A thought for electoral reforms in India

Something came to my mind looking at the results of last few elections. The last few elections we have seen that the country is ruled by a joint venture which has polled only say 42% of the votes. That means it was not elected by the majority. And this scenario also leads to the situation where parties are playing religion or caste based politics. The aim being somehow get support of any religion or caste having close to 20% population base and then the rest can be evenly distributed. What I say is India needs to rethink how it elects its representatives. India should have elections in two rounds close to each other or vote counting should be by transferable votes in order of preference. 
In the two round process, the process would be the same for first round as it is but for second round only 1 and 2 position holders will contest in second round. The places where one candidate gets more than 50% votes need not go to second round. The cost and the logistics will be an argument against this but seeing the monumental scams that congress has done the price will be small. The benefits of this system will be many fold. I am listing two that comes to my mind.
1. Just appeasing one section of society will not ensure your win
2. Chances of hung verdict like in Delhi may be reduced since people will then see that newcomers like AAP can make a difference.
In the transferable vote policy voters will be asked to mark the order of preference. In the first count only the first preference will be taken. The ballots belonging to candidate coming last will be taken and they will be allotted to remaining candidates in fray based on second choice. And this will go on till one candidate get more than 50% votes. This way everyone will have to look towards the whole constituency rather than just apleasing one section.

The strange case of advertisements and trailers

It has been almost six months that I have come to UK and took up my temporary position. As day goes by I learn new things, new rules and strange practices. I will write about one strange practice which I found excessive and bordering the limits of greediness. Just day before yesterday I went to watch a movie in the theater. Here the movie is not important but what went on before the movie is. The movie was around 90 mins like any standard Hollywood movie. The torturous part were the advertisements that went on for 35 minutes before the movie started making it over 120 mins affair. It made me wonder, if there are any rules and regulations in this country regarding the amount of advertisements and trailers they can show before the movie. It would be stranger if the theater was not breaking the rules by giving the viewers such a long display of advertisements. It feels like as if I am paying few times over to see theses ads. First in the cinema where I paid to get in and then when I buy the product as and when if ever I decide to do so. The things that seems funny is that they pride in rules and regulations but I guess there is non when it comes to capitalist advantage and greed. In that 35 mins saga of mine the most interesting part was the trailer of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Ben Stiller came with is long monologue and then the trailer and in the end thanked us all for watching as if we had a choice. I felt like Alex DeLarge from Clockwork Orange forced to watch something though in my case I could shut my eyes and go to sleep if I could somehow ignore the loud sounds. There was another such trailer where Martin Freeman came to promote his movie Hobbits 2 but well he did not have a long monologue and the movie will be released in 3D so I guess he did not need a monologue. Finally I will end this short write up with the strangest part, that is, on the one hand the politicians are crying loud shedding crocodile tears over high rate of unemployment on the other hand places like this cinema gives you discount if you buy tickets online and so that they can hire less number of ticket vendors and maximize profit. What a strange practice Sir ji!!!

When plagiarism is concerned

Plagiarism according to Wikipedia, and I directly quote ''Plagiarism is the "wrongful appropriation" and "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work. The idea remains problematic with unclear definitions and unclear rules.'' I am writing mostly in context to plagiarism in scientific research. In the past there have been many cases where texts from published work have been wilfully copied or the complete work has been reproduced. There have been investigations and some action taken etc etc. Those things are in the past and the effort has to be in the direction to curb such incidents. In that direction, many ethics code of conduct have been formulated and enforced. Still an area remains where accountability, when caught in the act, is always enforced on the junior authors or graduate students. The latest case being of Prof. CNR Rao where the blame was conveniently passed on to the PhD student (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._N._R._Rao#Controversies) even though the senior authors claimed to be the corresponding authors or lead authors. This is just one case which got highlighted in the media due to the stature of the people involved. So, the question to ask is what are the remedies against such incidents. IIT Bombay in this regard took a step in the form of signed ''Honour code"   but it was only a half hearted attempt as far as it is evident from the news item. It says that student have been asked to sign such an honour code. My question here is, why only the students who in most cases follow the whims and fancies of their supervisors, not out of intellectual or creative deficiency but due to a system which demands complete obedience, were asked to sign such a code. How the system demands that obedience can be a subject of another write up. If any system is serious about stopping plagiarism then all the players concerned should be asked to follow a strict code of ethics. It is not enough just to ask one particular section of the community to be accountable while another goes scot free. When a work is published and appreciated the major chunk of appreciation is reserved for the corresponding author or the lead author but when some wrong doing is caught every trick in the book is applied to pass the buck on somebody else. In this regard I would like to cite this scandal and would like to point at few of the first comments in the post. Just for the record I will quote a few of the comments here before finishing this write up. 

The paper in concern: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl400959z

Argument: I personally know the 1st author and would like to believe this never happened. But i guess we’ll have to wait for the U investigation. It will be very hard to see if prof takes any responsibility. I don’t think the student would have the courage to do this without prof knowing it or him forcing them to do it. Maybe this part of the issues will never come out in open.

Counter argument: I know Dr. Pease as well and am surprised he would be involved in something like this. My personal opinion is his student did it and Dr. Pease didn’t catch it (although one could argue that he should have). I guess we’ll see what the investigation determines.

