Free speech and conversions

In recent days, there have been a spate of attacks on Christian churches in Karnataka, apparently fuelled by illegal conversions and by some literature that was circulated regarding the Hindu faith. Now, I've read many Christian cartoons that lampoon other faiths. They all read the same - two friends are talking, one of them is a Hindu/Muslim/'Pagan', and the other, a Christian. The non-Christian talks about how his god is great, and the Christian demonstrates by either kicking the idol, or invoking the Bible, that the Christian god is the greatest. Some other times, the non-believer in question faces trouble and invokes his god, which doesn't work. He then 'takes refuge in Jesus Christ'. Lo and behold, all his problems are solved, and he converts to Christianity.

Hilarious, don't you agree? The same stories have been used to convert masses of lower-caste and poor Hindus into Christianity. Apparently, these people were also given bribes - money, education, or health-care at missionary institutions to convert. And that, according to the BJP government, is anti-national, never mind what the constitution says about free speech and freedom of religion.

Countries have a right to free speech enshrined in their constitutions because a citizen's words must be protected from those who are 'offended' by them. Similarly, a right to freedom of religion includes freedom to propagate it, as long as it is not accomplished by coercion or force. Incidentally, religious conversions through bribes is NOT illegal nor is it a 'cognizable' offence.

Of course, I don't expect the VHP/Bajrang Dal goons to understand the constitution. But what I don't get is why the VHP, BD and whoever else produce evidence on those who convert forcibly? Why don't they setup hospitals, schools, and go and work with the poorest and most deprived, and convert them back to Hinduism? Why don't they educate the illiterate, so that they can distinguish between genuine intentions and propaganda? Instead of beating up people and generally giving Hinduism a bad name, why don't they read the Bhagavad Gita, and recognize that even Christianity is another way to the same god?

Well because, that is hard work. Because it takes an understanding of Hinduism that these goons are incapable of fostering within themselves. And because it isn't as easy as vandalizing a place of worship with implicit state backing.

Shame on you, Yeddyurappa, for supporting these acts.

The Dark Knight.

I've postponed this review for a long time. Because I never thought I'd get this right. I still don't think I can express in words, my euphoric reaction to The Dark Knight, but I have to try.

Nearly everyone who has seen The Dark Knight agrees that it is a fascinating movie and that Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker is 'iconic'. So, I won't waste bandwidth by repeating that. I will though, try to explain why I liked the movie so much, and hopefully, that'll highlight a different perspective from the ones so far.

As a child, I was a prolific reader of comic books - Phantom, Flash and Batman were among my favourites. Of course, I read all the Indrajal comics, Super-,Spider-, Iron- and many other men, enjoyed Suppandi's jokes in Tinkle, Premchand's epics in the Chandamama, and a dozen others. Batman, though, was very different from the rest of them.

Nearly every character in Batman has a tragedy behind him/her. Batman and Robin's parents were murdered, the Penguin abandoned as a child, the Riddler was ridiculed, Mr.Freeze lost his wife, and Two-face was a staunch attorney till he was burnt and his girl-friend left him. (In the original; the movie says otherwise.)

That made the stories very interesting. Every character battled with their own history as well as with their opponents. A cloud of sorrow hung over the battles that were fought. The city of Gotham was dark, not because of a lack of light, but because of divisions, crime, and corrupt leaders, not unlike any modern Indian city.

Amidst all these, was the Joker, the prima donna of villains, the complete psychotic, who was was in a different league of villain.

Until Christopher Nolan came on the scene, no Batman movie came close to capturing the essence of these characters. The sets were too dark. Futile attempts were made to give Batman an aura of "batness" that never worked. The actors didn't know what they were doing (Tommy-lee Jones playing Two-face as a raving lunatic) or were too cute (nearly every Batman and Nicole Kidman) to portray the nuances of the Batman characters. In particular, Tommy-lee's portrayal of Two-face was more pathetic than Indian hockey - completely out of character, hopelessly out-of-depth, and looking for excuses to cover up bad performance. Catwoman and Mr.Penguin were better, but the directors did not succeed in freeing them from naive story-telling.

Nolan, with Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart and Christian Bale has done it right. Finally, we have a trio who understand what made the Batman comics a hit. We have a trio who are as comfortable with Frank Miller's dark knight as they are with Bob Kane's Batman. Add to it brilliant special effects, perfect support roles, and scintillating screen-play, and even while we have to forgive some mistakes like the story of how Harvey becomes Two-face, we get magic. Pure magic.

It's been a long while since a movie captured my imagination and brought back memories like this one did. Christopher Nolan has displayed amazing knack for portraying characters in The Prestige, The Batman Begins, and The Dark Knight. Here's hoping that he gives us many more moments of magic. For Heath ledger - May your soul rest in peace.

