Method 1 - Set surprise quizzes with humanly impossible time limits.
See it's very simple. A small problem that is modelled on a longer exam problem and is about one fourth its size requires about one fourth its time to solve. This much should be obvious. If the longer exam is 3 hours, the shorter one should be 45 minutes. This is simple division. If you give 15 minutes, nobody will be able to complete the paper. This is common sense. What does not make sense is why people so capable would choose to forego simple mathematics and common sense when trying to test students.
What exactly did you test today, WIMWI? My writing speed? Or the speed at which I can push numbers into my calculator? It couldn't be calibre, but maybe you don't even want to test that. It couldn't be learning (which is what you should ideally test) because apart from one minor detail, there was nothing in the case that could possibly involve any of us in any amount of thought. You aren't even trying to test us on our reactions to time pressure. Time pressure exists when one has to make a choice and prioritise - there was hardly a choice to be made today. Time pressure exists when you pose something that is possibly doable in a certain time with some extra effort and hence you can separate those who will put in that effort from those who won't. Today, the paper was not attemptable in 15 minutes. There was no time pressure - everyne knew that everyone would leave an incomplete answer sheet. Oh ya, the answer sheets. Financial statements teen or sheet keval ek. Bahut nainsaafi thi.
Granted, Financial Accounting is not rocket science, as people here are so fond of repeating. In fact, addition and subtraction based around one fundamental concept does not even match elementary physics, forget about rocket science. Yet, there have to be better ways of making a quiz more challenging than simply keeping a ridiculously low time limit. Yesterday, in the Quant test, you posed me a challenge I could be proud of solving. You posed us a challenge that drove many to desperation. Today, in FinAcc, you have caused no desperation - only indifference. I won't be happy if I do well, I won't be sad if I underperform. And to be sure, I am no believer in Karma Yoga or in the idea of the stithapragya man.
It's been a great four weeks WIMWI. But today, you have left me disappointed. I have no bile. I only have a smirk.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Two kinds of arguments
Ladies and gentlemen, presenting to you, the Argument by Assertion. (Emphasis mine)
I used to tell them that the inherent “inconclusiveness property” of science doesn’t apply to my theory because free market fundamentalists are not so complicated like nature. I used to tell them that free market fundamentalists are “trivially simple” and there is only one property that defines them (unlike nature where you need to consider several parameters). This property is their stupidity. So, as I used to tell them, the essential “inconclusiveness property” of science need not apply to my theory about them. Today I came across an article by Czech Republic President, Vaclav Klaus, on Financial Times
The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced.
The scientists should help us and take into consideration the political effects of their scientific opinions. They have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions and how much they have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence.
Here you go guys and gals, reading this blog, this is (yet)^(infinity)th proof of the inherent stupidity of free market fundamentalists.
Decoded, this paragraph reads as follows.
I used to tell them I was right. So, as I used to tell them I was right. Today, I came across a POV that disagrees with mine. This is clear proof that I am right. I am right. Because I am right. So, I am right. You are wrong. Hence, I am right.
Also, presenting, the Argument from Ignorance. (Emphasis original)
I don’t know much about economics but even I know that you cannot make cross border comparisons of GDP because it doesn’t account for the local differences in the quality of food and other stuff (Update: lemme add here that it is true even with PPP considerations). Also, it is a known fact that India’s overpopulation is a big reason for the poor economic growth (refer to Thomas Malthus on this topic).
Yes, and hence we cannot conclude that the US is more prosperous than India because you know, cross border comparisons of GDP are not possible, because of differences in quality of food and stuff. I had heard of the phrase that every living man is the slave of some dead economist. I never knew that dead doomsday economists would however be invoked to assert that 1+1 is actually 2.
I have now re-decided. No more fisking, even. Unless it's on a matter of science, where this man presumably knows something at least.
I used to tell them that the inherent “inconclusiveness property” of science doesn’t apply to my theory because free market fundamentalists are not so complicated like nature. I used to tell them that free market fundamentalists are “trivially simple” and there is only one property that defines them (unlike nature where you need to consider several parameters). This property is their stupidity. So, as I used to tell them, the essential “inconclusiveness property” of science need not apply to my theory about them. Today I came across an article by Czech Republic President, Vaclav Klaus, on Financial Times
The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced.
The scientists should help us and take into consideration the political effects of their scientific opinions. They have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions and how much they have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence.
Here you go guys and gals, reading this blog, this is (yet)^(infinity)th proof of the inherent stupidity of free market fundamentalists.
Decoded, this paragraph reads as follows.
I used to tell them I was right. So, as I used to tell them I was right. Today, I came across a POV that disagrees with mine. This is clear proof that I am right. I am right. Because I am right. So, I am right. You are wrong. Hence, I am right.
Also, presenting, the Argument from Ignorance. (Emphasis original)
I don’t know much about economics but even I know that you cannot make cross border comparisons of GDP because it doesn’t account for the local differences in the quality of food and other stuff (Update: lemme add here that it is true even with PPP considerations). Also, it is a known fact that India’s overpopulation is a big reason for the poor economic growth (refer to Thomas Malthus on this topic).
Yes, and hence we cannot conclude that the US is more prosperous than India because you know, cross border comparisons of GDP are not possible, because of differences in quality of food and stuff. I had heard of the phrase that every living man is the slave of some dead economist. I never knew that dead doomsday economists would however be invoked to assert that 1+1 is actually 2.
I have now re-decided. No more fisking, even. Unless it's on a matter of science, where this man presumably knows something at least.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Of Free Speech & Bloggers
A very lazy vacation has meant some heavy philosophical theorising, and some blog-debates tht can only be considered splitting dead hairs (Don't tell me that I'm mixing metaphors, I know what I'm writing). For the benefit of the uninitiated, a short recap, in the order of chronology.
It began in all seriousness, with blogger no.1 calling the events in Baroda fascism, using the Wikipedia description of the term.
Sandeep naturally took offence, and took the fight to him. He replied with a post questioning Amit's choice of terms, and also the basic logic behind his(Amit's) criticism of the Baroda events. A lively discussion ensued in the comments section.
As that discussion was getting a little overlong, Sandeep continued that debate on another post of his blog. Here, crash- bang- drumroll, yours truly made an entry. Proving that we're all argumentative Indians, that debate reached 144 comments. Yessir, a dozen dozens. And it had already acquired philosophical nuances, with people questioning the basic notions of free speech and of freedom itself.
Gaurav then riled about how people should stop mangling quotes from his fave comic book. (Dude, Spidey? Seriously? ) He also did a little pattern finding, and found similiarities between Sandeep and D-cube.
D-cube then joined the fray, using the crutches of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who had once declared that freedom of speech did not include the right to scream fire in a crowded theatre. There was some action in the comments section.
Our man Amit then posted a rejoinder describing how the above formulation was flawed and how every human right must be seen as a property right. True to a phenomenon that I can only call libertarian link-o-mania, he invoked Murray Rothbard.
Blogger no.1 was not done yet. He then expanded on his views further, and claimed that all rights should derive from self-ownership, which at its heart is itself a property right.
And then, it happened. Nilu puked. Not that he hasn't puked on Amit before, but this time his puke just added clarified butter to the fire (Yes I translate from Hindi. Yes I am a vernie. Yes the specific 'clarified butter' is a billion times cooler than the genric, unimaginative 'fuel'. Yes Nilu pukes clarified butter.) Much to Nilu's chagrin, this fire was not in a crowded theatre that Amit sat in, but spread to his own comments section.
And then the unthinkable happened. After having chastised Amit for taking himself too seriously, Nilu, for a change, took himself seriously. This resulted. An excellent mix of oblique abstractions, pseud-effect and deep philosophy, Nilu even ended his post with a QED. I love QED.
Amit came back, armed with latin phrases of his own. And then much fun was had in the comments section. Avatram's venerable grandfather was discussed, as was Ronald Coase.
Neha Vishwanathan stumbled upon the entire episode and found it "incredibly amusing and interesting". Desipundit link was duly established. She mentioned Amit Varma, Recursive Hypocrisy, 54 comments and even Avatram's grandfather, but failed to take cognizance of the man who had in no small measure helped in taking that discussion to 54 comments. Rookie bloggers get no respect. Blogging superstardom thus still eludes me.
theothernilu, however, was suitably impressed. She made it a point to compliment my absolute mastery of propositional logic, though in a backhanded manner. I say I like backhands. (Much to Gasquetfan's chagrin, Federer easily has the best backhand.) A weekly Brahmeboodha Suryanarayana Iyer memorial coloumn was also established over at Recursive Hyposcrisy.
Last heard, Gaurav and Amit were furiously discussing over e-mail how best to cover up for Rothbard's theoretical holes when they next present the 'free speech as a property right' angle to the rest of us. D-cube had managed to find examples of speech that could be considered 'criminal intent to intimidate', reminding us of another boundary of 'free'.
The rest of the world, in the meanwhile, found time to do the usual things. Like getting laid. Bleh. I say discussing the philosophical origin of human rights is much more fun.
It began in all seriousness, with blogger no.1 calling the events in Baroda fascism, using the Wikipedia description of the term.
Sandeep naturally took offence, and took the fight to him. He replied with a post questioning Amit's choice of terms, and also the basic logic behind his(Amit's) criticism of the Baroda events. A lively discussion ensued in the comments section.
As that discussion was getting a little overlong, Sandeep continued that debate on another post of his blog. Here, crash- bang- drumroll, yours truly made an entry. Proving that we're all argumentative Indians, that debate reached 144 comments. Yessir, a dozen dozens. And it had already acquired philosophical nuances, with people questioning the basic notions of free speech and of freedom itself.
Gaurav then riled about how people should stop mangling quotes from his fave comic book. (Dude, Spidey? Seriously? ) He also did a little pattern finding, and found similiarities between Sandeep and D-cube.
D-cube then joined the fray, using the crutches of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who had once declared that freedom of speech did not include the right to scream fire in a crowded theatre. There was some action in the comments section.
Our man Amit then posted a rejoinder describing how the above formulation was flawed and how every human right must be seen as a property right. True to a phenomenon that I can only call libertarian link-o-mania, he invoked Murray Rothbard.
Blogger no.1 was not done yet. He then expanded on his views further, and claimed that all rights should derive from self-ownership, which at its heart is itself a property right.
And then, it happened. Nilu puked. Not that he hasn't puked on Amit before, but this time his puke just added clarified butter to the fire (Yes I translate from Hindi. Yes I am a vernie. Yes the specific 'clarified butter' is a billion times cooler than the genric, unimaginative 'fuel'. Yes Nilu pukes clarified butter.) Much to Nilu's chagrin, this fire was not in a crowded theatre that Amit sat in, but spread to his own comments section.
And then the unthinkable happened. After having chastised Amit for taking himself too seriously, Nilu, for a change, took himself seriously. This resulted. An excellent mix of oblique abstractions, pseud-effect and deep philosophy, Nilu even ended his post with a QED. I love QED.
Amit came back, armed with latin phrases of his own. And then much fun was had in the comments section. Avatram's venerable grandfather was discussed, as was Ronald Coase.
Neha Vishwanathan stumbled upon the entire episode and found it "incredibly amusing and interesting". Desipundit link was duly established. She mentioned Amit Varma, Recursive Hypocrisy, 54 comments and even Avatram's grandfather, but failed to take cognizance of the man who had in no small measure helped in taking that discussion to 54 comments. Rookie bloggers get no respect. Blogging superstardom thus still eludes me.
theothernilu, however, was suitably impressed. She made it a point to compliment my absolute mastery of propositional logic, though in a backhanded manner. I say I like backhands. (Much to Gasquetfan's chagrin, Federer easily has the best backhand.) A weekly Brahmeboodha Suryanarayana Iyer memorial coloumn was also established over at Recursive Hyposcrisy.
Last heard, Gaurav and Amit were furiously discussing over e-mail how best to cover up for Rothbard's theoretical holes when they next present the 'free speech as a property right' angle to the rest of us. D-cube had managed to find examples of speech that could be considered 'criminal intent to intimidate', reminding us of another boundary of 'free'.
The rest of the world, in the meanwhile, found time to do the usual things. Like getting laid. Bleh. I say discussing the philosophical origin of human rights is much more fun.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Shootout At Lokhandwala
I will not review this one. I will simply list ten reasons why you shouldn't watch it.
1) First of all, they got the tagline wrong. There's nothing called 'true rumours'. A rumour is, by definition, a story that may or may not be true. A true rumour is then, by definition, a true story. In fact, I believe that this usage of 'based on true rumours' instead of 'based on true stories' is itself a lame way to get out of the burden of realistic portrayal that a true- story based concept imposes. It sets the tone for everything that follows.
2) When one wants to portray real-life gangsters and the cops who fight them or collude with them, with a personal touch, one tries to go inside the lives that they have lived, the causual functions that made them the way they were, the dilemmas that they may have faced, and the rationalizations that helped them overcome these dilemmas. One does not go the 'ooohh look at him - walks like that, talks like that, dangles cigarettes, makes cool statements, recites Urdu poetry' way. When one goes that way, one aims to make a stylised timepass movie, like Dhoom 1 for instance. Realism and glamour mix like sugar and gasoline, with the same sputtering results. (quote courtesy, an Oct 1998 issue of Sportstar) Let's get this straight - encounters, moral dilemmas, divorces, job frustration etc are serious issues and when handled well can lead to great cinema. When reduced to 'I wear Ray Ban and keep two buttons open' style machismo, a movie bcomes mediocre forever.
3) When one wants to portray realism in cinema, one tries to get good actors. Suniel Shetty, Rohit Roy, and Arbaaz Khan are not good actors. There's only so much that Tusshar Kapoor can do. Sanjay Dutt and Amitabh Bachchan cannot elevate a movie by simply being there.
