Rumi Nations

This is another short and sweet analysis of the Wall Street malaise as well ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/opinion/14trillin.html Of course, you could argue that what this really says is that it was an excessive abundance of money or opportunity to make money using financial gerrymandering which led to this outcome.

Peggy Noonan has questioned the maturity of the people in goverance in America today in a compellingly argued article here ... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703363704574503631430926354.html?mod=djemEditorialPage She has talked about people becomeing "disenchanted" or "disheartened" with government. People do not think that the Government can make it better, she says. Also, the leaders are showing a mindless ... something akin to optimism, she continues. Fascinating perspectives indeed. I am wondering what relevance do these have for Indians. If anyone thinks they are irrelevant, well, I would beg to differ. I think all of us Indians can identify with the feeling of being "disheartened" with Government. India, of course, has never been the "hope of the world," or the "savior of mankind," or the "strongest nation of the world." But, the lesson to learn there is that we have to aspire to such things. Unfortunately...

The travails of Wall Street forces one to think about some fundamental facts. Is there any specific reason why bankers and other financial industry executives should be millionaires? The New York Times has an interesting analysis about the troubles of the financial industry here ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/business/30norris.html How much pay do doctors and teachers and research scientists in the physical and biological sciences earn? Does a person need millions of dollars of pay per year to maintain a good standard of living? How does society benefit by having some people who are spectacularly rich while others live in poverty? Do these millionaires contribute anything of value to society that would justify their earning those pay packets? Of course, in a free market economy, these are difficult choices to make ... But society can come to a consensus as to what are the really important activities that a society must engage itself in and what are not so important. I do not be...

Air India has been in the news in recent for a lot of wrong reasons. The New York Times has an article about the Airline here ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/business/global/31airindia.html?em I guess all one can say in all fairness to a democratic government is that bailing out Air India is not as bad as bailing out the swarthy, shameless, devious, scheming millionaires on Wall Street.

What I fear most of all - being a resident of the National Capital Territory - is an earthquake. I just had a strange feeling of something 'quaking' underneath me and being a resident in a multistoried building, my first thought was whether there was an earthquake ... A killer earthquake can really devastate Delhi ... with millions of fatalities. I don't think people are adequately conscious of that possibility. However, the only silver lining is that Delhi has been around for thousands of years without any Great Earthquake hitting it. Although that is no guarantee that a major earthquake won't hit Delhi in the near future, the likelihood is perhaps not too great. Certainly, we are probably in a better position than Tokyo ... one certainly has to hope so!!!

I thought to share these quotes from Maya Angelou... Read on to see how special they are! You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest. Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage. Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, lauch, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends. People will forget what you said People will forget what you did But people will never forget how you made them feel. There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing. I a...

One can't be completely dispondant about the human condition as long as there are organizations like NASA in this world. Take a random moment in time like today and let's see what NASA is upto right now. Of course, Ares 1X was launched successfully on its first flight yesterday ... hopefully heralding a new era of manned exploration exploration of space. Shuttle Atlantis will be launched in November ... as we approach the end of the Shuttle Era. NASA also does fundamental science ... with the Great Observatories such as Hubble and Chandra. The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has completed one year in space. It's doing spectacular science!

So, NASA was finally able to launch the first flight of Ares 1X today! Spectacular!!! And to think that this two and a half minute flight cost about half a billion dollars! Of course, it's future is still uncertain ... Primarily because of financial constraints ... Underscoring how challenging it is going to be for countries like India to launch manned missions to the Moon. Which explains why I take ISRO's confident predictions to that effect with a pinch of salt

Today, the Bhubaneswar-New Delhi Rajdhani was hijacked for some time by Naxalites ... One more incident showing the growing threat posed by the movement. One wonders how much of the movement is idealistic, what portion is self-serving, how much pure terrorism, what portion is out of coercion, etc. I think the same combination is at work also in other places as well: be it Kashmir, or Taliban infested Afghanistan, and the many trouble spots in Africa. It would seem therefore that it won't do much good to look at any of these problems as a one-dimensional law and order issue and try to crush them using crushing military strength. Recently, I read that the Government of India was considering banning pre-paid mobile services in Kashmir as that was being misused by the terrorists ... imagine, the Govt. does not mind alienating 38 lakh innocent civilians to inconvenience a few thousand outlaws!

