tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64829137269160839192024-03-05T01:39:14.267-08:00SuddhospeakRajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-32069375494701078072016-12-09T20:41:00.000-08:002016-12-09T20:41:14.474-08:00In defence of demonetization<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Ramachandra Guha says that history can be written only after at least 30 years have gone by since the event. A 30-year gap is required to digest the impacts of events and acquire the maturity to view the events with the objectivity of a historian. On a similar note, I have been waiting for a 30-day gap before writing on the demonetization move announced by our PM Mr. Narendra Modi. Either that or one of the world's leading proponents of the Art of Procrastination was at it again. Depending on which version you believe, I may or may not have an Oil well to sell to you.<br />
<br />
I do not have the burden of being a salary-earning analyst here who has to plan where exactly to sit on the fence. So, let me get straight to the point - I am a fan. I did not vote for Mr. Narendra Modi. I have been underwhelmed by the governance thus far. I have railed against Mr. Jaitley's Economics and been critical of the government's incessant desire to spin everything. But on this move, I am completely with Mr. Narendra Modi and his team. Hell, if they pull off this battle against Corruption I will campaign for them in the next election.<br />
<br />
I have spoken to quite a few people on this and not one has faced any serious personal hardship because of demonetization. My sample space is limited to Chennai (although it was across socio-economic strata). Some of the criticism has been absurd and so I have taken it upon myself to rebut them.<br />
<br />
<b>Absurd point number 1: Cash is only a small part of the black money problem. So this wont solve the problem</b><br />
Of course this demonetization will not completely solve the problem. The corruption problem in India is pervasive, it exists in every pore of the Economy. It is so bad in some parts of the system that we have come to internalize it. No single measure can tackle corruption or black money completely. To give an analogy, demonetization is similar to a 200-kg man saying that in a bid to become healthy, he will stop eating sweets. We all know that merely sacrificing sweets is not enough to go from 200 kgs to 80 kgs. But it is better than doing nothing and if he pulls this off and goes to even 180 kgs, there is a chance that he might go further down and do something more as well.<br />
<br />
On the face of it, it looks like cash forms a small proportion of the black money problem. But cash remains absolutely critical to the black economy. If demonetisation can cause a mild aversion to hoarding money and take all honest citizens to a more heavily-digital financial world, that will have a role in reducing cash pile in the Economy. If real estate magnates and jewelry business owners start worrying even mildly about the cash they are holding, the trickle-down from this could be huge. And even if it were indeed a small part of the problem, what is the downside to tackling it?<br />
<br />
India's opposition politicians have been surprised by this and are therefore reflexively criticizing it. The worst offenders have been Mr. Kejriwal and Mamta Bannerjee & Derek O Brien. Apparently, Nitish Kumar said that it was a good move. Hat-tip to Nitish if indeed this is true.<br />
<br />
<b>Absurd point number 2: The really rich will get away anyway</b><br />
So be it. Let the Mukesh Ambanis of the world not be affected by it. If the corrupt Traffic constables, and unethical Tahsildars of the nation get thwacked by this, that is enough good news. This giant rung of petty-corrupt fellows are the ones that feed into the cesspool of large-scale corruption. We kill this little fish or at least do enough to scare them, the big fish will get choked sooner or later. The big fish desperately need the little fish to be around to survive and to strangle the system.<br />
<br />
<b><i>This could be our broken windows moment</i></b><br />
In the 90s, the crime-rate in NewYork was brought down by tough policing introduced by the Mayor.<br />
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://www.nber.org/digest/jan03/w9061.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Tahoma, Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: blue;">The most prominent of his policy changes was the aggressive policing of lower-level crimes, a policy which has been dubbed the "broken windows" approach to law enforcement. In this view, small disorders lead to larger ones and perhaps even to crime. As Mr. Guiliani told the press in 1998, "Obviously murder and graffiti are two vastly different crimes. But they are part of the same continuum, and a climate that tolerates one is more likely to tolerate the other."</span></span> </a><br />
<br />
<span style="color: magenta;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory#Concept_of_fear" target="_blank">broken windows theory</a></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> is a </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminology" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;" title="Criminology">criminological</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> theory of the norm-setting and signaling effect of urban disorder and </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandalism" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;" title="Vandalism">vandalism</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> on additional </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;" title="Crime">crime</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> and </span><a class="mw-redirect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-social_behavior" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;" title="Anti-social behavior">anti-social behavior</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">. The theory states that maintaining and monitoring </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_area" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;" title="Urban area">urban environments</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> to prevent small crimes such as </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandalism" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;" title="Vandalism">vandalism</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">, public drinking, and toll-jumping helps to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness, thereby preventing more serious crimes from happening.</span></span><br />
<br />
Let the really rich get away now. But if the small fry whom we have all been tacitly endorsing are trampled, the really rich will slowly feel the squeeze as well.<br />
<br />
<b>Absurd point 3: The idea is good, the implementation has been poor.</b><br />
The banking system has collected more than Rs. 10 lakh crores in old notes. They have printed more than Rs. 4 lakh crores in new currency. Take a 20-second break, write down these numbers and count the zeroes. Our banking system has stepped up wonderfully well.<br />
<br />
Demonetization could not have been planned through over years. Our system is notoriously, undeniably leaky. And for a measure like this, the elements of shock and surprise are very vital. The government could not have setup a sub-committee to take 6 months and analyze all possible repercussions before launching this scheme. The team took a leap of faith and for large parts we have been alright.<br />
<br />
On the implementation front, the tweaks in the digital world have been amazing. I wont bore you with the details ( I do not know most of them), but will leave you with one amazing point. If you want to transfer money to a villager and he and you both do not know the bank account details, you can transfer money with an App if you merely know his Adhaar card number. If he does not have a bank account, his Aadhar card will be used to create his bank account and the money can still be transferred. Most of this can be done with non-smart phones as well.<br />
<br />
Personally, I think the government has deliberately made cash transactions inconvenient in order to force people to build digital infrastructure. Over the long-run, this could be immense<br />
<br />
<b>Absurd point 4: I am ok with all this. But the poor in the Country are suffering</b><br />
This peeve is personal and I have very little data to back this. I think that most people who are making the above claim are the ones who probably do not really know poor people. These comments are made by the armchair Economists who probably do not know how many kids their maid has. These are the people who have no clue about how poor people live. The poor stand in the queue for everything. Standing in queue where the rich are also made to stand in queue is empowering, not demeaning. Most of the less well-off that I have spoken to have very little to complain regarding this. They have brushed aside the inconvenience in a way we rich morons have not been able to. They have accepted payments in old Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes and slipped into a trust-based economy with friendly neighbourhood shops.<br />
<br />
I am not trivializing the loss of those who have lost jobs/pay. For the poor, loss of pay for a month can mean poverty for a year. That is a serious problem that we all need to do something to offset.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Schadenfreude matters</i></b><br />
For all the suffering the less well-off have gone through there is an aspect of this move that promises more suffering for the corrupt that has been gratifying. Merely imagining a the plight of a college vice chancellor who has Rs. 10 crores stashed in his farm house can make the 20 minute wait in the queue fun. The rich has sought the poor to deposit its own cash into the system. This alters the terms of transaction between India's monied class and the 'other' class, at least temporarily. I am hoping like mad that at least some change will be permanent.<br />
<br />
<b>So, what should we do now?</b><br />
What is the joy in writing a long article if it cannot be followed up with Recommendations. We will definitely have a list of Recos. I am just glad that my recommendations do not have the words Buy, Sell or Hold in them. :-)<br />
<br />
<b>First up, have some faith</b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span>
We have been conned by lesser proposals for many years. Not too long ago, we had a central minister coming on national television and saying that the 2G scam loss was 'notional'. We have had scam after scam affecting our daily life. We have often sat up in despair and craved for something, anything to reduce corruption in our Country. We have fantasized about being the real-life 'Indian' or 'Hindustani'. When something real comes along, we immediately start our Doubting Thomas act. Our Prime Minister has asked for our patience for 50 days. Give it to him. Give it to him rather generously.<br />
<br />
If you are still a skeptic, act as if you are hopeful for a while.<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 12px;">Act as if ye have faith and faith shall be given to you. Put it another way, fake it till you make it - Leo McGarry, West Wing</span><br />
<br />
<b>Then, be a friend of the new</b><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: #fcfae7; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the *new*. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends. Last night, I experienced something new..... (Go on, Google this)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fcfae7; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>
As I said before, the banking system has transacted give or take Rs, 15 lack crores in 4 weeks. Thats a staggering amount. Marvel at that, feel glad that as a Country we dared to go into this brave new territory, cherish the notion that there might be more where this came from and be a friend of this new. For all his bravado, our Prime Minister probably needs this boost from public opinion and approval to take the fight till the end. On corruption-fighting, give him the benefit of doubt. God knows we need all possible measures to combat this beast.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Talk of the next wave</b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Real Estate is next, immediately after that is Jewelry business post which we will go after Educational institutions and then government services. All in the next 18 months. Let us talk about the possibilities. One massive advantage of having gone for something out-of-the-box and unconventional first up is the fact that every other move now seems mild in comparison. For the team that pulled of demonetization in 7 weeks, ensuring that Jewelry purchases get accompanied by Pancard details seems like a piffling matter. Merely the environment of fear might compel some of our more brazen brethren to dial things down. And before we know it, we might be close to the tipping point. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So, if you have heard of the move of tracking 2000 rupee notes with nanotechnology that seems patently like cooked up pseudo-science, pass it on :-) I personally think that the Rs. 2000 notes and the Rs. 500 notes have been printed on such poor quality paper only because the government already has put in place a plan to chuck these out and get new currency in 4 years' time. (Wink, wink!)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If we can go even two steps towards believing that the system can be corruption-free, we might scare some of the behemoths off. Once we remove the brazenness from the system, combating the underlying might be far easier. The second biggest problem facing our Country is corruption. (The biggest was, is and will be the quality of our Primary education). Let us give a confidence boost to the measures the government takes to combat this. </div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-49526388157542225572016-11-08T04:08:00.000-08:002016-11-08T04:08:06.063-08:00Demography is destiny<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
About 5 years ago, I had written a rant titled "<a href="http://suddhospeak.blogspot.in/2012/06/india-and-i.html" target="_blank">India and I</a>". Based on largely anecdotal evidence, I had painted a picture of an Economy of a trillion dollars and billion people. Basically before writing the piece, <span style="color: blue;">I spoke to myself, number one, because I had said a lot of things :-) </span>Getting opinions from a sample-size of one, spouting Truthisms and dissing experts have all become fashionable in the political climate now, and where politicians go MBAs cannot be far behind, can we?<br />
<br />
This brings us to the idea of the follow-up piece for the original rant. In grandest MBA traditions of sharing the blame and getting the disclaimers early, I must state clearly that I am compiling a follow-up under duress. In a moment of madness, at a time when spirits were high and equivocating seemed uncalled for, I had told a friend that I would send across an update to him. Said friend recently bid goodbye to his consulting career and was perhaps wistfully looking back at his armchair- pontification days and thus pinged me to deliver. So, here goes -<br />
<br />
<b>Demography is destiny, or is it?</b><br />
<br />
Demography is destiny is one of those fabulous catch-all phrases that can bend to suit any narrative. Japan's economic downturn, India's growth potential, democrats' election prospects are all explained with the idea that 'demography is destiny'. The numbers-are-vital storyline forgets one vital point - the quality of the constituents. It is this quality of the demography that I worry about the most.<br />
<br />
I have spent most of my career in the education sector and recently have begun engaging with school students and teachers. The teachers I have interacted with have all been wonderful and are delivering the curriculum with enormous amounts of diligence and meticulousness. If that is the case, what exactly is my peeve?<br />
<br />
I think we are achieving the wrong set of objectives. The entire pedagogy is linear and rule-based; we care more about the mechanics than the fundamentals, more about processes than about conceptual depth. The best students are keen, they are willing to learn, and thanks to the law of large numbers, we frequently have break-out students who are brilliant. But the system is not gearing students for the skills that will be required in 2035.<br />
<br />
In my mind, the entire education system should <a href="http://suddhospeak.blogspot.in/2012/04/it-is-all-about-ram.html" target="_blank">be about the processor</a>, whereas it is currently about the apps. We add layer after layer of rules, technologies, factoids to young brains without spending the time on building their ability to process. It is akin to Google recruiting 10000 people and taking 3 years to teach them the Syntax of C, C++, Java, Fortran and the like.<br />
<br />
The results are already there to see. As a country, we get whipped in PISA rankings. All the IIT and IIM professors talk about these days is how the quality of intake has fallen. We can attribute some of these anecdotal points to the 'rosy retrospection', but the truth probably is that our students have definitely not improved over the last two decades or so. The rest of the world has not been static - the math textbooks followed in Singapore are fabulous, Finland has a wonderful teaching system, the US is continuously investing on pedagogy and technology. In a world that is probably approaching a discomfiting level of compassion-free meritocracy, we are in danger of being left behind.<br />
<br />
<b>India's original sin</b><br />
Jawaharlal Nehru gave this Country a lot of wonderful things - the most important of them being articulation of the idea of being Indian. But even his biggest fans will concede that he made one vital error, one that would haunt India for a long time. He completely, dramatically, spectacularly undermined the importance of primary education. India spent ridiculously small amounts on this most crucial of growth drivers and we never realized the price we were paying. Missionaries, the private sector, middle-class India's fetish for the 'degree' have offset this somewhat. But with every passing year, the primary education deficit is becoming pitifully obvious to see.<br />
<br />
Recently, I read the <a href="https://scaeceditorial.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/the-story-of-watermelons-manohar-parrikar/" target="_blank">watermelon story</a> from Mr. Manohar Parrikar, and one passage struck a chord with me like none other. <span style="color: blue;">In seven years, Parra’s best watermelons were finished. In humans, generations change after 25 years. It will take us 200 years to figure what we were doing wrong while educating our children.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span>
According to me, we are doing a great deal wrong with educating our children.<br />
<br />
On the positive side, technology is a great leveler. It reduces teaching costs like no other tool that has gone before it. I fervently hope that we crack the code and give the next generation sound online learning options. There perhaps is a window of opportunity where we can do something meaningful and bypass the rot that has set in our formal learning system.<br />
<br />
<b>What has changed in the last five years?</b><br />
I promised my friend an update and so I am duty-bound to have to tick some boxes in the richest "then vs. now" traditions.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>On governance,</b> I think this has improved reasonably. From the bar UPA 2 had set, it could hardly get any worse. My beloved state Tamilnadu has become worse, but I think that issue is more local.<br />
<br />
<b>On the sense of entitlement,</b> I think this has gone down substantially. There is nothing like a tough economic environment to knock people of their perches. The real estate market becoming sane has had one lasting impact - it has stopped generating notional wealth for property-owners. There is no automatic get-rich scheme available and people have realized that this is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Normal_(business)" target="_blank">new normal</a>.<br />
<br />
I have come to love this new normal. Like Salmad Rushdie in Midnight's Children, I have become wary of collective optimism in the Indian Economic context. The behavioural excesses from that optimism wear me down. This is why I have been such a skeptic on the supposed E-commerce wave, but that is a post for another day.<br />
<br />
<b>On the issue of politics of jingoism,</b> things have taken a turn for the worse across the world. Trump, Nigel Farage, Indian media's war-mongering are all clear instances of this turn. The voices being raised against this are currently weak and burdened with their own history of parochialism. So, any stab at statesmanship looks like partisanship in another garb. When Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair and NDTV are enlisted for the good fight, the whole damn thing looks like a bloody joke. India desperately needs the grand old Congress party to become strong again. For the long-term health of the republic, this right-ward lurch has to be offset by a sane centrist voice.<br />