Chrome plated world domination

So, Google has released its browser. And if you are one who is wondering why Google released yet another browser when developers are struggling to cope with the four different ones that are already in the market, welcome to the club.

It isn't that the users are going to be benefited either. There aren't many features in Chrome that aren't in the IE8 Beta. For instance, both run tabs in separate processes. Both have a private browsing mode, and both consume tons of memory. Further, IE8 while being standards-compliant, also has a IE7 mode for sites that won't comply by the time the browser is released.

And V8, while being a better Javascript engine, isn't revolutionary. Running apps in secure sandboxes isn't new either.

Nor will Google's clientele necessarily switch to Chrome. From what I know, techies who would be the ones that download and use Chrome nearly never click on ads, while non-techies are generally happy with their default browser, be it IE or Safari. Yes, the percentage of techies who use Google Docs/Spreadsheets may have a better user experience, but again, unless they click on ads, how does Google benefit?

Here is my take on the "how". This is Google's first step towards world domination. I'd written earlier (see the comments) that all Google needed after Docs and Spreadsheets was an OS and a browser that they can ship as default on systems. Not only would you then use Google software, but all your data would be on Google servers, making them indispensable. In addition to really hitting MS revenue sources, this will insulate Google from the low cost of switching that plagues its services. 

Welcome, folks, to chrome-plated world domination!

(PS: Needless to say, and like every other post on this blog, this post only reflects my views and should not be construed as being that of my current/previous/future employers.)

A new dawn in Indian sport?

The cynic in me put the question mark in the title. Otherwise, the events of the past two weeks do point to a new dawn in Indian sport. Over the past few days, I've been making this point at our lunch discussions that Indian sport can only improve from here. As in so many fields, we are probably at the take-off point for Olympic sport and while we may never become a sporting power like China or the US (or even South Korea), 2008 might just be the beginning of more consistent Indian performances in the Olympics as well as other avenues.

Wait, we've still won only three medals, compared to the 96-odd won by the other billion+ country. One gold, as opposed to tiny Jamaica that won six. Even countries like Ethiopia and Cuba did better than us. So, where is the ray of hope?

It is in the quality of performances by both the medalists and the ones that missed. Take a look at the history of the past games. Other than the eventual medal winners like Leander or Rathore, few Indian sportspersons made it beyond the first couple of rounds. Never before did an Indian player take advantage of a repechage to claim a bronze as Sushil Kumar did in 2008. Never before did we have three players in the round of 16 in any sport. And never before did we see an Indian ranked No. 1 in a shooting sport (although he didn't participate, deferring to Rathore). Add Saina, Sania and the archers, and round it off with the large number of international and grand masters that have made it in chess, and even the cynic in you will see that we are doing better than ever in sports other than cricket.

There are two ways to get medals in sport. The first is the regimented way, followed by the ex-Soviets and China where the government and the army play the central role in finding talent, grooming it under government privilege, (threatening it with dire consequences at times), in short, making it a national project. Then there is the free-market way of encouraging people to follow their heart, ensuring competition, and sitting back for the medals to pour in. Given the abilities of our government, the free-market route is the only one we can hope to take. And that, I believe will start bringing in the dividends in the near future.

To hell with you, Apple.

Should you buy the iPhone 3G? Well, a friend of mine gave me a lowdown on the phone's capabilities in India, and the verdict is simple. If you earn your money like I do, the hard way, don't buy the it.

Why, you ask. Why not buy the most desirable piece of hardware designed for your palm? Well, here is a rundown of reasons:

• 3G is not available in India yet, and you don't know what prices these operators will charge once it does come up
• The previous point is important because like in the US, the iPhone ties you to one operator. You cannot switch (at least not officially).
• Your GPS has no driving directions (unlike the Nokia phones) and as a corollary, no audio directions either.
• The hands-free kit is extra
• There is no option for bluetooth headphones
• You cannot increase storage beyond what you're provided.
• Price: At Rs31,000 for the 8GB version, the phone is not only four times more expensive than the ones available in the US, it still subjects you to the same conditionalities, of being stuck with one operator.

As someone who fell in love with the iPhone the moment I saw it (many a time I would go to my colleague's desk only to try the touch screen), this has been a major disappointment. I am OK with all the other drawbacks (those of GPS and storage, and bluetooth headphones), but I cannot stand thae fact that I'll still be tied to one operator despite paying the full price for the phone. This is shameful and shows the utter lack of regard that Apple has for Indian customers. Just for this reason, I'll say - "Shame on you, Apple".

Gold medalist and Olympic champion, representing India

Six words, uttered in less than 10 seconds. But how long had we we waited to hear these words? For how many years, we had seen or heard Indian sportspeople flattering to deceive, missing medals by milliseconds, losing battles that should've been won, even missing to match their own personal bests. But as you see in this video, those days are finally laid to rest. Even as silver medalist Zhu from China wept in dismay, Abhinav stepped onto the podium, becoming the first Indian to do so in individual capacity. I had a lump in my throat as the flag rose, with the national anthem playing in the background. Twenty-eight years of wasted opportunity, with one final redemption.