What I would have in a SLR if I can..

I am an amateur photographer taking pictures of various architecture or natural things like flowers and animals etc etc. I have a Pentax-Km which is an entry level DSLR. When I am using my auto focus lenses I mostly try using the auto-focus facility to take images faster. The results vary whether I pointed exactly at the subject or the camera picked up some other point for focus. Mostly it is difficult to say whether your focus was great or out of focus slightly on the small LED screen of the camera. It is only when you put the picture on a big screen that you find that your focus was few centimeters ahead or behind the subject you wanted. So, I felt that it would be great if my camera could automatically store data in one file for a picture where the focus has been varied few tens of centimeters say 20cm in front and back of my desired object. That way when I have the raw file on the computer I could just by sliding the focus bar can get my object of desire in focus. You can get rid of a bit of softness in the image by sharpening but it does not give you the same image as you may have got with the right focus. It might take out a lot of fun for people who want to do all the focusing and things but for some like me getting the end result right without doing too much photoshop or gimp is fun. Well, just an idea I had may be someday such cameras would be available at an affordable price.

Inferno - Dan Brown not Dante

Inferno is the latest book involving the Harvard University professor Robert Langdon. I got the book on the first day of its release having pre-ordered. I must admit, that in the series of books involving Robert Langdon Angels and Demons and Da Vinci Code were really interesting and as far as I am concerned I was hooked to the books from page one. Even the third book, that is, Lost Symbol was good but not as nail biting as the other two and the ending was really disappointing. Felt like Dan Brown was making up for the controversy he created by writing Da Vinci Code. Anyway, based on the wonderful experiences I had reading Dan Brown's books, I had big expectations from the latest version involving Robert Langdon and even so more considering the fact that it shared the name with Dante's first part of Divine Comedy. Judging from the cover and design of the book available in UK, I must say I was impressed, specially the reproduction of Botticelli's Inferno was quite nice, which by the way is not there in the American edition (Got to know from a friend). With great anticipation I started reading the book, a man shot in the head stumbles into a hospital and a chase begins. In few words the whole book is about a chase and felt like reading the German movie Run Lola Run by Tom Tykwer. At times the author goes way off the plot to explain the city in which the plot is taking place and it has nothing to do with the plot. While reading, it feels more like reading Frommer's travel guide to Florence or Venice with a pinch of thriller. In fact, while pre-ordering the book from WH Smith, my local book store, they gave away Sanctus by Simon Toyne for free. I felt the free book was way better than the book I actually wanted to buy. Just for sake of information, Sanctus is about some secret hidden from the masses by the church and if it comes out Vatican's influence will be gone or something to that effect, I will not spell the story in case somebody wants to read though the plot is there on Wikipedia. In the end, I felt Dan Brown could have done much better job than writing a thrilling Frommer's travel guide. I would like to point out here that the concept of the new virus in the book is quite interesting and I believe a much more crisp story could have been woven around that concept without the boring details of Florence or Venice. So, next time another Dan Brown thriller is round the corner, I am not buying it without reading at least first fifty pages. (The opinion on this page is mine and others are free to disagree)

The Age of Price tagging

On my recent trip to our neighborhood book store I figured a wonderful thing about the way the prices on the books are displayed. Generally a book comes with a small abstract about the story with key exciting points either on the inside flap of the dust cover for hardbound books or on the back cover of soft bound books. The price of the book is mostly quoted on the back cover along with other details. But apparently with the preference of hardbound books for new releases this has changed. Suppose, you are visiting a book store looking to buy a recently released book, you look in the inside flap to know a bit about the book, as an example I will take the latest Dan Brown book which I recently purchased (Thankfully pre-ordered it, cost me much less). I am not trying to advertise the book since I have not read it yet but I did like the placing of the price tag, which is common for all books these days. As usual I opened the inside flap and it started of with 'Seek and ye shall find.' And then goes for some length saying lots of things about the book and you read on, a small crescendo builds up inside you like a musical performance picking up momentum, you are probably saying in your mind "Oh yeah! This is interesting" and then the protagonist is probably going to fall into a deep trap and then there are sentences like "---A threat to his life will propel him and a young doctor, Sienna Brooks, into a breakneck chase across the city of Florence. Only Langdon's knowledge of hidden....", you are already having a picture that too in color of two people running through ancient tunnels and all, pursued by crooked looking guys with guns in hand. In the mist of all a ray of hope in the form "...With only a few lines from Dante's dark and epic masterpiece, The Inferno, to guide them, ...... save the world.....", you are almost there "Oh yeah! The world is in trouble again". Now the stakes are even high, before only America was at stake or may be some other country now invariably the world is at stake, feels like the world got smaller and then the final blow to make your picture 3D from colored "Set against an extraordinary landscape inspired by one of history's most ominous literary classics, Inferno is Dan Brown's most compelling and thought-provoking novel yet, a breathless race-against-time thriller that will grab you from page one and not let you go until you close the book...". Your picture is 3D, you are enjoying the feeling hoping to be able  to buy the book and then one small corner quietly in small letters it says £20, and your 3D picture just collapsed into a white canvas and you feel "Seek and ye shall find the price".