<br />
Currently, India's rightward lurch is not(yet) alarming. It is probably a mild reset that the Country was screaming out for from years of left-leaning lunacy. Importantly, the Indian public now gets to see the full colours of the excesses of the right, which will automatically make the left-center seem palatable. So, the current reset is probably the equivalent of some blood-letting that will result in long-term peace. At least, this is what I am hoping for.<br />
<br />
<b>On the economic front,</b> things are mixed. The world economy is playing a much bigger role than at any point of time in India's history. The 2008-10 recession, low fuel prices, easy money are all factors on which India has had little control. Our finance minister has done some random things - he picked a fight with the RBI governor for no reason, and he seems to believe that tax-increases are the 'in' thing these days. But so far he has done little to really screw the economy. And with Mr. Jaitley as the finance minister, this is perhaps the best we can expect.<br />
<br />
<b>Education - this should be the holy grail</b><br />
I read this <a href="https://novakdjokovicfoundation.org/education-system-of-cuba-path-to-success/" target="_blank">piece on the Cuban Education</a> system and became very jealous. Completely free till 9th grade, free food and care before and after school, and a teacher-student ratio of 1 : 20. I fervently wish we have an education-fanatic somewhere higher up in our governance hierarchy. Estonia has recently overseen a <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/07/economist-explains-21" target="_blank">technology revolution</a> that one can only marvel at. All their schools were online by 1998!<br />
<br />
Any long-term thinking about India should begin and end with - How are we going to educate our current 2-year olds? If we get this right, everything else will become irrelevant.<br />
<br />
Any reader should note that I am a primary education junkie. If you take the previous generation's education-fetish and multiply it ten-fold, you would still underestimate the importance I would place on sound primary education. I do not care much for degrees, I do not hold much store on fancy colleges and big campuses. But on primary education, I am of the view that the Indian budget should take its budgetary allocation and double it, and then double it, and then double it about 5 more times.<br />
<br />
To put it another way,<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defense. That's my position. I just haven't figured out how to do it yet. </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span>
This was written by Aaron Sorkhin for yet another fabulous episode of The West Wing. The exact dialogue can be seen <a href="https://youtu.be/xlyBfInS7ec?t=35" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />
If any of you knows anyone in the Union Government (this one, the next one, or the one after that) and you carry some sway over creating/appointing a minister for primary education, you know whom to call. I guarantee that I will make gigantic monumental changes, and by using technology well I will do this without ratcheting costs as well. :-)</div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-74593763787571824222016-04-28T05:34:00.001-07:002018-01-02T02:11:55.027-08:00From expectation to hope<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
When I was in class VIII, our school got a new principal, a mild-mannered gentleman who had been our Math teacher in class VI and taught us fabulously. We had adored him in his previous avatar as he simplified life for us really well. We were full of hope.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="line-height: 19.32px;">He also turned out to be a good egg. He retained his mild-mannered behavior, kept things chugging along smoothly, brought some nice incremental changes and although the school did not do spectacularly well, things were steady all around. Importantly, the correspondent stayed away from the day-to-day affairs and seemed to have given the Principal a free rein. Late in the academic year, the Principal also got us into a tie up with a really good international school in the area that promised to supply us with some infrastructure. All was humming along fine when the year drew to a close.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="line-height: 19.32px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
The next year things turned ugly rapidly. The correspondent started interfering by collecting donations from all and sundry, which really harmed the School's reputation. Senior teachers started slacking, and once they realized that the mild-mannered principal did not once pull them up for their poor performance, they practically switched off after the mid-year. Some also dabbled in donation-collecting and currying favour with the Correspondent. Things took a turn for the worse when the brazenness of a few teachers surprised even the correspondent. Students lost all motivation. A few kids now thought of themselves as 'big boys' and engaged in unruly behavior as well. All in all, discipline was completely out of the system and it was nightmarish all around. We could not wait for the year to get over. We got the feeling that the Principal was tired of it all and he could not wait for the year to get over as well.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Next year, we had a complete change. We had a Principal who was an absolute disciplinarian. He was the correspondent as well so there would be no confusion (though his friend helped him with correspondent duties). Several new teachers were recruited and discipline was the buzz word. All the students, teachers and administrators had to turn up on time, be in proper uniform and be generally well-behaved. The Principal himself was an absolute beast. He not only traveled across the Country to meet other Principals and gain insights from them, he prowled the corridors and devoured reports from teachers and administrators. Students who had grown so frustrated with the brazen uncaring teachers were enthused by this new attitude. The school even began participating in competitions against the bigger school nearby and even some of the international schools from across town. We still lost, but it felt good to be at least competing now. Some of the internationals schools from across town were interested in how we were doing and wanted to start some exchange programs with us. We all felt that we were moving in the right direction.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
We were all in a good place when the annual revision exams were held. These are held across the town and with one standardized paper. That year the paper was tough but we all thought we had done really well. The Principal and the Vice Principal were confident that we would come out on top. The only one voicing caution was the academic secretary who had originally spent time with the international schools and knew their strengths well.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
The results were out, and although we had done better than before, the improvement was marginal. We were still way behind the international schools across town and some way behind our not-so-friendly bigger friend close-by. The Principal and Vice Principal were happy though and continued to be optimistic. But the truth remained we had taken a hit and some doubts had begun to creep in.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Students did some introspection and we could cull out three factors 1) Teachers were more disciplined and punctual, but perhaps truth was that they were not all that good in Math and Physics. They dotted the i's and crossed the t's but were not really effective. 2) The school had instituted a uniform for teachers as well and there was also now a brigade that used to bellow out the national anthem. These measures were constricting some of the older teachers who liked their creative freedom while teaching. Now they had all to sing from the same hymn sheet and this was definitely taking something away. They were also aggrieved that the teachers were not assessed by the impact they had but on attendance and punctuality metrics. 3) The Vice Principal had instituted a fee increase. This was cruel. This new team was supposed to be hyper-efficient and brilliant at extracting more from the system. In fact they had spoken of 'Fewer administrators but better administration', and this gentleman hiked fees when the going was tough as it is.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Added to this, there was now a brigade that wanted to make a virtue out of discipline and dedication. They wanted us to be happy that we were clean, hard-working and dedicated. All that was fine, but come the board exams if were last in the town we would have to settle for middling jobs once again. If the results are not good, all this chatter and chest-thumping amounts for pish tosh is what we students felt about all this.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
So, here we are at a crossroads again. We hate the disaster that was our class IX, it still gives us nightmares. But we have to accept that our class X, although mildly better is not that great. Every passing day we are struggling to figure out what makes our Principal and VP so optimistic. (And dont even get me started on how they feel about how our school was 50 years ago, it makes me nauseated)</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
We are yearning for a time where the smart people can be given some room, where merely not being late is not considered a virtue, when some of these loudmouthed but limited people would be asked to shut up.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
It would also be great if we could have our old Principal as our math teacher again. He was fabulous and is miles ahead of our VP (who is doubling up as a math teacher) who seems to think that if we collected 18 percentage of all numbers given in the question and put it into a box it is a good year.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br />
A few months ago, the Principal got this idea that if we tossed away our old notes and started on a clean slate, this would dramatically improve our performance. The academic secretary, the sane old gentleman that he is, insisted that the old notes were not really the problem and our pedagogy was the key issue. He stated unequivocally that merely chucking away old notes and replacing them with fresh new ones was not going to change much. A tussle ensued and the academic secretary bid adieu. We did not think much of that previously. But now that we students see that our new, fresh notebooks contain pretty capture the same mediocrity that our old notes did, we think more wistfully of that brilliant academic secretary.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Any way, hope springs eternal. All is not lost. May be we will have good results after all. Although I must confess that quite a few of my friends who are very intelligent and hardworking have expressed the hope of joining one of the posher schools across town.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br />
Perhaps our Principal is right. Perhaps we were blinkered in expecting everything to fall in place in just three months. Perhaps things are moving in the right direction, although a little slowly.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-top: 6px;">
Perhaps, perhaps perhaps.... One thing we can say for sure over the past 3 months is that we have transitioned from expectation to hope. And I am less hopeful with every passing month. </div>
<div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-52360591547301115722016-04-08T01:12:00.000-07:002016-04-08T01:15:45.035-07:00Thoughts from the math camp conducted at DAV Schools (Mar-Apr, 2016)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222;">My colleague Baskar and I conducted a math camp at DAV Boys and DAV Girls school recently. I have jotted down a few of our thoughts on the topic here.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="color: #222222;"><b>The kids are smart, well-behaved and keen</b></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;">The kids were always respectful, always ready with a Namaste, always on time and largely interested in learning something new. They did not grudge the fact that some holiday time had been taken up by math and seemed genuinely disappointed when the math camp drew to a close. Quite a few of them had taken up 2-3 other activities and seemed to enjoy all of them. </span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;">There is a certain raw enthusiasm about them that is endearing, that made me want to design more classes for them, even though some of their over-exuberance drove me crazy on occasions.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="color: #222222;"><b>What are they good at?</b></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;">They have registered whatever processes they have been taught, and know most of the toolkit that they should know by class V or VI. They can all add, multiply, divide merrily and have the ability to take in more formulae and details if these are thrown at them.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;"><b>What are they less good at?</b></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;">Now, I am going to spend some time on this list. Mainly because of two reasons -1) No point saying kids know everything already. All of us are looking to identify the gaps and plug them. So, we need to be brutally honest about these gaps and 2) I have a high expectation of what I think kids should know. The challenges we faced 25 years ago are nothing compared to what these kids will face globally 10 years from now. If they are not equipped, they will struggle.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;">I am going to be giving a few math examples here. Nothing too technical, but some bits of what I learn from class are best described by using the same examples.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;"><b>Students have very little practice of “figuring out” stuff, and too little patience for “hanging in” there.</b></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;">We discussed a question USA + USSR = PEACE, where U, S, A, R, P, E, C stand for digits from 0 to 9 and this addition holds good. This is a fabulous question for understanding the idea of “carry over” conceptually. We had done quite a few exercises on “carry over” prior to this, so they knew the idea. About 90% of the class did not know how to go about this, which is alright. About 80% of the class did not try to crack it until they were prodded and pushed. Anything out of the ordinary makes the majority of the class wind down and wait for the method to be unveiled.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;">Once they are prodded, they gave it a good go. But they are unused to the idea of figuring out and drawing inferences. That is a giant gap in their learning attitude that will need to be plugged.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;"><b>Students do not have a ‘pause’ button, where they take in stuff and internalize them</b></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;">This is particularly true of boys. The boys are overly keen to answer a question without ever pausing to think “Am I missing something here?” It is almost a scenario of any-answer-is-good-enough. Their mind jumps to the first possibility, they scream it out and then they are done with the question. Frequently (very frequently), their first answer is incorrect. But since they feel this enormous pressure to shout out an answer, they do not pause to think.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;">I had asked the students to add all the numbers from 1 to 100. One of them took some time, developed a fabulous method and gave the answer correctly as 5050. I asked all the boys to add numbers from 1 to 200. About 60% of the class did not try this seriously. Of the remaining who tried, quite a few confidently wrote down 10100 (twice of 5050) and stopped thinking after that.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;">They are happy to receive formulae but less ready to receive ideas</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;">On the same question of adding all natural numbers from 1 to 100, I noticed a range of responses</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;">1. Some tried to “brute-force” this. They just added numbers merrily, happily. I love this group. In my view, they will go on to learn lots of great things. Sooner or later, they will realize that they will have to do better than brute-force, and then their brute-force experience will help them come up with a method.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;">2. Many quit. Sad, but true.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;">3. Some tried and came up with new techniques. These were the brightest kids.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;">4. Some knew the formula. A great many of those who knew the formula were keen to know the new method I was teaching. So, their attitude was correct</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;">5. Some knew the answer without knowing the approach or the formula ( do not ask me how. Apparently they were taught this in Abacus). These switched off the moment they wrote down the answer.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;">The method I taught them was the method that apparently Gauss had used in school. The story goes like this –</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;">When Gauss was in the equivalent of 6th standard, his teacher had been called by the principal for a few minutes. Since the teacher did not want the class to erupt, he gave them all a task – to add numbers from 1 to 100. Gauss pretty much jumped up immediately and said 5050. When quizzed about the method, Gauss said 1 + 100 = 101, 2 + 99 = 101, 3 + 98 = 101. If we pair up the numbers from the extremes, each pair adds up to 101. There are 50 such pairs. So the total would be 5050.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;">I outlined this method and the story to the students and then asked them to add from 1 to 200. Students in groups 1, 3 and 4 were receptive. But the rest were not. One can add numbers from 13 to 98 easily with Gauss’s method, and that is the beauty in learning the idea.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;"><b>Boys’ group dynamic is hurting their learning.</b></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;">If there is one clear take-away from this entire math camp it is this – The peer pressure and group dynamic seen in boys classrooms is very counter-productive to learning. They are keen to shout out an answer, deeply conscious of who is seen to be doing well, cannot contain themselves when they know a correct answer and frequently switch off when something is not in their comfort zone.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;">The way the course was designed, we would have 75% of the questions to be simple ones. These are built for teaching an idea. The remaining 25% would be the trickier ones, designed to push the students to think. Only 20% of the class tried the second 25%. The rest were either not too keen or intimidated by the top 20% to try the question.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;"><b>The girls are streets ahead attitude-wise, are ahead in mathematical ability also</b></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;">There is a lot of research in the west that says that men occupy the very top slots in companies and academia, but women as a group outperform men as a group substantially. Our classes were a microcosm of this. We taught about 120 students – 90 boys and 30 girls. The top 10 would have probably had 6-7 boys and 3-4 girls, which is about par. But probably 28 of the 30 girls would have been in the top 60 overall. The girls have the patience to keep trying when things do not fall in place, and enjoy the challenge of pushing themselves to solve newer types of questions. When they work in teams, all students contribute and they learn from each other. When boys work in teams, the smart one tries and the other 4-5 just accept their ideas. Boys learn very little from their peers. They are probably too young for learning in teams.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;"><b>A great experience for the two of us, it opened our own minds a lot</b></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;">We enjoyed large parts of the math camp. We ended the camp with enormous respect for teachers who handle kids of this age-group. One needs loads of patience to be able to handle this age-group and consistently deliver value. A big round of thanks is due to the teachers who do this well. We can state unequivocally that it is not easy.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;"><b>Schools cannot do much – this is a truth that we have to accept</b></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;">To put it bluntly, the variance in intellectual ability across the student group is vast. Some are really sharp, some far less so. The school system simply cannot do justice to the entire group. If the course is pegged close to the lowest level (as is often done), the brightest kids end up largely twiddling their thumbs. The top 10% of the kids learn in an average school day what a sharp teacher can teach them in 40 minutes. If the pedagogy is pegged at a higher level, then the bottom one-third gets left out.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;">It is politically incorrect to have break classes into sections of “bright” and “not-so-bright” students. Although if I had to be very objective about it, I would encourage this kind of breaking up. In the current set-up, the brightest kids are not deriving value from the school. And the slower ones end up being intimidated by the brighter ones from early on and end up not trying new ideas. So, with our current system we are helping neither bunch.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;"><b>What can be done to plug the gaps?</b></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;">This is probably the most critical question facing us. I would argue that two things need to be done</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;">1. Parents need to play a role in learning and teaching: This is non-negotiable. Our schools are stretched. They simply cannot handle the vastness of this school. Parents will have to learn new ideas and teach their kids. If the kid is bright, parents will have to find avenues to keep the kid intellectually stimulated.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;">2. We have to go online aggressively. The pace at which learning is imparted in schools will be correct only for perhaps 20% of the class. For the rest of the class, it will be too slow. Students need to be provided avenues for pushing themselves hard. </span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<br /></div>