Mira Nair's movie starring Hillary Swank has mostly drawn flak from critics for being too oversimplistic or too hagiographic or anodyne ... I saw one positive review in The Huffington Post though ... I think Amelia Earhart's story is an inspiring human tale ... perhaps, if not in the United States, it should be compulsory viewing in the rest of the world ... especially those countries where females don't get the sort of life opportunities that they deserve ... particularly in some Muslim nations may be. Even in Hindu, traditional India, females need to be more like Amelia ...

Some extraordinary human stories that cancer brings into shart relief have been highlighted by Gina Kolata's story about the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/health/research/25anderson.html?em The battle continues - between medical science and cancer. Who will win? That is probably not going to be decided in my lifetime ... Humans have won occasional battles - some miracle drugs that cure some forms of cancer and other forms of treatment that manage to keep cancer under control ... The war continues ... I was just wondering why is it that it's only our spcies that suffers from this scourge - what about all the other thousands and millions of animal species? Why don't they suffer from cancer? Or, may be, they do, but evolution ensures that they don't survive and are thus weeded out.

That famous line now has scientific backing! http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/health/27well.html?_r=1&em Tara Parker-Pope cites experts who have shown evolutionary advantages to humans being long distance runners. I wish my right foot were all right in whcih case I could have tried to do jogging ... My smoking also of course does not help the case as my lungs are in a pretty run down condition because of excessive smoking ... Well, what the hell!

Dr. Radhakrishanan. Let me put the cat out of the bag right away! I would have loved to have been the Chairman!!! Oh well ... may be, in my next incarnation ... ISRO is of course doing quite well ... achieving laurels for the country. One looks forward to a successful completion of the GSLV launch with an indigenously built cryogenic stage. That will eventually be used to power a true ICBM of course ... Next, one looks forward to a manned space program ... all our own. I don't know about sending Indians to the Moon though ... At the height of the Cold War, NASA was able to achieve that feat only because National Pride was at stake. Even the mighty Soviet Union has never managed to achieve that feat!!! Quite extraordinary when you come to think of that!!! Let's us see if China and India are able to overtake Russia in that regard ...

The Government of India has allowed the IIMs to open their branches abroad. This is a welcome development. The IIMs have acquired immesurable amount of esteem within India. It is another issue how much Brand Equity they may have abroad. Quanity does not always translate to quality - the fact that IIMs get 100 times as many applicants as the seats they have on offer is a fact but that is merely to do with the rather large population of the country itself. I think it's also important to maintain a sense of exclusivity. The top B-schools of the world haven't necessarily spread their wings throughout the world. INSEAD is the only top B-school which has campuses in two places: Paris and Singapore. Be that as it may, one can only wish God Speed!!! to the IIMs in their new adventures

Education provides a ticket to get out of the dehumanizing poverty which is still a reality for many Indians. In the case of the IITs, it's a passport to prosperity for the vast majority of middle-class Indians. Very few HRD ministers seem capable of resisting the desire to meddle with the IIT JEE. The latest move to give more weightage to scores in Class 12 seems designed to reduce the role of the coaching institutes. Teachers in some of these institutes get a whopping 2 crores per annum. That was quite an eye-opener. But, it's just capitalism at work - meritocracy in full bloom. So, nothing wrong with that. Although, one might argue that the skill to enable someone to qualify through the JEE should not be valued so much. It just shows how much competition there is in India to try and get into these institutions and thereby ensure a prosperous life. It's a complex web of events indeed.

This is definitely an instance of capitalism in full bloom when brothers fight a battle in the Supreme Court of India to get richer. The natural resources of a nation should benefit the people of the country. The entrepreneurs who help to harness those resources also deserve their fair share of benefit. The problem arises when investors try to get access to the resources on the cheap and then proceed to derive extraordinary benefits from them without commensurate benefits accruing to the people. Telecom licenses and spectrum are no less of a national resource than natural gas in today's world. Inevitably, it appears that the awarding of licensing did not happen in as transparent a manner as it could have. The CBI is trying to find out if any wrongdoings were committed but it's hamstrung by the barriers that surround its functioning. It's disgusting to see senior functionaries - old people basically - trying to make money using underhand means. I guess it's difficult to ...

The story of how the American West came to be settled is a heroic human story. The men and women - the pioneers - chose to take many risks and leave behind their roots and venture into uncharted territory. Not many people dare to do that. The hardships that they went through were real and backbreaking. The victories that they won against various obstacles were truly remarkable. I sometimes wish Indians were like that ... had some of that pioneer spirit.

