Via Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution:
If you don't like getting your paper rejected before it even reaches peer review, ask David Egilman how to get around the process: In what may be an unprecedented move, when the Brown University researcher's paper was recently rejected from an occupational medicine journal, he simply bought two pages of ad space and printed the entire article in the same journal.
Clever, ..., very, very clever!
Ravi Balakrishnan did a recent story in the Economic Times on the brand equity of "spiritual" gurus all across the globe. In a sidebar, he describes how savvy they are in marketing themselves; did you know, for example, that "Mata Amritanandamayi’s stores stock everything from DVDs and VHS tapes, priced between $15 and $27, to books, incense sticks and even unlikely items like ‘essential oil’ at $10, and Amma shower gel and body lotion at $9 each"?
But what really takes the cake is this wonderful gem that appears in the interview of Sri Sri Ravishankar in a second sidebar. The question is about how vital the celebrities such as Vijay Mallya are to his organization, and Sri Sri's answer is [emphasis added by me]:
Art of Living is like an ocean where everybody is welcome. We don’t excommunicate somebody just because they are rich and famous.
Priceless, isn't it?
I find it difficult to understand why people should get upset about IIT-JEE syllabus being made to conform to that of the +2 (higher secondary education) across all the education boards in India. Unlike Primary Red at Secular-Right and Amit Varma at India Uncut, I welcome it, simply because it levels the playing field -- only slightly, though -- for everyone. In the present system, students of ISC and CBSE schools have an inherent advantage simply because their syllabi are the closest approximation to that of JEE than the syllabus of any other board.
Why do I doubt that this proposed move make any difference? Simply because the ISC and CBSE students with a mastery over advanced topics will continue to enjoy an advantage over their lesser cousins. Clearly, coaching classes with an estimated total business of about 30 billion (3000 crore) rupees, are not in any danger of having to close down because of lack of students. The likely positive effect is essentially psychological: scores of students who do not make the cut can now leave the exam hall with the satisfaction of having tried at least a few questions successfully.
Finally, when it comes to rhetoric and choice of words, don't you think the secular right is right up their with the rabid right in its celebration of testosterone? Sissification? Yikes!
On the other hand, the other proposed move is to open up IITs and IIMs to Pakistani students, who will also be selected through JEE or CAT. Nitin, whose blog was blocked by a country that he visited recently, has weighed in against this proposal, and so has Primary Red. As of now, I have nothing against it, except to wonder why we should restrict it only to Pakistan. On a practical level, though, I think this proposal is dead on arrival; the IIT faculty are unlikely to accept it.
Via the excellent kitabkhana : Ram Guha's article in the Telegraph, in which he draws (once again) a moral equivalent between the left and the right. A while ago, he tried this stupid stunt -- and it is a stupid stunt, because he claims to be left of center -- when he called the noted activist Arundhati Roy the Arun Shourie of the left! After all the hard-hitting flak he received for that barb, including a serious dressing down by Ms. Roy herself, I thought he would refrain from such sound bites. Well, I guess I am wrong. See also Anand's post for another example of Ram's left-baiting.
Neha Viswanathan has a post about Motorcycle diaries:
I am a hardcore capitalist, and I have never understood why anyone could be so blinded by Communist ideal, and yet, I understand idealism and how consuming it can be. Idealism is a trait one picks up in early years, and holds on to. Because the only truth worth its salt is the one ridden with ambiguity.
Ravikiran Rao and Gargi describe two different ways in which the world will end. On the other hand, S.K. has a different catastrophe in mind: the declining sex ratio in India. Apparently, it has already started wreaking havoc in the Tamil Brahmin (Tam-Bram, as he calls it) community :
When the eminently eligible one seeks a suitable girl, using the algorithm of horoscopes (horror-scopes to many!), through matrimony dot coms, swayamvaras as well as the old faithful- newspaper classifieds, their parents find the tables squarely turned! Yes, it is no longer the boys’ hegemony. “Brides wanted” outnumber the “Bridegrooms wanted” by 3 to 2. The girls’ photographs are hard-to-get commodity (you need a password to steal a look at the nubile young things). The fairer sex has turned finicky and fastidious, thanks to the BPO’s and consequent financial emancipation. And the pre-requisite for an alliance is an upfront assurance on the girl’s career ambitions and premarital fiscal commitments.
Apropos of nothing, let me just end this post with a nice little gem that I found via Evelyn Rodrguez :
Always we hope someone else has the answer.
Some other place will be better,
some other time it will all turn out.
This is it.
No one else has the answer.
No other place will be better,
and it has already turned out. -- Lao Tzu.
That's all, folks!