</div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-84715858709142393302015-11-29T17:35:00.003-08:002015-11-29T17:36:31.907-08:00Climate Change talks, weighted averages and moral highground<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It is that time of the cycle again. Where world leaders sit around, pontificate and negotiate how best to share the burden of cutting carbon emissions. It is that time where Tom, Dick and Harry from the media showcase fabulous moral outrage at how little world leaders have committed to, and how the human race is going to destroy itself by 20xx. The air is going to be thicker with the scent of sanctimony than an agraharam from the 1950's.<br />
<br />
Competitive green grandstanding aside - we need to focus on two key questions. How grave is the problem? And what is the most just way of sharing the burden?<br />
<br />
Science is now certain that the earth is warming, and weaseallably certain the humans are driving this temperature increase. There is no clear-cut prediction about how much warming will happen by when and how much it will affect the world. But let us accept that the problem is grave enough already. (Personally, I am uncomfortable with accepting mathematical models and so want to retain a <a href="http://suddhospeak.blogspot.in/2015/02/how-to-invent-new-religion.html" target="_blank">speck of scepticism</a>. But this is largely due to the fact that I worked in an industry where I created mathematical models to reflect <i>my</i> views)<br />
<br />
Now, let us move to the second part of the problem. One of sharing the burden. The debate is outlined as follows. The stage is set as a face off between the Old Pollutants - North America, Europe, Japan (OPs) vs. Aspiring New Pollutants (ANPs) - India, China.<br />
<br />
The Old Pollutants' argument goes thus - We are facing a humongous task ahead of us. We need to share the burden. We do not have the luxury of 'allowing' you xx years of unbridled pollution and then think about increasing your share in cutting emissions. Just because you are new to the game, you cannot be given some time window.<br />
<br />
The aspiring new pollutants argument goes thus - You guys had a go, you guys are rich. You take the lead in cleaning the place. We are just beginning to see the kind of growth you saw 30 years ago. Having an energy burden placed on us is unfair.<br />
<br />
The Old Pollutants want Countries to commit to cutting their overall emission levels from current levels. The aspiring new pollutants want a time window before they make explicit commitments.<br />
<br />
The Old pollutants have been very savvy in framing the debate and have taken any discussion of per-capita carbon emission off the table. Due to the relative bargaining power they wield, they have been able to force the ANPs to negotiate on overall limits. They have claimed "moral highground" by leading the charge on initiating action on climate change. <a href="http://blogs.ft.com/maverecon/2009/07/does-poverty-give-a-country-the-right-to-pollute-the-atmosphere/#more-4091" target="_blank">This article from Willem Buiter</a> showcases this line of thinking really well.<br />
<br />
The Professor titles the piece - "Does poverty give a country the right to pollute the atmosphere?" straight-away climbing on to the moral high horse and refusing to come down. He goes on to say that Countries such as India suffer from post-Colonial hangover, argue that it is their turn to pollute, cite poverty as a reason when they still have military expenditure and are essentially shrugging off their moral obligation to fight climate change. If I were not inclined to give the benefit of doubt to the good professor, I would call the piece racist.<br />
<br />
These arguments are <a href="http://suddhospeak.blogspot.in/2009/07/greenhouse-gas-emissions-india-and.html" target="_blank">spurious in the extreme.</a> The ANPs are not claiming that it is their turn to pollute. The west seems to have the view that the top 'n' polluting Countries should pull together and lead the way. So, 1.2 billion strong India has a role, but no Country from the Middle East features on these lists. Technically, using this starting point, if India were to splinter and break itself into 30 Countries, we can use as much coal as we would want to, and then some. Utter balderash.<br />
<br />
<b>Per-capita numbers are out of whack in the extreme, but why spoil a good story with facts</b><br />
By any yardstick, per-capita consumption is the apt parameter to compare emissions levels to be just. India can be asked to take the lead and begin chipping in even when it reaches, say, 75% of the per-capita levels seen in Western Europe. <span style="color: blue;">Right now, India hovers at around one-sixth of the per-capita levels seen in Western Europe, around 6-7% of the per-capita levels seen in the US, and less than one-third of the per-capita seen by fellow ANP China.</span> Why India is even at this meeting and thinking of commitments baffles me.<br />
<br />
The argument from India should simple. We will attend this meeting when our per-capita numbers are 50% of that of the developed world. 300 million Indians are below poverty line. To us, this seems a bigger, and more immediate problem than fretting about potential global impacts of warming a few decades down the line.<br />
<br />
Accepting any form of carbon emissions control, any time in the future will be cruel to Indians. particularly the poorest Indians. We cannot afford to increase the cost of energy at this crucial juncture. The idea of limiting overall emissions is fatally flawed.<br />
<br />
<b>It's the weighted averages, stupid.</b><br />
Let us see how the underlying numbers behave with a thought experiment. Let us say, we divide the Indian population into 5 different groups, A to E in order of their carbon footprint. 'A' being the group with the highest footprint and E being the group of people flirting with the poverty line. And let us say, the percentage of population belonging to each category and their respective emission levels are as follows (in some random units). Needless to say, the category A will have carbon emissions substantially higher than the rest. India being India, around half the population will have very low carbon emissions.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqduwM4UDh4BQtEE2v67xD7cVSSMMq_gmNNRXfWBXLJS5hor6WuY2Y0ZY6RhDAh9FZzcfOL1kkPXgcJc0E3BDOUIadgL8dLv1UIAepkbTVTTIqeqyKlpViwXGC8uz8TBtMd7DN9RsprVw/s1600/Slide1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqduwM4UDh4BQtEE2v67xD7cVSSMMq_gmNNRXfWBXLJS5hor6WuY2Y0ZY6RhDAh9FZzcfOL1kkPXgcJc0E3BDOUIadgL8dLv1UIAepkbTVTTIqeqyKlpViwXGC8uz8TBtMd7DN9RsprVw/s320/Slide1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Now, let us say that Indians follow a regimen where each individual looks to cut emission Individuals in A, B and C should manage this. The emission number for E is probably just their share from common utilities such as Railways, Roadways etc. So, this probably creeps up a smidgeon. Conservatively, let us say group D stays flat. So, we have a table that probably looks like the one given below in 2020.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCrR7nWJeskvCFmLXSzlF6SUDXx7JjrSyPMib6nfn1bFcOXLKbLIMHimS0amN7RTSWOhb1O4vTleifnbvD4pNxBgTLewMLL_HU2TUEGFMsyFA8RPAgTyFmmhbtd8FbZ3a-EsOvJn3mW-U/s1600/Slide2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCrR7nWJeskvCFmLXSzlF6SUDXx7JjrSyPMib6nfn1bFcOXLKbLIMHimS0amN7RTSWOhb1O4vTleifnbvD4pNxBgTLewMLL_HU2TUEGFMsyFA8RPAgTyFmmhbtd8FbZ3a-EsOvJn3mW-U/s320/Slide2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Now, due to natural progression seen in a developing Country, there will be some shifts from lower category to higher category. Even for India's level of governance and management, he percentage of people really poor should fall in 5 years. So, proportion of E should fall, and we should see a general bumping up across the board. The 2020 table probably looks like the one shown below.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJawgpEFcyhyphenhyphenYUlCrGbxAj5obo4kJJMgqCm_WCvNF2n8YvYpEA8UWITrktwU3ie1zhHDBrAzDfgmUZpP1wFm7mAbtZB201e3_nx9WzrWyEk0Lq2D0Re78Xjr7kS0pjrmp3zbR2-SdbujY/s1600/Slide3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJawgpEFcyhyphenhyphenYUlCrGbxAj5obo4kJJMgqCm_WCvNF2n8YvYpEA8UWITrktwU3ie1zhHDBrAzDfgmUZpP1wFm7mAbtZB201e3_nx9WzrWyEk0Lq2D0Re78Xjr7kS0pjrmp3zbR2-SdbujY/s320/Slide3.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Now, comes the funny part. The average emission levels of three out of 5 has fallen, one has been flat, and the least significant contributor has gone up a smidgeon.The fall has been steep in categories A, B and C. We are talking off a 10% cut in emission levels across multiple sections for a Country with a chronic power shortage. So, one might expect that the overall emission levels would be lower.<br />
<br />
However, the overall average emission in 2015 is 15.9 while the one in 2020 is 17.2, about 9% higher. So, under aggressive assumptions about cut in emissions in each category, we still see an increase in overall emission levels. This is the case even under the assumption of modest shifts in weightages across categories. This is probably what will happen in India over the next 10 years or so. So, if we assume that folks riding bicycles would want to upgrade to motor bikes, and the ones with motor bikes will want to upgrade to cars, then even if we are careful across the board in each category, the overall emission level will probably increase. (And we have not even factored in population increases)<br />
<br />
Any commitment India makes, or hints at potentially making in another 5 years time will be suicidal. The western world's moral high ground is utter tosh. India sells ten times as many bikes as cars each year. Ten times! In the west, they use motorbikes only if they want to make a statement. Motorbike transport is considered so blatantly risky that no self-respecting westerner will use it as a regular vehicle to commute. In India, the ones travelling by motorbikes are the luckier, wealthier lot.<br />
<br />
The audacity with which these climate change negotiations have been outlined by the developed nations is spectacular. The irony of the developed world leading this need for lowering emissions is completely lost on most participants. The most benign nation and carbon-friendly western Country cannot begin to understand the first ideas of a "scarcity economy".<br />
<br />
<b>Scarcity Economy: Hands up if you have you heard of Compression Xerox</b><br />
I worked in a bank in London where it was fashionable (for a while) to do photocopies back-to-back. This way we could all kid ourselves about doing something for the environment. I graduated from one of the better colleges in the Country where the education was heavily subsidized. On an average, students studying there were wealthier than 90% of their compatriots. This does not mean they were rich, it is just another number to say how poor vast parts of the Country were/are. Quite a few students used to study with compression xerox copies of their classmates' notes. This way, on an A4 page you could go back to back and squeeze 4 sides on to this.<br />
<br />
This does unseemly things to the eyes, but budgetary constraints demanded this kind of cost-cutting. And I graduated in the 21st century, so I am not narrating some independence-era sob story here. At a cost of around 40 paise (that is less than 1 cent) per side of photocopying, Indians in the 90th percentile or above as far as wealth was concerned found the need to reduce this cost by 60%without really evaluating the health cost associated with it (On top of this, we used to share these photocopies. But lets ignore that for the time being). The annual cost of photocopying the normal way would have amounted to $10 per student. We were screwing over our own eyes by attempting to slash this by another 60% or so.<br />
<br />
Type in Indian middle class mentality, and you will see<a href="http://www.scoopwhoop.com/humor/10-indians-traits/" target="_blank"> gazillion</a> articles on top 10 habits followed by Indians in a bid to cut corners. Squeezing the life out of a toothpaste tube, adding water to 'draw' the last droplets of shampoo, 'merging' two bars of soap are all part of the normal upbringing for Indian kids. Shekar Kapoor has actually written a <a href="http://shekharkapur.com/blog/2012/08/i-am-just-so-middle-class/" target="_blank">very interesting article</a> on how this mentality might be holding us back. As an entrepreneur, the one thing that keeps me up at night is the worry about whether I am not thinking big enough.<br />
<br />
On more real world metrics, a majority of Indian states face regular chronic power shortages, a decent proportion of our villages still do not have electricity. Actually, make that an indecent number of Indian villages still do not have electricity.<br />
<br />
A scarcity economy whose individuals have been frightfully economically conscious historically, whose citizens on a per-capita basis pollute less than 10% of the guys on the other side of the table is being asked to reduce overall emissions when 20% of its population is still below poverty line. This would be satire gold if it were not so tragic.<br />
<br />
And India still has the gall to attend global climate change conferences. And the world still has the gall to demand that India chip in at an overall level to combat climate change. On top of all this, the developed world wants to pretend as if all this is done as a moral obligation to save the world. What about the moral obligation to improve the life of the poorest billion in the world? What about the morality of imposing extraordinary cost on the current generation of really poor people, in a bid to potentially improve the lives of the next-to-next generation of reasonably well off people?<br />
<br />
Moral high ground is just a facade, this is old-fashioned bullying. Either that, or the greens have hijacked this debate so much that no one cares about the poor of NOW, half as much as they worry about 'generations to come'.<br />
<br />
I want to get on top of some mountain and say "Saving the world is a bloody first world problem. All you holier-than-thous can take your global warming agendas and shove them where the Sun dont shine. Spend 3 weeks in a poor village in Bihar, see their energy 'consumption' level, remove your effing blinkers off and dont every effing talk to India about Green agenda again."<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, the pseudo-greens in my own Country have taken to talking about climate change and environmental protection. Caring about the environment and getting suckered into a commitment on climate change are two entirely different things. The Narmada bachao Andolan and efforts taken to protect Indian forests are Indian initiatives to protect the environment. These deserve a giant share of our time and energy. Climate change is a global problem. To put it bluntly, we have no business on that table. If the rest of the world is inviting us, shame on them. If we land there and pretend that is our problem also, shame on us.<br />
<br />
Even India's so-called right wing has been suckered into this. Apparently, our venerable PM Shree Shree Narendra Modiji has mentioned Climate Change as a possible reason for the unusual rains in Chennai. How immensely it can strengthen our negotiating position I can only imagine.<br />
<br />
<b>Indian liberals have always preferred grandstanding to hard bargaining</b><br />
The Indian left has been talking about India adopting Green measures and reducing emissions voluntarily. The left claims to represent the poorest people in the Country, and claims that any harm to the environment disproportionately affects them. This is true, if we considered local environmental damage. But on a global level, the opposite applies.<br />
<br />
Again let us look at a hypothetical scenario. Transitioning from Bharat Stage II to Bharat Stage IV (or some such tripe) increases the cost of a truck by perhaps Rs. 1 lakh. It takes the monthly EMI up by perhaps Rs. 2000. This means the average trucker (a giant 200000 strong unorgainized segment) probably needs to spend an extra 2 days on the road every month to bring in the same amount. Somewhere, there is a Freakonomics level research piece waiting to be written on the correlation between AIDS and BS transition. A trucker who might have had 5 days free per month now gets 3 days free thanks to contributing to the environment. Ergo, increased AIDS.<br />
<br />
Before the Green brigade jumps on to me on just putting random hypotheses out there, I am not saying there is a correlation here, I am not implying that there would be. I am not saying that we should not care about the environment. I am just saying that any deal India signs on climate change is going to affect the poorest Indians adversely. Something all liberals - Indian and Global, refuse to acknowledge. And that is the biggest travesty in this whole effing fiasco. Their fetish to pretend to do the morally correct thing blinds them to some basic realities.<br />
<br />
<b>The well-sold story has made us all lose sense of key priorities</b><br />
The doomsday predictions from Climate Change impact that might be seen a few decades from tug at heartstrings. But the solutions being discussed are all going to make the current, visible real lives of extremely poor people noticeably worse. Somehow this perversion has gone unnoticed by the world. I am not making a case for not caring about the environment. I want to make a case for fighting malaria and diabetes. These are disproportionately bigger problems for India. Climate Change is a problem either for the first world or for tiny island states. Just like how Greece was a first world problem.<br />
<br />
Recently, when attacks happened in Paris and Lebanon, the entire world's attention was on Paris, with Lebanon barely a footnote. Many found it perverse that one set of lives was considered noticeably more important than another. The Climate Change hoopla is far worse. Loss of quality in the future lives of people is considered a bigger crime than the poor quality of present lives of some others. The bigger irony is that the presently poor people/nations are being made to think like that.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Imagine a poor lamb merrily laughing its way to the slaughterhouse thinking how great it would be to feed the people who 'need' the proteins. India participating in Climate Change talks is similar to that. </i></b><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-50093383883055186242015-09-28T22:44:00.001-07:002015-09-28T22:45:21.395-07:00Conservative and Proud<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21663228-refugees-germanys-chancellor-brave-decisive-and-right-merkel-bold" target="_blank">fabulous humanitarian gesture</a> on immigration from Germany has been heart-warming. Although domestic pressures have made Germany <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21664583-move-taken-reduce-flow-migrants-undermines-europes-free-movement-policies-germany" target="_blank">revisit this</a>, the original gesture and scenes in German railway stations were wonderful to see. Angela Merkel's gesture has given the liberal media another tool to berate conservatives, and subtly shame them on the issue of immigration. This is wrong. The concerns raised by the conservatives are very real.<br />