Brand it at will

Funny how things are branded and how it works in reality. Bought item from flipkart. They shipped in due time using fedex. Received the mail that said "Your Shipment was sent through:- Standard Overnight ", I presume this is a service name from fedex. and then after few lines "You will receive your shipment in 2-3 working days.". How on earth did overnight become 2-3 working days or there is a new paradigm which says standard overnight is 2-3 working days. If the paradigm is true may be it can be used at our work place like, "I will complete the report in standard overnight, sir".

Rubber band nation

One of my friends wrote in his blog that we are a Nation of Rhinos, quite evident from recent events as well. I think on top of that we are a nation who love to stretch things beyond any comprehensible limit. Let us start with our television series. One can find numerous examples where the story line keeps on stretching. To give you an idea as to how much it can stretch, let us assume that one of the stars had a baby while the series is in say its fiftieth episode. By the time the child grows up to watch and understand the series say in his/her mid-teens the show would be still running and no one would feel that they missed something. This is the scenario for say the regular mother-in-law daughter-in-law stories where episode numbers may run to even four digits. Lets take the case of comedy series, though after sometime you are forced to laugh watching them since there is hardly any comedy left. I have seen a few comedy series from American sitcoms and I find that each season does not stretch beyond say 30 episodes and the series may run for say 7 years making it a 200 episode series. And on top of that each scenario will be finished in a single episode. but if you take Indian comedy series each scenario will at least run for four or five episodes and on top of that some of the series have already made to 1000 episodes (e.g Tarak mehta ka ulta chasma). It seems though the public in this country are increasingly drawn towards 20-20 format of cricket our television directors and producers are keeping the five day format alive. This case of rubber band mentality is there not only in our television but in our culture as well. Be it ceremonies in festivals or marriages or births or deaths we can always see the presence of Mr. Rubber Band. It is not that we understand the meaning of all what we do but since it was being done before so keep doing. Somehow, it feels like Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times where he is given two spanners and he keeps tightening the screws no matter what and it continues even during his break. This rubber band effect is seen in our academic system as well. I can understand if you keep stretching the rubber band philosophically beyond imagination or say literary but to stretch it historically is something I never got it. History is something that has already happened and what is there to stretch for school kid. While in school I found it on regular basis that if I can write that "India became an independent country on 15th August 1947" using considerable amount of paper and ink, I got more marks. Same is the story with our higher education in science. The common belief still exists that you have to suffer for at least 6 years before you are fit to be called a doctorate. The quality of work is not important but the time is. I can keep writing on and on like the rubber band effect and still there will not be any end to it. Amongst all these stretched scenarios the only thing short in this country is memory which for some reason does not stretch beyond ones single step. And this is quite evident from the kind of people we keep sending to our parliament year after year. 

Guarantee of price

Here I will talk about my experience while shopping in India and another European country. While in Europe I used to go to a shopping chain all the time for day to day items as well as items which I may buy once in a while. Once, while buying a bag I found that the price on the display was less than the price that they were charging while billing. When I brought this to their notice they told me do not worry we have guarantee of price, we will check the tag and if it belongs to this product you will be charged the lower price and it happened that way and I had to pay around 5 euros less for and article costing 55 euros. When a similar incident happened in an Indian shopping store where they had displayed a soap bar of 320 gms to be priced 20 rupees and then their machine charged 22 rupees, on bringing the discrepancy to their notice I was told somebody put a wrong display. You may say that it is just 2 rupees. I agree but then at the same price there were other products which I might have taken. And if seen percentage wise it is approximately 10% of the marked price. Also, in one of the stores for glasses it was clearly written in one corner, system prices are final, display prices will not be considered in case of dispute. I am saying this because, the customer should get benefit for wrong display. The logic being that the customer spends some time on the product only when the price is in the budget. If it is out of my budget I will first look for the items in my budget. Then I will go for trials etc. After this, if I find the product is out of my budget then my time spent on that product is either wasted or I go beyond my resources to buy it. Basically this is a crime on the part of the seller to waste my time so he should give me the display price if it is lower. On top of that I am not able to see what is the price quoted in his/her system. Furthermore, if an item is marked lower than the system that means that there is a possibility that the item was sold at a lower price without making any loss. So, if it was not making loss before at the lower price it should not make a loss now. I have even come across shops in Europe where two same items were priced differently. I was told that the lower priced ones are from old stock. If you want you can take that as well. The point I am trying to make is, how do I know the shop is not doing psychological marketing. It is an well known fact that people generally buy a product even if it is priced higher than display since they have spent some time looking at it, comparing it with others and most importantly liked that over the rest of the lot. And I have seen many times in shopping chains in India where the customer is arguing with the cashier that the display price is something else and the cashier calling the guy responsible, who in the end will tell it is a wrong display. To conclude, I would say in any case the customer should get benefit of the wrong display in the form of the lower price of the two between the system and display.

