From Commonwealth to OPHI study

Hosting a prestigious (read, I never cared for this event’s existence before) commonwealth games is probably a dream come true for a nationalistic jingoist. Frankly, my knowledge of Commonwealth was limited to the awareness that it represents the erstwhile British Empire and a scholarship offered to students in India and elsewhere to study in UK. I might be labelled as a pessimist and even unpatriotic by the true patriots. But the current situation in our country warrants introspection by each one of us individually and collectively.
What was the motivation behind the games? Are we capable of hosting it, more precisely, at what cost?
I have not seen a good rational point being raised as to why the games needed to happen in India. The emotional argument can be elegantly summed up by BJP’s election campaign slogan, “India Shining”. These games were to showcase the Indian capability to manage and host a complex event like commonwealth games. After all our not so friendly neighbour hosted the grandest Olympic games ever. If they can do it, so could we. Petty ego clashes don’t you think.
Still, we went ahead. Jaya Bachchan, an MP went on record that we should also host the Olympic games. Poor ManiShanker Aiyer’s voice was drowned in the noise of the parliament. All he said was let us use our limited finances to improve sporting infrastructure in the country. He was vilified for a later comment wherein he went ahead and said something that meant he wouldn’t be surmised if the games failed. Whatever, lets not get into an argument over this.
What our jingoistic compatriots forget is that
IMHO, A nation’s economy and finances is managed very much like a family, although much more complex. Imagine a typical middle class family. Now the word typical means many things to many people. This family is mulling over the purchase of a second hand car. The pros and cons are being weighed again and again for weeks and months. Suddenly an unforeseen event happens and money is diverted for this emergency..say medical care of a member. The idea of the car gets shelved. Meanwhile the neighbours or our hypothetical family being richer have changed their Maruti to a say Ford Mondeo. Our hypothetical family will naturally feel a bit jealous. But, if sensible, it will move on as it did before till a better time comes. In this case an unavoidable emergency was given priority by the family, willingly or unwillingly.
Similarly our nation with its limited budget has gone ahead and decided to conduct an extravagant entertainment event, when its poor are reeling under the burden of price rises. It would surprise you that poverty in India is as rampant and penetrating as it is in the poorest parts of the world. A Kerala or Punjab is not the reality. On top of this, they have to deal with the direct and indirect consequences of corruption and mismanagement. The NDTV expose on food grains rotting in FCI godowns is the best example. How can any sane nationalist feel proud and go to games when, his fellow countrymen are starving and dying. Like the hypothetical family, our nation and its leaders need to prioritize our needs. Thankfully, we have supremecourt that was strong enough to order the sleeping Agriculture minister/ICC president Mr Pawar to distribute surplus food grains free of cost to the poor. Atleast there is someone to uphold morals and deliver justice in our country. When the judiciary does a praiseworthy act, it should be acknowledged. This was a landmark judgement. I am proud of it.
Look at the misfortune. Our ego told us that we can host a gala event at the expense of other important things. We forgot poverty and now deal with naxals. We forget how important good healthcare and sanitation is. Now Delhi is gripped by Dengue and nearby UP is witnessing deaths due to viral encephalitis.
But, do you know what the saddest part in the whole Commonwealth games has been. We have completely forgotten for whom it was meant for. It was a sporting event. Now its a controversy. A scam. I still believe that this money could have been better spent in improving grassroot level infrastructure.
India’ democracy should not sacrifice its poor and underprivileged for national pride. The commonwealth games were to be conducted by forcibily evacuating the poor, slumdwellers and beggars from the streets of the national capital. They said they wanted to present a sanitised India. An India that fits the “India Shining” slogan. An India that was more presentable for Indians abroad. An India that satisfies the egos of all Indians. How ironic that a city where fellow humans were planned to be cast out is now held hostage by a virus.
When I look at my country, I see that we are forgetting our past. We had to struggle to get our freedom from an oppressive foreign power. The Indian freedom struggle was not just one Gandhi, Nehru, Bhagat Singh, Bose or Azad. There were millions behind them, mostly, the poor. The freedom struggle was a movement. The Indian middle class arose from this very poor society that it now look scornfully at. It seems that the Indian middle class has climbed up the ladder of progress chasing after the rich maharajas and kicked it away from the poor. They should remember that the same could be done to them, by the rich like Ambanis or TATA. The Bachchans, Ambanis, or a page 3 celebrity might need a game like Commonwealth to showcase India to the rest of the world. These snobs don’t realize that the world has a good measure of us.
We, Indians, should be the last of humanity to forget the ideals of a democracy. This democracy is not US export. This democracy comes from high ideals established in our ancient past and that grew with interactions with great societies over time. When rest of the world strives for a practical mutual tolerance among different sections of humanity, our nation idealises mutual respect. If we want to earn the respect of the world, then it will come to us, when the moment is ripe. We will be judged by the way we treat our own countrymen. A wise saying goes something like this “we will be judged by the way we treat the least amongs us.”