<br />
The simplified counter to the idea of mass-immigration would be this - Today's immigration could lead to tomorrow's segregation, to the day after's fundamentalism. The addendum would read - Immigrants live on welfare for a long time and are a net drag on fiscal resources.<br />
<br />
But safety and welfare are but one small component of a list of concerns about immigration. It is an oversimplification to bring down immigration to only two issues - security or welfare. A Country could get in safe immigrants who are going to be net contributors to the state and the citizens might still be not comfortable with it. I can be instinctively against enforced multiculturalism without being a moron.<br />
<br />
As a conservative, I am peeved at this subculture that looks at any opposition to multiculturalism as bigotry. It is unfortunate that the conservative concern is not articulated and discussed well enough credibly. On one hand, we have the conservative movement hijcked by extremists; on the other we have liberals who are hell bent on belittling conservative ideology.<br />
<br />
If I have a second cousin who I know very little about who happens to visit my town, I am ok to grab a coffee with him post work. But even if I am not worried he is a thief I am not happy to have him park at my house for 2 weeks.<br />
<br />
Before you get the idea that I oppose all humanitarian gestures and would rather see refugees die, let me clarify that I also think that the response from Germany has been immense and it has made me an even bigger fan of the Germans than I was (and I was a <a href="http://suddhospeak.blogspot.in/2011/09/ich-bin-ein-berliner.html" target="_blank">pretty big fan</a> even before this). The way German society has reacted to the refugee crisis has been phenomenal. In the cynical world that we live it, it is very heart-warming to see so many people so willing to take in refugees and help them so much. If I were German, I would be insanely proud of this response from my Country.<br />
<br />
As unequivocal as I would be in Germany's praise on this issue, it is important to note that it is not a crime to be wary of immigrants. Similar to slut-shaming, and fat-shaming, this German response has led to a wave of conservative-shaming that has been going on. David Cameron's <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/03/david-cameron-shaming-britain-refugees-europe" target="_blank">response</a> has been shameful, Italy has not done enough, the Hungarian Prime minister is <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-crisis-why-hungarian-prime-minister-viktor-orban-sticks-to-his-anti-muslim-script-10487494.html" target="_blank">bigoted</a>, etc have been found on the web. Anyone who says he/she is worried about the scale of this immigration is painted as the second coming of Satan, or worse still Islamophobic.<br />
<br />
Conservatives in Europe have been worried about immigration and multiculturalism for a while now. This is why UKIP got so many votes, this is why Marie Le Pen is gaining momentum. Conservatives in America have been so worried about immigration that they have made a candidate out of Donald Trump. They have been pilloried either for lacking empathy or for whining because they lost out. Although a border-less world with stunted nationalistic impulses would be fabulous for peace initiatives, it is as Utopian as a Marxist world where everyone worked for collective good. All this moralizing is creating fertile ground for a nationalistic backlash that is going to be fun to watch. <br />
<br />
<div>
Immigration comes with a cost. It is very vital to debate and discuss this with key inputs from people who bear the cost. The left as ever is so eager to capture moral high-ground that there is a steadfast refusal to face facts. The gentlemen who shape immigration policies have probably never lost a job to an immigrant. Perhaps there is some value in listening to what the Hungary PM <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21667956-europes-migration-hardliners-have-some-reasonable-concerns-point-taken-mr-orban" target="_blank">has got to say</a>. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The pace of immigration cannot be imposed by an elite that has nothing to lose from this. On both European integration and immigration from outside EU, the population has grown wary. It is irrational to ask the population to suspend all nationalistic feeling and substitute this either with a trans-national love-in (EU) or with a moral high ground.<br />
<br />
The endless moralizing from the liberal media is frightfully annoying on this front. Worldwide, the left has fallen into the trap of believing that occupying moral high ground is in and of itself a solution to many problems. Liberals have a tendency to believe that they can push public opinion toward what it 'ought' to be by <a href="http://induecourse.ca/on-the-problem-of-normative-sociology/" target="_blank">tweaking policy</a>. Liberals' fetish for the morally correct humanitarian and environment-friendly gestures is often a load of sanctimonious tosh.<br />
<br />
The refugee crisis in the middle East has no easy solution. A small young Syrian boy being washed up on the shore is gut-wrenching; it is so soul-crushing that you want to desperately do something about it. But this desire to do something does not entitle one to belittle anyone voicing caution. With all the moral high ground and pro-poor policies they have, left wingers should be ruling everywhere. Democracy is designed for the guy who speaks for the poor and helpless. The game is stacked so in favour of leftists. But they really struggle electorally because they cannot get over this instinct of being holier-than-thou.<br />
<br />
My conservatism is not bigotry. I am not parochial and uncaring merely because I am anti-immigration. I can be anti-immigration, peace-loving, humanitarian and fiercely patriotic at the same time. This is an idea that liberals do not get. In their world, anyone saying - "Hey, we gotta be careful about how many we let into our Country?" is a bigot. </div>
<div>
<br />
I am a conservative/nationalist on a few other issues as well. As far as India is concerned, I am not a fan of trade with Pakistan, a pipeline running from the middle East through Afghanistan and Pakistan, or even on cricketing relations with Pakistan. I love the cricket team of our dear neighbours; I would be thrilled to see Amir bowl to Indian batsmen. But in some instances when Countries do not see eye to eye, I am of the view that we should not pretend to be friends. As individuals we try to avoid dealing with people who we do not get along with. As Countries, we should accept the fact that there is a huge trust-deficit and not hanker after foreign policy wins that just do not exist.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-54162499327365850062015-08-01T23:42:00.003-07:002015-08-01T23:45:19.191-07:00Occupational hazards<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;">"a risk accepted as a consequence of a particular occupation" - this is how occupational hazard is defined somewhere in the web. The term evokes pictures of construction workers without helmets, or miners inhaling toxic fumes. My theory is that a lot of professions toy with your mind in ways that create mental structures that can be termed as occupational hazards as well. I have jotted down a few based on my experiences, and from observing people around me. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;">May be some psychologist twiddling his thumbs through a doctoral thesis can capture this much better. There you go, this is an example of entrepreneurs' occupational hazard of believing he is a better "ideas guy" than others. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><b>Doctors:</b> Low on pain empathy. You see 100 patients with different levels of distress, I guess your ability to feel for someone's back ache becomes low after a while.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><b>Investment Bankers: </b>The obvious one is the belief that reality is just an extension of what happens with excel sheets. The more subtle one is the belief that they are fulfilling god's duty by making sure money reaches the right places/people. They also suffer from I-am-totally-worth-it-is - an affliction that makes you search for reasons that justify your own high pay. Where one who said "I dont know why I get paid so much for this" in his first year, can somehow no longer say that in his eighth year of banking, even though work is only 0.4x of what it was in first year, but pay is 5x of what it was. I-Bankers also start inhabiting their own world where big ideas matter more than small piece of execution. I cannot even have conversations with some of my friends who have been I-bankers for a while (too long for their own good). They worry about the impact of Cyprus's potential implosion on the world economy, via contagion through the EU tentacles. I begin thinking "How cool would it be if a fruit were also called Cyprus?" </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><b>Entrepreneurs:</b> These guys suffer from many of these. The most prominent being their appreciation of risk appetite rather than output. "Jo bhi ho, daring to kiya na" is the phrase one of the 'taporis' uses in Rangeela to describe a poor soul that has professed love to the beautiful girl in the mohalla. Entrepreneurs are wont to think like this. Call it justification for their own decision, or a kindred spirit feeling towards anyone trying to do something alone, Entrepreneurs have this balls-before-everything-else bias. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;">So, they have an unhealthy contempt towards people employed in professions where they do not have to stick their neck out - consultants spring to mind. To entrepreneurs their world view of this group is very similar to the famous quote on critics - "Critics are like eunuchs in a harem: they know how it’s done, they’ve seen it done every day, but they’re unable to do it themselves." Entrepreneurs will often (too often for their own good) discount good advice from well-meaning people because these well-meaning people lack the one quality that entrepreneurs claim is mandatory - sticking one's neck out.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><b>Teachers: Moralititis</b> Teachers, doctors, nurses, priests, researchers and a bunch of low-paying but useful professions have this belief that what their industry economics takes away can be offset by the joy/pride/sheer usefulness to society their job provides. So, this manifests in many ways - 1. Preachitis: Affects people in Godly professions more. They are blessed with sanctimony and view the world as something they can change by their mere presence. 2. Communistitis: Everything rich people do is wrong. Anyone who is rich would have gamed the system. I am glad I am not rich. 3. Justification-itis: People in these professions somehow find the need to say that money is not that important in life. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><b>Telecallers probably suffer from low self-esteem:</b> You call 100 people a day. 90 of them dismiss you with disdain. These are what you would call your good calls. 9 of the remaining 10 scream at you for calling them. You con the 100th one into buying something worthless. Being taken seriously one in 100 times must be soul-sapping</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;">Social workers suffer from holier-than-thou-itis; Real estate agents suffer from ethicsisnonsenseitis; CAs have knowitallitis. Politicians suffer from delusions of grandeur. TV personalities suffer from delusions of adequacy. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;">If you know of any other prominent hazards, please chip in.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 15px;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-20853383311247637882015-05-26T11:22:00.000-07:002015-05-26T12:02:28.728-07:00This is not exactly Schadenfreude, but is something similar<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
Recently, I saw an article about a bombing that led to 20 or so deaths and struggled to suppress a mild feeling of glee. I am afraid that there have been occasions like these in the past as well. Now, before you brand me as a sociopath, let me explain myself a little better.<br />
<br />
The recent bombing was the one in Saudi Arabia that killed 20-odd people. Saudi had been insulated from this now-global phenomenon called 'terror', in spite of having played a role in spreading it for many decades now. Although the idea of people losing their lives is sad, there is a part of me that goes "You guys had it coming"<br />
<br />
The idea of terror is kinda opposite to the idea of health, The old adage on health goes "We appreciate good health only when we lose it". Perhaps the one on terror should read "You appreciate terror only when <i>you</i> face it."<br />
<br />
For many years, we in India have whined about the role played by our neighbour in festering terror within our borders, only to have the Americans say all the right things but not really take this seriously. Once 9/11 happened, apparently the American president called Pakistan and pretty much said "You are with us, or you are against us". The language does change when the terror strikes home. London had also been merrily insulated from acts of terrorism for a long time (barring IRA). Facing a terror attack at 'home', changes the way nations view these things.<br />
<br />
Even if the old equations do not change overnight, at least the basis of discussion changes. More importantly, the focus and priorities change. US started worrying about attacks within their boundaries. And they were thirsting for vengeance in a way that was the polar opposite of how they had preached restraint to India on multiple occasions. They were so concerned about Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11 that Pakistan had to necessarily put India on the backburner for the next 8-10 years.<br />
<br />
In Saudi's case, things are not going to change dramatically. We are not going to witness Saudi renouncing Wahabbism. These kind of things mean too much to these people for them to completely suspend them. But with a war against Yemen, falling Oil Price, an emboldened Iran and terror attacks at home, Saudi might just not have the bandwidth to fund schools in far-flung places. And that has got to be a good thing.<br />
<br />
A lot of the terror worldwide has been funded one way or other by 'petrodollars' with the world inventing newer and newer ways of looking the other way. May be a few terror attacks at home can rein in Saudi funding of terror in a way American diplomacy has not achieved in 2 decades.<br />
<br />
The Kingdom has had a good run for more than 50 years now. Perhaps, some of the chickens are coming home to roost. </div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-91956865651505149282015-05-26T10:40:00.000-07:002015-05-26T10:40:07.462-07:00Meta - What does this mean?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The Hindu has this movie reviewer by the name Bharadwaj Rangan, who along with the venerable Nirmal Shekar kind of embody what the Hindu is all about. Serious writing from people who take their jobs seriously, with the one fallout being that often they take themselves too seriously and end up reminding us of Clevinger (go on, look that up. An article about writers from the Hindu where I do not show off that I read a lot. Now that would just not be fitting, would it?)<br />
<br />
Recently, Mr Rangan has been on a Meta-binge. Now I am not implying he has binge-ing on himself, but that he has been using the term Meta for every single movie review. May be he has a wager on or something. Mr. Rangan has called the following movies meta - Jigarthanda, Kallapadam, Utamma Villain, Kathai Thiraikadhai, Enakkul Oruvan. About Enakkul Oruvan, he says<br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<i><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">But in </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: 0px;">Enakkul Oruvan</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> , which is about the blurring lines between Vicky and Vignesh, this portrayal results in some interesting (if inadvertent) <span class="il">meta</span>-commentary. </span></span></i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: blue;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: blue;"><i>As much as the film is about Vicky and Vignesh, it also functions as a chronicle of Siddharth’s attempts to be seen as the actor who’s more than just the Kadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Yeppadi guy, the Rang De Basanti guy. Make-believe spills into reality in more ways than one.</i></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<i><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">The movie is said to be meta because it is interpreted as a narrative on Siddharth's acting career by Siddarth. You could not make this up. It is a reasonable assumption that Siddarth or the movie director did not think along these lines. These are the times when one wishes that the writers at the Hindu felt a little less pressure to revel in the beauty of their own insights. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Any and all self-references are not meta. Otherwise, every Rajnikant movie would be Meta.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Anyway, this made me think about all the Meta related terms that we could coin. Have a go at these, let us see how much you can score</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Let us start with a simple example - </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<div style="color: #222222; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<div style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
While having a cone icecream, your tongue accidentally touches your finger. Therefore you get a ___ taste. </div>
<div style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
Answer - Metallic</div>
<div style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
Scroll down for answers</div>
<div style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">1. Labeling every digital footprint with your own name in the hope of being scrolled</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
2. <span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Some dramatic change in the path to self-discovery</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">3. Using onself as a figure of speech to draw an analogy </span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">4. To grow as an individual by looking inwards</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">5. What do we call the process of speaking to oneself in Hindi throughout?</span><span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"> </span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">6. If self-loathing reaches a point where one hits oneself, this would be?</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">7. What branch of engg does start to hate one self</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Answers</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">1. Meta-tagging, 2. Metamorphosis 3. Metaphor 4. Metastasize 5. Meta-bol-ism 6. Meta-physical and 7. Met- allergy (although I cannot think of any branch of Engineering where one wouldn't hate oneself)</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Jokes apart, I would rather have writers who take their jobs seriously, than those who dont. This is why I still subscribe to the Hindu. I just hope that the people at the Hindu read this quote from Thomas P O'Neill - "Take your job seriously, but dont take yourself seriously." </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-54317892365479733692015-03-16T05:10:00.000-07:002015-03-16T17:37:50.185-07:00Fun Number Facts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Most of the times I have blogged whenever something has bugged me. I have railed against - <a href="http://suddhospeak.blogspot.in/2013/11/airtel-accursed-buggers.html" target="_blank">Internet service providers</a>, bankers (<a href="http://suddhospeak.blogspot.in/2009/06/financial-sector-participants-i.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://suddhospeak.blogspot.in/2009/07/financial-sector-participants-ii.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://suddhospeak.blogspot.in/2009/08/in-financial-world-there-are-some.html" target="_blank">here</a>), <a href="http://suddhospeak.blogspot.in/2015/03/why-three-fourth-is-not-always-75.html" target="_blank">statisticians</a>, entire Countries (<a href="http://suddhospeak.blogspot.in/2011/09/greece-crisis-in-laymanomics.html" target="_blank">Greece</a> and <a href="http://suddhospeak.blogspot.in/2012/06/india-and-i.html" target="_blank">India</a>) , <a href="http://suddhospeak.blogspot.in/2013/02/ac-rooms-and-oc-free-coffees.html" target="_blank"> analysts</a>, <a href="http://suddhospeak.blogspot.in/2015/02/how-to-invent-new-religion.html" target="_blank">global warming</a>, <a href="http://suddhospeak.blogspot.in/2011/10/why-i-am-not-fan-of-chartered.html" target="_blank">chartered accountants</a>, <a href="http://suddhospeak.blogspot.in/2009/05/world-of-tam-brahm-students-have-you.html" target="_blank">Tambrahms</a> etc.<br />
