Entropy Decreasing?

A few days ago, I had a big scare. The scare came from the home of the Loch-ness Monster, Scotland. The scare almost destroyed me.

My career looked like it was going to go drown the drain. The middle east looked like it would not be in so much trouble anymore; and Exxon Mobil stocks would be on the verge of plummeting. And global warming looked like it was about to stop happening.

You see, I work on Energy Technologies. My guide makes his $$$$ by helping incrementally increase the efficiency of gas turbine engines by the order of 0.0000001%. My entire career depends on two things:

• Energy Scarcity
• Bitchiness of Navier-Stokes. (this will be discussed later).
  

So, when I read that some people invented a genuine microscopic Maxwell Daemon, I was shell-shocked. (The U.S government invented the macroscopic Maxwell Daemon. I have scrutinized it here a long ago). Doing some horribly complicated nano-molecular chemistry (in the description of which the term "rotaxane" is employed), a molecular ratchet has been developed by Serelli et.al . in Edinburgh, Scotland. Undoubtedly, they developed it to keep the Loch Ness monster company.

A real Maxwell Daemon will destroy energy scarcity. Here's how.

• Suppose you have a room filled with slow molecules colliding with each other. They form the "cold fluid".
• Suppose you then introduce some really fast molecules to the room. This would be the "hot fluid".
• These fast molecules will collide with the slower ones - and they will keep colliding forever- eventually each and every molecule has the same velocity on average. The system attains a state of equilibrium. The molecules still keep colliding, mind you. But they do not transfer any energy on the net to each other. The gas it as the "equilibrium" temperature.
  
• Though the odd molecule might get as fast as the one of the original "hot fluid" molecules, it will be a statistical anomaly. You won't be able to extract a set of "fast" molecules. The introduction of the "hot" gas is an irreversible process.
• A Maxwell Daemon would do the needful, actually.
  
• Suppose you introduced an "impenetrable" barrier dividing the room into two. Suppose, you then employed the aforementioned daemon to let only the faster molecules across. Presto! You have hot fluid on one side - and cold fluid on the other side. Build an engine and you can generate electricity.
  
• The Edinburgh daemon does something like this.
  
• A PMM2 could have been achieved. No more energy scarcity.
  

You can imagine how scared I was on reading the Nature article. Scared, I was, until I realized that the Daemon sought photons as renumeration. The Daemon is light powered. You need to expend energy in ensuring that the Daemon does what it is supposed to.

The second law comes across unscathed - at least for now.

Superpower India

The Indian press seems to be saturated with deplorable and delusional reports of India's immediate future as a superpower. Some joker always writes an article in Rediff touting India's "rapid" rise to prominence; NDTV carries an opinion poll on whether India is already a superpower - and all this happens when 60% of the country lives below / near a poverty line. (near enough for discomfort).

While I do not doubt as much that India will rise in power [There's a caveat of course: global warming] in the decades to come - I do not see it happening right now. Such irresponsible banter about "Superpower-dom" shifts the focus from the real issues: hunger, poverty and misery. So, I just had to write the following article.

SUPERPOWER INDIA

Yes, India is a superpower. And it will become a superer power soon. As a matter of fact, it is the Indians who will protect the planet from the green men from outer space who will (presumably) attack us with the intent to terminate all life on planet earth.

Taming the Colonizers

The seeds of superpowerdom were sown by the reverse colonization of the United Kingdom. It is common knowledge that Pt. Ravi Shankar introduced Lennon & Co. to LSD. Do you know what Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds actually stands for? L.S.D as in Lennon - Shankar - Dope. One can therefore say that behind the origin of western pop-culture is a significant Indian hand.

Ethnic Indians, for all vaguely practical purposes, annexed Birmingham (a nondescipt Punjabi city slightly to the northwest of London). They then furthered their reverse colonization cause with the movie "Bend it like Beckham" and by inflicting with Chicken Tikka masala all McDonaldses in the UK. And finishing the job was Ms. Shilpa Shetty's miraculous victory in something called the Celebrity Big Brother (more due to the Indian media throwing a tantrum than anything else). The destruction of one Jade Goody's career and her subsequent presumable conversion the Hinduism seemed to have almost made the sun set on the British Empire.

Then the Tatas took over Corus for $12 billion. It looked like it was all over for the British - even their cricket team was being humiliated down under. The proverbial "last nails" in the coffin. [We will conveniently forget Indian misadventures in South Africa]. But UK still seems to be putting up some sort of fight. Vodafone (a British phone company) procured Hutch for $19 billion. Looks like the Indians will have to crush England mercilessly - just like the British Crushed India in 1919 in Amritsar.

Taming The Empire

Since the neo-natives of the North American empire are extremely jingoistic, the Indian invasion of North America has been far more subtle. Cavalier impositions of Chicken Tikka on McDonalds restaurants will come under attack by Bill O'Reilly or someone - so they won't bring the US to its knees, unlike Britannica. So, the Indians have used a more careful approach. Indians have surreptitiously landed in control of 17% of the US economy (larger than India's economy!). South Asians (another term for Indians) more or less run silicon valley and dominate academic institutions.

India tries to paint a pathetic picture of itself by buying decades old naval vessels and second hand military aircraft. Talks, presumably, are on to buy used American Toilet paper.

But all this is to catch the Americans off guard. To divert the world form the real issues. Indians are ready to conquer this land. And proof of the pudding will be when Abhijit Sawant wins American Idol.

The Farce called "Going Green"

US President, George Bush grudgingly acknowledged that global warming was real in a recent, nationally televised speech ("The State of the Nation"). He suggested a 20% reduction of oil consumption by contemplating "mandating" certain "mileage standards" that automobile manufacturers have to adhere to. And consequently, the American media is saturated with incredible stories of the "oil" president becoming the "green" president.

Companies such as Walmart are trying to do their bit for the environment by stocking more energy efficient lights and "increasing the efficiency of their vehicle fleet by 30%". [A story from CNN]. Oh, and Hybrids and "flex-fuel" vehicles are being sold by everyone from Toyota to GM. Watching the TV here, you would get the feeling that the world is in safe hands.

The bottomline is that all this is a mere pittance. A nothing which shall only delay Armageddon by a couple of years, if at all. [If one were to go by certain estimates]. Perhaps from 2050 to 2052. I might conk off in 2051, but most people won't be so lucky. Let us get this very, very straight: If at all there is a climate change problem facing the world, It's the Americans, the British, The Japanese, the Germans, the South Koreans etc... (the first world, essentially) who are responsible for it. The Americans, more so than anyone else - they have the highest per capita emissions in the world. The average American pollutes the world more than any living entity has ever polluted the earth until now. [Take this wikipedia article with a pinch of salt. Kuwait and Quatar etc. are small export (to the US) oriented industrial countries. And the Virgin Islands is a US colony] The Americans, essentially got the planet into this mess.

They got us (humans and all other living species on this planet) into this mess. They should help get us out of this. But the Americans are actually making money out of it. The American people are nice, well intentioned people. They feel for the planet and they will do anything to save their planet. So, when they are sold eco-friendly products priced slightly higher, they go ahead and buy them. They get that warm feeling in their heart: they believe they are helping make the world a better place. The capitalists have realized that "green" is actually a selling point. They have realized that putting a price tag on that warm feeling is actually profitable. So, they are making more green products.

Corporate America voluntarily going "green" makes a token difference in actuality. It makes a larger difference in perception. The people perceive Walmart as a green company and give it a larger business.

The solution to this mess lies, to a great extent, in the Hands of the spineless (in this respect) US administration. There is only one solution. It is the most obvious solution - a solution that Al Gore dares not dare mention in his documentary ( An Inconvenient Truth). The solution is to impose a significant "green" tax on petrol (or Gas, as it is known in the US). If fuel were priced at $4.50 a gallon in the US (double the current rate) - then emissions would plummet. Innovation in efficiency would get an incentive, as would innovations in alternative energy technologies. That's how to use markets to keep tabs on pollution.

One can see why Mr. Gore dares not suggest this - he would be committing political suicide if he did . No more "Gore for president" ever. How dare someone try to raise taxes in the US? How dare some conscientious soul ever force the Americans to stop stealing the future of the planet?

The west (this applies more to the US than to Europe) is not serious about actually doing anything about Global Warming. It is serious about looking like it is doing something about global warming - so that its people can think that it is doing something about global warming. And if the West can get the people to think it is doing something about g.w. without actually doing anything - then, bully for it. Because, in a real democracy, it's what people think that matters - and not what is really happening. You see, Gore might go ahead and win the damned Nobel Peace prize - despite skirting the real issue - the hedonistic overindulgence of the west.

You know what I think? The world will go "token green". Global warming will change the world as we know it. And Fox News will still deny it.

We all know democracies are not perfect. The response of democracies to this crisis shows us again how imperfect they are.

Utopia

What is Utopia?

