Slice of the Space Pie

"The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented."
~Dennis Gabor

In the hype surrounding India becoming the Twenty20 World Champions, one story I feel that was lost to the inside pages of the dailies, is that the 58th International Aeronautical Congress 2007, is being held in Hyderabad, India after 19 years, organised by the International Aeronautical Federation. Obviously all things Indian are the flavour of the meet of delegates from the major space agencies around the world. And India's recent strides in space technologies are being highlighted by the ISRO guys, in an attempt to hard-sell India as a major space power that has come of age. Such conferences are always where big deals are made and the buzzword is usually 'business', although the theme for the Congress goes, 'Touching Humanity: Space for Improving Quality of Life'. Nothing wrong with that. Except when the concerns raised are, pollution in space and how space will be the battlefield of the future. Now that is food for thought, isn't it?

It is an open secret that all nations who have a presence in space are working on developing technologies to preserve it. When you have countries like the United States and Russia developing laser guns that could blow up satellites and destroy communication and reconnaissance capabilities that will totally cripple nations and bring them to their knees, this deserves a serious discussion. After Japan sent its probe Kayuga to the moon earlier this month, and with China and India planning their own moon missions, we now have Germany and Italy preparing for lunar rendezvous, it is being feared that the race for the moon might make a mockery of the international understanding on the use of space. Since space has now become a business destination, we need to provide a legal framework to support the development of space as a common property of the nations much on the lines of the Antarctic Treaty.

But what role can India play? Everyone knows that India has truly arrived on the global scene. The century is being described as the Asian Century. India has an advanced space programme and barring funding concerns, we have a very able organisation in ISRO that can match any space agency in the world. Since space is such a new territory to explore, India can have a major role to play in its development. This will be perhaps after a long time when India will be able to flex its muscle in an international effort. Will India align itself with either the US or Russia if space is indeed exploited? Probably not. India will definitely have to upgrade its space infrastructure and also look at developing defence systems to protect its assets in space in the future. But before that we need to play a role to ensure that space does not fall to human greed. We need to ensure that we do not make a mess of this glorious opportunity to showcase the collaborative human spirit, not seen in centuries. India has always had a record in foreign relations of sticking only to its interests and putting its foreign and domestic policy first. This is seldom highlighted, but India's foreign policy has been truly independent and a shining example in global diplomacy. I hope to be a part of it someday.

As ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair put it, India's space programme with its application of models to develop the country in the spheres of education, communication and health can be of immense help for the other developing countries, in Africa and Latin America to be a part of the space pie, that would otherwise be left bereft of its benefits. And I am sure India will be seeking to have inclusive space technologies and policies.

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D-14 Not Another Detour Post

"Nations have no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. Only permanent interests." ~ Henry John Temple

I had a frustrating last week. I tried reverting to the old blogger template, but when I did that, I found I could not reverting to the new one, and even though the message displayed while reverting to the old one said that I could claim the new template again, I was not able to do it. I was stuck with the old template and a very ugly looking blog. The Blogger Help forums proved to be of no use so I had to take a drastic step. I created a new blog, copied all the posts to it, deleted my old blog and changed the address to that of the original. I was too lazy to copy the comments so they were deleted along with the old blog. I also had to change the time stamps of the posts to arrange them in order. Took a while but it was well worth it. I discovered some nuances about Blogger and identified glitches and ways to get around them. As they say, experience is the greatest teacher.

The week was eventful in one way. I have taken part in the Answers.com Creative Writing Challenge. The challenge is to use 10 what they call as 'starring words' in a creative effort that could be an essay, a story or poetry, in not more than 750 words. I have never written a story in my life, and my entry for this competition is my first effort at writing a story. Let's see if it is good enough. Like I have mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I have always enjoyed writing; essays to be specific. I have written a couple of poems in school, one on nuclear proliferation and another on my class teacher(that one fetched me sloppy kiss from her on my cheeks, some encouragement!). I do not have them written with me now, so I cannot have them on my blog. But I bet I was very bad at making poems. So I am wondering if the story will find any takers.