We are not out of the woods yet. While we celebrate the single gold won by a billion people, we should pause to think why we didn't win in some proportion to our population.

Still, this medal is a landmark event. It proves the fact that we are not doomed to fail in sport. It proves that with the right kind of support, Indian sportsmen and women can bring glory to the country. And it proves, that unlike dictatorships, the only way to produce sportspeople of high calibre in a democracy is through individual initiative, with a supportive role from the government and from industry.

With badminton's Saina, the boxing Kumars, and the shooting stars showing the way, this may still be a new dawn for Indian sport. But is the government listening? Is our nonagenarian HRD minister willing to pull his head out of the reservation muck for long enough to see the faint rays of the morning sun?

If history is any guide, I'd doubt it. However, democracies thrive on individual initiative, and for the first time in our nation's history, we have companies and individuals with the money and the motivation to drive Indian sport forward. Let's hope they come forward and find for us, India's place in the Olympic sun in 2012.

The Sethusamudram debate

What is the problem with the "Sethusamudram" project? The hullabaloo raised by the BJP, the tamil parties and various other groups over the issue has completely negated the possibility of sane, rational debate on the issue. To make matters worse, the Supreme Court has also issued directives to avoid "hurting the feelings of a community to the extent possible", thus making everyone lose sight of the real (read rational) issues that bedevil the project.

Let's first dispose the issue of the bridge being built by Lord Raama. Now, is it important that Lord Raama existed? Or as the veteran legal brain, Fali Nariman insisted on behalf of the government, is it important that he ordered the bridge to be demolished? IMHO, no. It doesn't matter if Lord Raama existed or not - what matter is whether the bridge is man-made or natural. If there is enough evidence to prove that it is man-made, it is a piece of our history and must be preserved, otherwise, it is 'just' a piece of rock and can be dealt with as such, subject to the other points I'll make now.

The two most important objection that has been raised against the project are its economic viability and the environmental cost. No party in the dispute has really focused on this, although there have been brilliant op-ed pieces in the newspapers. I'll let you read them - they are on the Indian Express website. Bottom-line: the experts think that the project is environmentally disastrous and economically unviable.

If that is so, why on earth are we hollering about Lord Raama, and the Dravida right over the channel, setting rational thoughts aside? Because, my dear readers, that is the Indian way. We love symbolism, meaningless gestures, and endless emotional debates.

What we need is to take a value of out Google - that data talks. That the right kind of data, mixed with the right kind of analysis is the way to take decisions.

The art of Microsoft (R) Windows (TM) programming

Eric S Raymond has an amazing set of Unix Zen koans here. His book, The Art of Unix Programming summarizes the Unix philosophy extremely well. I've wondered for a while if there was an equivalent for the Microsoft way. The closest I came to was an article by Joel Spolsky called Biculturalism. There were other posts I found on philosophy of specific windows features, but I failed to find anything that describes the Microsoft way of programming.

Recently, we had a talk by Dr. Sundar Sarukkai from NIAS on the "Philosophy of Science". Suggesting that despite it's attempts, science wasn't independent of the observer, and that it had a belief system not very unlike religion, and with its language, mathematics being incomplete, science too was incomplete, Dr. Sarukkai raised a few hackles amongst the listeners. Personally, while I thought that they were all interesting observations I didn't agree with the conclusions he drew from them, but that is a story for another day.

What this talk did though is to force my train of thought towards the station of philosophy - specifically, programming philosophy for Windows. Now, Eric Raymond and Joel Spolsky make the point about the GUI being part of the application instead of being an afterthought (as in Unix), and I agree with that. But a fundamental principle of every Microsoft API is to get programmers hooked with rapid development of basic applications. As early as MFC, you could create a fully functional Notepad application without writing a single line of code. Then there was COM that attempted to hide the complexity of developing distributed applications from you. Today, we have .NET, with LINQ, giving you hidden code generators and attributes for everything from RPC to serialization to workflow management. The underlying principle of all these APIs and platforms is to give users a helping hand when they start, by hiding complexity. In short, a large part of the new Microsoft APIs are tailor-made for the novice-intermediate programmer, who wants to develop a mashup or a cool Forms picture viewer for his grandmom.

This approach has a serious drawback. Because programmers don't have to invest upfront in learning these APIs (instead relying on code generators and other tools/constructs), there is no incentive to learn the basics well. So, when something breaks, or if a programmer wants to do something that the API designer didn't anticipate, he is left high and dry, because he hasn't made the investment in knowing what is happening underneath.