The year is 2142, and the world has changed. The world is, against all odds, undergoing an unprecedented era of prosperity. And this era of prosperity has come as a consequence of true globalisation. In the old, primitive 1900s and early 2000s, globalisation meant the unrestricted flow of capital, with a severely restricted flow of labour. Nations had impervious borders.

But today, anyone can live anywhere. A Sri - Lankan peasant has a fair chance of landing a job in Seattle; as does a Seattle peasant have a chance of landing a job in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan will not have that miserable, lengthy wait for a Visa. He can just pop into a plane and find himself in Seattle - just like he would travel from Colombo to Jaffna in the 2000s. [The ticket, of course, would cost a tad bit more].

The world is no longer a set of little nations. It is a just one large nation. The various (erstwhile) countries are analogous to states in a Federation - they are divided just for administrative ease. Borders are also purely for administrative purposes. Movement is not hindered at all. And since there is absolutely no patriotic nationalism, there are no wars. Just like Ohio is unlikely to wage a war against Florida, or Andhra is unlikely to wage a war against Uttar Pradesh, America is unlikely to wage a war against Iraq. The horrific imperialist reality of war is a relic of a barbaric bygone era dictated not by democracy but by corporate agenda (in the name of democracy).

A brief history of Utopia:

The situation back in the early 2000s was one of major disparity. The difference between the developed world and the developing world was huge. The difference between the rich and the poor in the developing world was even greater. The rich in the developing world led lives more prosperous than those in the developed world: and the poor lived like animals. The people in the developed world ignored the problems in the developing world; taking the the token developments as competitive threats. For instance, commentators such as Thomas Friedman painted blissfully ignorant pictures of India in the west.

Islamic fundamentalism was being waged a propaganda war (and a real war) against by American Fundamentalism. For most of the war, the Americans were not winning against fanatic will of the islamists. Neither were the muslim fundamentalists prevailing against the lean mean killing machines that the Americans used against them. The war pointlessly continued for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, After a lot of innocent bloodshed, the Americans crushed the Fundamentalists.

In the meanwhile, India, China and Latin America were still growing as was a lot of the rest of the world. Though from a per-capita point of view, India and China could not hold a candle to US and Europe, they had a lot more people. Their overall economies were forces to be reckoned with.

And then came the weather. Well, it had always been coming. More typhoons, cyclones and hurricanes each year; shorter winters and longer, murderous summers. Extremely intense monsoons in the sub-continent. That was just the beginning. Then, in a span of 10 years, Europe punged into deep freeze. The polular press was harping about the irony of a global warming induced ice age.The onset of misery was quick. Climate modelers had been caught unawares.

This time coincided with the rise of China and India. Both countries had been devastated by Climate Change too - the whole world had been devastated. The US suffered a huge loss: the east coast and the west coast suffered a pounding. The city by the bay became the city under the bay.

The developed countries were held responsible of continuing with greenhouse gas emissions despite having explicit knowledge of the consequences. In other words, short sighted corporate agendas had let the west down. This resulted in something unprecedented in History. The rich nations were sanctioned by the much poorer nations in the UN. And these sanctions are viewed as a turning point in human history; the triumph of Human beings over corporations.

Wheras the treaties of the old days forced poor countries to open their borders to Capital Investment, the new treaties forced the "rich nations" to open their doors to human beings from everywhere. This was unprecedented in the history of the world. The poor farmer in drought ravaged Darfur had a chance finally, to go and start a business in Houston, Texas. Real globalisation finally happened. Milton Friedman was turning in his grave; yet Adam Smith was smiling.

Of course, the developed world opposed this tooth and nail. Lou Dobbs and O'Rielly were quite vocal about this. But they really had no choice. If India and China booted out American Coporates, and stopped buying weapons from the USA, then an economic depression exceeding in magnitude that of 1929 by a few hundred times would doubtlessly ensue. The US' arm was being twisted. The hunter just got hunted. "Intellectuals" started saying "Our culture will get diluted". But they were brushed aside, much as resistance to British Imperialism in India was brushed aside by the barbaric conquerors in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Setting Global Warming Right


In order to set the world right, the new powers of the world had their work cut out. Human beings are extremely good when it comes to crisis management.

A rather interesting refinement of the European carbon exchange was used to set global warming right. It went something like this: each person was allowed a "carbon quota". Carbon quotas were distributed equally among all human beings. A labourer in Cairo, a slum dweller in Mumbai and a little child in New York City - they all were allowed to pollute a "set" amount. They could "trade" their individual carbon credits, much like money. If you wanted to buy a loaf of bread, you would pay Rs. 10 and 0.0001 carbon credits. If you wanted to buy 5 litres of coal gas (no oil anymore!), you would pay Rs. 400 and 0.01 carbon credits. You were allowed to spend only 1 carbon credit per year. If you overshot your alloted carbon credits, you would have to purchase them from, say, a farmer in South Africa. The price that you would have to pay for this would be market determined. The going rate for a carbon credit right now is $400,000 - or half the annual per capita income of the US. You could purchase even minute fractions of carbon credits.

And the market worked. For the first time in the history of humanity, the market really worked. It did not deceive people into thinking that it was working like in the Thatcher-Reagan era. It really worked. For the poor people sold their carbon credits to the rich and became richer. Resources began to reach the poor people like they never did before: and the rich had a severe disincentive from actually consuming a lot more than they were entitled to.

Utopian Society

Since there is almost no more poverty in the world, it is a much safer place. But prosperity does not stop child molesters. Prosperity does not stop greed, it does not stop crimes of passion. And people don't stop being evil just because they are rich. If that were true, the US would have been a utopian society in the 2000s.

Crimes of need have halted. Crimes of greed have not. The words "stick-em-up" have been consigned to museums of history; yet a large company was in trouble for fudging its accounts last year. And the number of children molested keeps growing every year in the world.

People still believe in religion - but the religions have lost the extremist fringes. Islam realized that there was no point in fighting for its holy land when the whole world welcomed it. Christians and Jews make trips to Israel-Palestine. And Hindus pray everywhere from Pittsburgh to Madurai.

The people of the world go about their daily lives. Their worries are only the usual ones: they are worried about getting food on their family's plate. About retirement and how to deal with heart attacks. They are not worried about being bombed the next day. They live carefree lives.

Until today. Today, SETI will make a discovery of alien life on a planet far away. And what is worse is that the planet will have had picked up radio signals from earth, will have had interpreted them as threats and will have had sent an army to annihilate all intelligent life from Planet Earth. Deja Vu?

What you don't want to know about India.

0.2% of Indian women are prostitutes. 80% of the 0.2% do not want to be prostitutes. They are forced to be prostitutes by the "pimp". The remaining 20% of the same 0.2% are forced into it by economics. That makes it 1 million prostitutes in India. That's as many as the population of Vizag. Oh, and by the way, Prostitution is legal in India. Not that it matters anyway, because being legal has little meaning in Indian society, which works more on the bribe.

Mumbai's Falkland Red light area has 100,000 prostitutes. It generates $ 0.5 billion a year. If we had a thousand such areas, then we'd have roughly the GDP of the country. Mumbai is Asia's largest red light district, if not the world's. [Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation]

Eurpoeans come to India because India's laws of sexual exploitation are notoriously lax. Sex tourism is rampant in India.

India is the world leader in the number of sexually abused children. India is home to 400,000 sexually abused children. That beats even the US hollow. And remember: most child sex abuse does not even get reported. As much as 95% of child abuse is not reported. [Unicef]

India's per-capita GDP is $3700 (ppp). That of Iraq is $3600. Mexico has $10000 and China has $7200. Indians are as poor as Iraqis. Those Iraqis who were raped by Saddam, his Sons and now the American Imperialists. Indians are as poor as they are. 40% of India lives under a dollar a day. That's more than the Population of the US. 400,000,000 people. [Wikipedia , Wikipedia Again]

Hindu homosexuals are often castrated and paraded around as "hijras". [The claim that they are homosexuals is somewhat contentious, yet the stigma and the discrimination the hijra lives under cannot be over-emphasized]. The term "hijra" is an abuse.

Seriously, I don't think India's biggest problem right now is Shilpa Shetty's little adventure in the UK. Certainly, Indians have no moral higher ground in calling the British "racist". Indians are the genuine racists. Servants are shouted at and humiliated. And don't even get me started on casteism.

And the only thing that will get us out of this rut is progress, employment and a significant reduction in corruption. The importance of the RTI legislation cannot be over-emphasized. I have faith in Dr. Singh.

American TV

Scotsman John Logie Baird, one fine day in 1924 invented the television: and it is due to this unfortunate folly that Suddenlink Inc. fleeces me of $40 a month. That's the cable bill for the utter bilge that parades under the name of programming on my Television here.

Long Long ago, when I was still on the cozy shores of Motherland, I had (in the incarnation of a couch potato) posted about the status of television in India. I shall attempt to do something on those lines now. If you read the previous paragraph, you more or less know the stand I am about to take.

