Wednesday, January 30, 2019

my piece on why 2019 is so pivotal


they threw away my graphics, sigh. so here's the actual copy i sent them in the first place.

Revisiting the Idea of India on Republic Day


Rajeev Srinivasan


When the parades are over and the curtain has come down on the Republic Day celebrations, there is the question of what this entire spectacle actually means. What exactly are we celebrating? What is the relevance of the Republic? What has been accomplished in 70 years of the Republic? What remains to be done? What has the 'rule of the public' failed to do? Have we, the public, messed up?


President APJ Abdul Kalam took a stab at all this in his book 'Vision 2020'. As an engineer, his vision was of using technology for the benefit of real people. Indeed, we have made some significant progress in this, but we have been playing far below our true potential. As the management consultant C K Prahalad noted, there is the powerful idea of Strategic Intent; India has somehow failed to articulate what it intends to become when it grows up.


Indeed, in a world riven by consumption at an unsustainable rate, and on the verge of a cold war (or maybe even a shooting war) between the US and China, India has the opportunity to use its tradition of sustainable and environmentally conscious development, and a legacy of living frugally (we know when to say 'Enough', unlike the Faustian restlessness of the West) to provide thought leaderships towards a future where we do not exhaust the planet.


Sustainable and socially-relevant growth using technology is the focus of the first APJ Abdul Kalam Conference to be held later this year at IIT Madras. The West was exposed to the finiteness of things in 1972 in the Club of Rome's 'Limits to Growth', but they have continued to act as though resources were infinite, lured by the siren-song of consumption, encouraged by technology revolutions -- the oil economy, semiconductors -- that seem to promise limitless riches. That, of course, is an illusion. There are unintended consequences.


India is one of the nations that will face the music the soonest. We have 1/7th the land area of the US, 3 times its population, we have an army of young people who need jobs, we're among the most water-stressed countries in the world, and one of the most vulnerable to sea-level rises from global warming. And we're unfortunately next door to two bellicose nuclear neighbors with bad intent. We need to plan for all these things, and right now.  


This year is particularly important. For one, 2019 marks the centenary of the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre (see my 1998 column "Remember Jallianwallah Bagh" https://www.rediff.com/news/1998/apr/13rajeev.htm). That was one of those pivotal moments when history was made: Indians realized that the British empire was pure evil, and it had to go. Australians similarly had their epiphany at the Battle of Gallipoli, when the British literally made them cannon fodder.


So 1919 was a point of inflexion, and it set in motion a course of events that eventually led to Independence. Similarly the 2019 elections are pivotal, and they will determine whether we will rise to Kalam's expectations of greatness, or continue to muddle along. There are precedents. In the 19th century, the US and Argentina were considered similar, the two nations that had the ingredients for greatness. As we know, the US fulfilled that promise; Argentina frittered away its inheritance and has remained an under-achiever.


The difference, I have read, is that the US chose to be open and to take risks that would help the people in the long run; whereas Argentina chose to be feudal and to protect the interests of the oligarchs and ranchers. The results are there for all to see. There's an example closer to us: Pakistan, which also chose to protect its oligarchs and dynasts. And suffered for it.


The 2019 election gives the Indian public the same choice: between growth and oligarchs (or, in our case dynasts and crony capitalists). If we chose wisely, well and good. If not, well, we have the Nehruvian Rate of Growth and massive corruption to fall back on. In a large sense, it is a choice between the India of the Lutyens elites, and Bharat of the real citizen.


In country after country, res publica has brought derision for the elites: and their views have turned out to be toxic for their respective parties. See the Modi win in 2014, the Brexit win and the Trump victory. The publica are speaking up, and they couldn't care less for the views of the elites.


There are other interesting coincidences too: 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of the ominous Tiananmen massacre that showed China's strategic intent: total internal control along with global expansion. It is also the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese Communist Party.

India has to be closely aware of what is happening in the country that is and will be its enemy.