<br />
Just to balance things out a little bit, I am going to write about a few things that have amused me. I am going to focus on mathematical ideas that I have seen recently which have held my attention. Apparently, the Pythaogoren brotherhood used to go around behaving like a "cult", looking for mathematical patterns everywhere. I am going to list a set of popular references and interesting math bits here.<br />
<div>
<br />
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><b>Ramanujan Number</b>:</span> Many might have heard about this. This is the number 1729. It is special because this is the smallest natural number that can be split as sum of two cubes in two different ways. 1729 = 12^3 + 1^3 and 10^3 + 9^3. It must take a particularly brilliant mind to stumble upon this. Now, what is the smallest number that can be broken as the sum of two squares in two different ways? What is the smallest number that can be broken as the sum of two squares in two different ways if the squares have to be distinct?<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>Armstrong Number:</b></span> A 3-digit Armstrong number is a number that is the sum of the cubes of its digits. 153 is an Armtrong number. 1^3 + 5^3 + 3^3 = 153. There are a few more. Life is short. It will never feel complete if you do not know all the Armstrong numbers. Give it a go.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><b>Perfect Numbers:</b></span>, A perfect number is one that is equal to the sum of its factors (except itself of course). The talk on perfect numbers takes us on to numbers that are semiperfect, deficient, abundant or amicable. Some which are abundant but not semiperfect are called weird, as one can clearly see.<br />
<br />
My favourite in this whole lot are the "almost perfect" numbers. They, um, remind me of myself. And yeah, if you did not know before, number geeks are extremely fond of powers of two. </div>
<div>
<br />
<b style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue;">The best number in the world</span></b> is 73. This is from Big Bang Theory by the way. 73 in binary is a palindrome. 73 is the 21st prime, which by itself is not such a big deal, but if you reverse 73, it gives us 37 which is the 12th prime.The digits of 73, 7 * 3 gives us 21, which is why being the 21st prime is such a neat deal. </div>
<div>
<br />
There is only one natural number in the world, whose successor is a cube and predecessor is a square. Finding this number is not that tough. Proving it is fiendishly tough (Apparently. How would I know?). Fermat apparently mentioned about this number in some letter that he wrote.</div>
<div>
<br />
There is only one 4-digit perfect square that is of the form 'aabb' where a and b are digits from 0 to 9.</div>
<div>
<br />
Some other interesting nuggets - there is only one set of three consecutive odd integers all prime (Find these). We can find a set of 6 integers in AP all of which are less than 1000 and are prime (Find these as well, this is tougher). 16 is the only natural number that can be represented as x^y and y^x, where x, y are distinct. Who woulda thunk?<br />
<br />
An irrational number raised to an irrational power can be rational (unlike probably a lot that I have mentioned in this post). Try proving that.<br />
<br />
Every natural number in the world has a multiple that comprises all the digits appearing at least once each.<br />
<br />
Did you know that two triangles can have 3 angles equal and 2 sides equal and still be not-congruent to each other? A quadrilateral can have a pair of sides equal and a pair of sides parallel and still not be a parallelogram. I think it is easier to be this quadrilateral than to be those two triangles.<br />
<br />
Do you know that we put our kids through 15 years of school education without them discovering most of these facts? Let me stop right there. I can sense a rant against the Education system coming through the system. </div>
</div>
</div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-19156648390432936902015-03-13T05:43:00.000-07:002015-03-13T06:29:19.519-07:00India's daughter - liberals miss the mark, conservatives continue to be blinkered<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The recent banning of the documentary by Leslee Udwin has provided an excellent opportunity for India's chattering classes to get their K's into a T. Having run out of the usual banal routine within 2-3 days, the newscycle pressure has forced the gentlefolk of the media to up the ante to really wildly fantastically irrational territory.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/ban-on-indias-daughter-the-banality-of-evil-revisited/article6972012.ece" target="_blank">Sample this</a> from the liberal bastion, the Hindu. This is a classic<br />
<br />
<div class="body" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue;">Some years ago, a friend confided in me that in a fit of rage her husband had shouted that he wished she would be gang raped because she deserved it. Then he paused and said, “No, I think I want something worse than that to happen to you. I want you to die.”</span></span></div>
<div class="body" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue;">I watched <i style="outline: 0px;">India’s Daughter</i> before the <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/govt-firm-on-documentary-ban-bbc-advances-telecast/article6959833.ece?ref=relatedNews" style="outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_self">government banned it</a>. As I listened to the rapist explain how he and the others thought about women, I realised there was little difference between them and this husband. But that’s where the similarity ended. He was an upper caste male, an IIT aristocrat living in Silicon Valley, studying at a top business school. The only other difference was that he never acted on his thoughts.</span></span></div>
<div class="body" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Our lady author friend is gagging with feminist rage and so she extrapolates extravagantly. The sentence "The only other difference was that he never acted on this thoughts" is so brilliant that I hurt myself when I fell from the chair laughing. It is a shame that no one in the editing team from the venerable Hindu told the author "But dear, that seems a pretty big difference to me". </span></div>
<div class="body" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white;">One one hand, a piqued husband probably says something in anger, on the other hand lies the most heinous crime India has seen (or at least heard of) in the 21st century. This kind of shabby equivalence argument is why Indian intellectual liberalism has not had a credible voice since Nehru.</span></div>
<div class="body" style="margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Somewhere, the liberals have sought to draw a broad enough canvas so as to draw a link between a most gruesome crime and various shades of patriarchy that are present in our Country. This impulse from India's liberal media to simplify everything along pre-existing faultlines is ridiculous. A conversation on rape becomes about Patriarchy-is-the-root-cause vs. blame-the-victim schools of thought. That the rabid conservatives cannot go beyond the "India-is-great" koolaid is a given. That is no excuse for liberals to automatically occupy the diametrically opposite position. </span></span></span></div>
<div class="body" style="margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I am neither liberal nor conservative and if there is one thing that I want to scream out in this whole episode, it is this. </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I am saddened extremely that this crime against humanity has been perpetrated. I am shaken to the core that there exist people in this world who could commit crimes that are this gruesome. I am scared for women in our cities and our villages. This much is true. I must also say that I am not even a little bit ashamed . Sad, yes. Shamed, no. That my compatriot has committed this crime has not filled my whole being with shame. I feel as much connect with him as a present-day American would with the guy who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. </span></div>
<div class="body" style="margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I concede that a feudal patriarchal upbringing has played a role in the way we view women. I also accept that I am posit somewhere on this patriarchal hierarchy (I would argue that I aint that bad, my wife believes I am more chauvinist than I would like to believe. Thats a debate for another day. Either way, I sit somewhere on this line). But no matter where I sit on that line, I refuse to be co-opted into this collective "I feel shamed by this" - this feeling that the liberals want me to feel and the conservatives are supposedly rebelling against. That the convict and I share the same nationality has no bearing. </span></div>
<div class="body" style="margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I even feel shamed by the Country's response, have a sense of helplessness about the state of our security, but I feel no shame in relation to the fact that an "Indian" committed the crime. </span></div>
<div class="body" style="margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">All this talk of shame neatly brings us to the response from India's conservatives. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">This has been ridiculous. I could not even begin to wind my head around the ban. The policy response has been broadly "Throw a lot of mud. Some will probably stick". The primary issue has been with the producer's nationality. We still have this holier-than-thou attitude, which when mixed with colonial hangover results in "So, how are you any better?" as the built-in response to any issue.</span></div>
<div class="body" style="margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">On this front, the statistics on rape per 1000 people that has been doing the rounds has been very helpful to the conservative cause. <b><span style="color: red;">The stats are wrong. They are absurdly, ridiculously, unspinnably wrong.</span></b> The stats are all about "reported rapes" and these are miles apart from actual rape, especially for India. In the west they have come a long way on women's safety. Their rape cases are more a case of "pushing the boundaries" and date-rape. I would be shocked if any Indian woman who had lived in Delhi and New York claimed to feel safer in Delhi over NY. And we need to keep in mind that this is a very favourable sample point for India. If we had to compare, say, rural Bihar to Texas things might be far worse. </span></div>
<div class="body" style="margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Apparently more than two-thirds of rapes are committed by someone who the victim knows. About 0.1% of these will get reported in India. We must be wearing extraordinary truth-protection blinkers to believe that women are safer in India than they are in the west. <span style="color: red;"><b>I am appalled that so many of my friends shared links that showed these statistics. </b></span>I would not accuse India's conservative media of Intellectual dishonesty (they can at best be called merely dishonest), but many who shared these links should have known better.</span></div>
<div class="body" style="margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">In the US, they are talking about the merits of a "No means no" vs. "Yes means Yes" legal framework. 80% of Indian women would not know where to go to complain if they were sexually assaulted, and this is from the educated class. If you are poor, illiterate and a woman, then God save you. One needs to watch only 2-3 episodes of "Savdhan India" to get a sense of the level to which poor in our Country are not guaranteed any of the freedoms that the middle-class is. </span></div>
<div class="body" style="margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I am bitterly disappointed that so many of my friends shared the statistics. I am ashamed that not one of them came and said these stats seem absurd. Far more ashamed of this than of being a compatriot of the guy committed the crime. </span></div>
<div class="body" style="margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">We need to really stop this right-wing nonsense about how the west is out to malign us. Everything is not a conspiracy. If we did not view everything from the viewpoint of "Does this show my Country in bad light?", it would be that little bit better. We cannot look for any solutions if we continue to be in denial. </span></div>
<div class="body" style="margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">There are many things to be proud of in India. Protection given to women, especially poorer and vulnerable women is not one of them. The sooner we come to accept that, the sooner we can try to improve our lot. </span></div>
<div class="body" style="margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Last time I re-posted an article on how women should take safety precautions, a group of my friends came down on me like a ton of bricks (Their peeve was that I was somehow blaming-the-victim). I am troubled by the fact even they have not called out this conservative statistic fudging.</span></div>
<div class="body" style="margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-84935685634081382402015-03-06T23:06:00.000-08:002015-03-06T23:06:16.323-08:00Why three-fourth is not always 75%?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
One of my pet peeves is the fact that numerical ideas often (too often) get misused in a bid to convey the wrong impression. It is done by those who should know better and very often by those who indeed know better. Recently, Butttowood had a <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21644202-most-trading-strategies-are-not-tested-rigorously-enough-false-hope?fsrc=scn%2Ftw%2Fte%2Fpe%2Fed%2Ffalsehope" target="_blank">decent article</a> on this. The financial sector is the biggest culprit. Especially, in the willfully misleading category.<br />
<br />
When I was in my previous avatar as a flunky in a global investment advisory, the Economist at the firm in charge of global asset allocation released a report key insight was "Semiconductors lead the rest of technology in the recovery cycle in 75% of the recessions" (or some such tripe). Now, this godforsaken sector was one I was in charge of and therefore had to read more on.<br />
<br />
Turns out our Global Guru had looked at the last 4 major global recessions over the last 80 years and found that in 3 out of those 4 semis semiconductor stocks bounced sharper and sooner than the rest of tech.<br />
<br />
This is tripe. When you are doing empirical research and are looking at 4 cycles, you have no business describing anything in percentage terms. I stopped reading anything else published by the "Guru". But who am I to say anything? He was the top ranked Economist in the investment industry, and I was the guy who wasn't good enough to get fired when I desperately wanted to.<br />
<br />
In the Indian context, Outlook published a cover story saying total scam amount in India Rs. 1.75 lakhs crores or some such. They detailed many scams in this one -<br />
<br />
The list roughly goes like this<br />
900 crores - Fodder scam<br />
600 crores - Taj Corridor scam<br />
23 crores - Railway placements scam<br />
3 crores - Perhaps accepted in bribe by the first cousin once removed of some central Govt employee<br />
etc etc.<br />
<br />
The last scam number listed was<br />
<br />
Total black money stashed abroad = 1.72 lakh crores (estimated).<br />
<br />
So, this ginormous number that forms more than 95% of the amount put in the cover page is plucked out of the hat. So, why the $#*k should you go into details in the other scams?<br />
<br />
There is this beautiful idea of significant digits in the art of measurement. I never really understood this while at school. Any measurement, be it with Vernier Callipers or Screw guage comes with a built-in error factor. (Least Count?). So, whenever you gave any measurement the number of significant digits must be determined keeping this in mind.<br />
<br />
So, if the built-in error is 1 cm. We cannot give a measurement that says 223.5 cms (even if take 10 measurements and average this out). We can at best say 223 cms or 224 cms. The 223.5 suggests that we have confidence over that 0.5, which we can technically not have. Simple idea really. It is like saying if your measurement has some built-in error, do not convey more accuracy than there is. So, if you measure some length 18 times with Vernier Callipers and the average comes out to be 32.222cms. You should bite the bullet and say roughly 32cms. Conveying confidence beyond what the numbers tell you is a crime (or at least should be considered one). Finance and sports are the two fields where this gets done the most.<br />
<br />
You might have seen something along these lines frequently<br />
<br />
1. The best stock returns are seen from Thursday to Monday.<br />
2. Left-arm bowlers have seen the most success in ODIs conducted since the 1990s.<br />
3. Ricky Ponting really struggles against India as he has an average that is 6 runs than his overall average<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>Why are these absurd?</b></span><br />
If you analysed stock returns over three-day window, some three window would have the best returns. This does not mean that that three-day window has something special going for it. This means something else. Something very special. Something that every statistician worth his salt must have the courage to say on 90% of the times he attempts some statistical analysis. This means <i>nothing.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Ditto the other two inferences.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>The idea of statistical significance</b></span><br />
So, are all statistical inferences absurd? Of course not. This is where the term statistical significance comes into the picture. If the observation is statistically significant, the flag must be raised. And only then must the flag be raised. So, how do we wind our heads around statistical significance. Statisticians have fancy terms for this. But let us see if we can have an intuitive approach around this. Let us have a go at this with an example.<br />
<br />
Let us say we want to test whether Ricky Ponting underperformance against a particular team, say, India is statistically significant. Let us further say his average against India is less than his overall average by about 15% (this looks significant).<br />
<br />
Now, let us not take his average against his nemesis, India and keep it as a benchmark metric. Now, let us revisit the original sample and extract a sub-sample from this randomly. If the benchmark metric is lower than that observed in the sub-sample, say, 90% of the time, then let us say that the underperformance is statistically significant.<br />
<br />
Let us build on this with numbers. Let us say, Ricky Ponting has scores of {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10} in 10 innings. Further let us say, he has played 2 matches each against 5 teams. His overall average is 5.5. Now, let us say he has an average against India that is more than 15% less than his overall average. Or, an average of 4.5 or lesser. Is this statistically significant?<br />
<br />
If we extract two scores that have to average 4.5 or lesser, we can have {1, 2}, {1, 3} {1, 4}, {1, 5}, {1, 6}, {1, 7}, {1, 8}, {2, 3}, {2, 4}, {2, 5}, {2, 6}{2, 7}, {3, 4}, {3, 5}, {3, 6}, {4, 5} - 16 possibilities. Totally, there are 45 possibilities. So, there is a nearly 40% chance that some random sample of 2 out of this 10 will have an average that is 15% lesser than the original. So, this 15% below average number means nothing. It is not statistically significant.<br />
<br />
In reality, a great many quoted inferences derived from numbers are not statistically significant. If you are handed any statistical inference on a platter, you have hajaar grounds to suspect it is false. And we have not even come to the idea of bias. There are many ways in which we can bias a sample, Some biases creep in, while some others are introduced. Let me give a few examples.<br />
<br />
The 2015 world cup stats counter states rather gleefully that the Indian batting unit has one of the highest strike rates in power plays. Now, we need to remember that this is largely because of 70% of India's cricket is played on subcontinental wickets, where the par score is 330-ish. England might play 50% of its matches on English wickets, where the par score might be 260-ish. So, unless the powerplay strike rates are at least 30% apart, we have no business making any inferences. These are the biases that the samples naturally carry.<br />
<br />
There are some other biases that data-presenters can bring in. The most beautiful and one that most fudge-statisticians introduce with an unbearable holier-than-thou approach is the selection bias. Let me deal with this with an example.<br />
<br />