I need to get it out of my system, so I will talk about this first. There are many religious channels here on TV. There's these televangelists (usually corrupt-gigolo hiring closet homosexuals) preaching about the love of god. Comparing god to a loving mother is standard fare; requesting money ("donations") to make "god" grant wishes is equally standard. "God will grant your wish if you just move to the phone and pledge the paltry sum of $58".

And then there's the news channels. Fox, CNN and MSNBC. The former can fall into the religious category too: for all it shows is fawning republicans and subtle anti-Islamic propaganda. Fox's commentators defend the American way: how the American culture is under threat from those poor Mexicans they stole this land from more than a century ago; how the Iraqis are irresponsible and are refusing to let the American soldiers leave. ("Our troops are stuck in the middle of a civil war.") The president of the nation in question, Mr. Bush is a rather constant fixture on all these channels. It's almost like a reality show: each and every little movement of his is magnified, scrutinized and advertised. Of course, real issues are forgotten.

In-depth looks (one hour specials) are taken at destitute nations such as Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Cuba as potential sinks for weapons. [How would a war with Iran look?] Intense looking anchors (somehow) find themselves in one of the aforementioned nations and try to imagine how war would be with one of these nations. International news is usually restricted to nations of fair skin: viz. Europe and Australia. India does not get a mention unless effigies of Bush are being burnt or unless there's massive terrorist attacks in Mumbai. (Right now, there seems to be a love-fest of sorts. Indians seem to be in love with the US right now. Effigies of Bush are safer in India than any other nation in the world - including the US!). Some four prostitutes are killed in London and the US press just laps it up; but 20+ dead children, cannibalism, organ trade the Noida disaster does not get even a passing mention in the press here.

And now Let's move along onto MTV and VH1, which are in all probably the worst channels that I have ever seen. And I am comparing them with Alpha Punjabi and and DD Gujarati. TI thought they would have music videos on them: but I am still yet to see a music video on either channel. They just show some skimpily clad female carrying a dog in a purse in tears or something. Unless they're showing the 100 most hairy Hollywood eyelashes or something.

And then there's comedy Central and TBS, two watchable channels. Since they are not terrible, I will not describe them. Suffice it so say that they, along with the History Channel and the Weather Channel are the only channels that I watch in this country. The History channel, though partial to newly disovered Hitler videos and American Military propaganga, does show a lot of quality programming in series such as "Engineering an Empire".

The Discovery channel in this country is disgusting. All the science is essentially tremendously dumbed down. It's usually some repulsive weapons thing: when some smug military guy demonstrates how the US uses 5% its GDP annually to develop weapons that can destroy the whole world over some thousands of times. And then there's the programs about NASA's missions to mars and other planets. Presumably to bomb them with the American nukes at a future date, after failing to find WMDs in them.

As you can understand, the TV in this country is quite boring. Ah, what a great invention the remote is.

Voices of Reason in the Land of Plenty

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Pomp Alert
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It really does not matter to the world if a relatively insignificant country (economically) like India has ureasonable international policy. But when you're talking of the US' mammoth economy, it's a whole new ball game. Because of its sheer economic magnitude, the US policies (and agression) affect other countries all the more. Therefore, the US must desist from falling prey to bouts of jingoistic nationalism.

And alas, the US has fared miserably in that respect. Turn on your TV and you see some O'Rielly or Sean Hannity bellowing hate and intolterance; you see politicians contemplate building a fence between US and Mexico (conveniently neglecting how shamelessly the US pilfered California and Texas from Mexico - and how brutally they supressed the Indigenous Americans everywhere). And of course, the CIA has created more problems for the world than all the middle east put together(except Israel).

The recent American mid-term elections saw, as a result, Rumsfeld get the much deserved boot. And I believe he got it for all the wrong reasons. Americans did not like the fact that 3000 of their troops died fighting "for" Iraq. The little inconvenient statistic that 500,000 Iraqis perished in Iraq as a concequence of a nightmare that Bush had does not cut any ice with the average American. The Democrats in power will do everything to keep their troops safe (which they should). But they will do nothing to save Iraqis. Even if they do something, it's way down on the to-do list.

It's all about the 3000 dead troops. It is really unfortunate that 3000 troops had to die, but 500,000 people dying is the real bloody fiasco, the real catastrophe*. As far as war goes, there is very little rationality left in America. This country lives under a fog of supercilious obliviousness.

Take for instance, Ted Kennedy's (a so-called "liberal") tirade against Bush today. He opposed the idea of more troops in Iraq tooth and nail - because of the 3000 dead soldiers. All reference he made to dead Iraqi civilians, if any, was made as an afterthought. Everywhere, you hear rhetoric about the mess in Iraq being the Iraqis' fault. Nobody admits that America got them into this mess. Nobody, except a few voices of reason.

If there is one person in this country who calls a spade a spade, it is Noam Chomsky. He is much loathed by the media of this country because he speaks the truth. He is shunned because no one can risk arguing with someone as logically sound has he is. His ideas on how the art of engineering consent in Democracies works have been vindicated by recent developments in Iraq - and perhaps by every development of international politics that one can "see" in the news. From a distance, his theories sound like conspiracy theories, but when one learns to accept certain hard truths, one finds his theories quite obvious and intuitive. He does not call the American president a "devil". He is not a Nazi sympathizer (despite what some Jewish Columnists think). He is a man with more knowledge about politics than anyone else - making him a tough person to argue with.

If there is one person in this country who calls a spade everything but a spade, it is Stephen Colbert. His acerbic sarcasm along with Jon Stewart's often brutal but hilarious bellicosity shows an astonishing amount of empathy (compared with other "journalists") for the suffering of the victims of agression in Iraq. These are not "run-of-the-mill" liberals whose view is limited to their country. No. These satirists are the conscience of the nation (otherwise overrun by the Limbaughs and the O'riellys) that the South Park Guys talk of in their fabulous episode on the American founding fathers.

It would be a stretch to call the South Park Guys voices of reason. They pooh-poohed (effectively) global warming; they almost did the Prophet Mohammad cartoons again. So, yeah.. they are not entirely reasonable. Just thought they deserved a partial mention.

These are only voices. What a voice can do is very limited. But there are some who put their money where their mouth is. Bill Gates and his troupe (Buffet et. al.) have decided that they've had enough of poverty. Just like Bill eradicated his competition (Netscape comes to mind), he wants to eradicate poverty using, among other things, micro-credit. Sensible, but history has shown that people from the first world have almost no effect on third world issues. Sachs and Bono (the latter, though irish, is assumed to be an American) have raised a lot of issues about third world poverty - and have made them public. The sheer magnitude of the poverty trap automatically brings out one's skeptical side. But it is nice to know that billionaires and geniuses are attempting to change the world. And it is nicer to know that they have done it despite hailing from a country that remains largely insulated from suffering of any sort.

There are many who feel that if that Chapman had been killed at birth or something, then John Lennon would still be alive - and concequently, there would be no war in Iraq. One can only imagine a world without war, a world which would give peace a chance.

Better than Clocky

What could sell better than a furry little alarm clock made by an oh-so-rare single (presumably) female engineer cum entrepreneur? It just can't go wrong: it has the "cute" factor going for it in each and every way. The MIT educated Ms. Gauri- something (these Indians - we have such complicated surnames) came up with a furry contraption which roams around the house making a racket at the waking hour. Much like the rooster in the days of old. Clocky, she calls it. If Marc Abrahams notices, it must be significant.

I don't want to be-little Ms. Nanda's idea, so I will desist from doing so explicitly. Suffice it to say that she is not the first person who has had such an idea. I have had such ideas on numerous occasions and am in fact using one on a regular basis. You see, I have one of those Bose wave radio thingamajigs. These things can be operated only by remote control. They have an FM - Radio alarm clock function too. What I do before sleeping, of course, is toss my remote control into one of the heaps of unwashed clothes that surround my bed. The alarm is usually set to a show called "The Big Show" with a couple of moronic rednecks called John Boy and Billy. In my opinion, these two are the most repugnant purveyors of excrement that can be found on this planet. Every minute of their show is pure torture. You can understand the urgency that the waker-upper is faced with when his ears are confronted with this show. The remote is searched for desperately, and in searching for the same, a wake-up is affected.

A few more schemes are suggested below. Each of them, I am sure is more effective than "clocky".

First, the door bell ringer. Rather than the alarm clock, the door bell rings in the a.m. The door must be answered. The person wakes up. A lukewarm cup of fresh coffee can be poured onto the profile of the asleep, of course. Temperatures below 40C must be ascertained, lest scalding be a problem. And pray, what would one think of the oven going on at a preset time? If you don't wake up and turn it off, your electricity bill will go through the roof. And what about programming your phone to call up an arbitrary number in Pakistan at a preset time? [$1 connection fee, 50c per minute]. You will have to get up to cancel the call.

