HyperActiveX's (Post)Posterous Posts

FDI in Retail vs. Reduce Reuse Recycle

2011-12-05T13:23:00.001+05:30

Everybody and their aunt is now an expert on the Venn diagram of economics, foreign direct investment in India, and the Indian retail industry. In the wake of the recent controversy regarding the Government's proposed policy changes that will open up the retail sector in India to more foreign investment, there's been a bunch of op-eds and blog posts by self-styled pundits on why India "needs" FDI in retail.

Yes, opening up of markets is always a good thing. Yes, a more efficient supply chain for consumer goods in India would be a good thing. And yes, professionalism in managing the workforce engaged in logistics and distribution, which remains an unorganized sector even today, would be a good thing. Surely, FDI in retail will positively impact the Indian scenario in all those areas. But does this mean we should blindly push our already fairly strong consumerist culture (and our typical middle-class hunger for more "things", arising from many years of scarcity) into overdrive?

Take the issue of infrastructure, which some of our distinguished pundits just about recognize as a concern. The opening up of the automobile industry has given us a wide variety of cars to choose from (which is great) but did we spare a thought for road space or quality of roads or parking space or any other infrastructural prerequisites before we opened it out? Nope, we just plunged into it, probably thinking that growth in traffic would bring pressure on the concerned authorities to improve infrastructure. Clearly, that logic has not worked, and we don't seem to have learned this very important lesson.

We continue to struggle with strong urbanization trends, but we are clueless about how to handle the problems that come with them. Meanwhile, given the poverty in rural India, large scale migration to metros and larger cities continues to grow, resulting in more squatters and pavement dwellers, more shanty-towns and slums. Our cities and towns continue to be plagued by poor waste management and sanitation, not to mention pilferage and contamination. We are yet to integrate good practices of waste management into a culture which has gradually replaced civic sense with instant gratification and narrow self-interest. How are we going to cope with a dramatic increase in consumption levels, which FDI in retail is sure to bring about? I shudder to think how high a mountain that small but stubborn pile of garbage heaped outside my housing complex will grow into, after the "Big Boxes" of global retail arrive.

None of our erudite pundits makes even a passing mention of concerns related to sustainable development and responsible consumption. Which, according to me, should be our most important concerns. Not whether the local bania's business is threatened (which it may well be) or whether transnational giants will siphon profits out of India (which they certainly will). These are the same old arguments, tired and worn-out from repetition in the post-cold war socialism-versus-free-market debates. Many of our pundits, however, are still fighting those cliched battles of the old world.

The polemics of the new world are not going to be about leftism and rightism; they will be about how to deal with ecological imbalance and social disharmony, about how to plan for sustainable growth. In the mad frenzy for downloading -- to borrow Niall Ferguson's metaphor -- the 6 "killer apps" of the West (of which, incidentally, the culture of consumerism is killer app #5), we are rushing headlong towards irresponsible consumerism that has raised alarm bells in the West. India is lucky to be presented with an opportunity to circumvent the pitfalls of hyper-consumption, and lead other developing economies on the path to sustainability. But will India seize the moment? Or is this too much to ask for by way of a vision for India? Perhaps it is, I find myself compelled to say in spite of my generally optimistic disposition.

Is it also too much to ask of Indian intelligentsia that the debate on FDI in retail be informed by sustainability considerations? Certainly not!

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Reform and Rectitude

2011-11-12T10:38:00.001+05:30

There's usually a cloud of confusion hanging over any criticism of wrongdoing, as are witnessing in the commentary on the many recent public protests in India, the US and elsewhere. Some of this confusion arises out of lack of clarity in what is being said, but even when that clarity is found, there are questions on who has the moral right to say it. Accusations of sanctimoniousness and hypocrisy are flung around indiscriminately, and everyone starts finding fault with everyone else. It is easy to see that a lot of this is politically motivated - the work of those with vested interests in the status-quo, for whom this confusion essentially forms the smokescreen of expedience. But what about the others, who get swept away by this political rhetoric of obfuscation? Why should they let themselves be distracted by such machinations?

Brainstorming events, such as the recent Goa Think Festival represent the few opportunities we get to promote healthy public discourse (a vital foundation for a vibrant democracy) on key issues impacting our present condition. But even those have come under criticism for "sleeping with the enemy" or being otherwise impure, just as leaders of India's fight against corruption have been pilloried for alleged misdemeanours in their past lives. We tend to take this business of "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" a bit too seriously. We forget that none of us is without sin. We forget that it's not about casting stones. We forget that it is about systemic failures, and that any citizen has a right to demand reform to correct them. The point is, if we can't get everyone to the table, we can't have dialogue. And if we can't have dialogue, issues will remain deadlocked, and the status will remain quo, and history will repeat itself.

We need to remember a few simple and straightforward points, if we are to get this right and make some headway:

(1) You don't have to be a saint to criticize wrongdoing - the first step to reform is to recognize what's going wrong and confront it, without being confrontational.

(2) The scope of wrongdoing may extends beyond mere legalities and may even charge that the justice system is rigged - it is easy to confuse the illegal with the illegitimate.

(2) Protests are visceral reactions of a mass of people to unresolved issues, not necessarily about specific people or corporations (who in some sense are considered "people" in some parts of the world) though they may manifest that way.

(3) Even when they are about people (or corporations) the focus should be on what they DID and not who they ARE - we must punish bad behaviour, not persons, and we must punish it not so much for the sake of retribution as much for the sake of restoration and prevention.

(4) In those exceptional cases where people (or corporations) appear intrinsically "evil" (assuming there is such a thing), we need to figure out a way to correct them - everyone has a right to another chance; a right to redeem themselves.

There's an old saying that goes - every saint has a past and every sinner a future. Let's remember that each of us has elements of both. It's "normal". It's what makes us human. Reform should be about fixing what's broken and straightening out what's crooked. Not a competition to qualify for entry through the Pearly Gates.

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New Rules for Fools - Fairness and Equality

2011-10-28T21:13:00.001+05:30

In all these criticisms of the Occupy protests, I see a common trend: critics pick words like "fairness" and "equality" and extrapolate absurd arguments from these words so as to make protesters' outcries look ridiculous. This type of specious argumentation is called "attacking a straw man". It is not as though such people don't understand what those words actually mean. They do. And you can tell that they do because they go to great lengths to misinterpret those words in every ludicrous way possible, carefully avoiding the most obvious, simple and straightforward representation. All just to obfuscate real issues and vitiate the spirit of public discourse by throwing around such red herrings as the suggestion that protesters' messages all boil down to the Marxist principle - "from each according to his ability to each according to his need". Do they, really?

Equal rights. Equal access to opportunity. Fair play. Rule of law. Equality of all citizens under the law. Justice for all. Not difficult concepts to understand, are they? Or maybe they are, for some of those critics. Maybe not all critics are attacking a straw man on purpose - maybe their very understanding of these concepts is nebulous. So here's a new rule that should clarify some of this.

Purpose of New Rule: This rule is meant as a guide for those who don't understand the meaning of fairness and equality, or why it is important for the health of capitalism to preserve and protect such ideals.

Description of New Rule: Think back to when you last took an exam (assuming, at the very least, that you went to school, if not college). Equality means all students answer the question paper under the same set of rules, within the same time period, under the same watchful eyes of the same invigilator. Fairness means that all students are given access to the same learning material and teachers, and in general, the same opportunities to prepare for their exams. Some students have a better grasp of the subject and/ or take the pains to be better prepared, and as a consequence, fare better than other students. That's fair. What would be unfair is if a select few were given an opportunity to be better prepared by "leaking" the questions to them ahead of the exam, or given opportunities to plagiarize, or given extra time to complete their answers. Not all students score the same marks. That's not what equality means! Nor does it mean that students who are less capable but "need" to do well in their exams should score higher marks. Assuming a "normal" distribution, some students will top the class, most will be somewhere in the middle while others will remain stragglers. As long as they used fair means to achieve their distinction, a merit-based outcome is not only an acceptable outcome but the inevitable outcome of a fair and just evaluation system. This is exactly how it works with capitalism. Given a normal distribution and a level playing field, some people will make more money than others. As long as they used fair means to make money, it is not only acceptable but inevitable that their abilities, ambition and industriousness merit their economic rewards. What is unacceptable is when a few people use unfair means to make disproportionately large sums of money. Unfair means such as gaming the system or bending the rules. Or even breaking the rules and leveraging powerful connections to get away with it.

Protesters of the Occupy movement are not against meritocracy. On the contrary, that is exactly what they are asking for - the restoration of true meritocracy. They are decrying the perversion of meritocracy by the few, for the few. Criticism of these protests can only come from those who are so foolish that they just can't get this, or from those who are so guilty (of the perversion of meritocracy) that they just won't get this. Can't or won't, you know who you are.

Post Script, Oct 29

Having quoted Karl Marx in this post last night, and having come across this other quote from another Marx (Groucho) this morning, I think this says it best: "The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made."

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No More Missed Calls for Change

2011-10-23T18:35:00.001+05:30

Two recent articles in popular news magazines caught my eye this weekend.

The Economist ran a story on climate change dealing with new evidence on global warming. Hopefully this should put to rest the furious debates triggered by the "climategate" scandal couple of years ago. In hindsight, that scandal was probably a good thing, inasmuch as it cleaned up the scientific research on the subject and served to keep climate change researchers honest. Scientists are, after all, human beings, and like all other specimens of our species, equally fallible and equally prone to fudging data to prove their hypotheses. They may not be as dishonest as an aspiring entrepreneur approaching a Venture Capitalist with a sexed-up business plan, but surely, they're prone to a little bit of disingenuousness here and there. But here's the fresh evidence now, from a squeaky clean team, led by a mild skeptic. Clearly, the "heat is on", to quote The Economist (and the first line from an old song).

The more interesting story was the one in the New Scientist a few days ago. It was about how a group of researchers had analyzed the complex network of relationships between over 43,000 transnational corporations (TNCs) and found that a relatively small number of them (mostly banks) wielded disproportionate power over the global economy. Here's an excerpt:

The work ... revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships. Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.

Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters would probably say "not surprising, we've known this all along", but now there's some hard evidence. While economists have already noted the increasingly widening gap in the distribution of income in America, and observers have already commented that "much of what investment bankers do is socially worthless", this is the first study that establishes the nexus of global dominance by TNCs including some big Wall Street players.

Hopefully this should help establish a clearer perspective on the OWS protests, which have been criticized and supported for all the wrong reasons. And that clarity should help us look past the hype and hysteria, to recognize three simple truths at the heart of the pan-American Occupy protests: (a) It's all about fairness, and not really about equality (b) It's all about redefining capitalism, not about rejecting capitalism (and bringing in communism) (c) It's a "primal scream" of anguished masses, that doesn't require a structured manifesto to be morally valid. Dismissing the Occupy protests as a confused incoherent anti-establishment rant by a loose, louche lot of lazy leftist losers who blame the rich for their misery and who have no concrete solutions to offer, while convenient, would be a big mistake - one that may lead to worse consequences.

To any rational person with an open mind, the common thread that resonates in these two stories is the revelation that we are now at an important cusp of history - a point in time when we seriously need to rework our socioeconomic models to foster a kind of prosperity that will enable future generations to flourish. A global prosperity that will enhance rather than erode social and political harmony around the world, and that will maintain rather than destroy the planet's delicate ecological balance.

These are strong calls for change, backed by hard facts. We've been missing these calls in the past, under some pretext or other. But now it's high time the denial and the deception and the dithering stopped. Let's not keep missing these calls till it is too late to give our children a better future.

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At times the pigeon, at times the statue

2011-10-03T10:50:00.001+05:30

Thanks to Internet banking and the privilege of having a Relationship
Manager designated to me by my primary banker, I rarely need to visit
any brick-and-mortar bank branch. The other day was one such rare
occasion, when I needed to transact a certain kind of business that
could only be executed at a certain branch of a certain bank.

It took me a while to navigate to the desk of the customer service
officer to whom I was directed, and I got there only to find her seat
vacant. I looked around for a bit and everybody around seemed
extremely busy. At another desk nearby an important-looking officer
was going through a whole bunch of important-looking documents. She
didn't have any customers seated opposite her and I could tell that
she was aware of my presence, but she did her best to avoid
eye-contact. Lest I should bring her more work, I guess. Anyway, since
I was not in a tearing hurry I decided to hang around and look
helpless, hoping someone would notice. I was relieved when at last the
officer I was waiting for showed up. However, she scarcely registered
by presence, and instead immediately started talking to her colleagues
across her carrel partition. Yet another reminder that I have neither
a commanding presence nor a charming personality.

As I was waiting for her to turn her attention to me, I couldn't help
overhearing her complaining to her important-looking colleague (who
suddenly found time to listen to her), about the poor service she got
from her mobile provider's customer support staff. My patience was
rewarded when she finally turned to me, still in an unpleasant mood.
No smile, no warm friendly greeting, no "How can I help you?" -
instead, just a "Yes?" that barely managed to be polite. Before I
could complete my first sentence the telephone at her desk rang and
she answered it with a shudder of exasperation. By the time she was
done with that call and turned to me again, an apparently junior
colleague of hers came to her desk with some papers in her hand,
seeking advice on some other customer's transaction. Long story short,
it took me all of 30 minutes to complete my transaction, which
according to me should have taken not more than 5. Or maybe 10
minutes, at most.

As I was leaving I made a brief comment to her, with a smile - "When
we complain about poor service, as customers, it's a good idea to
introspect a bit about the quality of service we provide to our own
customers, when we act as service providers. After all, we all play
both those roles, don't we?" She was smart enough to get that, and
only then apologized. And even in that, showing herself to be an
efficient but helpless cog-in-the-wheel of a large, chaotic system. I
wanted to quote a line from Bob Dylan's song - "It may be the devil or
it may be the lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody". But
somehow it didn't seem appropriate. For one thing I didn't think she'd
know who Bob Dylan was, and who knows, she might have even found the
quote egregious.

But for you, here's the song. Enjoy! And do remember this little
anecdote .. as much when you're the pigeon dumping on the statue, as
when you're the statue taking crap from the pigeon.

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Reflection on Self-righteousness and Reflexivity

2011-08-20T12:47:00.001+05:30

Every time I come across someone accusing someone else of being self-righteous I am reminded of Gödel Escher Bach and self-referential logic.

If you break it down to basics, this is how it goes:

1. It is wrong to be self-righteous (unstated premise, based on moral values)

2. You are self-righteous (observation)

3. You are therefore wrong (derived from #1 and #2)

4. I am not self-righteous (implicit in #2 -- since I am calling you out on this)

5. I am therefore right (derived from #1 and #4)

6. I am more righteous than you (inferred from #3 and #5)

Who is being self-righteous now? (wink wink nudge nudge)

The accusation of hypocrisy, on the other hand, is free from reflexive contradiction. But I will let you reflect on that.

In any case, it pays to be a little circumspect when taking moral positions.

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Snapshot of Civilization circa 2011

2011-08-11T18:04:00.001+05:30

If an alien spaceship were to land on earth today and do a mashup of global news headlines, this is how it would look:

Civil War in Libya, Civil Disturbances in Britain, Civil Unrest in Bahrain, Civil Uprising in Syria, Civil Society Protests in India, Civil Rights Agitation in Myanmar, Denial of Civil Liberties in Tibet, Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan ...

About time we put the 'civil' back in civilization!

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Defining Excessive Greed

2011-07-30T12:05:00.002+05:30

The New York Times carried an article the other day, whose headline "Billionaires’ Rise Aids India, and the Favor Is Returned" promised coverage of, say, the top 10 Indians in the Forbes list. However, the article focused on just one of them (save for passing references to a few others) and in doing so read like a PR job for Gautam Adani. By an uncanny coincidence, a day or two later, the Lokayukta of Karnataka submitted a report indicting Adani and others in what appears to be a massive scam relating to illegal mining in that state. More details emerged today suggesting that we have barely seen the tip of the proverbial iceberg up until now. No doubt, the future will bring us even more gory details. And no doubt all parties indicted are innocent till prosecuted in a court of law and found guilty.

That said, this episode reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend around the time the global financial crisis first revealed its enormity, about capitalism and excessive greed and such -- pretty common topic given the context. My friend's thesis, in short, was that capitalism is based on ambition and greed and that there is no such thing as excessive greed because it is impossible to calibrate that scale. So we just have to man-up and learn to deal with it.

I had a different view. In my opinion, other than psychopaths, everybody has a sense of right and wrong. While this sense of right and wrong may be subjective and may vary from person to person based on culture, religion and various other factors, there exists a common objective notion of business ethics and civic propriety that we all understand. This comes from a secular morality that transcends religion and is based on the self-evident principles of sustainability. It forms the foundation for the legal and regulatory framework of nations. Many of these legal and regulatory frameworks suffer from any or all of the following maladies: they are obsolete/ full of inconsistencies due to constant patching with changes or new laws/ inhibit economic growth by constraining enterprise/ draconian and convoluted enough to promote corruption. The need for reforms in such cases is urgent and there is no disputing this fact -- as times change, we need to change with them. However, the argument that existing laws are not in the best interests of promoting economic growth should not become a ready refuge for the excessively greedy to bend or break rules.

Which leads us to my proposed definition: excessive greed is when one's ambition overcomes one's values and principles. As long as greed remains within those boundaries, it remains a legitimate driving force to entrepreneurship and economic growth.