4) Ohh did I talk about acting in point 3. Vivek Oberoi must have the dubious distinction of the only actor who could never exceed what he did in his first performance. The man who excelled as Chandu in Company is such a pain as Maya Dolas that at times it became difficult to look at the screen. Doals was, by all accounts, a flamboyant gangster. With some gravity and attempt, it can be a career defining role for most actors. One does not even need to cut down on the stylistics. However, by focusing solely on the stylistics, Mr poodle-hair has devoided Dolas of any real on-screen menace. What a shame.
5) The license-quota-permit Raj is over. We get to see phoren films. And if you lift from them directly, we will call your bluff. For heaven's sake bollywood, stop filching. One does not lift the 'bite the pavement' scene from American History X directly. In fact, one (Hollywood or Bollywood) does not lift anything from an Ed Norton movie directly, simply because 99% actors are not worth the guy's pubic hair. Please refer back to Ajay Devgan's pathetic attempts at playing a fraudulently schizoid cold-blooded murderer in Deewangi. Go watch Primal Fear after that. You'll know what I mean.
6) Any Hindi film director who believes that roping in a couple of foreign chicas for one of the song/dance routines is a must, should be jailed for lack of imagination.
7) Someone needs to tell 'realistic' action directors that TV sets cannot be lifted and smashed that easily, and that residential houses do not have neatly arranged sets of five sharp impalers that you can use as a hangar for the villain's neck to delver final poetic justice. Also, the nonchalant lighting of a cigarette after fighting crime seems like a neat uidea, but is actually quite laughable.
8) When you get everything else incorrect, atleast get the fashion right. The fancy coloured canvas shoes that people wear these days is a recent phenomenon, en vogue for the last 2-3 years. So there's no way the gangster buwa could have been wearing the blue adidas canvas pair that he wears in the movie.
9) In a movie that is supposed to provide you edge of the seat thrills, if by the end all you can do is check out the shoes of the dead gangsters, the filmmaker's vision and execution have gone seriously awry.
10) I reserve the worst for the last. Emotional sentences do not make for great courtroom defence scenes. Good courtroom dramas are some of the best movies ever made - one only needs to look at A Few Good Men to see that this statement is objectively true. A defence lawyer who chastises his clients throughout his preparation and then launches a brilliant fact and analysis based defence makes for a great character. With tight editing, such an episode can even prove to be the focal point of a movie. Unfortunately, this movie was made by Apurva Lakhia, the guy who made Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost. I should have kept that in mind when I went to watch this. Shootout has got a terrible climax. Fortunately, it's short.
1) First of all, they got the tagline wrong. There's nothing called 'true rumours'. A rumour is, by definition, a story that may or may not be true. A true rumour is then, by definition, a true story. In fact, I believe that this usage of 'based on true rumours' instead of 'based on true stories' is itself a lame way to get out of the burden of realistic portrayal that a true- story based concept imposes. It sets the tone for everything that follows.
2) When one wants to portray real-life gangsters and the cops who fight them or collude with them, with a personal touch, one tries to go inside the lives that they have lived, the causual functions that made them the way they were, the dilemmas that they may have faced, and the rationalizations that helped them overcome these dilemmas. One does not go the 'ooohh look at him - walks like that, talks like that, dangles cigarettes, makes cool statements, recites Urdu poetry' way. When one goes that way, one aims to make a stylised timepass movie, like Dhoom 1 for instance. Realism and glamour mix like sugar and gasoline, with the same sputtering results. (quote courtesy, an Oct 1998 issue of Sportstar) Let's get this straight - encounters, moral dilemmas, divorces, job frustration etc are serious issues and when handled well can lead to great cinema. When reduced to 'I wear Ray Ban and keep two buttons open' style machismo, a movie bcomes mediocre forever.
3) When one wants to portray realism in cinema, one tries to get good actors. Suniel Shetty, Rohit Roy, and Arbaaz Khan are not good actors. There's only so much that Tusshar Kapoor can do. Sanjay Dutt and Amitabh Bachchan cannot elevate a movie by simply being there.
4) Ohh did I talk about acting in point 3. Vivek Oberoi must have the dubious distinction of the only actor who could never exceed what he did in his first performance. The man who excelled as Chandu in Company is such a pain as Maya Dolas that at times it became difficult to look at the screen. Doals was, by all accounts, a flamboyant gangster. With some gravity and attempt, it can be a career defining role for most actors. One does not even need to cut down on the stylistics. However, by focusing solely on the stylistics, Mr poodle-hair has devoided Dolas of any real on-screen menace. What a shame.
5) The license-quota-permit Raj is over. We get to see phoren films. And if you lift from them directly, we will call your bluff. For heaven's sake bollywood, stop filching. One does not lift the 'bite the pavement' scene from American History X directly. In fact, one (Hollywood or Bollywood) does not lift anything from an Ed Norton movie directly, simply because 99% actors are not worth the guy's pubic hair. Please refer back to Ajay Devgan's pathetic attempts at playing a fraudulently schizoid cold-blooded murderer in Deewangi. Go watch Primal Fear after that. You'll know what I mean.
6) Any Hindi film director who believes that roping in a couple of foreign chicas for one of the song/dance routines is a must, should be jailed for lack of imagination.
7) Someone needs to tell 'realistic' action directors that TV sets cannot be lifted and smashed that easily, and that residential houses do not have neatly arranged sets of five sharp impalers that you can use as a hangar for the villain's neck to delver final poetic justice. Also, the nonchalant lighting of a cigarette after fighting crime seems like a neat uidea, but is actually quite laughable.
8) When you get everything else incorrect, atleast get the fashion right. The fancy coloured canvas shoes that people wear these days is a recent phenomenon, en vogue for the last 2-3 years. So there's no way the gangster buwa could have been wearing the blue adidas canvas pair that he wears in the movie.
9) In a movie that is supposed to provide you edge of the seat thrills, if by the end all you can do is check out the shoes of the dead gangsters, the filmmaker's vision and execution have gone seriously awry.
10) I reserve the worst for the last. Emotional sentences do not make for great courtroom defence scenes. Good courtroom dramas are some of the best movies ever made - one only needs to look at A Few Good Men to see that this statement is objectively true. A defence lawyer who chastises his clients throughout his preparation and then launches a brilliant fact and analysis based defence makes for a great character. With tight editing, such an episode can even prove to be the focal point of a movie. Unfortunately, this movie was made by Apurva Lakhia, the guy who made Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost. I should have kept that in mind when I went to watch this. Shootout has got a terrible climax. Fortunately, it's short.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Back to the Blogosphere
Apologies, for the rather extended break. Among other things I was away to my home state, Bihar, for 10 days. Random fundaes and insights about that will follow soon. In the short time that I've been back, I've been drawn into a rather prolonged, and now boring, blog-debate here.
It is about the Baroda art controversy, and because of its inherent nature, the debate easily metamorphosised into one on freedom of speech and the validity of 'giving offence' as a yardstick of jurisprudence. There has been tremedous back and forth, and quite often the debate has descended into nothing more than name-calling, with me being guilty of the same. The basic positions are -
The Proposition : Freedom of speech cannot be absolute. Such derogatory portrayals with obvious malafide intent to offend cannot be left unprosecuted. Not everything is art - a judiciary guided by community standards should decide what is art and what isn't. Laws cannot be independent of the prevalent social mores - hence if something is offensive to most members of the community, it should be banned. There has to be deterrant, civil or criminal, against such abuses of freedom of expression.
The Opposition (represented in part by yours truly) : Offence is subjective, and hence cannot (should not) be a valid plank of jurisprudence. Wherever possible, laws should proceed from axiomatic definitions of morality - otherwise all we'll be left with is tyranny of the majority, which is unacceptable in a liberal democracy. It doesn't matter whether you or I think of something as art or not, or whethere we are offended by a particular portrayal - the artist in question cannot be jailed for this. The current social standards in India would mean that all nudes would have to be banned, something that even the proposition does not agree with. India's FoS laws are too vague - something like the First Amendment to the US constitution is required.
As an aside, I have now decided that whenever I wish to discover new things about my identity and personality, I should post a comment on something controversial on that blog. This time, among other things I have been told, or it has been insinuated, that I am -
1) A communist woman in her 30s.
2) A pseudo-secular IT professional with too much time to kill.
3) A 45 year old man who pretends to be a student about to start grad school and also likes posting under the pseudonym Spartacus.
4) Someone whose knowledge of Hinduism is extremely weak.
5) A pseudo-liberal who fears that opposing Muslim bigotry will lead to loss of life or limb.
If you feel you need to ponder over the freedom of expression deal a little more yourself, do think about a couple of questions that I posed over there which did not get consistent or satisfactory replies.
1) I often wear a T-shirt of a metal band called Venom (the band that gave the Black metal genre its name through a song of theirs, though in my opinion most of their music was proto-thrash metal, not black metal). This T-shirt has an upturned cross with the number 666 written across it, signifying the loss of sanctity of the cross and the overpowering of god by the devil. (As a digression, the art-work is quite cool and subtle, not the in your face 'hell yeah, motherf****** metal rulezzzz satan rulezzzz' kinds.) This depiction would be blasphemous by orthodox christian standards. Technically, under section 295 of the IPC, I can be arrested for wearing this T-shirt. To quote from Arun jaitley's article in the Indian Express
Section 295 of the Indian Penal Code penalises any person who destroys, damages or defiles any object held sacred by any class of persons, with the intention of thereby insulting the sentiments of such class, or with the intention of such defilement being regarded as an insult to religion.
Do you think that I should be arrested for wearing that T-shirt? Do you think a legal system should have provisions under which I could be prosecuted for wearing it?
2) Given that the average Indian is likley to find ANY nude offensive, should we ban all nudes?
If your answer to both questions is yes, you would be consistent, but clearly in your society there would be zero artistic freedom. If you answer yes to one and no to the other, your stand is rather inconsistent and you need to check if by 'offensive to the average person' you simply mean 'offensive to me'. If you answer no to both, welcome to my side of the divide.
Now, blogger no. 1 and I were on the same side of the divide, with our man Amit coming under considerable fire for his ostensible hypocrisy. Now, anyone who reads his blog would know that this isn't true. However, today Amit linked to what he called an 'excellent' piece by some dude called Salil Tripathi. That piece contained this one mind-numbing paragraph
Indeed, Husain has painted several goddesses from the Hindu pantheon in the nude, including Saraswati, the goddess of learning, Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, and Durga, a martial goddess who slays demons. These are bold works that reshape our thinking about Hindu myths, revealing them in new light; they are not lewd drawings meant to titillate. His nudes delineate the body in sharp lines, elevating it to an abstract realm, suggesting the formlessness of divinity
Excuse me, but what? This paragraph, ladies and gentlemen, defines the term pseudo-secular. Look, I believe in nearly absolute freedom of expression. In my legal system, Hussain's works will not be banned, he will not be legally prosecuted, and those who vandalized his works will be behind the bars. That does not however mean that Hussain is not a bigot. The man did not take down any of the nude paintings of the Hindu godesses, yet took down Meenaxi from theatres simply because some Muslim groups made some noise about how Allah being referred to as the-divine-light in some song or sequence of the movie was against Islamic beliefs. A friend recently informed me that when MFH was asked by Shekhar Gupta in Walk the Talk if he would ever be able to draw an offensive portrayal of the Prophet Mohammad, the old man had to nearly be physically restrained from reacting violently.
Also, Mr Tripathi, "they are not lewd drawings meant to titillate" is a subjective judgement, as subjective as the judgement of those who claim that the portrayal is malicious and offensive to Hindus. If Mr Tripathi was a true FoS believer, he would have said that EVEN if Mr hussain's paintings titilate or offend some pople, they should not be banned. In that piece, he(Salil Tripathi) comes out sounding like nothing but an apologist for M F Hussain who claims to understand Hindu culture better than anybody else. The deal is very simple - I have no doubt in my mind that Maqbool Fida Hussain, whtever his artistic merit may be, is a bigoted man. His works should still not be liable for criminal (or civil) prosecution.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Of conspiracy theories & two rupee coins
Surely you've heard about the controversy surrounding the two rupee coin. No, I don't mean the controversy that since it resembles the 1 rupee coin so much in shape, the blind may not be able to figure out the difference. Such details are piffling - we must concern ourselves with something of far greater impoartance, namely the communal agenda that the Congress is apparently pursuing. Yes, a communal agenda through a goddamn metal coin. As the great philosopher of Bollywood, Anand Raj Anand, once sang - "It happens only in India".
So, one gentleman found that the new coin resembles the coin issued by St Louis the Pious in the Ninth century - cross with four dots et al. He wrote an article expressing his views. The article included this little gem
It’s the ruling Congress which is pursuing communal agenda in virtually every sphere, from social, political, economic, military to now in national currency.
Our blogger no. 1 posted something about the silliness of such claims. He was taken to task by another blogger, who accused him of being politically correct, and a heated discussion ensued in the comments section. So when I stumbled upon this controversy, I decided to finally take a closer look at the damn coin.
I could see no cross. I saw two parallel lines close by, intersected at a 90 degree angle by two other close parallel lines. Sure, the cross looks something like that too. However, I know of only two crosses that are exactly the same on all four sides (i.e., they do not have an extended leg section) - the Maltese cross, and the aforementioned St Louis the Pious cross. Both of these crosses, like other crosses, have closed ends on the four sides, and the ends bulge a little. The motif on our coin has no such ends. My engineer mind saw a figure that was symmetrical with an angle of symmetry as 90 degrees. My I've-been-reading-too-much-postmodernist-feminist-crap-these-days-and-I-want-to-be-funny-about-it mind saw four phalluses about to penetrate a centre. (You do know that any linear/cylindrical structure is a phallus right? If you don't, shame on you. You are a stooge of the patriarchy) My Hindu mind saw four dots and was reminded of the Swastika.
Now, as I see it, the opposition to the "communal nature" of the coin has only two arguments.
1. The coin is indeed communal - For this to be true, one would have to assume that the RBI has absolutely sold out to the government, the government has absolutely sold out to Sonia Gandhi, and Sonia Gandhi is a fanatically zealot christian. One would also have to assume that such a motif could actually enable conversions or truly offend another religion. In my book, that's one assumption too many.