Too bad I can't patent these ideas and sell them to unsuspecting people like Ms. Nanda is tying to. Wait. This is America. Maybe I can. They patent everything in this country. If they can patent Basmati, then I am sure the oven-alarm clock will be patented too. These are exciting times we're living in. And in a land where a rich sucker is born every minute, the usa. [Of the 5 suckers born in India every minute, 4.89, alas are poor.]

DO NOT KILL SADDAM

The west is a bunch of fools. Or a bunch of really intelligent bigots trying their subtle best to rid the world of those pesky Arabs who have all the oil which God, I am sure, wants the west to use. Fucking ironic that it is made of dinosaur bones - and half these jokers don't even believe in evolution.

Come on.

First, the prophet - cartoons. Freedom of speech, yeah, great! "I don't care even if hundreds die as long as I say what I want." If you ask me, those bloody cartoonists were either absolute idiots or selfish m****r fuckers. A billion people's sentiments are worth less than their "freedom". Cartoonist, fuck you.

Then the pope. Only an absolute idiot would accuse some other religious figure of being violent without talking about the church. The church has been the world's primary pain in the ass in the medieval era. More blood has been shed in the name of the church than the mosque. Ratzinger is a fool. Or a cunning genius?

And then they will kill Saddam, knowing fully well that his death will lead to thousands of retaliatory deaths. The occupiers must be fucking weak in the head. Everybody in the world knew Saddam was going to be killed. What a farce the whole thing is.

Don't you see a pattern here? The west is trying to get Arabs to kill arabs so that they don't have to kill any Arabs - for there will be none left to kill. And finally, when the dust settles, all they have to do is drill for oil - and presto! The corporations are a tad bit richer.

Genius. Pure genius.

Maybe you've heard this one before:

There's this American Dad in 2020 who takes his 12 year old kid around New York. Shows him the statue of liberty with pride. And then, shows him ground zero and the new building that has replaced the WTC. He says "This is where the greatest buildings in the world stood until the Arabs hatefully destroyed them".

And the boy asks, "Dad, what's an Arab?".


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THIS IS NOT ANTI-CHRISTIANITY.
THIS IS JUST ANTI-CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISM.
THIS IS JUST ANTI-CAPITALIST FUNDAMENTALISM.
THIS IS NOT ANTI-FREE SPEECH.
THIS IS FOR RESPONSIBLE FREE SPEECH.
THIS IS FOR AN EQUITABLE, DIGNIFIED LIFE.
THIS IS FOR WHAT THE WEST SAYS, NOT WHAT IT DOES.

Wars Tomorrow -

This is another in a series explaining the economic necessity of warfare to humanity, and why peace would be a bad idea.

Despite persistent efforts to establish world peace by umpteen Popes,Rabbis, Imams, Shankaracharyas (hindu priests more famous for plotting grisly murders), Lamas (of the Dalai variety) and American Presidents, strangely peace will not prevail on this planet. Man still will hate man, woman and child; woman still will hate man, woman and child; child will still remain clueless and admire the bird in the sky which in actuality is a missile headed right for him / her. This mutual hatred will have saved the biggest economies in the world (such as the USA) from saturation and stagnation; corporations like Northup Gunnman will still make a lot of money on the blood of some unfortunate nation (henceforth referred to as the Bakra) . The American economy will still grow, the American people (read "rich people")will get fatter - so fat that even in scarcely populated Texas you will bump into someone all the time.

Future leaders' worst nightmare will be peace, not their dream - just like Today's leaders. In order to ascertain employment for their ilk, causing turbulence in the world will b e one of their priorities. Various methods of creating turbulence will have been studied by governments of the world. Consensus will have been reached, propaganda will be "it".

No amount of begging will motivate a human being into committing suicide doing something as wrong as killing innocents. No amount of blackmail will ever motivate one into doing something on those lines. But brainwash them from childhood - and presto! You have babies dying to be suicide bombers; you have people believing their way of life is right (like Bill O Rielly), you have some people thinking their country is rich (Advani's Shining India)... the list goes on. The motivating factor is that there's a sucker born every minute. The success strategy is simple:
use the aforementioned suckers to mint money by making them fight and supplying weapons, espionage satellites and creative methods to trap more suckers by fake propaganda.

The US brainwashes its people by television and politics. Iran brainwashes its people with politicians denying the holocaust; the Indian rich brainwash themselves into thinking there are only a couple of poor people in the entire country; China brainwashes its people by shooting down the un-brainwashed in city squares.

The future holds exciting possibilities for the propaganda industry. Take for instance the great American experiment with Iran in 2010. During one of Ahmedinijad's incensed speeches denying Gandhi's existence , the US will use one of its spy satellites to beam pornographic videos onto his projected screen. The people will be outraged, and will think Ahmedinijad is making fun of them. He will lose the subsequent elections - after riots on Tehran streets.

The US will beam a holographic image of Kim Jong Il commiting suicide by jumping off a cliff in Korea via one of theire satellites. The people of North Korea will start rioting in jubiliation. The country will explode; lots of intoxicated refugees will knock on China's door. China, incensed with this inconvenience will counter the US with similar strikes.

You get the picture. Propaganda wars. I urge everyone to buy Northup Gunnman stock (so that I can sell it while it is still in high demand).

Another Futile Attempt to Rationalize Inequity in the Modern World.

It breaks my heart to criticize the USA. My experience here has been that the average American is probably the most polite and caring person in the world – perhaps because I have not been to Canada – but I really don’t think Canada is a separate country. But this country, though extremely benevolent and kind at a personal level is the source of almost all the world’s problems.

Well, let me change what I said here. It isn’t this country that is guilty for all the world’s problems. It is the segment of society that this country represents: The rich and the resource hungry.

For the middle class in this country (which, according to Lou Dobbs, an Editorial Member of CNN’s news team, is being waged a war against by the administrative classes of this country) has a standard of living comparable to the richest of the rich in India.

In all economies with capitalist tendencies, the rich screw the poor. The lesser the resources a nation has, the poorer the poor of that Nation – and the more screwed they get by the rich. The US has a lot more resources than India – the poor are in a pretty good shape – financially. Physically, the American poor tend to be more rotund – for they can afford only Taco-Bell or McDonalds. The Indian rich eat at joints like the latter – and the poor often don’t eat at all. Wheras the poor in the US are covered under layers of fat, hundreds of thousands of Indians die of hunger every year.

And who is screwing the poor in India? Why can’t they afford to eat? Why the extreme poverty? Is the extreme poverty a consequence of under-regulated capitalist policy, rampant corruption and impotent family planning (note the oxymoron here?

Capitalism is said to empower the common people. But the current Indian capitalism seems to be partial to larger corporations (which are better equipped to deal with corruption by bribing their way through). It is corruption that is favoring the larger corporations, little else.

If there is even an iota of pro-poverty ideology in the (CPI)-Marxists, they must train their energies against corruption; not capitalism. A significantly lower level of corruption is probably the only thing that will uplift the poor: state largesse (socialism) will send the economy into a state of atrophy and utter-unproductivity.

Three Exciting Possibilities

Nobel Laureate Mohammed Younus, one of the few bright lights in Bangladesh has the right Idea. Micro-credit. Lend money to the poor – but at reasonable interest rates – not a foully high interest rates. Lend intelligently, and they will pay you back. They will become wealth generators. Capitalism will come to the rescue to the poorest of the poor in the world. And, yes, it will do so in a sustainable manner.

However, in India, micro-credit (one of Dr. Singh’s economic policies as of now) has only a few success stories. I believe the main reason for this, is corruption. Corruption is so rampant in India that failure rates are very high. Dr Singh’s government has passed the RTI Act, - an act that has proven to be quite a boon to fight against corruption. Though RTI success stories abound (Magsasay awardee Mr. Arjun Kejriwal deserves special mention here), the government is trying to clip its wings – under pressure from beauraucracy. It’s a “yes-prime-ministeresque” drama happening in New Delhi, the policy makers under pressure from the all powerful Beauraucracy

Media watch-dogs in India have started to emerge of late. Sting operations are conducted almost on a daily basis. Corruption – from Bollywood casting couches to high-level defense deals has been exposed. Before asking for a significant bribe, the corrupt official has to think twice. Is there a hidden camera somewhere?

Will these change India? They will. After all, India is a hugely successful democracy. The people don’t like corruption. They will boot the corrupt ones out. I remain optimistic.

A cruel world.

Close to a three hundred thousand brave soldiers (most still in their teens), enlist, often purely by the encouragement of their parents, in a two (and often three) year long battle. They fight no monster; no dragon. They fight and kill each other. All they do is fight for two years, little else. And why do they do this? To avoid an eternity of suppression and repression.

