Blue Diary

Brahmi

2010-03-30T01:20:00.005+05:30

I have been learning the script called Brahmi. It is an elegant and functional script that is a parent of both Nagari and Grandhi but lacking the stylishness of either. The Grandhi and Nagari are the child systems that begat most of the scripts in modern India and South Asia. The brahmi script is first attested at 6th century B.C in both Srilanka and Tamizhnadu, and later in Bhattiprolu, and other Ashokan edicts. However we can still discern the in influence in quite a few letters when compared to the modern Indic languages.

What attracted me in the first place aside from its antiquity is the regularity of the script. The diacritical marks for vowels are limited to just two variants corresponding to horizontal and vertical orientation of the letter being marked. Some thing that most of the current Indic languages seem to have trouble with. A second important aspect is that it is the oldest script that has the characteristic phonetic presentation we have come to expect in all Indic languages.

If we consider the precise recording of sound as the goal of a writing system, it is easy to see that a script can be considered more advanced as it regularizes its usage, and abstracts common functions while preserving legibility. In fact this is what distinguishes abugidas like Indic scripts from the common alphabets like English and logographies like Chinese. The alphabets abstract out the phonemes into graphemes while abugidas abstract out the common vowels into diacritical marks.

Brahmi represented a significant improvement when compared to the scripts in existence during the time of its use - 6 B.C to 2 A.D approximately. The systems that it was in existence during that time - including Egyptian, Phoenician and Aramaic were just listing of letters with out any specific arrangement. None of them were true abugidas. (Abugidas represent the last stage of evolution of script where the vowel diacritic marks are abstracted out of the letters themselves). Thus Brahmi represents the epitome of orthography at that time.

However it seems like the progress came to a halt soon after the invention of Brahmi. The writing systems did not advance beyond what was achieved during this time. It is easily discernible when you compare the current Indic language scripts to Brahmi.There is not a single innovation in phonetic presentation or in writing in any of the modern Indic derived scripts when compared to this venerable old script. The additions and changes have all most all been related to just superficial style with nothing contributing towards either abstraction or towards phonetic presentation.

It is interesting to speculate what direction the scripting systems would have taken if the path of Brahmi and other abugidas were followed. We can discern a start in the way the letters are presented in the Indic systems.

for e.g the variations of a single letter Ka when pronounced using different strength and when adding nasal sound are arranged together

Ka, Kha, Ga, Gha, Nga

This may have been abstracted out as another kind of marks similar to the diacritical marks used for vowels. An interesting thought is to let the marks range from _ through \ , | , / etc so that there is a continuous gradation of sounds rather than a fixed list. In fact a related technique is used when we repeat the diacritical marks to give emphasis to vowels for e.g to represent a long running screeeeeeam.

That said, I think there is at least one nice effect for the innovation to have stopped at Brahmi - at least for south east asia. The Brahmi letters can easily represent almost all letters currently in vogue in all Indic scripts.

India always had the problem of having a multiplicity of languages and scripts. English and Nagari scripts are not really good enough to serve as a common communication medium. The former is not particularly suitable for Indian languages and the latter is not acceptable to a large majority of south indian people on account of the advantage it confers to the Hindi native population. It is here that Brahmi can play a role. Being the progenitor of most Indian scripts, it holds a very unique position that cannot be questioned by any other script system. It also avoids the problem of selective advantage to a section of the country because it is ancient enough that it bears almost equal similarity to all other Indic scripts. It is clean and regular and simple to learn. Thus Brahmi could at-least serve the position occupied by English currently where words or short sentences are useful say like in the directions in a road or the name of a place. It would get us quite a distance in achieving a common frame of reference.

Srilanka

2009-11-08T17:51:00.003+05:30

Should have updated the blog as soon as I came back from Srilanka, but it got postponed due to various reasons. Any way, the trekking (2 weeks) was quite nice. I was struck by the way the people seemed to be more polite, and generally more clean and well mannered than my home country. Even the inner roads seemed to be clean and well maintained even with all the rains they have. So kerala roads have no excuse now :).

I climbed the Sripada (Adam's peak) at midnight, hoping for a sunrise, but unfortunately it was quite foggy. Another interesting place was Sigiriya (Lions mountain).

I was also quite struck by the similarity of the script to Malayalam, With in two days I was able to read the sign boards in Sinhala quite comfortably. Perhaps I could pick up the language too one day.

One thing I should mention is the hospitality of the Tamil people, who was ready to accommodate and help us in many places. I should also mention our guide Roshan (A Sinhalite). He was an accountant earlier with certification from a British university, but had to give it up and turn a driver/guide due to the lack of opportunities. Quite a nice guy, I really hope that he is able to achieve his dreams.

Moving to new site for blog and home.

2008-01-05T20:12:00.000+05:30

The old site (http://blufox.batcave.net) got deleted by the site administrator (possibly because of their policy of deleting sites with out updates to the front page). But any way, my current homepage is here and the blog is here.

Back from trekking

2008-01-05T19:58:00.000+05:30

Back from a 20 day trekking in Calcutta (Sandakfoo), Nepal and Bhutan. (As usual no pictures :) ). We could actually see the Kanjan(Dzonga) and Everest from Sandakfoo peak. The nicest part was Thimphu and Paro. Thimphu looked like houses planted on
a chess board with every building looking exactly the same, and every one looking like they are coming out of schools in uniform. Paro was much saner in that respect.

Had a chance to visit the tigers nest.

Interesting experiences:

While we were going to DorjeeLing (Darjeeling) the curfew was on, One of the political parties fighting for separation of darjeeling and WestBengal called the bandh, and the toy train got stopped in between. We hired a taxi, and tried to get past the blocked roads to our camp organized by YHAI. Unfortunately we were stopped by the party people and the driver got beaten up. We still made it after it became dark (at 2 AM in the morning.) Other than that the trek was uneventful. Any way, It made me learn more about the history of nepal, WestBangal, Sikkim, and DorjeeLing and why the people of DorjeeLing wanted to separate from WB and accede to Sikkim.

btw: DorjeeLing means the land (Ling) or the Dragon, and Dzonga means a mountain or a fortress, So KanjanDzonga means a golden mountain.

123-agreement between US and India

2007-08-21T21:07:00.000+05:30

I have a solution for the current political impasse over the nuclear agreement with
US.Here is the text of 123 agreement concluded between India and United States.

I have gone through the text, and one thing I can safely say is that it adds no
binding clause to India so long as we do not import nuclear material from them.

Since the urgency of the current situation is that the clock is ticking on time window for approving the deal, what we could do is

--Go ahead and approve the deal in parliament with the rider that, If a government wants to import Uranium from the US, then it should get 2/3 majority of the parliament of the day for this question (The total strength. Not just the attending members on that particular day.).

This would sufficiently address the concerns raised by both BJP and Left, while getting the government out of the imbroglio it has found itself in.

Lanes and (Lack of) Lane discipline.

2007-08-11T01:43:00.000+05:30

Let me start by presenting my credentials,
I live in bangalore, which is some what notorious for its traffic, but during my life
as a techie, I have had a chance to visit quite a few cities in Europe and US, So I can
at least make a comparative judgment on those cities and the Indian ones.

One of my friends while riding (our bikes), remarked that with the supreme court
passing the judgment to impose hefty fines on erring motorists, the traffic problem in bangalore ought to reduce.

While I don't deny the ease of driving in western roads, I think that the present state of Lane discipline is suited for us than the well regulated flow of traffic present in those cities.

The difference is that compared the western roads, the vehicle density in our cities
is huge, While the simplistic solutions like lanes, and traffic lights provide an
acceptable solution when the number of agents (vehicles) is low (where it approximates a linear problem), when the number of interacting agents becomes very
large, these solutions break down.