Yes, it is that simple. You know it, better than anyone else, when you're making excuses to circumvent your own value system. All you have to do is to look within. Unless, of course, you're a psychopath.

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Minor Observation #8

2011-07-02T18:24:00.001+05:30

Contrarians can't stand other contrarians whose contrariety is contrary to their own, just like non-conformists can't stand other non-conformists who don't conform to their style of non-conformism.

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Crowdsourcing Governance Reform

2011-06-10T14:40:00.001+05:30

I just came upon this article in PopSci proclaiming that "Iceland's Citizens Are Writing Its New Constitution Online" thanks to a friend who shared the link on Facebook.

Without getting into the whole issue all over again, of Anna Hazare's fast demanding active participation of the civil society in drafting the Lok Pal Bill, I just want to make a point here in this post: in a democracy sovereignty ultimately lies with the People -- beyond the Constitution or Parliament. Iceland's bold experiment is testimony to this simple fact. And this point begs to be made, flying as it does in the face of criticism to the effect that citizens' active (and "official") participation in changing the law of the land: (a) is unconstitutional (b) subverts Parliamentary processes (c) undermines our democratic institutions.

Perhaps it is time to recognize that in today's day and age (relevant zeitgeist: increasing empowerment of common citizens) a purely representative democracy is unsustainable if it does not conflate at least some elements of participatory democracy. Some burning issues just cannot wait till the next elections, especially if the average citizen strongly feels that the establishment and its political processes have failed to deliver clean governance. Clearly, such is the case when it comes to the twin issues of graft and capital flight in the Indian context -- the Government in office has failed to check these chronic maladies over the years (even worse, its officials are suspected to be perpetrators of the same crimes themselves) and the main Opposition party has failed to correct that failure (even worse, is suspected to more or less equally guilty).

I sincerely hope our Indian think-tanks (who are wont to quote Dr. Ambedkar's quip about the "Grammar of Anarchy" at the drop of a hat these days) sit up and take note of the precedent set by Iceland, without bringing up feckless counter-arguments like: "Oh but you can't do that here because only the elite in India have access to the Internet" or "Oh but you can't do that here because the Indian public lacks maturity". We can definitely replicate Iceland's experiment in India (especially considering the urgency of the need to reform our antiquated and obsolete legal and regulatory framework). We have the technology, we have the intellectual capital (what the heck -- we export that stuff!) and we have the maturity too. We can do it, and we must do it. I just hope we will!

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Minor Observation #7

2011-06-09T13:35:00.001+05:30

The kerfuffle caused by a certain "Swami" (a.k.a."Baba") Ramdev and his followers recently, inspired me to explore the many meanings and applications of the word "Capital". Here are a few:

Capital Flight: The siphoning out of ill-begotten wealth from the mainstream economy, and then stashing it away secret bank accounts overseas. This forms the main thrust and focal point of Ramdev's crusade: to bring pressure on the Government to "bring back" that wealth and declare it as a national asset.

National Capital: New Delhi, the place where Ramdev was received like a VIP on arrival, and from where he was unceremoniously booted out a few days later, after he earned the wrath of the high and mighty.

Capital Punishment: What Ramdev thinks the corrupt deserve: the death penalty (he seems to have settled for life imprisonment, in later interviews).

Human Capital: Ramdev's flock -- the several thousands of followers who had gathered for satyagraha at the Ramlila grounds, who a day or two later were gassed, caned and evicted in the dead of the night, some of whom have sustained serious injury.

Intellectual Capital: The one thing that is conspicuously absent in almost everything that almost everybody has uttered on this subject on national television and newspapers.

Capitalizing on Opportunity: What the national political parties are doing against this backdrop, each to further their own political agenda.

Capital 'F' for Failure: Failure of the Government (to check graft and bring the guilty to book); Failure of the Opposition (to ensure that the Government does its job); Failure of Civil Society (to remain civil and shoulder civic responsibilities while protesting against the aforementioned failures); Failure of the Intelligentsia (to develop meaningful solutions before the public at large acts out of sheer outrage); Failure of the Common Citizen (to eschew all forms of corruption in daily life; to stick to the straight and narrow path despite its inconveniences).

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The Fast and the Furious

2011-04-09T15:37:00.003+05:30

When I logged on this morning I found that my opinion on the Lok Pal Bill and Anna Hazare's fast unto death, and the furious debate over the last few days among the Indian intelligentsia, had already been articulated in my friend Raj Jayaram's blog post -- and that too with a degree of precision that is astonishing, if not scary. With me in Mumbai and him sitting far away in Singapore, without us exchanging a word on this subject, it seemed as though we were both reading each other's thoughts. It wouldn't have worked better if I had hired an amanuensis. And this is really strange because rarely have Raj and I agreed on something so wholeheartedly, in the many interesting debates we've had on many interesting topics. In fact, more often than not, we end up "agreeing to disagree", and switch to less controversial topics of mutual interest.

So, instead of repeating all that here (per my resolve last night to write out a blog post on Saturday morning regarding this whole business), all I will do here, other than point you to Raj's post, is to reproduce some of my own tweets on the subject. Since I have not mastered the craft of extracting relevant tweets from my twitter timeline and pasting them here, I am reproducing them verbatim in plain text, with links to the originals. A couple of facebook status messages also appear, though without links, since my privacy settings would not permit all to view them.

Hundreds of critiques, hazaar criticisms, but not a single workable option to either Hazare's Yantra or his Mantra #IndianIntellectualElite

If we don't get this less-than-perfect soln., fraught with risks & anxieties as it may be, we deserve the rotten quagmire we are sinking in!

Rather than worry about possible subversion of democracy in the future I worry about bringing to book proven abuse of power in the past.

It is heartening to vindicate the fact that supreme sovereignty in a democratic republic lies with the people, not the parliament or const.

Expanded on facebook: It is most heartening to see vindicated the fact that supreme sovereignty in a democratic republic lies with the people, not the parliament or the constitution - these are mechanisms and tools the people set up to enable governance. And they can change. They will change, over time. It is inevitable.

Words I watch out for: "misguided" and "self-righteous". People who use them at the drop of a hat usually are both.

I am so glad we moved things along. Dystopia is what happens while we slowly and patiently build Utopia. Vice is more impatient than Virtue.

And now that we are where we are I earnestly hope that the voices of dissent will come forward with constructive feedback instead of sulking

@BDUTT One of the reasons that engagement doesn't happen is cynicism. And one of the reasons behind cynicism is corruption.

@vikramchandra Gandhian methods may or may not be the best, or "perfect", but proved to be most effective, since nothing else has worked

And the last one, on facebook:

Coercion subversion diversion conversion - pick your version. But I am amazed that a 72 y.o. can fast for so long and still be cool. Me? I turn into a beast if I miss breakfast. You rock, Anna!

Again, for a more detailed discourse please read Raj's post.

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Conversatility

2011-03-31T11:43:00.001+05:30

This is not

A haiku poem. It is not

Even a poem. It is not

Anything.

By not being

Anything

It sets itself free.

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"She Said He Said" -- The Empirical Method à la BJP

2011-03-23T18:57:00.003+05:30

After lunch today I switched on the telly to watch the news. A live broadcast of the proceedings in Parliament was being aired and I settled down to watch it. A lady Parliamentarian was making a rather impassioned speech. She was referring to the cash-for-votes scam of July 2008, the fires of which were recently kindled by the winds of that notorious cyber anarchist operation WikiLeaks.

She said that a few days ago, the prominent newspaper -- "The Hindu" -- carried a story based on information sourced by WikiLeaks from the US diplomatic cables from India containing a dispatch from the US Charge D'Affaires in India dated July 17, 2008 stating that an aide to a Congress leader said to a US embassy staff, in an aside, that a political party had been paid off for each of their four MPs to support the government in the no-trust motion regarding the nuclear deal.

So, essentially, she said that the newspaper said that WikiLeaks said that the US Charge D'Affaires said that a colleague said that an aide to a Congress leader, "in an aside", said that they were paying cash for votes. According to the lady MP making this speech, this constituted adequate evidence that the Prime Minister and his party were guilty of corruption. She went on to reprimand the PM for his earlier statement in Parliament that this allegation was "speculative, unverified and unverifiable." Apparently the Hon'ble lady believes that this allegation is indeed verifiable.

So I tried to imagine how such a verification might proceed. In my mind, I began asking direct questions to all concerned in this narrative chain, starting with the immediate source -- the good lady MP herself. This is how my imaginary investigation went:

Question to aforementioned Lady MP: Ma'am, do you have evidence that the PM and the Congress party paid bribes to secure votes from other political parties in the no-trust motion back in July 2008?

Aforementioned Lady MP: No, I don't, but you should read the report in The Hindu, which clearly points to such evidence.

Question to The Hindu: Do you have evidence that the PM and the Congress paid bribes to secure votes from other political parties in the no-trust motion back in July 2008?

The Hindu: No, we don't - we only published what came out of the WikiLeaks download.

Question to WikiLeaks: Do you have evidence that the PM and the Congress paid bribes to secure votes from other political parties in the no-trust motion back in July 2008?

WikiLeaks: No, we are not making any such claim. We merely accessed a bunch of diplomatic cables that captured communication from various US embassies and the government in Washington.

Question to US Charge D'Affaires in India: Sir, do you have evidence that the PM and the Congress paid bribes to secure votes from other political parties in the no-trust motion back in July 2008?

US Charge D'Affaires in India: No, I don't but a staff member in the embassy told me that there might have been some pay-offs.

Question to US Embassy employee: Do you have evidence that the PM and the Congress paid bribes to secure votes from other political parties in the no-trust motion back in July 2008?

US Embassy employee: I was told that the Congress is securing votes using various tactics, by an aide to a Congress leader, who showed me "two chests containing cash and said that around Rupees 50-60 crore (about $25 million) was lying around the house for use as pay-offs."

Follow-up question to US Embassy employee: You saw the chest containing cash, but did you see a Congress party member giving the cash to another political party member in return for a commitment to support the UPA government in the no-trust motion in Parliament the next day?

US Embassy employee: I didn't say that did I? If I'd been witness to something like that, then that's what I would have said, instead of what I actually said.

Question to aide to Congress leader: Did you pay said cash for said votes?

Aide to Congress leader: "I do not know anything. I have not witnessed anything"

Question to the Congress leader: Sir, what do you have to say about the report that your aide showed chests of cash to a US embassy employee claiming it was meant as pay-off to buy votes?

Congress leader: "I do not know what the Hindu is talking about. I have never known this person. There is no question of him being my political aide."

OK, so some part of this Q&A (but not all) happened in my mind. But seriously, reality would be no different if someone were to actually go up to these dramatis personae (other than the ones who have already been approached for comment) and ask them those questions (other than the ones that have already been posed to them by journalists as per the corresponding links). And if you doubt that, go ahead and prove me wrong.

So much for verifiability. I think the BJP and other members of the opposition need a crash course in the methodology of empiricism and, particularly, need to be educated on what constitutes "verification" and "verifiability".

Speaking for myself, I have little doubt that the Congress is guilty -- in this instance, as much as most other such instance where strong doubts have been raised on their integrity. Probity is not one of their strong suits, as I've observed in an earlier post. But, that said, the BJP-led opposition needs to learn how to do its job in exposing such cases of corruption. They have wasted precious time in Parliament on shallow argumentation and sabre-rattling, when they should have done some mature "opposing" ... or else focused on so many other issues that urgently need deliberation. All they appear to be doing is baying for the incumbent government's blood at every given opportunity -- big or small, wanting to overthrow the UPA government and replace it with their own. This is their understanding of their role as opposition. Makes me wonder whose interests they have at heart. With opposition parties like these, who needs enemies?

Lessons We Must Learn From Japan's Nuclear Crisis

2011-03-17T11:36:00.001+05:30

Barely an hour ago, I tweeted:

After the BP oil spill they were against oil. Now they're against nuclear power. We need to learn the right lessons! http://econ.st/fkEEvB

And for those who are wondering what I meant by the "right lessons" ... here's what I was referring to:

1. More robust controls on, and better risk management of, conventional (including nuclear) energy sources/ plants/ installations

2. Better disaster management infrastructure, systems and processes around high-risk areas

3. Development of technologies and procedures that help clean-up harmful effects of conventional energy sources in the event of a disaster (or even otherwise)

4. Development of inexpensive "clean" technologies that harness renewable energy sources and development of the business ecosystem and industry supply chain around the same

5. Development of technologies that conserve energy (fuel/ power) consumption and reduce wastage, and are built-into new versions/ models of existing product lines

6. Spreading a culture of moderation in the worldwide consumption - direct as well as indirect - of energy (i.e. avoiding extravagant consumption and wastage in general)

I am not an expert in this field, but I know enough about it to know that each of the above "sustainability imperatives", as I'd like to call them, is profound enough to call for more detailed study. I am not qualified to go into that here. But they are all directionally sound guiding principles, and where they point to is where we should be headed. Trouble is, each of them needs far more investment in R&D in terms of time, energy and funding, than is currently being pumped in. To me, that's the single biggest lesson we must learn from the tragic nuclear crisis in Japan, rather than indulge in reactionary rhetoric based more on emotions than on facts.

More power to clean energy!

P.S. An appeal - There're a few signature campaigns going around, aiming to petition concerned authorities against nuclear energy. I don't have a quarrel with those, but what I know about the 'state of the art' in civil nuclear technology is not enough to make me agree with those petitions. My post here is not a petition or a signature campaign, it's just a simple blog post that shares my perspective on this matter. But if this post made sense to you, or at least got you thinking (or affirmed your pre-existing thought process) along these lines, then please pass it around, with your comments in the comment field below. Not to popularize my blog (thank you), but because we need more and better public discourse on this subject before we form a critical mass of informed opinion.

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When Exceptionalism Rules

2011-02-18T02:23:00.001+05:30

When you boil it down to basics, this is what you get:

Inclusiveness: This. And That. And also That, and That. This, along with All Else and Anything that might come along.

Exclusiveness: This. Not That. And neither That nor That. This, to the exclusion of All Else.

Exceptionalism: This. Not That. And neither That nor That. This, not only to the exclusion of All Else but above All Else - Über Allus.

When love cohabits with exceptionalism it begets patronage - there are donors and recipients.

When love cohabits with inclusiveness it begets partnership - there is exchange and collaboration.

Before you learn to love, learn to be inclusive. And if you just can't espouse inclusiveness, then at least eschew exceptionalism.

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Minor Observation #6

2011-02-12T03:41:00.001+05:30

The trouble with folks who are comfortable thinking in terms of (a+b)² and such is that they are lousy at simple arithmetic.

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The Slippery Slope of Solipsism - A Soliloquy

2011-01-27T08:58:00.001+05:30

The thing about knowledge is that what you know, you know you know; you know how much you know about what you know; you know what part of it you don't know enough about to say that you know it all.

The thing about ignorance is that what you don't know, you don't know you don't know; you don't know what it is you don't know and have no idea what might exist that you don't even know of, much less know something about.

For the most part, we with conviction live a life of ignorance mistaking it to be one of knowledge. That fact is brought home to us every time we're confronted with evidence of our ignorance, and our ignorance about our ignorance. And then we're not sure we really know all that we thought we knew. All we can then be sure of is that there exists befuddlement.

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Minor Observation #5

2011-01-23T08:27:00.001+05:30

A particle is a particularly tiny part of an article.

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Preposterous Prepositions (and Other Parts of Speech)

2011-01-15T22:50:00.001+05:30

It jars when they say

speak with (person) instead of speak to (person)
speak to (topic) instead of speak about (topic)
different than (something else) instead of different from (something else)
based out of (place) instead of based in (place)
bounce off of (thing/ person) instead of bounce off (thing/ person)
an historic (occasion) instead of a historic (occasion)
...

but when you get a quizzical look or a "say wha...?" then you know you have to err on the side of effective communication.

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Brief Notes on the Ontology of Purpose

2010-12-12T09:39:00.005+05:30

Most of us have mulled over the purpose of existence at some point or other in our lives. I started down that path too, but at some point I decided to step back a bit, flip the argument around and look at something more fundamental: the existence of purpose. Does purpose exist per se (as in -- does it have its own "life") independent of human existence or does it exist because we humans say it should? I found that we must get past this question -- about the existence of purpose before we get to that question -- about the purpose of existence.

When we ask the profound metaphysical question: "Why", we tend to overlook the fact that the question itself presumes purpose. If one were to tease out the implicit premise contained within the quest for purpose, it would turn out to be based on an assumption that there "is" (or "must be") some sort of purpose. The question: "What is the purpose of existence?" is not as straightforward as it seems. It actually embeds a slightly complex argument that may be simplified as follows:

A. There is a purpose underlying all things

B. Existence is a 'thing'

C. Therefore, there is a purpose underlying existence

D. What is it?

From the perspective of Aristotle's four causes, it is always possible to show material cause, formal cause and efficient cause to existence (as indeed, the sciences endeavour to do in all earnestness, and are highly successful at), but not final cause (a.k.a."telos"). If asked to show final cause to existence, as per the above argument, I would question conclusion C, which in effect means questioning assumption A, given that B is merely statement of fact. I would say: first prove A, and then let's talk about D. Before we go about trying to determine final cause, we need to show that it exists.