2. The coin may not be part of a communal agenda, but a secular country has no business involving itself with a religious motif. To which I say, I see no damn religious motifs. I was not even aware of a cross with four dots before this but I was aware of the Swastika. Hence, I saw the dots as the Swastika dots. I could see pure geometrical figures. With some imagination I could also see four roads and a cross-road, and like I've mentioned before, four penises. But a christian cross, not really. Not unless we assume that every figure with a line intersected at the centre by another perpendicular line is a christian cross.
I could have tried to explain points 1 and 2 above to those worthies debating the communal agenda of the cross. I could have explained how perceptions colour observations, how motifs and symbols are largely in the mind, how one sees what one wants to see. But that seemed too boring, not to mention futile. Hence, I wrote this -
The four dots on the four sides of the cross suggest something else to me - I see the Shubh-Labh swastika dots. I also see four phallic structures, all heading towards a common centre that is about to be penetrated against its own will. Clearly, this cross is the evil design of the Hindu patriarchy.
The responses were brilliant. The only guy who seemed to get the joke replied with a brilliant post about how it was the evil design of patriarchy, but the Muslim one and not the Hindu one. Others concluded that I was a "typical wannabe contrarian bong" and someone who has 'learnt Hinduism from American Indologists" and hence "holds his penis when he crosses a temple". One sentence revealed more about the prejudices of these guys than hours of debating would have, and how much they actually knew about India and Hinduism was unnravelled beautifully. I was mighty pleased.
And so, in the spirit of conspiracy theories, I decided to do a little more pattern finding. I had another epiphany. Dear readers, I hereby announce that mathematics is a christian conspiracy. As Nilu would say - think deeply.
Random Wow : Speaking of foreign Indologists, there's only one I would recommend. Anyone with the least bit of interest in ancient Indian history as told from an unbiased, non-patronising, wonder-eyed, yet rational, objective and scientific perspective would get hold of A L Basham's magnum opus 'The Wonder That Was India' and read every word of it.
So, one gentleman found that the new coin resembles the coin issued by St Louis the Pious in the Ninth century - cross with four dots et al. He wrote an article expressing his views. The article included this little gem
It’s the ruling Congress which is pursuing communal agenda in virtually every sphere, from social, political, economic, military to now in national currency.
Our blogger no. 1 posted something about the silliness of such claims. He was taken to task by another blogger, who accused him of being politically correct, and a heated discussion ensued in the comments section. So when I stumbled upon this controversy, I decided to finally take a closer look at the damn coin.
I could see no cross. I saw two parallel lines close by, intersected at a 90 degree angle by two other close parallel lines. Sure, the cross looks something like that too. However, I know of only two crosses that are exactly the same on all four sides (i.e., they do not have an extended leg section) - the Maltese cross, and the aforementioned St Louis the Pious cross. Both of these crosses, like other crosses, have closed ends on the four sides, and the ends bulge a little. The motif on our coin has no such ends. My engineer mind saw a figure that was symmetrical with an angle of symmetry as 90 degrees. My I've-been-reading-too-much-postmodernist-feminist-crap-these-days-and-I-want-to-be-funny-about-it mind saw four phalluses about to penetrate a centre. (You do know that any linear/cylindrical structure is a phallus right? If you don't, shame on you. You are a stooge of the patriarchy) My Hindu mind saw four dots and was reminded of the Swastika.
Now, as I see it, the opposition to the "communal nature" of the coin has only two arguments.
1. The coin is indeed communal - For this to be true, one would have to assume that the RBI has absolutely sold out to the government, the government has absolutely sold out to Sonia Gandhi, and Sonia Gandhi is a fanatically zealot christian. One would also have to assume that such a motif could actually enable conversions or truly offend another religion. In my book, that's one assumption too many.
2. The coin may not be part of a communal agenda, but a secular country has no business involving itself with a religious motif. To which I say, I see no damn religious motifs. I was not even aware of a cross with four dots before this but I was aware of the Swastika. Hence, I saw the dots as the Swastika dots. I could see pure geometrical figures. With some imagination I could also see four roads and a cross-road, and like I've mentioned before, four penises. But a christian cross, not really. Not unless we assume that every figure with a line intersected at the centre by another perpendicular line is a christian cross.
I could have tried to explain points 1 and 2 above to those worthies debating the communal agenda of the cross. I could have explained how perceptions colour observations, how motifs and symbols are largely in the mind, how one sees what one wants to see. But that seemed too boring, not to mention futile. Hence, I wrote this -
The four dots on the four sides of the cross suggest something else to me - I see the Shubh-Labh swastika dots. I also see four phallic structures, all heading towards a common centre that is about to be penetrated against its own will. Clearly, this cross is the evil design of the Hindu patriarchy.
The responses were brilliant. The only guy who seemed to get the joke replied with a brilliant post about how it was the evil design of patriarchy, but the Muslim one and not the Hindu one. Others concluded that I was a "typical wannabe contrarian bong" and someone who has 'learnt Hinduism from American Indologists" and hence "holds his penis when he crosses a temple". One sentence revealed more about the prejudices of these guys than hours of debating would have, and how much they actually knew about India and Hinduism was unnravelled beautifully. I was mighty pleased.
And so, in the spirit of conspiracy theories, I decided to do a little more pattern finding. I had another epiphany. Dear readers, I hereby announce that mathematics is a christian conspiracy. As Nilu would say - think deeply.
Random Wow : Speaking of foreign Indologists, there's only one I would recommend. Anyone with the least bit of interest in ancient Indian history as told from an unbiased, non-patronising, wonder-eyed, yet rational, objective and scientific perspective would get hold of A L Basham's magnum opus 'The Wonder That Was India' and read every word of it.
Friday, April 06, 2007
In Which I Am Disappointed
Annie Zaidi has finally lost it. There goes one of the few hopes I had from the feminist side of affairs.
I think that men have a right to 'look' if we happen to be in their line of vision. But they do not have a right to assume that a woman is available (even if she is stark naked), or open to insults, or that she will appreciate their admiration and attention. Unwelcome attention will simply provoke defensive-aggressive behaviour. And every woman has the right to define her own boundaries of (un)acceptable behaviour, and to defend those boundaries as she sees fit.
Indeed. And every man has the right to blow off the head of any other guy who calls him a prick. As also the duty to divine the limits of acceptable behavious for any woman he might see anywhere. There is no need for any kind of consensus on this - on differentiating between name calling, lewd comments and groping. No, it must be absolutely left to each individual. And a man has the right to look only in his "line of vision". Incidentally, all people , at all times, look only in their line of vision. Or is she suggesting that a man's "line of vision" be static?
It had been happening for some time. Ever since the attempts to replicate Arundhati Roy in form and content started happening. One-word paragraphs. Stream-of-consciousness images. I kept reading her - because she knows the heartland, because she writes about things people don't bother about. But this ??
Apologies to the sisters I offended by my opinions earlier. I stand corrected, and wiser.
References to "sisters" should be disallowed unless you're Beyonce in a hot music video. (Lil Kim would do too, it's just that she doesn't make any music worth tolerating even for the video.)
Aman feels this one is a great blogger. I've read her - erudite but far too biased. And, over-reliant on the term "dehumanizing". As well as on caricatures of typical desi grad students who have probably stopped existing outside of low-budget NRI movies. She finds the concept and the activity of strip clubs "dehumanizing". My thought process about this is -
1) Even if one doesn't know the term "dehumanizing", everyone has an instinctive understanding of what counts as "dehumanizing". The fact that strippers prefer stripping to some other profession they could have gone into says something(I am not talking about those who are being forced to do anything against their wishes - that is coercion and is a crime under every legal system in the world).
2) A stripper may then choose stripping to one or more of the following reasons - a) she enjoys that b) it makes her good money, or c) it makes her a moderate amount of money but she doesn't have the skills to make better money elsewhere. Case a is a no-brainer. Case b and c imply that the stripper chooses the option of getting touched by unknown men over choosing poverty. Which is to say that in her value system, poverty is more dehumanizing than random male contact. Why should anyone call a strip-club dehumanizing then?
Random plugging - Aman has begun writing. Have you checked him out yet? Crisp style, intelligent humour, tangy opinions. I likes.
I think that men have a right to 'look' if we happen to be in their line of vision. But they do not have a right to assume that a woman is available (even if she is stark naked), or open to insults, or that she will appreciate their admiration and attention. Unwelcome attention will simply provoke defensive-aggressive behaviour. And every woman has the right to define her own boundaries of (un)acceptable behaviour, and to defend those boundaries as she sees fit.
Indeed. And every man has the right to blow off the head of any other guy who calls him a prick. As also the duty to divine the limits of acceptable behavious for any woman he might see anywhere. There is no need for any kind of consensus on this - on differentiating between name calling, lewd comments and groping. No, it must be absolutely left to each individual. And a man has the right to look only in his "line of vision". Incidentally, all people , at all times, look only in their line of vision. Or is she suggesting that a man's "line of vision" be static?
It had been happening for some time. Ever since the attempts to replicate Arundhati Roy in form and content started happening. One-word paragraphs. Stream-of-consciousness images. I kept reading her - because she knows the heartland, because she writes about things people don't bother about. But this ??
Apologies to the sisters I offended by my opinions earlier. I stand corrected, and wiser.
References to "sisters" should be disallowed unless you're Beyonce in a hot music video. (Lil Kim would do too, it's just that she doesn't make any music worth tolerating even for the video.)
Aman feels this one is a great blogger. I've read her - erudite but far too biased. And, over-reliant on the term "dehumanizing". As well as on caricatures of typical desi grad students who have probably stopped existing outside of low-budget NRI movies. She finds the concept and the activity of strip clubs "dehumanizing". My thought process about this is -
1) Even if one doesn't know the term "dehumanizing", everyone has an instinctive understanding of what counts as "dehumanizing". The fact that strippers prefer stripping to some other profession they could have gone into says something(I am not talking about those who are being forced to do anything against their wishes - that is coercion and is a crime under every legal system in the world).
2) A stripper may then choose stripping to one or more of the following reasons - a) she enjoys that b) it makes her good money, or c) it makes her a moderate amount of money but she doesn't have the skills to make better money elsewhere. Case a is a no-brainer. Case b and c imply that the stripper chooses the option of getting touched by unknown men over choosing poverty. Which is to say that in her value system, poverty is more dehumanizing than random male contact. Why should anyone call a strip-club dehumanizing then?
Random plugging - Aman has begun writing. Have you checked him out yet? Crisp style, intelligent humour, tangy opinions. I likes.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Keywords
Was too lazy to hyper-link to various sources of my information for the last post. Most of it was stuff I already knew. But search for the following keywords on Google and Wikipedia - you should come across what I did.
1. Hunting ranches
2. Endangered Species Act
3. Game Reserves
4. "African Parks"
5. White rhinos + Africa
6. National parks + Africa
7. Wildlife conservation + US
8. Bison
9. Masai Mara
10. Nature Reserve
11. Hunting Safari
12. World Conservation Union
1. Hunting ranches
2. Endangered Species Act
3. Game Reserves
4. "African Parks"
5. White rhinos + Africa
6. National parks + Africa
7. Wildlife conservation + US
8. Bison
9. Masai Mara
10. Nature Reserve
11. Hunting Safari
12. World Conservation Union
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
The Reason
why journalists who fancy themselves as economists should not write - this. (Free registration is required).
Right now, our wild animals are a wasted resource. Only private companies can unlock their true value by turning them into a dollar-earning tourist attraction. Wild animals flourish in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana because these nations treat their wildlife as an industry. They give land owners full property rights over the wild animals that roam on their land. The rights include hunting the animals and selling their meat, hides and horns. Thousands of privately owned ranches in these countries have switched to wildlife and safari tourism. They attract wealthy Americans and Europeans who pay $500-1,000 a day to go on photographic or hunting safaris, which typically last two to three weeks. So we have a paradox. These countries have booming wild animal population. But India’s wildlife diminishes even though shooting a partridge is a criminal offence. The paradox stems from a simple reason. Landowners of southern Africa protect their wildlife because they earn from it.
Right, so that's the crux of the argument - privatise the wild animals and the land that contains them. So if I own some land and wild animals are an attraction, I have an incentive to keep these animals alive. Brilliant - I have an incentive to keep, say, elephants alive so that I can earn from them when others want to shoot and kill them, I keep them alive so that they can later be killed! And this is apparently a successful and sustainable conservation model, so, once a few of my elephants have been killed and their tusks etc sold, I still have an incentive to invest in the breeding and nourishment of more elephants, so much so that the number of new jumbo babies I want will exceed the number of jumbos I sell or allow to be hunted and their overall numbers will increase. Can someone please tell me how a business model in which you procure more goods than you sell (and bear in mind that procurement here entails life-long maintenance and care, while sale involves a one-time payment) so as to keep increasing the overall number in your inventory is feasible? The reason these private efforts have worked very simple - hunting of protected animals is not allowed in wildlife reserves, whether they are private or public. Private landowners in Africa protect these animals from hunting not because they can hunted later, but because hunting of those animals that are considered endangered is banned. They make their money by tourist safaris, not by allowing hunting. So yes, the article is blatantly wrong with its facts. Hunting licenses are offered only for those animals that are not considered critical, and poaching is still quite common.
India’s tigers or elephants die because nobody owns them. Tragically, their killing is encouraged by their protectors—government forest guards who split the Rs2 lakh or so a poacher makes from killing a tiger. Official figures tell the story. Between 1999 and 2004, India saw the poaching of 53 tigers, three lions, 179 elephants and 23 rhinos. Other official figures say that despite this, a natural increase has raised the number of these animals. These numbers are suspect.
Brilliant again. So the official figures that support my case are correct, while those that contradict my case are suspect. Subjective and selective use of data is the oldest trick in the game.