When faced with a non-linear problem, one of the best approaches in our repertoire is
what is known as emergence, Essentially what we do is to let the individual agents compute the best values for themselves, which leads the system as a whole to a global
optimum.

When we look at the state of our traffic now, this is exactly where we are, Each
agent computes the local optimum for himself, causing the road to be used more
efficiently than otherwise.

To expound my argument further, most of us have seen bikes, moving through the
vehicles filtering to the front when there is a red light. While it certainly
increases the amount of stress involved in driving, at the end of the red light,
you can see that the road is more packed than it could have been if the bikes
did not do that. (You can also observe this effect in low speeds).

It certainly increases the difficulty involved in driving, but that is because
the burden of computation is passed on to the individual agents (that is us).

In a not so glowing terms, the difference is perhaps that between a well planned city and a haphazard shanty town. In terms of the comfort of living, the well planned city
is much much ahead compared to the shanty town, But in terms of the capacity
(density of population), shanty town is very much ahead. While the city is mostly
static, these shanty towns are highly organic, with patches of building occurring
fast where it is possible, and getting shifted as fast when the use for building
in that particular spot has diminished (perhaps due to exhaustion of resources).
The pathways between dwellings go through the same kind of evolution, paths getting created and discarded very fast according to the needs to those around compared to the very static (and lesser used) flyovers of the city.

Coming back to the original point, While we should certainly think increasing the
driving comfort in our roads, With our current infrastructure, and the number of
vehicles on the road, I think it would be a disastrous idea to go for implementing
the order for heavy fines.

Do not get me wrong, I am not advocating that the traffic rules should be thrown out
overnight, What I am advocating is that let these rules be guidelines, that could be
overruled based on the condition of individual agents at ground. More importantly,
let the agent decide for himself whether to follow them or not in that particular instant.

i.e: The incentive for an agent to keep to the left side of the road is simply
that the left side of traffic moves in the direction that he wants to go ! :) and there would be enough pressure from the agents on the right side (both polite and otherwise) for any agent to keep with the mainstream.

At the very least, we should go for careful simulation of traffic before going
forward with things of this sort.

Education

2007-06-02T20:24:00.001+05:30

My friend Muralee had this in his Home page,
--
Education in India favors the top 10 % in the class. In the process it breaks the confidence of the rest 90 %. Economy would have grown faster if teachers were trained to to focus on the middle 80 %
--

I think our problem is the reverse. We do not train or encourage the top 10% of a class. It is more oriented towards the 30 to 80% range. The curriculum is dumbed down to make it more inclusive in the process denying information to the ones who have already mastered what is taught.

I have had friends who had mastered the math texts up to 9th standard when they were in 6th standard. They still had to waste time on the drab lessons which they had already mastered. (And more over, teachers insisted them to write steps for even simple calculations making their life needlessly difficult )

And yes, none of us enjoyed the 10 th standard where after being given a taste of the true science and math in 9th, we were asked to do much much smaller portion for studies in 10th just to make sure that every body passes. The entire year was such a waste.

It happened again in the Engineering, with the mechanics and Mathematics being just a repetition of what was taught in 11th and 12th. It was done with the intent of helping only the average guy.

Looking at what is happening now in our state (Kerala), The teachers are forced to pass every one in lower classes (and in higher classes too) so that when they are in higher classes the effective knowledge of the entire class room is below what it should be for that class. This impacts what could be taught in that class effectively cutting off higher concepts from being elucidated. Effectively denying information to the kids who display a higher ability of learning.

I feel that we would have been in much better shape if we had encouraged our top
10% better. May be we should have some thing like the montessory system of education that lets each child mature according to his or her own pace rather than being shackled to the pace of the average.

R6RS

2006-09-16T13:46:00.000+05:30

Finally a much awaited development from the scheme world.


The R6RS draft is here. Read about it here
The changes from R5RS are here
http://r6rs.org is the associated site.

I am looking forward to the early implementations, and in time my favorite
scheme distributions (DR.Scheme and TinyScheme)

It would have been nice to have an object system specified by default (like CLOS)
but I guess scheme really does not need one by default until network/regexp/system libs and interfaces are specified.

Very creative POV from US Military

2006-06-11T15:51:00.000+05:30

Very creative point of view from US military.

"The suicides of three detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, amount to acts of war."

They say it is an asymmetrical warfare waged against the US by the dead detainees when they killed themselves. I get the asymmetrical part, but I still fail to understand the warfare part.

Living in India which is plagued by terrorist threats to its being, I understand that things like these are necessary up to a point to ensure the integrity of the nation state. But to claim it as an act of War borders on ludicrous.

Holland

2006-06-02T01:08:00.000+05:30

Holland gets new party link
It is a party that stands for free pedophilia, While I oppose their idea, I am jealous of the permissivity of the dutch society to permit the existance of such parties.

What ever may be the cause, it is much better for the society to allow any and all kinds of opinions to be expressed. Because once we start judging others by our moral yardstick, there is nothing preventing others to use their own yardsticks too, and nothing says that their yardstick is going to be the same length as that of yours. Invariably the length tends to decrease over time.

I hope other nations (most notably my country) takes a leaf out of their book.

Pope and Us

2006-05-20T19:35:00.000+05:30

I recently read this in the news.
(Pope tells the Indian ambassador that efforts to stop religious conversion through legislation is unlawful and unconstitutional.)

I normally oppose legislative initiatives of these kinds for the reason that the Government should not have that much control on the lives of the people (The current mess in reservation is more than enough proof of me on what Government intervention will do).
But in this case, I believe he (The Pope) has exceeded his limits. He would have been correct had his audience been the members of his faith or other general people, but to use the offices of Vatican as a country for this is very inappropriate. When he deals with the ambassador of India, he acts as a head of state, and his actions and words should be interpreted in that scope.

It is same as that of say - Pakistan advising India on reservation -- it is an interference in the internal affairs of a country on which an external agent has absolutely no scope.

With that perspective, I would rather tell him off, than to give any serious hearing to whatever it is that his reasons are. I would have preferred the Government of India to do this, but with the current bunch of office holders I don't have any hope of that happening.

Tsunami in Asia

2004-12-28T15:24:00.000+05:30

Please friends, If you are able, please contribute to the relief funds,
give any thing you can, any thing you are able to spare or
what you think would better serve the needy than it does now with you,

Remember too about other countries, especially srilanka, which may not have
enough resources at hand to cope, and indonesia too,
Know that we are one people and contribute to your maximum.

More info here

Kanchi Kamakoti

2004-11-21T15:04:00.000+05:30

I have been following closely the arrest of the peedhathipathi of kanchi kamakoti,
While the history of the kanchi kamakoti peedha is in itself interesting, [none of the other four madh's accept its existence or its supremacy over them.] I am more concerned by the way in which he was arrested,.

There is an oft repeated quote that being a democracy,all are equal and as a corollary, no one is above law, which, while at first site seems quite nice and fundamental, seems not implemented by the system itself.

The system, like many other systems based on abstract theories,ignores the co-existing systems, and assumes an ideal world, and gives power to transgress its own fundamentals to the institutions it has created.

This is why you need the speaker of the assembly's permission to arrest a member of the parliament, and why you need a superior officer's permission to arrest a military or a police guy. Obviously if 'every one was equal in the eyes of the law' was a true [non transgress able] fundamental this contradiction would not have arisen,.

My gripe is that when a system accepts being imperfect [as democracy does in permitting the transgression of its own fundamentals], It should handle its absolutes [like the above stated laws ] with care. It should open its eyes to the institutions other than its own, that still exist in the society be that familial, religious, or other grouping that exist in society. The custodians of these institutions should also be treated on par with the custodians of democratic institutions.

There are obviously more deeper issues involved in identifying these institutions and their custodians, and also on judging the relevance of these institutions, but these i leave for a later date :)

languages

2004-09-09T01:55:00.000+05:30

I like to think of scheme/lisp and perl as languages opposite to each other. they embody different philosophies of language design much more than any other pairs of languages.

