Monday, March 16, 2009

How tech-savvy is our government?


Here's an indication:

From February to April 2008, the PMO did not receive many of the mails addressed to it because of the virus. The extent of the damage is uncertain.

The problem was detected late last April after which the Microsoft Outlook Express software, on which the PMO’s email communication system was based, was replaced with SquirrelMail.

The matter came to light during one of the hearings of the Central Information Commission where the PMO submitted that there was a virus problem in the months of February, March and April “that was finally diagnosed only late in April”.

I guess there are many possible angles to this story, but I'll take the good one about the PMO replacing Outlook Express with SquirrelMail.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

One more on how our institutions (and government) treat academics ...


Long ago, I was invited as an expert for a selection by a Central Government Ministry. There was no honorarium; even the actual taxi fare was not paid. I was told that I would be paid road mileage allowance in due course. And to make things worse, an amount less than one-fourth of the actual taxi fare was sent to me by money order and the postal commission was deducted from the computed amount! I refused to accept the money order and wrote a letter to the concerned official in not too sweet a language. As usual, there was no reaction.

From this letter in Current Science [pdf] by Prof. S.C. Dutta Roy from IIT-D. The good professor urges Indian scientists to show some spine in their dealings with government agencies:

...[W]hile the scientists have to survive with whatever scale the Government prescribes, they can at least demand a respectable honorarium for every additional job they are requested to undertake. By refusing to do such a job for free or for a pittance would not make them poorer; on the other hand, the message will be clear that they need to be taken more seriously and more respectfully. It is important for a scientist to live with dignity; one who does not care for it does positive disservice to himself and to the whole scientific community.

Thanks to Seema Singh for the pointer.

Unearned authorship


Rahul discusses the many ways in which people become authors of academic papers they didn't contribute to: Giving "credit" where it's not due. After covering fraud as well as "courtesy" (unearned authorship given to "senior figures ... merely in recognition of their position or funding"), he gets to some very interesting routes to authorship. Here's one:

I know of two older papers where one author, famously, was not a contributor to the paper. The first is this one, regarded as a classic; the authors were George Gamow and his student Ralph Alpher, and Gamow included Hans Bethe, who had no connection with this work, purely so that the author list would read "Alpher, Bethe, Gamow." (If that joke is Greek to you, never mind.) I can't remember whether Bethe was "in" on it, but he did not protest, at least not publicly.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Links


  1. Bruce Schneier: The kindness of strangers.

  2. The Economist: The kindness of crowds.

  3. Wray Herbert in NewsWeek: Why do people cheat?

  4. And, Why do criminals obey the law? The influence of legitimacy and social networks on active gun offenders, by Andrew Papachristos, Tracey L. Meares, and Jeffrey Fagan. [via The Situationist blog]

Friday, March 13, 2009

Links


  1. Karin Evans in Greater Good: Arts and Smarts: At a time when educators are preoccupied with standards, testing, and the bottom line, some researchers suggest the arts can boost students' test scores; others aren't convinced. Karin Evans asks, What are the arts good for?

    By the way, the Winter 2009 issue of Greater Good has several articles on psychology of the arts. Those of you with kids might want to check out Everyday art: Six steps for boosting kids' creativity by Christine Carter.

  2. Harry Collins: We cannot live by scepticism alone: Scientists have been too dogmatic about scientific truth and sociologists have fostered too much scepticism — social scientists must now elect to put science back at the core of society.

  3. Gardiner Harris in NYTimes: Doctor Admits Pain Studies Were Frauds, Hospital Says.

    In what may be among the longest-running and widest-ranging cases of academic fraud, one of the most prolific researchers in anesthesiology has admitted that he fabricated much of the data underlying his research, said a spokeswoman for the hospital where he works.

    The researcher, Dr. Scott S. Reuben, an anesthesiologist in Springfield, Mass., who practiced at Baystate Medical Center, never conducted the clinical trials that he wrote about in 21 journal articles dating from at least 1996, said Jane Albert, a spokeswoman for Baystate Health.