Meanwhile, it is worth reviewing what the Indian Republic has wrought so far. On the one hand there are the positives: India just overtook Britain in real GDP (irony of ironies: they robbed us of $45 trillion according to economist Utsa Patnaik, whereas I had come up with a more modest, but still gargantuan, $10 trillion where I didn't take into account opportunity costs as she seems to have done).


On the other hand, India now has something like half the desperately poor in the world; half the blind; and so on -- a depressing litany of what we have managed to screw up in 72 years of freedom.


The biggest problem, I believe, is structural. The Constitution that we respect on Republic Day is not exactly the paragon of virtue that we have been led to believe. There seems to be an almost blind-faith type of feeling that the Constitution is somehow cast in stone forever and that not a word (well, almost) may be questioned, as though it were some religious text.


We have to recognize that it is a human document, subject to human frailties; and that nations rewrite their constitutions all the time. There's nothing wrong about making mid-course corrections (viz amendments), but at some point, it's necessary to consider rewriting the whole thing, especially as the number of Band-Aid amendments starts to balloon. Here is a list of issues, by no means comprehensive:

  • It seems to be a mish-mash of information from too many sources, a cut-and-paste job

  • It purports to have foreseen all future eventualities and provided solutions

  • It is too long at more than 500 pages

  • Articles 25 to 30 explicitly declare that all citizens are not equal


My friend Atanu Dey, an economist in the US, wrote a draft of a sensible (and short) new Constitution for India. It is available at his site https://deeshaasite.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/constitution-for-a-free-india-v0-2-1.pdf. It is worth considering: we need a Constitution that reflects the res publica and is suited for 21st century India, not a pale imitation of a bunch of Western legalities.


But there is also a different thread that we seem to have lost somewhere in the last 70 years: of idealism, faith and sacrifice. A recent visit to the Andaman's Cellular Jail (the dreaded 'Kaalapani') brought this home to me vividly and viscerally.


Cellular jail should literally be a place of pilgrimage for Indians, a teertha. Most of us have never studied about it in our school curriculum, so it is a revelation to go there. This is where some of our unsung heroes and martyrs lived and died. They gave their todays for our tomorrows.


This large prison had seven wings radiating from a central tower (some of the wings were destroyed in the Japanese attack during world War 2, although some said later that 4 wings were torn down during the Nehru era to build a government hospital). It was built as an implementation of the diabolic Panopticon, the jail where the inmates do not know when the jailer is observing them. Therefore they have to be on best behavior all the time, and they are under constant stress. The irony is that the person who came up with this idea is the noted 19th century 'liberal' Briton Jeremy Bentham.


A tour of the premises brings you across tableaux depicting inhuman tortures as well as executions that brave freedom fighters were subjected to. We get to see the tiny claustrophobic cells they lived in.


The story of the Cellular Jail ("Kaala pani") is an example of our collective amnesia about the patriots and martyrs who strove to gain independence, and often paid with their lives. The film "Kaalapani" which came out a few years ago was apparently not exaggerated.


Off in the distance is Ross Island, where the British would always go at dusk. The jailers were mostly Indian, including many who were convicts themselves, who had been 'promoted'. Strangely, this has always been the case. Even in the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre, it was Indian troops who fired on the unarmed protestors. 1650 bullets, 1575 casualties.


There are several statues of martyrs in the park next to the jail, and brass plaques providing some little detail about their lives and deaths: often tortured to death, sometimes death by force-feeding as they went on hunger-strikes. Kaala pani reminds you of the hellish Tuol Sleng torture camp in Cambodia, from which no one ever escaped; and Alcatraz in the middle of San Francisco Bay.


Once, long ago, we were warriors. Today, we are pale imitations of the Western fads and memes. There is no future in that.


1575 words, 26 Jan 2019



--
sent from xiaomi redmi note 5, so please excuse brevity and typos

Thursday, January 24, 2019

my visit to kaalapani, cellular jail

I went as part of a group. here's my blog about it.

