Happy Raksha Bandhan

One of the festivals which has still remained pure from commercialization, mostly because of simplicity of its tradition, is Rakshabandhan. Rakhi is probably unique in celebrating brother-sister love in the world. While corporations are trying to monetize the occasion by equating sister's love with most expensive or most technical rakhi and by equating brother's love with most expensive gift, things are still within control in middle class India. When race of the life finds five days of Diwali too much to spend; when consciousness to child labour or pollution dampens the standing tradition of firecrackers; when efforts of cleaning, side-effects of colours, and harassment reduce the fun of Holi; then comes – the festival of Rakhi because all it takes is a piece of thread and a piece of sweet to celebrate.

Happy Raksha Bandhan

At the stroke of midnight

This is very famous speech by Nehru on 15th of August 1947. I am quoting it verbatim for my readers as well as for self record.

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.

At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?

Freedom and power bring responsibility. The responsibility rests upon this Assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of labour and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains continue even now. Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that beckons to us now.

That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.

And so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.

To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make an appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. This is no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill-will or blaming others. We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.

The appointed day has come-the day appointed by destiny-and India stands forth again, after long slumber and struggle, awake, vital, free and independent. The past clings on to us still in some measure and we have to do much before we redeem the pledges we have so often taken. Yet the turning-point is past, and history begins anew for us, the history which we shall live and act and others will write about.

It is a fateful moment for us in India, for all Asia and for the world. A new star rises, the star of freedom in the East, a new hope comes into being, a vision long cherished materializes. May the star never set and that hope never be betrayed!

We rejoice in that freedom, even though clouds surround us, and many of our people are sorrow stricken and difficult problems encompass us. But freedom brings responsibilities and burdens and we have to face them in the spirit of a free and disciplined people.

On this day our first thoughts go to the architect of this freedom, the Father of our Nation [Gandhi], who, embodying the old spirit of India, held aloft the torch of freedom and lighted up the darkness that surrounded us. We have often been unworthy followers of his and have strayed from his message, but not only we but succeeding generations will remember this message and bear the imprint in their hearts of this great son of India, magnificent in his faith and strength and courage and humility. We shall never allow that torch of freedom to be blown out, however high the wind or stormy the tempest.

Our next thoughts must be of the unknown volunteers and soldiers of freedom who, without praise or reward, have served India even unto death.

We think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by political boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom that has come. They are of us and will remain of us whatever may happen, and we shall be sharers in their good [or] ill fortune alike.

The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour. To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.

We have hard work ahead. There is no resting for any one of us till we redeem our pledge in full, till we make all the people of India what destiny intended them to be. We are citizens of a great country on the verge of bold advance, and we have to live up to that high standard. All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or in action.

To the nations and peoples of the world we send greetings and pledge ourselves to cooperate with them in furthering peace, freedom and democracy.

And to India, our much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the ever-new, we pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to her service.

If you think life is tough, think again

I am not one to forward myriads of mails hitting my inbox declaring deep meaning of life, unbound cuteness or plea for sympathy. However, somethings hit hard, and worth looking again and again whenever you feel you are losing touch with reality.

62nd year of political freedom

A hearty congratulations on 62nd Independence Day to all. May we continue to strive for independence in all spheres of life including political, economic and social. May independence not be limited to voting once in five years. May independence mean freedom, in truest sense as destined in the Constitution, of expression, thought, faith, worship and belief, of acting without fearing offending someone's sensibilities, of speaking without constraining oneself, from prejudices and superstitions, from shackles that constraint Mother India to achieve its rightful place on earth.
(Photo from 2007 Independence Day at IIM Ahmedabad)

When time jumps ahead, or back

Daylight Saving Time (DST) is a common technique in many of world's large countries which sets clocks forward in summer and backward in winter to change our daily schedule and thus affect consumption of artificial light and energy, and increase consumption of daylight. In United States, for example, clocks are set one hour ahead in summer, so that even with same timetable, people wake up one hour early and thus enjoy longer evenings and early morning light. In winter, difference is eliminated by setting clocks one hour back again. On the day of change, at midnight, suddenly there is 1pm after 11:59:59pm in summer (one hour lost to history) or 0:00:00am after 0:59:59am (one hour recorded twice). This quirk of continuous timeline has resulted in some very funny, and other tragic, incidents. Consider the following...

In September 1999, the West Bank was on Daylight Saving Time while Israel had just switched back to standard time. West Bank terrorists prepared time bombs and smuggled them to their Israeli counterparts, who misunderstood the time on the bombs. As the bombs were being planted, they exploded--one hour too early--killing three terrorists instead of the intended victims--two busloads of people.