My experience with "Controle"

Here I would be writing about a true incident. I and my friend were walking down a busy crossing to buy some gifts for him to take back to his family. While waiting at the crossing to turn green I saw three police officers on the other side of the street. The signal turned green and we crossed but the moment we stepped on the other side these officers stopped both of us and asked if I spoke French. I said no and then they switched to better than bad english and told me they wanted to search me. I did not oppose thinking that I might have done something stupid and I was thoroughly searched. At the end of the search I asked the guy searching me if I did anything wrong, he simply said no its a "controle". I don't know what that means. I can only imagine a search like this without reason only when a country is under martial law but later I figured out that such searches are possible in France. The most strange thing that came to my mind is that at no point these officers demanded a proof of identity. They even asked a few times if I had money in my wallet? I had only coins but no euro bills. This incident happened on 21st January 2012 at around 5:30 pm on busy crossing in Grenoble. As an afterthought it came to me why did those guys only stop me and my friend and not anybody else from the crowd? A variety of explanations are possible and the most popular one in this scenario would have a pinch of color to the explanation. Many studies available on the internet do tilt the scale in favor of the color aspect but again how do I know what made those policemen to search me when these kind of searches are supposed to be random. May be this can be tested by using some random selection experiment. In a bucket if we place say lot colored balls of say red color and then put a few blue ones it would be interesting to note how often the blue ones are picked by a person looking at the bucket. I do not know what will be the result of such an experiment but it would be interesting to know. Anyway, the experience was not very pleasant but I hope it was truly a random event.

Basic Instinct

I have been thinking to write this one for quite sometime now. It is about a simple thing known as lunch. Back in India on any given day I would have had my lunch with my hand and then once finished will walk to a washbasin near by and wash my hands and mouth. Since, I came to France it is not possible to do this for two reasons. First, nobody else is doing it and second there is no washbasin close by. It had been a long held desire to eat something in my French canteen with my hands. The opportunity came when they cooked lobster one fine afternoon. Without thinking I took the plate with lobster and proceeded to pay for my lunch. At the counter after taking my money they returned my badge with a wet towel. At this point I figured even they expect me to eat the lobster with hands and even if they did not expect that I had to do it since it is impossible to eat the lobster with fork and knife. At last my long held desire came true and I enjoyed a whole lunch without knife and fork.

Of an hobby and two awards

In this age of advertisements and over advertisements it is not uncommon to come across pamphlets being distributed on the streets or being delivered to your snail-mail box, but one kind of pamphlets I thought only existed in India. That is, the pamphlets of Dr. Shukla and Dr. Tiwari (may be others are also there but I came across these two only) specializing in all forms of cure meant to alleviate your abilities to contribute to the already existing pool of 6.5 billion human beings on this planet. During my last couple of years in France I found that these pamphlets do exist here as well. They come in the form of Prof. Abdul, Prof. Keita, Prof. Kabila etc specializing in the same forms of cure as Dr. Shukla and Dr. Tiwari but in the African way (I am not sure what that means). On top of that they can also do voodoo, faith healing, telepathy to name a few. I can write on and on about their abilities but that is not what I want to tell. Now, imagine a person who has the hobby of collecting such pamphlets, laminate them and then put it up on a wall in his office. Most of us would say this imaginative person cannot exist but I would say he does exist. Recently I came across such a person more precisely a Frenchman. Since, he spoke little English and I very little French, I somehow formed a sentence and asked him why he collected all this. He said, it is quite a fun to collect all this. If your mood is really off and you read a few of the pamphlets they are no less than a nice joke. On the lighter side he said, look I happen to be an engineer of an advanced facility and suppose you come to me with a problem in an experiment I cannot solve may be you can find these people on the pamphlet interesting or if suppose your experiment is broken and you do not know what to do may be you can take one of these guys number. I did find this hobby quite interesting and thought may be I can also pick up a strange one like this. I did not have to wait for long to get the idea. The idea came to me in the form of a letter from International Biographical Center in Great Britain. They have nominated me to be "International Scientist of the year 2011" for doing God knows what. But the catch is if I want the award I must pay them, I write again, pay them a minimum amount of 350USD. This is not the first time I got such award. I have also been awarded "Albert Einstein Award of Excellence for 2011" by American Biographical Institute which will be given to me if I pay 495USD. It occurred to me this can also be a rare collection of all the awards I could have got in case I had agreed to pay. Nonetheless, I end here with the pictures of the letters I have collected so far.