Scheme [and lisps] stands for the abstraction as its foremost goal It lets users make abstractions to the maximum level possible. It has avoided a syntax so that abstraction is possible to the ultimate level. Schemes structure allows the meta-programs to make assumptions about the code being executed so that it is easy to bolt into it any type of paradigm - be it functional, procedural, object oriented, meta programming, continuation passing style or such. It makes no assumptions about the design and molds itself into the thought process making it a really good language to think in.

Perl on the other hand provides a lot -- quite a lot of simple language constructs that makes the often done tasks very easy to write and use. It saves a lot of info in pigeonholes while it processes data and makes it available to the subroutines and constructs which needs it. This makes the programs written in perl exponentially shorter than programs written in languages like c or java. It specifies the syntax to such an extent that it is comparable to real world languages
some times [lookup perl poetry] and is able to make these exceptional syntaxes look natural.

Scheme has a community that is well-knit - though small and has two different processes of updating the language. The SRFIs and the RnRS . The RnRS increments the scheme versions while SRFIs serves as a kind of expanding standard library which is not very tightly controlled. This process is necessary due to the multitude of scheme implementations that are available in the net.

Perl on the other hand has larry and damian controlling the evolution of the language. with a single distribution. They have a large community supporting the CPAN [another kind of standard library].

These qualities makes the ongoing projects by these languages to bring out the next version really interesting.

Looking at the Scheme, they are in the process of creating r6rs which is their next version, but i think that from a design stand point I am awaiting Arc promised by paul graham which promises to be a something that learns from what has gone before in the lisp world and is ready to break quite a few conventions if necessary. While there has been not much information from Paul Graham on the progress of Arc, He has been writing interesting essays on his way of looking at things.

On perl, they too are in the process of designing perl6 the next version of perl, and typical of them, they have gone about it in the typical perli way. With RFCs from perl hackers, being analyzed by apocalypses from larry and finally Exegesis from damian to demonstrate them. they seem to have quite a lot to show, with new syntaxes for objects, mutli-methods, regexes, etc and some new ways of doing things.

either way the future seems interesting for us.

Onam

2004-08-24T23:08:00.000+05:30

My dear friend vallabhi has posted about onam here. , I guess she says it all. :) - don't have any thing to add :)

going home,

2004-08-21T16:12:00.000+05:30

/me is going home..... :)
still one more week left for onam, but just one more week,, and i am HOME :) :D

Empires crumble,..

2004-08-12T02:35:00.000+05:30

If history can teach us any thing, It is this,
no empire on earth survived for very long compared to the history of established modern settlers. [starts at about 7000 BC.], The institutions too suffer the same fate, Most start with a core of people who believe in the central Idea/s?, and are bound by it. The commitment and loyalty to the institution or the empire begins to erode slowly, In many cases, The erosion is accelerated by the perception that the institution or the empire does not fulfill the central Idea as strong as it did during the time of its founders, which becomes a self fulfilling perception. As the time goes on, the things that were taken for granted are slowly questioned, and things that were questioned and understood once, are slowly taken for granted and ritualized. This process too accelerates the decay of the institution. As the empire reaches the stage when the core begins to rot, the central figures who guide the destiny of the institution/empire begin to concentrate on petty things that serve to reduce the glare of the rot with in. They too, thus fritter away the life energy of the empire and thus shorten the life span of it.
We see it happen every day in our life, and we read about it every day. Former institutions that were once mighty are pushed down. Educational institutions that once had great teachers now have people who rely on short sighted beurocracy to hold on to their positions. Politics was the first to fall after the independence. The institutions like army who were once thought to be above the lowly deeds now have men who regard themselves above the law.
Empires like USSR frittered away their energy in things that did not matter to their survival and fell quickly, [Perhaps US of A is on that path now.] May be even we Indians are on that slope. We have people in north (Kashmir), east(Nagaland/Manipur), south(TamilElam& Maoist) and west(Gugarath-VHP & MuslimTerrorist Orgs) who question the very idea of Indianness.

As each empire crumbles, the after shocks last for a very long time, if the result of that crumble was multiple entities, each of which could command significant power and could hold on their own. The case of Kerala, my native land after cheraman perumal, seems a case in point, But it seems that the shocks last much lesser if there is a single strong entity that arises when the original institution crumbles, so that the minor portions have to depend on it for survival. That entity is able to reduce the chaos that succeeds the dissolution of the empire. USSR is a good example of that kind of break up. with Russia acting as the dominant force. Chinese too were fortunate to have a long period of strong central rule, though by different dynasties.

It is not my attempt to document what is happening around me, but perhaps to suggest a way around, so that even if the main entities disappear, we could save some of the information or society that formed around it,

Perhaps we should pave the way for the newer entity to rise even while the older one is still going strong? It wont be possible once the rot has started, as the people into whose hands the control goes at the time of the rot will tend to have a priority towards maintaining their power than to save the institution or the empire, They would most likely regard the seed of new entity as a threat,

The way to do it might be to have the Institution have this seed in it even while it is forming and spreading its influence, so that it will carry the new seed which will break apart the old shell when the time has come, and rescue at least some portion of the old society its ideas and knowledge. It should be done in such a way that when the rot starts, the seed is able to maintain itself and even become a minor power center inside the main body, and should be a facilitator in the ultimate breakup.

The time of chaos when the dissolution comes will possibly depend on how perfectly the seed is able to grow into the shoes of the old as the old decayed.

info:
chinese

egyptian

Kerala

2004-08-11T03:00:00.000+05:30

I was thinking recently about Cheraman Perumal. The last emperror [Chakravarthi] of Kerala,
He was one of the original Tamil princes.[ Chera Chola and Pandya].

He converted to Islam during his rule [Arabian merchants who came to kerala converted him,he went to macca and adopted Islam from Prophet Nabi himself.] Before leaving the shores of Kerala, He partitioned the country into many, [actualy twelve but the Indipendent centers that came into existence were these], the venadu swaroopam [kanyakumari-thiruvananthapuram] and perumpadappu swaroopam[cochi.] with small other centers too in the north like Comorin, Kollam, Ely (Kannoor- and later Kolathiri),and Malabar (Samoothiri).

The Kerala history never had a later time when the whole of Kerala was united again.

Later vasco-da-gama landed in calicut and The Dutch came in and constructed a fort in cochin, They utilized this power vacuum to establish their own power centers which ruled over the place,.. And this later made it possible for the British to annex the whole of India,

If only the first Chera Samrajyam [empire] had survived, we might have had the history flowing in a very different direction.

Accident (again!)

2004-08-09T22:54:00.000+05:30

Got into a real nasty accident today, I was turning into the office after giving all necessary road signals and such and a lady [and a little child] in a scooter rammed into my bike, The lady was hurt, with blood coming out of her nose and mouth but it seemed that the child was unhurt, My bike went for a toss, and I landed and bounced on my head . I usually am too lazy to wear the helmet, but do not know why I chose to wear it today, If i had not, that accident would have proved quite nasty. Since the onlookers saw the whole accident, I was able to leave after making sure that the lady and child was ok,

Paul Graham

2004-07-29T18:47:00.000+05:30

Just read the Great Hackers by Paul Graham. Wat he says does have a certain appeal, I would like to add a few things about the hackers I have known. [no one famous, but just ppl with extra-ordinary skills with a computer.]

1) They usually do not have a fixed opinion on less important things, but if you express an opinion on any to one of them be sure that you will be provided with an alternative opinion that is the exact opposite, or even beyond what you are suggesting.

2) They do not have a fixed daily rhythm -- Some hackers I have known have a 25-26 hr day. They leave at 2 am today and come back at 10, next day,then that day they leave at 4 and come back at 12 the day after, and at some point it switches back.