After all, 24 tigers were reported to roam the Sariska game sanctuary in Rajasthan in 1997. But a recheck two years ago found that not a single tiger remained. Could the misreporting apply to other reserves? Perhaps yes. Tiger numbers are compiled by the very forest departments which connive with poachers. Depressingly, half of India’s tiger population of around 3,642 is found in India’s worst-governed states such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa. So, the longer wild animals are safeguarded by the Indian state, the closer they’ll get to extinction.
Once you have pronounced judgement - "the very forest departments that connive with poachers", why even bother substantiating your argument. If conniving with criminals is the be-all and end-all of government departments, there is no case whatsoever for the very existence of a government.
Nelson Mandela acknowledged that his poor HIV-stricken continent didn’t have the resources to save its priceless wildlife. Today, four of South Africa’s game reserves are run by Africa Parks, a private company owned by a Dutch conservationist. The experiment has been so successful that the company has been approached by several other African nations to run their game parks. Kenya has also given charge of one-third of its Masai Mara game reserve to a private management firm, Mara Conservancy.
Listen, these parks have been given to wildlife conservationists dammit, not to ranchers who allow hunting on these premises. They are private yes, but not private in the sense of 'come hold property and do what you like with it, find an incentive and conserve wildlife'. For a conservationist, conservation is an end in itself, not the by-product of a business incentive. Once the goal of conservation is considered paramount, the business incentives are created around it by the way of tourism.
Wildlife remains when it’s self-supporting. As an African saying goes, “If it pays, it stays.” Rhinos flourish in South Africa because South Africans buy, sell, breed and ship them as if they were racehorses. A white rhino there can sell for more than $30,000. Private lands in Zambia hold more big game than state-owned lands. Wildlife flourishes so much in the US that the state earned over $1 billion in 2000 from selling 15 million hunting licences and 30 million fishing licences to outdoor-loving Americans. Thanks to sustainable wildlife policies, the wolf and the bison have made such a comeback that their hunting is now allowed in America. Texas has some 500 hunting ranches stocked with all kinds of exotic species. Hunters pay $8,500 for killing one big animal. It’s very sad, virtually tame animals being shot by somebody who wants a trophy on a wall. But if that ‘hunting’ wasn’t allowed, nobody would even stock those animals.
Juvenile mix-up of cause and effect. The hunting of bisons has been allowed because they have made a comeback and are no longer endangered. The hunting is the effect of the comeback, not the cause of it. The "sustainable wildlife policies" that saved the bison included banning its killing. In any case, only those states have allowed bison-hunting where they have grown so much in numbers that culling is required to maintain a target population. Such culling happens in India as well, for eg. in the case of Nilgai in Gujarat. Those private parks in Botswana that hold big game do not allow them to be hunted. US hands out licenses for killing non-endangered animals and fishes, not for endangered animals. There are 11,000 remaining white rhinos in Africa, of which 5,000 are found in the Kruger National Park which is owned and managed by the SA government. As white rhinos are considered endangered and protected, the only sale that happens is between private individuals who already run and manage the private parks in Africa - which is to say that the sale and all is from one nature park to another, from one conservationist to another. Texas ranches do not have indigenous "exotic species" that are allowed to be hunted. Those exotics that are not protected have been brought in from outside the US (the Barasingha, for e.g) and the Us thus has no intention of conserving them in the first place. Of course, as a journalist, Mr. Kala is not required to concern himself with the details of the matter.
India’s wildlife vanishes also because the Indian state has no expertise in managing it. Maintaining a wildlife balance requires special knowledge. For example, one grown elephant eats 200 kg of vegetation a day and a herd can devastate an area. If the elephants rise in number, should they be culled, sterilized or relocated? Which IAS officer will know the answer?
Mr Kala has not heard of the Indian Forest Service apparently. A mere technicality, no doubt, in his mind. As of today the Indian government employs more than 1500 officers in the IFS and many more in the state services, who specialise in precisely this kind of knowledge. I know, my father is one of them. They (the IFS guys) also tend to know lots of other such things that are related, for e.g., what is the sustainabale ratio of blackbucks to predators in a conserved area, what is the correct canopy cover that has to be maintained in a dry deciduous forest that acts as the habitat of the Asiatic Lion (Gir), what is the sustainable amount of timber and non-timber forest produce that can be extracted from a wet deciduous forest without damaging it irreversibly, how to keep these figures under control while not upsetting the needs and demands and culture of the local tribal populace, how to manage and motivate the "corrupt forest guards" who sometimes find time away from "conniving with the poachers" to save the forests and often end up clashing physically with armed people from timber and veneer lobbies who do not mind flouting laws that have been framed to protect forests. (Of course, the free-marketeer in Mr Kala will argue that these honourable businessmen are driven to adopt such tactics only because of flawed policies, otherwise they'd be pure as babies feeding on breast milk.)
The entire article is a classic example of the way free-market fundamentalist journos approach any given situation. Some facts are collected, which are never verified, nor scrutinised for details. All the resultant conclusions then drawn by viewing these facts from the purpled prism of unrelenting ideology. Connected but different issues are mixed up. The government is pronounced as terrible at every given opportunity and lame pot-shots are taken at it.
Here, Mr Kala has mixed up the issues of privatization of conservation efforts, relaxing hunting laws, and distribution of public and private property w.r.t natural resources. The first point has some merit if argued well and needs to be explored, the second is superfluous and more of a concern to American conservatives - there isn't a demand for hunting in India, and the third has ramifications and implications far beyond wildlife conservation and deserves to be argued in detail elsewhere. He conveniently forgets or doesn't bother to find out, or glosses over the following details
1. Wildlife "flourishes" in Africa and US because they have a better base (more species, more number of animals) to begin with, and those species that have increased in numbers have been able to make a come-back because they were classified as endangered and hunting and trade in them was banned. In any case, he has provided no numbers to support his theory of flourish, for e.g., any figures before and after the privatization of those parks in Africa.
2. Nature Parks that are privatized in Africa have been given to conservationists, not just anyone. Those lands that already exist as private property allow hunting only in non-endangered and non-protected species. The Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 in India classifies the commonly found animals in India under various schedules, and lays down the guidelines of what trading or activity is allowed for what species. The tiger is a Schedule-I animal any hunting or trade in a tiger or tiger products are prohibited. Even if we were to adopt the private model based on the spurious examples that the article mentions, trading in tigers would still be illegal, the only point worth arguing would be if the private companies manage the conservation efforts better than the government. Such acts exist in all countries, including the US (Endangered Species Act, 1973) and all of Mr Kala's African examples. The success of wildlife conservation in Africa owes largely to the efforts of the local governments in tandem with teams of conservationists from all over the world. The forest department in India also regularly works in tandem with animal conservationists to chalk out strategies regarding relocation, culling, captive breeding, etc. to keep the wildlife "flourishing".
3. Mr Kala has not proved, apart from pointing out some recent tiger deaths, the pressing need for privatisation of either management or ownership of wildlife parks. India's tiger population is 3642 today, what was it earlier? How does the increase match up to other such conservation efforts elsewhere in the world? Gir has 327 lions now, it had 255 in 1990. (Of course, Mr Kala would say - these numbers are suspect, they are provided by the forest department themselves. Nevermind the fact that any wildlife census involves independent wildlife experts, how is one to bother over such piffling details) What species, Mr Kala, is on its path to extinction due to mismanagement by the big, bad Government of India? As far as preventing the tragedy of the commons is concerned, most forest departments are working out ways of developing eco-tourism, ala African safaris.
More generally, the ill-researched piece brings to light the reasons people with real day jobs tend to dismiss the views and opinions held by most freelance econo-journos (Sauvik Chakraverti of ToI comes to mind immediately). Loads of armchair theorising, a reluctance to get some real data and scrutinise it before forming opinions and passing judgements, the tendency to interpret facts so as to suit long-held theories rather than allowing one's ideologies to be moulded by facts, the tendency to make this-solution-will-end-all-woes kind of pronouncements, a ridiculous lack of awareness about the government and its bodies, and a compulsive desire to pronounce every single govt functionary as corrupt, conniving with the criminals. Mint claims to be fighting for the cause of "freedom", economic and social. It would do itself a great favour by ensuring its opinion pieces are tighter and less shallow. Of course, irrespective of whether they make sense or not, Amit will root for them.
Right now, our wild animals are a wasted resource. Only private companies can unlock their true value by turning them into a dollar-earning tourist attraction. Wild animals flourish in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana because these nations treat their wildlife as an industry. They give land owners full property rights over the wild animals that roam on their land. The rights include hunting the animals and selling their meat, hides and horns. Thousands of privately owned ranches in these countries have switched to wildlife and safari tourism. They attract wealthy Americans and Europeans who pay $500-1,000 a day to go on photographic or hunting safaris, which typically last two to three weeks. So we have a paradox. These countries have booming wild animal population. But India’s wildlife diminishes even though shooting a partridge is a criminal offence. The paradox stems from a simple reason. Landowners of southern Africa protect their wildlife because they earn from it.
Right, so that's the crux of the argument - privatise the wild animals and the land that contains them. So if I own some land and wild animals are an attraction, I have an incentive to keep these animals alive. Brilliant - I have an incentive to keep, say, elephants alive so that I can earn from them when others want to shoot and kill them, I keep them alive so that they can later be killed! And this is apparently a successful and sustainable conservation model, so, once a few of my elephants have been killed and their tusks etc sold, I still have an incentive to invest in the breeding and nourishment of more elephants, so much so that the number of new jumbo babies I want will exceed the number of jumbos I sell or allow to be hunted and their overall numbers will increase. Can someone please tell me how a business model in which you procure more goods than you sell (and bear in mind that procurement here entails life-long maintenance and care, while sale involves a one-time payment) so as to keep increasing the overall number in your inventory is feasible? The reason these private efforts have worked very simple - hunting of protected animals is not allowed in wildlife reserves, whether they are private or public. Private landowners in Africa protect these animals from hunting not because they can hunted later, but because hunting of those animals that are considered endangered is banned. They make their money by tourist safaris, not by allowing hunting. So yes, the article is blatantly wrong with its facts. Hunting licenses are offered only for those animals that are not considered critical, and poaching is still quite common.
India’s tigers or elephants die because nobody owns them. Tragically, their killing is encouraged by their protectors—government forest guards who split the Rs2 lakh or so a poacher makes from killing a tiger. Official figures tell the story. Between 1999 and 2004, India saw the poaching of 53 tigers, three lions, 179 elephants and 23 rhinos. Other official figures say that despite this, a natural increase has raised the number of these animals. These numbers are suspect.
Brilliant again. So the official figures that support my case are correct, while those that contradict my case are suspect. Subjective and selective use of data is the oldest trick in the game.
After all, 24 tigers were reported to roam the Sariska game sanctuary in Rajasthan in 1997. But a recheck two years ago found that not a single tiger remained. Could the misreporting apply to other reserves? Perhaps yes. Tiger numbers are compiled by the very forest departments which connive with poachers. Depressingly, half of India’s tiger population of around 3,642 is found in India’s worst-governed states such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa. So, the longer wild animals are safeguarded by the Indian state, the closer they’ll get to extinction.
Once you have pronounced judgement - "the very forest departments that connive with poachers", why even bother substantiating your argument. If conniving with criminals is the be-all and end-all of government departments, there is no case whatsoever for the very existence of a government.
Nelson Mandela acknowledged that his poor HIV-stricken continent didn’t have the resources to save its priceless wildlife. Today, four of South Africa’s game reserves are run by Africa Parks, a private company owned by a Dutch conservationist. The experiment has been so successful that the company has been approached by several other African nations to run their game parks. Kenya has also given charge of one-third of its Masai Mara game reserve to a private management firm, Mara Conservancy.
Listen, these parks have been given to wildlife conservationists dammit, not to ranchers who allow hunting on these premises. They are private yes, but not private in the sense of 'come hold property and do what you like with it, find an incentive and conserve wildlife'. For a conservationist, conservation is an end in itself, not the by-product of a business incentive. Once the goal of conservation is considered paramount, the business incentives are created around it by the way of tourism.
Wildlife remains when it’s self-supporting. As an African saying goes, “If it pays, it stays.” Rhinos flourish in South Africa because South Africans buy, sell, breed and ship them as if they were racehorses. A white rhino there can sell for more than $30,000. Private lands in Zambia hold more big game than state-owned lands. Wildlife flourishes so much in the US that the state earned over $1 billion in 2000 from selling 15 million hunting licences and 30 million fishing licences to outdoor-loving Americans. Thanks to sustainable wildlife policies, the wolf and the bison have made such a comeback that their hunting is now allowed in America. Texas has some 500 hunting ranches stocked with all kinds of exotic species. Hunters pay $8,500 for killing one big animal. It’s very sad, virtually tame animals being shot by somebody who wants a trophy on a wall. But if that ‘hunting’ wasn’t allowed, nobody would even stock those animals.
Juvenile mix-up of cause and effect. The hunting of bisons has been allowed because they have made a comeback and are no longer endangered. The hunting is the effect of the comeback, not the cause of it. The "sustainable wildlife policies" that saved the bison included banning its killing. In any case, only those states have allowed bison-hunting where they have grown so much in numbers that culling is required to maintain a target population. Such culling happens in India as well, for eg. in the case of Nilgai in Gujarat. Those private parks in Botswana that hold big game do not allow them to be hunted. US hands out licenses for killing non-endangered animals and fishes, not for endangered animals. There are 11,000 remaining white rhinos in Africa, of which 5,000 are found in the Kruger National Park which is owned and managed by the SA government. As white rhinos are considered endangered and protected, the only sale that happens is between private individuals who already run and manage the private parks in Africa - which is to say that the sale and all is from one nature park to another, from one conservationist to another. Texas ranches do not have indigenous "exotic species" that are allowed to be hunted. Those exotics that are not protected have been brought in from outside the US (the Barasingha, for e.g) and the Us thus has no intention of conserving them in the first place. Of course, as a journalist, Mr. Kala is not required to concern himself with the details of the matter.