In addition, many crucial features are provided as random attributes or "facts you need to know". Therefore, the transition from a novice programmer to an intermediate one is accomplished by increasing your vocabulary, something developers aren't comfortable doing (I mean, if you could remember things instead of having to learn them, why would you take up computer science instead of history?) Of course, you can turn to your favourite search engine for help, but many times, that isn't sufficient.

The other aspect I've recognized is the preference given to large, monolithic APIs and heavy integration. Of course, it serves Microsoft well to have its tools and APIs jell with each other, but the heavy levels of integration (think for instance, an ASP.NET grid view) and monolithic APIs end up leading to an all-or-none approach that developers are forced to choose between. Customization is next to impossible, and important aspects of the code get hidden from the developers leading to performance headaches and again, maintenance nightmares as the codebase evolves.

I'll update this post as I think of others.

API headaches

As a programmer, you sure have your favourite API-thrashing story. You know, the one where a destructor fails to release memory held by the object, causing an innocuous leak that is only caught when a million-dollar contract is at stake. The one where you need to call a function twice to use it once. And the one where you sacrifice your types at the altar of someone who thought it would be fun to use void pointers in a public interface.

API design is notoriously difficult. This paper says why. Suffice to say that the task of balancing conflicting requirements, for instance, of power v/s ease-of-use, along with constraints imposed by the target language, by the large (unknown) user base, and of issues like maintainability, extensibility, and performance - you have hell on your hands.

Still, I can't help but wonder why the APIs I use on a daily basis have the flaws they have. Why, for instance, does the Linq Aggregate function throw an InvalidOperationException when I pass an empty list to it. Why, for instance, the DateTime class does not comment what its MinValue is, beyond saying that it is public, static, readonly, and is the minimum possible date. Why, for instance, should the Enumerator be modified to check for end-of-container.

I have similar problems with some language features. The illogical distinction between structs and classes in C#. The whole mess created when operator overloading (specifically, op ==) meets reference equality.

I'm just venting. The C# language and the .NET runtime have amazing utility for programmers and have replaced native C++ as my choice of programming language.

The nuclear deal

So, what do you need to know about the nuclear deal (I won't call it the Indo-US n-deal), to support or oppose it? Very little, actually. All you need to know is that three parties are opposing it - Pakistan, China and the Indian Communists. If these three oppose the deal, you know it is good for the country. You know you should support it, and support the PM, who finally has got a spine, after four pointless years in power.

Beyond the legalese and all the wrangling, what are the commies worried about? Well, as one worthy said: "The deal will make India a US outpost against China." Now, is that necessarily bad? Wouldn't you sup with your enemy's enemy, just as China has done with Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, and is now trying to do with Nepal? Why shouldn't we be a thorn in the flesh of the country that invaded us, still holds on to large tracts of our territory, refuses to acknowledge international borders it shares with us, and let's face it, is our competititor in every field of activity?

Incidentally, when was the last time you heard a left leader or that bastion of leftist writing, The Hindu condemn Chinese intrusions into our territory, or Chinese support for Pakistan's missile and nuclear programs, or even their attempts at encircling India with military outposts? What you've heard, I'm sure, is opposition to India's friendship with the US, opposition to India's relationship with Taiwan (which we still don't recognize, btw), or with India's friendship with Israel. In recent times, the communal nature of the Indian communist was also revealed when one of their general secretaries commented that the Indian Muslims were against the nuclear deal. What better example of ghettoising, generalizing, and internationalising an already targetted community?

However, the biggest farce in the whole drama is the one enacted by the BJP. In sacrificing national interest for petty bragging rights, L K Advani has shown that he's learnt nothing from being Vajpayee's right-hand in the government for six years. Shame on you, BJP, for calling yourself a nationalist party.

It is not Hindu fundamentalism or Islamic that pose India's biggest threat. That 'honour' goes to the commies and the pinkos of the country.

Teen pregnancies. Updated

Read a Rediff article on the same topic:
http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/jun/23mrv.htm

Recently, there was this item in the news, where a group of seventeen "yet-to-turn-16" high school students made a pregnancy pact in the US, and succeeded. The reason? Well, the insidious effect of the coverage that celebrity pregnancies got in recent times. If you keep glorifying unmarried, under-aged pregnancies like that of Britney Spears' sister, and you keep pointing cameras at celebrity pregnancy bumps - what would you expect kids to learn?

A friend of mine who's into fashion, once told me how new fashions were invented. According to him, there weren't many avenues left for creative expression in clothing. So, designers had a choice - either they could drag themes back from the past, or they could shorten or lengthen existing clothes. He gave a very insightful description of how thongs were invented, but in the interest of your stomach, I'll let it pass. Anyway, what was even more interesting was their promotion strategy, which was two-fold: get celebrities to endorse the design, and demean those who stick with existing ones. For instance, to popularize women's pants, they'd associate it with feminism, so that anyone who didn't wear them, wasn't with the times, and was therefore, a supporter of male chauvinism. Similarly, to sell over-sized clothes, you glorify pregnancy, make motherhood the in thing for the times, get celebrities to advertise their pregnancies, and make a quick buck.