This is where what causes us differs from what we cause, where the anthropological differs from the anthropogenic, where the individual differs from the institution: in the case of the former, existence is primordial and precedes purpose; in the case of the latter it is the other way around. The telos of an individual's existence (other than the genetic imperative of self-preservation and perpetuation through propagation, and strategies to be successful in fulfilling that imperative) is precisely what that individual makes it out to be, if anything. But as far as institutions are concerned, purpose precedes existence. Organizations, corporations, nations, governments, associations, schools, academies, marketplaces, societies, etc. are created by humans to serve specific purposes, and those specific purposes form their raison d'être. Not only are their reasons for existence defined before they are created, but those reasons in fact guide their design, functioning, growth and evolution. If those reasons did not exist, those institutions would not exist. And after those institutions have outlived their purpose, they should cease to exist.

Institutions would do well to clearly define, and at all times be in touch with, their raison d'être. Those that don't have one, or that have outlived the one they had, should liquidate their assets and release residual resources for deployment elsewhere.

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Minor Observation #4

2010-11-24T18:51:00.001+05:30

When people are being reasonable, it tells you a lot about how they think. When people are being unreasonable, it tells you a lot about who they really are.

Our irrationality reveals our character.

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Nexus, Ties and the Radia Tapes

2010-11-23T13:45:00.004+05:30

So where are all the strident, vociferous TV news anchors when you need them to do unto themselves as they've been doing to others?

Admittedly, they've been doing a great job of snooping around in the corridors of power and unearthing scam after scam, blowing the lid off scandal after scandal and exposing corruption and nepotism in high places. However, the absolute and total black-out of coverage (conspicuous by its sheer absence on what could have been prime-time news) on the nexus between certain media personalities, certain PR agents, certain businessmen and certain politicians over the last week or so is astonishing. Do we have to get our updates on this topic from the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal and the Huffington Post and ... even Wikipedia?

Seems to me that India's free-thinking fourth estate has become an unreal estate -- a murky realm of toxic land-fills, where the truth about prominent news anchors and their shady ties with politicians and businessmen lies buried deep. As deep as the proverbial ostrich might bury its head in the sand when faced with adversity.

And we thought they were here to bring the truth to the people of India because we deserve to know the truth.

What a shame!

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Probes and Probity: A Note to the Congress

2010-11-15T17:05:00.001+05:30

Dear Congress,

Enough already! Your moves over the last week or so, to demonstrate your commitment to probity in the wake of the 3 recent scams, are way too sluggish and your lack of alacrity way too palpable to fool anybody but my 6 year old.

First, Suresh Kalmadi, for many years the chief spoiler of sports in India and more recently, head panjandrum of the Organising Committee that oversaw the preparation for the Commonwealth Games and overran the original budget by a factor of between 10 and 15. Do you really think you've done the nation a favour by getting him, stubborn as he was, to resign from his position as secretary of the Congress Parliamentary Party? What is the connection between this position with his role in the CWG scam? What difference did his resignation from this position make to anything or anybody? Where did all that money go?

Second, Ashok Chavan, shameless usurper of entitlements bestowed by the nation on bereaved families of soldiers killed in the Kargil war. Do you seriously think we're going to be satisfied with his resignation from the post of CM? How is his stepping down going to change anything? When will those families get their apartments back? Or get equivalent compensation?

Third, A Raja, who imagined he was really a raja and so in his delusion, mistook the national treasury for his own personal till. Do you honestly believe you've achieved a lot by coaxing, cajoling and coercing his bosses to get him, stubborn as he was, to resign from his position as Cabinet Minister for Communications and IT? Isn't that futile, given that his bosses are still hanging on to the same portfolio, as though it was their birthright, and will in all likelihood merely replace the hands that have been milking the telecom cash cow up until now, with a fresh pair of hands? When will all that money be recovered and restored to the exchequer?

The order of magnitude of each of these scams is reportedly anywhere between, in US dollar terms, a hundred million to several billion. This is not small change we're talking here. And the people of the country have adequate reason to suspect that the individual made to resign in each case, corrupt as he himself may be, represents just the proverbial tip of this iceberg of corruption.

Your Standard Operating Procedure, when faced with public outcry against corruption, is to announce that you will launch a probe. In fact, you launch many probes, trying to make it look like more probes means greater earnestness in getting to the bottom of things. You know fully well that more probes actually make the process inefficient, with different agencies bumping into one another at every step and fighting territorial wars among one another. Clearly, this is what you want then: for the truth to get lost in the chaos of multiple probes and jurisdiction issues.

In any case, you should understand that probes do not ensure probity. Especially if the probing agency's probity itself is in question. You should recognize that the public has lost its confidence in the integrity and/or efficiency of any investigating agency in the country that you may call in to conduct a probe. The need of the hour is a complete overhaul of a corrupt culture that has been carefully protected and nurtured over all these years by people in power. Clean that up now! Stem the rot! Get all the guilty to book -- there are several culprits behind each of these three mega-scams of the season. And several more behind the scams that are not in the limelight at the moment. We want to see these fraudsters in prison, serving sentences that keep them away from civil society for a long, long time. Not merely removed from their incumbent posts for a few months, and then allowed to come back and continue to feed off the country's resources like vampires off their victim's blood. Frankly, given the nature, extent and significance of these offences, I think the guilty need to be charged with treason, not just fraud. These are crimes against the nation and its people, not just rounding-off errors in the GDP.

You know what you have to do if you want my vote. I am willing to set aside my concerns (though they run deep) over having a bigoted government run this country if only it promises to be cleaner than yours. The way I feel at this time, I'll take that chance.

Have a nice day.

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Haley's Comment

2010-11-14T19:23:00.001+05:30

When Punjabi kudi Nimrata Kaur Randhawa, born in Bamberg, South Carolina to Sikh immigrants and raised in the Sikh tradition, married Bill Michael Haley, she converted to her husband's religion and became Nimrata Randhawa-Haley. And in 2004 when she changed her career (from running her mother's fashion business) to politics, she became Nikki Haley. Because (she commented to press reporters) the name Nimrata Randhawa-Haley wouldn't "fit on a yard sign" -- IMO a phrase which, other than meaning what it says, is also a euphemism for acknowledging that her original name is not American enough to win an election.

I chanced upon this factoid (and many others) as I browsed through the search results for "Nikki Haley" the other day, when news broke about her winning the South Carolina gubernatorial elections to become the first woman Governor of her state and the second Governor of Indian origin in the history of the United States. The first, of course, was Punjabi munda Piyush Amrit Jindal who, inspired by a character from The Brady Bunch, changed his name to Bobby when he was a kid, converted to Christianity and was elected Governor of Louisiana a couple of years ago. And may someday even become President.

Indians rejoiced then, when Bobby Jindal won, as they did now when Nikki Haley won. And as they always do when someone from their gene pool makes it big, anywhere in the world, in any sphere of human endeavour, regardless of how far away from their roots those individuals have moved, or how far removed from Indian society those individuals were to begin with. What part India played in Haley's or Jindal's success story is anybody's guess, but for a lot of Indians, these are the sons and daughters who make India proud.

Several comparisons have been made between this particular son and this particular daughter of India -- both are in their late 30s, both are Republicans, both converted to Christianity before actively entering politics, both are second generation Americans whose parents migrated from Punjab, India ... and finally, both dropped the names they were born with and took names that "fit on yard signs". In many ways, this distancing of oneself from one's original name and religion marks the long journey from Ludhiana to Louisiana, in a manner of speaking. And some commentators have been quite openly sceptical about the motives behind these changes .

As I continued my research that day, what jumped out at me was the need to change one's cultural identity in order to be successful, and it had me wondering about many related things.

Like, if Nikki Haley's birth name was Ela Rai and her husband's family name was Krzywoszyja, then which name would she have picked to "fit on a yard sign"? My money says she would've entered politics as "Ella Ray" and thought up a clever explanation to it.

Like, why does Nikki Haley need a concealed weapons permit? The article in Washington Post lists 10 factoids about Nikki Haley and has a paragraph outlining the story behind each of them, except for this one about her concealed weapons permit. I find that quite intriguing, since it conceals more than it reveals.

Like, how come Barack Husain Obama did not change his name (to, say, Barry O'Bama) to make it "fit on a yard sign"?

Like, why did Barack Obama have to clarify that he was a Christian and not a Muslim? Why did Nikki Haley have to clarify that she was a Christian and no longer a practising Sikh? Here's a line from a Newsweek article about her:

"Haley’s religious background surfaced as an issue during the primary, forcing her to clarify that she’s raising her two kids Methodist, that the family regularly attends a Methodist church, and that she only occasionally visits a Sikh temple, when invited by her parents."

"Surfaced as an issue .... forcing her to clarify" -- sounds like a lot of pressure. "Only occasionally ... when invited by her parents" -- sounds like an apology, if not a plea for clemency. Such a pity!

Why is it that in America -- the greatest of democracies, land of the free, home of the brave, a nation built by immigrants from all parts of the world, a nation that promises equal opportunity to all and prides itself on embracing ethnic and cultural diversity -- why is it that in such a nation it is necessary to be a Christian before aspiring to become Governor or President? Or to have a name that "fits on a yard sign"?

As an aside, I also wondered how come Christine O'Donnell didn't see the need to change her name to fit on a yard sign, and how come she didn't have to clarify that she is a Christian. But then I quickly reminded myself of the TV ad campaign that ran through most of last month. In her case, there was another doubt that need clarification: that she was not a witch.

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Minor Observation #3

2010-11-10T15:20:00.002+05:30

Is it just me or are most things these days shallow, hard, loud and cheap?

In the old days, things were deep, soft and rich -- because we liked them that way. These days, however, everything sounds, looks and feels like an ersatz clone of its older self. Strangely, however, the technology to produce and consume those things is vastly more sophisticated today than ever before.

Take music for instance. Sound engineering today is amazingly hi-tech but the quality of the sound sucks, inasmuch as it lacks in richness of texture, tone and timbre. And when it comes to the music, today's arrangements seem to lack in range of instruments as also in depth of harmony. The few times I hear an interesting sounding instrument, or a fragment with good counterpoint, the piece grabs my attention regardless of what I am doing -- that's how rare it has become.

The music producer's goal these days is to capture, even if ephemerally, the attention and wallet-share of a fickle attention-deficit audience that is constantly hankering after the next cool thing. And what they produce has to sound as good on a small electronic gizmo with earplugs that reproduce that sound with remarkable fidelity, as it would on a 5.1 home theatre system. Most of that music is intrinsically tinny. It has become that way simply because tinniness is what it got from how we listen to it. And there's the preponderance of heavily accentuated percussion that can really push your sub-woofers to their limit and overwhelm your eardrums -- it got that way because of how we listen to it.

Back in the old days we didn't have mp3 players and we didn't have sub-woofers. We didn't need them; we didn't need five point ones. Just a regular stereo system -- consisting of a turn-table an amp and two speakers -- was enough. Enough to be able to enjoy the beautifully orchestrated music they produced back then. Enough to recreate the deep and rich sound of an acoustic double-bass that would let you wallow indulgently in the booming resonance of its vibrancy as it filled the room and enveloped you, only to be broken by the rasp of the bow drawn sharply across the strings.

I'm not sure they even use acoustic instruments any longer. They have synthesized electronic sounds that mimic the original instrument. Sounds almost the same, they say. Almost. For me, almost doesn't quite cut it.

And before you start calling me old-fashioned or just plain old, let me remind you that this is about fine taste, not about age or about living in the past.

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New Rules For Fools #1

2010-11-01T09:42:00.002+05:30

Inspired by Bill Maher (yes, I'm a fan), a man who says funny things seriously and serious things funnily, I've decided to start a new segment on this blog. Let me inaugurate this segment with the following new rule:

Purpose of New Rule: This new rule is meant as a guide to people who are confused about when to change the ruler, when to change the rule and when to change the ruled.

Description of New Rule: If a rule has become obsolete and irrelevant and is inhibiting the growth and prosperity of society, then drop it. If parts of it are relevant and can be made to work with some modifications, then change it. However, if a good rule is being abused by a bad ruler, then change the ruler, not the rule. If you can't reform the ruler, then elect a new one. And if you fear that all prospective rulers are also going to abuse the rule, then either try to become the ruler yourself, or go live in another society, or reconcile to this reality. And if you can't change the rule, can't change the ruler, can't become the ruler, can't change your society and can't change your mind, then shut the fuck up!

Enough said. Now, back to work. Or Play. Or Playing the fool.

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More on Sedition Law: Say No Evil, Do No Evil

2010-10-31T12:28:00.003+05:30

In the passionate arguments that have recently emerged around the related topics of freedom of expression, the Indian sedition law, etc. in the opinion cloud of cyberspace, I've often heard people voice the argument that speech, after all, is merely speech. Different from action.

The voice that argues so, says that people committing crimes as a result of instigation by an agent provocateur are fully and entirely responsible for those crimes, and those inciting them to commit those crimes carry no responsibility at all. Because all they have done is spoken, not acted. They argue that since actors are free agents unto themselves, they would only act on their own accord, not just on someone else's say so. You can take a horse to the water .. blah blah. So, says this voice, words are innocent, even if disagreeable. Only action is guilty.

Sigh.

The next time there is a terrorist attack (Heaven forbid) and there's an international manhunt for the "master mind" behind it, I would like this voice above to step up and say "Why hold the so-called master mind responsible? After all, that individual only spoke, but didn't *do* anything. There was already enough disaffection among those disenfranchised actors to commit those acts."

By the same token, we should not hold Osama bin Laden responsible for 9/11. Nor Hafiz Saeed for 26/11. Their minions did all the dirty work; all they did was to speak. And freedom of speech is an inalienable fundamental right. Right?

Taking the horse to the water is the cause. The horse drinking (or not) is the effect. If the horse does not drink then it is a failed cause. When the mission involves violence against the state and/or its people, do we want to wait till the horse reaches the water to find out whether it will or wont drink? Ergo, sedition law: if you see someone taking a horse to the water, stop them. This is why India is asking for Hafiz Saeed and other rabble-rousers in Pakistan to be incarcerated. In this case, sedition does not apply, since it is a different country, but the principle is the same -- prevention better than cure.

Let's recognize that we live in a world with horses, and men and women who can and do drink, but can't or don't think. That is, they can't or don't think about what they are being inspired/ motivated/ taught/ commanded/ cajoled/ goaded to do, overwhelmed as they are with anger and hatred.

A society where people by and large do not become horses that misanthropes can ride, certainly can - and certainly should - have unrestricted free speech. Ah! would I love that! But, unfortunately, that's not what we have, here (in this part of the world, at least) and now (in the present time, at least). We have misanthropes, we have horses and we have people who can't think beyond their anger and hatred. We have misanthropes who will always stay in the background and whip-up mob hysteria in their constituencies. We have misanthropes who will sacrifice their horses, but save themselves so that they can 'live to fight another day' i.e. continue to pursue their deadly mission of destruction. So they will only speak, never act.

It is what it is. Deal with it. Arm yourself with the sedition law and use it justly. And if you don't trust your government to do that, then fix THAT problem. Don't remove the law! There's a time and place for it. And it is not here, and not now.

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Rights and Wrongs, Freedoms and Responsibilities

2010-10-29T14:09:00.006+05:30

Mukesh Ambani's new home on Altamount Road has been getting a lot of media coverage lately. And so has Arundhati Roy's speech in Srinagar. These two individuals live in diametrically different worlds (and probably despise each other's weltanschauung, approach to life, and lifestyles) and yet have one thing in common -- they've made it to Forbes' lists. Different lists, of course, for different reasons.

Mukesh Ambani topped the Forbes list of the richest Indians for the third year in a row, and is currently the 4th richest person in the world. And Arundhati Roy was ranked 3rd in Forbes' 30 most insipiring women in the world. Considering that the world population is rapidly approaching 7 billion, this makes both of them very special.

Several critics have been criticising, separately, Mr Ambani for erecting a monstrosity of a building they consider to be an outrageous display of wealth, and Ms Roy for making a speech they consider to be an outrageous display of hatred for India and its institutions. And several people have been criticising those critics, stridently defending the inalienable fundamental rights of those two objects of criticism -- respectively, Ambani's right to spend his money as he pleases (see reader comments) and Roy's right to say whatever she pleases.

How I wish those same critics of the critics would as stridently expostulate with those same objects of criticism whose freedom they defend, about their inalienable fundamental responsibilities as good citizens. How come they don't do that? How come their decibel level is always so high in defending the right of people to fuck-up but nary a whisper when it comes to the duty of the same people to NOT fuck-up?

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Sedition Law: Should India Repeal It?

2010-10-28T15:02:00.002+05:30

I believe in free speech and I believe in free markets. After all, the best things in life are free. But I also believe that freedom brings along responsibility, and that it would a gross error to decouple the two.

Laws are not designed in a vacuum. Laws are designed keeping in mind the ideals and principles of civil and moral conduct on the one hand and on the other, the culture and level of maturity of the people who will be governed by those laws. So, while I believe in free speech and free markets, I am reconciled to the fact that they are only suited for a society of mature, civilised self-governing adults who don't need to be supervised and shepherded towards responsible behaviour.

If we are dealing with a society where immature, irresponsible behaviour is rampant, where people display poor civic sense, where people only argue for their rights but do not recognize their duties that come along with those rights, then we need a legal and regulatory framework that clearly defines specific pre-conditions which ensure that such freedoms are not abused. And we need clean, prompt and unbiased enforcement of that legal and regulatory framework. And we need an independent and efficient judiciary that will hear differences of opinion on each case where the nature and extent of enforcement is being challenged, and deliver justice. This is what democracies are supposed to be made up of. This is what we have, in India. And that includes freedom of expression which all of us enjoy, to the extent that we can shout out from our rooftops that we don't have freedom of expression in this country and not risk being thrown in jail.