Only three thousand survive this horribly destructive battle. Others are forced to work in the deepest depths of hell, even if they almost survive the ordeal. Before they have the time to relax and recover from the wounds, the government forces them into another equally destructive battle: where they are split into many sub-groups (such as divers, foot soldiers and pilots). They then proceed to kill each other. Some just don't become good divers, soldiers and pilots. They are eliminated easily, and live reasonably fulfilling lives as shepherds. Some, of course revel in this shepherdry (sic.) . All in all, roughly 20 of the 3000 win their respective battles and find themselves as graduate students in MIT and Stanford and the like. Some of the shepherds will end up in IIMs too - where they enlist to fight an equally savage battle with other shepherds.

The IITs might be the biggest names of all as far as engineering education is concerned in the world. But one must bear in mind that what got them there is the merciless bloodshed of the other (unsuccessful) innocent aspirants. The IITs are, in reality, beasts that prey on the egos of innocent Indians who sacrifice two years of their lives with a desire to rise above the rut of mediocrity that the rest of the country is. Their unofficial motto is "Be cruel, kill the innocent."

And this motto extends to the 3000 successful students who pass the JEE. Usually, most freshers into IIT love their Math, Physics and Chemistry - for it takes a true passion (and a LOT of luck) to crack the JEE. And when they join, they come across some joker teaching them Quantum Mechanics - another joker vomiting a book of thermodynamics on the blackboard (without even contemplating an appeal to intuition). The terrible teaching at IIT made me hate those subjects. While students at Caltech had Feynman teaching them Physics, we had these &^@!#$s!

In my very first semester at IIT we had nine courses. Thermodynamics, Materials Science, Chemistry, Maths, Physics, Basic Electrical Engineering, Engineering Drawing, Workshop and Physics Lab.

Developing an intuitive understanding, of course, was possible only if you were an Einstien-esque genius. And unfortunately, most professors assumed the same. There are three kinds of IITians: the Genius, the pragmatic perseverer (sic) and the idealistic victim. The genius does not work, skips classes and scores among the highest in class. (There's usually more than one genius in class!). The pragmatic perseverer, perhaps, dreams of greener pastures in the US of A from day 1 and works toward that goal by taking regular notes and sacrificing the intuitive understanding if he deems it necessary to do so. The idealistic victim, on the other hand, fails to catch what the professor says in class (for he is not a genius), and just does not have the time to work on developing an intuitive understanding of all 9 courses at once. He screws up miserably.

Professors in IIT are cruel too. Except for a few, all expect student to learn by heart empirical formulae to use in the examination. They do a miserable job of teaching. Some professors can't even talk out clearly. Almost all professors have an attitude problem; they reckon the students are just not interested in working hard. In reality, professors at IIT are a pampered lot. They have not taught anywhere else in the world. As a student, I have realized that students at IITs are way more enthusiastic and easy to teach than the students in the US. The professors can teach without "dumbing the material down", like they have to do here. And I have never heard students ask insightful questions like they did at IIT.

IITs are a cruel institution. We are a nation with absymal poverty and opportunity levels. Cruelty is a national phenomenon. We see how exaggerated it is in the nation's premier institutions.

A Left Turn

There were many moments at IIT Madras that made me think; some of which actually changed my life. Technical discourses from the likes of V Ramachandran (the neuro-whiz from UCSD) and Roberk Resnick rank quite high, for one. But a talk by journalist P. Sainath really changed my life.

Sainath is one of those guys who makes people uncomfortable. And he does so with fact rather than rhetoric. The tirade he launched against the BJP for having the temerity to suggest that India was actually shining when the poorest of the poor were going through their toughest time ever opened my eyes, and almost everyone else's in the audience. IITians are a cynical audience, by and large. Nobody, not even T.N Seshan got a standing ovation. But Sainath did.

His analysis was spot on; the subsequent election results showed the free-market-capitalist BJP and the CEO of AP, Naidu, receive a historic drubbing by the wary masses. The family of the farmer who committed suicide would certainly have thought the India Shining campaign insensitive, to say the least. And proposals to build a F1 racetrack in Hyderabad when farmers were dying would have been the salt on the wound. Democracy spoke out; the left leaning congress party came to power (after some political theatrics).

Another moment that changed my life was the following. I was at an aunt's place in India (the details of the location shall be with-held, for I don't want to be accused of slander and be responsible for the subsequent rift in the family). She said the following:

"The poorer people are animals. The rickshaw-wallas, the shop-keepers. They beat their wives at home and get drunk all the time. Just don't think of them as human. Treat them as low-lives."

I was enraged at that time; and still am. But now, I realize that almost every rich person and business in India thinks this way - by just don't say it in so many words. Let me elaborate.

The poor are omnipresent in India. Look through any window from home (unless you are in one of those expensive Metro neighbourhoods); from trains, from anywhere. You will see the poor live in their ill constructed slums facing the vagaries of nature (extreme heat, extreme cold and heavy rain). With this poverty everywhere one tends to take this poverty for granted. There are so many poor people in the country that the average rich Indian just takes them for granted. Servant maids are upbraided for missing a spot on the ground; auto drivers are shouted at and fought with.

Life in the US has been such a contrast. Labour is dignified; carpenters and chauffeurs (often among the poorest in India) live with a standard of living comparable to while collar workers in India - often with that of executives. This country is so insulated from human suffering that any little suffering is given a lot of importance. The US is a way more compassionate country for that very reason.

It is obvious that the lot of the poor Indian is unlikely to stage an overnight recovery. The only way out , of course, is sustainable development - and perhaps laws that make it difficult for corporations to continue making positive economic profits (by monopoly) off the poorest of the poor. Dr. Singh's tag line "Reforms with a Human Face" makes a lot of sense at first hear. But is it really practical? Only time will tell. Meanwhile, the fate of poor India hangs in the balance.

I can see that the only sensible Ideology an Indian/ a sensitive global citizen can follow is an Indian-style leftist ideology (not the ridiculous ideology of Michael Moore et. al. Back in the third world, we've got more important things to worry about than the right to surf porn annonymously on the internet.). For the poor are people too, my aunt's words of wisdom notwithstanding.

Ick, Kiki and Orb.

Long long ago, on this very piece of land, lived a family - a family whose real names have been lost in the prehistoric era. A family of Cave men. For marketing purposes in today's world, they have been assigned the decidedly uninspiring monikers: Ick, Kiki and Orb. Ick being the patriarch, Kiki being the matriarch and Orb being the only surviving male offspring - a rather naughty one at that, one would imagine.

Ick's real name was Theodore; Kiki's was Razia and Orb's was Gaston-Lee. They lived in the huge city of Newport. A prosperous megapolis of 30 million, built more on the lines of today's New York than Tora bora. Newport was a part of the pre-historic Altivian empire - an empire built like today's USA - but with a significant difference.

In the Altivian era, progress in ecological research was much ahead of its time. There was international consensus on the greenhouse effect and on the dangers of non-biodegradable materials. (This was partly due to a preponderance of massive carbon dioxide breathing dragons which had to be eliminated by fearless princesses riding on their equally fearless mules. The scientific community had to justify this slaughter of massive beasts - the princesses being too beautiful to blame. It was a by a stroke of luck that the greenhouse effect was stumbled upon).

The upshot, of course, was that all the buildings that were built could be destroyed without a trace on impact. Only solar energy was used - and it was used extensively. Not a square millimeter of land on a desert remained without it being covered by organic solar cells. Organic solar cells were essentially plants which were genetically engineered to produce DC through their leaves and connect to the national grid via their roots (of course, after passing through the appropriate inverters and other waveform conditioning modules). The process of cross pollination took care of capacity expansion.

Organised religion in the Altivian era was as organized as that of today. The Altivians worshipped the boar (like Obelix of Gaul) , worshipped the cow (like the Hindus), worshipped the pig (unlike the Muslims) ; the ram (unlike the Christians)- actually anything on four legs except the dragon (like the Chinese and King Arthur) and the mule. A certain sect of the Altivians believed in the Noble boar that had fed a famished group of piligrms on the verge of passing away by sacrificing itself. The same sect of Altivians, as a mark of respect for the aforementioned boar would touch no meat. They would sacrifice twenty-thousand tomatoes by showering the same on a boar.

And then there was the Foremost Pig that had helped relieve people of their sin by kissing them on the forehead; the Central Cow whose milk had guaranteed immortality. (Its calves died of malnutrition - they never got any of the milk)

Gaston-Lee was an inquisitive man by nature. He questioned the basis of this belief - he had seen ample evidence against the same. The poorer sections of Newport had thousands of poor people starving without a meal a day. Why didn't the noble boar do anything? He saw wrinkled old folk on the street gaze fearfully at a funeral procession. What had become of the central cow? He then saw the robber snatch a purse from an innocent woman walking on the street. He pursued the robber - only to see the same disappear into a pigpen, presumably to get kissed by the Foremost Pig.

Gaston-Lee therefore questioned God. He suspected that organized religion was one big hoax. He melted into a sea of cynicism. And in a fit of rage, he and a couple of other like minded people secluded themselves into a cave and let their disillusionment show in a series of drawings on the wall. They used permanent ink - they had begun to doubt everything - even those ecological beliefs that were such a central a part of their society. Gaston and his co-workers drew a man killing a boar - he had understood that the boar had not given up its life voluntarily, but had been cruelly snuffed.