3) Most have a sense of beauty in code. They can recognize instantly when a program segment is beautiful, not merely powerful.

4) You can judge them by the number of lines they write to accomplish some thing. (the number of "lines" will be absolutely minimal. and usually the functions that they write stays in one screen. ).

google and 500

2004-07-26T23:03:00.000+05:30

What is happening to google these days?!!!
It is the third or forth time that I am getting
"Server Error
The service you requested is not available at this time.
Service error -27."
from google for simple queries!!, It used to be the icon for stability, now it seems that its expansion has started a rot with in.

mod_scheme 3.3

2004-07-20T22:34:00.000+05:30

Phew, the mod_scheme 3.3.a release is out, :D
I have fixed most of the bugs I know of, and written some docs on how to use it,It is more an apache developers tool than a scheme development platform at this stage,You can easily convert most apache modules [handlers or filters] to scheme or vice versa as it provides an almost one to one mapping with Apache APIs,

ToDo:
more examples
more documentation,
Nice library ? [I keep putting this off.. ]

mod_scheme

2004-07-16T07:26:00.000+05:30

It seems that the tinyscheme has moved to 1.35 , so It is imperative that I update the mod_scheme,
now the things i need to do are,

1) to fix the long broken unix build of mod_scheme
2) get it updated to 1.35 of tinyscheme [currently it is 1.33]
4) fix the problems with file handling
5) fix problem with input filters.

Secondly i also need to get the ns_scheme for SunOneWebserver cleaned up,
been down with fever for a few days, so i guess i got enough time to think it over.

focal

2004-07-13T11:33:00.000+05:30

My focal [that is perf appraisal for folks out side sun] was on friday, Thank fully there weren't any serious negetive markings, One thing I was told to try and improve was my communication, I am told that I am very quiet, infact too quiet, except when I had something to defend, in which case i am told to be quite ok,,.. :)

I guess that is something i cant help much,,...

Gospel of the christ.

2004-07-09T17:39:00.000+05:30

I have always believed in christ as god just as I believe in my karma and vedanta saram,
I do not find any problem in reconciling my Hindu beliefs and outlook with the christian or muslim faith.
however After seeing the pain caused by conversions I can not but ask, did he know that these will come about?

Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law--
a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'

Matthew 10:34-36

How true it has come about to be!! How farsighted this observation was!!
The conversions by proletysing religions tear apart the fabric of family and society in a way that is too cruel for the words to describe.

I have always believed in the ancient suktha,
matha pitha guru daivam [consider your mother, father and teacher as equel to gods]
and felt it as one of the corner stones of my life and faith.I find it difficult to reconsile what christ teaches with it. and if it is my choice, I gladly choose this suktha rather than any teaching that is in variance with it because as an Indian I value the well being of my family above that of my own always and every time.

@Sun

2004-07-07T12:45:00.000+05:30

The life at Sun is like a giant chess game,

Each game is satisfying due to the challenges presented and overcome but in the end I am not sure if I gain any thing of value out of this. Perhaps it is time to take a good look at my career and life.

It is like learning woodwork, each work I do contribute to my expertise with the code, but they do not teach me any thing new.

Stories.

2004-07-05T12:40:00.000+05:30

Just back from visiting my parents and sister,
I almost felt like a child of ten again,
Each time I leave my home I feel so bad about what I am missing all the time. I left home at the age of ten and haven't had an extended stay at home until now. And now that my job is of this nature, I cant really hope to have that privilege later too..

That aside, my community, the Nairs of kerala, and the traditional family that I live in have a lot of stories about them, and each time I go home , it is a newer experience and an exposure to old stories some forgotten for years and some newly heard.

My family name is Naduvani roughly translated from Malayalam to English, it means the 'rulers of the land' It is perhaps the last remnant of a once powerful NaduVazhi?... The stories of my land and family like any old story lies entwined in magic and mystery,
It is said that the family came to the central kerala from Malabar (northern kerala) and settled there, and that during a time when our Thaivazhi (the matrilineal line of inheritance which determines the tharavadu or family name) was at the end of line due to scarcity of girls born in the family we had to adopt a girl from the Azhvancheri (an old and famous family of shivite brahmins) to continue our line. We have a kavu [a temple to the goddess of durga] that is associated with the family name called Naduvani kavu where along with goddess durga, our paradaivam and karanavanmar [ancestral deity and our ancestors] are worshipped.
The kavu has an interesting history, It is said that the bhagavathi [goddess] of the temple was one of three heavenly sisters, and the other sisters are also worshipped in nearby kavu's the Oldest of the sisters are supposed to be a very angry person, and hence the temple does not have a roof over it so that the deity sits under the natural elements. Our goddess we consider her as our heavenly mother, but like any mother, she too got angry once, It is said that in the annual festival in which the velichappad [the oracle] was enacting the old purana story of darika vadham [killing of a demon] as a drama-ritual the person acting the part of the demon was killed by the velichappad using the sacred sword [pallival] and was dumped into the well nearby, The annual ritual drama was stopped from then on, and the sacred sword and chilambu [anklet] of devi was then on kept in our tharavadu [ancestral home]. These things were known to the eldest members of the family alone, but when it a prashnam [prophesy through jyothisham according to Indian tradition] was done, these things were pointed out again with out any promptings from our part.
It is also said that our family has another ancestral temple [of shiva] some where in north malabar where our members are supposed to visit.

We Nairs have a matrilineal society and according to it, the family property and the rule of it goes into the hands of the eldest female member of the Thaivazhi. After marriage, the bride-groom is supposed to stay with the bride's family unlike the custom of the majority of world. The females also have greater say in ending the marriage and choosing a new bride-groom if they so wish. This matrilineal form of inheritance meant that while the rest of India wishes for a male child to be born to be the inheritor, the Nair family wishes for a female child to carry forward their thaivazhi. The right to do poojas [worship] in the Tharavadu kavu's etc are with the females. They were also taught the vedas and martial arts like kalari if they so wished.

Though my immediate family lives in the house of Naduvani, we are a different thaivazhi when considered in the strict matrilineal sense, My grand father (mother's father) is of the Naduvani stock while my grand mom (mother's mother) is of chanacham veedu of cherthala (and the sub family padinjare kunnumpuram). That means that though we live in the naduvani veedu, we are of the chanacham veedu (another old tharavadu but from the southern kerala). My mom tells me that as a member family of chanacham veedu, we get invitation from the festival of ancestral deities from chanacham veedu also every year. My father is of a tharavadu called elangikkamali and the sub-family group pookkattupadi.

We also have a sarpakkavu [temple for a personal deity in the form of snake] In our family home.

More interesting details as and when I remember more....

Fighting spam, a new thought.

2004-07-03T23:23:00.000+05:30

Having had more than my share of spams in my inbox, I have been seriously thinking about ways to detect and avoid spams.

A spam is usually different from an ordinary mail in these stages.

1) When It is being sent.
A spam is usually never sent singly. i.e. Millions of mails are sent at once from a single account or a server. More over it is a machine that is sending it, not a human. and probably it is a machine that is going to process your replies

2) The from address
The from address is spoofed by spams (or viruses if spreading infected mails) so that you cannot reply back directly

3) The content
The spam usually has content that is unrelated to your legitimate mails.

Until now most of the filters work by using the third difference, i.e Bayesian filters and other content filters identify the spam by the frequency of specific words in it.

Looking at the other two, it seems that we can make use of the fact that it is a machine that is going to read the mails..

The suggestion is this, If you get a mail from some one who is not in your contact list, have a script that will reply back with a technical turing test that will verify if it is a human or a machine, If you get a correct reply [verifiable by a machine] then it is a positive that it is from human, if the reply is wrong it can be sure that it has not come from human. To help the human in identifying the mail for which he is being asked to verify, we might even include the text portion of his original mail in the verification mail or just the subject alone.