Cellular jail


This was one of the highlights of the trip and personally something some of us had wanted to see for a long time. Most of us have never studied about it in our school curriculum, but it should be a place of pilgrimage for all of us. This is where some of our unsung heroes and martyrs lived and died. They gave their todays for our tomorrows.


This large prison had seven wings radiating from a central tower (some of the wings were destroyed in the Japanese attack during world War 2, although some said later that 4 wings were torn down during the Nehru era to build a government hospital). It was built as an implementation of the diabolic Panopticon, the jail where the inmates do not know when the jailer is observing them. Therefore they have to be on best behavior all the time, and they are under constant stress. The irony is that the person who came up with this idea is the noted 19th century 'liberal' Briton Jeremy Bentham.


A tour of the premises brings you across tableaux depicting inhuman tortures as well as executions that brave freedom fighters were subjected to. We get to see the tiny claustrophobic cells they lived in.


The son et lumiere show was, unfortunately, in hindi which meant some of the finer points were lost on some of us. There is an English version too, but it would have entailed a wait of an hour or more.


The story of the Cellular Jail ("Kaala pani") is an example of our collective amnesia about the patriots and martyrs who strove to gain independence, and often paid with their lives. The film "Kaalapani" which came out a few years ago was apparently not exaggerated.


Off in the distance is Ross Island, where the British would always go at dusk. The jailers were mostly Indian, including many who were convicts themselves, who had been 'promoted'.


There are several statues of martyrs in the park next to the jail, and brass plaques providing some little detail about the lives and deaths of a few martyrs: often tortured to death, sometimes death by force-feeding as they went on hunger-strikes. Kaala pani reminds you of the hellish Tuol


Sleng torture camp in Cambodia, from which no one ever escaped; and Alcatraz in the middle of San Francisco Bay.





--
sent from xiaomi redmi note 5, so please excuse brevity and typos

Quick notes: Gigafactory, Oil addiction...

  • 30 GWh: BHEL-led consortium may build India’s first Li-ion Gigafactory


  • Costly addiction to oil: In 2019, India’s demand for crude oil will grow faster than China’s. In 2018, the rupee was Asia’s worst-performing currency as higher crude prices triggered a sharp depreciation


  • One-way-street: Chinese online retailers doing brisk business in India


  • Local is key: Indian startups are taking baby steps towards a vernacular internet. . . Amazon spends record on lobbying in 2018.


  • Is fasting the fountain of youth?: How fasting may help you live longer


  • Shia leader: Madrasas producing IS supporters, ban them


  • Core Right agenda for a modern India:



  • Solitude: If we lose our capacity for solitude, we risk getting caught up in the crowd. We risk being ‘swept away’ by what everybody else does and believes in. Before we can keep company with others, we must learn to keep company with ourselves.


  • Black lotus: When Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal was stumped by an Indian monk who sold his Porsche 


  • Post-Work: The radical idea of a world without jobs


Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Lindsey Graham Pitches for Pakistan

US Senator Lindsey Graham makes a sales pitch for Pakistan, asking Trump to meet with Imran Khan:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/lindsey-graham-urges-trump-meet-pakistan-pm-khan-190121090127043.html

Is Lindsey Graham trying to become another Larry Pressler?

As you know, Nikki Haley comes from South Carolina, where Graham is a senator, and she served as governor of that state. She's of course very popular with Americans in general, and the Indian-American community in particular. Now that's she's left her role as Trump's ambassador to UN, there's a possibility that she could re-enter local politics again.

https://www.newsmax.com/politics/lindsey-graham-south-carolina-attorney-general/2018/10/09/id/885546/

This may perhaps make Graham nervous, as she would be in a good position to challenge him for his Senate seat in the future. He may therefore be trying to align himself more closely with the Pakistani-American community as a hedge against Haley and her vast Indian-American support.