Now you know where I'm going with this line of argument. The loonies who control the fashion world, the loonier celebrities who model for them, and the still loonier media that covers these like there is no tomorrow - these are flooding adolescent minds with a steady supply of utter crap. Add to it, declining family cohesion, and the obsession with adultifying our kids to the point that 10-year olds start dictating their parents, and you have situations like the ones Massachusetts is trying to grapple with. With an underdeveloped pre-frontal cortex, adolescents who are not in a position to make sound judgements, are ruining their lives and the lives of others, causing serious harm to the health of a society.

Scroll your favourite maps to India. We have a similar recipe brewing in our midst. Will this soup turn as sour as that of the Americans?

Money v/s Work

Folks who are in the IT field are lucky, in the sense that we are paid well to do something we(hopefully) love. At least, me and many of the people I know in the industry enjoy our work - and some of us do "dream in code". Choices we've made in life would reflect this - we've picked quality of work over money or other considerations, we've always strived, maybe imperfectly, to reach perfection in our work, and we've put team goals above individual monetary gain. However, a question has been bothering me for a few months now: is there a time in life when you should give in, and start looking at the other side of the equation seriously?

It's not that I'm underpaid, or that I feel I don't make enough to sustain a good standard of living in today's Bangalore. But, as you grow older, and hopefully become more mature, you start asking yourself the tough questions, and that is when money comes into the picture.

When I joined my current organization, I took a big hits both in terms of salary and in terms of promotions and 'career growth', all for intellectual and academic growth. Recent developments have made me realize that the compromise on conventional 'career growth' is not a one-time affair, but is something that I'd have to accept as being a long-term phenomenon. As my senior in the org pointed out, I'm now trying to straddle two different boats, and with both pulling in different directions, there is a definite threat of me falling in between. Since one of the boats, that of academic growth is not a very viable option, maybe it is time that I bit the ಕಬ್ಬಿಣದ ಕಡಲೆ and made the switch.

What do you think? Let me know :)

The limits of freedom of speech and expression

Time and again, I've argued on my blog that free speech is absolute, and that the state or "society" has no business setting limits to the right of freedom of speech and expression. However, I must admit today, that there are limits to those rights.


The first limit is accountability. If you are making a statement, you should be willing to be held accountable for its consequences. Anonymous character assasinations are not covered under free speech. Nor is "hit and run" - false accusations, and change-of-topic when someone responds to a point you made.


Second, is preaching violence. Asking someone to kill, rape or maim someone in the name of religion, caste, ideology or any other fault-line.


The reason I'm pointing it out is because I've been reading some anonymous blog posts about a wing of my organization (search for "minimsft" on your favourite search engine), and the shameless way in which, without responsibility, people have proceeded to character-assasinate senior execs in the company. I'm not saying that the senior execs are all dyed in white (which they might be), but if you are making personal, imbecilic, and crude attacks on someone, the least you can do is identify yourself, so that the victim can respond with appropriate action.

Yeddy, Reddy, Chaddi, and Gaddi.

So, Yeddy has finally gotten his Gaddi with the help of Reddy and Chaddi. While it means a lot for the BJP and for Yeddy himself, I'm not sure that the message is totally positive for Karnataka. Yes, it is a landmark verdict, and the Karnataka voters have largely done the right thing, ridding ourselves of the Devegowda clan's shenanigans, albeit only temporarily. And while this blog welcomes the new government and hopes that it delivers, it remains unconvinced that the rule of the BJP will actually make a difference for the state or for Bangalore.


Yeddyurappa's own shenanigans at the Vidhana Soudha today - conducting a 6 hour Hindu ritual in what should be a secular seat of power, doesn't give us much hope.


Earlier, Yeddyurappa agreeing to break away from the BJP and begging the Gowda's to give him chief ministership, doesn't give much hope either.


Nor does infighting in the BJP over ministries, nor the fact that the Mining Reddys who spent over 60 crores in this election will demand their pound of flesh.


In today's "ವಿಜಯ ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ", ಪ್ರತಾಪ್ ಸಿಂಹ (who is fast becoming my favourite columnist) wrote about the the damage that Yeddy's 'dream budget' has caused to the Karnataka finances. Now, I'm one who says that there is no reason for governments to turn in surplus budgets when farmers are committing suicide, or when large parts of the populace still remains illiterate. However, hand outs are not the answer to the problems facing the electorate. Yeddy doesn't seem to have the mindset required to really bring in the required change. For Bangalore, it is doubtful if Yeddy will override his partymen and restore the BATF.