India’s wildlife vanishes also because the Indian state has no expertise in managing it. Maintaining a wildlife balance requires special knowledge. For example, one grown elephant eats 200 kg of vegetation a day and a herd can devastate an area. If the elephants rise in number, should they be culled, sterilized or relocated? Which IAS officer will know the answer?
Mr Kala has not heard of the Indian Forest Service apparently. A mere technicality, no doubt, in his mind. As of today the Indian government employs more than 1500 officers in the IFS and many more in the state services, who specialise in precisely this kind of knowledge. I know, my father is one of them. They (the IFS guys) also tend to know lots of other such things that are related, for e.g., what is the sustainabale ratio of blackbucks to predators in a conserved area, what is the correct canopy cover that has to be maintained in a dry deciduous forest that acts as the habitat of the Asiatic Lion (Gir), what is the sustainable amount of timber and non-timber forest produce that can be extracted from a wet deciduous forest without damaging it irreversibly, how to keep these figures under control while not upsetting the needs and demands and culture of the local tribal populace, how to manage and motivate the "corrupt forest guards" who sometimes find time away from "conniving with the poachers" to save the forests and often end up clashing physically with armed people from timber and veneer lobbies who do not mind flouting laws that have been framed to protect forests. (Of course, the free-marketeer in Mr Kala will argue that these honourable businessmen are driven to adopt such tactics only because of flawed policies, otherwise they'd be pure as babies feeding on breast milk.)
The entire article is a classic example of the way free-market fundamentalist journos approach any given situation. Some facts are collected, which are never verified, nor scrutinised for details. All the resultant conclusions then drawn by viewing these facts from the purpled prism of unrelenting ideology. Connected but different issues are mixed up. The government is pronounced as terrible at every given opportunity and lame pot-shots are taken at it.
Here, Mr Kala has mixed up the issues of privatization of conservation efforts, relaxing hunting laws, and distribution of public and private property w.r.t natural resources. The first point has some merit if argued well and needs to be explored, the second is superfluous and more of a concern to American conservatives - there isn't a demand for hunting in India, and the third has ramifications and implications far beyond wildlife conservation and deserves to be argued in detail elsewhere. He conveniently forgets or doesn't bother to find out, or glosses over the following details
1. Wildlife "flourishes" in Africa and US because they have a better base (more species, more number of animals) to begin with, and those species that have increased in numbers have been able to make a come-back because they were classified as endangered and hunting and trade in them was banned. In any case, he has provided no numbers to support his theory of flourish, for e.g., any figures before and after the privatization of those parks in Africa.
2. Nature Parks that are privatized in Africa have been given to conservationists, not just anyone. Those lands that already exist as private property allow hunting only in non-endangered and non-protected species. The Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 in India classifies the commonly found animals in India under various schedules, and lays down the guidelines of what trading or activity is allowed for what species. The tiger is a Schedule-I animal any hunting or trade in a tiger or tiger products are prohibited. Even if we were to adopt the private model based on the spurious examples that the article mentions, trading in tigers would still be illegal, the only point worth arguing would be if the private companies manage the conservation efforts better than the government. Such acts exist in all countries, including the US (Endangered Species Act, 1973) and all of Mr Kala's African examples. The success of wildlife conservation in Africa owes largely to the efforts of the local governments in tandem with teams of conservationists from all over the world. The forest department in India also regularly works in tandem with animal conservationists to chalk out strategies regarding relocation, culling, captive breeding, etc. to keep the wildlife "flourishing".
3. Mr Kala has not proved, apart from pointing out some recent tiger deaths, the pressing need for privatisation of either management or ownership of wildlife parks. India's tiger population is 3642 today, what was it earlier? How does the increase match up to other such conservation efforts elsewhere in the world? Gir has 327 lions now, it had 255 in 1990. (Of course, Mr Kala would say - these numbers are suspect, they are provided by the forest department themselves. Nevermind the fact that any wildlife census involves independent wildlife experts, how is one to bother over such piffling details) What species, Mr Kala, is on its path to extinction due to mismanagement by the big, bad Government of India? As far as preventing the tragedy of the commons is concerned, most forest departments are working out ways of developing eco-tourism, ala African safaris.
More generally, the ill-researched piece brings to light the reasons people with real day jobs tend to dismiss the views and opinions held by most freelance econo-journos (Sauvik Chakraverti of ToI comes to mind immediately). Loads of armchair theorising, a reluctance to get some real data and scrutinise it before forming opinions and passing judgements, the tendency to interpret facts so as to suit long-held theories rather than allowing one's ideologies to be moulded by facts, the tendency to make this-solution-will-end-all-woes kind of pronouncements, a ridiculous lack of awareness about the government and its bodies, and a compulsive desire to pronounce every single govt functionary as corrupt, conniving with the criminals. Mint claims to be fighting for the cause of "freedom", economic and social. It would do itself a great favour by ensuring its opinion pieces are tighter and less shallow. Of course, irrespective of whether they make sense or not, Amit will root for them.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Of Ex-Cricketers, Blame Games & Cricket
Mike Atherton brings in the grand conspiracy theory -it is the corporates who keep Sachin's career going. Brilliant.
"The truth is that Tendulkar has been marketed as a brand for some time, advertising many of the biggest commercial names in India. There are many interested parties who are keen to see Tendulkar wearing India's colours for a while yet...
A man who has achieved almost everything there was to achieve in his own field is kept going because there are interested parties who want him to don his country's colours as he is a valuable brand. Indeed. What about this shocking hypothesis - he goes on because he believes he is good enough, because he feels that he has still something left to achieve. Delusion, maybe. But corporate pressure ??? Maybe Atherton was paid some money by Coke to write that. Makes sense no - you play because company wants you to, I write bullshit because company wants me to.
Meanwhile, Greg Chappell believes that 5 senior players did India in, and makes it seem like a conspiracy again. Even if the report is true - so what? All the senior players had a difference of opinion with you, the captain went with them and not you. History proved you right. So that means that the "senior players had no respect for the management"? Listen Chappell, the team is not your bloody fiefdom. Don't sulk and name names and reveal shit to the media just because some people don't agree with you, ok? You can do the "I told you so , I told you so, uh-oh, I told you so" dance ala Will & Grace. Don't take it as a personal affront. Or do even that, but don't act all self-righteous in front of the media and act as if everyone was bound by law to take your words as the gospel truth.
"The truth is that Tendulkar has been marketed as a brand for some time, advertising many of the biggest commercial names in India. There are many interested parties who are keen to see Tendulkar wearing India's colours for a while yet...
A man who has achieved almost everything there was to achieve in his own field is kept going because there are interested parties who want him to don his country's colours as he is a valuable brand. Indeed. What about this shocking hypothesis - he goes on because he believes he is good enough, because he feels that he has still something left to achieve. Delusion, maybe. But corporate pressure ??? Maybe Atherton was paid some money by Coke to write that. Makes sense no - you play because company wants you to, I write bullshit because company wants me to.
Meanwhile, Greg Chappell believes that 5 senior players did India in, and makes it seem like a conspiracy again. Even if the report is true - so what? All the senior players had a difference of opinion with you, the captain went with them and not you. History proved you right. So that means that the "senior players had no respect for the management"? Listen Chappell, the team is not your bloody fiefdom. Don't sulk and name names and reveal shit to the media just because some people don't agree with you, ok? You can do the "I told you so , I told you so, uh-oh, I told you so" dance ala Will & Grace. Don't take it as a personal affront. Or do even that, but don't act all self-righteous in front of the media and act as if everyone was bound by law to take your words as the gospel truth.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Management & Cricket
After India's loss at the world cup, everyone has been pitching in with their two paise worth on the issue. The most idiotic instances occur when the business papers try and get some random manager or consultant or CEO-Mentor to comment on various issues and these luminaries proceed to analyse and comment not based on their knowledge of the game, but based on their knowledge of the 'principles of strategic management' .
We all respect you Mr Narayan Murthy. But we also realise that there is a difference between creating a company that is reasonably good while providing IT services, and creating a team that brings home the world cup. Your experiences with Infosys, however valuable they are, are not universal. When you build a team, you are dealing with individuals who have graduated from one of the numerous faceless engineering colleges of India, who will provide middling services to numerous faceless clients over a product that did not exactly change the world of Information Technology. When you build a business, you try and create markets where there were none, you try and gain share in markets which actually exist, and you do not necessarily need to defeat the other guy to do supremely well yourself. That, you will agree, is not similiar in form or spirit to working on the game of the top 15 people in the country so that they can defeat the top 15 players of other countries and win a sporting event.
Sport is different, it is zero-sum. It is also not very long term. Structural and process deficiencies do not explain everything -in fact, at the highest level in sport, structures and processes hardly seem to matter. Else, Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes would not have dominated middle distance races, Brazil would have never won the football world cup, and Pakistan would have never produced a single cricketing great. A call of 'Don't criticise the process, follow it' is valid only when the process in question is definitely correct. A process that destroyed the form and confidence of the premier fast bowler of the country is not correct. The relationship between software engineers and their team leaders is also not the same as that between a cricketing team and its coach. So, "we have debates and discussions, but once we decide on something, everyone knows who the leader is and follows him" is also not a golden mantra to be applied to the cricketing team. Greg Chappell was not/is not/should not be the 'leader' of the Indian cricket team as you understand the term 'leader'. And lest we all forget, there are two teams that play out there - sometimes no matter how good you are, it's just not good enough. There are times when this shows and people are happy because you put in a fight. There are times when this doesn't show, and that's simply because the other team didn't allow you to be any good. Wipro engineers cannot curb the enthusiasm of your team members by coming up with a brilliant product, but Muralitharan can within an over force many of our newer cricketers to do a re-think on whatever they have ever learnt about cricket.
And please, a sincere request - before anyone analyses the cup debacle - please read this.
There is one main reason why the structure of our game is weak - parents won't let their children play for a living. Please stop blaming BCCI, regional selection, etc. It has more to do with attitude than with incentives. The attitude may or may not have been the result of a lack of incentives, but it surely survives even in these days of surplus incentives. There is one main reason why the national team did not do so well - we are not good enough today, on talent as well as on form. Greg Chappell's processes have something to do with it. Every team passes through some evolutionary phase shifts. Sri Lanka was in one such phase shift in 1999, Pakistan in 2003, West Indies in 1987, Australia in 1983. Add India,2007 to the list.
We all respect you Mr Narayan Murthy. But we also realise that there is a difference between creating a company that is reasonably good while providing IT services, and creating a team that brings home the world cup. Your experiences with Infosys, however valuable they are, are not universal. When you build a team, you are dealing with individuals who have graduated from one of the numerous faceless engineering colleges of India, who will provide middling services to numerous faceless clients over a product that did not exactly change the world of Information Technology. When you build a business, you try and create markets where there were none, you try and gain share in markets which actually exist, and you do not necessarily need to defeat the other guy to do supremely well yourself. That, you will agree, is not similiar in form or spirit to working on the game of the top 15 people in the country so that they can defeat the top 15 players of other countries and win a sporting event.
Sport is different, it is zero-sum. It is also not very long term. Structural and process deficiencies do not explain everything -in fact, at the highest level in sport, structures and processes hardly seem to matter. Else, Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes would not have dominated middle distance races, Brazil would have never won the football world cup, and Pakistan would have never produced a single cricketing great. A call of 'Don't criticise the process, follow it' is valid only when the process in question is definitely correct. A process that destroyed the form and confidence of the premier fast bowler of the country is not correct. The relationship between software engineers and their team leaders is also not the same as that between a cricketing team and its coach. So, "we have debates and discussions, but once we decide on something, everyone knows who the leader is and follows him" is also not a golden mantra to be applied to the cricketing team. Greg Chappell was not/is not/should not be the 'leader' of the Indian cricket team as you understand the term 'leader'. And lest we all forget, there are two teams that play out there - sometimes no matter how good you are, it's just not good enough. There are times when this shows and people are happy because you put in a fight. There are times when this doesn't show, and that's simply because the other team didn't allow you to be any good. Wipro engineers cannot curb the enthusiasm of your team members by coming up with a brilliant product, but Muralitharan can within an over force many of our newer cricketers to do a re-think on whatever they have ever learnt about cricket.
And please, a sincere request - before anyone analyses the cup debacle - please read this.
There is one main reason why the structure of our game is weak - parents won't let their children play for a living. Please stop blaming BCCI, regional selection, etc. It has more to do with attitude than with incentives. The attitude may or may not have been the result of a lack of incentives, but it surely survives even in these days of surplus incentives. There is one main reason why the national team did not do so well - we are not good enough today, on talent as well as on form. Greg Chappell's processes have something to do with it. Every team passes through some evolutionary phase shifts. Sri Lanka was in one such phase shift in 1999, Pakistan in 2003, West Indies in 1987, Australia in 1983. Add India,2007 to the list.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Of Victimless Crimes, Shallow Inferences & Toxins
Amit Varma writes about the concept of victimless crimes, and describes how the decriminalization of certain acts that are commonly perceived to be immoral(whatever that may mean) but have no victims is necessary for a truly free and functional society. He makes his point well, and tackles the issue using three examples that are extremely relevant and lead to considerable debate and grey areas - betting, prostitution, and drug usage. He says legalize, legalize and legalize. I say yes, yes and no. For the yes and yes, go read his article. For the no, read on.
Amit argues that commonly accepted notions of relative harm of these drugs is misplaced and quotes a study from the Lancet, rather a newspaper report of a study by the Lancet, to make his point. He also refutes the common argument against legalizing drugs in this manner -
You might argue that people commit crimes under the influence of drugs, but then, punishing those crimes should be deterrent enough.
He makes another point by saying that
In contrast, consider the Netherlands, where drugs are legal and cannabis is purchased mainly in coffee shops. They have the lowest rate of drug-related-deaths-per-million in Europe.
Wrong, wrong and wrong.