Midnight in Paris

Well the title is exactly as it is for a recent Woody Allen movie which I happen to watch in a theater in France, but, here I would be writing a different story. To write a little about the movie, I must say I was lucky to watch it in English in France though they named it "Minuit à Paris", but still it was in "English". Anyway, since I said I am not talking about the movie, the question is, what I am talking about? I am going to talk about a real midnight I spent on the streets of Paris last weekend. This was my second time in Paris. Last time as well I did spend most of my midnight on the streets but this time it was magical. I had gone there to watch the 14th of July fireworks near Eiffel tower. Me and my friends reached near the tower almost two hours before the event started. We were lucky to get near the tower as the security allowed only a limited number of people near the tower. All the while we kept staring at the sky for the darkness to fall. Then darkness came around 11 in the evening and we were staring at the tower for the fireworks to begin. Suddenly the tower went dark and the fireworks began from the other side of the river opposite to the tower. Anyway realizing our first timers' mistake we turned towards the display and enjoyed every bit of the dancing fire. But wait, this is not the magical part because the midnight had yet to begin. The midnight started the moment the fireworks finished. Now, it was our turn to return to our hotel by boarding the Paris metro. Never in my short stay in Europe I had seen a crowd of this magnitude and density. Wherever you turn, you see only heads, millions of them and all heading for the metro. On any usual day we should have reached the entrance of the metro station in 10 mins but on this day or rather midnight it took us almost one hour to reach the gate only to be told that the station is too crowded and please walk to the next station towards the center of Paris. At this time we all did what we were told even though me and my friends had to go away from the center to reach our hotel. Why we did that, is pure mystery? May be the sight of million heads on the streets of Paris on a midnight had a captivating effect on us and we walked towards the next station. All the while watching the people in the pubs and restaurants enjoying their food and drinks. The road was also full of cars moving at snail's pace. On any ordinary day it is unthinkable to walk on anything other than the pavements but on this midnight we were walking between and with the cars on the street. If it was possible then the pavements would have put up a sign "house full" as seen outside many theaters playing good or over hyped movies on the first day first show. Nonetheless, the streets had plenty of place. We reached the next station and even before we could queue to enter the station we were told please walk to the next station. I don't remember the name of the station anymore because by this time I was hypnotized by the sheer madness on the streets of Paris and I almost accepted the fate that I will probably have to walk all the way to the hotel some 6-7 kms from where we were standing. Our last try was the next station where the crowd as smaller but equally discouraging for people hoping to take the metro. Anyway we queued up and the crowd moved forward much slower than one would expect. By this time we had already spent around one and half hours on the street after the fireworks ended. But the magical midnight had to end somewhere and it was at this station that it ended. After much waiting we got into the station and since we were taking a train away from the center it was less crowded. And within half an hour after changing one metro we were at the hotel. Once, in the hotel I realized though I would avoid the Paris fireworks for the rest of my life I would always remember that particular midnight on the streets of Paris. It was Mad, Chaotic and Magical at the same time. As an after thought I must add that this piece I am writing here will not give the full picture of what was happening. The best way to find the magic is to visit at least once the fireworks in Paris on 14th of July not just to enjoy the display of fire but to experience the magical midnight in Paris.

Patience

For the past one month of my stay in India, I have found that this country offers numerous ways to develop your patience. Here I list a few which I encountered or I have heard from my friends.

1. Getting a passport: Getting a passport in this country can really count as an accomplishment worthy of being cited in your CV. First hurdle is to submit your form which itself can take one full day. And in this total day you can encounter anybody from touts to rude passport officials. After this comes the guys for inquiry. The local police and the intelligence who will invariably require some tips for expensive tea and sweets. After this if you are lucky we will get the passport and when you get it it is already three to four months since you submitted the form. But wait, your chance to gain a little more training is not yet over. You can get a passport where your father's or mother's or both names can be of a person you have never heard of. So, you again go back and forth few times to get it corrected. At the end you are one frustrated, pissed off patient guy.

2. Get your Voter ID: A small piece of laminated paper needed to exercise your democratic rights. Well what to say? It is also a wonderful training opportunity. First you have to submit your form, the mandatory first step. So, you have to go to some center where they will collect your form. You queue up for your turn. The office will invariably open half an hour to one hour late. By this time the queue is a mile long and you are probably half a mile from the office gate. Generally if people don't jump queue your turn should come after an hour or so. But, this won't happen since every other person in this country is VIP. So, these VIPs will come with some VVIP and try to get their forms submitted out of queue. So your time needed get upscaled by a factor of two or three. Now, this process has to be repeated twice or thrice depending on your luck to get your ID. Twice or thrice I say since after your form is processed you have to submit your photograph and then still mysteriously if your card does not arrive you have to submit your photograph again. Lets move one to other methods now.

3. Sending a registered letter through Indian Postal Service: Over here the queue jumpers are less in number but still it does not deprive you of your chance to test your patience. Over here you will encounter many times people who are given a computer to speed up the process but they are so inefficient in handling the device that sometimes you might feel that the computer is a devil which you should not install in government departments. I don't want to elaborate here the real challenge since they are similar to the ones above this one.

4. Traveling in suburban trains during rush hour: Well this one is not only the test of your patience but also the test of your ability to squeeze yourself in a volume half the total volume of

your whole body. Believe me this is possible. And on top of that the time you will take to reach your destination will go up exponentially as you get closer to your destination. How this is possible, is still a very difficult question to answer for me.

5. Doing a PhD: This is probably one of the best patience training ground. People have written numerous treatise on this subject hence I am not able to add anything to this subject.

6. Having a Tata photon whiz in non metropolitan city: I am not able to comment on other service providers of wireless internet but this one is really amazing. In the advertisement of another similar product from the same company on TV they show the sign of infinity in the end meaning it is infinitely fast. But believe we should not miss the point its not infinitely faster but the opposite. INFINITELY SLOW. Infact it is so slow that probably I should put infinite "O" s in the word "SLOW" before I even think of putting the "W".

Of all the above you would see that except for the last one all others have to do something or the other with the Government. So, you want to improve your patience just deal with some government department. Here I end this post with due apologies to Indian Judiciary System.