Pharam companies have tried for years to come up with a wonder drug to fight obesity in America. Mostly, that effort has been fruitless for various reasons. The human body simply seems to be reluctant to let go of its weight. Three California companies seem to be having some success in developing drugs. Let's see whether the FDA gives them the go-ahead and how well they fare in the marketplace. Of course, eating less food and exercising would appear to be the best medicines. In wealthy countries, food being relatively cheap compared to the incomes of people, it's easy to overeat. In poor countries, people tend to be lean as food is quite an expensive proposition and people have to spend their incomes judiciously and decide what to eat and not spend money needlessly on excess food. It would be great if people in rich countries were to donate their extra money to people in poor countries but I don't think people would be inclined to do that. And that includes me as well. I th...

President Obama is pondering what to do about Afghanistan. General McChrystal has asked for 40,000 more troops in addition to the existing 65,000 already on the ground. The American military planners are trying to implement a policy of trying to win the hearts and minds of the local people and marginalize the Taliban. Many others have tried to conquer the rugged terrain that is Afghanistan and failed. America's recent 'success' in Iraq has given it hope that it can adopt a similar policy in Afghanistan. But it's sobering to realize that Afghanistan is almost 50% larger than Iraq with almost as many people. The people of Afghanistan are fare more poor and less educated that the people of Iraq. The population of Afghanistan consists of numerous tribes. American forces in Vietnam totalled more than 5,00,000 at their peak but failed in their mission as they failed to win over the local population. Hopefully, whatever America tries in Afghanistan will take into account all t...

Dennis Overbye has written an intriguing article in the New York Times about some researchers who are giving a very interesting reasoning about why the Large Hadron Collider is going through so many birth pangs. The scientists think that the Higgs boson which they think they will find at the kind of energies that the LHC will be able to generate is trying to prevent its own creation. In what is certainly a pretty interesting thought, the scientists think that this is a case of the future trying to make sure that that future does not occur. This is certainly interesting, if possible, as it shows that the idea of time travel is fundamentally not impossible.

Physics geeks at Yale University have found tiny currents ... really tiny!!! ... flowing in tiny rings of metal wires perpetually. This is like superconductivity but what we are talking about here is normal temperatures and normal materials - not superconducting stuff... This is of course a quantum phenomenon and the kind of stuff which might win the researchers the Nobel Prize at some point in the future. Way to go!!!

In an interesting case, one couple was handed a jail term for failing to seek medical treatment for their sick kid. The parents, instead of taking the poor sick kid to a doctor, decided to pray for his recovery. The kid died from his diabetes. It's extraordinary to think that such superstitious or ill-informed people are there in the United States. But then half of the people in the United States do not believe in the Theory of Evolution. So, no wonder ...

The Justice Department has launched an investigation into IBM's business practices as they pertain to mainframes. IBM seems to be stifling competition in its core mainframe business which is highly profitable for it. The result of this is not yet certain. It will be interesting to see what those will be.

William Safire died a few days ago. I remember reading his wonderful columns on language some years ago. Tim Russert had died last year quite unexpectedly. Two wonderful commentators belonging to complementary fields. I wonder if there are similar commentators in Indian media -- or, if that is at all possible. I think the media and the powers that be in India might be too much hand in glove -- the media tycoons would be reluctant to upset the applecart by having straight-talking columnists on their payroll. The reading public is also perhaps not looking so much at learning about the unvarnished truth as it's seeking to get some 'entertainment.' People of India tend to have a rather convenient moral sense and their value system often tends to be 'relative.' We need people who question Supreme Court decisions (and the necessary legal framework so that judges do not hide behind a 'contempt of court' wall) and who call a spade a spade or 'congenital liars....

I was wondering if it's a bigger achievement to win a Nobel Prize or to become an astronaut. Hundreds of people have won the Nobel Prize while only a dozen astronauts have landed on the Moon and two dozen in all have left Earth orbit. Even the total number of astronauts who have been to space numbers in the hundreds -- I guess, in time, space travel will become commonplace once the technology for that is developed and then rocket travel might become as common as air travel.

So, the Nobel Committee has sprung a surprise -- or, as one might say, sprung a rabbit out of the hat. And the deabte is raging in full bloom! My first reaction was one of happiness as I have no qualms admitting that I'm an Obama fan. Is this premature? Perhaps as the Nobel Committee has said this is a recognition of the window of opportunity that Obama has been able to open by the very fact of his being President. Whether these opportunities turn into real victories ... only time will tell. Often, or usually, that depends on many players ... in complex international affairs. If one were to debate the deservedness of Nobel winners, one might debate whether Peres, Rabin and Arafat were deserving winners ... did they manage to carve out some sort of enduring peace deal out of their efforts? I guess these are often open-ended questions with no definitiveness about them. I have a feeling that Bill Clinton might have reacted with a lot of surprise ... I would love to see his public reac...