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Quick notes: Duopoly disrupted, Autophagy...

Thursday, January 17, 2019

Quick notes: HAL on the brink, Citizens’ data...

  • Is Modi govt weakening HAL? With no payments coming in, HAL for the first time ever takes a bank loan of Rs 7.81 billion. . . . Air force holds back Rs 20,000 crore from HAL, as foreign vendors get paid. . . . Govt’s apathy is pushing HAL to the brink.


  • Preventing the next terror attack: WhatsApp is facing pressure in India to let authorities trace and read encrypted messages. Indian policy makers have been examining methods China has used to protect domestic startups and take control of citizens’ data.


  • Taking on the mighty: Govt’s tough stand on Ecommerce FDI may put a stop to Amazon’s food sales in India


  • Ganga, the wonder river: In the late 19th century, British scientists and hydrologists became intrigued by the fact that Ganga water did not go bad, even after long periods of storage, contrary to the water of other rivers in which a mounting lack of oxygen quickly promoted the growth of anaerobic bacteria. In 1896 the British physician E. Hanbury Hankin wrote in the French journal Annales de l’Institut Pasteur that cholera microbes that had a life of forty-eight hours in distilled water died within three hours in Ganga water. Dr. Hankin was able to secure corpses of cholera victims in the river and isolated samples of Ganga water with a large concentration of the bacillus E. coli. Much to his astonishment, he found that after six hours the microbes had completely disappeared.


  • Sri Ramana Maharshi's teachings:



  • Insect Collapse: Tropical insects, having evolved in a very stable climate, would be much more sensitive to climate warming. “If you go a little bit past the thermal optimum for tropical insects, their fitness just plummets”.



Wednesday, January 16, 2019

American FBI & Indian CBI - Natural Nests for Deep State Games?

It feels like India's own Deep State is acting up. After watching CNN and other Lefty media raise a ruckus over Trump's firing of FBI Director Comey (they want him impeached over this), we suddenly see a ruckus being raised by Indian Lefty media over Modi's suspension of CBI Director Alok Verma, conveniently just before the elections.

It almost seems like a case of Monkey-See-Monkey-Do. I'm beginning to feel that Indian political strategists have succumbed to the mental laziness of plagiarism, and are simply coming up with stunts by borrowing from the playbooks of strategists in other countries such as the United States. Given how much our Urdu film industry (aka."Bollywood") likes to plagiarize from Hollywood, I wouldn't be surprised at their political siblings likewise deciding to plagiarize from the political games of other countries.






Preet Bharara Attacks Trump Over NATO

After rumours surfaced that Trump has considered withdrawing the US from NATO, he was attacked by none other than Preet Bharara:


This guy is some kind of attention-whore. He likes being in the spotlight even more than Kejriwal.

We've all seen Preet Bharara's various antics - but who knew that he was also an Atlanticist? I bet Bharara is just trying to score points with the Atlanticist lobby in America's Northeast, to position himself for a future run for political office.

Failing that, maybe AAP should offer him a position as their Lokpal / anti-corruption officer.

Friday, January 11, 2019

Quick notes: Monsanto verdict, Church's threat...

  • Making farmers dependent on MNCs: SJM seeks change in patent act after pro-Monsanto court verdict. . . . Judges committing massive blunders. Of all the three judgments, this one is the most distasteful.


  • Christism exposed: Catholic Church threatens to expel nun for protesting against rape-accused Bishop  “Your deeds on 20th September 2018 and on the following days were of most grave external scandal and harm to the Church and the FCC. You went to the Ernakulam High Court junction and participated in the protest held by the SOS Action Council on 20-9-2018 without the permission of your superior.”


  • Today's RSS is pseudo?


  • Tejas fighter: Malaysia shows interest in India's Tejas fighter jets, may buy 30 of them  .  Really? Did IAF receive their order?