In my continuing efforts to make this blog a pleasure to read(since as of now, I am probably the only one who reads it), I am expanding its horizons.

I have always been interested in the area of international relations. And since this blog is about India, I am now going to start blogging on India's international affairs. This would include India's foreign policy, trade policies, the country's partnerships with other nations in various fields, and the role it plays by being part of various international organizations. I believe this is an area I have never explored and blogging about it will help me learn along the way. So there will be another label added to the current list, 'International Relations'.

I am also exploring the idea of blogging about finance and financial services and the business world in general, since I am going to need to learn about the Indian business scene as well.

These two new areas will definitely increase the scope of my blog way beyond its current theme. Let's see how the blog shapes up from here.

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D-13 Super Dense Crush Load!

I came across this video that shows the typical peak time rush in the local trains of Bombay. To imagine six million people travel on Bombay's Suburban Train System in these inhuman conditions, including me.

The railways have a word for it, the Super Dense Crush Load! That is 15-16 persons per square metre cramped inside the 40 year old rakes!



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Answers.com Creative Writing Challenge Entry - Not on the Dark Side

"Here, senor," the burly waiter placed a bowl of white gazpacho on my table. I was not even looking at him, my thoughts were somewhere else. I stared at my own reflection in the window pane of the La Torres restaurant. The street was dimly lit and the drizzle that began half-an-hour ago or so did not show any signs of letting up. I could not see very far and with a heavy sigh, turned to my waiter.

"Will that be all, senor? "

" Yeah," I did not have the appetite to drown all the soup. I was anxious, and alone.

The TV in the restaurant was showing a documentary on the Lucasfilm opus , Star Wars. The fug atmosphere of the small budget eatery was alive with talk of characters from the movies; Princess Leia, Han Solo and of course, Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. Everyone had a favourite, me too. I liked Chewbacca, the simian pal of Han, and co-pilot of the Millennium Falcon.

'I am not going to be on the Dark Side of the Force,' I kept telling myself, while I watched it. It made me feel better.

I remember I stole money from my father's wallet to bunk school and watch Star Wars. Billy from the garage down the road saw me at the theatre and squealed on me to my father, in spite of me offering to wash cars for free for a week after school to make him keep quiet. The image of the imposing frame of my father as he peered down at me through his bloodshot eyes on the stoop, when I came back home that day, still gives me horripilation.

Apart from the relationship I shared with my parents, my salad days were wonderful.

I had never stolen anything before that. Or after, until now.

Casey, my contact came in soon after I had finished the soup. He smiled at me; I did not like it. I didn't know whether he was proud of me or just enjoyed seeing me all edgy about the whole thing.

"Have you scanned the files?"

I was taken aback, I thought he'd like to be more secretive about my 'mission'. But I could understand his excitement. The papers that could prove the embezzlement of campaign funds for Senator Henry Lawson's re-election campaign by his own cronies would make a great scoop for The Cincinnati Enquirer, and the agog look on his face could tell that he saw this as a springboard for his career. Though I knew I was not quite close to Senator Henry, I had to do something to stop the activities of the proverbial fifth-column in the Ohio state administration, headed by John Wessels, before they could jeopardise the chances of one of Ohio's finest leaders in recent times. The fund-raisers would not be too happy with him if they find out their money was not in good hands and his image would take a mighty blow.

Sadly, I was one of them. But Maggie's words had stung and she really made me feel ashamed of what I had done. No, I am not going to be a part of this, I said. The truth had to be brought out. But I needed help.

Casey was a very bright reporter, and though a greenhorn in the field of investigative journalism, I knew he had his father's talents. He had recently investigated a case of a suspect involved in a parking lot shootout and tracked down the absconding criminal before the cops could even get down to checking him out. The lad sure had it in his genes.

"Yes I have," I handed him the USB drive.

"This will go a long way to help Senator Henry."

I nodded. Anything to help a good man.

We did not talk much in the restaurant. Casey grabbed a tortilla de patatas and we both headed out of there.