    Do check out Janet Stemwedel's commentary on this case in her Adventures in Ethics and Science blog.

Exercise your working memory, increase your IQ score


Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt (in a guest post on Olivia Judson's blog): Can We Increase Our Intelligence?

It used to be believed that people had a level of general intelligence with which they were born that was unaffected by environment and stayed the same, more or less, throughout life. But now it’s known that environmental influences are large enough to have considerable effects on intelligence, perhaps even during your own lifetime.

A key contribution to this subject comes from James Flynn, a moral philosopher who has turned to social science and statistical analysis to explore his ideas about humane ideals. Flynn’s work usually pops up in the news in the context of race issues, especially public debates about the causes of racial differences in performance on intelligence tests. We won’t spend time on the topic of race, but the psychologist Dick Nisbett has written an excellent article on the subject.

Flynn first noted that standardized intelligence quotient (I.Q.) scores were rising by three points per decade in many countries, and even faster in some countries like the Netherlands and Israel. For instance, in verbal and performance I.Q., an average Dutch 14-year-old in 1982 scored 20 points higher than the average person of the same age in his parents’ generation in 1952. These I.Q. increases over a single generation suggest that the environmental conditions for developing brains have become more favorable in some way.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Undergraduate programs at JNU?


According to this Telegraph report by Charu Sudan Kasturi, there's a real possibility that JNU will become a Real University:

Jawaharlal Nehru University is eyeing the possibility of offering undergraduate studies across education streams in a landmark shift proposed by its chancellor, former University Grants Commission chairman Yash Pal.

JNU’s executive council, its highest decision-making body, will meet this month to discuss the proposal, which could transform its character.

Yash Pal’s suggestion came at the university court meeting in January, sources said. The chancellor is the university’s top administrator below the Visitor (the President of India), and the court its broadest recommendatory authority.

HigherEd news of the day


Anubhuti Vishnoi: No Indian universities in global toplist so UGC has a solution: let’s prepare our own list:

“The point is that both the Times rankings and the Shanghai academic rankings are popular indexes to grade universities across the world. Very few Indian institutes are found in these rankings, more so in the Shanghai rankings. NAAC has complained that the criteria used by these rankings is biased which do not take into account social conditions and so project these institutes in a negative light,” said Sukhdeo Thorat, UGC chairman. “Accordingly, we have started discussions on formulating this index which will grade Indian varsities and international ones and give a comparison.”

NAAC executive committee chairman and former IISc director Goverdhan Mehta will work on its details.

* * *

In other news, the committee headed by Prof. Yash Pal has submitted its report to the HRD minister. I'm not able to locate the report online, but several newspapers have covered its contents: ToI's Hemali Chhapia, The Hindu and ToI's Akshaya Mukul.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Stepping (just a little) away from GATE and other entrance exams


Cross-posted from Materialia Indica with minor changes.

If you are a student with an interest in joining IISc's doctoral program in engineering, you may have missed seeing this stuff which appears in some nondescript location in the admission brochure:

NOTE: Candidates with BE/ B Tech/ M Sc or equivalent degree who may not have qualified in any of the above mentioned National Entrance Tests will also be considered for the Ph D program in Engineering. Short listing for interview of such candidates is based on their academic performance in the qualifying degree (upto 3rd year in BE / B Tech, or 1st year in M Sc), and their performance in 10th and 12th /PUC examinations.

Let me repeat it here with an emphasis on the right things: "Candidates with BE/ B Tech/ M Sc or equivalent degree who may not have qualified in any of the above mentioned National Entrance Tests will also be considered for the Ph D program in Engineering."

