the infrastructure creaks andpoverty abounds, corruption flourishes and there are huge pockets of inefficiency and walls that block meaningful progress.

Sure, it has an army that is not bursting with power-grabbing and subjugating its people every few years, but India's success can no longer be denied and the gap between us and them grows wider by, if I may use my childhood idiom,leaps and bounds. What makes them tick?

The answers are not simple and require great space and analysis by minds far superior to that of a weekly hack, but Cost and Brains are two factors. Add to that, a determination to rise above what faces you everyday, a vision of the stars as the man said. India provides IT services at one-tenth the price. No wonder more and more companies are basing their operations in India. An Indian MBA costs $5,000. An American MBA $120,000. Development of an automobile in the US costs $1 billion. In India, less than half. A cataract operation costs $1500 in the US. In India, $12. Bypass in the US anywhere up to Rs 6 lakhs. In India, it is Rs 40,000. Over 70 MNCs have set up R & D facilities in India in the past five years. 100 of the Fortune 500 are now present in India vs 33 in China. Intel's Indian staff strength has gone up from 10 to 1,000 in four years. GE with a $60 million invested in India employs 1,600 researchers, while it has only 100 in China. With better systems comes efficiency. The turnaround time in Indian ports is down to 4 days from 10 and its telecom infrastructure in 1999 provided a bandwidth of 155 Mbps. Today, it is 75,000 times more and with fibre optic networks in 300 cities, it will change the face of business. Mobile phones are growing by about 1.5 million a month. Long distance rates are down by two-thirds in five years and by 80% for data transmission. The facts go on and on.

So what are the answers? They lie in the way we look at things, our discourse, our vision, our ability to look ahead and our desire to genuinely put our country on the right road. The people of the subcontinent are naturally talented and bright. When will we unleash the great potential of our people that lies dormant, crushed by the forces of evil that stop our progress for their personal agendas?

Saturday, February 7, 2004

Distant Learning

Hi, I am about to recollect an amazing experience which I had during a particular course here at MIT. I was so amazed by the spectacular display of science and technology about which I have only read so far. Not that it was too much much technical, and indeed I am not going to delve into technical aspect of it as well, but it was just happening in front of my eyes. The concept of distant learning. At MIT, the MIT college and National Technical University (NTU), Singapore have formed an alliance called Singapore-MIT alliance (SMA). Under which some set of courses are offered together for both MIT and NTU students simulataneously over video conferencing, I am going to narrate the experience as I found it.

The day I realised that my class 15.094 (read note at the end) System Optimization : Models and Computation is held at 7:00 PM, I was thinking nothing more than one of many idiosyncracy of the tech-savy MITian. However, As soon as I entered into my class room, I realised that I am live telecasted to Singapore. Ha...Ha..., well, not only me, of course, but whole class. And my god, what a beautiful and equipped class it was. Of course, more surprised were waiting for me. First I saw great set of chairs and tables for me. Cushioned, hand-rest all that, but also plug-points for laptops, microphone for speaking etc. Super stuff, huh? All walls had embeded microphones so that any voice in the room is recorded. And there were multiple cameras, operator operated movable camera covering most of the room. Yeah, most of the room, but not all, since supposedly MIT has this privacy policy so that if you don't want to be recorded you can sit in those "hidden" place. I wonder who wouldn't like to be filmed, at least I do, but you know, rules are rules. So it is. But unfortunately there is no privacy policy for your voice. After all you can't block microphones all over. So if you dont want to be recorded, better shut up. I am not saying to you, of course, so continue. Well so here was all description of room for yes. Now the professor's stuff. Well, first, there are two screens in front - one showing what professor want to show (includes computer and "black"board) and other showing students at Singapore. They have a similar arrangement like us. Now professor works with his presentation on computer and it appears on one screen here and there. But he wants to write on "black"board - which is white - he uses marker pan and somehow using 'ebeam' software it appears on computer screen. Like magic, if you were to see only ebeam output, which exactly what NTU people see. Like you take a video of professor writing on white board from front and then remove professor from it. All writing/words appearing in real time, like some invisible hand is writing. Looks great, and then when he erases it, it disappear suddenly. There is a button as well where he can erase is automatically from computer, but from board he has to erase it himself manually. And he has a microphone in his collar, which he can switch on/off.

Now the hidden but important man. The operator. Who monitors all the cameras, moves them to cover the class room, zooming in and out to the person who is speaking - including the student who ask questions (and silly questions and answer included). He operate more than 5-6 camras at a time and in in constant touch with faculty here and at Singapore.

Arrangements halfway round the world ! Students at NTU have 2 screens similar to us, except that they see computer and us. and each has a separate microphone to answer the question professor ask. Of course, interaction is as good as you are sitting right in front. And professor here has list of all students attending there with their position in the class, so that he can direct a question to any student there. Also student can raise his hand professor can see on screen.

Now the issue of assignments and exams and notes. Thats hardly any problem with internet. All problemsets/homeworks are uploaded on a website and you can email your answers to the teacher here. Everything fine. Huh?