"Well I gotta split, I need to work on this. Thanks a lot, Hal!"

I saw him cross the street and disappear behind the new Thai restaurant that had opened opposite La Torres. It looked really grand, with the miniature pagoda next to its foyer, that reminded me of the one I saw at Kew Gardens when I went to visit Becky in London last fall.

'I'll have to tell Casey to meet me there the next time,' I thought.
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Bombay's Idols

" A God who let us prove his existence would be an idol."

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Tomorrow is Ganesh Chaturthi in India. The festival is celebrated in large parts of India, but it has its roots in Maharashtra where it is celebrated with most zest. People bring the Ganesh idols home where they offer prayers and perform aartis to ask for protection for the rest of the year from their beloved lord, Vighnaharta. It is said to be Bombay's favourite festival and for the ten or so days for which the festival lasts, the Ganesh idols that are part of the community mandals are a treat to watch with many families taking time out to visit the nearby pandals to catch the various idols in their full grandeur. The community Ganesh festival was initiated as a festival of the masses by Lokmanya Tilak at the height of India's freedom struggle to bring the local community together as part of his vision for a united and integrated India. The concept of community idols that everyone can visit has lasted for over a hundred years now, with the number of such community Ganesh idols increasing every year. But the festival has lost its sheen over the years and has come under the scanner from many quarters, especially environmentalists and the law.

The idols, thousands of them, are immersed in water bodies, with hundreds of them being immersed in the Arabian Sea along Bombay's various beaches on the last day of the festival. Earlier when the festival was more about development of community consciousness and less about pomp and 'my idol beats yours', the idols were made of mud and clay and painted with natural colours and their immersion in the Sea, though damaged the environment to an extent, did not actually pollute as such and also the number of immersions were less. These days the idols are made of Plaster of Paris which is non-biodegradable and are also painted with synthetic oil paints to make them look snazzy. The craftsmanship of the sculptors and the painters is really marvellous and many of the idols are breathtaking. But when they are immersed in the Sea, the Plaster of Paris does not assimilate with the mud on the sea bed and also the synthetic paints do not dissolve in water and release toxic chemicals that severely damage the environment along the coasts. And we are talking tons of Plaster of Paris! The beaches look a horrible place the morning after and one can find many dead fish washed up the beach. The immersions spell murder for the aquatic life along the coast. Already Bombay's coastal waters are quite polluted as the sewage water released into them is not treated as per international standards though recent reports suggest that the quality of sea water has improved over the last few years and plans are also in place for the Mumbai Sewage Disposal Project that seeks to treat the water released into the sea effectively.

Another dark side of the festival is the hooliganism by members of the mandals who visit nearby households for 'vargani' or contribution towards the expenses of hosting the idol for the period of the festival. Those who do not pay a certain amount which they seek are many a times abused and sometimes the mandal members also resort to extortion and plunder when someone tries to shoo them away. The contributions should be strictly on a voluntary basis and such acts of violence in the name of celebration should be clipped immediately by cutting these mandals to size. The mandals are also known to steal electricity from the nearby housing colonies to light the pandals.

The festival can certainly be made more environment friendly and the mandals law abiding. The maximum size of the idols should be limited and environment friendly materials and colours should be encouraged.

Have a safe and fun-filled Ganesh festival!

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Losing it

"Education is hanging around until you've caught on." ~ Robert Frost

Well, I had a bitter-sweet end to the last week. I did win a round of the Math Quiz I attended at Royal College at Mira Road, but came back empty handed from the seminar-presentation competition. I am not proud of the trophy I won because the round I won was probably the easiest and I don't think it deserved a special prize separately. I guess I lost the previous round based on geometry by a whisker. I knew in my bones that I would ace that round 'coz geometry was my favourite subject in school. We had a geometry paper in ninth and tenth grades. In ninth I fell in love with that subject and I was extremely good at it, I topped my class in that subject. In tenth I had decided that I am not going to tank a single mark in that subject, and I didn't. In the later exams I scored full marks in all the prelims and even the Secondary School Certificate Examination, the boards. I am quite proud of those marks and I still remember the last four questions in geometry. I cracked them with quite an ease.