And if things are not functioning the way they should, then they need to be corrected. Through peaceful means. If the legal and regulatory framework needs to be modified, for better alignment with changing times and changing behavioural patterns, then peaceful public discourse should be used to evolve the most suitable modifications. If the enforcement machinery needs to be corrected, to improve integrity, improve focus, commitment and execution capability, then appropriate reforms should be initiated by the government in office and if that government is not doing its job then the people who elected that government must push for change. Peacefully, through dialogue, debate and negotiation.

Why must people argue the case for unconditional free speech (or unregulated free markets, for that matter) when they can see all around them the tendency of citizens (and corporations, in the case of markets) to ignore responsibility and abuse freedom? Do these same champions of free speech also argue that the laws that govern driving under the influence of alcohol must be repealed? Why not? Why not assume that people are mature and responsible enough not to drink and drive?

To those who believe that India should repeal Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code which defines the offence of sedition, I have a suggestion: let's get rid of all the drunk driving laws first, and see how we do with that. If it works, then it means we're dealing with a mature society. Then, let's repeal the Sedition Law!

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Minor Observation #2

2010-10-21T13:12:00.001+05:30

There are those who take what they need and there are those who take whatever they can get. Regarding the latter, the compulsion to do so, in itself, defines their need in most cases.

This is yet another factor that distinguishes Man from Beast. And among humans, distinguishes those who are secure, living in a world of abundance created by others like them, from those who are insecure, living in a world of scarcity created by others like them.

You know who you are.

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Philosophers and Littérateurs

2010-08-16T10:57:00.001+05:30

I've observed that eminent thinkers are generally adept at using words to communicate their thoughts. I've also observed that renowned literary writers usually manifest a philosophical bent of mind in their writing. It appears to me, then, that philosophers and littérateurs have quite a bit in common inasmuch as they both draw on the combination of two key competencies: the power of ideation and command over language, in order to be successful. However, having pondered over this briefly, I see that there is at least one fundamental difference between those who are primarily thinkers and those who are primarily writers.

To philosophers, whose modus operandi typically involves engaging in discourse with other thinkers, language serves as a useful tool to explore ideas and examine concepts. To littérateurs, whose focus typically is on developing narrative that would engage readers, ideas and concepts serve as basic props that, when enriched by the embellishments of language, could tell a compelling story. The quintessential thinker is seized with the quest for sagacity in the process of contemplation, whereas the quintessential writer agonizes over the search for precision in the process of articulation.

Philosophers delight in clarity of understanding, littérateurs in artistry of expression.

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Exercises in Sophistry: A Note to the BJP

2010-07-27T11:23:00.003+05:30

Dear BJP,

I wish your party members (some of whom are eminent lawyers) would go attend a refresher course in logic. Perhaps that might teach them to steer clear of befuddling fallacies and bemusing absurdities. Such as, for example, the following line of reasoning, which ya'll have been shouting out from the rooftops over the last couple of days:

A. The CBI has been misused by the Congress to serve its own political agenda.
B. Sohrabuddin was a criminal and a terrorist.
C. Amit Shah is innocent of all crimes that he has been accused of.

A crash course in basic logic will tell you that premises A and B -- even if they're true (and I am not even challenging their veracity) -- are not sufficient grounds to derive conclusion C. So kindly do the nation a favour and let the investigation take its own course. And then take the CBI to court if you like. But till then, stop behaving like the Pakistani establishment. You remind me so much of the way they reacted on 26/11 and the way they've been brushing away the evidence against Hafiz Saeed et al. Same panic, same hysteria, same high-pitched rhetoric, same denial. But even so, the truth came out, didn't it?

And lastly, please don't waste the nation's time and money in Parliament today. Be a robust opposition and engage in good solid debate based on good solid reasoning, on all the issues that you need to be challenging the Congress-led UPA government on -- there are lots of them, and I fully support your demand for accountability on all those counts. Please, please, please do not stage a walk-out as you are wont to do, it achieves nothing.

Have a nice day!

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Effing the Ineffable

2010-07-24T11:32:00.001+05:30

As this rather tumultuous week ends, it is heartening to see attempts at bringing the high and mighty to book:

Amit Shah, Gujarat's Minister of State for Home, suspected of complicity in a fake encounter case, was chargesheeted and denied anticipatory bail.

M K Kaushik, Coach to the Indian women's hockey team, was exposed as a sexual predator.

Salahuddin Ayub, Principal of an elite private residential school in Andhra Pradesh, accused of raping a girl student several times over a year, was taken to the cops.

Common thread: all 3 events occurred this week, and all 3 events involve individuals in commanding positions (in their own respective worlds) who could well have been abusing the meek and defenseless under their control -- the very people who looked up to them for protection and leadership. In each case, powerful friends and allies of the accused have tried (and are still trying, as we go into the next week) to suppress their (alleged) crimes and misdemeanours, obfuscate the core issue in each case and divert public scrutiny by hurling counter-accusations at plaintiffs and/or investigators. We can only hope that justice is done in each case. What happened this week was just the first step, in each of the 3 cases, in what may well turn out to be a thousand mile journey. As we all know, it is not easy to bring to book those who have friends in high places and consider themselves above the law

Alan Watts once said (albeit in a very different context): "I'm in the business of effing the ineffable." Let's hope the Indian justice system is in that business too.

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While on vacation ...

2010-05-26T17:58:00.002+05:30

Vacations are about being, not about doing. Work is about doing. Play is about doing.

The soul needs some time to come abreast of all that the mind and the body have been doing, at work and at play. That's what vacations are for - vacant spaces for the soul to catch its breath.

Being, not doing.

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Ceci n'est pas une pipe

2010-04-18T16:05:00.009+05:30

Shashi Tharoor is no scam artist. He doesn't look like a scam artist, doesn't talk like a scam artist and doesn't walk like a scam artist. Scam artists are people like the boorishly crude Madhu Koda and the unctuously cunning Ramalinga Raju to name a few scamsters from recent times, and opportunistic stock market fraudsters like Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parekh from yesteryears. All from different walks of life, but hey -- you can never suppress true art in any sphere. The only thing Tharoor did that went horribly wrong was to try and help a friend of his get a sweet deal as a stock-holder in a business venture he was mentoring. Compare that with Raju, the founder of the IT giant he named Satyam, after the Sanskrit word for Truth, who overnight made it a one-word oxymoron by revealing the truth (or part of it) behind its financial position. A five thousand crore scam is a scam that people would consider to be of a respectable order of magnitude. Seventy something crores, that too in the form of 'paper money', and that too accruing over several years, is peanuts, even assuming that Tharoor was after the money (which I seriously doubt -- he is too much of what Bengalis call a 'bhadralok').

In any case, you may ask, what's wrong with trying to get a friend a sweet deal? Don't we all try to help our friends? The answer to that lies in a detailed analysis (which I am not going to get into in this post) of a scandal that has been dubbed Tharoorgate. In short, it started with him mentoring a bunch of entrepreneurs who won the bid for the Kochi franchise of the IPL, in the interests of promoting cricket in his home state of Kerala. And then Tharoor managed to squeeze in a plum position for his friend, with a sweet sweat equity deal in that enterprise. And so the friend, a lady friend as it happens, ended up with a pretty decent stake in the venture, with a great upside and almost no downside, in return for helping them with branding, marketing, event management and such. All of which said lady friend has proven expertise in and is well known for, we are told. (A bit ironic, if you ask me, that we need to be told that she's famous -- wouldn't we have heard of her already?)

And what a lady friend! The voluptuous MILF-like Sunanda Pushkar with her pouting lips and her coiffed hair qualifies to be the personification of Savita Bhabhi to any young Indian male or in fact any male. I can bet that if she were a frumpy blowsy matron, this scandal would've just blown over, assuming it took place at all. But then who are we kidding? Would she have been Tharoor's girlfriend if she were a fat, ugly, dowdy, curmudgeonly widow? Or if she were a man? Would Tharoor have worked his mentoring magic to do her (or him) a great big favor? These may be politically incorrect questions to raise, but you know the answers as well as I.

The media wasted no time in flashing pictures of Tharoor cavorting with Pushkar at art exhibitions and other social events, but the woman has remained mysteriously silent (except for issuing just a simple and short statement denying any wrong-doing and expressing outrage at being projected as a proxy for Tharoor on the board of the Kochi IPL franchisee). Either she doesn't have the balls to come out and face live news cameras, or the ever so gallant Mr Tharoor has played protector and ensured that she is shielded from such ignominy.

And that's how the luscious Ms Pushkar came to be Mr Tharoor's bete noire. For a mindset that requires men and women to sit in different sections of the hall in a wedding reception, the sex angle in this drama is a bit too much to take. She's an attractive young widow with a successful career and he's a dashing, much-accomplished man of the world, a Minister and member of the Indian parliament, twice married and now single and eligible. It's a bit imprudent of someone like him to gallivant with someone like her, and then use his good offices to promote her business, knowing what kind of a gallery of rogues he has walked into in his present job as minister and how thirsty they are for his blood. India's self-righteous right wing, already piqued by Tharoor's earlier misdemeanours and his ability to slip out of tight corners by leveraging his mastery over the art of nuanced articulation, pounced on the glib Mr Tharoor this time, grabbing him by the short and curly. The left joined in too, for good measure, looking for a good slug-fest and some more Congress-bashing.

The nation has other far more compelling issues before it at this time. Moreover when it comes to punishing the corrupt and the deviant, there are far bigger fish we should be frying than the soft-spoken, well-meaning Tharoor, whose biggest crime -- other than a few careless tweets he threw about in a cavalier fashion some time ago (which even a nobody like me has critically blogged about), is merely the fact that he's got a soft spot for attractive women and tries to help them out in their professional pursuits.

The only good thing this scandal has done is to blow open the lid on the Pandora's box that contains all the really murky goings-on behind the closed doors of the IPL, involving some real crooks. Hopefully, we will learn more as the various authorities proceed with their investigations.

But Tharoor? Vraiment, ceci n'est pas une pipe!

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The Truth About Cats And Dogs

2010-03-23T10:06:00.005+05:30

I came across an interesting quote from Alfred North Whitehead a few days ago:

If a dog jumps in your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.

In the wake of the recent passage of the health-care reforms legislation architected by the Obama administration, I couldn't help likening the pattern and structure of this rather astute observation to the two different kinds of attitudes towards the subject of distribution of wealth -- If the conservatives believe in distribution of wealth, it is because they want to avoid being guillotined; if the liberals believe in it, it is because they find it difficult to live with the guilt of gross inequity.

And an observation on the side to go with that, as a corollary -- There are those who believe in reducing economic disparities because they hate the rich and there are those who believe in it because they feel for the poor.

Goes back to my view in an earlier post about how what really makes sense is to rise above the emotional and moral plane on which these arguments have typically been fought, and take the issue of distribution of wealth to a more transcendental level, where the only thing that matters is focusing on the goal of sustainability as a design goal for society.

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Reservations About Reservations

2010-03-08T18:17:00.003+05:30

At the time of writing this post, it seems unlikely that the Women's Bill will be passed into Law today, on International Women's Day. I have mixed feelings about this Bill, as I do about anything that involves social reform through the creation of quotas. This usually applies to the historically underprivileged / exploited / abused / oppressed sections of society, and we try and make it good by reversing the discrimination against them through discrimination for them, by law.

As a people we represent a rich social and cultural diversity, but we have not yet learned to embrace this diversity. Instead we have deepened the divisiveness, be it on the basis of caste, creed, ethnicity, race, gender, religion, language and even physical or mental ability. And sometimes we've set out to do good and ended-up making it worse. According to me, reservations and quotas are like that. My heart goes out to the oppressed but my head remains unmoved when it comes to special considerations for them. Here's my logic, laid out over 4 simple statements:

I do not believe in discrimination of any kind
Reservations and quotas, by their very definition, differentiate one group of humans from another
They are therefore yet another form of discrimination
That is why I do not believe in them

For once, I am not sure what I would wish for, as far as today's outcome in Parliament is concerned.

Happy Women's Day (though I have mixed feelings about that too, but maybe we'll talk about it in another post).

P.S. Here's an interesting analysis: http://blogs.reuters.com/india/2010/03/08/some-questions-on-the-womens-reservation-bill/

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My Answer to the Teaser

2010-03-08T12:36:00.001+05:30

First of all, a big thank you to all who've had the patience to read and comment on my previous post over the weekend. As promised, here's my answer to the teaser:

No, because (A) implies acceptance of what is perceived to be a perpetual truism while (B) challenges the status-quo, questions what seems to have been taken as fact so far, and implies that it is time for change.

A question of the form "Why did (something) have to be (this way)?" is semantically equivalent to the statement "Granted, (something) has to be (this way)" followed by "But why?" which may either represent genuine curiosity regarding causation or a rhetorical question that makes (A) sound like an anguished lament on the state of things (as in "Why, Oh Why?")

A question of the form "Why does (something) have to be (this way)?" is semantically equivalent to the statement "Sorry, I reject the proposition that (something) has to be (this way)" followed by "And even if it is, or has been, are there any compelling reasons that require that it continues to remain (this way)?"

Most responses that came in through comments on the post appear to be more or less along similar lines. Not much of a brain teaser, then, and perhaps Flyweight might have been its more appropriate weight class, given its lack of intellectual heft. But do remember that the teaser was designed not just as a brain teaser but also a teaser-trailer, to whet your appetite for discourse on the larger issue. Which is a good segue into my next point.

Also as promised, I shall soon present my take on the topic of benevolent dictatorship being an oxymoron at my 'main' blog since it's a bit too long for this mini-blog. At the time of posting this, I'm still working on the draft. It will be there soon, I promise. Look for my updates on twitter and facebook -- the title of that post will be the question (B). My special friends who are not active on either will receive an email. Once it is up there, do feel free to jump into the debate and post your comments.

Oh and meanwhile, if you disagree with my answer to the teaser as outlined here above, I'd love to know why. So please comment right here below!

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A Bantamweight Teaser Around One Word

2010-03-06T18:17:00.002+05:30

Here's a bantamweight teaser, for bright minds that are very bored on a Saturday afternoon.

Articulated below are two questions that are almost identical, except for one word. If you think they both mean the same thing, respond with a "Yes" in the comment box, else respond with a "No, because ___<state your reason here>__". I must hasten to add that I am not looking for what my MA 201 course instructor in IIT used to call a "trivial" resolution, such as: (A) is in the past tense and (B) in the present tense. Let's go a step beyond that and look at the big picture.

(A) Why did benevolent dictatorship have to be an oxymoron?

(B) Why does benevolent dictatorship have to be an oxymoron?

Remember to focus on the teaser here -- the main question, which is: Do (A) and (B) mean the same thing or do they mean different things? In this post, I am not soliciting your opinion on whether or not you think benevolent dictatorship is an oxymoron. We will have that discussion in the next post, which will open with my own answer to this teaser, and then present my take on the oxymoron in question, inspired by an interesting comment thread that unfolded on my facebook page over the last day or two.

OK! Go for it!

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The Lighter Side of (Anti)Social Enterprise

2010-02-22T17:14:00.005+05:30

These days one hears a lot of talk about innovation and social entrepreneurship. A passing glance at recent activity in this sector brings out several interesting models that combine creative ingenuity with the spirit of enterprise. But I would never have imagined that something like stone pelting can be a serious business. Surprise Surprise. According to some sources, stone pelting is already fast becoming an industry. (Since social enterprise doesn't seem appropriate, though it qualifies on several grounds, let's call it antisocial enterprise.)

This news item could well have qualified for a "in more WTF news" kind of tweet on twitter, but I thought it deserved better treatment than just "tweetment", so this post marks my humble debut in political satire. When I saw the news-flash that the stone pelting king-pin was apprehended, in my mind's eye I had already started envisioning a fictitious TV interview of the CEO of "Rapid Lapidators Pvt. Ltd." (with the tag line "We lapidate to liquidate"), a Srinagar-based start-up that has already got its first round of funding from an Af-Pak based foreign director investor. It goes something like this ...

[Headline: Your TV Channel now brings you exclusive Antisocial Media coverage of the birth of the stone pelting industry, the first of its kind in Antisocial Entrepreneurship]

[On one side of the screen there's a 5 second clip of a mob pelting stones at policemen, in an infinite loop. A watermark bearing the TV Channel's name followed by the words "Exclusive Footage" is running as a continuous ticker tape across the screen]

TV Channel: Sir, this is the first time you are being interviewed by any TV channel, so we are honoured that you chose to give an exclusive interview to just our channel. Could you tell us a little bit about your business?

CEO: Sure. First of all, let me clarify that stone pelting is not as easy as it looks. Our roads these days are always littered with stones, thanks to all the maintenance activity that is perennially going on on our roads. So on one hand it seems like any old Patharphekar can pick up a stone and throw it. But to do a really good job, you have to realize that this is an art by itself. One has to be a trained stone pelter and one has to have the knack for stone pelting, to be able to make a career out of it. Everything is important right from the selection of stones to the technique of throwing to the actual harvesting and recycling of thrown stones.

TVC: What about yourself? How did you get started?