First, Dilip D'Souza started it with an article at Rediff about liberalization's inability to make a dent on poverty in India:
There's no doubt in my mind: reforms must happen. But 15 years after the process began, I can't help feeling that something is wrong about the way we are pursuing them. For I am yet to see the one effect they must have, first and above all: a visible lessening in the level of Indian poverty. Fewer poor Indians around us. I can't see that.
Dilip's post attracted a thuggish treatment at the hands of Sandeep and his commenters (except uspeed ;-). I would never have suspected that Sandeep's rants could actually inspire someone to take up his cause, but this one did: Yazad Jal did a nice piece rebutting Dilip's arguments, and got it published by Rediff (it appears to be his first "publication". Congratulations, Yazad!):
So how have so many poor people got themselves the money for shoes, transport, private education, fridges, television, coolers and cell phones? Maybe those figures have some answers after all. They're worth a brief look. India's GDP per capita in 1990, before liberalisation, was $1,300. Today it's $2,830, more than double. It's increased at around 5.33 per cent per year [on a PPP basis].
Yazad posted on his blog about his Rediff piece, and guess what? Dilip made a guest appearance in the comments section! The result? A very nice, civilized debate among the commenters, Dilip and Yazad.
Folks, this is the very best of the entire enterprise of blogging. Enjoy it before Sandeep and his fellow travellers spoil it!This interview of Richard Dawkins is an absolute gem. Salon will let you read it for free if you are willing to see three screenfuls of a stupid ad. Trust me, the interview is worth more than three screenfuls of junk!
Dawkins says, "A delusion is something that people believe in despite a total lack of evidence. Religion is scarcely distinguishable from childhood delusions like the 'imaginary friend' and the bogeyman under the bed. [...] The word "delusion" also carries negative connotations, and religion has plenty of those". When asked what those negative connotations were, he replied :
A delusion that encourages belief where there is no evidence is asking for trouble. Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle. Instead, disagreements are settled by other means which, in extreme cases, inevitably become violent. Scientists disagree among themselves but they never fight over their disagreements. They argue about evidence or go out and seek new evidence. Much the same is true of philosophers, historians and literary critics.
But you don't do that if you just know your holy book is the God-written truth and the other guy knows that his incompatible scripture is too. People brought up to believe in faith and private revelation cannot be persuaded by evidence to change their minds. No wonder religious zealots throughout history have resorted to torture and execution, to crusades and jihads, to holy wars and purges and pogroms, to the Inquisition and the burning of witches.
What does he say about doing science?
[T]he scientific worldview is a poetic worldview, it is almost a transcendental worldview. We are amazingly privileged to be born at all and to be granted a few decades -- before we die forever -- in which we can understand, appreciate and enjoy the universe.
Also read the discussion at the end of P.Z. Myers' post about the Salon interview.
Jaya Jha confesses to "[h]aving been a pretty strong "anti-ragging" person myself". Through her, I found a link to this very thoughtful piece by Sujit Saraf, in which he talks about his experiences with ragging at IIT-D, discusses the seniors' rationalizations of ragging, and presents cogent arguments (not that one needs any) for why it is an awful practice. A key quote:
[The seniors] had endured similar humiliation in their time. Their seniority in the hostel gave them, for the first time in their lives, power over other human beings – power to command fear, subjugate and humiliate.
Stop this barbaric practice now!
Here is another interesting piece of the blog puzzle. The New York Times reports (catch it before it goes behind NYTimes' awful pay-per-view firewall) that "a blog rebellion among scientists and engineers at Los Alamos [National Laboratory], the federal government's premier nuclear weapons laboratory, is threatening to end the tenure of its director, G. Peter Nanos". Here is an extract:
Many bloggers criticize his decision to shut down most of the laboratory in July, when he cited "egregious" safety and security violations after two computer disks with secret information were reported missing and an intern working with a laser suffered an eye injury. The security alarm turned out to be a clerical error - the disks, in fact, never existed. Still, Dr. Nanos kept many laboratory areas closed for nearly seven months, until late January."
Read the blog: LANL - The real story, that has moved Jeff Jarvis (who was quoted by the NYTimes story), to say this in his blog:
I was called and quoted on it, saying that this isn't really about blogs but about citizens empowered. Blogs happen to be the catalyst. The ethic of transparency is sweeping the land.
Via Patrix : Forbes.com has a nice list of Ten laws of the modern world. Among other things, it includes a truly delicious entry called Andy and Bill's law, says the Laffer curve is why "India is rocking now", and presents Ogilvy's Law:
If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.
Apparently, David Ogilvy said this in the 1950s.
Via Mall Road's Shivam Vij : Amy Waldman has a report in the New York Times on the much diluted (some would say 'sabotaged') Employment Guarantee Act, about which I have written before.