It is in this context that I introduce this piece of article from Hindu newspaper:
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Chandrasekhar/article520543.ece

jyothi

Who is not corrupt?

Before explaining my views , I will answer “Who is not corrupt” in a clearly and categorically manner. (a) Those who didn’t get a chance (b) Those who are too smart, powerful and efficient in covering up (c) A very small percentage of people who really are incorruptible.

Each day dawns with light being shed on a new corruption case and common people express their anger by protesting and media makes stories to cover both sides.

The past few days belong to the Commonwealth Working Group CWG officials who have been caught with their pants down. CWG officials face major allegations of bloating up the bills of expenses for Commonwealth games , which has left the the common man wondering how can they do that; some are jealous, some are sad and frustrated and some are writing and reading stories. CWG officials have bought rain proof umbrella (have you heard of this before?) for INR 6500 and I don’t know whether umbrella company will provide Kamla along with umbrella or the user will still have to sing the song meri chatri ke neecha aaja kion Kamla bheege khadi khadi. Air conditioners have been rented on 0.4 million INR and reason being so expensive is that they have rented it and haven’t bought it. First time in my life I have heard that renting is costlier than buying; I must explore that option before renting anything in future. They have also rented treadmills for 0.9 million INR. Apart from all these goods, the funniest rented stuff is toilet paper; you see the evolution of ideas even toilet paper can be rented. Also check out the taxi rates for the Official taxis. The merc benz would cost 250 pounds per day in UK as against these new taxis which will rung in Delhi during the games costing 400+ pounds.

I am wondering why is there so much anger about these allegations in the mind of common public? Let’s assume that all these allegations are proved as a corruption case then who are these people who are showing their anger against CWG officials for being corrupt? Aren’t we,also corrupt within our own limitations? Or does everyone fit the bill as incorruptible. Let me take you through some common instances.

Fake billing is very common corruption for traveling employee and I remind you that, they consider this money as part of their salary. Before joining the job they estimate how much they are going to make through fake bills and what basic salary is being offered; compare with current gross salary (including corruption money) and then decide. A small sales person goes to a city and stays at station or any friend’s house and then claims 100 RS from company. They travel by bus and try to reimburse taxi fare. They eat 20 INR meal and provide bill of 100 INR. These are few very common cases. Now, if you consider an example of a renowned company’s sales person then increase the above mentioned corruptions with their salary ratio. Traveling by 2^nd class train ticket and asking for AC 3 tier fare is common. Now, what you have to do is to increase their power and chance and you will see that the corruption is also increasing in the same fold as their power/salary ratio increases. On a related note, you can get medical bills from medical shops across Bangalore for a certain “fee”. You can use this to encash your Medical allowance for that month instead of waiting for it to be deposited in your salary account by your employer the end of the year. SO we have a well established machinery in place for generating bills.

I will give you very common kinds of second example, which is fake salary slip. Faking salary itself may not be a big problem in this context, but the problem is forged documents to show high salary from previous company’s letter head which may have been stolen or designed. So why cry if other are providing false document. A little bit of jealousy does no harm, after all it’s a competitive world we live in. But onse should not indulge in character assassination of the bigger fish only. First look into your own sleeve and see how much dirt you have and try to wash it off.

In the era of credit card any one can get credit provided that you have good character record before you do illegal not-paying shopping. Students from India come to UK and stay here for one year and within this period they open new bank account and withdraw, deposit, transfer money and also do online shopping to build their credit. Now what they do before leaving? They loot online shops and to those companies who offer monthly credit shopping. They buy several recent technology phones, nice shoes, shirts and many more expensive items and then they leave without paying. Trust me this is real; you can also try, because people here say that it’s not that difficult, you don’t have to be too smart, just be desi.

Since I have raised the question of chances so I can’t end writing without citing Reliance mobile phone and their kar lo dunia mutthi me slogan. I don’t know whether Indians in general captured dunia in their mutthi or not but middle class Indian certainly did reliance mobile in their mutthi, and among them large section did not even cared to pay their monthly bills. I know some who crossed 50K INR and then threw mobile phone; why? Because after a long they got a chance to do some sort of corruption, thanks to Ambani brothers for letting us taste this, and they considered that as their right, so is CWG officials are doing. They also don’t get games every year. These officials waited for so long and invested their time and energy for this chance to come to India so they are utilizing it.

I do believe that a liar does have a right to say liar to a liar but it would be nice if we correct ourselves before or after at least blaming others.