CEO: Since childhood, I was fascinated by the act of throwing a stone at some symbol of the establishment. I threw my first stone when I was just 4 years old and it hit its target - the windscreen of the then district collector's white ambassador. My uncle complimented me and said - nephew, you will one day become a great stone pelter. As I grew older I developed my skill and started winning trophies at local stone pelting competitions. Those days it was just a hobby for all of us, because we just enjoyed throwing stones. Then one day I said to a couple of my friends - Yaar, why not we make this a business, yaar? This can become a lucrative business in the valley yaar. After all, we could always hop across the border to a hostile neighbouring country and get some unfriendly neighbourhood GO (state actors) or NGO (non-state actors) to fund us and LeT us launch this antisocial enterprise. And we did, and since then there's been no looking back. This has become yet another outsourcing innovation for our country, with our vast resources of unemployed youth. A little bit of research in your own news archives will tell you that there's huge demand for stone pelting outsourcing.

TVC: That's interesting! Could you give us an industry overview? What about competition? What are your differentiators?

CEO: As an industry sector, stone pelting is positioned carefully above the Shiv Sena brand of hooliganism but below Maoist insurgence. To those who are looking for the right degree of violence that is not so lethal as to provoke extreme reaction from the establishment, but yet causes enough damage to life and property, we offer the right solution. As a company, we are aware that there is considerable interest in this business in other parts of the country, such as the state of Andhra Pradesh. But we have a far superior offering than the pro-Telangana activists, and our pricing models are also very attractive. We have recently introduced a pay-as-we-pelt model and a outcome-linked model, as opposed to just FTE-linked charge-out rates. Our deliverables are highly visible, thanks to your channel, so transparency is never a problem. Our approach underscores our commitment to results and the fact that we're not just exploiting wage arbitrage opportunities, though all we hire are unemployed youth. We've invested heavily in R&D and have institutionalized the process of innovation - every pelter in our stable is an innovative pelter. We take special care in recruiting and training our staff and we go out of our way to keep the morale high. This is a resource-intensive business and a lot depends on the motivation levels of even our most junior team member. For example, we have an in-depth induction programme for new hires, which includes SPLC training ...

TVC: Er .. what's that?

CEO: Oh sorry - SPLC is a jargones (sic) for Stone Pelting Life-Cycle training.

TVC: You mean jargon ...

CEO: Hahn, bus wohi ... You see, once you start studying this industry a little more closely you'll become better acquainted with our jargones (sic) because you see, us lapidators are technical people and technical people tend to invent a lot of jargones (sic). It means that we pay attention to every detail. Like I was telling you, it is important to select the right kind of stones. Some stones crumble easily, others have too smooth a surface - they are actually paybbuls (sic). We need stones that are hard but do not crumble easily, and they should have sharp edges also. In fact, our supply chain specialists have perfect the art of sourcing stones from the best pelting-grade stone suppliers in the industry. Thats another differentiator, by the way. Also, we have a highly scalable model since we have access to vast pools of resources that are only too willing to get trained and get a job with us. Lastly, we are very environment conscious and after I returned from COP15 I've initiated a recycling initiative - we pay street urchins to harvest the stones we pelt, after the stone pelting incident. This has also resulted in considerable cost saving, which we pass on to our esteemed customers.

TVC: Mr CEO, you seem very passionate about your business and I'm sure you would love to talk about it a lot more. But we won't keep you from your tight schedule any longer. Thank you very much for your precious time and for sharing your insights on stone pelting. We wish you the very best for the future.

CEO: Thanks for having me and giving coverage to our exciting new business. Though our mission statement is "Everybody must get stoned" - a line we stole from the famous lyricist and Music Director Babu Dhillon, as a token gesture, if someone hires us to pelt stones at your TV station, we will humbly decline the offer. If they offer to pay us a heck of a lot more, then we will give you enough warning and wait till you leave the building before pelting. And we'll pass on some of that premium to you. We're professionals after all.

TVC: Oh that would be wonderful! Your gesture is much appreciated!

CEO: (beams all around) My pleasure entirely!

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Friends Like These ...

2010-02-14T12:57:00.004+05:30

My gut reaction to the Pune blast last night was a sense that it was somehow linked with the Shiv Sena protests against the release of Shah Rukh Khan's latest film. I first got the news through a couple of concerned messages from friends I am connected with on social media, checking on people they knew in Pune. I was a bit preoccupied with the blog post I was just finishing (which, uncannily, was about love and hate, among other things) at that time. I vaguely remembered catching the news earlier in the day that most cinema halls in Pune had chosen not to screen the controversial movie, out of fear of incurring the Sena's wrath, notwithstanding the security arrangements and the strong police deployment by the local authorities. But I did not expect things to get so bad so fast. So I hastily put my blog post aside and began investigating this breaking news story.

As it turned out, this was a bomb blast, a planned attack by terrorists (suspected to be the LeT and/or IM). It wasn't a mob of hooligans on a "spontaneous" rampage (a specialty of the Shiv Sena modus operandi these days -- they've become very good at organizing spontaneous acts of vandalism). And so it wasn't something the Sena activists did, after all. They would not plant bombs and kill people. Not in Pune, for sure. But I could still see a clear connection all the same: my initial gut reaction was not altogether wrong. Quite simply, the Pune police force was too busy with the security bandobast around the many cinema halls where the movie was originally scheduled to show, and the enemy saw this as an opportune moment to strike somewhere else, at a location they had most likely been targeting all along. All they seemed to have been waiting for was the timing.

Call it bizarre if you like, but it was almost as though the actors at two opposing ends of this horrific drama were colluding to act in concert. Almost as though these terrorists had partners in India whose task it was to create a big enough diversion that the entire law and order machinery would be compelled to focus their time, attention and energies on, exposing the soft underbelly of the city open to attack. I'm not trying to suggest that the Sena was colluding with the terrorists. But hey, with friends like these, who needs enemies?

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Attacks on Indians in Australia - A Project for Shashi Tharoor

2010-01-16T19:56:00.001+05:30

Is it so difficult to figure out whether there is a racial dimension to what appears to be a sudden surge in the attacks on Indians in Australia over the last year or so?

Here's a thought (no rocket science involved): The governments of the two countries constitute a panel of sociologists and behavioural scientists (criminal psychologists / cultural anthropologists / ethnographers / urbanologists / whatever other types of relevant experts there might be) from both countries, and direct them to carry out a detailed study of all the reported cases of verbal abuse and/or physical assault and battery on people of Indian origin in Australia over the last few years. This should put an end to the speculation, claims, accusations, allegations and all kinds of name-calling that's been flying around in both directions.

If it turns out that racial / ethnic prejudice is the root cause of these attacks, then the Australian governance establishment should acknowledge it and try to fix the root cause instead of staunchly denying racial motivation. Conversely if it turns out that these are just regular instances of urban crime, averagely distributed over a normal cross-section of the population and not skewed in the direction of any specific race or ethnicity, then the Indian media should stop trying to whip-up public outrage by playing the race card every time they broadcast breaking news of a fresh attack.

I wonder if Shashi Tharoor - arguably the most open-minded, level-headed, rational, sensible and sincere politician in the ruling party - might consider taking this up as a project, instead of getting himself into and out of inane controversies. Especially given the fact that his portfolio of responsibilities requires him to be directly concerned with matters that constitute 'external affairs', rather than with exploring how social media could be leveraged to air his own opinions on policy matters among the twitterati.

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Abstractionism on a Saturday afternoon

2010-01-16T17:10:00.001+05:30

Quizzers compulsively obsessing over data in a world of facts and figures

Reporters persistently poring over information in a world of happenstance

Researchers relentlessly seeking knowledge in a world of explanations

Philosophers inexorably aspiring for wisdom in a world of possibilities

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Woods. And the Sound of a Tree Falling

2009-12-14T14:06:00.007+05:30

Over the last week or so, much has been said and written about Tiger Woods and his recent 'transgressions'. The morally conservative have expressed outrage and disappointment over his infidelity. The more open-minded liberals, like my friend in his blog post, have taken a more tolerant view, drawing distinctions between his private / personal life and his sense of professionalism and commitment to the game, and questioning the sanctimoniousness of his critics. As for me, I do believe in the morality of not hurting people, but do not believe in the morality of sexual conservatism. I think it is OK to do pretty much whatever you like as long as you don't hurt people you care about by reneging on commitments that you've made to them. What that actually translates to in terms of degrees of sexual freedom (or constraints) is for you to work out with the said people in your life, whoever they may be.

Agreed, a man's private life is nobody else's business, as my friend's post also opines. However, if the man is a celebrity who endorses big brands, who signs contracts that makes him accountable for his behaviour in some way or other, then it's a bit dumb to conduct his life in a cavalier fashion. Not immoral. Just plain dumb. Accenture summarily dropped Tiger Woods as their brand ambassador yesterday and this comes as no surprise. I mean .. duh .. what was he thinking?

In the course of letting myself get a little carried away with the spirit of word play (thanks to all the metaphors, puns and other figures of speech that bloggers like my friend have been spinning around 'woods' and 'trees'), I was reminded of the old zen-like ponderable: If a tree falls in the woods, would it make a sound if nobody is there to hear it? I think celebrities who endorse brands (especially those where 'integrity' is an important brand value) should conduct their lives with this question in mind. They should make sure that the tree doesn't fall, and if it just has to, then they should make sure that nobody is around to hear it. That's the only way to ensure that private lives remain so.

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Minor Observation

2009-12-12T15:20:00.003+05:30

When it comes to punctuation, the question mark seems to have become as much a victim of wrong usage as the much abused apostrophe.

For instance:

How to win friend's and influence people

is incorrect, because of the apostrophe (as may seem obvious). So is:

How to win friends and influence people?

because of the question mark (though I'm not sure how obvious that is). If you really wanted to find out how one may learn the art of winning friends and influencing people, you should ask:

How does one win friends and influence people?

If you wanted to phrase that as a request, instead of a question, you should say:

Please tell me how to win friends and influence people.

Clearly, we don't seem to be teaching the language with as much rigour as we used to. It may be OK for the hoi polloi to make these mistakes, but I really wince when I see such appalling neglect and decline in writing and editing standards, as brought home by the output of several copywriters, reporters, columnists, editors, authors and others who earn a living out of their (professed) proficiency with the written word.

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And The Prize Goes To ...

2009-12-02T18:59:00.001+05:30

... Nobody!

That's right. According to news reports from Silicon India and DNA, the Infosys Science Foundation Prize in the 'Engineering and Computer Science' category for the year 2009 (the very first year of inception of this august institution) will not be awarded, since the jury for this category has determined that out of a list of 34 nominees not a single one fits the bill.

If that is indeed the case, then why do we see so much chest thumping by the Indian IT industry players about Indian software engineers being the most gifted at innovation? (A claim that has been endorsed by reputed consultants as well - something I've criticized in an earlier post.)

And if that is not the case, then isn't it a bit surprising that Infosys can't get a jury together who can separate the wheat from the chaff in this category, considering that their juries in all other categories and sub-categories have been able to pick winners?

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The Compulsion to Explain India

2009-12-01T20:17:00.009+05:30

What's wrong with this picture? For one, the title of the talk is "Why nations should pursue 'soft' power" but the only nation being discussed is India (with just a passing reference to the US and other countries). Second, the talk was delivered in Mysore, Karnataka. TED held this event in India, presumably, because they wanted to bring TED to Indians in India (which I think was a great idea, by the way). But Indians already know stuff about their country, even if they had not already looked at it in precisely the same way as presented by Shashi Tharoor. This video is hardly an eye-opener, in that sense. In my opinion, this was a wasted opportunity - either Shashi Tharoor could have talked about something else, or they could've got some other speaker to talk about some other topic.

In contrast, this other talk at the same event at least offered some slightly more interesting insights (relatively speaking) into cultural diversity, to Indians who may not have figured it all out on their own. But again, it suffers from the same disease: the title is "East vs. West -- the myths that mystify" but the only "East" being discussed is India. And falls prey to the same temptation: the stereotyping of mystical yet modern India, on whose streets bullock carts jostle with BMWs, where 'Jugaad' is what makes it all work.

I fail to understand why speakers participating in an event held in India should explain India to a predominantly Indian audience. And if the audience was not predominantly Indian, then why take the trouble to hold such an event in India?

What TED should do is to get "standard" TED content and speakers to places like India, and invite speakers on all things Indian to their events in other locations (with strict instructions to stay away from cliche, no matter how innovatively packaged / eloquently presented). This would go a long way in facilitating cultural osmosis and in helping people all over the world embrace and celebrate diversity.

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26/11 - A Year Later

2009-11-26T10:40:00.001+05:30

It has become fashionable to ask, critically and in the tone of angry righteous rhetoric, about what (or how much) has changed in the last one year. Just as it was fashionable, in the wake of the attacks on this day exactly one year ago, to ask in much the same tone, as to who was responsible for the lapses that allowed such an outrageous assault to take place, and what was being done about it.

As a Mumbaikar, as an Indian, and as a global citizen, all that I've done in the last one year (other than blogging about it a few days later) boils down to: (a) casting my vote diligently when elections were held, and (b) speaking to the local MLA once (at a meeting he had requested for, with members of the housing complex that I live in), about security in the post 26/11 world, and other issues that were specific to our neighbourhood and local community.

I have no moral right to criticize those who haven't done 'enough', and I have only words of appreciation and gratitude for those who've actually done something constructive about it, whatever that may be.

Of course, I continue to hope and pray for a world that chooses to eschew hatred and embrace love, eschew anger and embrace compassion. And in my own small humble sort of way, I spread soft and gentle messages of peace and harmony, where and when needed.

You do what you have to.

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Hopenhagen: Woodstock Redux?

2009-11-09T19:05:00.006+05:30

Earlier today, a tweet from one of the sources of sustainability related news that I follow through my work handle on twitter took me to their post on Cause Marketing.

As I read the post and browsed through some of the sites it pointed to, notably Hopenhagen (a play on the words 'hope' and 'cope', symbolizing the momentum of hope building around COP15, the UN conference on climate change scheduled for December 7-18 in Copenhagen, Denmark), Ogilvy Earth and the stirring Yes We Can video on YouTube, I experienced a feeling of frisson caused by what I can best describe as a memetic atavism of Woodstock, the music festival from back in 1969 that made history. Through sheer association, the song Woodstock (originally by Joni Mitchell though popularly known through the CSNY version) started playing in my mind and I was amazed by the relevance of its lyrics (particularly towards the end - the part that I reproduce below, from the Joni Mitchell original) to the current zeitgeist on climate change control. For a moment there it almost seemed to me like the song was written for COP15.

By the time we got to woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation
We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devils bargain
And weve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

Yes indeed, we're caught in the devil's bargain, and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden!

P.S. Do sign the petition at hopenhagen.org and let's get to the half mill mark soon (though I bet it will be more, by December 7)

P.P.S. (added Nov 10, 2009) here's a video clip of Joni Mitchell singing Woodstock (at some other event)

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The Paradoxes of Diversity

2009-11-04T18:07:00.003+05:30

Quite a controversy these last couple of days, over the Deoband fatwa against the Vande Mataram. I always loved that song (and still do) and I sincerely hope they don't yield to political pressure and ban it just to appease the Deobandis! Much has been said, reported, blogged and tweeted on this topic, but one news report just caught my eye: http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article43180.ece

So here's a Muslim politician (Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi), who happens to be not just a member but a Veep of a hard-core Hindu right-wing political party (the BJP), criticizing the home minister (P Chidambaram), a Hindu Brahmin, for attending an event where a Muslim organization (Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind) adopted a resolution against the singing of a national song (Vande Mataram), calling it un-Islamic.

Several cultures across the world tolerate diversity, but a few seem to revel in it to the point of absurdity! THIS is why I love India. Show me one other country where you might find such contradictions and paradoxes. As much a source of levity as a cause for pride.

Vande Mataram!

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The Effort IS The Attainment ...

2009-10-09T18:51:00.003+05:30

... to paraphrase Marshall McLuhan.

And this message is addressed to all those who've been asking "But what has he actually DONE?" in response to Barack Obama being named for the Nobel Peace Prize 2009. The official statement on the decision was fairly clear. Yes, it came as a surprise, and yes, there just might have been better candidates for this year's Nobel Peace Prize. But that applies to the awards in other categories as well this year, and last year ... and so on. Are we going to question all those as well? And if not then why this one? What exactly are we questioning? The Committee's judgement? Or their integrity? I think both are unquestionable and above and beyond reproach (and these days, given that several institutions we've held in great respect over the years have crumbled to dust, that's saying a lot). If they've arrived at this decision, and we don't agree with it, surely, there's something we're not getting.

We live in times that are unmatched, in terms of complexity, tension and risk, in the history of the world. It is everywhere, not confined to a country or a region or continent. The entry of Barack Obama on the global stage is an encouraging sign and fills us with hope. His adversaries are mostly powerful lobbies, vested interest groups and others who have been benefiting from the status quo all these years, and who don't want anything to change. Naturally, they will not applaud him for this award (and I guess the media will carry the most rabid comments tomorrow, when the US wakes up and the hard right gets a hold on their megaphones and their cameras and their laptops). His supporters may have grown disappointed over time, but they need to remind themselves that change is not easy, as any change agent who has tried to bring about real change would know. And a change agent who wants to move ahead by consensus, in the true spirit of democracy, has an even more difficult task ahead.

However, this award is not about reforms in the US - it is about the kind of transformation Obama represents at a global level. De-escalation of conflict, easing of tension, renewed hope for peace. Is that a bad thing? Hasn't he been bold and gone where others have not had the guts to go before? It's easy to heckle, and what the heck, I'm quite a heckler myself. But I save it for the ones who are truly callow and devoid of substance, and yet aspire to stations of eminence. Give this man, and peace, a chance.