But I feel very bad about losing the seminar-presentation competition. Our college had sent two teams and I represented one team; and we deserved both the first and second prize. My friend Anand and I were the first two to present and we presented our topics, Construction of an ordered field that is not Archimedean and the Brachistochrone Problem, extremely well and were quite sure that we would win. The others were quite pedestrian in the way they presented their topics and many were not even suited for the undergraduate level. Too many of them were quite elementary like Colouring in Graph Theory and Array Sorting. They could not even answer the questions asked by the judges. We felt that those who won did not deserve to win at all and none of them could even match the breadth of our knowledge of math. They were not even good with their speech articulation. It was so bad. But we lost. Fuck!

But I guess that just reflects the state of education of our degree colleges here in Bombay and elsewhere in Maharashtra. And the syllabus stresses more on the rigours of pure mathematics. Many people cannot cope up with the abstract approach to mathematics at the undergraduate level. There is a talk that the University is going to revamp the syllabus and make it more application oriented. Which means it is going to be more in the area of applied mathematics rather than pure maths. But this means that students who wish to pursue research will have it very difficult studying beyond the syllabus. I think it would be better if the university comes up with two separate degrees in pure and applied mathematics. The applied math degree could be more industry and job oriented and the pure math degree could be more research oriented. The papers in the first year should have mix of both, so students can choose which degree to pursue based on their aptitude for research which could be examined on the basis of a university level examination. I just hope the guys on the Board of Studies for Mathematics do not screw around with the education.

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Orphans of the Economy?

So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
Blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

from Wish You were Here
by Pink Floyd

A few days ago, Mumbai Police ATS announced that it has a list of code names of a hundred Naxalite operatives in the city. They are staying here under different aliases. Their primary job is to recruit urban youth and spread their 'ideology' among the more affluent class of people in the country.

This is a growing concern among security agencies, that the Naxals are spreading their wings to the cities. Earlier the Naxalite movement was restricted only to the more backward regions of the country, namely, districts in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and Bihar. The Naxal movement in the country has come a long way from being a peasent revolt to a full blown internal security threat to the integrity of the country. The banned Communist Party of India(Maoist) that was formed by the merger of People's War Group and Maoist Communist Centre, in 2004, has been declared a terrorist group by the Government of India. Many of its leaders have been arrested and charged with sedition.

The Naxalite Movement has gone astray from its roots in the peasant revolution that took place in Naxalbari district of West Bengal. The Times of India carried a report recently that said the young generation does not know much about that historic event that occurred in their district and memories of Charu Muzumdar and Kanu Sanyal are fading fast. The revolution that was supposed to take over India's cities has just not seen the future these erstwhile leaders dreamed of. India has moved a long way since then. It has become more violent and news of security personnel being killed in land mine blasts and skirmishes with local cops, attacks on local police stations are commonplace these days. Our Prime Minister has said that Naxalism is the single biggest internal security threat India faces.

And that is so true. But what can be done?


We need to inspect why Naxalism in the country has grown to the kind of proportions it has over the years. Many people, especially farmers mainly on subsistence agriculture and tribals have been overlooked by the state in its policies. Most of the laws which were passed were unfair to the tribals who claim to hold a natural right over the forests. The failed and corrupt administration in the districts has not helped either. The fruits of development never reached these people, they were displaced; their lands taken away for industries and the compensation offered to them was meagre. They were easy prey for the Naxalites that recruited them on the basis of their propaganda which has promised an uprising that will sweep through the country and the red flag will fly high over Delhi.