Dr. Josef Pierre, a history teacher at Harvard had put the above picture up in his snazzy power-point slide show.

He said "As we can see, the caveman was primarily carnivorous. He used primitive methods to kill his prey. He was too primitive to be able to cultivate crops. This was his only food. Boar."

The Future of Terrorism

The future of terror, just like its past, is in safe (or rather, unsafe) hands. It is not just in the hands of Al-Qaeda, the Taleban, LTTE, LET and the Maoists - groups known the world around as terrorists. These groups are actually the most incompetent; the visible tip of the iceberg. I call them incompetent because we know about them. They have failed in convincing the western masses that they are not terrorists. (But one must understand that my perspective is an Indo-American perspective. A Kashmiri / Iraninan / Iraqi perspective is probably the exact inverse).

The rest of the iceberg of terror is comprised of by (among others)

• CIA
• Funded Osama Bin Laden in the 80s. Look who came back to bite the US in the rear.
  
• Helped the Shah of Iran; indirectly brought about the islamic revolution. Look who's trying to bite the US in the rear now.
• Is always trying to assasinate Chavez. Trying to get him out of the office by financing a coup, at least.
  
• Supported Genocide in Chile: Pinochet.
• Supported modern day Hitler Pol Pot in Cambodia.
• Tortures people all around the world in its "secret" prisons
• Supports warlords in Somalia "fighting" islamic militia
• Dabbled in Opium Trade in Asia
  
• Tried to kill the leader of Panama
• Tried to kill the leader of Cuba (Commie Castro)
• Taught Nicaraguan Troops to encourage rioting on street
• A lot of other classified stuff.
  

• Mossad
• Systematically tries to kill "enemies of state" (like leaders of Hamas) by giving information of their whereabouts. Usually kills more civilians instead.
• Has Asassinated (along with a lot of civilians)
• Innocent Ahmed Bouchiki because he looked like someone else.
• Fathi Shqaqi
• Izz El-Deen Sheikh Khalil

• RAW
• Created Bangladesh by dividing Pakistan. While it is mind bogglingly obvious that Bangladesh is going to come back and bite India in the rear in the future, it is quite difficult to say the fault would be attributed to RAW.
• Created Bangladesh and Tried to assasinate the President.
• Tries to destabilize Balochistan and Waziristan.
  
• ISI (Pakistan)
• Encouraged Sikh militancy in India
• Parented Taliban
• Mumbai Bombs; inspired Dawood Ibrahim.
  
• Runs Terror Camps in Bangladesh. Also encourages North East India terrorism.
• Funds radical islamic groups.
  

I hereby propose that the Axis of Evil be expanded to include the aforementioned groups.

We're a sick planet. And the worst part of this is, that our history is filled with acts of terror that give these groups a Mother-Teresaesque feel. Hitler makes Ahemedinijad look like an angel; Aurangazeb makes Indira Gandhi look like a cuddly teddy bear; and Vlad the impaler makes George Bush look kind of good too.

Repressed Perverts, Religious Hypocrites

Religious extemism, Ahmedinijad-style, apparently, is just skin deep. Or just a lot of skin.

By day, Iranians pray to God a gazillion times, shove their women behind a "burqa" (lest the women expose their noses or feet), hear incessant propaganda of Ahmedinijad saying the holocaust did not occur and that Israel is a "wreteched state". And by night, well, they surf porn on the internet. As do the Pakistani Mujahideen; as do the devoutly islamic Egyptians. How can I say that with confidence? Google trends. Google trends has the amazing new "normalized" search feature, which compares the fraction searches matching the keywords to the total number of searches emanating from a particular region / city.

For some reason, I looked for "sex" in trends.google.com. I wanted to know what the most perverse city in the world actually is. I expected to find Amsterdam or Paris. Perhaps Tokyo, perhaps even, Bangkok. Maybe New York. It was a hilarious surprise to find Chennai, home to the stiffest upper lip the world, at Number one. Little did I know that the autowallas, the cooks in the mess, the shopkeepers at Pondy bazaar back at IIT were schizophrenic. Conservative "don't say a bad word" people during the day, and porn addicts by night. I knew the day-scholars back at IIT were upto something. I mean - something had to inspire them to do so well in all exams consistently.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=sex

And I then cliked on "regions". And guess which country came first? Pakistan! Ahmedinijadland was not far behind. Ah, won't the Ayatollah be proud? Egypt and Turkey were at the top too. Apparently, the more repressive a society, the more the chances that you search for "sex". India (a closed society in its own right), was in the top ten. I'm guessing the fact that Bollywood is showing more skin of late has reduced the libidinous urges that more religious nations seem to be subject to.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=sex&ctab=1&geo=all&date=all

Apparently, the Iranians like it dirty. The term "fuck" apparently is more dear to Iran than any other country in the world.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=Fuck&ctab=1&geo=all&date=all

However, the term "porn" does not seem to be an abbreviation familiar to the masses governed by the Ayatollah or Musharaff. Mandella-land seems to love porn. And even that island down under. India seems marginally more interested in porn than the US, but the UK has beaten them both by a long way.

Conspicuous by their absense are statistics from China. Apparently, the Chinese do not search for sex. Or maybe, their great firewall is so good that it does not allow any pornographic searches to percolate. Or maybe they call sex something else in Chinese.

One must be wary when one analyses this data. Since e-business has really caught on in the west, the people are very likely to search for other things like "chocolates" and "laptops" too. This does, in no way, tell us that Christianity has triumphed over perversity. If anybody is under any such impression, then they are advised to tune into MTV.

I reach the following conclusions:

• Human beings are human beings.
  
• Repression does not triumph over lust.
• I need to get a life. Why on earth would anyone be searching for sex on tends.google.com?
  

A Tribute to Steve Irwin

It was six or so years ago: I was in Vizag with my grandmother. I was hooked onto the TV (just like any adoloscent preparing for the JEE would be expected to be). There was this intrepid little Australian exploring the land down under fiddling with what he believed to be "the ten most poisonous snakes in the world". I can remember feeling a little tense when he was handling number one.

He had a unique (humane?) way of dealing with snakes. He would lift them up by the tail, and not behind their necks (as one would be tempted). He went on to explain that holding the snake by the tail hurts the snake lesser. Not information that I would ever be likely to use, but this little bit remained etched in my mind forever. I watched the whole episode barely lifting my eyes from the TV.

Whenever I would tune into discovery channel after that, I would remember the same episode on snakes. I desperately awaited reruns of that thing. But to no avail.

And a couple of years ago, I saw Eric Cartman, with that same exaggerated Australian drawl, try to put his thumb into certain private parts of other animals' anatomies. Of course, I remembered the snakes then,

It is heart-breaking to hear that Mr. Irwin is no more. My sincere condolences to his family and every other fan.

How to get snakes onto a plane

After the recent (inspiring?) Jackson starrer, one cannot but help contemplate various ways of installing snakes on an airliner with the motive of causing inconvenience to one and all. And the term "snakes", I use not metaphorically. This is indeed not a post with layers of meaning. The term "snakes" implies not a terrorist. This post is as crass and unsophisticated as, well, the movie in question.

How do we get snakes on a plane without getting detected? This question has puzzled countless moviegoers for a week and a day, and bloggers with nothing else to do for more than a year. So, I take a crack at bringing them on board. A warning though: one must not try getting snakes on a plane. It would be cruel to the snake; PETA would get back at you for doing so, no doubt. Another warning: if you're flying Sam Jackson on the plane, it would be better not to get any impressionable children on board. Profanity is something most children should never learn. Or they become like, well, Sam Jackson when confronted with wriggly thingamajigs.

One must make use of the fact that snakes are organic creatures. If smuggled in the check in baggage, they would be detected in the x-ray. Snakes are soft, and when pressed, some feel like a gel. It would be best not to get them in cabin baggage either - especially with the stringent new anti-gel norms. The sensible snake bringer would carry the snake on his person - preferably tranquilzed -something slithering would arouse immediate suspicions. The advantage of their "organicness" is that the metal detector won't go "beep beep beep" when it hovers over the snake. It will think the snake is a part of the body and will move on its quest of detecting firearms.

So, how does one smuggle these things into a plane? Snakes are not drugs - and cannot be smuggled in "body orifices" - for they might suffocate. Plus no one wants venom in the aforementioned parts of the anatomy. Prosthetic limbs come to mind; breast implants too, I guess - but how would one produce those snakes on demand in the plane without looking extremely conspicuous? One therefore does see that these methods entail severe risk. One could try bribing the stewardresses - but that would work only in domestic Indian flights. (Corruption seems to be an endemic part of current Indian culture right now).