On the occasion of John Lennon's birthday, I'll leave you with this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b7qaSxuZUg

Have a great weekend! It's easy if you try!

Will all you chronic WTFers kindly STFU? Kthxbai

2009-09-26T14:30:00.003+05:30

Seriously, it can get tiresome, and at times downright annoying, when every second or third tweet has a WTF and/or an STFU in it. Tweeple should realize that such messages inject negative energy that vitiates the 'tweetosphere', for want of a better word. And this is equally applicable outside the tweetosphere as well, in the real world. Which is why nobody enjoys the company of curmudgeons.

There's a whole bunch of good stuff going on out there too, in this great wide beautiful wonderful world. Those who don't see or can't see or won't see it, should just STFU. Vent your spleen somewhere private, please. I mean, WTF!

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Reconstructing the B.S., One Sacred Cow at a Time

2009-09-18T20:16:00.004+05:30

I've been busy over the last day or two and so I missed all the on-line action on Shashi Tharoor's tweet and the aftermath (though I did catch an off-line glance at some headlines that gave me a general idea of what happened there). Being a Friday evening I thought I'd dig into all that B.S. a little and get to the root of it. Only to find that there is just too much silliness and stupidity in this world, and there's just no saying how many 'intelligent' people get trapped by it. And then there are the clever ones who try to get away with verbal prestidigitation.

It all started with a poor pun in a tweet by Shashi Tharoor about cattle class and holy cows, in the wake of announcements regarding austerity measures promulgated by Pranab Mukherjee, that advised MPs to travel by economy class. I don't follow Shashi Tharoor on twitter and I couldn't find the original tweet - guess he deleted it, but what I gathered this evening was that in response to a journalist's query on twitter, on whether he would be traveling "cattle class" on his next trip to Kerala, Shashi Tharoor had tweeted something like -

Of course! in cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows

Silly comment, that. Cattle / holy cow ... I didn't even find it funny, really (though I think my title for this post is hilarious - c'mon, admit it). I wouldn't make that comment if I were him. What was he thinking? That twitter is some exclusive club where nobody other than the cyberati elite get to know what one says? Silly comment, but also sarcastic in a very tongue-in-cheek way. Again, what was he thinking? That nobody in his audience (174,824 followers in Twitter at the time of writing this post) could get what he really meant?

Apparently someone found his seemingly opprobrious tweet (surprise! surprise!) and showed it to his bosses in the Congress Party, who promptly threw a fit. Ah the holier-than-thou Congress! Their outraged outcry was that this was a contemptible contumely. Why? Because it was egregious to economy class passengers. Silly, again, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the smarter ones in the Congress got what he really meant. And I think that's what pissed them off and had them frothing at their collective mouth as they called it out as unacceptable, across the media.

More news coverage, more TV discussions, more interviews, more panels, more expert opinions, more silliness followed (and I think there'll be even more B.S. about this over the weekend). Several personalities - politicians and journalists alike, unabashedly exposed their abysmal ignorance on a whole bunch of topics, including, of course, twitter / blogging / social media.

Then came the apologies and clarifications about the 'misunderstanding' (and of course, deletion of the terrible tweet that triggered this avalanche of silliness). In a subsequent tweet, Shashi Tharoor admitted it was a silly expression (and I am reproducing here below the tweets that followed, just in case they magically disappear by the time you read this post and click on the links to the respective tweets).

it's a silly expression but means no disrespect to economy travellers, only to airlines for herding us in like cattle. Many have misunderstd

A feeble attempt at back-pedaling, I'd say. And again, this is different from tweeting, for example, something like "it was silly of me to have tweeted that". Anyway. This was followed by :

i now realize i shldnt assume people will appreciate humour. &u shouldn't give those who wld wilfully distort yr words an opportnty to do so

Oh? NOW he realized that. And also that there are 'those' humorless people out there, waiting and watching, who'd grab any opportunity to distort his words. Tsk Tsk. Politics I tell you! Full of such evil people. Wish we'd known this before.

And then there was this edifying tweet - a gem of a clarification, presumably in response to a tweet from someone else:

@dilnawazpasha holy cows are NOT individuals but sacrosanct issues or principles that no one dares challenge. Wish critics wld look it up

Aha! Is that right, Mr Tharoor? So you're dealing with people who don't know the language, huh? OK. Let's do some nit-picking then. First of all, the mot juste is "sacred cow", if you meant "sacrosanct issues or principles that no one dares challenge". Secondly, the expression "holy cow" (actually, "Holy Cow!") signifies something else, FYI. True, sometimes people use it in the same sense as "sacred cow", but YOU can't get away with that - you, who are so good with words. And lastly, the word "solidarity" is meant to be used with respect to individuals, yes, individuals, and not ideas or issues or principles. One doesn't do things out of solidarity with an issue or principle: one does things out of solidarity with individuals that one identifies with or supports, such as one's colleagues or team members. "Wish U wld look it up" back at ya - the whole lot: sacred cow, holy cow, solidarity. Oh but what am I saying .. you know this stuff ... you were just trying to find an escape hatch. Sorry, didn't mean to sound so patronizing about your command over the language.

So then, Mr Tharoor, when you said "... out of solidarity with all our holy cows" in your own subtle sarcastic polished and oh-so-classy tongue-in-cheek style, who, really, were you expressing your so-called "solidarity" with? Mr Pranab Mukherjee? Heh. No wonder your party colleagues are so pissed off with you - you were poking fun at their austerity drive! They got it too, but they wouldn't call it out. How could they? We don't slaughter sacred cows in this country. So here's a word (or two) of advice from a well-meaning fella: Careful who you have a beef with. Do not yield to the temptation to rib, delicious as it may appear, for someone or other will have a bone to pick with you, and you have a lot at stake.

Good luck and have a nice weekend!

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She moves in mysterious ways

2009-09-15T17:48:00.003+05:30

A tweet from CNN that popped up in my twitter news account last night caught my eye. It said "Media shut out from Palin's Hong Kong speech". Curious, I clicked on the shortened URL which took me to the web page that had the story.

The more I read, the more I was intrigued. Sarah Palin is going to talk to investors? C'mon! Seriously? In China? You've gotta be kidding! I'd give a lot to watch that. But alas ... no media coverage of her speech. Why? Because she doesn't want to give the media access to her speech. And what is she going to talk about? Sorry, cannot be disclosed. So now, those who are not going to be in the room will never know what she said and how it was received. And all kinds of stories could be spun around that. How could anyone verify them? More mystery - nobody knows how much they're paying her for this, though it is speculated that it could well be in six figures. I guess she just loves getting involved in mysterious controversies like these. And getting paid for it!

If she's managing to create such an enigmatic aura around her, after palin' into insignificance (sorry, couldn't resist it), then imagine the kind of mystique she'd be wrapped up in after she wins the 2012 elections to become America's first woman President!

On a different note - I wonder if she is going to ask them if she could go Panda hunting over the weekend. They might even let her.

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Are You Being Served?

2009-09-05T11:57:00.002+05:30

I don't mean to carp over trivial matters, but I've had two really lousy customer experiences in the last couple of days, with two global majors - Max New York Life Insurance and Vodafone. And in the last month or so, I struggled with a prolonged issue with HSBC that only recently got resolved (thanks to the committed and diligent follow-up by my highly competent Relationship Manager, who must have put up quite a fight, I'm sure, with his back-office processing set-up). Will spare you the gory details of each case - for you, it would be most uninteresting, and for me, I don't wish to relive the annoyance and frustration. When I shared some of this on twitter yesterday, I got a lot of empathetic tweets from others who've had similar experiences with the same or similar brands. So I know the problem is not me :)

Why can't big brands like these get their act together in terms of design and execution of smoother customer experiences? In each case, the issues were at a simple transactional level, nothing complex. Handling such issues is not rocket science any more, and there is so much learning out there on how to do this cheaper, faster and better. I do realize that handling 'outliers' is not easy - for each business, no matter how big or small, there's always the question of how far do you go to satisfy the customer. Seth Godin makes the point rather eloquently, as he usually does, in his recent blog post. In my case, I am not an outlier and I am not expecting customer delight - just basic transactional efficiency. Why is that such a hard promise to deliver on? And if it is, then why make such a promise? One would think competition would solve these problems, but sadly, it hasn't. I can't even say "Screw you, I'm taking my business to the next guy" simply because I know that the next guy is going to be equally bad, if not worse. And I know this from previous experiences. It is almost as though they all collude and decide to remain inefficient and apathetic to customer needs.

As is my wont, when in a more relaxed frame of mind, I look for the silver lining in all my bad experiences and ask myself what's in it for me. And this was my (re)learning this week: when it comes to customer interactions, learn the art of listening and never undermine the 'importance of being earnest'. Nothing fancy, just a simple truth that we need to remind ourselves about, each time we're facing our customers. They can walk away. When they have a better alternative, they will. We don't have to wait till then - we have the opportunity to become the better alternative!

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A week well spent

2009-08-28T20:17:00.002+05:30

Achievements for this week (don't expect this to be a regular feature!)

Got the RSS feed aggregator widgets working more or less the way I wanted them to - check them out here
Successfully edited html in the Blogger template to get the formats I wanted at the feed widget site (looking at code after so many years felt weird!)
Finally got down to some less frivolous blogging and would really like to take that debate to a wider platform
Managed to get Disqus to work at Blogger, yet to try it out at WordPress - which I don't think will work since WP.com does not let you edit their html
Attended PTA meetings for BOTH the brats :P
Signed up on a new engagement! Am so excited about this one!

And now .. off to enjoy my well-deserved Glenlivet ... and maybe I'll have a Miles Davis evening. Be good, keep well and enjoy your weekend.

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Leadership begins at home

2009-08-26T17:05:00.001+05:30

I think its about time the BJP leadership decided to call it a day. Too bad for L K Advani if it means that he can never become PM. Yesterday, Arun Shourie launched a philippic (not unlike Demosthenes) against the BJP top brass, to which the BJP has sought a clarification (it is a clarification, they clarified later to the press, not a show-cause notice). I'm surprised they didn't sack him over a phone call. Then today we see more anger and defiance - this time from Vasundhara Raje. Soon there'll be others ...

So much for the strong leadership they boasted about during their election campaign, while deriding Manmohan Singh as a weakling. How could they aspire to lead a nation when the stewardship of their own party is such a challenge? They should quit now, bring this to an end quickly and let the rebuilding begin, so that there is a robust Opposition Party in place soon enough. That would be the best way in which they could serve the nation at this point.

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Intolerance of Dissent II: Are the other guys any better?

2009-08-22T11:20:00.002+05:30

A friend shared an op-ed from the Hindu on facebook this morning, comparing the situation regarding Jaswant's book on Jinnah with Shashi Tharoor's book "From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond" (first published in 1997 and updated by Tharoor in 2007, according to the Hindu). The sub line of the Hindu op-ed says "A Jaswant-Tharoor comparison shows the Congress to be far more accommodating of internal criticism" and the article goes on to show how critical Tharoor's book was, about the Congress party and its dynastic leadership, and yet he was offered a Congress ticket in the 2009 general elections.

Call me a skeptic if you like, but frankly, does this really demonstrate maturity in terms of the ability to accommodate dissent, on the part of the Congress? When it comes to the art of the possible, anything is possible: convenience is key and opportunism rules. I criticized the BJP in my last post, but the Congress is not a party of saints either. As an Indian voter I follow a relative grading system and elect the lesser of the two evils (subject to change with every election, but tends to be the Congress more often than not, mostly by default), simply because I'd rather cast a valid vote than not. But as a global citizen or just another arb guy with a blog, I am free to evaluate these folks on an absolute basis.

So here was my comment to my friend's facebook post:

Interesting article, thanks for sharing. Two quick observations / points to ponder:
I think the Congress is only marginally more decent than the BJP ... if that. Tharoor wrote at a time when his future looked like he would be the UN Secy Gen, not an MP from Thiruvananthapuram on a Congress ticket. Its interesting to speculate over what might have happened if he wrote something like that now, in his current avatar. Would Sonia tolerate all that stuff he wrote about the Congress, about her husband Rajiv and her MIL Indira, if he wrote that now?
On an unrelated note - wonder why Vidya Subrahmaniam considers it necessary to translate the word 'toddywalla'. Or it might have been Tharoor in the original, just quoted verbatim in the article. In any case it is not an accurate translation: the word for toddy in English is .. guess what? Toddy! Not Liquor. Why do Indians tend to have an international audience in mind while writing in English?

Authoritarianism is not the prerogative of the BJP alone (just in case my last post suggested that I thought so), and in the history of Indian politics, several politicians have been sacked by their parties for dissent. In the more recent past, the former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee was expelled from the CPI because he did not toe the party line vis-a-vis the confidence vote in July last year. It may be that the post Indira Gandhi Congress is afflicted by a milder strain of the virus of authoritarianism, but to make up for that, there's the fact that in their case, authoritarianism is patrimony -- inherited and passed down the generations as family legacy. Even their pet canary commands more authority than the common koyal that might have accidentally come to power, except perhaps that it only commands it and does not demand it. Not overtly, at least -- their canaries are too sophisticated for that.

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Intolerance of Dissent: the Descent of Decency

2009-08-20T15:49:00.002+05:30

The big news yesterday was Jaswant Singh's unceremonious ouster from his political party, the BJP, of which he has been a loyal member for 30 years, and in more recent times has been an integral part of its senior leadership. Apparently it was about a book he wrote (though no one called it out as such, and this might have well been the last straw in a series of acts of dissension on his part). The book, which was launched earlier this week, is about Mohammed Ali Jinnah who, according to the hard right-wing in India, was responsible for the partitioning of India. And apparently he was honest and sincere in his analysis of Jinnah, in the book -- several members of India's intellectual elite seem to think so (I haven't read the book, but am inclined to believe them). And so the BJP high command wasted no time, didn't even bother to wait to come back home from their off-site ideological brainstorming meetings, and gave him the Dear John message over a phone call. What a way to go!

To make matters worse, Narendra Modi banned the book in Gujarat, presumably because it did not show Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in a very generous light. ("The book aims to tarnish the image of the architect of the country's unification and son of Gujarat. The state government has decided to ban the book in public interest" according to a press release issued by the state government -- source: ToI). Can this book be classified as porn? No. Was this book aimed at inciting people to commit acts of treason or violence or otherwise break the law? No. Then how different might banning the book make us, from Ahmadinijad's Iran or Kim Jong-Il's North Korea or the Taliban? Liquor is also banned in Gujarat, presumably because they don't trust its citizens to drink responsibly.

I guess Modi fears that citizens of Gujarat (a state over which he has absolute control, or so he'd like to think) will read Jaswant Singh's book and start admiring Jinnah and stop admiring Sardar Patel. If Modi had control over India, he might have banned the book across the whole nation, and if he had control over the whole world (what an orgasmic fantasy for hardcore megalomaniacs) he would expunge the book and make like it never even existed. I respect the citizens of Gujarat for their intelligence and their spirit of entrepreneurship (yet to understand how they tolerate Modi), but, man! am I glad I live in a state where I have the right to enjoy my single malts and to read a book on Jinnah by Jaswant Singh. And I hope and pray, really hard, that people like Modi and others of his ilk don't take control of this country.

At this time, it looks like the BJP is far from coming back to power at a national level, but one can never be too certain -- stranger things have happened. Which leads me to think about what I would do if this country were taken over by people who ban books and paintings (remember M F Hussain?) and other forms of intellectual and artistic expression. When they should actually be banning organized gangs of hooligans who molest women (remember the Mangalore pub incident?) and attack churches (Orissa, Karnataka and elsewhere). In a recent post at my 'main' blog, about a week before Independence Day, I wrote about how a leadership model based on fear might excommunicate dissenters -- an uncanny premonition perhaps, that this would happen to a man of Jaswant Singh's stature barely a week after Independence Day. Not that I am a big fan of his, but I am huge fan of freedom. As long as it comes with responsibility. Unfortunately, it seems the BJP considered Jaswant Singh's actions to be irresponsible, though several key BJP personalities went on air last night on various TV news channels, to admit that the book was 'intellectually honest'. But they hastened to add that it was not aligned with the party's ideology, and that he should have know better. Well, yes, he should have known better. He made a mistake alright -- in spite of 30 years of hanging with this crowd, he did not see the extent of their ideological fascism and their intolerance to dissent or diversity.

And so the BJP, in their wisdom and in their own spirit of freedom and democracy (zealously defended by their spokesperson in TV interviews last night), thought that they ought to be righting a wrong. But, sadly, have ended up wronging a right. A fundamental right. In the context of my last post here below, this represents yet another reason why I think that there just isn't enough sincerity in the voices that sing 'Sare Jahaan Se Achcha' these days.

Meanwhile, the controversy, which has erupted in all leading dailies today, will immensely increase demand for the book and its publishers will laugh all the way to the bank. Leaving a shocked and broken Jaswant Singh wondering what he did wrong.

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Freedom and Responsibility

2009-08-16T20:43:00.006+05:30

Yesterday was India's 63rd Independence Day. And a very special day, as it always is. But what I continue to find difficult to understand is why there's a sudden burst of patriotism in all and sundry only on that day (and, of course, on Republic Day). Why don't Indians (generally speaking) feel equally patriotic on other days? And if they do, why doesn't it show? And when it shows why is it mostly in the kind of patriotism that takes the form of 'Mera Bharat Mahan' written at the back of trucks (surreally juxtaposed with that other ubiquitous back-of-the-truck message -- 'Horn OK Please')? And when it is not that kind of patriotism then why is it of either the maudlin or the melodramatic kind?