Let us say, there are two stocks Alpha and Beta that, as an analyst I want to suggest are correlated heavily. I will draw the stock charts for Alpha and Beta and compute correlation numbers. But here is where I will be smart. I will choose the end date to be today's date and the start date to be any date from 2010 to 2013. I will find the correlation numbers for all 1000 or so possibilities and pick the date from which the correlation is the highest. If it is a Friday afternoon and I want to be really intellectually dishonest before my weekend, I will 'float' my end date also.<br />
<br />
For any two stocks, if you have large enough database, about 40 minutes of time on your hands, and a moral compass pointing towards "bonus" there is a 50% chance of finding one set of dates where the correlation is more than 90%. You can even wear your best "Why are you looking at me like that. This is what the numbers are telling us". If you want to be thorough, you should find some pseudo-intellectual justification for having picked the date range that you did indeed pick. In case you are wondering how I know this scam with this much clarity, you should look for Business Objects Cognos 91% correlation on some research database. (In my defence, I am not proud of this).<br />
<br />
A good statistician is one who can look at a lot of data and tell us why they do not mean much; and then pick up one nugget that actually means something. The statistician who cannot say "this means nothing" should be kicked out of his job. Lot of stats that we see online and on Television are the ones that should be binned. </div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-32690214545619040462015-02-06T00:03:00.000-08:002015-02-16T04:03:44.137-08:00How to invent a new religion<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Let us say we want to start a new religion. Why, you ask? It is a wonderful Friday morning; thats it. <br />
<br />
Now, we are going to about it very scientifically. We are going to pick up the best practices that our predecessors followed, adapt them to the 21st century and then improvise from there.<br />
<br />
We need a God. We have seen the ones without God, and they seem to struggle to grow beyond "weird cult". God cannot be a person, we have seen how that fails. He/She cannot be overly mythological as we are dealing with a 21st century audience. God has to be something omipresent but benign, something no one will have an issue with. Sparkling in its simplicity, wonderfully powerful with loads of uncontestable goodness. <br />
<br />
We need some Godly material, some testament/veda kind of thing that gives messages from God. The usual guff about not killing anyone, not harming anyone will have to be improved upon a little, now that we have grand legal systems. The material guide must be cloyingly good-natured. So, in case some hyper-rational dudes get all wound up that the backstories do not fit, we can then say "We are saying do not kill your brother. You wouldnt want to disagree with that, would you?"<br />
<br />
The material needs to have credibility and must come from some kind of powerful body. Again, as we are dealing with the 21st century, so something packaged as Science might be useful. Also, this must be refurbished every now and then. This is where I think the major religions lost out a bit and had to resort to "reform" and stuff. Let us be very Kaizen about this and institute continuous improvement as part of the original package.<br />
<br />
We need a messenger for God. No one really reads the original stuff, so this messenger person must be phenomenal. People must go - "If he says so, it must be true". The person must have credibility, must have made his money and earned his name in another field and must have wide reach. This is the place that gives room for a tweak. We can look at a model where there is more than one messenger. With scandal and temptation everywhere, and a feral media presence, we cannot take chances with just the one messenger. In my mind, we should look from within the ranks of Hollywood icons, wildly successful entrepreneurs. retired politicians.<br />
<br />
We need guilt. This one is obvious. Whats the point of inventing an elaborate religion if we cannot control the masses with some kind of check-back mechanism. Whats the fun in that? And where there is guilt, there must be repentance/penance.<br />
<br />
We need a conversion mechanism. Without this, again we run the risk of numbers not being on our side. We should not take on the existing religions head-on. They tend to get all violent and prickly if we do that. We should slowly co-opt people from within the biggies. At first, they would worship both sets of gods; slowly we would acquire more mindspace, and within a century we should leave no trace of the original Gods. This is what happened to the Pagans. We should target one vulnerable "new Pagan" at a time and slowly create momentum around the conversion idea.<br />
<br />
We need to have a modern version of "burning people at the stake". There needs to be some degree of fear. If not fear of death, at least fear of ostracism, (or fear of lack of funding).<br />
<br />
We need congregations. Massive gatherings of people where we reaffirm our faith, have a good time and return to our original destinations with good cheer and more stuff to preach.<br />
<br />
We should not be geographically constrained. We should have devotees everywhere, without any region feeling aggrieved or under-represented. (This is where our distributed-leadership, local icon model could be better). The moment we have devotees across nations, we can transcend nationalism and push agendas better.<br />
<br />
This is the core framework. Because we get to start from scratch, we can try some new stunts also. May be we can pick up a flag, or specify attire; something that screams identity.<br />
<br />
Now, if only we had thought of all this 20 years earlier. Someone has beaten us to this. There is already a religion that has been creeping into our existence over the past two decades. It started as a mere cult, but has now reached preposterous levels. Within years, it will be bigger than the big religions. From there on, it will be a small step to banish the existing religions.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: blue;">God</span> </b>- Nature. If you want to get all polytheistic about it, add Environment, Earth, Water, Resource etc to it. In an interesting irony, these guys have gone all reverse-pagan on the existing religions.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: blue;">Material</span>: </b>Stuff published by IPCC. No one really reads this. It is periodically updated, is suitably internationally-themed, has Scientific titles adorning its every orifice. Almost all its original fantastical claims have been re-jigged. Now, anyone who contests this is termed a "denier". Any time they come out with a report, everyone from the Economist to the Times of India must carry an update. Ticks all boxes really.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>Messenger(s)</b></span>: They started with Al Gore, then they realized that retired or otherwise, politicians have only so much credibility, so went on a recruitment drive. Now, the largest icon is a Celebrity Economist, Paul Krugman. These days, Krugman does not start any article without berating the "deiners" for questioning climate change. If you have noticed, many of the articles will start with "if there was any doubt, that has been removed now". If doubt has been removed now, how credible were you when you said there was no doubt, way back in 2010? is a question you dare not ask.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: blue;">Guilt:</span></b> Man is the root cause of all environmental damage, repeat after me for I am IPCC (Imagine this as a rap). The beauty of the material is the fact that even if he/she does not understand any of the climate-model guff (No one does, by the way), some two bit nincompoop can still tell you "I do not understand why you keep talking about scientific evidence. I cannot imagine you want to destroy all forests and do not want to care about the environment."<br />
<br />
For real-world purposes, you can now buy carbon offsets. People eat junk food all the time, lay their body to waste with all kinds of things, but are asked to feel bad if they travel in a car.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>Penance</b>:</span> Voluntary carbon offsets. People track their carbon footprint, and then offset their "excess" carbon. Need I say more. I am not making this up<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: blue;">Burning at the stake:</span></b> Scientists who contest anything said about his can lose funding. Republican senators will be called stupid, you or I would be called a "denier".<a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100058265/us-physics-professor-global-warming-is-the-greatest-and-most-successful-pseudoscientific-fraud-i-have-seen-in-my-long-life/" target="_blank">This letter</a> is brilliant. This <a href="http://www.yelp.com/topic/san-francisco-the-economist-cut-down-rainforests-and-stop-global-warming" target="_blank">piece of research</a> is illuminating, wonderfully challenging some taboos. But I guess the people who wrote these are now without tenure.<br />
<br />
<b style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue;">Pan-national symbol:</span></b> Green. This is brilliant. No one has adopted a color this favourably before. the other "red" buggers seem benign in comparison. Even climate-agnostics such as 2IIM offer a <a href="http://online.2iim.com/" target="_blank">Green accoun</a>t for the products they sell.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>Congregations:</b></span> Davos, here I come. Of course, if I do make the trip, I must remember to voluntarily offset my carbon footprint.<br />
<br />
We still do not know where the green brigade stand on iconoclasm, whether they will fight crusades, or create backtories to fill out the mythology. But make no mistake, this is a religion alright. Across national boundaries, never have a group of people been so singularly driven by a single ideology.<br />
<br />
I must state that this article has nothing to do with my stand on climate change. I might be a denier or an aspiring high priest. So, kindly do not brand me as one or the other based on just this article.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-41610722770218791472015-01-30T21:26:00.001-08:002015-01-30T21:36:22.425-08:00Hired Guns can be fired too!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Guns hired for a specific task can and will be fired once task is fulfilled. If a 20-year old hired gun does not know this, it is a pity. If a 60-year old hired gun does not know this, the joke is on the hired gun.<br />
<br />
My sympathies are with party-workers, but there is a part of me that goes "You had this coming."<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<a href="http://bitstrips.com/r/HLRQZ"><img src="http://bitstrips.com/strips/HLRQZ.png" /></a></div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-32305183627671724802014-12-15T03:27:00.003-08:002014-12-15T03:27:44.050-08:00BJP Government - Indian middle-class's deal with the devil<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Right when the BJP came to power with a thumping majority, a large part of modern(-ish) middle-class India knew we had made a deal with the devil. We all knew that this group of fellows would talk the talk and hopefully walk the walk also as far as basic governance and economy were concerned. We also knew that they were blessed with a section that can be politely termed as "lunatic fringe" that would somehow feel empowered to voice its opinions and spout general garbage.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In fact, we even knew that some elements who had kept their inner lunatic under control for many years, would now get the courage to voice their view without fear of ridicule. We had hoped that this book-revising, moralizing, nonsense-spouting brigade would be kept in check and that the big daddy about town was so serious about modernizing India that he would not get distracted with this. That hope still lives on. But the absolute conviction that the Messiah had arrived is gone. With Ms. Swaraj's brilliant idea of calling the Bhagwad Gita a national book, we can confidently say the honeymoon period is over. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For a machinery that is so conscious of manipulating the news cycle, this government has been losing the PR war over the past few weeks. And funnily enough, the opposition has had little to do with this.<br />
<br />
<b>This government will be evaluated on both metrics - Right now they are in trouble</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjADQCLgwKaaRKDWMFh1MtZqvHVVhMpVEJ2rQJJtribJR7T0QQBheUyQiQfmuGfd28SZp6e0-80Eq4z4HOrkBq7MBzM1qvimSvp3fcr1dYHD9M5Hxg7yZw-7rZvj7_tDpTmN_AmLFB068E/s1600/Slide1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjADQCLgwKaaRKDWMFh1MtZqvHVVhMpVEJ2rQJJtribJR7T0QQBheUyQiQfmuGfd28SZp6e0-80Eq4z4HOrkBq7MBzM1qvimSvp3fcr1dYHD9M5Hxg7yZw-7rZvj7_tDpTmN_AmLFB068E/s1600/Slide1.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The first few months had the gentlemen talking reforms, foreign trips, goodwill gestures, etc. The last few weeks have been full of Sadhvis and conversions.<br />
<br />
It is incumbent upon Indian middle-class to communicate that we will not put up with this revisionism; that we feel that this is abhorrent. If the middle-class does not convey this, it will further embolden the fringe to try more stunts.<br />
<br />
<b>What exactly did we (Indian middle-class) sign up for?</b><br />
<br />
As an electorate, we do not ask for much. We do not want big bang reforms. We want a quietly efficient government that lets us carry on with life. We do not want government leading the charge on anything. Keep regulations uncomplicated, taxation non-onerous, government-servants non-smug; provide roti, bijli, pani for people. Thats about it really. Anything more is a bonus. The bar on governance is really low here.<br />
<br />
But having said this, Indian middle-class also does not put up with moralizing, sanctimonious, religious-triumphalism.<br />
<br />
This is the deal we signed up for in May 2014. If the government cannot deliver on this, then all bets on performance-led government are off. A world where the Economy grows 11% every year, but one in which Pravin Togadia should be taken seriously would be a sad state of affairs.<br />
<br />
If the fringe keeps talking, the pressures on the government will shoot up. And this is something Mr. Shah and Mr. Modi need to keep in mind.<br />
<br />
<b>Where does the government stand now?</b><br />
<br />
Not as high as they think they are on the Economy-front, but far worse than what they imagine they are on the lunacy front.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1Mv_bm17XUqbthncWhHTrsVCZI-9OB4blJ5b8qpKdzt7qiCONzJCgu8kNfPmsZvFJkZPyher0FUyGpPgp-Cba1HMQ9A1yjgO1BQJ4M8cHZKtkHAe3ElvqOo9ntUdxlmwPcNUQBrEc9Ak/s1600/Slide2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1Mv_bm17XUqbthncWhHTrsVCZI-9OB4blJ5b8qpKdzt7qiCONzJCgu8kNfPmsZvFJkZPyher0FUyGpPgp-Cba1HMQ9A1yjgO1BQJ4M8cHZKtkHAe3ElvqOo9ntUdxlmwPcNUQBrEc9Ak/s1600/Slide2.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Why this is such a big deal? Because the jury is still out on what kind of person our PM is</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr3iSpAlPgTR_rdSPc9OCPAts61p10rPma58yZoFsw2BFaqwBdFLHO4tkKBHouzBzGaES4dRuUnF3h0MB85tG4FmdyfH-fLVhx8UWOKdEKEk79qCGSbVsmWY6fxuiWHbmccRlj4cqc_o0/s1600/Slide6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr3iSpAlPgTR_rdSPc9OCPAts61p10rPma58yZoFsw2BFaqwBdFLHO4tkKBHouzBzGaES4dRuUnF3h0MB85tG4FmdyfH-fLVhx8UWOKdEKEk79qCGSbVsmWY6fxuiWHbmccRlj4cqc_o0/s1600/Slide6.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The key questions surrounding Mr. Modi are - <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">Is he a fiercely secular person who just happens to be religious? Or, is he merely a pragmatist who is going to push 'Hindutva' sooner or later?</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"> The above chart is from a previous post on <a href="http://suddhospeak.blogspot.in/2014/10/india-religion-nehru-modi-charts.html" target="_blank">Nehru, religion and secularism</a></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><br /></span>
People who voted for Mr. Modi, ones who were very happy that we finally had a 'strong' leader are still not sure which of the two slots Mr. Modi occupies. Mr. Modi has stayed away from all religion talk thus far. In the first few months, when no one else was talking religion this was good enough. But now, when everyone else seems to have developed a taste for religious triumphalism, this aint good enough.<br />
<br />
Saying nothing now would be akin to when Mr. Manmohan Singh said he was a person of integrity, when all and sundry in his cabinet was filling his boots. At least Mr. Singh had the excuse of being merely a lame duck, Mr. Modi has not that luxury. If he cannot contain Ms. Sadhvi from saying inane things, whats the point of that 56-inch chest?<br />
<br />Sooner or later, the PM must come out and say in as many words that some of these jokers are talking out of their hat. Silence will not cut it any more. And as the middle-class, if we cannot convey that, the joke really is on us.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-9673560375251159582014-11-16T21:01:00.001-08:002014-11-16T21:01:33.284-08:00Indian Liberal celebrating Nehru<a href="http://bitstrips.com/r/KDF8F"><img src="http://bitstrips.com/strips/KDF8F.png"/></a>Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-10403071926612296602014-10-24T01:16:00.000-07:002014-10-24T01:16:20.879-07:00India, Religion, Nehru, Modi, Charts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Nehru was a fierce patriot and an ideologue. Luckily for India, he was also a powerful enough leader who could shape an entire Country's viewpoints around his ideology. This is precisely why secularism is such a heavily-used word in Indian lexicon. Nehru was unwavering in his view that India must be accommodating of her minorities (not just the on the basis of religion) and steadfastly inculcated this belief in her citizens. By the sheer force of his personality, Nehru built this 'accommodation' into the Country's DNA.<br />
<br />
This was also the time that the majority religion was reformed and large parts of the Country brought into a single legal code. Superstitions were contested and Hinduism probably gained its character as a truly modern religion during this period. The basic tenets were uncontested, but the religion had kind of upgraded itself for 21st century. More importantly, the fanatical, rabid segments were consigned to the fringe.<br />
<br />
India's middle class lapped this up as this suited the prevailing mood in the Country as well. As it turned out, the only real opposition came from the religious right and they were rightly considered a bit off. And as the law of unintended consequences goes, Indian polity came to be aligned on one axis. On one extreme was secular, on the other was the religious right.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYj1VNgSLSw4tdyphJXkOLgurHSgt71xCr9A74HtjExJb6AqdVzc-Sx_i7AHX2wa3BlA9MnrfFYAkD3duPFxw8YBz8IXZpZipHrTOCcl-RXBBqyzQDI9UlutdQ4-escH9DaZwPwalKuyI/s1600/Slide2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYj1VNgSLSw4tdyphJXkOLgurHSgt71xCr9A74HtjExJb6AqdVzc-Sx_i7AHX2wa3BlA9MnrfFYAkD3duPFxw8YBz8IXZpZipHrTOCcl-RXBBqyzQDI9UlutdQ4-escH9DaZwPwalKuyI/s1600/Slide2.JPG" height="360" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>I have the duty to be secular, and a right to be religious - Can these two not co-exist?</b></span><br />
<br />
So, perversely, Indians had to position themselves on this axis. Indian elite was mildly derisory of anything overtly religious. This axis, although it gave primacy to Secularism, was an oversimplification. Indians who were religious were sooner or later going to feel bad about being prima-facie non-secular. The elites' derision of religiosity also grated middle-class Indians. Because, truth be told, the axes on religion and secular ought to be really defined differently. They are not on either ends of the same spectrum, they are independent axes.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNIPuZhjHhV1JSwxMBzi7AvLw6FKL8Di4z-pRr6WPrlEhCBm0HZsaJzRGqGbEHy7ImwJYOoA-Jehyphenhyphen2XCTtZMDiDZbQLAb69MUoGZ4xftDshbwY7jpsPev_4gJwamKlqz4dzncXe-52QOQ/s1600/Slide3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNIPuZhjHhV1JSwxMBzi7AvLw6FKL8Di4z-pRr6WPrlEhCBm0HZsaJzRGqGbEHy7ImwJYOoA-Jehyphenhyphen2XCTtZMDiDZbQLAb69MUoGZ4xftDshbwY7jpsPev_4gJwamKlqz4dzncXe-52QOQ/s1600/Slide3.JPG" height="360" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