I think the most pragmatic way of achieving the stated objective is to smuggle an undetected snake in one's pockets while boarding the flight. The snake must be in a state of infancy - so that it can be mistaken to be a part of the pocket lining of the trousers. The infant snake must then be hosted in, say, seat 12A. It must be put undetected in the seat pocket. Then, the assassin (let's call the snake-bringer the "assassin" rather than the "terrorist", primarily, because the term "assassin" has two asses) must make his people buy tickets on all flights of the plane in question such that they get to stay in seat 12A. They must feed the snake a share of their airline food daily - and remove its excreta in a litter bag.

And on D-day (let's refer to it as SSS day from now on?) the snake is released. One must make it a point to make it either an anaconda or a venomous snake; failing which the snake shall wind up as a mere amusement. Spray it with pheromones and hear Sam Jackson deliver his famous lines.

[Please note that there's a lot of bleeped profanity in the link. Please be aware of that before you click on it. ]

Invulnerable to attack?

Dr Kalam, India's president reckons that India must make itself "invulnerable to attack". I am sure the statement was made with all the best intentions, but I must note that the world would be better off if India remained the one sixteenth super-power it already is.

Let' s face it. There's way too many bombs with the US, Russia and China. If they ever decide to attack us with them, then we're done for. Unless, of course, we build our own. But we're a small nation (at least in size). We're not that rich. If we ever manage to top these nations in Nuclear weapons (or at least get ourselves enough to make them think twice before they do the nuclear thing), then we would have spent an immense amount of money. Money that our poor nation call ill afford to spend. Money that could be spent in, say, building better roads and intersections.

I personally believe that we should not even plan for defending ourseleves against these nations. We should focus on becoming an economic superpower. An active trading partner that these nations can ill afford to fight with. Of course, we must fight with the terrorists. We must have good intellegence. The LET and the Maoists would be itching to get their hands on the bombs, for one.

Presidents are not elected directly. The constitution gives them almost no power. They just live in a large house and consume as many resources as the average American. India feeds its ego by feeding a figurehead with luxury that the normal person cannot even concieve. Indian presidents' opinions do not matter in the policy arena, as the recent "office of profit" episode has shown. Aren't we wasting an engineer of Dr Kalam's caliber in the Rashtrapathi Bhawan?

Sticking to Principles

Among the most dangerous things that my parents taught me, it turns out, is sticking to my principles. Sticking to principles, for one, makes one unpopular immediately. The usual refrain "He thinks he is better than us!" plays repetitively in another's head when one refuses to consume alcoholic beverages to smoke some relaxing nicotine filled cylinders (which shall not be named, fearing government censorship) when approached by another to do so.

The danger of "principles" has landed emperors, kings and the like into the proverbial soup. It brought out female polygamy in Ancient India - when one woman was "shared" by five brothers. It brought about millions of wars in the past. A stubborn church brought about humiliation to greats such as Galileo and Copernicus; a stubborn interpretaion of the Quaran has plunged an an entire region into anarchy instilling "hate".

And right now, principle is being used as a "tool" to justify energy hungry imperial aspirations of cetrtain nations of the world (which shall remain unnamed - lest the author be deported, the right to free speech notwithstanding). I mean ... dictatorship doesn't look like utopia to you, but who the hell are you to say it's bad? How do you know other options are not worse? I guess you will learn in the long run.

We Indians are proud of our Indian principles and our Indian value system. How naive, how naive, how naive. For within this cloak of respectability lurks an ugly secret: there are no values, really. A respectable person is expected to have "values". But it has become a cloak for corruption. Indian principles, forsooth. And what of sex?

India shuns sex. Sex is out. If you're talking about sex to an Indian family, awkward silences ensue. Sexual awareness is not spread in school ... parents themselves are not well informed enough to talk to their children. In the land of Ajanta and Ellora, of Kama Sutra, of Kajuraho, sex is a taboo.

No wonder sexual abuse is rife ... (not reported, but prevalent, nevertheless)....

India is in need of some drastic social reform. We need to accept that, first.

The "tag"

Instead of posts on India (which I have been bombarding the unsuspecting general public with of late), I shall now respond to a tag. This might have broken the "fabric" of the blog, had there been any. But, fabric there is none. So, this post is probably more appropriate than inappropriate. Yada yada yada.

One Book that Changed my life?

Once upon a time, I was an optimistic guy. I thought the world was a beautiful place, and that the birds were cute little things that flew in the sky to make it look better. And then I read Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World", which taught me the basics of cynicism. It taught me to abhor, it taught me to suspect. And then came Orwell's 1984. I can't look at a computer screen with ease .... is big brother watching me? These two books have made me a neurotic wreck.... they did change my life, obviously.

If Wikipedia were actually printed on paper, it would probably have not changed my life as much as it has right now in its online incarination. All I do is type anything I want to know in that firefox address bar ( for instance "wikipedia Adis Ababa") to get data on the average annual precipitation, the geography and the per capita income of that city. But I guess I'm digressing. Quintessential me?

"The end of poverty" byJeffery Sachs was another masterpiece that really got me thinking...

One book you have read more than once?

"The theory of partial differential equations" by Lawrence C Evans. If you understand it the first time you read it, then you are a better person than I. This guy skips so many mathematical steps .. I want to go to Berkley and kill him. Eighty six dollars, and I guess this big fat book filled with the most vexing form of data compression.

On a more serious note, Wodehouse is an author that one must read again and again. His humor seldom wears out. A smirk seldom fails to appear when one reads his prose. He has been quite an inspiration to me. Whenever I'm upset, I just pick up a Wodehouse, turn open a page at random and start chuckling. There's something dignified, silly and wholly satisfying in the way he writes. Perhaps, the most memorable among all the Wodehouse bits to me, is the episode where Freddie bounces tennis balls on the empress ... or maybe when Gussie presents the prizes ..... or when Edwin burns the house down ... or when Freddie talks of crysanthamums as cabbages ....... "It's raining in Northumberland".

One book you would want on a desert island?

Any modern book on math, where they deal with multiple dimensions. Just in case I come across a 7-dimensional coconut tree and need to make coconut chutney to go with the idlis (which conveniently were marooned on the island with me?)

On a more practical note, I woudn't mind the Hitch-Hiker's guide. I could do with some tips on how to tackle raveneous bugblatter beasts should I happen to bump into one of those, and what to do if I were caught by ravaging princesses. I might also pick up on some sub-etha signals.....

Or maybe Swiss Family Robinson. I could compare their way of life with mine....

One book that made you laugh

Each and every Wodehouse I have ever read has never failed to repeatedly make me laugh to tears. Of particular note are his short stories, for instance the one where the efficient Baxter finds himself at the "business end" of a rather painful air-gun. Douglas Adams is a funny guy too. Yes Prime Minister is a ponited satire.

Strangley, almost all good authors are British.

One book that made you cry

"Fluid Mechanics" by ******. A revolting text-book, inflicted on our entire batch in our second year at IIT Madras. Utterly unnecessary, especially when masterpieces such as "Fox and Macdonald " are around. This book ruined my entire foundation in the subject. It took me 4 years to set that right. It was a subject I really loved too. I just coundn't appreciate it then. Other books were too complicated..... The whole course made me cry.

One book you wish had been written?

Why does Jerry Sienfeld not write books? I would love to see a book by him and Larry David. Finally, an American novel book that I can read.

One book you wish had never been written?

Ramjee's load of bull on Fluid Mehcanics, for one.
I'm not sure "The O'Rielly Factor for Kids" is the right stuff to give impressionable kids. But that isn't exactly my war.
Stephen Hawking's "A brief History of Time" .... at least then, I wouldn't be ashamed of not reading it.

One book you are currently reading?

"The Hydrogen Economy" by Jeremy Rifkin. Got it cheap. It does not seem to make much sense. All rhetoric. Little sense.

One book you have been meaning to read?

Heat and Mass Transfer in Porous Media by Bejan. It's been lying at home (borrowed from the library). Need to work on it a bit for the project. Lazy me.


I need to tag 6 people. Damn. I don't know so many ....

55 Rupee petrol: Under Water Investigations

I've been swimming of late in the university. And swimming has reinforced what I have been thinking all along: the free market is, in reality, a rather unfair and dangerous thing.

I might not be rich here in the USA. I might just be above the poverty line. But I consume way more than I ought to consume: by virtue of just being here. My house in centrally air-conditioned. I just could not get an Indian style apartment whose kitchens and bathrooms are not air-conditioned. I have a sports car: it gives miserable mileage. A third of the Maruti 800. I had to buy this car: public transportation is a big farce in this country.

Resistance heaters are used to heat up the water in the house. Even in the miserably warm summer. Air conditioners are necessary in the car. All buildings are centrally air-conditioned. Only incandecent lamps are used. The GE "low energy" lamps are frowned at and deemed way too expensive.

And swimming pools. Oh, just don't talk about swimming pools. The bloody auditorium is freezing cold (when the outside is at 40C). And the auditorium is as large as a Walmart. There's hot water showers everywhere, dispensing hot water at 40C, heated up using electric heaters. And then there's the hot tub. Water heated up, sent at high velocities (and high Reynolds numbers) into the same, so that shivering people (in the a/c room) can feel warm. When it is bloody 40C outside.