I remember Tom Brokaw saying that in cocluding his tribute to Tim Russert at the Kennedy Center. I want to say that in regards to my own country after coming across today's extraordinary news about a woman delivering a baby on a moving train's lavatory and the baby falling through on to the tracks and then miraculously surviving! Here's a link to this extraordinary story in case you find this to be incredulous: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/6274383/Newborn-baby-falls-through-train-toilet-onto-tracks.html # I rest my case ...

Called "Karva Chauth" or some such thing. I remember 20 or 30 years ago, my mom would go to the terrace of our officicial govenrment quarter and do some worshipping of the Moon on some day of the year. I don't know what the occasion was but I was skeptical of that even then. And now I find out that in North India, married folks have this crazy thing called Karva Chauth ... I would never have thought it possible that people who appear to be so educated on the surface and make good money doing professional jobs would fall for all these non-sensical, meaningless rituals and traditions. And sure enough I happened to see one channel airing the Bachchan family's observance of the same ... I do not know how truly religious the Bachchans are ... since Amitabh almost came back from the dead after his famous accident, that experience might have made him particularly religious ... Although for someone trained in science like me, such near death experienes would not necessarily l...

It's not incorrect to relate them is it??? The common thread being 'rape.' What do you think about Shiny being accused of raping his maid? I think, plainly, the maid is trying to take advantage of her 'star' boss: a simple case of blackmail. Mr. Letterman was smart enough not to give in to some blackmailer - although, there's no rape involved in his case. People of France are rather tolerant about these matters. So, Mr. Polanski gets a patient ear on the continent. He seems to have been caught in some game of global geopolitics. First, America forced the Swiss bankers to reveal to Uncle Sam about the folks who had 'secret' Swiss bank accounts. I am sure if the Indian government were to make a similar request, they would be swiftly rebuffed. By the way, whatever happened to all that talk that about Indians having Swiss bank accounts which was happening around the time of the last national election? Now that the elections are over, everyone has convenientl...

Give me a break! Probably that's how Indians would react if they knew about this phenomenon that's described as the post-World War II Baby Boom. It's the generation of Bill Clinton and others who belong to his age group. For those interested in arcane Americana, this Baby Boom refers to the eggregious increase in the number of babies that people were having ... this increase took place in the boom years following the end of the Second World War. Those years, late 40s and all of the 50s saw Americans having more than 4 million babies a year. Of course, that's a laughable boom by Indian standards. Indians would defeat Americans in this game any day: Indians today give birth to anywhere between 20 million to 30 million babies in a year. So, what boom are Americans talking about??? It's positively a baby drought rather than a baby boom. Americans would need to do a lot more to compete with Indians in this regard. And frankly, Americnas can't even hope or dream of ma...

I read in a Bob Herbert column in the New York Times that UC Berkeley is suffering from all the woes afflicting California's budget. I saw once that California has an economy that's larger than Russia's. UC Berkeley is apparently the pinnacle of California's public higher education system. When governments face budget deficits, they often look at education expenditures as a low-hanging fruit. This is unfortunate, but perhaps pure 'research' into the origins of the human race or into the private life of some long-dead writer seems to be rather academic to budget planners compared to, say, unemployment allowance or health-related expenditures. Again, within the broad umbrella of education, it's topics such as music education in schools which is often the first one to bear the brunt of budget cuts when times are tough. There is this wonderful movie called Mr. Holland's Opus starring Richard Dreyfus that depicts something of this over a 30 year period. The ...

The recent case of in-flight fighting between the pilots and cabin crew of an Air India must have been a heart-stopping experience for the passengers. I would love to hear from one of the 'lucky' ones who witnessed it. I'm sure they would board their next flight with more than a slight sense of trepidation. But, all is well that ends well - since nobody really got 'hurt' in this incident, it will merely be an amusing anecdote for the 'guinea pigs' to tell their grandkids. I wish something similarly entertaining - of course, harmless - takes place the next time I fly. Frankly, I'm not all that attached to life that I would have paroxisms thinking that I'm going to die. The only thing I'd worry about is getting wounded seriously but not dying - leading to a life as a handicapped person.