[D]uring the 1950s and 1960s when each U.S. locality could start and end Daylight Saving Time as it desired. One year, 23 different pairs of DST start and end dates were used in Iowa alone. For exactly five weeks each year, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia were not on the same time as Washington D.C., Cleveland, or Baltimore--but Chicago was. And, on one Ohio to West Virginia bus route, passengers had to change their watches seven times in 35 miles!

Patrons of bars that stay open past 2:00 a.m. lose one hour of drinking time on the day when Daylight Saving Time springs forward one hour. This has led to annual problems in numerous locations, and sometimes even to riots.

To keep to their published timetables, trains cannot leave a station before the scheduled time. So, when the clocks fall back one hour in October, all Amtrak trains in the U.S. that are running on time stop at 2:00 a.m. and wait one hour before resuming. Overnight passengers are often surprised to find their train at a dead stop and their travel time an hour longer than expected. At the spring Daylight Saving Time change, trains instantaneously become an hour behind schedule at 2:00 a.m., but they just keep going and do their best to make up the time.

All these and more from webexhibits.org.

Islamic finance: loophole in faith

As part of a research paper, I studied what Islamic finance is all about. Since I didn't know anything about the subject before, outcome was very surprising and interesting. Islamic finance, or Shariah banking, is banking and investing with rules that are compliant with Kuran. And Kuran doesn't like that people:

1. collect interest since earning money on money is bad
2. earn reward without sharing risk
3. invest in businesses which are haraam such as those dealing with alcohol, pork, gambling, interest collection, entertainment, tobacco, fashion, pornography and weapon
4. invest in businesses which earn or pay interest or earn money from largely liquid assets (aka money)

Kuran, though, permits trade and selling something for profit and charging rent for use of property. In light of this all but point 3 are just contradictory to say the least. When I can charge rent for you using a car, how is charging rent (commonly known as interest) on you using money from which you can buy car any different? After all, both car and money have utility to me that I forgo when I rent them to you? Similarly, when a bank gives loan to a business and seeks interest in return, it is not exactly seeking return without sharing the risk of business failure as Kuran seems to suggest. When business defaults so bank too loses its debt and hence is sharing part of the risk. Last point is corollary to first point, just from the point of view of company.

But since faith doesn't accept logical explanations, and Muslims are practical people living in practical world, they've come up with some "loopholes" to abide by Kuran and at the same time use regular financial services. Now with oil-money pumping out of Middle East and a quarter of world's population being Muslim, there is huge market for Islamic products which is estimated to be about $300-$500 billion growing annually at 20%. Therefore, many banks and stock markets are creating investment funds to abide by these rules.

So, say you want to buy a car from Islamic bank. Instead of (1) borrowing money, (2) buying car yourself, and (3) paying back interest, you would (1) ask bank to buy car for you and (2) sell to you at higher price making a profit and then (3) you just pay back purchase price to bank which doesn't include interest but only profit margin. Alternative is that (1) bank buys for you, (2) rents car to you and (3) you pay back original purchase price to bank in installments without interest or profit margin, but (4) also pay rent for use during some predefined period.

And if your firm wants to borrow from bank, you will (1) pay back loan amount without interest but (2) also pay back some part of profit or loss of firm for stipulated time. In essence, banks becomes equity holder rather than just debt holder. Of course, when sharing larger risk as equity holder bank charges larger return in form of profit/loss margin, but at least Kuran is followed.

Mutual fund which are Shariah-compliant work by excluding all socially-harmful firms from investing universe. Among the remaining, nearly every firm invests its cash in interest bearing assets (earn interest) or borrows from banks (pay interest) and has some of its assets in liquid form (cash, short-term securities). After long hours of brainstorming about managing a workaround with rule 4 above, Islamic scholars have come up with idea that as long as interest income is less than one-third of total income and liquid assets less than one-third of total assets, Allah shall forgive. However, interest income has to be purified by donating that part to charities.

Considering the demand for these products, lots of Indian banks (Kotak Mahindra, Reliance, UTI, Edelweiss) are jumping into bandwagon to launch these products. Finally all is well with world and Muslims are using financial services in accordance with highest law on earth.

Full report can be downloaded from esnips.com or read at scribd.com.