Simple acts of responsible citizenship in everyday life represent a more credible expression of patriotism than mere sloganeering and flag-waving on two days in a year, and are a more mature manifestation of our love and respect for India. We won our freedom the hard way, and it looks like we need to inculcate in ourselves a sense of responsibility (that comes automatically with freedom) the hard way too.

My twitter message when I logged on yesterday, was "There's a fine line between patriotism and jingoism. Tread carefully, my beloved compatriots. Happy Independence Day!" and thats about what I could manage in 140 characters. But there's more that I wanted to say and here it is --

"Do your country, your fellow countrymen and yourself a big favour, and focus on the following key areas of improvement:
Civic sense -- Keep your neighbourhood as clean as your home. Develop a better sense of personal hygiene. Restrain yourself from activities that result in air and noise pollution
Compliance -- Follow the laws of the land, and in particular: obey traffic rules, pay your taxes, maintain queue discipline

Integrity -- Do not cheat and do not indulge in corrupt practices. Help clean up the culture of corruption that is corroding our institutions at every level
Tolerance -- Yes, we have 'unity in diversity', but also start practising 'equity in diversity'. Drop your prejudices and your false sense of communal pride and your regressive ideas regarding morality. We have always been an inclusive and a secular culture, and if you love your country for its culture, then walk the talk.

Intolerance -- Drop the 'chalta hai' attitude. Don't 'adjust'. Oppose. Acceptance of things that ought to change only perpetuates the degeneration and decay."

Excuse me for pontificating, but it would be really nice to hear the ring of sincerity in the voices that sing "Sare Jahan se Achcha", otherwise we're just kidding ourselves. Martyrs laid down their lives fighting for independence during the freedom struggle. Martyrs continue to give up their lives for our country -- not just on the battlefront but all over, and these days this is happening with an alarming regularity. However, there are others among us who die a slow death every day, fighting an uphill battle towards progress. True patriots must do what they can to make life easier for their compatriots, and perhaps put a few more years of life back into their lives. A few more years of a better life.

Vande Mataram!

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While I was away

2009-08-16T19:43:00.001+05:30

My last preposterous post was a month (and a day) ago. And this is supposed to be my mini-blog, for shorter and more frequent posts. But there's a reason behind this and its not that I'm a slacker (which I may well be) ... I've just been busy putting together a web-site for my consulting services venture. No, not another blog -- a web-site: http://hemantputhli.com (though it does have a page for blog posts) which was quietly 'launched' i.e., opened for public access couple of days ago without any pomp and fanfare. So do go there and check it out and tell me what you think.

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"Winner announcement"

2009-07-15T21:54:00.003+05:30

So it seems sustainability won - the debate I referred to in my previous post was officially closed today and the moderator's concluding remarks are here. I am not sure I agree with some of his observations. For instance, according to me, the issue of fossil fuels and energy sufficiency is an issue now, and will remain one till it is solved (assuming it is, at some point). However, the question of sustainability will continue to hang over our heads as long as we do not transform the way we think, feel, work, play, live and love. If it is not about fossil fuels and their effects on the environment, then it will be the availability of water, and if not that, then food, and if not that then other resources and opportunities, including access to health care and the means to earn a livelihood.

The Western mind does not readily grasp the economics of scarcity because it seldom needs to deal with it (though Great Depression II might have changed some of that). A large segment of the global population lives under conditions that barely support human life, where demand is overwhelming and supply scant and the means to match demand and supply fall short by a few orders of magnitude. This is a time-bomb for economies of abundance. At best, the West has been a benevolent patron of poverty and sickness, when it should have been an active partner in growth and development. (Obama said something to this effect, in the context of Africa, in his Ghana speech.) It should have been teaching people to fish, not just giving them fish for their next meal - to paraphrase an old adage. Not out of noblesse oblige, but out of the recognition that 'prosperity does not happen in a vacuum' (latter expression borrowed from Obama, again, though perhaps not verbatim).

As I pointed out in an old post (when my perspective was only just slightly different): it's the people stupid! A planet with finite resources populated by an exponentially growing mass of humans must worry about sustainability for as long as that mass of humans is growing exponentially - especially because the have-not's are growing much faster than the have's. We are already witnessing wars between as well as within regions and/or communities today. Most of these are exacerbated by socio-economic inequities involving scarcity of resources for daily sustenance and/or a healthy and secure life, and of opportunities for growth and development. While such conflicts may be triggered, on the face of it, by other differences (such as religion or ethnicity), they achieve momentum because one section of the population (of a certain religion or ethnicity) feels cheated out of their land or their water or other resources, by the other section. Religious or ethnic differences serve as good rallying-cries for leaders of hate-based militancy / extremism simply because it is easier to hate on an empty stomach, than it is to love. And easier to love when there is contentment, when there is no need for hate.

In atomic physics, we learn that too many protons in a nucleus make it unstable. Up to a certain point, adding neutrons 'keeps the peace', but beyond that point this strategy doesn't work - the atom becomes radioactive and then starts the process of exponential decay. The story of world population is similar. The glue of love that holds us together seems to be running out, and we might be teetering dangerously close to the tipping point, beyond which the population is just so huge that civilisation as we know it will collapse under the weight of its own hatred - all that is left then will be anarchy and utter chaos. And it won't be about fossil fuels or alternative energy sources (though if that problem is not solved by then, it will only fuel the flames of hate even more - please excuse the bad pun, this is too serious to be funny).

No, I'm not a doomsday pundit. This is real. Worry about it now. And act if you can. If you will.

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Of paradoxes and oxymorons regarding sustainability

2009-07-11T15:33:00.001+05:30

There's this debate on sustainable development going on, as I write this, at Economist.com's debate micro-site. Naturally, I have a thing or two to say about such matters. However, I tend not to favour media sites and blogs that require you to register and login just to leave a comment. I have an email address, a gravatar, an OpenId etc. and somehow manage to prove my humanness on Captcha challenges, usually. Why won't they accept any of these to make sure I'm a live human being and not a spam bot (assuming that's the concern)? In any case, they can moderate my comment just to make sure I'm not posting hate and libel. But no, they want me to register and login. Meh. So then I come back to my blog to air my views. Smaller readership as compared to The Economist, but what the heck. On the plus side, I can say pretty much what I want here, without having to be stodgy, keep a stiff upper lip and speak in euphemisms.

The motion: "This house believes that sustainable development is unsustainable". My comment:

To being with, the motion, as articulated, is paradoxical. As a logician, I'd classify it along with other self-referential 'nonsense' statements such as the Eubulides paradox: "This statement is false" or the liar's paradox: "He is a liar - he said so himself". All very well in a lighter vein, in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way, but debates on topics such as sustainable development, should not become a forum for indulgence in frivolous footling. And after all, one does expect a quantum of gravitas in the content hosted by The Economist. No?

So here're a couple of alternative interpretations of (what to my mind are) the issues and concerns underlying the theme of sustainable development, which, according to me, make for good debate over a cuppa.

(Alternative interpretation no. 1) If what has been labelled "sustainable development" is turning out to be (or has already turned out to be) unsustainable, then the focus should be on the corrective action that needs to be taken to make it so. The debate should then centre around two questions: (a) Is the sustainable development initiative turning out not to be so sustainable after all, and if so, then (b) What can we do to set it back on its proper course. In this case, the motion should be re-articulated as "This house believes that the sustainable development initiative needs to correct its course, in order to meet its goals".

(Alternative interpretation no. 2) If the expression "sustainable development" is an oxymoron (as opposed to a paradox) - i.e., if the proposition is that all development is intrinsically, by definition, not sustainable - then the focus should be on evaluating other strategies to address global challenges that threaten the future of our planet and the nature and quality of life as we know it. The debate should then centre around two questions: (a) Are efforts to achieve sustainability (in development) in vain because the very nature of development carries within it the seeds that will make such efforts unsustainable, and if so, then (b) How must we address global issues that call for a sustainable approach. In this case, the motion should be re-articulated as "This house believes that the concept of development is unsustainable by definition and hence we need other solutions to global challenges and threats".

Of course "sustainable development" is sustainable! Moreover, sustainable development is not an option (as I have argued before and will continue to argue). Look around you - we simply cannot go on like this! Governments, corporations, institutions, communities and people in general must all understand and embrace sustainable development if we are to have a fighting chance to survive and thrive.

P.S. On second thoughts, the moderator might just not have posted my comment. Harumph!

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Seven habits of highly irritating 'twits'

2009-07-07T21:11:00.001+05:30

And by twits I mean strangers who get onto your twitter timeline and display any or all of the following behavioural traits:

1. [General Irritants] Follow you, in the hope that you will be a nice guy and follow them back. They will lurk in the shadows till you follow them, and after that, do #2 or #3 below, depending on who they are.

2. [Commercial Bots] Do #1 above, and then spam you with links to their web-sites. Zero updates (or maybe one update), following lots of people but few followers. No, I don't want to see your naughty pics at http://tinyurl.porn

3. [Arrogant Pompous Twits] Do #1 above, and then un-follow you. Such twits are collecting followers - they don't care about you or your tweets. This is like someone attempting to shake your hand and then withdrawing it just when you extend yours.

4. [General Irritants] Use hash-tags and keywords liberally, hoping to get noticed at a topic search on a hot topic, so as to attract more followers. Their tweets make no sense and/or are of no relevance to you. #FAIL

5. [Hashtag Stalkers] Continuously monitor their hashtag searches and swoop on new members (who used a keyword of interest to the twit) and follow them (go to #1)

6. [Arrogant Pompous Twits] Broadcast their travel schedule and who they're meeting, when and where. Lots of name-dropping. Like I care who you're having breakfast with at the Grand Hyatt in Guangzhou tomorrow morning.

7. [Sports (Over)Enthusiasts] Tweet you a real-time stream of their expert comments on the state of play in the current hot sports event. Dude - if I gave a rat's ass, I would be watching it myself. (Note: Some of these could be your friends, in which case you should learn to use filters!)

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No, Minister!

2009-07-01T12:25:00.003+05:30

Not quite sure what, but something is causing Ministers in India to go crazy with power in the last couple of days. First, a Union Minister tries to "influence" a Madras High Court judge to grant anticipatory bail to a student in a forged mark sheet case. Then, an MP from AP (not playing with acronyms here, though it is tempting) gets pissed off with a bank manager and slaps him on the face a couple of times. The first case is a bit hush-hush - nobody has been named and there isn't much coverage on the TV news channels except for a mug-shot of the judge and a few quotes.

The second case, however, is hilarious in its WTFness. Video clips of the MP slapping the bank manager - not just once but multiple times, have been on the air since last night, while the MP's responses are quoted on the ticker at the bottom of the screen. I can't reproduce it verbatim, but this is the overall logic and flow of what he had to say at various times over last night and this morning:

1. I did not slap him at all, I did nothing.

2. I did not slap him, I only held him by the shoulder.

3. I did not slap him, I was trying to hold him and my hand slipped.

4. My hand accidentally touched his face

5. OK I slapped him lightly, just once, but he provoked me

6. OK I slapped him - he was being rude to me because I'm from a lower caste

7. "Can he speak to me in the language which he did? He was drunk heavily" (sic)

8. He's the one who should be punished.

So you can imagine watching the MP slap the manager again and again ad infinitum (which is what new channels do when all they have is just a short clip of the live action - gets bloody irritating after a while!) while his explanation of the moment appears at the bottom of the screen. Reminds me of my sons playing the "he started it" blame game when I catch them beating each other up, though I must say they're both far more imaginative and come up with some very bizarre but realistic-sounding explanations.

No, this won't do. This is not why I voted for Congress, and this is what I was worried about when the right and the left both started crumbling due to their respective internal hemorrhage. If we don't keep these guys in check, there will be slaps on the face of the electorate on far more critical issues. Are you listening, Ms Gandhi?

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No subservience please, we're French

2009-06-23T20:13:00.001+05:30

As of yesterday, Monsieur Sarkozy has prohibited the entry of suberservient women into France. Well, he didn't actually say that in so many words, but he said two things, and I quote a fragment from this news item (just to pick one of several news stories on this topic):

"The burka is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience," he told members of both parliamentary houses gathered for his speech. He added: "It will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic."

When read together, that's what it means. No entry for subservient women. By extension, this should apply to all women, not just women in burka and/or of a particular faith. After all the French are a secular people, and their laws, I assume, are to be uniformly enforced across people of all religions.

I am trying to imagine a scene at the passport control check point at the CDG, where a portly middle-aged French gendarme is trying to ascertain whether the woman before him is or is not subservient. How does he do this? He will have to issue a string of commands and if all of them are disobeyed, stamp the woman's passport for entry. Can get pretty challenging for the average Jacques. Same thing at work, same thing at home. Merde!

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Tolerating the intolerant

2009-06-23T19:20:00.001+05:30

The overwhelming energy of the waves of protesters in Iran, over so many days, can only come from a long-standing deep-rooted sense of frustration and anger of an oppressed people. This goes beyond asking for a recount, beyond demanding a re-election, beyond supporting the opposition candidates. This is a sign that the Iranian people have had enough.

Enough of several decades of the fascism of religion-based intolerance. This is a revolution against a revolution, not a revolution within a revolution. And that, I think, is what the guys at the top of this unholy mess are really, really afraid of. In my humble opinion.

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More on RSS: Feed owner wants to block subscriber

2009-06-14T20:14:00.001+05:30

Barely a day after I wrote this, a 'senior ideologue' from the RSS says this. Obviously, they read my blog post and saw the wisdom in what I wrote here. (That should be a broad hint to you too, dear reader.)

OK don't choke on your beverage, I was just joking. But uncanny, no? Or is it just my 'keen eye for the obvious' as my former boss used to indulgently quip?

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Arguing with idiots

2009-06-14T12:32:00.001+05:30

They say never argue with idiots - they bring you down to their level and beat you with experience. I try to follow that as much as possible but sometimes I get tricked into debate with idiots disguised as savants.

As I have been lamenting for a while now, we live in an age that confuses education with literacy, and higher education with information gathering and skills training. And so we encounter pundits who specialize in data collection (spun around as 'knowledge') but who have no insights into any of it whatsoever. They have information on all kinds of topics oozing out of their ears but are conceptually callow, unable to hold a line of reasoning, or even to follow it when it is put before them. They enjoy ephemeral moments of victory when they manage to stop your argument in its tracks by throwing arcane information at you (including facts, figures, quotes and whatnot) that you were either unaware of or did not consider germane to the point under discussion. By the time you recover your ground to point out a fallacy or the lack of relevance, they're already feeling smug in the belief that they've made their point. More often than not, this is the only weapon in their armory.

A lot of this has to do with the quiz culture - the race to prove that one's brain has a larger memory bank (coupled with a more efficient data archival and retrieval capability) than the next guy. No fault of theirs, really. This is just an extension of the evaluation methodology embedded in our 'education' system. Cram, cram, cram and 'give' your exam (as opposed to 'take'). I generalize, of course. I also know exceptional individuals who are conceptually sound, with sharp minds augmented by a vast storehouse of information, and with wisdom beyond their years. These are produced in spite of the system being what it is, and not because of it. So even more credit to them.

OK, back to being a snob. Here's my version of the old adage: never argue with voracious data-gatherers - they bring you down to their level and beat you with minutiae.

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Nice shtick if you can make it stick

2009-06-13T21:19:00.001+05:30

Several words that have entered common parlance - such as kosher, chutzpah, spiel, kvetch, glitch, etc. have their origins in Yiddish / German vernacular, and I acknowledge the contribution of Yiddish / German and other Americanisms in general, to the growth of the English language. However, there's this tendency among some people to liberally garnish their lexicon with expressions like 'oy vey' and 'shoel' borrowed from the colloquial NYC vocabulary, which I find a bit irksome, because one has to look up these words just to understand what is being said (which may not be much, after all). Other than Yiddish, there're also colloquialisms from Hispanic dialects, African-American slang and corporate cliches (all very different worlds), some of which just constitute bad English (e.g., the word 'dwelve', which was the topic of an earlier post), that such folks like to throw around. And on the other side of the Atlantic, there's the tendency to casually slip in classy-sounding French expressions - e.g., soi-disant, for self-styled.

This is particularly true, I've observed, with certain categories of Indians: Indians writing in English, Indians living in the US or UK and Indians from India who mingle with Indians of the former categories or who travel frequently. I guess there's a certain kind of cool associated with this - a certain kind of with-it-ness which these people like to feel as they mouth such words, relishing the way they roll off their tongues, announcing their arrival in (or belonging to) the world that matters, when they could as well say what they want to say in plain English. It is the same tendency that causes some of us to use big words and bombastic language, sometimes even at the risk of malapropism. In short, these are just pretensions designed to display sophistication, and I give them a wide berth eventually, having overcome the initial irritation. Of course, in humourous writing, a lot of this is done in jest and contributes to the risibility of the piece, and that's a different thing.

So in a lighter moment today, after having come upon the word 'schlocky' in something I was reading, I composed the following sentence, which is contrived in order to make a point: A schlemiel and a schnook schmoozed as they schlepped their schlocky stuff around, while a passing schmuck turned up his schnoz at their schmutzy schmutter. Go figure!