However, the government hasn't even started functioning, so visit this space in a year for a proper review!



Postscript: This election has really been a mixed bag. While I'm glad that the Gowda family is not in a position to influence the government, and am glad that people like Dharam Singh, the Bangarappa family, and Bangalore's very own Vatal Nagaraj were shown the door, I can't help being sad that an excellent MLA and corporator like K. Chandrashekar (Congress, from Basavanagudi) lost. It is also tragic that the fascist Congress high command overruled its MLAs to deny Siddaramiah the opposition leader's post, instead giving it to a spineless Kharge.

Racism, pigmentism, communalism

Racism: Why is there such a controversy over the racism (it is really pigmentism* - discrimination on the basis of skin colour) issue in picking cheerleaders (or in asking some of them to leave)? There is already discrimination (let's call it sizeism) in cheerleader selection - why is it that you don't find a fat cheerleader? If your sales item is a body - let's be frank about this - then you have to accommodate the fact that a majority of the people have a certain taste there. In the west, people think thin is sexy. In India, we think white is sexy. Why is one necessarily worse than the other? 'Equal opportunity' does not work everywhere.

I'm not saying that pigmentism or racism is OK in any domain. I'm only making the point that when you are selling beauty, you can't blame people for having a particular taste and for your marketers to cater to it. I've seen casteism and pigmentism at work in my previous company, and believe me, it sucks, even if you are not at the receiving end of it.

Communalism: You may recall how Manmoron lost his sleep when he came to know Indians were involved in the Glasgow blasts, and how (correctly) his 'secular' government fought tooth and nail to get him acquitted. Now, Indian cab drivers are being attacked in Australia, and these are racist attacks, why is the moron silent? Which cat has got his tongue? Why isn't there at least a demarche issued to the Australian mission in India? Well, if you didn't guess it already, it is because the victims are Hindus. If Muslim Indians were targetted, our secular government would have jumped into the fray - now, if a few dozen Hindus are killed out of the 850 million or so around the world, why bother?

* Thanks to a journalist friend for coining the word.

Blatant International Airport Loot Ltd.

For nearly three months now, lunch discussions in my organization have revolved around the new airport. Last week, I got a chance to preview it first hand - BIAL has a "scheme" to allow MNCs to take teams of employees for a visit, and I signed on. So, what is my conclusion?

As passengers take the first flight out of BIAL, the taxpayer will be taken for a ride.
(Disclaimer: I don't know anything about running an airport, so things may be radically different once the airport actually opens.)

The reason is simple: the airport, particularly the terminal, is not designed to handle anything more than the traffic that HAL airport used to get in the early 2000s. It is tiny, particularly in comparison to what was expected of it. Terminal size of 71,000 square metres is dwarfed even by the Hyderabad airport at 105,300 square metres. And the PR folks at BIAL have the nerve to claim that they can handle 11 million passengers every year, while HIAL with nearly 50% more area claims a modest 12 million. HIAL beats BIAL in aerobridges: 12 to 8, and even in terms of runway width, which our host at BIAL acknowledged is insufficient to handle A380s. The person in question even claimed that no airline was ordering A380s in the near future, saying "why dedicate capacity to something that won't happen in the near future" (paraphrased). Apparently, he hadn't seen this: http://www.livemint.com/2008/01/13235805/Kingfisher-doubles-A380-orders.html, or a million other news items easily accessible from your favourite search engine.

We continued discussions about the airport, and he said that in Phase 2, an identical terminal would be built, taking the total capacity to 50million passengers. Now pray, according to BIAL numbers (which I completely reject), their terminal can handle 11million passengers. If you double of the area, what pot must you be smoking to let you quintuple the capacity!? When we entered the departure area, we were told that the seating could accommodate 1200 passengers, which was definitely a stretch of the imagination. Still, assuming that it can, let's examine the reality. A quick look at the departures from Bangalore between 8:00 and 9:00 PM reveals that there are around 20 flights taking off between those times. Taking a simple number of 70 passengers per flight, we have 1400 passengers. Similarly, peak hour international traffic happens between 00:30 and 2:30 hrs. Anyone who's taken an international flight during those times will testify that the cramped HAL airport had over 1000 passengers during those hours. So, we've already exceeded capacity! How will the airport handle traffic growth, which currently is at 20% per annum?

Now, this is not an accident. Ever since its inception, BIAL has refused to acknowledge the need for higher capacity in the airport, quoting dubious studies, while ignoring the ground reality - 10 million passengers took off last year - and the new airport is claiming to accommodate only 11 million (which, I'll bet is a total lie).

Let's now take a look at its finances. Are the user charges of BIAL, currently at Rs.675/- for a domestic passenger and Rs.975/- for an international passenger are too steep?