Using Bloglines

If you follow more than one news website, blog or discussion group, and you don’t use a feed reader then you are being very inefficient and missing on the greatest technological invention of recent times on internet. If you don’t know what feed reader is, what does it do, and what RSS feeds are then this post is for you. Go and read this simple and lucid post completely. This will explain everything you need to know to track all you websites at one point without wasting lots of valuable time. You will not be disappointed and then you can keep abreast of any new changes in my blog and others without even raising a brow! Apart from Bloglines, another most popular online feed reader is Google Reader, and both are very easy to work with.

Why didn't Raj run?

During a discussion on movie Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge on BollyWhat? - which is a excellent Bollywood discussion forum aimed at non-Indian fans of Bollywood - someone made an interesting observation. When Raj (Shah Rukh Khan) returned from London for Simran (Kajol), in their meeting in mustard fields, why did he just stood with his arms stretched and it was she who had to run all the length between them? Didn't he love her as well? Observer was disconcerted by anti-feminist implication of the scene which suggested that woman need to run to their lover and man can haughtily stand with smirk on their face with "you-know-you-want-me" expression.

My reaction, at first, was amazement and surprise at sharp eyes of the commenter and depth of the issue that she to chose to look at scene with. By the way, discussions on this forum are as deep on many Bollywood aspects, which I don't really participate in, but are always refreshing look on Bollywood from Occidental fandom. My second reaction was drastic realization of how true love is perceived in India and in West. Here I mean true love in truest sense, pure genuine love, and not in ironical sense.

Other members quickly pointed that it was Raj who had come all the way from London for her, surely he was not as chauvinists as he is made out to be in this scene? I noted that, and I quote myself

I just saw Pardes ... recently. And this comment, and general comments on this board, and my perception of western world, all merges together in that dialogue of Pardes. It goes something like...''in west, love is give and take; in India, love is just give, give and give more.'' Of course, that does sound like ... preaching, but if you reflect you'd find some truth there.

In context of this movie, why should it matter that Shah Rukh is not running towards her and she is running. She knows she wants him, and he knows she wants him, and that's it, that should be enough for her to run towards him. Where is there a place for even doubt to appear whether his attitude is smug or not? Where is value judgment coming there? Why should you even expect something in return, if you love. I am not saying that all love is like that, but I think true love, from Indian definition should be like that, and we can assume that, this being a movie, their love is pure one. I may not be able to express my views here but I think, THAT is major difference expressed in that dialogue of Pardes.

Original member accepted that her expectation from true love is give-and-take. I can understand that these are expectations of an Indian couple too in real life, and are desirable in long-term relationship, yet we have plenty of example where real true love doesn't bother about reciprocation.

Meek shall inherit the earth

So said the Bible. And it might as well be true if you believe what movie Idiocracy forebodes for the world. World is expected to continue to get increasingly dumber and stupider since intelligent and educated folks chose to have fewer and fewer children (reason why population of Japan and Australia is on decline) and uneducated and stupid folks chose to end up having more children (reason why population of South Asian countries is on rise). Now lets not get into nitty gritty of difference between illiterate versus uneducated versus unintelligent. I am talking in general sense over long time horizon. So, world is expected to have increasingly larger proportion of stupid people, which is corroborated by scientific evidence of falling IQ though trend is not strictly one way because of increasing progress in education and human development opposing the fall - which will stop a some point.

On a more contemporary front, common political and pluralistic decisions are taken by people on temporal moral high ground and emotionally charged planes, resulting in win of short-term goal seekers. After all, being intelligent is no easy task. One has to continuously abreast oneself of new knowledge and information, analyze existing information in light of new one, apply principles of logic and reach a informed decision, and accept possibility of unclear answer in light of multiple views and insufficient information. This entails very precious time which can be utilized breeding. Similar behaviour is observed and documented by political scientists and is termed as "rational ignorance" of voter. What it means is that for each voter cost (of time and money) to obtain information to objectively evaluate each candidate is very high. On the other hand chance that his/her vote will be deciding vote in election is very low. So, rationally speaking, it is best for each voter to not bother about finding who is right candidate since others will anyone choose one. However, when each voter thinks this way, overall outcome is failure of system.

Hence, stupidity (lack of objective logically backed opinion for issues immaterial to immediate surrounding) is desirable for short-term life goals for an individual but undesirable for long-term goals of a society. And as Charles Darwin has said (for genes, but also applicable here), individual selfishness is usually winner against collective collaboration.

Jib Jab

In interest of limited time, let me leave you with some of the funniest Jib Jab videos to watch today. "This land will surely vote for me" and "Time for some campaigning" are even more fun if you follow United States' politics slightly. "What we call the news" can be very well applied to India while "Big box mart" shows conflicting priorities of American consumer.