For a long time, many Indian institutions -- especially in engineering -- have failed to address two key sociological / institutional facts:

  1. Many engineering students simply do not take GATE or any of the other graduate-level entrance exams.
  2. Unlike their US counterparts for which GRE is a requirement, Indian institutions can no longer insist on GATE and still expect a flood of applications from bright students. Those days are gone; the balance of power has been trending in favour of the students (except, perhaps, a blip this year '-).
  3. The consequence has been pretty bad for both parties: many bright students, who could have got into a doctoral program in our institutions, didn't, and our institutions, which could have gained by admitting them, didn't.

It may have taken IISc a very long time to face these facts; but this hugely desirable move helps the institution in diversifying the pool of potential applicants.

I am just glad that IISc has taken the first step. Note, however, that this step has been taken only for PhD admissions. the ME admissions at IISc continue to be based solely GATE scores.

* * *

Sometime ago, Arunn Narasimhan wrote an excellent post describing some of the problems with GATE and how they may prevent good students from getting into graduate programs in Inda. If you agree with Arunn -- I certainly do -- then the conclusion is obvious: our institutions must take a step back from using entrance exams as the sole first-level filter, and try to incorporate other metrics in the selection process: performance in their university exams, consistency in academic performance, recommendation letters, etc.

Education news


A couple of report cards look at the UPA government's record on education. The first, by Charu Sudan Kasturi of The Telegraph, focuses on higher education (its second half does cover school education, though). The UPA government gets 7 out of ten.

India is riding an unprecedented boom in educational opportunities thanks to policy decisions under UPA rule that have significantly improved access to schooling and higher education for most citizens.

But Manmohan Singh’s outgoing government has failed to find a cogent strategy to prevent the education explosion from turning into a cancer that could eviscerate its foundations.

Pallavi Singh's article in Mint, however, is largely on school education.

An annual report on the status of education in the country, published by non-government organization Pratham since 2005, has repeatedly noted that increased enrolment in public schools was accompanied by poor learning levels.

Madhav Chavan, founder of Pratham, says the government’s approach has not been serious about evaluating the results of its education programmes. “Quality-wise, not much has happened,” Chavan said. “The government has not been able to give any direction to initiatives on quality.”

He added that higher fiscal support to state governments to fund education has been a singular achievement in the past five years. “It means they (states) could provide midday meals (to students), expand the education programme for children in pre-school, which in quantitative terms means bigger reach, and significant changes such as more enrolment and lesser number of dropouts.”

Hemali Chhapia of ToI reports:

Early last month, the Yash Pal committee was informed that the Union HRD ministry had whittled down its position to an advisory body, but members stuck to their recommendations and the original terms of reference. ...

A copy of the final report with this paper vilifies all regulatory inspectors and notes that poor reforms have been the main culprit of several wrong goings in higher education. In these tough times, the panel points out one more bankruptcy-the one in the country's intellectual banks, universities.

While traditional universities, it notes, did not "create public confidence'', private institutes have been reduced to "commercial entities of very low quality''. Recent expansion in higher education, the report says, has not looked at the "impoverished undergraduate education'' that caters to 6 million students who pass through a system which has "not renewed itself and has not provided opportunities to students''.

Monday, March 09, 2009

Principled Politics - 2


Here's something from CPI(M)-led Left Front:

The Left Front, which has been pushing for the reservation of one- third of the seats in Parliament for women, has fielded only two women out of 42 candidates in West Bengal for the Lok Sabha elections.

In 2004, the Left Front had fielded five women from the state, known as a staunch Leftist bastion, and three of them won. But this time, it has retained only two of the three women who had won in 2004.

Principled Politics - 1


Why did Naveen Patnaik quit NDA, the BJP-led national alliance? Mint reports:

“I don’t want to go down in history with the stigma of a dirty communal politician,” a BJD leader quoted [Navin] Patnaik as telling party representatives after the break-up of the alliance. “Orissa has never been a communally biased state. Nor has it witnessed the kind of violence the BJP has initiated in the past five years,” the same BJD leader said, declining to be identified.