The Lancet study ranked Alcohol at no. 5, Tobacco at no. 9 and the others(Ecstasy, Marijuana, and LSD) somewhere between 10 and 20. There were various factors considered for this ranking, and the 'effects of long term addiction on family and society' were also considered. With reference to this factor, the scientists who conducted the study mentioned that alcohol figured very high in the list as a result of the fact that the number of people who imbibed alcohol was far greater than those who used the other drugs. Which is to say, that alcohol ranked higher than say, ecstasy, because if about 90% of Brits drank, only 10% took ecstasy. (The numbers are my own, used to illustrate the larger point, and are quite inexact). Had ecstasy been used by 90% people, which may very well happen if it is freely available, it may rank significantly higher than alcohol, because its psychotropic effect is greater and addiction to ecstasy develops far more easily than addiction to alcohol.
To quote the Lancet study, taken from this TOI article
Tobacco and alcohol were included because their extensive use has provided reliable data on their risks and harms, providing familiar benchmarks against which the absolute harms of other adjudged. However, direct comparison of the scores for tobacco and alcohol with those of the other drugs is not possible since the fact that they are legal could affect their harms in various ways, especially through easier availability.
This is clearly an argument for stricter regulation(though not banning), not more lax laws. Digressive moral of the story - please don't trust/use abridged versions of news reports of scientific studies. You are likely to miss some fine point which can entirely change the inferences from the study. Also, ToI is not THAT bad - their headlines are a sham but they gloss over fewer details and are slightly more accurate.
The second point that Amit raises is wrong, because the argument of punishing those crimes should be deterrent enough presupposes a rational disposition. Most libertarian viewpoints have an underlying assumption, which is - the consenting adult is rational and the best judge of his/her own decision and an act by consensus should not be a matter of the state. In principle, I agree with this assumption. However, in the case of behaviour under the influence of drug consumption, and more importantly, behaviour under the influence of drug addiction(the state of addiction itself, not of the psychotropic high), this assumption is no longer true. To quite a few drug addicts then, punishing the crime is NOT deterrent enough. A heroin addict is more likely to commit a crime, not under the high induced by heroin use, but by the physiologically and psychologically compulsive desire to obtain more heroin, which may require money beyond the means of the addict. The state's job should not end with catching and punishing the criminal. It should also involve some pre-emptive policy decision that prevents the crime from happening in the first place.
The third point is factually incorrect and is a classic case of a socio-economic inference that may be wrong because its multivariate nature has not been considered adequately. 'Drugs are legal in Netherlands' is a grossly misleading generalization. Yes, coffee shops retail cannabis, so buying and selling for personal use are legal. Large-scale cultivation and wholesaling, however, are banned. All narcotics, opiates, etc (hard drugs) are banned and offenders are severely prosecuted. The Dutch drug policy explicitly recognises the difference between 'hard drugs' and 'soft drugs', and even the sale of soft drugs (cannabis) is quite regulated. Secondly, the fact that the Dutch have the lowest drug deaths per million may not necessarily be due to availibility of pure, unadulterated drugs. It can very well be because the restrictions on hard drugs are more strictly and more efficiently enforced in Netherlands than in other European countries
So, what is my solution? I support the drug policy of Netherlands - it's just that this policy is not what Amit thinks it is. In fact, I'd go one up and decriminalize the growth and wholesaling of cannabis. But narcotics and opium-derived alkaloids are a strict no-no. It has been a long-standing conviction of mine that in an issue of legality, if science can be brought in to simplify the grey areas presented by the combination of ideology and utility, it must be brought in. To be more specific, use/trade of substances that are not toxins according to the medico-legal definition of the word must be decriminalized, and those that are toxins should remain illegal. This immediately makes marijuana/cannabis legal and perhaps LSD too. The alleged reason for the illegal status of cannabis is one of the most believable and best documented conspiracy theory of our times (I tried searching for the article on Wikipedia, unfortunately all references to DuPont's role have been removed from all articles). This causes a new problem - both alcohol and tobacco should be illegal by this definition.
Alcohol has been shown to have various medical benefits when drunk in moderate amounts, including protection against heart disease and protection against renal failure. So it should be retained as legal, but regulated - no alcohol advertisements in electronic media. Tobacco, though, would be illegal in my scheme of things. This is logistically impossible given the current situation. Even a ban on public smoking is supremely difficult to enforce, a blanket ban on tobacco is quite unthinkable. Hence, it should not (can not) be illegalized, but tobacco companies should be taxed until they bleed. I'm sure that the economic benefits derived out of a generation of a lower number of smokers will far outweigh the loss in productivity and revenue resultant from this heavy taxation. Tobacco companies that face losses will have to branch out. (In fact, the continued increase of tax on tobacco products is one of the few heartening things of our budget every year)
So, the final proposal - narcotics and amphetamines illegal, cannabis legal, alcohol legal but unadvertised, tobacco legal but unadvertised and heavily taxed, all others to be judged on similiar grounds after scientific evidence. A most perfect marriage of ideology, science, utility and freedom. What do you say?
Amit argues that commonly accepted notions of relative harm of these drugs is misplaced and quotes a study from the Lancet, rather a newspaper report of a study by the Lancet, to make his point. He also refutes the common argument against legalizing drugs in this manner -
You might argue that people commit crimes under the influence of drugs, but then, punishing those crimes should be deterrent enough.
He makes another point by saying that
In contrast, consider the Netherlands, where drugs are legal and cannabis is purchased mainly in coffee shops. They have the lowest rate of drug-related-deaths-per-million in Europe.
Wrong, wrong and wrong.
The Lancet study ranked Alcohol at no. 5, Tobacco at no. 9 and the others(Ecstasy, Marijuana, and LSD) somewhere between 10 and 20. There were various factors considered for this ranking, and the 'effects of long term addiction on family and society' were also considered. With reference to this factor, the scientists who conducted the study mentioned that alcohol figured very high in the list as a result of the fact that the number of people who imbibed alcohol was far greater than those who used the other drugs. Which is to say, that alcohol ranked higher than say, ecstasy, because if about 90% of Brits drank, only 10% took ecstasy. (The numbers are my own, used to illustrate the larger point, and are quite inexact). Had ecstasy been used by 90% people, which may very well happen if it is freely available, it may rank significantly higher than alcohol, because its psychotropic effect is greater and addiction to ecstasy develops far more easily than addiction to alcohol.
To quote the Lancet study, taken from this TOI article
Tobacco and alcohol were included because their extensive use has provided reliable data on their risks and harms, providing familiar benchmarks against which the absolute harms of other adjudged. However, direct comparison of the scores for tobacco and alcohol with those of the other drugs is not possible since the fact that they are legal could affect their harms in various ways, especially through easier availability.
This is clearly an argument for stricter regulation(though not banning), not more lax laws. Digressive moral of the story - please don't trust/use abridged versions of news reports of scientific studies. You are likely to miss some fine point which can entirely change the inferences from the study. Also, ToI is not THAT bad - their headlines are a sham but they gloss over fewer details and are slightly more accurate.
The second point that Amit raises is wrong, because the argument of punishing those crimes should be deterrent enough presupposes a rational disposition. Most libertarian viewpoints have an underlying assumption, which is - the consenting adult is rational and the best judge of his/her own decision and an act by consensus should not be a matter of the state. In principle, I agree with this assumption. However, in the case of behaviour under the influence of drug consumption, and more importantly, behaviour under the influence of drug addiction(the state of addiction itself, not of the psychotropic high), this assumption is no longer true. To quite a few drug addicts then, punishing the crime is NOT deterrent enough. A heroin addict is more likely to commit a crime, not under the high induced by heroin use, but by the physiologically and psychologically compulsive desire to obtain more heroin, which may require money beyond the means of the addict. The state's job should not end with catching and punishing the criminal. It should also involve some pre-emptive policy decision that prevents the crime from happening in the first place.
The third point is factually incorrect and is a classic case of a socio-economic inference that may be wrong because its multivariate nature has not been considered adequately. 'Drugs are legal in Netherlands' is a grossly misleading generalization. Yes, coffee shops retail cannabis, so buying and selling for personal use are legal. Large-scale cultivation and wholesaling, however, are banned. All narcotics, opiates, etc (hard drugs) are banned and offenders are severely prosecuted. The Dutch drug policy explicitly recognises the difference between 'hard drugs' and 'soft drugs', and even the sale of soft drugs (cannabis) is quite regulated. Secondly, the fact that the Dutch have the lowest drug deaths per million may not necessarily be due to availibility of pure, unadulterated drugs. It can very well be because the restrictions on hard drugs are more strictly and more efficiently enforced in Netherlands than in other European countries
So, what is my solution? I support the drug policy of Netherlands - it's just that this policy is not what Amit thinks it is. In fact, I'd go one up and decriminalize the growth and wholesaling of cannabis. But narcotics and opium-derived alkaloids are a strict no-no. It has been a long-standing conviction of mine that in an issue of legality, if science can be brought in to simplify the grey areas presented by the combination of ideology and utility, it must be brought in. To be more specific, use/trade of substances that are not toxins according to the medico-legal definition of the word must be decriminalized, and those that are toxins should remain illegal. This immediately makes marijuana/cannabis legal and perhaps LSD too. The alleged reason for the illegal status of cannabis is one of the most believable and best documented conspiracy theory of our times (I tried searching for the article on Wikipedia, unfortunately all references to DuPont's role have been removed from all articles). This causes a new problem - both alcohol and tobacco should be illegal by this definition.
Alcohol has been shown to have various medical benefits when drunk in moderate amounts, including protection against heart disease and protection against renal failure. So it should be retained as legal, but regulated - no alcohol advertisements in electronic media. Tobacco, though, would be illegal in my scheme of things. This is logistically impossible given the current situation. Even a ban on public smoking is supremely difficult to enforce, a blanket ban on tobacco is quite unthinkable. Hence, it should not (can not) be illegalized, but tobacco companies should be taxed until they bleed. I'm sure that the economic benefits derived out of a generation of a lower number of smokers will far outweigh the loss in productivity and revenue resultant from this heavy taxation. Tobacco companies that face losses will have to branch out. (In fact, the continued increase of tax on tobacco products is one of the few heartening things of our budget every year)
So, the final proposal - narcotics and amphetamines illegal, cannabis legal, alcohol legal but unadvertised, tobacco legal but unadvertised and heavily taxed, all others to be judged on similiar grounds after scientific evidence. A most perfect marriage of ideology, science, utility and freedom. What do you say?
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Individuals and Categories - 2
Jai Arjun Singh had once written about Identity and Violence, and reproduced an excerpt from its prologue, which I re-reproduce, corny as that sounds.
Civilisational or religious partitioning of the world population yields a ‘solitarist’ approach to human identity, which sees human beings as members of exactly one group…This can be a good way of misunderstanding nearly everyone in the world. In our normal lives, we see ourselves as members of a variety of groups – we belong to all of them. The same person can be, without any contradiction: an American citizen, of Caribbean origin, with African ancestry, a Christian, a liberal, a woman, a vegetarian, a long-distance runner, a historian, a schoolteacher, a novelist, a feminist, a heterosexual, a believer in gay and lesbian rights, a theatre lover, an environmental activist, a tennis fan, a jazz musician, and someone who is deeply committed to the view that there are intelligent beings in outer space with whom it is extremely urgent to talk (preferably in English). Each of these collectivities, to all of which this person simultaneously belongs, gives her a particular identity. None of them can be taken to be the person’s only identity or singular membership category.
Amartya Sen has summarily destroyed all of my rhetorical '22, male, engineer' posturing. I stand corrected. Indeed, a definition of individual identity as the intersection of all the sets that the individual belongs to takes care of the individual vs category debate in my mind.
It is still fascinating to explore why we let the classifications of various categories overshadow our perception of others as individuals. Nation, religion, caste, race and gender are the bases of division that spring to the mind immediately, but it can be extremely interesting to explore this phenomenon in a more localised manner. In school and college, fights that break out between individuals often transform into group vs group slugfests. Hostelites vs Day-scholars. Localites vs Outsiders. Seniors vs Juniors. Hostel X vs Hostel Y. Even Wing A vs Wing B. There is perhaps a distinction though. It is highly unlikely that violence at the micro-level will affect individuals who were not directly involved. Those people from hostel X who were not part of the slugfest will probably be spared by the warring battalion of hostel Y. On the broader issues too, for some reason, violence that envelopes even unwilling individuals is common only in the case of religion and caste. I may have had to include nation into this list but the modern concept of armed nation states largely prevents that (leaving aside bombings on civilian areas - but those are anyway termed 'mistakes' and are not part of acknowledged strategy). Is this the reason why a majority of educated 'liberal' individuals consider patriotism a virtue but casteism and communalism to be evil?
Though, I still stand by my argument that the opportunities available to most individuals are the products of not just their abilities and choices as individuals, but also of their unchosen allegiance to certain categories.
Civilisational or religious partitioning of the world population yields a ‘solitarist’ approach to human identity, which sees human beings as members of exactly one group…This can be a good way of misunderstanding nearly everyone in the world. In our normal lives, we see ourselves as members of a variety of groups – we belong to all of them. The same person can be, without any contradiction: an American citizen, of Caribbean origin, with African ancestry, a Christian, a liberal, a woman, a vegetarian, a long-distance runner, a historian, a schoolteacher, a novelist, a feminist, a heterosexual, a believer in gay and lesbian rights, a theatre lover, an environmental activist, a tennis fan, a jazz musician, and someone who is deeply committed to the view that there are intelligent beings in outer space with whom it is extremely urgent to talk (preferably in English). Each of these collectivities, to all of which this person simultaneously belongs, gives her a particular identity. None of them can be taken to be the person’s only identity or singular membership category.
Amartya Sen has summarily destroyed all of my rhetorical '22, male, engineer' posturing. I stand corrected. Indeed, a definition of individual identity as the intersection of all the sets that the individual belongs to takes care of the individual vs category debate in my mind.