The turing test can take these forms,
1) pngs or gifs of words, Let the script reply back with a png or gif that is readable only by human [as is now used by so many free webmails -- i.e obfuscated slightly so that it is hard for machines but easy for us to read.] The sender can reply back with the answer in the subject line. If the answer is correct, the sender and the previous message will be white listed for viewing.

2) Simple sentences like
*what is the value of one thousand X four ? [reply in numbers]*

while this kind of turing tests are less robust than the pictorial one, The number of different sentences that can be composed might make it a good option. More over if it is a machine, It is going to spend considerable resources trying to decrypt it.

3) Identity confirmation questions like
*give me my first name*

the usage of these kinds of identity mechanisms should be triggered automatically when a mail from an unknown sender arrives in your mail box.

Afterstep

2004-06-28T20:22:00.000+05:30

I have just rediscovered the joys of afterstep window manager :D

also I have gotten my bsd box to connect to the sun nis and mount my home dirs from the global nfs exports [no auto mounting yet, but from what I gather, it is still a hack with fbsd, with having to create temporary map files and all..] it is such a joy to return back to the favorite platform after being away for so long...

and junked KDE in the process,, (with regards to gnome, I never liked sun's gnome based JDS desktop anyways..)

Some images.

2004-06-20T19:18:00.000+05:30

I have uploaded some of the images I had [from Raghu's archive] to the site. accessible here

(-edit I lost these when my account in blufox.batcave.net was deleted by them-)

It seems like google is loosening up their gmail signup, (since rediff and spymac are offering free accounts 1GB each), I have received around 15 invitations, If any one needs it, you are welcome to contact me.

G8 and India

2004-06-14T21:18:00.000+05:30

India's tentative Invitation to G8, Should we be eager to accept?

Aside from the fact that we tend to see it as the growing up of the Indian nation, I believe that we should weigh in multiple factors present in this option.

Let me state the facts first,

The countries that originally formed the G6 were France US Britain Germany Japan and Italy [1975]
Then Canada joined them [1976]
European Union (country? now is still believable but at 1977 ??) [1977]
and Russia started from [1994] and will take until 2006 to complete the procedure. (After they have exhausted all the necessary juice that can be extracted in terms of demonstrating the commitments to the forum and its views.)

The G8 is a kind of grouping of like minded nations that has a lot of things in common with a school with a school master and end of the term exams. See Here.

Some of these issues for assessments [
Political Security General
Arms control and nonproliferation
Indian nuclear explosion
Land mines
Regional Security
Balkans/Kosovo
Balkan reconstruction
Indonesian crisis
Human Rights/Democratization
Hong Kong, China, human rights
Conflict Prevention
Terrorism

Global Governance
Globalization
UN reform
G8 Governance:
G7/G8 process reforms
Russian participation
Other country/IO outreach
Civil society participation
] are too important for our countries (both India and China) to be trapped in conditions where we are caught between demonstrating commitment to the forum (Which will be demanded - see how long it took for Russia to become a member) and being true to our needs. We will need to demonstrate improvement in these issues to 'Pass' or be asked to give 'certain concessions' so that the others will look away.

We [India and China] along with Brazil were the three major countries that focussed the developing world's opinion, and thus formed a Team. of which only India and China are invited, So why not Brazil? That smacks of an effort to break up a threat than as Brazil not making the grade. (remember that Brazil is also a contender for the UN Security Council) (Brazil is South America's leading economic power and a regional leader with area slightly smaller than the US)

At the moment we have a friendly relation with China, Arab Countries and Palestine , And many of the issues which are before the council will require that we know-tow to the Founder-members interests (Under the threat of extending the time of joining [remember how the Russia was persuaded to give up its cooperation with India?] or failure at term exams to make the grade!!) These will be mostly against the policy which we have followed until now.

Look at the current members of the forum,
Of these eight (9??) how many countries are economic super powers in the world today? [The same with UN Security Council but at least that body has Veto powers, what does this forum have?], Is it the need of India and China to join this forum or Is it the need of this forum to include India and China so that the forum can retain and make a show of its exalted status?

Do we gain any thing at all? other than the status that comes with being a member of an exclusive club?

When we are in the G15 we are the leaders and are able coordinate our peer nations who have the same view points and needs, but the moment we are in G8, we loose that prerogative, and instead we will be a minority, a lone nation that will be forced to give up on things that will matter most (They wont allow us to be full members until they have extracted the last pound of flesh that they can extract and even then there will always be a block of nations who will effectively put an end to any dream of making our issues heard or making our views felt.) (And think of the ignominy of failing to pass the grade on these assessments), and we will have the unpleasant duty of explaining the decisions of G8 to the developing world loosing our leadership there in that process.

Earthen cups for trains

2004-06-11T16:28:00.000+05:30

It seems Lallu Prasad Yadav (our Hon Railway minister [India]) has some Interesting ideas, The new directive to use earthen cups for tea in Rajathani seems to be quite nice, It provides some employment for the people making the pottery, but more importantly it is more environment friendly than the plastic cups that we use in train,..

My only concern is the transportation of these cups (They will take up much much more space than the plastic ones take, and are quite fragile too..)

Still, it is a good initiative, one which i would n't have expected from him,,

asimov@orkut

2004-06-11T16:19:00.000+05:30

A new episode from asimov@orkut,...
Suggestion from Night [
But my way to rule robots as persons or not would be this:
Make a series of double blind experiments, where real people and robots interact with each other, maybe in a chat like environment, with the instructions to not have anything pertinent to the three laws (if they are implemented) discussed. If it is impossible for either robots or people to distinguish between themselves in such experiments, then you can safely say it would be adequate to consider robots people too. Also, if there are some perceived differences, maybe robots can have a different set of rights, but still more than mere "machines".(A turing test)]

Now my gripe is this..

Any Turing test that is applied suffers from two flaws, one is that they rely on reducing the inputs available (In night's case the three laws and blind folding) and secondly the amount of time permitted for conducting the test.

To make the argument clear, let us consider the same argument in a more restrictive way, Suppose that you are faced with an entity whom you are supposed to test, and the method of testing allows moving the pieces of a chess board, How long would you need to determine if the entity that you are facing is Human or not? The difference between this and the other one is just in degrees (with the corresponding restrictions - no testing on three laws, no question beyond a limited database, etc). The moment you want to remove this flaw by loosening the restrictions, time required for a decision increases exponentially, This is the reason why we need the meta rules to judge.

On Nights second opinion,
[Capacity for distinguishing "good" from "wrong". It's clear from our experience with the legal criminal system that some people don't know the difference. Those are usually declared "insane" and put aside society, receiving a different set of rights and duties.

Would not be, then, coherent to give robots rights based on that scale to? If a robot is self-aware, can conduct conversations and think the same way or better than a human being, while being able to distinguish "good" from "bad", it is perfectly clear to me "he" would have all the right to be called a person. Even more than some humans.]

Judging good and bad aside from simple ones are pretty difficult, and is dependent on the social environment prevalent at that time, And I would say that distinguishing good and bad is not a requirement for the Being in question,
As an example, in today's world, Can you say whether George Bush's war on Iraq was good/just ? what does Bush think, what does the Iraqies think, and what do you think?

gmail invites

2004-06-11T16:07:00.000+05:30

On those Gmail Invites,
One for raj My sainik school mate,
Next for ajith, again my friend for 14 yrs

Last for ritu whose post in gmailswap i liked..

Gmail again (and again)

2004-06-11T01:18:00.000+05:30

Cant really believe it :D,.,
I got free invitations for friends...... :P from gmail...
Guess they have finally restarted giving invitations away again.