Update on Workers' Situation at IITK

This post is mainly for spreading the information on the efforts put by few diligent people for the upliftment of the neglected. Personally I have contributed nothing except for signing a few petitions here and there.

Dear Fellow Alumnus,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for signing the petition “STOP Violating Contract Workers’ Rights at IITK"http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ contract_ worker_rights_ iitk/ and update you with the workers’ situation.

The petition with 1017 signatures was delivered to the Director on June 9, 2010. Same petition with 500 and 150 signatures was also delivered to him on March 14, 2010 and February 3, 2010. So far we have had no response from IITK Administration.

Here is what the update on workers’ situation:

1. A team from Regional Labor Commissioner of UP and Uttarakhand visited the campus on 30^th Nov, 2^nd Dec and 9^th Dec 2009 and interrogated workers engaged by 17 contractors. Serious violations of Labor laws were documented in the report submitted by the team to the Labor Commissioner. This visit transpired due to a complaint filed by 25 workers who were fired by a contractor when workers demanded that they be paid their full wages.

2. The Labor Commissioner himself visited campus on May 7, 2010. In spite of the orchestrated visit, he was able to see contract workers hiding in the bushes and fleeing the campus in open trucks. We do not know yet what action if any Labor Commissioner’s office will take against IITK.

3. On April 1, 2010, 16 contract workers from Visitors Hostel (VH) with 7 to 14 years of experience with clean records were arbitrarily fired by the new contractor. It was also discovered that the old contractor had been deducting Provident Fund (PF) from workers’ wages for the last several years but not depositing neither employee’s contribution nor employer’s contribution with the PF Commissioner. IITK had failed to monitor contractor’s activities with respect to PF deductions and deposits. The fired workers have now been re-instated due to pressure from various sections of IITK community. IITK Legal Cell has so far not resolved the PF issue.

4. Instead of improving the working condition of contract workers, Dr. Dhande, as an immediate response to the VH issue has issued a circular on June 15, 2010, giving full powers to contractors to hire and fire any worker they feel like. This is not only unlawful, it is also against his own Office Order of September 16, 2007 where he instructed contractors that the worker once hired can only be fired if: (a) the work is over as certified by IITK before the expected time period or (b) worker behaves in undesirable ways. In this case, the termination must be recommended by the Grievance Committee.

While you enjoy the Golden Jubilee celebrations, please keep these workers in your prayers. Please do not hesitate to pass on your suggestions on how we can encourage IITK to obey the laws of the land and grant these workers their legal rights who are forced to survive on about $2 per day – half of what they are entitled to!

Workers would greatly appreciate it if you could continue to apply pressure on IITK administration through your e-mails, phone calls or by asking questions on this issue when attending any IITK related events. Should you need contact information to reach key administrators at IITK, please let me know at gupta@ohio.edu.

Sincerely,

Ashok Gupta (BTech, IITK, 1972)

For more information you can visit these sites.

http://sites.google.com/site/iitkcitizensforum/  (For various reports in the above email.)

http://sanhati.com/excerpted/2379/   (A general article outlining the problems and the various solutions possible)

Jouez moi

I never imagined that I will come across anything like this. I had heard of many things public like the bus, the tram, the streets even the bicycle but a public piano is beyond my imagination. For me the piano mostly existed in movies. So, when for the first time I came across a piano on the streets of Toulouse I thought probably someone wanted to dispose of the piano. Though it was written in large bold letters in French "Jouez Moi" meaning "Play me" I did not take it seriously. It was only when I came across this gentleman in the park playing the piano with the same words written on it, it occurred to me that this city has public piano like many other public utilities. Playing it is free and even if you do not know how to play it you may give it a try completely at your own risk. So, if ever you visit Toulouse and you come across a piano on the street, just let your imagination fly.