It is still fascinating to explore why we let the classifications of various categories overshadow our perception of others as individuals. Nation, religion, caste, race and gender are the bases of division that spring to the mind immediately, but it can be extremely interesting to explore this phenomenon in a more localised manner. In school and college, fights that break out between individuals often transform into group vs group slugfests. Hostelites vs Day-scholars. Localites vs Outsiders. Seniors vs Juniors. Hostel X vs Hostel Y. Even Wing A vs Wing B. There is perhaps a distinction though. It is highly unlikely that violence at the micro-level will affect individuals who were not directly involved. Those people from hostel X who were not part of the slugfest will probably be spared by the warring battalion of hostel Y. On the broader issues too, for some reason, violence that envelopes even unwilling individuals is common only in the case of religion and caste. I may have had to include nation into this list but the modern concept of armed nation states largely prevents that (leaving aside bombings on civilian areas - but those are anyway termed 'mistakes' and are not part of acknowledged strategy). Is this the reason why a majority of educated 'liberal' individuals consider patriotism a virtue but casteism and communalism to be evil?
Though, I still stand by my argument that the opportunities available to most individuals are the products of not just their abilities and choices as individuals, but also of their unchosen allegiance to certain categories.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Of Analogies, Individuals and Categories
Amit Varma warns about the perils of thinking in categories. He says
We tend to think in categories, and ignore individuals in the process. We are pattern-seeking creatures, and this can be a useful cognitive shortcut: classifying things into groups of things helps us make sense of the world. But it has its perils when we take it too far.
Very true. It also explains why those of us who feel a compulsive urge to analyse and understand the world around us tend to make lists, ranking systems, etc. But I digress. Amit goes on to tell us why the individual is important, and says that communal riots, reservations policy etc. are the result of thinking in terms of categories at the cost of ignoring the individual and certain situations that sound absolutely ridiculous are actually analogous to these scenarios.
And we have many convenient labels like that. Imagine someone saying, “Some Indian bloggers have been seen cheering for Pakistan during cricket matches. Therefore, all Indian bloggers are anti-national.” Or “Some bloggers burnt a train full of drivers, therefore we drivers will slaughter all the bloggers we can find.” Or “Bloggers have been discriminated against in the days before the internet, when they didn’t have access to any readership, therefore we will reserve a set amount of newspaper space for them.”
Ahh, the perils of stretched analogies. An analogy is usually a very convenient tool to explain or accentuate an idea. Indeed, Douglas Hofstadter has argued that analogy is at the very core of all cognition and that there is no difference between high level perception and analogies. But there is such a thing as an overly stretched analogy. All of the analogies mentioned above break down. The first one about cricket matches obviously replaces the term 'Muslims' by 'bloggers'. Wrong, because the terms 'Pakistan' and 'Muslim' have some attachment due to historical and current contexts while the terms 'Pakistan' and 'bloggers' have no such attachments. The second one references communal riots and is invalid because in any events of communal violence the violence is perpetrated/experienced solely because of one's belongingness to a particualr community. In Amit's example above, it is implicit that some individuals who happen to be bloggers burned a train that happened to be full of some other individuals who happen to be drivers, the drivers are not burned because they are drivers . It would be unnatural to think in terms of bloggers/drivers in that scenario. In communal riots however, some individuals kill some other individuals specifically because those other individuals belong to some particular community. It is difficult not to think in terms of Hindu/Muslim then. The third example obviously references reservations and to my mind is invalid because newspaper space cannot be considered essential by any definitions of a minimum acceptable level of life, while a decent education and an opportunity to make a livelihood, i.e a job are very much integral to any such definition.
Let me make it clear that I do not condone any of the three specific situations that have been referenced. Muslims do not become anti-national simply because some Muslims cheer for Pakistan in a cricket match. Communal riots can not be condoned in any circumstance. The issue of reservations will be discussed in the next post. However, the failure of these analogies, and indeed of most arguments that are propounded in favour of giving an indiviual supreme importance as opposed to the community only illustrates a belief I've always had - that an 'individual only' stance is as unnatural and as open to contradiction as a 'community only' stance.
Think about yourself hard enough, and try to describe yourself. The terms that most of us will come up with will all have something to do with allegiance to a larger community. I am 22, male, engineer, short, dark, math-inclined, Bhavanite etc. All are adjectives or nouns that describe categories. Do you fare any better? What to make then of this romantic notion of that 'I' within me that distinguishes me from everyone else, assuming one is disregarding the existence of a 'soul', that as a firm believer in all things rational, an individualist must disregard.
Of course, the point Amit makes is that thinking in terms of categories should not influence our reactions to other people and more importantly, state policy. In principle, I agree. But all around us we see that certain opportunities are created for us, or conversely certain opportunities denied to us not because of any talent/shortcoming as an individual but precisely because we belong to certain families and/or categories. I have access to the best institutes to train me for entrance examinations to postraduation courses. This goes a long way in aiding whatever natural abilities I have to succeed in those examinations. I have this access because my parents can pay for it. This has nothing to do with my innate 'individual' nature, and everything to do with the past of my family. My father was not as lucky as I am, and had to struggle much harder to make it in life. However, he still had a basic minimum base to build upon, for we were one of the land-owning families in the village, being 'upper castes'. I wonder if it would have been the same if he belonged instead to one of the land-tilling, poorer, 'lower catse' families. To summarise, my chances of making it to an IIM have been aided by the fact that I descend from an 'upper-caste', non-poor lineage. This has everything to do with my community and category, and nothing to do with me, the individual.
I want to repeat that I have not supported reservations here, atleast not yet. All I'm saying is, thinking only in terms of 'individuals' is neither very possible nor enough, for a lot (though definitely not all) of our experiences and opportunities are the functions of our unchosen allegiance to certain communities and have little to do with either our abilities or our choices as individuals.
We tend to think in categories, and ignore individuals in the process. We are pattern-seeking creatures, and this can be a useful cognitive shortcut: classifying things into groups of things helps us make sense of the world. But it has its perils when we take it too far.
Very true. It also explains why those of us who feel a compulsive urge to analyse and understand the world around us tend to make lists, ranking systems, etc. But I digress. Amit goes on to tell us why the individual is important, and says that communal riots, reservations policy etc. are the result of thinking in terms of categories at the cost of ignoring the individual and certain situations that sound absolutely ridiculous are actually analogous to these scenarios.
And we have many convenient labels like that. Imagine someone saying, “Some Indian bloggers have been seen cheering for Pakistan during cricket matches. Therefore, all Indian bloggers are anti-national.” Or “Some bloggers burnt a train full of drivers, therefore we drivers will slaughter all the bloggers we can find.” Or “Bloggers have been discriminated against in the days before the internet, when they didn’t have access to any readership, therefore we will reserve a set amount of newspaper space for them.”
Ahh, the perils of stretched analogies. An analogy is usually a very convenient tool to explain or accentuate an idea. Indeed, Douglas Hofstadter has argued that analogy is at the very core of all cognition and that there is no difference between high level perception and analogies. But there is such a thing as an overly stretched analogy. All of the analogies mentioned above break down. The first one about cricket matches obviously replaces the term 'Muslims' by 'bloggers'. Wrong, because the terms 'Pakistan' and 'Muslim' have some attachment due to historical and current contexts while the terms 'Pakistan' and 'bloggers' have no such attachments. The second one references communal riots and is invalid because in any events of communal violence the violence is perpetrated/experienced solely because of one's belongingness to a particualr community. In Amit's example above, it is implicit that some individuals who happen to be bloggers burned a train that happened to be full of some other individuals who happen to be drivers, the drivers are not burned because they are drivers . It would be unnatural to think in terms of bloggers/drivers in that scenario. In communal riots however, some individuals kill some other individuals specifically because those other individuals belong to some particular community. It is difficult not to think in terms of Hindu/Muslim then. The third example obviously references reservations and to my mind is invalid because newspaper space cannot be considered essential by any definitions of a minimum acceptable level of life, while a decent education and an opportunity to make a livelihood, i.e a job are very much integral to any such definition.
Let me make it clear that I do not condone any of the three specific situations that have been referenced. Muslims do not become anti-national simply because some Muslims cheer for Pakistan in a cricket match. Communal riots can not be condoned in any circumstance. The issue of reservations will be discussed in the next post. However, the failure of these analogies, and indeed of most arguments that are propounded in favour of giving an indiviual supreme importance as opposed to the community only illustrates a belief I've always had - that an 'individual only' stance is as unnatural and as open to contradiction as a 'community only' stance.
Think about yourself hard enough, and try to describe yourself. The terms that most of us will come up with will all have something to do with allegiance to a larger community. I am 22, male, engineer, short, dark, math-inclined, Bhavanite etc. All are adjectives or nouns that describe categories. Do you fare any better? What to make then of this romantic notion of that 'I' within me that distinguishes me from everyone else, assuming one is disregarding the existence of a 'soul', that as a firm believer in all things rational, an individualist must disregard.
Of course, the point Amit makes is that thinking in terms of categories should not influence our reactions to other people and more importantly, state policy. In principle, I agree. But all around us we see that certain opportunities are created for us, or conversely certain opportunities denied to us not because of any talent/shortcoming as an individual but precisely because we belong to certain families and/or categories. I have access to the best institutes to train me for entrance examinations to postraduation courses. This goes a long way in aiding whatever natural abilities I have to succeed in those examinations. I have this access because my parents can pay for it. This has nothing to do with my innate 'individual' nature, and everything to do with the past of my family. My father was not as lucky as I am, and had to struggle much harder to make it in life. However, he still had a basic minimum base to build upon, for we were one of the land-owning families in the village, being 'upper castes'. I wonder if it would have been the same if he belonged instead to one of the land-tilling, poorer, 'lower catse' families. To summarise, my chances of making it to an IIM have been aided by the fact that I descend from an 'upper-caste', non-poor lineage. This has everything to do with my community and category, and nothing to do with me, the individual.
I want to repeat that I have not supported reservations here, atleast not yet. All I'm saying is, thinking only in terms of 'individuals' is neither very possible nor enough, for a lot (though definitely not all) of our experiences and opportunities are the functions of our unchosen allegiance to certain communities and have little to do with either our abilities or our choices as individuals.
Monday, February 26, 2007
I read
primarily from an illuminated screen these days. And apart from wikipedia, the ones that manage to catch my attention and interest strongly enough are :
1) India Uncut : Amit Varma is easily India's most famous blogger. The new site has a lot more than the blog, including crosswords(thankfully not cryptic), fantastic links and trivia. The blog however, remains the main attraction. I often don't agree with him, but that's a question of ideology. For individualism, atheism, Hemingway, cows and Chomskyian semi-semantic yet fully syntactic sentence constructs, kindly proceed without further ado.
2) Youth Curry : Rashmi Bansal - editor of JAM, popular figure among Mumbai's student community, no stranger to controversies. Wonderfully balanced and achieves its stated intent of providing an insight into India's youth to a large extent. The blog that prompted me to pick up the cyber-pen in the first place, so much so that (and this was totally sub-conscious, I swear) I ended up choosing the same template.
3) Vantage Point : Came to know about this one from the IIPM controversy. Gaurav writes coherently about libertarianism and America and cracks PJs that should qualify for the 'PJs that only engineers can crak - Hall of Fame'. Used to post quiz questions that severly dented my self-opinion of trivia king, but that feature has been missing for a long time.
4) Recursive Hypocrisy : Cool name, though very often there's no recursion, only irony. Recent find, though apparently this guy is super-popular(in a cultish, non-mainsteam way) on the blogosphere.
5) Sanjana : Are you feeling sad or depressed? Do you need sunshine? Are you ready to listen to nostalgic anecdotes about wonderful animals and tributes and backhanded compliments to Freud and classical mathematicians? Do you want to read dreams and visions and sentiments and rants that may leave you smirking at the author's naivette yet absolutely charmed by the idealism,information and sensitivity? If yes, do visit.
6) Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind : Humour is difficult to do. To do so consistently over sustained periods of time requires a rare talent. He is not as godly as many of his commentators describe him to be, but the chief priest and prophet of Mithunism is a bloody good read anyway.
7) The Examined Life : Another member of the libertarian cartel, he has apparently defected to form a new cartel himself. Doesn't update anymore but back when he used to write, he managed to get serious, non-sarcastic non-puke comments from the great Nilu. Read him for some meaningful explorations on law, economics, ethics, you get the dirft.
8) Kalachakra : She is perhaps the most popular new blogger in the Indian blogosphere. Another libertarian, and one who often lets her perceptions colour her observations (but don't we all). The legal angle she brings to issues makes her a worthwhile read though.
9) Kaleidoglide : Infrequently updated but I visit this on and off to keep myself updated on the latest on net-feminism. Thanks to her I atleast know who Andrea Dworkin is.
10) Known Turf : Has begun to write in a dangerously Arundhati Royesque manner, both in terms of content and stylistics, which means that I'm not a regular reader anymore. However, her knowledge of the Hindi heartland is almost encyclopaedic, and this post should probably be part of a 101 course on gender issues and sexual harassment.
11) Sonia Faleiro : Journo blog. Seems wonderfully non-judgemental at first read, an image that gradually breaks down on further investigation as the prejudices reveal themselves. However. she writes about a lot of things that most of us do not bother ourselves with. The interview with Jockin Ananthapuram is a classic.
12) Falstaff : Finally, a guy who manages to be more pedantic than I am. His pedantism is usually quite non-offensive though, and he has a brilliant way with words, writes some damn good fiction. His footnotes on economic discourses though, are the reason I ever read him in the first place.
13) Sauce : If you are, like me, somewhat of a voyeur, you'd enjoy an excursion into the world of the JUDE girls. I read this on and off to nullify the effects of all the serious pop economic philosophy that I subject myself to.
14) The Indian Economy Blog : Largely dominated by the libertarian cartel. The discussions in the comments sections are usually a lot more informative and meaningful than the posts themselves. Don't read this very often either but this is a one-stop shop, so.
15) Yazad Jal : This hasn't been updated in a long time. Read the archives posted by a guy called Sauvik who has written some insane articles in the ToI in the past to know exactly how prejudiced rhetoric in the name of economics makes for cringeworthy journalism.