New kind of science

2004-06-09T21:07:00.001+05:30

Found Wolframs book A New Kind of Science online. :D It was some thing I have wanted to read for a long time, but could not due to its non availability in paper back (I cant afford it otherwise with the salary i get here). It is supposed to be on par with [Brief History of Time] and [Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid] both of which expanded my outlook quite considerably.

Sentience

2004-06-09T21:07:00.000+05:30

I got an interesting response from Night (asimov@orkut) on the sentience and Humaneness of Robots, (Slightly modified)
[Most provide arbitrary definitions of what is life or what is human, but that does not concern the question, which was if the robots were PEOPLE. For people, one would take an individual with rights and duties. What is important is if it has "self-awareness", and can recognize itself as being different from the environment and other robots/humans.

If it has more rules to abide to is not relevant either, as each society has it's own rules, and they change over time. What might restrain you from doing something now may have not in the past, and may well not again in the future. So, it doesn't matter the laws are different, neither that they HAVE to abide to them. Because their existence doesn't encompass ONLY the three laws, but in fact they would have "free will" (at least in the same way we have) in any matter that doesn't directly concerns the three laws.

So, for all that I am concerned with, robots COULD be perceived as people, as long as they are autonomous, can form new thoughts and learn, and can bring value to society with their novel ideas. All other issues are circumstantial, not absolute.]

And here is what I felt about the issue. (As posted there.)

[May be we need to differentiate between the term *people* and *Sentient beings*.Self awareness is sufficient to become a sentient being, but it is not sufficient to be included in people. If an alien Intelligence is discovered tomorrow, we probably would have no trouble calling them sentient beings (regardless of whether they were first-born or were created by other beings) but we would definitely have trouble including them under *people*.

I agree that the rules and views of societies change, but I do believe that there is a meta nature to the human society than what is defined by the rules and views alone (essentially because of the nature of beings forming the society).
In 's novels, there is never any question of the immortals not being considered sentient but the question that is asked again and again is whether and how much they are humans.]

Nukes

2004-06-08T01:33:00.000+05:30

A comment on a recent article by M. V. Ramana & R. Rajaraman in thehindu on Indias nuclear options.

[A recent example of a serious accident involving a missile occurred on February 23, 2004 at the Sriharikota High Altitude Range. Engineers were testing a motor for the Agni missile when it caught fire and exploded, killing at least six people. If such an accident were to occur in an Agni missile loaded with a nuclear warhead, it could well lead to the dispersal of fissile material (plutonium or enriched uranium) into the atmosphere, potentially causing thousands of fatal cancers among the nearby population.

The above estimate of casualties is not for a nuclear explosion, but only for the detonation of the chemical explosive in the weapon. This chemical explosion could well trigger a nuclear explosion. An accidental nuclear explosion with a yield of 15 kilotons, the same as the weapon detonated over Hiroshima, would destroy over 5 square kilometres from the combined effects of blast and firestorms. Over 24 square kilometres would be subject to radioactive fallout at such levels that half the healthy adult population would die of radiation sickness. If this were to happen in the vicinity of a large South Asian city, several hundreds of thousands of people would die. In addition, such an explosion, especially in times of crises, might be assumed to be a nuclear attack and lead to a nuclear response. Thus an accidental nuclear explosion may even initiate a nuclear war, which could cause millions of casualties.]

Notice how the authors are careful to build up the FUD.
The missile was being *tested* when it caught fire. If a motor was being tested, it is conceivable that the parts being tested had some of the previously unproved parts or technology in them, and testing probably means what we ppl in s/w industry are familiar with, that of applying stress variables near the applicable limits of the machine. A missile being tested will not be loaded with nuclear weapons nor a missile in storage which is in storage be subjected to the kind of stress that it is subjected to while being tested.

Now see the claim : the chemical explosion could trigger a nuclear explosion.

so they are referring to missiles which are stored with the warheads. not the ones being tested.
They further claim that if the nuke explosion caused by a chemical explosion were to occur near a large city several hundreds might die.
Now wait for a moment and think, why would a missile be stored in the vicinity of any such cities? The logic points to the fact that they would be stored in places where the govt has easy access to controlling inflow and outflow of people, And it should also be a region where the assembling of the infrastructure to deliver the missile be relatively easy and not under prying eyes. neither of which is easy near a city. I can not think of any advantage the govt will get in storing it near a city. The more chances are also that they will be stored near the borders so that we will get more range out of them. Now think how many cities are near our borders..

Now take up the second assumption, that in case of a crises, it will be assumed to be a nuclear strike and escalate to a nuclear strike. -- But whom do we suspect? unlike the case of US and USSR, we have two or more enemy states surrounding us (more in the sense the jihadi framework) we cannot just aim and shoot before we know who at least did it, and that requires at least some proof.

now look at their recommendation

[Our second recommendation is that the UPA Government immediately stop installing early warning systems. These systems are intended to detect incoming ballistic missiles and, it is hoped, inform decision makers that nuclear war has begun before the warheads themselves explode. The last few years have witnessed the acquisition of key components of an early warning network, including the Green Pine radar from Israel. There have also been reports of attempts to purchase the Arrow anti-ballistic system. However, as we have calculated in some detail elsewhere, these systems simply cannot offer more than a few minutes of warning in the South Asian context. This is grossly insufficient for decision making in any meaningful sense of the term. ]

They fail to realize that these warning systems can act as another mechanism, that of providing a smoke trail after a strike has occurred. With out such a system, the nuclear capability is worse than useful, Since with out knowing who struck us first we can not act. Remember that we have a no first use doctrine. Which effectively means as a corollary that we are ready to suffer a first strike but who ever struck us will not escape unhurt. Remember that we might have around 45 to 60 nukes, and in all probability they are kept in 20 to 30 different sites, if an early warning system gives info that nukes have flown in targeting one or two we can discount it as actual warning as we will still be left with sufficient capability to hurt the enemy. See the example given [In 1995, for instance, a Norwegian scientific rocket launch was interpreted by the Russian early warning system as a possible attack and the matter went all the way up the command chain to President Yeltsin.] This is the typical spurious warning that India need not fear due to the nature of our doctrine, However these warning systems can perform another role too, that of getting the decision making people to safety before the strike, and that is a perfectly valid reason for having them.

Asimov again

2004-06-06T15:53:00.000+05:30

Recently There was a question on the online forum of asimov@orkut on whether we can consider Robots in Asimovian stories Humans This was my answer,

Here is what I feel I believe what constitutes Humaneness of a Human being.

1) Ability to feel wonder and curiosity towards nature. (Central to being a human -what differentiates from lower order, but did the robots have it? That is to feel wonder about things that may not have been of any use to them?)

2) Empathy to other life forms,
Do the robots feel it? Other than sensing that the other intelligent life forms in galaxy might be a threat to humans in the long run, Did it dawn on them to preserve what was different? They did not feel that bond to organisms in earth, which they destroyed, nor did they feel it towards the meme minds and the intelligent life they found in the galaxy, their impulse was to destroy them on the slim thread that they may prove a competition to Human kind.

3) Ability to take Risks (defined as results with more than 50% of the outcome is unknown)

4) To understand your limitations and find workarounds.
Perhaps they did it with the zeroth law, but did they go beyond ? Only one robot propounded the minus one law, but none accepted it.

5) To feel part of society - either human or robotic, Not as masters and nor as servants, but merely as fellow beings. To be able to accord another being privileges based on your good will alone..

6) To value freedom.

7) To have beliefs (irrational or non justifiable convictions) like our belief in god, humanity, soul etc.. Each human has at least some by default,at least we have to expend energy to purge us of it, and even then i am not sure we can purge it.