To aspiring Indian writers in English, a word of advice: nice shtick if you can make it stick, but its not literature. When you're writing, keep it as simple as possible. Focus on the art more than on the craft. By all means indulge in the rich beauty of the language as a means to express yourself, but lay off the affectations, don't show off your vocabulary. Its a fine line but in the discerning eyes of a mature reader, you drop a couple of notches with every instance of pretentiousness. Shalom!

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To: The BJP Cc: The NDA Subject: Who moved your RSS feed?

2009-06-13T14:43:00.001+05:30

Before I go on, a clarification about my politics: I believe in moderation and balance, in taking the best of many worlds and forging frameworks that promote growth and prosperity. The Left does not offer that, neither does the Right, because they are both extreme ideological positions at opposite ends of the spectrum. Economic policy apart, I am also not culturally in in tune with either of them. Definitely more so in the case of the BJP / NDA than the CPI / CPM et al. The Congress becomes my default vote simply because there are no other choices at the central position, though I find many things wrong with them, including their rule-by-dynasty culture, to say the least. In short, to me it is the lesser of the evils.

That said, about a month ago, when the election results were out, I was not as happy that the Congress won as I was relieved that the BJP lost. After all that bumptious belligerence, that supercilious sneering, those invidious invectives and those ad hominem abuses hurled at Dr. Manmohan Singh (which formed the plank of their campaign, from what one could see), they were stunned into silence. Apparently they were just not in touch with the ground reality of the Indian electorate. As is now evident, there was a lot happening behind the scenes over the last few weeks. Some ideologues spoke out bravely, and the cookie started crumbling in public view. And today we are seeing the extent of their ideological bankruptcy. Read about it here and here and elsewhere - it is breaking news at this time (sadly, the word 'breaking' is quite literally applicable here).

This is not good news, simply because we don't want a weak opposition sitting in Parliament. A fragmented Left and a confused Right are bad for democracy, period. This is what lets the Congress get away with stuff that won't be good for the country.

Get your act together, guys - do your job. You can introspect all you like and beat each other up, but do it in private. Don't forget your responsibilities: your country needs you to serve on the opposition benches. And, going forward, cut out your RSS feed - there is more to free market capitalism than the pursuit of Hindutva, whatever that may mean.

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Bill Maher on Sonia Sotomayor

2009-06-03T20:46:00.001+05:30

Quotes on Sonia Sotomayor from 'Real Time with Bill Maher' - May 29, 2009

Sonia Sotomayor, her background, wow, graduated first in her class at Princeton, Yale Law School, a prosecutor, a sitting judge for the last 18 years. Or as conservatives call it, "unqualified."

Here’s a woman who was raised in the Bronx, tough neighborhood, without a father. And that's how you know America is a great melting country - when your Supreme Court justice has the same back-story as your lap dancer.

There were other good ones (including an ad hominem one at Rush Limbaugh) but these were the best.

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[Title intentionally left blank]

2009-06-02T17:40:00.001+05:30

The world is divided into two kinds of people - those who know how to use the 'Subject:' line in an email and those who don't. The latter category consists of two sub-categories - those who leave it blank, and those who fit their entire message into the subject line (I guess such people are most comfortable with texting and tweeting), and enter nothing whatsoever in the main body of their email. I wonder what stops people from writing a succinct line that sums up what the mail is about and then writing out a brief message in the main body. Or in reverse order, if that works better for them. Perhaps some people just lack the ability to abstract the essence out of something, even if that something is a message they themselves have composed.

In the world of telephony, these tendencies play out almost exactly the same way, "translating" the inability to define a subject from text to speech, as it were. There are those who know how to leave a crisp voice mail message, and those who don't. Under the latter, again, two sub-categories - those who get to the voice mail beep, say nothing (sometimes you can hear them wheeze or breathe heavily under the tension of having to say or do something) and then hang up, and those who, after a pause, manage to overcome their "speaker's block" with a hesitant "er... er.... hi this is so-and-so, I wanted to talk to you about something, please call back". Talk to you about something. No clues as to whether it is urgent or can wait till the next day or the next week. No clue as to whether its something about you or something about them or someone else. No clues as to whether its good news or bad news. No clues as to whether they want to give or to take. Go figure!

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More on being non-judgmental

2009-05-31T13:51:00.001+05:30

When people take positions in favour of being non-judgmental, don't they realize that that very act is judgmental in nature? It is tantamount to saying - being judgmental is bad, being non-judgmental is good. We make judgments all the time, as we spend most of our lives choosing (what we call) good over (what we call) bad, and this is part of being human.

Perhaps what they really mean is moral righteousness and if that is so, I am inclined to agree. I have no place for imperious self-righteousness in my scheme of things and am more than likely to avoid people who ride a moral high-horse - perhaps at times rather indelicately. Especially so when it is the kind of morality that is founded on principles that do not support a progressive and sustainable approach to modern life, and instead represents a clinging on to rigid ideologies or anachronistic religious teachings (many of which are actually invidious in today's context) or a kind of morality that arises from just plain old bigotry and intolerance. And yes, I'm saying that that is bad, in my personal, humble, highly subjective opinion. I just made a value judgment on a certain attitude or behavioural trait, but I am not condemning it to damnation.

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Literature Uncut

2009-05-24T22:20:00.001+05:30

There's this blog called 'India Uncut' by a guy called Amit Varma, that I have been following for a while now. Which means I go there every once in a few days and read up some of his more interesting posts. He's a pretty good blogger, and some of his posts are just great. I like his sharp wit and quite readily relate to his attitude and approach to things in general. Or so I thought, till I came upon this particular post.

Apparently he's written a book called "My Friend Sancho", and in this post he shares his perspective on various topics relating to journalism, blogging, writing a novel, etc. in the form of an FAQ to questions that, presumably, he is being asked these days by various people whose copies of MFS he is signing. Now Amit's blog does not have a comments section, so you can't comment on any of his posts. A rather inconspicuous 'contact me' button at the top right corner of his blog is a reader's only hope to get across to Amit if you have something to say. A few weeks ago (before MFS), I wrote to him wondering why he did not allow comments on his page. I'm still waiting for his response. I guess he's busy launching his first book and becoming an acknowledged novelist in the literary world. Good luck, Amit, I wish you the very best!

So here's the bit (in his post) that I wanted to comment on, and would have if he had enabled comments:

On why I gave up journalism
I felt that writing a novel needed me to devote myself to the fictional world I was creating, and weekly deadlines for columns and suchlike got in the way. I had to make a choice, and so I chose to give up journalism. The process of writing MFS confirmed to me that writing fiction was my natural domain, and I don’t intend to return to journalism now.
Also, writing columns and op-eds require a different mindset from tackling literature. In opinion pieces, one is expected to pass judgments on things, to paint the world in black and white. Literature gives us more scope to acknowledge the real world’s complexities, and to explore its ambiguities. I rather prefer the latter—you won’t find me passing judgement on any of my characters in MFS, or in future books. No matter who the character is, there but for the grace of the FSM go we.
On why my blogging and journalistic concerns are not reflected in my novel
I blog a lot about economics and politics, and my columns were also on those subjects. But you will not find me talking about these subjects in MFS. Indeed, reading MFS will tell you nothing about my ideology or my political leanings, which is as it should be. Literature is about human beings, and, to use a much-abused phrase with a pomposity alert, the human condition. A book that pushes an ideology is, in my view, not literature but propaganda. You won’t find any of that coming from me.

And my comment would have been:

Amit - I am not so sure that a piece of writing, to earn the right to be called literature, must necessarily abstain from any kind of ideological exposition. Agreed, there's (what you seem to call) propaganda (e.g., Das Kapital), and there's (what is generally called) literature (e.g., Pride and Prejudice) but there's also a whole lot in between these two apparent extremes. Just to illustrate, there's a whole bunch of existentialist writing - from Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Kafka to Sartre and Camus. Perhaps even Hemingway. Of these, Sartre's work comes closest to being an ideological articulation and formal definition of existentialism. Per your definition that would be propaganda. But the others? They've all produced some great literature (including Sartre), though the existentialist ideology shines through clearly, in their writings.

For someone who does not want to pass judgment on things (when writing 'literature') and does not want to paint the world in black and white (when writing 'literature'), you just did that, with these two neat boxes - propaganda and literature: never the twain shall meet. Moreover, I think I detect the faint but distinct whiff of moral righteousness here ... as though (what you call) propaganda type of writing is a 'bad' thing, and literature must stay away from it to be 'good'. Au contraire, I am tempted to argue that good literature always carries a fairly clear message and makes a statement about things. It may not be an ideology, it could just be a personal philosophy or approach or attitude. Just like your blogs. There's usually a quantum of social and/or political commentary embedded in good writing. While this element is not a necessary condition for literature to be good, its presence does not make it bad literature either. I hope to read MFS at some point, but I can bet that your next novel will be much better if you were to set aside this notion of propaganda and let your opinions and views reflect in your writing.

Having your own blog space lets you comment on other's posts even if they don't have space on their blogs to accommodate your comments. Thats a good thing about this whole medium. A great thing indeed!

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Perspective

2009-05-22T11:08:00.001+05:30

A friend sent me this link earlier today and at first I was not so tempted to go there (OK, mural mosaics, seen that before). Later, as I went there and browsed through the site, I was impressed by the detail and the combination of detail in perspective. I found many other mural mosaics at the site, and was amazed not only by the work of each individual artist but the eye behind each mosaic. Worthy of special mention is Le Cadeau du Cheval especially if you like horses as a subject or theme for painting or sculpture - or even just like horses per se. I was reminded, once again, as to how big pictures can be formed by smaller ones that don't, at first glance, seem to fit.

Try this out - click on each individual tile, to be surprised by what the stand-alone painting depicts and how, seen from a distance, it provides the visual element that is needed in the jigsaw at that spot. You need a special kind of vision to create such mosaics - the ability to look at something that is complete in itself from afar and see it differently, as part of a bigger whole. A lesson worth re-learning every time you come across something like this.

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Summer Holiday

2009-05-22T11:05:00.001+05:30

OK, back from a great holiday with family - we went to Singapore, Pattaya and Bangkok with the kids. The itinerary was mostly kids-centric and involved visits to nature parks, zoos, aquariums etc. with some other general sight-seeing thrown in. Stayed off-line as much as possible but couldn't help logging on for an hour or so every 3 or 4 days just to check important messages. Pictures are at my Facebook page. The Night Safari, the Jurong Bird Park and Sentosa island in Singapore, the Elephant show in Noong Nooch village (near Pattaya), and the Safari Park in Bangkok are 'must dos' if you're visiting those places with kids. Highly recommended. Also, time your visit in seasons other than summer, to avoid crowds and the summer heat.

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Sense and Sustainability

2009-05-09T20:48:00.001+05:30

In the light of the 3 great global crises we are facing at the current time - the global economic crisis, the global environmental crisis and the global security crisis, I propose that we introduce a new set of values and principles that will govern our natural impulses (which we have come to value). In this post, I am putting forward a rough draft - we need to evolve this further and set this as a foundation for a better life. While they may seem obvious and self-evident in a casual read, it should be borne in mind that while that might be so (nothing new is new is being said here, frankly), our educational systems - particularly in B-schools, do not impart these values to students.

The following principles, presented in the format "(x) over (y)", are to be read as "Value and prioritize (x) over (y)" and "Let (x) govern (y)". It does not mean that per se (y) is bad and undesirable, but that there is a higher good over (y) and that is (x), and that (y) should not be pursued at the cost of (x). Business schools today are mostly focused on encouraging (y) and seldom, if at all, mention (x) as a priority. And never as a governing principle over (y).

Responsibility over Opportunity - exploit opportunity, but do so responsibly
Assimilation over Growth - pursue growth, but assimilate as you grow
Pace over Expediency - find the right speed for doing things, do not chase speed at the cost of other parameters
Sustainability over Efficiency - look for the larger good in improvement, not just a short-term cheaper faster better approach
Quality over Quantity - what cannot be measured is a bigger challenge for management, learn to deal with it
Synthesis over Analysis - pursue analytical rigor but give due importance to other and more creative competencies
Contribution over Achievement - ask what you have given, not just what you have achieved
Wisdom over Knowledge & Intelligence - if knowledge is power and power corrupts, have the wisdom to not fall into this trap

I've posted elaborate explanations for each, under the same title at my other blog. Here, I decided to keep it short and skip the explanations. And as I said earlier, this is a rough draft. I would love to know what you think.

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What part of left don't you understand?

2009-05-08T10:57:00.001+05:30

One of my fav bloggers and humorists, Scott Adams (the Dilbert guy - in case you don't immediately recall the name), posted this yesterday. (You might want to go over to his post and read it first, to get the context to this post.) Scott has his own unique style and his own unique and special way of making his point. I respect his work immensely and sometimes try to emulate his writing style. I really liked what he had to say in this post, especially about 'confusopolies'. Of course, the debate on healthcare is pretty intense in the US, and for all the right reasons. It is a serious issue and Scott's approach, while in an only slightly lighter vein, accords due gravitas to it. His last para opens with the line "Before you call me a socialist, I don't have an informed opinion on national healthcare" and that somehow to me was like waving a red flag (pun intended) to a bull. Especially after having watched the run-up to the Obama election closely last year, and having winced every time I heard the word 'socialist' being hurled at him like an abuse.

And so I could not help commenting (to Scott):

Your "Before you call me a socialist ...." had me wondering why socialism, in America, is dreaded more than leprosy. Are socialists lepers?

In Indian politics, which is multi-partisan, we have a left, a right and a center (speaking in very broad terms). The bi-partisan US polity only has a right and a center. Well - some call it a left sometimes, but it is really a center. Why don't you have a 'real' left? Or does the concept of freedom have an exception (as in "embrace any ideology you like as long as it is not socialist")? I ask, with much interest, as a curious external observer.

Over the last 12 hours several readers have commented on Scott's original post - and the intense debate on healthcare nationalisation versus privatisation continues in its unabated fury. I scanned over 4 pages of reader comments this morning to check if there was any response to my comment, in particular. The only response I saw was:

@hyperactivex

What? The US has no real left? The US has ONLY left. We have a broken system that provides 2 parties. The parties of far left, and center left.
The US is supposed to be a republic (states rights), which is right of center. A good percentage of people in the US mistakenly think we are a democracy (center). While others want to push us toward socialism (way left)

Our founders created a republic for a reason. Less government, more freedom/liberty. More government brings less freedom.

So, since socialism is complete government control, it goes against everything this country was founded on. The founders viewed socialism as a fate worse than death. To quote John Henry, "Give me libery, or give me death"

So this is the view from the inside. OK. Sorry I asked!

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Let's call the whole thing off

2009-05-07T20:10:00.001+05:30

Ever since I heard that Zardari and Karzai were scheduled to meet with Obama, it's been at the back of my mind to catch the news update on what happens in that meeting. Not that I thought that they would have an epiphany and solve global hunger or something, but to my rather simple and average mind it seemed like an important meeting (for the whole world, actually), which should have taken place long ago, but which for some inexplicable reason has never happened!

So finally the meeting took place today (US time, which was last night India time) and this morning I read this report from CNN and this report from BBC .... which pretty much told me more or less the same things - that they all agreed to unite to fight and defeat the enemy, defined as al-Qaeda + the Taleban. Somehow, I expected more that very obvious outcome, though I'm not sure what that more was. Or is.

On the other hand, I thought to myself, let's be kind to these gentlemen. Three different leaders with three different perspectives converging on the same topic ... are bound to need some time to agree on a common language first, before they can agree on a common problem definition using that common language. Which they need to do before they agree on a common solution to that common problem.

Noting that CNN says 'Taliban' while BBC says 'Taleban', and one hyphenates al-Qaeda and the other doesn't, I am hoping that this initiative doesn't go the way of the line in the song by Louis Armstrong - "...tomato, tomahto, potato, potahto, let's call the whole thing off". It's OK if the news agencies don't agree on the spelling as long as the leaders agree in spirit, if not in letter.

P.S. CNN deserves a rap on the knuckles for using the word 'waiver' when they meant 'waver', while quoting Obama. One doesn't expect such malapropisms from CNN. Maybe they should get reporter who wrote that to take the TOEFL!

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He does it with mirrors

2009-05-07T13:03:00.001+05:30

Gobsmackingly awesome story! I've always associated mirrors with narcissistic value, and in some unusual cases for entertainment value (in the form of magic tricks, illusions, trompe-l'œil etc.) But who would have thought that mirrors can also have therapeutic value? and that too based on the same principles as magic tricks / optical illusions. Well, there's this amazing professor who works with amputees to alleviate their 'phantom limb' pain, using ... hold your breath ... mirrors! Read on .. click here.

On a slightly abstract but related note, this is yet another instance that highlights the fact that sometimes the most complex problems can have the simplest solutions. Finding them, however, is another matter!

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You know that a new technology has entered mainstream when .....

2009-05-06T14:49:00.001+05:30

You know that a new technology, especially a new media technology (which expression is not, I assume, the same as a new medium), has entered mainstream when you start getting spammed on by the scum of the cyberworld - porn sites, on-line dating sites, penis enlargers, e-marketeers, et al.

I was really enjoying using twitter till a few weeks ago. I used to get the occasional unknown alien follower which I did not mind. But in the last few weeks, there's been this huge wave of followers for no fault of mine. And I do not kid myself about how great my tweets are or how popular I am. I think this is part of the Oprah Winfrey and Ashton Kutcher effect ... it sort of started after the week when Oprah tweeted her first tweet and aplusk beat CNN to the million followers mark.

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