Here's a back-of-the envelope calculation. Taking an average charge of Rs. 700 per passenger, and with today's passenger numbers of 10 million per year - we get a figure of 7 billion rupees, or 700 crores as revenue from the measure. The total investment made by the partners is:

• Rs 375 crore from Karnataka Govt (32.6%)
• Rs 379.5 crore from Indian financial institutions as debt (33%), and
• Rs 51.42 crore from the three member international consortium of Siemens Project Ventures, Larsen & Turbo and Unique Zurich Airport

Which means at nearly 900 crores expenditure, the airport venture will break even in the first two years of operating! And without _any_ increase in passenger traffic! OK, they have to pay salaries, there are running costs and utilities, but I haven't considered the revenue they will make out of the airport city, the planned "five-star" hotel, and from all the retail outlets that will be setup in the airport.

In addition, the airport will not allow KSTDC taxies to operate in the airport - what'll become of the livelihoods of those drivers?

These are the issues that Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Mohandas Pai, and the rest of the rabble rousers must raise. Not travel time to the new airport.

On a final note: we went when there was less than two weeks for the airport to open, and finishing work was still on at the airport. Think about it, this is an airport that the company claimed was ready to open on March 31st! Looks like Mr. Brunner has learnt some Indian habits during his long stay here!

Postscript: It is a shame that none of the channels or the newspapers that covered the airport controversy bothered to present a statistical analysis of the airport, instead relying on sound-bites and "feelings". This points to a drastic reduction in the quality of journalism caused by the increasing numbers of those who come in for the "cool"ness of the job, not its rigor. Few journalists today are trained, or are willing to train, to achieve the analytical rigor that a Sainath, a Shourie or a Gurumurthy have achieved.

Freak-o-name-ics

I was trying to clean up my e-mail a few days ago, when I came across a bunch of e-mails sent by my friends who had just named their children. Now, each generation goes through a different trend of "name choosing". For instance, around the time I was born (will keep both the decade and the year a secret :)), one fad was to name kids after communist leaders. So, many kids were named after Stalin, Lenin, Marx, Che Guevera, and similar leaders. Another was to name kids simple, non-godly names. So, out went the Gopals, the Krishnas, and the Ramachandras, and in came Anils, Sandeeps, and the like. My good friend, (who shall remain unnamed) once told me that in the 70s, there was a movement, not just a fad, amongst Indian Christian families to give their kids Indian names. So, out went the Johns and Michaels, and in came Ajits, Ajays, and the like.

Freakonomics writer Steven Levitt talks about how so many people decide to name their kids using similar "principles". He shows that educational levels are a factor. As are income and upward mobility. (I would go on about this, but you should simply read his book. It is AWESOME.)

A trend I observed in the recent times, particularly amongst my friends, relatives, and distant relatives, is one where they name their kids names starting with the letter "A". Anwesha, Anahita, Anagha, Arya, Ankita, Anandita, Anusha, Apoorva, Ananya, Ayush, to enumerate a few. I wondered, Freako-style, why this was the case?

One answer seems to be that there is a trend, particularly amongst the IT folks, to use Sanskritized names. Maybe, it gives an impression of being in touch with Hindu tradition - imagine, someone asks your kid's name, and you say "Anwesha", you can be sure that the next question will be, "oh, what does that mean?", giving you an opportunity to show off your knowledge of ancient Hindu names. :) Or maybe, just maybe, people tried reading Maneka Gandhi's book of Hindu names from cover to cover, and couldn't get past the letter A! :)

Well, I pitched this idea to a couple of colleagues, and one of them responded: "Maybe the names start with A because they want their kids to become accomplished researchers, and become first authors of every collaborative paper they write!". [Editor's note: If a paper has nearly equal contribution from all its authors, the accepted "policy" is to put author names in ascending order of either their first names or last names.]

So much for working in a research lab! Well, what do you think?

How to become a hero?

So, you are a politician and this is election year. You've done nothing towards solving big ticket problems in your constituency, or ministry (if you are a minister) for the last four, and now people want to know why they should elect you.

What do you do? Well, simple. You find a trivial issue, sensationalize it, and pretend to solve it by victimizing someone.

Let's see some examples. Our health system maybe in shambles, we may have 74 children out of 1000 dying below the age of five (27 in China), 0.8 beds for 1000 people (2.38 in China), 47% of our children are underweight (10% in China), only 42% of births are attended to by qualified personnel (70% in China), and...well, you get the picture. But our do-good minister of health affairs is not interested in these numbers. After all, how can you explain to the electorate that the number of hospital beds is now 0.82 per 1000 - how will they understand? Instead, you can wage a jihad on something visible - cigarettes, for instance. Not satisfied with banning smoking in movies, and not satisfied with having large skull-and-bones pictures put on packs, our worthy minister even tried to edit old movies to remove cigarettes from them! Luckily, saner minds prevailed. Next, the minister targetted alcohol - the no.1 cause for malnutrition deaths, high infant mortality, and maternity deaths. Now, he is targetting junk food - your next meal at Mc Donalds might actually come with a lecture on good eating habits! Or, the next time you buy a can of saturated fat, you could be made to attend a refresher course on the evils of cholesterol.