Do these guys really think this will happen? Do they really believe that they can ever match the Indian Defence Forces? If the Government puts its mind to it, they can be smoked out of their hideouts. The movement is sponsored by funds from sympathisers and the drug trail. The Naxals also have close ties with other separatist groups such as United Liberation Front of Asom. Though the problems faced by the section of people who have joined the movement are genuine and given a choice, would never pick up a gun and kill. They are too naive to realise that the people they take orders from are indeed millionaires and have little to lose if the movement fails; which it will in all certainty. What will happen is that the tribals and farmers will lose sons and daughters to a cause that was never going to see through time. Already the Indian Government is hitting back and in places like Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, the Naxalite movement has been contained to a great extent. This will happen in other states too, eventually.

The best way to end Naxalism is of course connecting with the people who have been influenced by the anti-state propaganda. This has already been started on a small scale. In the Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra, cops have taken up the role of teachers and are teaching schoolchildren. Also money is being offered to informers of Naxal activities and for surrendering arms. This, along with combing operations in the forests, has helped to bring Naxalism under check in Maharashtra. These initiatives need to be replicated in other affected districts to bring an end to this 'revolution'.

I am sure Naxalism will be eliminated from the country. But it will be a bloody war against the Naxals and there will be heavy casualties on both sides. But we have no choice, the Naxalite movement needs to be crushed; and we have every reason to believe that it will be.

Orphans of the economy? Enemies of the state more appropriately. But the saddest part is that they are our own people.

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D-12 Ouch!

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow."
~ Albert Einstein

I have been a bit busy for two weeks in a row. Last week, my friend Gaurav and I participated in an Inter-collegiate Mathematics Quiz at HR College in Bombay. We got kicked out of the first round which were written eliminations(Ouch!). Can't blame us though, many questions were based on direct application of formulas in statistics; they were quite simple but neither of us had studied statistics in college, so we could not solve those questions. What was worse, the other teams from our college lost too, and many of them had studied statistics for two years. Having said that, it was a dismal performance and I'd like to forget that.

I have had a mixed record in such inter-school and inter-college competitions. The best one I participated in was a science quiz organised by the Nehru Planetarium in Bombay. Our team went as far as the semi-finals but we lost in a tie-breaker. Another quiz did not go as well and we were booted out in the written eliminations.

The one experience I cherish the most was an essay competition held for schools in our suburb. I was in the seventh grade then(that was seven years ago!), and I wrote an essay on how the internet is changing lives of millions across the world. Internet was the buzzword then, and with the dotcom boom in full swing, it was a red hot topic for a killer essay. I have always been fond of writing and still feel like taking part in all the essay competitions that come around. But then, for some reason or the other, I tend to lose interest. I know I should not, because writing an engaging essay is a talent few are blessed with and even if you have just a flair for essays, the skills can be honed into a potent talent.

One of my dreams is to have a centrepiece article on The Times of India's edit page. As things stand now, I am nowhere close to being someone who The Times might invite to write an article for. But the dream lives.

I face two intercollegiate competitions; one where I have to participate in a quiz and another where I have to make a presentation on the Brachistochrone Problem that was solved using calculus of variations. I am not too sure about how I'll fare in the quiz, but I do want to make a very good presentation. I do have good communication skills and speech articulation but the real art lies in making even someone who has not studied Mathematics up to the undergraduate level understand the beauty of the problem and its ingenious solution offered by Sir Isaac Newton.

Coming to Mathematics, I believe it is the first post that has said so much that is related to what I study in college here. I like math; it's cool and I am proud of the fact that it is the toughest subject we study at the undergraduate level in Bombay among courses in pure science. But I can't say I am a fan of the way it is taught to us. I can go on ranting about this, but that will make this post very long, so I'll save it for another.

I guess I have not been fair to my graduation subject, so I have decided to add a new label to the existing ones, 'Mathematics'. Now the posts labeled as 'Mathematics' will not have equations and open problems and geeky results or such things, but will probably be limited to just my experiences in studying this wonderful science.

Another new label for posts that will be on the blog is 'Actuarial Science'. I am a student of the Institute of Actuaries of India and though I have not cleared any of their papers, I am looking forward to clearing two, this November. It will also carry posts that will talk about my experiences in studying the course, taking those horribly difficult exams, news about the education and also jibes at our Institute...

Let's hope for the best!
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