And on these axes, Indians camped in the top right were screaming for someone to articulate their case. The fact that one could be deeply religious and fiercely secular was not well-articulated. Perhaps because he was not that religious, even the visionary Nehru did not realize that this quadrant constituted a majority of Indians and the oversimplification of religious vs. secular was an affront to this brigade. Unwittingly, and by the sheer force of his personality, Nehru was dragging this group to the bottom-right quadrant.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiusR2mTRGF5AqkRqaEGwFJhnm6T44ofD0YVaEgGCdAkqn1lfXDZps1LcLCYI90Lxsgr1spAkgZng4Dbqw0tzhL_7rJf27XwgYpZWg-LAJDBOYkcOOof-9RYADVRYnRC_YrjHwQmgANo5U/s1600/Slide4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiusR2mTRGF5AqkRqaEGwFJhnm6T44ofD0YVaEgGCdAkqn1lfXDZps1LcLCYI90Lxsgr1spAkgZng4Dbqw0tzhL_7rJf27XwgYpZWg-LAJDBOYkcOOof-9RYADVRYnRC_YrjHwQmgANo5U/s1600/Slide4.JPG" height="360" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, because India never really had a leader to champion the case for the top-right quadrant, the Country has seen a consistent struggle between religion and secularism. For long, religion did not have a role to play in public life. More recently, religion (Hinduism, particularly) has become more assertive of its place. This is not to be seen as a per se negative. Indians are a deeply religious people and it would be a mistake to again classify this as something to be apologetic about.(a mistake Indian liberal media often tends to make).<br />
<br />
Where India lies along the vertical axis is irrelevant, as long as it is on the right side of the horizontal axis. This is a point that Indian elite never got. The liberal media (especially magazines such as The Hindu) thought everyone else was bigoted. And this patronizing attitude drove the middle-class towards the right-wing. This shift towards the right-wing was also helped by the ruling party. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>When does one A-word become the other?</b></span><br />
<br />
Nehru built an India designed to be accommodating of segments that needed to feel secure. However, his progeny had not that kind of vision, nor did they have the charisma to drag the entire Country towards one direction (Nehru-Gandhi family's charisma curve is asymptotic with the X-axis). The party that he built also lost its backbone and came to be in thrall of the family. So, the thin line separating accommodation and appeasement blurred and soon disappeared.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF_XVvmUyCUobRQO2dhDF6qmgXPcLqxXjMXmK4i1SdS2TfGaBAuytseFPLLTI7SAo1ccF_Drd3G3adtKA0DDDrW3IobxZT9nrh_hTrwPAAlCtfYSeAY8VddvuB56j8FOnJXGPFYp2OrYo/s1600/Slide5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF_XVvmUyCUobRQO2dhDF6qmgXPcLqxXjMXmK4i1SdS2TfGaBAuytseFPLLTI7SAo1ccF_Drd3G3adtKA0DDDrW3IobxZT9nrh_hTrwPAAlCtfYSeAY8VddvuB56j8FOnJXGPFYp2OrYo/s1600/Slide5.JPG" height="360" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
So, it has come to a point where the right-wing is having its moment under the sun. How the Indian right plays its cards now will probably be crucial. The Country's PM has steadfastly stayed away from any talk on or of or about religion in his first four months in power. He has nobly stayed away from anything that takes him away from governance. But apprehensions still persist about what he is really about.<br />
<br />
Is he a fiercely secular person who just happens to be religious? Or, is he merely a pragmatist who is going to push 'Hindutva' sooner or later? I think ordinary Indians, Congress top brass (what is left of it) and RSS are all mulling over this question.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWQD0-0ifiWxBaY5tyTsheHI5MVOpAmcRlAAFLI41DbjtIYdVSFpkF4EWMvGsN9Lvu5uBrNidGqcT9tYdLUGPgnW1BrJ6wCeiJmxAOshMgsyIdoefFKKIFg7L844AEC9bQPYn-jahKv4g/s1600/Slide6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWQD0-0ifiWxBaY5tyTsheHI5MVOpAmcRlAAFLI41DbjtIYdVSFpkF4EWMvGsN9Lvu5uBrNidGqcT9tYdLUGPgnW1BrJ6wCeiJmxAOshMgsyIdoefFKKIFg7L844AEC9bQPYn-jahKv4g/s1600/Slide6.JPG" height="360" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Now, on to the caveats. Kindly bear in mind that this is more or less a thought experiment and nothing more than that. Nor are these charts in any way reflections of my own prejudices. I am the same bigoted guy I was before these charts.<br />
<br />
Personally, I have seen a lot of right-wing assertiveness of Indian heritage, Hindu religion and what-not on Social media recently. 30 years ago, we were built to be proud of the fact that Zail Singh was our president, merely because he was a Sikh. Now, this right-wing brigade wants us to be proud of the fact that Obama lights diyas or Cameron says vedic maths. Neither feeling of pride is going to do us any good.<br />
<br /></div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-14149213665022462482014-10-14T05:40:00.002-07:002014-10-14T05:42:40.262-07:00Go to their world<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Great parenting is about two things - i) Hanging in there and ii) Deluding yourself into believing you are outstanding at this. Being from a modern Indian family (ahem!), the wife and I have split things right down the middle. As it turns out, I am so good at my part that I can now share the gyaan as well.<br />
<br />
I am working on some marketing ideas for the company right now, so am in the mood for pithy sayings. So, parenting can be captured in one phrase - "Go to their World"<br />
<br />
Kids live in a part make-believe, not fully-formed world of their own. They are trying to make sense of all the inputs they receive. Let me provide a sample of what my son has said to me over the past few months.<br />
<br />
After watching Ice Age, continental drift, he said: In earlier times, they could drive by car from America to here as the entire world was connected.<br />
<br />
When he was told that he didnt exist when Amma and I got married,<br />
he went "So, you guys got married 100 years ago?".<br />
Me: "Illa da, only 8 years ago".<br />
G: "Then I must have been there, no?<br />
Me: Dei, you are only 5 now. How would you have been there 10 years ago?<br />
G: Why not? I became 5 year old and have been 5 for a long time no. Like that I could have been 1 year old for a long time, 2 years old for a long time no.<br />
Me: Stumped.<br />
<br />
It took me a while to explain to him that the seemingly static variable that is his age, is actually a dynamic variable. I really struggled. His idea is actually kinda intuitive as well. (His way of counting is also adopted by a few individuals. All of us know of people who have been at n years of age for more than one year)<br />
<br />
We also had a discussion on girls that cannot be put in the public sphere.<br />
<br />
Point is, they live in a world that makes sense with the info they have. They continuously adjust their world view with new information, But often, their original world view has its own internal consistency when viewed from the information they have. Its a shame that we rarely see the world from that limited but internally consistent point of view. I am sure it would be brilliant.<br />
<br />
Often,we are just anxious to correct these inconsistencies and bring them to our world. But de-camping in theirs is probably a way more brilliant alternative. Once, my son was playing a planes war-game with his Grand-Dad. In about 30 minutes, the pillow dividing the two sides was called Line of Control and they were discussing names of fighter-craft that I did not know about. That evening, my son told me - "We should be careful not just with Pakistan but also China, pa". Hahahaaha Even Nehru did not get that insight before it was too late.<br />
<br />
Kids laugh for silly things, they love repeating the same theme over and over again - traits that can be incredibly irritating from an adult point of view. Having said that, they definitely live in a more vivid world that they are more than eager to share with us. Often we do not have the bandwidth to take the effort to go to their zone. Because we know we can survive there for 10 minutes, but would be bored stiff in 20. This is where the "hanging in there" part comes in; better-equipped people should write on that.<br />
<br />
I find that I can engage my son and play different games with him, but I lack the patience to stay in his world and engage him on his terms. In a way, writing this down is my bid to increase my patience levels and engagement levels. The most important trick while dealing with kids is to figure out how to engage them - it is way easier if we try to improvise in their world, than if we rush them into ours. </div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-34047868488282025942014-08-21T00:31:00.002-07:002014-08-21T00:31:57.817-07:00Left and Right<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
One of the biggest plusses of the 2014 elections has been that fact that Indian youth has become more engaged in the political process. We see more political discussions online, see fearless expression from youngsters and an overall increase in curiosity levels as well.<br />
<br />
I sense that youngsters in the Country want to talk politics more, especially the ones that have cast their votes for the very first time. Very often they find themselves unable to partake in discussions because they do not know the jargon or are unable to place the different names that the older generation refers to (I went through this when I was younger, I would never know any of the names or terms). This very often turns off the youngsters and they become disengaged. This is a shame.<br />
<br />
This piece is a bid to improve the vocabulary of political discussion. I never understood these terms left or right or center-left, center-right, etc. And when I started understanding them, I realized that a great many were using these monikers incorrectly.<br />
<br />
There are two axes on which we can define Left and Right, the Economic axis and the Socio-Cultural axis. Very often, the parties to the right on one axis are also on the right on another axis, so we do not care to distinguish between the axes. But it helps to know both axes. <br />
<br />
<b>Left vs. Right - The Economic Axis.</b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9eP4nBYlpWtqzMK8Le2WZPslN7ZmB9gVuOV065Yq98KC2zDUYEydDqJaQwGNscGcKX3NtYpau9syaYkjKLRqNe-l43vo0eUdi3_tsMDhbQAFIp9FgUXjfV_UBKPRTSFcLqHdhbnoFnbE/s1600/Slide1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9eP4nBYlpWtqzMK8Le2WZPslN7ZmB9gVuOV065Yq98KC2zDUYEydDqJaQwGNscGcKX3NtYpau9syaYkjKLRqNe-l43vo0eUdi3_tsMDhbQAFIp9FgUXjfV_UBKPRTSFcLqHdhbnoFnbE/s1600/Slide1.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Essentially, the left espouses the role of government; and the right wants more freedom for the market (private sector)<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Left and Right - The Socio Cultural Axis</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifceoLk3TrRgJ_6z8q4x7ax3G-4HiMh1j_2nrOAQc_7zuGA2O3w96VthjsaP8jLXEt5bRgsl1SogGhMMMt5T_vHkySxmztIvvKNBPDj0CDAwHMNoDMMmejnGOZXYdhkApQbTCAlx9aUIU/s1600/Slide2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifceoLk3TrRgJ_6z8q4x7ax3G-4HiMh1j_2nrOAQc_7zuGA2O3w96VthjsaP8jLXEt5bRgsl1SogGhMMMt5T_vHkySxmztIvvKNBPDj0CDAwHMNoDMMmejnGOZXYdhkApQbTCAlx9aUIU/s1600/Slide2.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
On this axis, the right is conservative, holds the idea of "values" dear, holds religion to be important and is proud of lineage and tradition. The "left" is liberal, prizes the idea of individual freedom, and believes that the state has no role in prescribing morality.<br />
<br />
<b>Countries placed on this matrix</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAt1oVkX68W_xaPbpfIVou178M2JW9XkAEkLfAi6mSTbmr8vbEnvKd6210vqf2teC97YEM1uZNwk66q9x64C9XOgloLcv1Vk4uWnBmOMegK46QfJyDpFhkyTspLCdzu-cn-3bxI_I0gd4/s1600/Slide3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAt1oVkX68W_xaPbpfIVou178M2JW9XkAEkLfAi6mSTbmr8vbEnvKd6210vqf2teC97YEM1uZNwk66q9x64C9XOgloLcv1Vk4uWnBmOMegK46QfJyDpFhkyTspLCdzu-cn-3bxI_I0gd4/s1600/Slide3.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Caveat Emptor: The above diagram is merely thematic. I have put this here in order to encourage some form of thinking/discussion. So, if you have any views on where some country ought to be placed, please voice those.<br />
<br />
<b>Indian leaders, parties placed on a matrix</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbIsglNkUU4tcd_QKzQtbSiVJZ9QxrEQyWjMtlHpdDMP76sXIdEkJ5m1P1rdSrOS-kKV5m0IpV3uhdObG8N4Mvb26s_BRa2hZ0uvJ3uvxafZpVu8sEqfxcG8tzQN3s0KRkPUn8fbe-Emc/s1600/Slide4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbIsglNkUU4tcd_QKzQtbSiVJZ9QxrEQyWjMtlHpdDMP76sXIdEkJ5m1P1rdSrOS-kKV5m0IpV3uhdObG8N4Mvb26s_BRa2hZ0uvJ3uvxafZpVu8sEqfxcG8tzQN3s0KRkPUn8fbe-Emc/s1600/Slide4.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Again, the above chart is subjective. Kindly bear that in mind. Might be a fun exercise to think in terms of where you would fit in.<br />
<br />
I am mildly right of center economically, and sharply left of center socio-culturally. So, I will probably occupy (2, -5) in what will henceforth be termed as the enlightened quadrant.<br />
<br />
Thoughts, comments are welcome.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-16266390748166845302014-02-06T05:18:00.001-08:002014-02-06T05:18:53.907-08:00Ishant Sharma and Rahul Gandhi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
I would have never thought of any parallels between Ishant Sharma and Rahul Gandhi but for this wonderful piece of commentary by Kapil Dev. As a commentator, Kapil wears his heart on his sleeve and plays the role of half fan-half pundit to perfection. In the recent India-Australia series, Ishant managed to best his previous record by conceding 30 in an over. Kapil was seething; you could actually imagine him breaking windows if he had been in the dressing room. But in a few seconds, he calmed himself down and said<br />
<br />
"Isme Ishant ki koi galti nahin hai. Agar, selectors mereko ball denge our bolenge bowl karo, mein to bilkul try karoonga. Aap bhi karenge. Kyo nahin try karen? Ishant bus wohi kar raha hai "<br />
<br />
"This is just not Ishant's fault at all. If the selectors give me the ball and ask me to bowl, I will try. So will you. Why will anyone not? Ishant is doing the same thing"<br />
<br />
This is exactly the same with Rahul Gandhi. If the largest party of an extremely populous country bends over backwards and begs you to lead them, what would you do?<br />
<br />
And if we can pause for a second, and then rush past the impulse that says that this analogy can be milked no further; we can find more parallels between Ishant Sharma and Rahul Gandhi.<br />
<br />
Both started with promise, best-case scenario for both now is adequacy, and fans of both will call it a good day if they dont get embarrassed by something their icon has said/done. One was born great (should it be greatly born), one had greatness thrust on him; both are now aspiring for mediocrity.<br />
<br />
One spell led to Ishant's birth in international cricket. One birth has led to Rahul's spell in Indian politics.<br />
<br />
Both have nothing to offer, but plod along because we have no alternatives. Congress's leadership ability compares well with India's fast bowling stocks. Eventually, when this all plays out, we might all come to the realization that Kapil Paaji reached - "Isme inki koi galti nahin hai" (They are not to blame)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-44966928574473192732014-01-21T05:31:00.001-08:002014-01-21T05:31:14.603-08:00Galti bahut kiya, lekin chori to nahin kiya<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In recent times, I have seen a spate of articles and comments on social media that are part of a tremendous backlash against the AAP. I struggle to find a sound rationale for this. So, I have taken it upon myself to write the piece in defence of the AAP.<br />
<br />
The arguments have been on three planks<br />
<br />
<b>1. There is no difference between AAP and Congress (or AAP and BJP): </b><br />
<br />
This is fantastically absurd. These guys took on the Congress on all planks, led the rout in Delhi. They were asked to step up and take charge when the BJP 'honorably' stepped aside on the issue of govt-formation; they were called irresponsible for holding the state to ransom; called impractical for calling for fresh elections. And then they decided to try and govern Delhi because the Congress 'offered' support, without being asked. Now it is somehow their fault for trying to run the show. In their short life-span, they have never sought any help from the BJP.<br />
<br />
<b>2. These guys are 'activists', they know only to disrupt, they do not know how to construct something:</b><br />
<br />
They have been in power for less than a month. Our history has seen governments that serve full terms and achieve far less than what these guys have done in few weeks.<br />
<br />
Let me just take the example of honorable Mr. Kapil Sibal. He was in charge of the Human Resource Development ministry for a long time. In the first few weeks, he came up with a plan that could actually revolutionize the way Indian schools were administered.<br />
<br />
Within days of taking over the ministry, he said - Let us have a unified board system. Let us scrap all these different boards and simplify the system with just one board of education. Many of us cheered for this (Personally, I was thrilled to bits). This could be awesome, could really make life easier for millions of school kids because no state could game the system and spend an inordinate amount of time playing politics with history and language books. Of course Mr. Sibal had not thought this through; of course he could not push it through. Unfortunately for the country, this was the last good idea Mr. Sibal had.<br />
<br />
Then largely because he could not be seen as an old man doing nothing, he came up with a series of inane proposals. He talked of the pressures of students writing many entrance examinations and came up with a plan to simplify this. Now, all AICTE approved colleges had to select students based on this one great exam called CMAT. "One exam kills all, and I have justified my existence" he said. Only, the ministry could not outlaw CAT, XAT, SNAP, IIFT and NMAT. All of these exams existed in 2010, and they exist now. Only exams that have been scrapped are JMET and FMS, and these had been scrapped BEFORE CMAT came into existence.<br />
<br />
Our honorable minister created an exam to ensure students would write one exam instead of 5; and ended up making them write 6. He went after Maharashtra CET then, and scrapped it. I think even that exam is back now. There has been a lot of confusion regarding CMAT for the past 4 years. No college selects based on this, but every college tries to ensure that the people whom they admit have written this exam. I sit on the admissions committee for 1-2 colleges and I pretty much told them "CMAT is a crap exam. Do not select anyone based on this. Select based on CAT, XAT, MAT, or anything else. And then whoever you select finally, ask these guys to write CMAT so that you do not end up violating some norm" This reminds one of Soviet Propaganda of the 1980's, but this is what Mr. Sibal made us do. So, more than 2 lakh people write CMAT because Mr. Sibal had a brainwave.<br />
<br />
Mr. Sibal also pushed through government policy on expanding IITs. Someone who had consumed an inordinate amount of Tequila said "IIT = good brand. More IITs more good brands. And therefore, more good Engineers", the entire government machinery nodded and we have a bunch of <a href="http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/nation/wretched-new-iits" target="_blank">wretched new IITs</a>.<br />
<br />
I have arbitrarily picked one department and one minister. I am sure there are other ministers who have accomplished even less. I am not trying to paint a relative picture here. That is not the bar we should set for our new governments. We would have to reach a new level of ineptitude to perform worse than our current brigade. So, there is no glory in saying "it is not as bad as them". Nothing can be. <br />
<br />
But all things taken into account, these guys have been in power for less than a month. They have shot to prominence, live in a TV capsule and are trying to govern the most difficult state in the country. They do not have control over their own police force and do not have much experience. And Congress and BJP are both good at creating trouble. So, let us not underestimate them either. BJP stepped aside from governing Delhi pretty much because it was a high risk state just prior to general elections. Now, they are essentially saying "Good luck with that".<br />
<br />
Let us remember some basics. Once you give smart people some time, they will eventually figure out a way to get things moving. If we have intelligent, corruption-free guys in charge, they will get past a few errors and get it right, sooner or later. Mr. Kejriwal is an extremely intelligent person. Not in the Mr. Laloo Prasad is called 'smart', but in a way that scientists probably call someone intelligent. We have invested 50+ years in muppets. What Mr. Sibal says passes for intelligent TV these days, Mr. Salman Khurshid can look around a talk show table and realize there are 4 others who do what he does for a living - say lots of words that mean nothing.<br />
<br />