JD(S) "supremo" Deve Gowda writes a letter to Naveen Patnaik. Here's an interesting bit:

[In his letter, Deve Gowda] recalled that his party legislators in Karnataka too were forced to enter into an alliance with the “communal” BJP. “But, when it dawned on us that beneath all their overt commitments to constitutional norms and secularism lay a covert design to ruthlessly tear apart the nation’s secular fabric and turn the State into a communal laboratory, we decided to call it a day,” he said in the letter.

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Links ...


  1. Arati Chokshi at I Witness:

    What about the mute by standers? What kind of children are we raising that cannot protest - a wrong doing? any wrong doing? as individually defined? Or, have we so insensitised ourselves by the constant barrage of violence that surrounds our daily lives, in TV, newspapers, wars played out on all stages big and small that veiwing violence is just another opportunity for entertainment? Are we incapable of enrage, anguish, compassion? What are we capable of? Do we talk in our homes, with our sons and daughters - what would they do if this happened - to them, to you? or..were witness to acts of atrocities, violence? Would we advice our children to not get into trouble, not witness, walk away? Or would we say - scream, yell, help, call for help, question, participate? ...

  2. Kamran Abbasi at Cricinfo on the terrorist attacks on Sri Lanka cricketers [via Blogbharti]:

    This the darkest day in the history of Pakistan cricket and it occurred in a pleasant suburb of Lahore, a once great city of gardens and tranquility, not far from my own family home in Pakistan.

    This is the end.

  3. Discover blog: Worst Science Article Ever? Women “Evolved” to Love Shopping
  4. Duff Wilson in NYTimes: Harvard Medical School in Ethics Quandary:

    Mr. Zerden’s minor stir four years ago has lately grown into a full-blown movement by more than 200 Harvard Medical School students and sympathetic faculty, intent on exposing and curtailing the industry influence in their classrooms and laboratories, as well as in Harvard’s 17 affiliated teaching hospitals and institutes.

    They say they are concerned that the same money that helped build the school’s world-class status may in fact be hurting its reputation and affecting its teaching.

    The students argue, for example, that Harvard should be embarrassed by the F grade it recently received from the American Medical Student Association, a national group that rates how well medical schools monitor and control drug industry money.

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Marlon Brando (Don Corleone): "Powerful people don't need to shout"


If you are into Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, you'll greatly enjoy Mark Seal's Vanity Fair story about the making of this epic film. [There's also a short companion story about the movie crew's dinner at a real mobster's place] Here's the part where the movie's producer Al Ruddy meets Joe Colombo, "the short, dapper, media-savvy head at 48 of one of New York’s Five Families":

Sidebar Quote

"Soon [Marlon] Brando had the voice of Don Corleone. 'Powerful people don’t need to shout,' he later explained."

* * *

“So next day Joe shows up with two other guys. Joe sits opposite me, one guy’s on the couch, and one guy’s sitting in the window.” Ruddy pulled out the 155-page script and gave it to the Mob boss. “He puts on his little Ben Franklin glasses, looks at it for about two minutes. ‘What does this mean—fade in?’ he asked. And I realized there was no way Joe was going to turn to page two.”

“Oh, these fucking glasses. I can’t read with them,” Colombo said, throwing the script to his lieutenant. “Here, you read it.”

“Why me?” said the lieutenant, throwing the script to the underling.

Finally, Colombo grabbed the script and slammed it on the table. “Wait a minute! Do we trust this guy?” he asked his men. Yes, they replied.

“So what the fuck do we have to read this script for?” said Colombo. He told Ruddy, “Let’s make a deal.”

Colombo wanted the word Mafia deleted from the script.

Ruddy knew that there was only a single mention in the screenplay, when Tom Hagen visits movie producer Jack Woltz at his studio in Hollywood to persuade him to give Johnny Fontane a part in his new film, and Woltz snaps, “Johnny Fontane will never get that movie! I don’t care how many dago guinea wop greaseball Mafia goombahs come out of the woodwork!”

“That’s O.K. with me, guys,” said Ruddy, and the producer and the mobsters shook hands.

Hat tip: Chugs.