Read Waldman's report before it goes behind the NYTimes firewall in a week. It quotes both proponents and opponents of EGA; first off the block are the opinions against EGA:'Where energy and policy should go is how to accelerate the growth, and not be distracted by these old slogans that really made sense 40 years ago,' said Surjit S. Bhalla, an economist who opposes the employment law.
"The finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, made a similar argument in an interview, saying that while an employment guarantee could 'keep the pot boiling once a day,' it would not end poverty. That could be done, he said, only through 7 to 8 percent annual growth and 'real jobs.'"
Then come arguments for EGA:
Mr. Dreze says that even if the poverty-reduction figures are valid, which many economists dispute, the economy would have to grow at a much faster rate than even the most optimistic estimates if it were to truly improve the lot of the poor.
"The way we're going now it is going to take forever to get people to an acceptable living standard," he said.
Even 1 percent of gross domestic product - the expected price tag for the employment law - was a small price to pay for easing hunger, stemming seasonal migration and reducing child labor, he argued.
Thankfully, in spite of the "he said, she said" tone of this first part, Waldman's report does a credible job of describing how things are on the ground. Nothing new to anyone who has been following this issue, though.
Interestingly, Waldman's report discusses both EGA and the mid-day meal scheme (MMS), which has been mandated by the Supreme Court to cover the entire country. She has checked out how the latter works, and needless to say, she has good things and bad things to say about it ("he said, she said" all over again!). What are the good things? "A study by the Center for Social Equity in New Delhi said the program had especially helped retain girls, who are often the first denied schooling in poor families; improved child nutrition; and encouraged mixing among castes".
I too drew a parallel between EGA and MMS in my earlier post in January. The point I made then remains valid today: "I have not seen good arguments against the scheme, only some rants about how it will not work, how our politicians cannot be trusted with it, how we cannot afford it, etc."
Sigh!
Via the always excellent Rajesh Jain (who got it from one Yuvaraj): a paraphrase of remarks by the legendary Warren Buffett, aka the Oracle of Omaha, made to the students of Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business:
If there's one thing that you leave here with today, it should be this: And I'll start with a question to get to my point. If you could pick 10% of one person in this room to own or 'go long' for the next 30 years, who would it be? It wouldn't be the person with the highest IQ; it wouldn't be the star athlete; you would look for certain other qualities ... And if you had to pick one person to 'short' for the next 30 years, who would it be? Now ask yourself why you have made those selections. If you've considered these questions properly, the person you've gone long is probably someone who is honest, courageous, and dependable; the person you've shorted is probably someone who is egotistical and likes to take the credit. The point is that success is mostly dependent upon elective qualities, not anything with which you are born. You can choose to be dependable or not. And it's not easy to change, so choose correctly now. Bertrand Russell once said, "The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they're too heavy to be broken." So ask yourself, "Who do I want to be?" At the end of this process you should determine that the person you want to buy is yourself. You all are holding winning tickets.
In comments on a post at Satya's excellent blog on Education in India, Naveen said, "[we] also tend to forget that the traditional notion of education may be radically discarded and new forms of cheaper and effective education might emerge". I had no idea at that time that the future would arrive so soon:
Looks like our days of non-redundancy are numbered ...
... and going! Remember the commercial in which a toy bunny powered by Energizer batteries keeps going and going -- sometimes into commercials for other products ?
The fight between the rich kids is still going strong. The analogy with the Energizer bunny goes deeper than this observation, though. Their fight has such staying power that it is going into many other things, and who knows, it may actually appear in a commercial! See footnote [1].
Anil's resignation from the IPCL board, his letter to the Reliance Industries board, his claim that "it is Reliance XI vs. me", edgy markets getting spooked by Anil'sletter to SEBI, ... Well, it keeps going, and going!
I love this fight, simply because it shines light on the rich and infamous, and on pious notions that capitalism is all about perfect markets. It gives us all a clue to what makes these men -- and the markets -- tick.
[1] It may already have happened; remember the two brothers separated by an unbreakable wall in the ad for Ambuja Cements ?
We have already seen some examples of angst that is rather unique to academics. Here is one which is somewhat more general: "[a] little morality tale, in which our hero resists the lure of easy money and emerges with his self-respect somewhat intact". Read this excellent piece by Sean Carroll, a cosmologist and an atheist.
Also read this other post by Sean, and you will learn, inter alia, about dark religious forces (can religious forces be anything else? ;-) that are all around us.... the US House of Representatives! (via Economic Times)
The Congressmen passed a rare resolution commending "their significant contributions to society in every profession and discipline".
Take a look at the resolution:
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) recognises the valuable and significant contributions of Indian-Americans to American society;
(2) honors the economic innovation attributable to graduates of the Indian Institutes of Technology; and
(3) urges all Americans to recognize the contributions of Indian-Americans and have a greater appreciation of the role Indian-Americans have played in helping to advance and enrich American society.
Congratulations, IITs !