We should not stare a gift horse in the mouth. Mr. Kejriwal is sharp, he is not corrupt - thats it, that is a manifold improvement on what we have had thus far. Whether he is left-of-center, right-of-center, or trying-to-be-in-the-center does not matter. These monikers are created by people who think they have had a good day if they can make Mr. Sibal agree to appear on a talk show. If he can be clean, provide Roti, Kapda, Makaan to everyone; and then Bijli, bandwidth to everyone; I dont give a tiny rat's behind which side of the 'spectrum' he is in.<br />
<br />
In a recent interview, Mr Kejriwal said as much as well. He also said "Galti bahut kiya, lekin chori to nahin kiya" when asked about how his team had performed in 21 days. I want to vote for this guy for that statement. Amidst spin merchants, this is refreshing.<br />
<br />
<b>3. Why is Kejriwal playing spoilsport with the grand Modi march to Delhi?</b><br />
<br />
This is central theme of a great many enthusiasts' angst. And this is the one that riles me the most.<br />
<br />
A great proportion of India's social-media savvy youth has invested emotionally in this election. This is an extraordinarily good thing. What is less good about this is the fact that great numbers have invested in the Modi phenomenon. And they now feel that this new Kejriwal guy is out to steal their thunder. They feel that Kejriwal will end up playing 'spoiler' and should 'give way' in order to create a strong unified India.<br />
<br />
This right to rule and 'destiny is with us' chatter cost BJP dear in 2004, and they are flirting with it again here. The BJP fanboys seem to have forgotten some basics - i) No wave is a wave unless you win some seats, ii) No seats are reserved for Modi. Have a message, have a leader, play ball.<br />
<br />
The shoe can be fit on either foot. In New Delhi, the AAP can come out and say they could have routed Congress 60-10 if the BJP had not spoiled the party. In many ways, BJP joined the AAP-IAC show late, and are now demanding that AAP leave the stage once the comedy act is done. Veterans of the BJP basically sat on their behinds for 8 years and competed with the Congress on "Who is more inept, government or opposition?". The really big challenge to this stint of misgovernance came from Anna and then AAP. Now, BJP has stormed back to claim its rightful place as the number 1 alternative to Congress. Where were they from 2004 to 2011?<br />
<br />
The narrative one can spin is - Modi is riding an anti-incumbency wave. A wave that was set in motion by Mr Hazare, pushed along by Mr. Kejriwal and whose fruits Mr. Modi is now looking to reap. For all his accomplishments, the biggest plus point Modi has is that he has Congress on the other side. In a nut shell, all parties competing in the 2014 elections are in it to have a stab at the 500 seats Congress WILL NOT win. Congress not winning is the theme of this election. Even in far away Tamil Nadu, elections are going to be about how to try to give the Congress another kick. If there were a way to give Congress -1 seats in this state (they are looking up at zero now), people would be queuing up for that.<br />
<br />
Truth is, BJP would never have restricted Congress to just 7-8 seats in Delhi if AAP had not been there. Truth remains that AAP took as many or more seats that were potentially Congress's than those were potentially the BJP's.<br />
<br />
Put differently, without AAP, BJP would have easily got a simple majority in New Delhi, but would never have banished Congress to single-digits. Delhi has struck fear into the Congress, something BJP could not achieve in 8 years as primary opposition party.<br />
<br />
There is no god-given right for Modi to become PM in 2014. The BJP would do well to remember how they were in the mid 80's and how one rath yatra shaped their destiny. The man who went on that yatra seems to be the only one saying words of caution now. Too bad he borders on senile on occasions.<br />
<br />
BJP is a party that built itself brick-by-brick, a party that became the face of the nation's desire to have something non-Congress. And then they became part of the fabric. They are still non-Congress, but less so with every passing year. And this rankles. This rankles a lot. Even the die-hards BJP-ites do not call themselves the party with a difference.<br />
<br />
The BJP expected to turn up, beat a drum, say out loud thrice that they were not Congress and march to the Lok Sabha. It aint going to be that simple.<br />
<br />
<b>Let us not stare a gift horse in the mouth</b><br />
<br />
It is not going to be that simple for the BJP and perhaps middle class India should be thrilled with that.<br />
<br />
In many ways, India has long clamoured for an alternative to the two big parties. And somehow when an honorable one steps up, we cannot take it. We 'need' to stick to our original us vs. them narrative.<br />
<br />
What more alternative do we want? A combination of Churchill and JFK riding in on a magic horse distributing gold coins to the peasants?<br />
<br />
There have been so many times when we have looked at all of these SPs, BSPs, Shiv Senas, DMKs, ADMKs, talk one language when in opposition and do the same mistakes when they come to power. And the simple theme has always been corruption. We have all said "Is hamam mein sab nange hain" at one point of time or another. Here is a guy who says, no matter what we do, we will not steal. We will not be corrupt. We will not screw over people.<br />
<br />
And we want to fall back on the old rhetoric again.<br />
<br />
Mr. Kejriwal is intelligent (somehow I prefer that adjective to Smart), extremely forthright & honest and someone who seems to be capable of governing well. Let us not jump to the conclusion that he cannot govern in less than 100 days.<br />
<br />
Whichever constituency I vote in, if an AAP bugger stands in that constituency, I will vote for him/her. I am giving these guys a long rope. They defined hope in public life for India in 2013 (for the first time since probably 1970) and I will be damned if I give up on them within 6 months. I have held on to bad investments and bad employees for longer. I am unwilling to give up on this hope this soon.<br />
<br />
And I hope you dont give up on them as well.<br />
<br /></div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-74614541539891304612013-11-13T04:54:00.000-08:002013-11-13T04:54:04.860-08:00Airtel - Accursed Buggers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I can totally imagine how Rishis of yesteryear were trigger-happy when it came to curses. If any of the rishis had had a chat with these Airtel muppets that I have had for the past 3 hours, the entire Airtel organization might have been converted to Turtles or some such.<br />
<br />
To cut a long story short, Airtel screwed me over. They basically told me I had used 12GB of broadband in the 10 days during which I had logged multiple complaints stating that my broadband was not working. They told me that their measuring device COULD NOT be wrong and I could rhythmically collide my head with a hard surface to see if that would make me feel better. I tried. It didn't.<br />
<br />
The issue is not that Airtel took some money from me. (Those of you who know me will know that far less accomplished foes have taken money from me) The issue is not even that my broadband speed is going to be poor for the next 3 weeks. I am from India, we entrepreneurs have always seen worse. The issue is that I have wasted an entire day on this. The issue is that I will go to bed feeling bad that I let myself get fingered by these buggers again. The issue is that my brain is not wired well enough to say "Dont talk to this call-center person. Buy broadband for 1000 bucks more this month. If you dont waste the next two hours talking to them. You can create more value than 1000 bucks."<br />
<br />
I am still more the Yossarian from Catch-22 who says the immortal line "<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-srif; font-size: 12px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28px;">Oh, it doesn’t really upset me. What does upset me, though, is that they think I’m a sucker. They think that they’re smart, and that the rest of us are dumb". </span>The longer conversation can be seen <a href="http://www.e-reading.biz/chapter.php/71282/41/Heller_-_Catch-22.html" target="_blank">here</a> (go on, read it.). I feel so aggrieved at being screwed over that it gets to me. Not the being screwed over monetarily part. But the vague feeling that this person screwing me over thinks he/she has all the answers; that gets to me. <span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-srif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28px;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-srif; font-size: 12px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28px;"><br /></span>
I am learning. Next time I will quit sooner. May be I will become savvy enough to set aside 2000 bucks a month in a bid to retain my productive hours. May be I will one day become mature enough to shrug this off without a humongous unfunny blog post. I am just afraid that when that level of maturity comes around - either I will no longer have the capability to actually create something new; or I would have had to become numb in order to build another cocoon around myself.<br />
<br />
Already abject poverty barely moves me. Nor does government apathy. If I add Corporate arrogance to this list, I will soon have to worry about becoming overly dispassionate.<br />
<br />
The only hope is that Karma catches up with these guys. May be 2G scam was just that. Perhaps I should say a silent thanks to the King for that.<br />
<br />
<b>The longer, more boring part of the Airtel saga</b><br />
<br />
I have had issues with Airtel Broadband for 2 months now. The latest set of skirmishes started on the 4th of November when I had lodged a complaint. No one turned up for 2 days. When contacted again, the electronic voice said "Your complaint is still open. It will be resolved by 5th of November". This message was on on November 6th. Thankfully, service Engineer came and 'fixed' our broadband issue.<br />
<br />
Within the next 24 hours, our broadband conked again; and we complained again the next day, this time on Nov 9th. After the same cycle, this issue was 'resolved' on Nov 13th. Out of curiosity, we asked the service engineer how to check our usage levels. Turns out we could, and the stat said that we had consumed 80% of our 15GB limit already. This usage cycle started on Nov 5th. Awesome.<br />
<br />
By this time, I might have become an irate customer. But I was still some distance from the let-me-murder-someone-now-in-the-off-chance-that-he/she-might-have-something-to-do-with-Airtel state that I find myself in right about now. The next 2 hours of phone conversations took me there.<br />
<br />
Airtel billing arrogance kicked in at about this time. The first dame that I spoke to asked me to check my usage statistic with the official Airtel site. Our conversation went somewhat like this.<br />
<br />
Me: I have an issue with the broadband consumption statistic.<br />
Airtel person: Whats the problem, Sir?<br />
Me: I narrate the whole story.<br />
AP: Go to Airtel.in. Go to my account and check usage statistic.<br />
Me: It says server down<br />
AP: I can do nothing about this.<br />
Me: I am not worried about what the stat will tell me. I am contesting the claim that we have used 80% of our usage limit<br />
AP: You will be able to see how you have used 12GB if the report is there<br />
Me: Is there a chance that the total usage will add to less than 12GB?<br />
AP (huh): We have to see that.<br />
Me (now slowly losing it): Is there a chance?! If the overall number says 12GB, then the individual components should add up to the same?<br />
AP: The total will add up to 12 GB, Sir. But you can see how you have used 12GB.<br />
Me: I HAVE NOT USED 12GB. How can I complain?<br />
AP (more patronisingly): You have to check the usage levels through the website. This will tell you how your usage has been<br />
Me: If I have to complain, whom do I speak to?<br />
AP: Once you check, you can complain<br />
Me: Assume I have checked. It adds up. Can you tell me whom I have to speak to<br />
<br />
Call gets transferred. Repeat on loop two more times. The accursed buggers at Airtel have been programmed to not even acknowledge the possibility that there is an explanation beyond the customer being wrong about his usage. The senior person told me that the Modem would measure ONLY what has been used and send that to the Airtel server and I would be convinced after I saw my usage levels.<br />
<br />
Airtel broadband has failed more than 5 times in 2 months now. Every time, they have fixed it only after the second call. Every time their server has said that the call will be fixed on a date that has gone by. The Airtel service-men who came by did not even know how I could check my usage stats. Airtel can commit ALL of these errors as mistakes can happen anywhere. However, their billing system CANNOT be wrong. Apparently, they have done some process to demonstrate that their billing is infallible. And so, I can check my usage levels if I so choose to, but they cannot be wrong.<br />
<br />
The level of arrogance and the patronizing air these guys have is phenomenal.<br />
<br />
Still, these guys should know that you cannot con your customers endlessly. The higher they seem perched, the harder they fall. This is why, for all its flaws when 2G scam unfolded, and ALL of us could see it for the perversity it was; not one person felt really sorry for the existing players who had been screwed over. We all felt, at some level, that the select few Corporates that paid the price probably had it coming. Certainly, Airtel did. In fact, I wish that some other scamster screws them over with 4G or 4.5G again. I, for one, wont feel bad if the company bites the dust and goes to zero.<br />
<br />
I am still waiting for the day when one large corporate in the company starts treating its customers well.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-56512634378073276282013-08-08T03:29:00.001-07:002013-08-08T03:29:40.204-07:00Online platform - What the hell is this?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I get a call once a fortnight from someone or other hawking an online platform. You know, the kind where you can have a single integrated platform for all your stuff. The discussion goes roughly like this<br />
<br />
Sales person: We have an online platform that you can use<br />
Me: What does it do?<br />
SP: You can transition your entire teaching online<br />
Me: What does it do?<br />
SP: It is a single platform that can host your content, tests, videos, etc<br />
Me: What does it do?....<br />
<br />
This goes on for a while. Then slowly, I realize that said salesperson does not get sarcasm and I need to do better. So, I ask a few questions<br />
<br />
Me: Will you come to my classroom and shoot videos?<br />
SP: No, we provide a platform for hosting<br />
Me: Will you edit and make my content online-ready<br />
SP: The platform can host any type of content. (To be interpreted as NO)<br />
Me: How much will it cost me?<br />
SP: We can work on royalty model or revenue-sharing model.<br />
Me (finally losing patience): Please send me proposal (that I can send to recycle bin) (mental note to self: Rajesh, you idiot. There is no such thing called as online platform. When will you learn?)<br />
<br />
I can post questions on a blog, I can post videos on youtube and link it to my website and blog, I run a test series that has gazillion tests, in gazillion formats (Test series can be picked up from google for free). I can link all of these to my website at the cost of Rs. 0 per month paid over 1000 months. I need an online platform like I need a bullet to my head.<br />
<br />
The content provider gives the content, youtube provides hosting services, blogs and test series are available for free. Now, if there is a value in putting all these together and packaging it well, online platforms might be able to justify the existence of the term, if they demonstrate this well.<br />
<br />
Online platform is just a phrase used because it is perhaps trickier to say "I would like to enter into a revenue sharing or lease model with you. I bring nothing to the table". </div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-65965049348920489562013-06-23T05:03:00.000-07:002013-06-23T05:03:13.504-07:00Jiah Khan suicide, sympathy and all that<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
One should not speak without sympathy for the suicide-committer and all that. And honestly, I am not against any outpouring of grief. People have sympathy to spare, let them distribute it however they please. But this whole Ms Jiah Khan brouhaha is making a mockery of the idea of a sense of perspective.<br />
<br />
Watched some bits of random TV yesterday where some great anchor was saying that this latest episode was again clearly telling us how tough an industry Bollywood is. I nearly fell off my chair laughing. Lets be honest here, if alpha from Chennai had been a jilted lover who commits suicide, its newsprint for 2 days tops. Just because this dame is from Bollywood, these anchors should not talk nonsense. And this Jiah Khan issue crossed nonsense some time ago.<br />
<br />
There are hajaar farmers who commit suicide every year, but we never hear that 'agriculture is a tough industry to be in'. Bus drivers, vegetable cart-pullers, the vast humanity of India employed in the unorganized sector take serious risk with every day aspects of their life that most of us white-collar types cannot even begin to appreciate. I do not want to sound like a shrill left-winger, but this fetish for sympathising with famous people is becoming indecent. First we had the Sanjay Dutt-has-been-a-model-citizen bulcr*p. Now, it is poor heroines of Bollywood.<br />
<br />
Bollywood is a winner-take-all industry. Winner-take-all industries are tough. Winner-take-all industries generate lots of losers. If you cannot take that, you should have not chosen the industry. It is ok to sympathize with the losers. It grates when people begin sympathizing for the winners. "Poor Shah Rukh Khan, what kind of pressure he must be under" just sounds indecent.<br />
<br />
Jiah Khan, may she rest in peace. And be a lesson for all dames who are willing to fall head over heels in love with despicable characters. But thats about it really. Women have done this for long, and will probably do it for much longer. </div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6482913726916083919.post-91499074681788352302013-04-22T05:17:00.002-07:002013-04-22T05:17:26.808-07:00Nash Equilibrium and Tipping Point<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium">Nash Equilibrium</a> is one of those juicy ideas that sticks in one's mind. It can be explained wonderfully with simple examples, and it holds the promise of even working in very complex scenarios. One possible extension to the idea of Nash equilibrium is the idea of adding a probabilistic basis to decision-making. As in, for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma">famous prisoner's dilemma</a> question, what if each prisoner evaluated his decision after attaching a vague probabilistic metric to the other prisoner prizing loyalty over a beggar-thy-neighbour policy? That could be fun.<br />
<br />
I must warn that there is no academic basis to this line of thought. Random pontification was never inhibited by mere lack of academic basis. So, here goes.<br />
<br />
In the prisoners' dilemma game, prisoners are expected to base their response on how the fellow-prisoner has taken his/her previous decisions. So, arguably if we allowed for this kind of scenario where everyone takes decisions based on how others have done, we approach a pseudo-intellectual basis for the other popular idea - a tipping point. Somehow loyalty begets loyalty, self-interest begets self-interest. And beyond a point, exception becomes norm and vice versa.<br />
<br />
From society's point of view, it is in the overall interest that the Nash equilibrium be avoided, as it is collectively sub-optimal. However, if individuals reach a level where they worry only about themselves, we would inevitably land at the Nash equilibrium. the momentum for the tipping point can be either way. So, society has to perhaps create levers that give momentum for the trend away from the Nash Equilibrium.<br />
<br />
Let us take a simple example to see the basis for this. In Chennai, at every traffic signal, we have what I am going to refer to as the ungentle-creep. When a signal reads red, all vehicles start behind the stop line. But, slowly, inexorably, all vehicles start inching up every second until they finally reach a point where they severely constrict the flow of traffic for the lanes that currently have the green-signal. There is a belief that if this inching-up is not done, the lane that currently has green signal will have a bunch of guys squeezing through even after 'their' green turns to red (because they can). So, in order to defend a narrower set of interests, everyone has to opt for the collective sub-optimal solution.<br />
<br />
The traffic in Chennai has reached this blissful Nash equilibrium at many levels.<br />
<br />
Perhaps a great time for an external agency to provide an incentive for the system to go towards the other tipping point. Not likely in my lifetime. :-)<br />
<br />
</div>
Rajesh Balasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06092210868780120343noreply@blogger.com1