So, India found water on the Moon!!! That was the over-simplied headline in all the newspapers and on TV channels. However, the reality is, of course, as usual a little bit more complicated than that! The simple truth is that a NASA payload, the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) found spectroscopic evidence of trace quantities of water on the Moon. This is not really all that of a revolutionary finding. In fact, this was kind of a discovery waiting to happen or waiting for confirmation. It is of course not as if anyone has found great flowing rivers or oceans of water on the Lunar surface - that ain't gonna happen, ever!!! The fact is this: the Moon is not where the game is as of now in terms of space exploration! All the big boys of space (U.S., Russia) have explored Moon in the sixties. The game, if India wants to play, is on Mars right now. It really is a simple matter of how much resource(a.k.a. money) you are willing to put into it. Space science is pricey and nations have to decide...

I am sure journalists would be chafing at the bit to ask Obama for his reaction regarding his apparent failure to win for Chicago the 2016 Olympics. So, here's a fictitious Q-and-A about the same. Q: Mr. President, how would you react to Chicago losing the bid to host the 2016 Olympics inspite of you being personally present in Copenhagen? A: Well, I am happy that you asked that question. First of all, I want to congratulate Rio on their excellent bid - as it turned out, the winning one. I am sure Rio will host an wonderful Olympic Games. With respect to Chicago, it's my home town and I love Chicago and I was asked to go and support their bid and that's what I did because I was convinced and I am still convinced that Chicago would do a stellar job of it. However, the IOC is an independent body and they have their rules of the game and they applied those rules and it turned out that Chicago came up short and I respect the IOC and agree with their decision. I am sure Chicago ...

So, Chicago lost the bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics despite President Obama's presence to support the city's bid. May be, the former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich would have been more suited to the job. Now that 2016 has gone to Rio and Copacabana, where does that leave sadi Delhi? I think we can forget about Delhi 2020. Although, considering the population of Asia, it won't be illogical to expect that in 2020, it should be an Asian city'g turn to host the Games. But that Asian city would most likely be a South Korean or Japanese city, not an Indian one. That would mean 2024 would go to an African nation - it should really. So, the earliest India can eye hosting the Olympics appears to be 2028 or 2032. I don't see myself hanging around anywhere near this planet at that time!!!

The recent arrest of Kobad Ghandi was the first time I came to learn about this remarkable life. I say this is a remarkable life because it's definitely an unusual life: this was a person born with a silver spoon in his mouth who chose to forego pursuing all the opportunities that naturally open up if you have the privilege of education as he had. I remember Robert Kennedy talking about this and the natural desire to live a life of personal ambtion and financial success: that's what most of us aspire to do. It's good to see in this atmosphere of overwhelming conformity as exists in Indian society that there are still individuals who are willing to live life on their own terms. The benefits or otherwise of the naxal movement are of course open to debate. What's important is that there should be people with different points of view: such as an Arundhati Roy. People claim that she's an useless armchair intellectual taking up fashionable causes. People complain about hu...

The other day, my boss referenced a speech by Prince Charles wherein he talked about 'cabuncles.' That was a speech the Prince had made in 1984 - as I later found out. I didn't know about that speech. I have fascination for the decade of the sixties. The reason for that being that the 60s were a tumultuous decade. That decade saw a lot of turbulence but turbulence is often the fountainhead for human creativity. People need to have tumult in their lives for them to question conventinal wisdom and accepted truths. Every generation should try to 'reinvent the wheel'; indeed, think of it as a sacred duty to do that. I am thinking of the values of life or what is handed down to us as revealed truth. In the India that we live in today, there's too little of the kind of questioning that took place in the United States during the decade of the sixties. So, we see this younger generation of Indians so at ease with their cellphones clinging on to some very old and meaning...

I was wondering what would a Gandhi do if he were born in the India of today … If the country that he was born in were not under British rule, what would he do? May be, grow up to become a lawyer as he had done originally and become a practicing lawyer — may be in the Supreme Court — and make money … Or, would be notice the inequities existing in society and find them incomprehensible and intolerable and seek to remove them? May be, he would notice the glaring differences in living standards: such as people traveling in cars and simultaneously people begging. But then socialistic notions of distributing wealth amongst everyone in an equitable manner probably doesn’t work: as has been shown by the failures of socialism/communism in Russia or China. The Soviet Union of course imploded while China’s leaders were smart enough to recognize the imminent failure and decided that “a cat has to be able to catch mice whether it’s black or white.” Another thought is this: what if Gandhi were to r...