Footprints on the sands of time

Just a few days back I turned thirty. It is true nothing much changed in my life but I somehow got the inspiration to drop by the pages of my own history and revisit the times I once lived. I remember some instances from early childhood. Take for example the day when I broke my feeding bottle and my mother decided I had enough of the bottle. And then started the era of drinking out of a glass which had various forms of liquid till date starting from simple liquid like water. Then I fast forward myself to my first day at school which for most kids is painful but for me it was a big party with some glitches which I would skip here. After that we moved a few places and finally landed up at a place where my parents spent the next 23 years. There I had my whole school life. There are a lot of instances which I remember quite clearly but I would mention only a few here. First being the moment when I got my first cycle. It was a BSA champ. May be I should say that it was my first bicycle because before that I had a tricycle. The part of the memory where the cycle enters my life is quite hazy but somehow it became a integral part of my existence. The best part was, it had side supports which made it easy for me to drive and stop as I pleased. Another incident that I remember quite well is the time when we got our refrigerator. It was in the year 1985 and the fridge is still part of our household though the working parts may have gone through complete replacement. My mother was particularly delighted to have it. I remember it for the wonderful food it always had and the ease with which I could steal them. Then I remember my leg operation in 1987, the same year my grandfather died. Well that was kind of a very painful memory for me but the doctor told my father the operation probably saved my leg. In the same year my father got his scooter. That became a permanent sitting place for me when ever I had free time and the scooter was parked on our ground floor balcony. The years passed and came 1989 when we had our first television. At that time only channel available was DD1 and sometimes if the weather was good we could get DD2. I remember the first day the TV was installed. I watched every program that was being aired that day. Through that little idiot box I came in contact with the world outside our little residential campus. My favorite at that time being "The world this week". I still remember keeping a note of all major personalities. The 90s came and suddenly the world changed around me. The Gulf war happened, Margaret Thatcher resigned as the prime minister of Britain after a series of riots, Manmohan Singh opened up the Indian markets, the babri masjid fell, the cable TV invaded our homes and overnight the famous TV antennas disappeared from our skylines. Well, the cable TV was a very interesting thing. Initially it did not enter the Indian market with all the censorships of the 2000s. I particularly remember my friends telling me about the unedited version of late night movies on Star TV, which, I could never watch while being at home, since late night TV was strict no-no in our house. Then I got busy with my testing years. It was the years I was taking my 10th, 12th school year exams and my college admission exams. Then I had a difficult choice, my father wanted me to become doctor, so that I could serve humanity and my mother wanted me to become an engineer, so that I could fix her food processor or the refrigerator if it broke down some day. I became non. To be frank I tried hard to be an engineer but somehow I did not make it. Instead I went to study the intricate details of the world around us, that is, physics. College was a different world for me. By this time the larger things in world like Gulf war, or the London riots, or the break up of Soviet Union got lost in the midst of my struggle for survival. College gave me, apart from my degree, some of my best friends. The most memorable moments in college being the illogical class bunking, the cold coffee at the campus temple, the numerous hours spent only chatting with friends, the numerous rounds of the card game called 29 to name a few. The college years are still vivid and it seems like it was only yesterday that I traveled to Benares for my admission. I graduated in 2001. The world was changing quite fast. I went to Kanpur for my higher studies and that same year I had my first computer. At that time my computer was one of the few in the whole hostel. By the time I got my PhD in Physics every room in the hostel had a computer and in some cases even two, a desktop and a laptop. It was at Kanpur that I had my baptism with fire, that is, I encountered the real world with all its odds and evens. I saw the last of Kanpur in 2009. In the eight years I was associated with Kanpur I saw the place change at a pace unthinkable in the 90s. By this time my father had retired and he had moved back to the place where he spent his childhood and I had moved to France for my post doctoral research. Well, the reader might say, the history really lacks the presence of any feminine character except for my mother. Well, to be frank a few beautiful people from the feminine community do figure in my history. Mostly, because of my friends who missed a beat the first time they came across the beautiful people. Well thats a story for another time. Here I am writing my own history of sorts. Coming back to Kanpur, it has a special place in our family history as well. It was the place where my father started his professional career back in 1967 and so did I. I think I will stop here. Someday, somewhere at the evening of my life may be I can add many more beautiful things to this post.

A peaceful weekend at a Chalet

This was a new experience for me. Me and my friends decided to spend a weekend in a lonely place away from humanity. So, we booked a chalet. The chalet was at Lans en Vercors. It was called Ville Pleinevie. We reached friday evening with all the food and baggage needed to survive two days and two nights. The place was snow covered. The chalet was equiped with room heating and a very nice fire place. The first night started with a glass of whiskey and some hip shaking. After the hip got tired the leg started moving with the hands. The first night dinner was simply finished with khichdi when everything got tired. After dinner I went out with few of my friends for a round of night photography. The moon had come up and it revelaed to us the snow covered surrounding. But we had to wait till next morning to get a real view. The next morning started a bit late with cornflakes and milk. The morning sun gave us a first look around. The snow covered surrounding gave a feel of a valley draped in white sheet. We had our share of fun on the snow making snow man and all. The chalet also had a baby foot. Some of us got really busy playing the game. We could see all the excitment of a real football game without any people running around. The games continued till lunch. At lunch we had chicken Indian style with rice. After lunch some of us went for a walk in the snow covered mountains. I had the opportunity to click some nice snaps. The evening started with a small snack consisting of raclette cheese, boiled potato and salad. The snack was accompanied by beer. After the snack some of us got down preparing dinner. Rest of us got busy with vodka and some hip shaking. For dinner we had fried chicken. After dinner I went out for a long walk. We had only the moon to light our way. The silence around the place was complete which was broken only by the occassional vehicles on the highway. Next day sunday, started with a light breakfast. Frankly speaking, we had nothing to do accept have our lunch and go back to Grenoble in the evening. So some of us started preparing pizzas and pasta. Rest of us made ourselves comfortable and started chatting about things in general. In all this `in general topics' the most interesting was regrading the small animal `bat'. Wikipedia will give you loads of information regarding this nocturnal creature. But the point of discussion was whether it excretes from the mouth or not. Well I won't go into the sketchy details of the affair which continued for few following days on our return from the chalet. Coming back to our trip, we had lunch and then started cleaning up the place. In the evening the land-lady came and we cleared our dues and walked to our bus-stop for our bus to Grenoble. But the excitment did not stop here. In all this time of checking out and all, one of us left the baggage inside the chalet. By this time the land-lady was half a way to her home. Luckily, she agreed to come back for our baggage when we called her and we could retrive our baggage before the bus arrived. And thus ended our time away from the city.