8) To Love & To Hate

9) To Learn and to Forget

10) To laugh and have emotions

there are lesser ones too but these are the first ten. And remember these are not like robotic laws - universal in their order, each of us have a different order for these things.

seti

2004-06-01T20:22:00.001+05:30

At last I got around to making a new account on seti@home,

They had removed my email access from my old account (due to inactivity for some time?) but still continue to list it. I guess I dont have ny other option than to make a new one hope they don't kill it again.
[I am now running it on a sun blade 2k with 2gig ram. :P ]

Astro -

2004-05-25T19:08:00.000+05:30

This is the astrological prediction of my character based on my star sign [Indian System]

Name: Aslesha (16°40' to 30°00' Cancer) [Also called ailyam]
General Characteristics: Motivated by dharma represents the kundalini or serpent fire located at the base of the spine.
Translation: The entwiner - to embrace
Symbol: coiled snake, circle, or wheel
Animal Symbol: Male Cat
Ruling Planet: Mercury
Nature: Rakshasa (demon)
Presiding deity: Ahi - the naga or serpent of wisdom

Favorable: Philosophical; intelligent; versatile; clever; independent; has a number of different jobs; entertainer; learned; leadership qualities; can accomplish much when motivated; good income; mystical; puts great energy into things that interest them; seductive nature; benefit from spiritual work.

Unfavorable: Mental instability; worrisome; depressed nature; deceitful; non caring attitude; impolite; tactless; unpopular; lacks social skills; rule breakers; hoarding mentality; possessive; secretive; talkative; lacks appreciation; scattered and unproductive; reckless; disconnected; temperamental; lie to serve their needs; vindictive; introspective; reclusive; ungrateful; blunt.

I think there is a lot of overlap in what is predicted and what I believe I am. :)

got it from here.

On incest and rape

2004-05-24T14:58:00.000+05:30

Most of societies in existence today consider incest to be a sin/bad practice.
Western thought claims that incest is bad for society and they provide us with two reasons.

1) The bad traits gets expressed.
2) Since the genetic material is similar, one single disease is enough to wipe out the whole society with out much genetic variation [presumably because of incest or inbreeding.]

Taking the first point, If the bad traits gets expressed easily during the incest, so should the good traits,
in fact the chances of the good traits getting more expressed in the society are high since the concentrated bad trait would cause the unfitness or demise of the member carrying it.

Now looking at the other side, If the breeding occurs in a large group, the chances for the bad traits to become concentrated or the good traits to become concentrated are lower, which means that the capacity of the population fluctuates around a mean. [Remember that there is a lower cutoff level for bad traits --death or no-mating] which means that the smaller groups go higher up [i.e. evolve positively] from the mean faster than a larger group. [Both due to the non reduction of bad traits and due to non (or reduced) selection of good traits due to insufficient strength of expression.]

This effectively gives you a preference for small groups which are self-sustainable [the smallness of the group is counteracted only by the need for self sustenance and the need for redundancy -- if a member is killed, then it should not result in discontinuation of the whole group].

Now let us see what would happen if this preference continues,
here the second objection comes into force, that is a disease that is able to take advantage of the genetic makeup of a particular individual will be able to claim the whole group. and if there are no inter fertilization of the diverse groups, then the good genes of the group will be lost if the group is decimated, since no other group will have that particular gene. Thus it becomes in the group's interest to pass the genes to other groups. This kind of transactions will be rare and forced as the group receiving the genes will have no interest in having it as it would affect the expression of the good genes of the group.

thus I believe that inbreeding and incest [for there is no reason to distinguish between both from an evolutionary point of view] actually help in making the group competitive and forced-mating [rape] is a way of the nature to make sure that the genetic pool is mixed from time to time.

We find multiple examples of incest in nature, the members of the same brood in animals most often live together after the separation from their parents, and they are partners in everything including sex until a better reason comes along (which has to defeat the member of the brood first) thus it seems that incest is the default in nature.

What you can't say

[This Idea's seeds happened to grow from Isac Asimov's Foundation Series.]

Gmail again

2004-05-21T22:18:00.000+05:30

On the gmail,
Opera is not supported.

Other than that, Now I am a member of google's three services,
orkut - [Search for Rahul Nair]
blogger
and gmail

It would be great if they could provide some sort of common account for all their services .. [some thing like msn passport or yahoo id for all yahoo services.] or centralize their services.

But other wise the mail interface is great and neat. and fast, though it seems it has a tendency to go down often. but that is expected in beta i guess.

gmail

2004-05-21T20:46:00.000+05:30

Ding dong ding......... :) :) :)
I got an invitation for Gmail ....... :) :)
wow... i feel like tap dancing over a tin roof....... :D

On PM's chair again.

2004-05-19T12:36:00.000+05:30

Interesting news
Pioneer link
The gist is that Sonia was forced to climb down due to three clarifications sought by the Indian President.
As quoted from Article:
[quote]
Article 102 of the Constitution says: "A person shall be disqualified for being chosen as, and for being, a member of either House of Parliament - (d) if he or she is under any acknowledgment of allegiance or adherence to a foreign state." Sonia Gandhi, in her affidavit, had declared she owned a house in Italy and may thus invite, the term "adherence" of the said provision.

Under Article 103, the President is the sole adjudicator on the issue who has to decide on such matter in consultation with the Election Commission.

Section 5 of the Citizenship Act, dealing with the reciprocity clause for a person who registered herself as an Indian citizen, says the said person could not enjoy more rights than those available to an Indian born person in that other country if he/she acquires citizenship of that country, like Italy for instance.
[/quote]

What ever the case may be, I believe that what has happened is good for India. As mentioned in the previous post, It has already helped put left out of the decision making seat [they were the only real threat to the reforms] and will help Dr.Manmohan Singh continue his policies in the best interests of the nation.

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

2004-05-19T00:47:00.000+05:30

Sonia Gandhi Refuses to be the PM.....

Does any one remember these lines?

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.

I guess it is a master stroke by Sonia, By suggesting Dr.Manmohan Singh as the PM
candidate, She has effectively removed the left from their King Maker status for BJP now
will have no option but support him to save face. [Their whole attack on congress was focused
on the foreign origin of Sonia and what they did during their rein was to effectively embrace the
policies of Dr.Manmohan Singh.] Left, is the only party that is opposed to the policies of reform
to which both BJP and Dr. Manmohan Singh subscribe. So by removing them, she has cleared the way
for smooth functioning of the govt.

While these are plainly obvious for all to see, the master stroke
lies in the fact that she has effectively robbed the opposition of the highest issue they made out,
that of the foreign citizenship. Now, since it is the time of economic ascendency for India, all
that the country needs is a sympathatic govt at the top to achieve the high gear. If that works out
then the India Shining campaign that BJP used can be reused by congress and achieve a majority on its
own after five years.[I believe that the disaster for BJP was the bad alliances rather than the quality of
governance].During the next election, it is sure that BJP wont be able to use the origin card on sonia
because she wont be thought of as PM candidate. If that happens she can easily attain the PM post with
out the rider that the left front currently attaches to it.

I guess we will just have to wait and see to what all this leads to [ny ways Dr.Manmohan Singh is the
only person in that party who is worth anything.]

an email

2004-05-17T15:04:00.000+05:30

I am averse to the dynasty politics but when I get emails like these , I cannot but respond..

here is the email
-------------------------

This is some information on prospective PM of India - Sonia Gandhi that
every Indian and at least every India lover must know.

1.. Sonia Gandhi is ONLY a high school graduate. It is not even sure if she is Matric pass or fail. Cambridge University has confirmed that they have no Sonia Maino on their alumni list.

2.. Her sister, Nadia Mario, who had never visited India before rushed to New Delhi, after Vajpayee govt.fell, to be by her side amidst reports that she might soon become India's Prime Minister.

3.. Should Sonia Gandhi become Prime Minister, her relatives in Italy would be fully entitled to round-the-clock protection by the Black Cat commandos at the Indian taxpayer's expense.