This country's life-style has made it a parasite. This country's natural resources have made it a rich man. It snatches the energy resources from the poor countries. (Just like a richest person gets whatever he wants in the market). American people, at a personal level, are probably some of the nicest and politest on earth. Personal experiences at Texas A&M have been fabulous.

But put them together, and you get a monster. A monster which just goes on eating, eating and eating while the poorer people starve. A monster whose short-sighted foreign policy is at the root of almost all world-threatening problems today.


Perhaps it should not be just America that is to blame for the current inequity and the current mess. More people in the world are getting richer every day than ever before. Oil resources in the world are more or less constant. The newly-rich people of India and China use more oil. More demand, constant supply. It's just that the rich are getting richer - and are increasing in number.

And another thing. Of the 55 rupees that you pay for petrol in India, 15-20 go to the government as taxes. The percentage is much lesser in the US. And what does that mean? India is forcing itself to consume a lot less. India is doing the US a favour by this draconian tax.

Personally, I appreciate it - it implicitly "funds" alternative sources of energy.

It's a rather sticky mess, the whole thing. Wheels within wheels, to use a wodehousian cliche.

Freedom annexed.

The terrorists have done it. The have anhillated the freedom of speech from India. They have won. They have won over India's soul. They have converted the government at the center to one of their own miserable totalitarian regimes, fueled by hate and intolerance to anything even bordering on the free.

Banning blogs is so Talibanic an act that one cannot but worry. India is an example of the fact that developing countries can still live by the guiding principles of developed nations . Freedom of speech is something that keeps the morale of the people high. A government that allows itself to be cursed is a government that can be loved genuinely. This ban reinforces the age-old sterotype: Indians cannot take criticism of any sort. And it also tells us: Dr Singh should have paid more attention in his high-school civics class, especially when they were talking of fundamental rights. That might have saved us this embarassing moment of spotlight in the world press.

Democracy is something that India loves. Remember what happened to Indira Gandhi in the elections after that paranoid farce called "the emergency"? A defeat that reinforced the very notions that the nation was built now. Our system really works. If the government ever becomes a Taliban, WE WILL BOOT IT OUT. Dr. Singh: you're on notice.

But the current trend is massively disconcerting. It is not beyond the realms of likelihood that laws will be passed by the government to force women behind the terrible purdah, to encourage mutilation of petty theives, to condone intolerance, to have big-brotheresqe public execusions in public stadia.

Perhaps Orwell should have written a book in Hindi called " Do Hazzar Cheh".

Of course, only three blogs have been blocked by the government. Not such a big deal, really. But I'd like to know who gets to decide which blogs are to be blocked. Must be one smart-ass. He thinks he's better than us?

Have I said enough to be banned? Will I be arrested if I make a trip home? Or will the government actually tolerate my blog? Or will it not know about my blog because very few people read it and acutally not do anything? Only time will tell.

The Return of Terror

Every couple of months or so, India seems to have a tryst with terror. Innocent people die for no fault of theirs; the cities descend into a state of more chaos than usual; international media takes notice; politicians derive political mileage.

And in a day or so, India bounces back; as if nothing ever happened. People are scared, no doubt; but feeding the family is imperative. India is a patient nation. It does not bomb the living daylights out of Pakistan. Nations such as Israel (and my host nation, for one) would have let the Pakistanis have it, if they were in India's unenviable shoes..

Yesterday's blasts should act as a rude wake up call to India. Tackling terror should become a political priority. Reason seldom works with Terrorists. If it did, then they would probably be bank clerks or mathematicians or something. You can't address their real concern.

Intellegence is certainly one soultion, but that's easier said than done. Another solution is surveillance. All railway cars and railway should be under 24 x 7 surveillance by the police. Crowded streets, street-sides, pavements, vegetable markets - anywhere lots of people accumulate must be under permanent surveillance. Suspicious people can be traced, events can be investigated if not prevented entirely.

We need to take a leaf out the US's book, as well as from Britain. The US enforces really tough security laws. Getting such bombs into any US town would be almost impossible - especially large ones! Mumbai security on the other hand is really lax. Something that needs some urgent looking into.

The Great Migration

It was the biggest migration of people ever; an unprecedented event. It happened continuously between the years 2029 and 2037. The demographic distribution of India changed suddenly; a change that brought along with it both hope and sorrow; a change that many people felt was imminent, given nature's tendency to equalize.

The seeds of this were sown back in 1991, when Manmohan Singh, then India's finance minister did the inevitable: he liberalized the economy. Foreign investement came in, lifted parts of India from a stagnant rut of inefficiency and corruption. Peninsular India, given its lower population densities (and its higher literacy rate) responded way sooner than North India to this sudden stimulus. South India developed at a whooping 11% every year; North India at a slower 6% (bringing the overall rate to 8%).

So, the Inevitable happened. The states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Bengal, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and certain North-Eastern states had excellent individual macro-economic indicators. South India became a cultural and Industrial hub. The Tamil and the Telugu film Industries put together made more money than the Hindi film Industry. Population in the southern states began to saturate; poverty started going down - and soon extreme poverty became history. Life expectancy began to tough the 70s.

The Indian cricket team began to be dominated by people from the South. A private company called "southern sport" started a regional cricket league, where 20-20 matches were played between cities. Matches between Mumbai and Bangalore became a significant fixture.

Dharavi, formerly Asia's largest slum colony in Mumbai had disintegrated. High rises replaced the slums; labourers lived in centrally air conditioned homes in sea of humidity that Mumbai is. Even Chennai grew in popularity. Hyderabad had hosted the olympics, India had won sixteen gold medals in the same. Universities in South India had gained international repute; Chennai itself housed 8 Nobel Laureates.

Up North, things were miserable, save the Delhi Region, which housed lots of call centers for the people down south. Delhi was the world's largest urban agglomeration now; It had overtaken Tokyo recently in 2029. People from all over North India used to come to Delhi for Jobs. North India had a lot of mines - and the miners in Bihar lived in slums. North India's population, in stark contrast with South India was still on the upswing. Nearly 800 million of India's 1.4 billion hailed from Bihar, UP, Uttaranchal, Chattisgharh and MP. Finding a job was tougher.

Down south, migrant labourers from the North started finding jobs that paid well. They could easily support their families up north. Students from the North applied to universities in the south; and were more often than not, accepted with financial assistance. The economy of the south consistently grew faster than the North.

A massive influx (100 million or so) of Hindi speaking people to the south of the Arravalis meant a permanent change in India's demographic make-up. Laws were passed to stem this migration; but were soon negated by the supreme court. A cultural dilution of massive proportion took place.

India is now a more homogenous, if not happier place.

We Love a Boring Game

This is a re-hashed version of an old post. Self Plagiarism?
This has been posted due to its pertinence; and also due to the fact that very few people will actually read the original post now, since it is buried in the bowels of this blog, a region as inaccessible as - Alpha Centauri for the average humanoid from Earth.

It takes two hours for a foot-ball match to happen.
It takes roughly the same time for a basketball match to occur.
Tennis matches seldom take more than the same couple of hours.
But cricket, in its purest form, takes five days. Its "shorter" form takes a day.

India is in love with cricket; like it is in love with no other game. Football is popular in pockets (and in the upper middle class); tennis is elitist; basket ball is unheard of.

India ( a nation of 1,00,00,000 people) pins its hopes on 15 people. These 15 people are celebrities. And to get to be one of the 15 people, one needs to be a bloody genius.

Sports is certainly not a career option for any Indian. There is no money in sports; there is very little incentive for the poor person to actually try to be a part of any sporting team. With a success rate of 15 / 10000000, only an idiot would not err on the side of safety. Only an Idiot (or a very rich guy) would harbour notions of playing for India one fine day. Playing state level will not put enough in your wallet.

If India wants out of this rut, then India will have do one of the following:

1. Discard cricket as the de-facto national game. Foot-ball seems promising?
2. Change cricket to a more compact, watchable format. Turn games between states and cities into popular commercial ventures. Make people of Tamil Nadu (say) cheer for their team in the stadium / at home. Games between Mumbai and Delhi should elicit similar emotions that games Between India and Pakistan do. A more interesting game will draw more viewers; more advertising opportunities; better salaries; better talent - and finally a team that no one can beat.

And don't say that the Indian is poor. Don't say that he cannot afford to watch these matches. He watches movies, doesn't he? He watches regional TV channels, doesn't he? The viewership market in middle class India is Tremendously undertapped.

I tell you, we're sitting on a goldmine here. We're still in the License-Raj era of sports in India. The rules of cricket need some liberalization. It will take an equivalent of Manmohan Singh to do something. Perhaps we could take our humiliation by the West Indies as a balance of payments crisis.

Sherry, are you listening, or has the fat lady sung for Indian sport?