  • Han tricks: Chinese e-commerce companies sending shipments as ‘gifts’ to customers in India to avoid duties. 


  • BJP model: Big government, Big business


  • Master Mooji: You are Silence Itself



  • Hero Ezephyr: Pedal your way to health, make city commute easy with e-cycle


  • Kamal Nath, CON-gressman: Read the whole thread


Monday, January 07, 2019

Quick notes: U-turn on e-commerce, Unsafe nuns...

  • Lobbyists win: Govt does U-turn on e-commerce policy after aggressive lobbying by MNCs. The sharp reversal comes barely a week after the govt had explicitly restricted private labels being sold by e-marketplaces


  • Unsafe nuns of India: The Associated Press blows the lid off decades-long sexual abuse of nuns by Catholic priests in India. The nuns AP interviewed—some decades younger than their abusers—described the fear of retribution and being isolated or even expelled from their community, which forced them to avoid making official complaints. “It’s a fear of being isolated if I speak the truth. If you do that, you have to go against your own community, your own religious superiors.”


  • Soul Vultures: The enemy within



  • English is the albatross that's strangling India:


  • The Keto Diet, Explained: We are fueled primarily by glucose, or blood sugar, much of which we derive from carbohydrates in foods like bread, fruit, potatoes, and sweets.  If glucose levels in the blood drop to really low levels, we’d pass out and die. But, interestingly, the body can’t store much glucose — only enough to last a couple of days. So if we forgo eating carbs for a few days, we need other ways to keep going. One of those is a process called ketogenesis.  In ketogenesis, our livers start to break down fat into a usable energy source called ketones bodies, or ketones for short. “Organs like the brain that normally rely primarily on glucose for fuel can begin to use a substantial amount of ketones. So ketones can stand in for glucose as fuel for the body when there’s a glucose shortage. It’s an amazing physiological adaption to starvation that allows tissues like the brain to survive”. 


  • Chang'e-4 rover now exploring Moon: The far side could be an excellent place to perform low-frequency radio astronomy, because it is shielded from the radio noise of Earth.


  • Raga Shukla Bilawal:



  • Africans singing "Kal ho na ho":



Sunday, January 06, 2019

Hypertelescope: I in the Sky

Israeli researchers have come up with a way to make a low-cost but powerful "eye in the sky" using a constellation of many tiny satellites:

https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/BGU-imaging-system-can-produce-images-at-higher-resolution-and-lower-cost-575988

Technology like this could be very useful for India, given that ISRO has already demonstrated its ability to deploy large numbers of satellites in a single launch.


While it would be nice to use this hypertelescope technology to observe the heavens and image distant alien worlds in the search for life, there are other earthly applications which could be possible.


ISRO's HySIS (HyperSpectral Imaging Satellite) was recently launched into geostationary orbit, providing India a means to observe the Indian Ocean region continuously at all frequencies, but at a very low resolution. HySIS will allow India to detect the presence of large military ships in the Indian Ocean, but can't see in closer detail than that.

Most Earth-observation satellites, including spy satellites, are positioned in Low Earth Orbit, usually at a couple of hundred kilometers in altitude, passing over their target at periodic intervals. However, a geostationary satellite which continuously stays above the same spot due to its orbital period matching the Earth's rotation, requires an altitude of 40,000 km. Needless to say, this large distance is why spy satellites aren't typically put into geostationary orbits, and are instead limited to merely passing over their target periodically at lower altitude. But a a powerful hypertelescope in the form of a large constellation swarm of satellites could provide extremely high-resolution images of the Earth's surface even from distant geostationary orbit.

A large geostationary eye-in-the-sky positioned above the Iran-Pakistan region could provide otherwise impossibly high resolution images of the ground in realtime. It would be useful for India and Israel to collaborate on such projects as part of joint space cooperation -- after all, two I's are better than one.

Thursday, January 03, 2019

Quick notes: Duopoly, Ghar-wapsi queen...