The 'F' letter

When as an undergrad I came across the Feynman lecture series, it was an eye opener to me as a young guy trying to figure out his major options. I will not claim that I have become a master in physics, but, definitely that particular rendezvous with the series was one of the many incidents that motivated me to pursue the subject even though I terribly failed in capturing the intricate details of simple phenomena. That's a different picture all together. But the reason I write this, since today I am standing at a point in my life where very soon I will be facing the undergrad, that I was long-back, trying to figure out his or her options. But before going into anything else, let me go back few years to April 2005, when Matthew Sands wrote the story of the series in Physics Today. If you follow the link you will read that, this series is actually a compilation of lectures given by Feynman to undergrads at Caltech. There I remember reading a particular section where Feynman asked Sands, what was the class average for the final exams. Sands thought it was pretty good at 65%. Feynman's response was something completely different. He simply said the students should have done better and Feynman was a failure. The reason for pointing out this particular incident is that the overall performance of the class does not only reflect on the class or batch but on the teacher too. This simple fact is ignored by most teachers now a days when they face a difficult class.

I do not have a lot of teaching experience and the small amount of experience that I have, I am not sure if I failed or not. Anyway, coming to the 'F' letter in academics it stands for only one thing probably when come to classroom teaching that is fail or failed or failure. It can stick to both students or teachers. But in India, teachers are non-sticky like the famous special material coated non-stick cookware. Nothing sticks on them, whether they dole out the famous letter or force somebody by their action to leave this earthly abode. The main reason for writing this blog is not criticism but rather an insight into my own ideas about a feedback system that is needed for higher education in India. The system judges the students by taking exams and tests and accordingly rewards it in various ways. A similar evaluation and reward process should exist for teachers as well. As a student I felt that reward system does exist for teachers in the form of promotions, special chairs etc but I am not sure if as a teacher the person sees them as reward or his birth right. The more important thing is that, the student and teacher should be more of a friend, rather than being enemies out there to outsmart each other and in the end if the teacher is outsmarted he forcefully fails as many as he can. The learning process I believe is most effective if the environment is cordial. The effort to create such an atmosphere should come from both sides-the teacher and the student. The teacher being a very powerful entity in the Indian sense, with the special letter, the move to lighten the atmosphere should come from the teachers end and then the students have to reciprocate accordingly. I do remember some incidents from my undergrad days when friendly teachers were considered as meek. That, I feel was the problem of the system unable to control its components. But in a system, say like the premier institutes in India, where indiscipline is dealt swiftly and strictly, evolving a cordial system may not be completely impossible. I guess there is no pride in giving the 'F' letter. The more you give the more you yourself fail but care should be taken that one is not too lenient as well. After all a system is designed to fairly judge ones accomplishments. The line between a fair judge and an outsmarted teacher is very thin and that is where lies the distinction between those who nurture great minds and those who kill the society with a red pen and a simple letter.

GDR Lyon

GDR - well I don't know what it stands for but in France it is generally the starting three letters of a conference held in specific topic. I attended something called GDR Diamant in Lyon. I was supposed to speak about my recent advances in this field. So far so good, but there was a little problem, all the speakers except for me were speaking in French. So, for me I could not understand a word of what others were saying. Hence, I simple transformed this opportunity into GDR Lyon or in short sightseeing Lyon. I went there with my supervisor and then after the first session and lunch I simply slipped into the town. First stop hotel Alexandra on Rue Victor Hugo. I checked in dropped my luggage at my room took my camera and so started my Lyon trip. Straight from my hotel I went to Place Bellecour.

Place Bellecour

It is the largest clear square in Europe with a statue of of Louis XIV the place looked simply enormous. I stayed there for sometime then started towards Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière. This is a place a little up the mountain. On the way I came across a cycle rental station. It is completely automatic and one just needs a French bank card or any international credit card to rent a bicycle. I took it with the intention that I will ride it up the mountain to the Basilica but what I did not realize is that the climb is extremely steep and I ended up hauling the bicycle all the way up with the incentive of riding it down with style. After a long haul I reached the basilica but I was completely exhausted. Nonetheless it did not dampen my spirits and chained my cycle to a post and then took out my camera.

Notre-Dame de
Fourvière

Inside the
Basilica

There were more surprises for me on this trip to Basilica. My lens cover had dropped somewhere on the way. Anyway without loosing heart I went in the basilica and started clicking as many pictures as I could take. I stayed there for few minutes then proceeded to climb down the hill. On the way down I visited the ruins of a roman era theater.

The Roman-era
Theatre

One can get an excellent view of the city from here as well as the basilica.

City view

Next stop was the Saint-Jean Cathedral, seat of the Archbishop of Lyon. The astronomical clock inside the church is a thing not to be missed. After a short stay and few clicks at the cathedral I headed towards Place des Terreaux.

The Saint-Jean
Cathedral

Notable things at this place is the city hall and the Fontaine Batholdi. Here to after spending some time I went around the town on my bicycle and in the end back to the hotel to be ready for the dinner hosted by the conference at Brasserie Georges. That brought an end to my Lyon sightseeing. the next day in the

City Hall

Bartholdi
Fountain

Brasserie Georges

evening I was back again at Grenoble.