Anyhoo, another candidate in this space is the most cultured home minister of Maharashtra. Now, I don't know much about Marathi culture, but if you believed the minister, it would mean antagonism towards bargirls, towards cheerleaders, and towards "modern" clothing, while turning a blind eye to the violence perpetrated by goons supporting one political family. It would mean supporting weird notions of Marathi pride, including burning books written on Shivaji - who in his time, established a kingdom of tolerance and respect. It means targetting the innocent, and letting the vile go scot-free.

India, my friends - the latest "super-power".

National mess

I was watching "Chak de India" yesterday, with the book "Billions of Entrepreneurs" by Tarun Khanna in my hand, while simultaneously flipping channels to get a glimpse of a debate of sorts about Indian hockey. The movie is awesome, and is right up there with the classic "Remember the Titans", but that is not the subject of this post.

It just struck me that in the same month as the national animal is found to have suffered it's greatest loss of numbers, the national bird lost two dozen individuals and the national sport faced its worst defeat ever.

The conclusion is clear. Anything that gets tagged as "national" in our country goes to ruins. Readers that are old enough might recall the obsession with the electronics industry in the 80s. It was given "national importance" - which led to its suffocation. Programmes like Garibi Hatao that grabbed national attention were a disaster, as were attempts at "nationalization", banks, for instance, forgetting the customer completely. No one watches the national channel (DD-1) unless they are forced to, the national games are a sleight of hand, and our national interest is discarded at the bidding of opportunistic politicians, the nuclear deal being a good instance.

Similarly, our national song is submerged in controversy, our national flag represents how shamefully we allow differential treatment of our citizens, and those who give up their lives for their national cause are treated shabbily.

Is there a silver lining in the national cloud? Probably. Why don't we nationalize garbage? That may cause it to disappear. Or make corruption our national pastime? We could also try making our politicians national animals - they might go extinct then!

Any other ideas?

The case for India

This is the title of Will Durant's awesome book on India. As I mentioned in my earlier posts, I've been reading a lot of India books lately, and this one is probably the last on the list. Written in 1930, the book, banned by the British government, and God knows why, never resurrected by the Indian governments, is an excellent account of how the country was raped, with the connivance of our own people, for over 200 years by the British.

The figures are amazing. Robert Clive, the resident governor of Bengal, getting an annual tribute of US $140,000, in 1930s money. The national debt of India, which was really caused by twisted pricing of goods, rising to a whopping 3.5 billion dollars by 1929, the cost of maintaining the British army in India was paid by Indians, to the tune of 200 million dollars a year, wars, in which Indian troops fought for the British were paid by taxes on Indians, to the tune of 1.2 billion dollars in the late 1800s, all of these reducing India from the second largest economy in the world in the 1820s to a basket case by 1947.

The book talks of how Indian industry was broken and how farmers were driven to penury in supporting the opulent lifestyles of company and British officials. What is more shocking is the kind of torture inflicted upon the common men by the British:

"A troop of English soldiers had reached the spot, and without warning, began firing into a crowd that had women and children. [...] Some people got as many as twenty-one bullet wounds in their bodies. [...] A young Sikh boy stood in front of a soldier and asked him to fire at him, which the soldier unhesitatingly did. Similarly, an old woman [...] came forward, was shot, and fell down wounded. [...] The police snatch off the men's garments, twist and squeeze the testicles, and even batter them until the victims foam at the mouth and become unconscious."

Madeline Slade, an eyewitness, says: "And so we went on from this house to another. [...] 1.Lathi blows on head chest, stomach and joints, thrusts with lathis in private parts, tearing off loin cloths and thrusting of sticks into anus, dragging of wounded by legs and arms, beating them, throwing of wounded men into thorn hedges or salt water, thrusting of pins and thorns into men's bodies..."

What stands out in the book are these:

- The extent of torture and exploitation of the British

- Active connivance of Indians in the British services, including the police force

- The bravery and determination with which "ordinary" Indians fought for freedom.

After reading this though, I started to wonder. As a country, we have such a poor sense of history. Our Moronic PM, intoxicated by a doctoral degree, praises British rule. Common people have no clue about how we won our freedom. Even educated people think the positives of India are the grace of the British.

Read this book. Buy this book. At 140 pages, it is not a long read. And let me know, if like me, you kept wondering whether we have simply replaced a white brute with a brown one after Independence.

Happy Republic Day folks!