I would like to end up criticizing out society by saying that corruption does not necessarily depend on how corrupt a person could become but also how strong their digestive system is. Strongest persons like Madhu Koda, Suresh Kalmadi, Lalit Modi and Lalu Yadav can digest billion, students can digest iphone and traveling employee could digest fare costs and restaurants bills. People like me and you can read write and watch because we are very few and nobody cares.

Inception: The begining of something new

Hey guyz I saw this recently released movie "Inception" written, produced and directed by Christopher Nolan. It was an amazing movie. I enjoyed it very much. I had no clue what the movie was about before I was in the cinema, all I had was inputs from few friends and the official trailer that I saw. But, finally after a two and a half hour movie, the only message I took home was " DON'T STOP DREAMING" or "DREAM TO BECOME RICH" its kinda funny that my brain interprets the movie this way. Although, I like the movie I would suggest that this movie is not for every one. At least not for people who like die heard reality movies. They would be exhausted sitting there and thinking rational behind every dream ;-) .

Is the concept really new? I still doubt it. It was on the same lines of the Matrix (which at least used sofistication to make the subjects sleep :-) ). Even though if people thought it was a new concept (Which most of them do) It still has major flaws to make believe the audience who carry at least some knowledge of sleep and sleep patterns. And the concept of dreaming within the dream is so weird and out of imagination for me and If I was Leonardo, I would always keep track of my time because I know that I have to wake up from two dreams in a split of a second hahaha! and I guess I would die because I always like to spend some more time in the bed after I wake up...... Anyways, keeping apart my analysis I still say thumbs up! for this movie. Good story line, good casting and finally nicely made.

Thinking linearly?

A few thoughts about teaching the exact sciences at an advanced stage (perhaps even earlier? debatable). I find that in some disciplines (especially maths!) linear and step-by-step teaching is given extreme importance. Writing things down very very logically is considered the correct way when teaching in the class rooms. I think this is actually harmful. Students might get used to such presentations and then when it comes to thinking about a problem, they often try to analyse and think in the same logical and linear fashion. This is highly undesirable! Problems are not solved by thinking linearly! Analysis yes, but not problem solving. One often has to relate to several different concepts and draw intuition from other problems that people have solved. This means that you might be forced to jump from one idea to another, try out bold conjectures based on some intuition and so on. Many of these paths will fail but they will add to your intuition about the problem. And it is this process that one must try to teach students. This is not easy. It means that when the teacher lectures, he/she will not complete arguments, often will not provide all the details in one go and most importantly, may not give the complete picture immediately. The teacher will state the goal clearly and then wander around a bit, experiment with ideas and try to convey why some approach works the way it works. This will entail quite some work on the part of the student. It will also leave you confused till you see the whole picture. A good teacher will do this so that you vaguely see the direction but not so much that you will sit back and watch the teacher do all the thinking instead of you.

The benefits of this process are that albeit hard, it does teach you to think on your own with suitable guidance from the teacher. It also conveys the message that solving your own problems is not going to be anything like just learning a subject from a book.

This also is precisely why we need teachers. Books are good to learn subjects linearly. But they rarely convey the intuition behind the subject. A teacher can show us how to read between the lines in a book.

To conclude, linear presentations are over-rated.

And all just to talk !

I had a theory in mind. Let's see if I can get it across properly in words.

We are all beings with some basic needs like food, money, stability etc. The so called gene-related needs. At the same time, we humans have another need. And I think it is 'to communicate'. Very often it is through words. Sometimes through just being together. At other times by doing some activity together. But in the end always to communicate. For instance, we all watch a movie say, and then the real fun is when we discuss it later. The movie itself is relatively secondary. I cannot imagine watching a movie on a deserted island where I would know that for sure it will not be discussed later. At least in my experience, some of the best/happiest moments in the past have been when I've had a cool discussion or an interesting fight/argument or a spirited game of say badminton, or a calm discussion with complete understanding between the people involved.

One could dispose all this under the statement 'humans are social animals'. But most of human social behaviour stems from gene-related reasons like survival etc. The rest I think is to a large extent about communicating. For some reason we are all made such that 'to communicate' is almost a necessity. I get the feeling that a lot of activities come up amongst people just so that they have a reason to communicate. For example, cooking together is rarely about the food itself!

Welcome note

Dear Groningen gang,

On behalf of the (kicked out) president, Hon. Tauqeer bhai and yours truly, I welcome you all to a new way of sharing our views on trivial (mostly) and non-trivial things (rarely) in the world around us. I hope that each one of us will continue to play the same "roles" they have skilfully donned on Friday evenings during the past two years.

Despite what we would like to think, evolution is purposeless and so is our blog. Who knows what might evolve out of it.

Regards,

Jyothi