4.. She worked as an house maid in UK while taking classes to learn English in some no name school. She was from a poor family in Italy but now has almost as much money as Bill Gates (guess whose money is it).

5.. During the 1971 war, while all Indians stood ready to fight for the Indian cause Sonia Maino and her husband Rajiv Gandhi went on vacation in Italy.

6.. In 1977, when Indira Gandhi and Congress lost elections, Sonia Gandhi with her children and husband in tow took refuge of Italian embassy in New Delhi. Only after Indira Gandhi, Sanjay and his Indian wife Maneka convinced
her that they came back.

7.. Sonia married Rajiv in 1968 and was eligible to become Indian citizen 5 years later yet she did NOT become Indian citizen till 1984 I.e. 16 years after her marriage) This late bloom of Sonia's love for India also was
out of political consideration. In 1984, Rajiv, was heir apparent and most likely next Prime Minister. It would be awkward for a PM to have a foreigner wife. Voila, Sonia became an Indian Overnight.

8.. She has not given a single interview or offered any ideas on a single issue facing India now. Her only qualification is that she married a Gandhi. No newspaper has taken up the issue; no political party is opposing
this, people are falling in line as if this is nothing unusual.

9.. Sonia became an Indian citizen in 1984 but did not surrender her Italian citizenship. She continues to be simultaneously a citizen of India and Italy as Italian law does not require her to surrender her Italian citizenship
or passport. Simply put, Sonia is a dual citizen of India and Italy now dreaming of becoming the next Prime Minister of India (she can also legally become the prime minister of Italy!).

And here is my response.
--------------------------------
Please try and grow up,
try to accept the fact that she is our defacto PM already and any slander that we spread about her from now will only reflect on ourselves.

The anger that you feel would be more justifiably spent directed to the organisation that put her in the helm rather than to the person called Sonia.

What ever the qualifications of Sonia are, have the gumption to accept the will of the majority of India who do not see the flaws in the person of Sonia a sufficient detriment to cause her downfall or the downfall of the party which alofted her to the supreme post.

If India was meant to be rigid meritocracy rather than a democracy [as your first comment implies] we would probably have had that written in our constitution that we so proudly presented ourselves on the occasion of our becoming a repeblic. In fact if Mahatma discarding his angavastra is any indication, it is better to be nearer the actual condition of the poppulance rather than to be sitting in an ivory tower of honorary titles [which ofcource what the education degrees are. They are not the absolute benchmark upon which to test a persons lifetime knowledge]

Your second point, of her sister being at her side at the time of her most exiting&/stressful time [for the premier ship of India has a damocles sword perpetually hanging over it] demonstrates her ties with her family which we as Indians are so often proud of.

on your third point, Would you rather have it that the protection be removed and thus the Premier of India
be in effect be guided by her concern for the physical saftey of her family while deciding on matters of national
importance which may cause the enemity of worlds desparate organisations on her? Remember, the protection afforded
to the members of the family of a high official is not a status symbol perse, rather it is a device that the State
uses to make sure that its drivers are not motivated by any factor other than the well being of the State

The forth point that you raised gives me hope that she is much more closer to the common man than I had given her credit for, We *ARE NOT* an aristocracy which looks down upon manual labour, and if any thing that raises her esteem in my eyes. The subpoint that you note will be a concern if you can prove that it was acquired illegaly
from India, however, If two nation states [both India and Italy] can not find any thing illegal about her families money, then I am inclined to suspect that what you have raised is nothing but slander in its purest and darkest form.

On the subject of her taking refuge in the Italy, If in the aftermath of emergency, the anti-gandhi feelings ran high, I cann't blame her to think of the protection of her children first instead of putting on a mask of false bravado, Remember that she is a mother first and last. Had I been in a foreign country rocked by internal turmoils whose vortex was your own family I too would do the same. [And her concern is eminently born out by the sad incidents later]

Would you rather have an Indian throw away his Indian citizen ship for the slightest excuse? Would you do that? Ofcourse I know that many of us do that at the slightest pretext, but love of one's mother country cannot be constructed as a bad thing. Infact if any thing tells me that she would be a good Indian, It is the fact that she was a good Italian first.
She became Indian when she absolutely had to, and I don't find that necessarily bad.

The second last Issue that you have outlined is the only genuine concern that exists, and I hope and pray that she has able men at her side who are able to guide her and strengthen her hands and also to let the fate be a little more lenient to that family which has already suffered a lot.

For the last one, If it is illegal, then the courts of this country are strong enough to set it right. It is for nothing that the judiciary is one of the guardian triad in our constitution.
~Rahul~

----------------------------------------

Elections in India

2004-05-14T21:39:00.000+05:30

Hmm atlast my country[India] has gone through another election and has thrown up quite a few surprises. Personaly I feel that Sri Vajpey had done a really good job during his term and cant understand why he had to loose. Perhaps there is truth in the analysis that it was the urban - rural divide that brought about his government's downfall; that and the Gujrath tragedy. What ever it is, I fail to see any leaders in the current winners who is man[woman?] enough to fill his shoes.
While I do not have any problem with the foreign origin of Sri. Sonia Gandhi, I do feel embarrassed by the fact that a great organisation the congress was during the early 20th centuary should be destroyed to such an extant that there is no capable leader amoung them who is able to take the up mantle on their own capasity.
Perhaps it is because of us being a democracy that the subtler benefits of governance are often forgotten in the shrill voice of short term effects.

Interesting short stories: by localroger

2004-04-13T19:26:00.000+05:30

passages in the void
passage home
mortal passage

and rite of passage

all by localroger. Nice read. Some times reminds us of Isac Asimov.

books read: [The clash of Civilizations / Samuel P. Huntington]

2004-04-12T22:16:00.000+05:30

A book that tries to understand the current world affairs by looking at it through the lence of civilizations. Though a good read, I could not agree with many of the observations given in the book [which I will publish in this blog soon as they cristallize].

books read: [Spartan / Valerio Massimo Manfredi]

2004-04-08T14:10:00.000+05:30

A story set in the time of ancient Hellenic Greece, It is a story of an individual strikken by gods but with a doom to fulfill. It is also a novel on ancient sparta and the forces at play there during that ancient time, A novel on an individual whose roots lie with two different people, who are bitter enemies of each other, .. An interesting read.

books read: [Silmarillion / JRR Tolkien]

2004-04-07T18:29:00.000+05:30

This book will attain the stature of a myth if the current owners allow the stories told therein to be expanded by others and be added to it. As for others It will provide a solid platform from which to weave their stories. For that is how the myths are made. This book tells the story of creation of earth [arda] and the events that happened after, until the time of Lord of the Rings. It needs be read 'after' the Lord Of The Rings so as to be familiar with the over all thread. It contains multiple beads all strung together in a wonderful chain of events, - the story of creation, the silmarills & the exile of noldor [wise elves] , of hurin and his family , the defeat of melko , and the first defeat of sauron..
A great read.

Accident

2004-04-07T18:16:00.000+05:30

I had an accident on Saturday, [my pulsar with an auto..] , Fortunately no fractures. My parents are supposed to arrive on 8 th, not sure what to tell them..

Books read: [Missed/ Orson Scott Card]

2004-03-21T19:28:00.000+05:30

A 'Haunted' story about the loved ones still being with us even after their death, A nice read.

Books read: [Atlantis/ Orson Soctt Card]

2004-03-21T19:27:00.000+05:30

This story uses the device of Time projection to weave a tale about the legend of Noah and his arc and links with the sunken land Atlantis. A good read.

Books read: [Enders Game / Orson Scott Card]

2004-03-20T19:25:00.000+05:30

Nice book, Set in a time and place,far, This book talks about a boy genius who is utilized by the Government? to win a war. Of children who are exploited of their innocence and used as weapons in a war because they don't know the result of their actions.