16) Psychotic Ramblings of a Mad-Man : Vulturo describes himself as a 'rabid individualist', and I agree. For me, once the first term of that phrase is established, the second is inconsequential. Why then do I read this? Simply because it has been witness to some of the most interesting and insanley hilarious flame wars in the blogosphere.
1) India Uncut : Amit Varma is easily India's most famous blogger. The new site has a lot more than the blog, including crosswords(thankfully not cryptic), fantastic links and trivia. The blog however, remains the main attraction. I often don't agree with him, but that's a question of ideology. For individualism, atheism, Hemingway, cows and Chomskyian semi-semantic yet fully syntactic sentence constructs, kindly proceed without further ado.
2) Youth Curry : Rashmi Bansal - editor of JAM, popular figure among Mumbai's student community, no stranger to controversies. Wonderfully balanced and achieves its stated intent of providing an insight into India's youth to a large extent. The blog that prompted me to pick up the cyber-pen in the first place, so much so that (and this was totally sub-conscious, I swear) I ended up choosing the same template.
3) Vantage Point : Came to know about this one from the IIPM controversy. Gaurav writes coherently about libertarianism and America and cracks PJs that should qualify for the 'PJs that only engineers can crak - Hall of Fame'. Used to post quiz questions that severly dented my self-opinion of trivia king, but that feature has been missing for a long time.
4) Recursive Hypocrisy : Cool name, though very often there's no recursion, only irony. Recent find, though apparently this guy is super-popular(in a cultish, non-mainsteam way) on the blogosphere.
5) Sanjana : Are you feeling sad or depressed? Do you need sunshine? Are you ready to listen to nostalgic anecdotes about wonderful animals and tributes and backhanded compliments to Freud and classical mathematicians? Do you want to read dreams and visions and sentiments and rants that may leave you smirking at the author's naivette yet absolutely charmed by the idealism,information and sensitivity? If yes, do visit.
6) Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind : Humour is difficult to do. To do so consistently over sustained periods of time requires a rare talent. He is not as godly as many of his commentators describe him to be, but the chief priest and prophet of Mithunism is a bloody good read anyway.
7) The Examined Life : Another member of the libertarian cartel, he has apparently defected to form a new cartel himself. Doesn't update anymore but back when he used to write, he managed to get serious, non-sarcastic non-puke comments from the great Nilu. Read him for some meaningful explorations on law, economics, ethics, you get the dirft.
8) Kalachakra : She is perhaps the most popular new blogger in the Indian blogosphere. Another libertarian, and one who often lets her perceptions colour her observations (but don't we all). The legal angle she brings to issues makes her a worthwhile read though.
9) Kaleidoglide : Infrequently updated but I visit this on and off to keep myself updated on the latest on net-feminism. Thanks to her I atleast know who Andrea Dworkin is.
10) Known Turf : Has begun to write in a dangerously Arundhati Royesque manner, both in terms of content and stylistics, which means that I'm not a regular reader anymore. However, her knowledge of the Hindi heartland is almost encyclopaedic, and this post should probably be part of a 101 course on gender issues and sexual harassment.
11) Sonia Faleiro : Journo blog. Seems wonderfully non-judgemental at first read, an image that gradually breaks down on further investigation as the prejudices reveal themselves. However. she writes about a lot of things that most of us do not bother ourselves with. The interview with Jockin Ananthapuram is a classic.
12) Falstaff : Finally, a guy who manages to be more pedantic than I am. His pedantism is usually quite non-offensive though, and he has a brilliant way with words, writes some damn good fiction. His footnotes on economic discourses though, are the reason I ever read him in the first place.
13) Sauce : If you are, like me, somewhat of a voyeur, you'd enjoy an excursion into the world of the JUDE girls. I read this on and off to nullify the effects of all the serious pop economic philosophy that I subject myself to.
14) The Indian Economy Blog : Largely dominated by the libertarian cartel. The discussions in the comments sections are usually a lot more informative and meaningful than the posts themselves. Don't read this very often either but this is a one-stop shop, so.
15) Yazad Jal : This hasn't been updated in a long time. Read the archives posted by a guy called Sauvik who has written some insane articles in the ToI in the past to know exactly how prejudiced rhetoric in the name of economics makes for cringeworthy journalism.
16) Psychotic Ramblings of a Mad-Man : Vulturo describes himself as a 'rabid individualist', and I agree. For me, once the first term of that phrase is established, the second is inconsequential. Why then do I read this? Simply because it has been witness to some of the most interesting and insanley hilarious flame wars in the blogosphere.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
The Ritwik's Cube
An idea has been buzzing in my head for quite some time now, and it may turn out to be mere self-indulgence or may even have the potential for some larger initiative. This post invites an open house on this idea, its correctness and its feasibility. Those who are regular readers and my close friends are obligated to pour their thoughts in writing!
1) The socio-politico-economic Cube
How often have you come across the terms left-wing, right-wing, conservative, liberal, socialist, libertaraian, objectivist, marxist etc? And how often have you wondered about where exactly you stand on various issues that affect our daily lives, our relationship with the state, and the nature of our government? Society, politics and economics are deeply inter-related and yet some delineating markers can be found, in terms of various pressing issues that can be categorized as social, or political or economic. I have been trying to think of some of these issues that taken together may be comprehensive and representative, for an exhaustive list is not possible.
1-A : The Political Spectrum (the first axis of the cube)
A person's political views can lie anywhere between(and ofcourse, including) the extremes of anarchy on one side, and absolute authoritarianism on the other. If you support a hawkish foreign policy, aggressive millitary policy, capital punishment, etc. you are likely to be somewhat authoritarian. If you support freer borders, have deep faith in the Geneva Conventions, have little time for nationalist discourse and view the government and the millitary/intelligence agencies with inherent suspicion, you are more likely to be somewhat of an anarchist. Ofcourse, you may support a few of these things, oppose a few others and then again support or oppose these issues to different degrees. Here's a possible list of representative issues
1) voting rights and form of government
2) immigration policy
3) nature of defence policy and armed forces
4) legal system esp. capital punishment
5) extent of Right to Information
6) free speech wrt to importance of flag, anthem and other national symbols
7) intelligence agencies, security and privacy
8) human rights laws and power of law-enforcing agencies
1-B : The Social Spectrum (the second axis of the cube)
A person's social views can lie on the extremes between very conservative and very liberal, and a possible list of representative issues can be (don't think I need to mention what views are consdiered conservative and what views are considered liberal)
1) freedom of speech wrt censorship in arts/media/entertainment
2) role of religion in public life
3) gay rights and laws on homosexuality
4) abortion and contraception
5) euthanasia and suicide
6) drugs and laws on substance abuse
7) pornograhy laws
8) sex-trade
1- C : The Economic Spectrum (the third axis of the cube)
Economic views can be between Stalinist statism on one side and absolute laissez faire capitalism on the other, and a list of representative topics are
1) ownership of means of production
2) intellectual property rights
3) labour laws, unions, minimum wage etc.
4) government role in infrastructure, health and education
5) environmental regulations
6) domestic and international trade regulations
7) tax system and policy
8) monopoly or anti-trust laws
Now, here's the plan. A concise but representaive questionnaire can be developed, with three sections, one for each of the above aspects. Each of these sections will have a few questions, hopefully around 10, and each question will represent exactly one of the topics listed in each section. These questions will have multiple responses, and each response will have a numerical value attched to it to measure how anarchist/authoritarian or conservative/liberal or capitalist/marxist your views are on that issue. The scores on each question can then simply be totalled up to obtain the score for each section, and a combination of the sectional totals will directly reflect the set-up you want to live in. For eg. a score that is higher than average on authoritarianism and conservatism, and very high on the capitalism side would reflect a viewpoint that matches with messrs George W Bush et al. A score that is slightly skewed towards anarchy, and very high on the social liberal and capitalist scales would indicate a libertarian viewpoint, and so on. As a sample question and responses, consider this
Q: What's your take on capital punishment?
1) State-sponsored violence, a tool of propaganda, open to flagrant subjective abuse, a form of tribal justice that has no place in the modern scoiety
2) Has some arguments in its support, but statistics show that it is ineffective and counter-productive in controlling violent crime. Plus, it is extremely terminal nature for it delas with life. Should be abolished.
3) A system of natural justice that should be present, but used minimally. Should be used against serial killers, attackers and conspirators in terror bombings, political assasins who wage war against the state, and possibly for murders which were committed in an extremely premeditated and cruel manner.
4) An effective tool of retributive justice. Necessary for setting a precedent and controlling violent crime (statistics that show otherwise are flawed). those who violate someone else's right to life violate their own right to life. Can be handed out for all the above cases, as well as single murders and possibly even rapes.
As is easy to see, the responses are arranged in increasing order in support of a strong, authoritarian state, and hopefully represent all the rational viewpoints on the issue.
This plan can end up as nothing more than a rather meaningless online test that is not even fun. But then again, it may help many of us figure out the exact manifestos and public policy that we support and expect, and the public policy that some of us may even hope to form and implement in the future. What say?
1) The socio-politico-economic Cube
How often have you come across the terms left-wing, right-wing, conservative, liberal, socialist, libertaraian, objectivist, marxist etc? And how often have you wondered about where exactly you stand on various issues that affect our daily lives, our relationship with the state, and the nature of our government? Society, politics and economics are deeply inter-related and yet some delineating markers can be found, in terms of various pressing issues that can be categorized as social, or political or economic. I have been trying to think of some of these issues that taken together may be comprehensive and representative, for an exhaustive list is not possible.
1-A : The Political Spectrum (the first axis of the cube)
A person's political views can lie anywhere between(and ofcourse, including) the extremes of anarchy on one side, and absolute authoritarianism on the other. If you support a hawkish foreign policy, aggressive millitary policy, capital punishment, etc. you are likely to be somewhat authoritarian. If you support freer borders, have deep faith in the Geneva Conventions, have little time for nationalist discourse and view the government and the millitary/intelligence agencies with inherent suspicion, you are more likely to be somewhat of an anarchist. Ofcourse, you may support a few of these things, oppose a few others and then again support or oppose these issues to different degrees. Here's a possible list of representative issues
1) voting rights and form of government
2) immigration policy
3) nature of defence policy and armed forces
4) legal system esp. capital punishment
5) extent of Right to Information
6) free speech wrt to importance of flag, anthem and other national symbols
7) intelligence agencies, security and privacy
8) human rights laws and power of law-enforcing agencies
1-B : The Social Spectrum (the second axis of the cube)
A person's social views can lie on the extremes between very conservative and very liberal, and a possible list of representative issues can be (don't think I need to mention what views are consdiered conservative and what views are considered liberal)
1) freedom of speech wrt censorship in arts/media/entertainment
2) role of religion in public life
3) gay rights and laws on homosexuality
4) abortion and contraception
5) euthanasia and suicide
6) drugs and laws on substance abuse
7) pornograhy laws
8) sex-trade
1- C : The Economic Spectrum (the third axis of the cube)
Economic views can be between Stalinist statism on one side and absolute laissez faire capitalism on the other, and a list of representative topics are
1) ownership of means of production
2) intellectual property rights
3) labour laws, unions, minimum wage etc.
4) government role in infrastructure, health and education
5) environmental regulations
6) domestic and international trade regulations
7) tax system and policy
8) monopoly or anti-trust laws
Now, here's the plan. A concise but representaive questionnaire can be developed, with three sections, one for each of the above aspects. Each of these sections will have a few questions, hopefully around 10, and each question will represent exactly one of the topics listed in each section. These questions will have multiple responses, and each response will have a numerical value attched to it to measure how anarchist/authoritarian or conservative/liberal or capitalist/marxist your views are on that issue. The scores on each question can then simply be totalled up to obtain the score for each section, and a combination of the sectional totals will directly reflect the set-up you want to live in. For eg. a score that is higher than average on authoritarianism and conservatism, and very high on the capitalism side would reflect a viewpoint that matches with messrs George W Bush et al. A score that is slightly skewed towards anarchy, and very high on the social liberal and capitalist scales would indicate a libertarian viewpoint, and so on. As a sample question and responses, consider this
Q: What's your take on capital punishment?
1) State-sponsored violence, a tool of propaganda, open to flagrant subjective abuse, a form of tribal justice that has no place in the modern scoiety
2) Has some arguments in its support, but statistics show that it is ineffective and counter-productive in controlling violent crime. Plus, it is extremely terminal nature for it delas with life. Should be abolished.
3) A system of natural justice that should be present, but used minimally. Should be used against serial killers, attackers and conspirators in terror bombings, political assasins who wage war against the state, and possibly for murders which were committed in an extremely premeditated and cruel manner.
4) An effective tool of retributive justice. Necessary for setting a precedent and controlling violent crime (statistics that show otherwise are flawed). those who violate someone else's right to life violate their own right to life. Can be handed out for all the above cases, as well as single murders and possibly even rapes.
As is easy to see, the responses are arranged in increasing order in support of a strong, authoritarian state, and hopefully represent all the rational viewpoints on the issue.
This plan can end up as nothing more than a rather meaningless online test that is not even fun. But then again, it may help many of us figure out the exact manifestos and public policy that we support and expect, and the public policy that some of us may even hope to form and implement in the future. What say?
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
The Joy!
Of blogging, that is. About a year after I've started blogging, I'm finally doing it some justice. I've been writing more frequently, am gradually learning how to write shorter and (hopefully)more lucid prose and have finally realised the benefits of writing directly to a computer screen with various virtual tools to bail you out. No need to make messy cuts on the paper, simply delete and re-write. No need to draft, re-draft and then type the whole thing - just delete all and start over again if you're not satisfied. I am finally getting past what I stated here, and in the process also saving paper. (Ofcourse, determining whether the ecological impact of an hour of extra computer usage is lesser than that of a few wasted sheets of paper would involve some massive cost-benefit analsysis; but lets just go along some 'intuitive, seemingly correct' assertion for the time being). Today, I typed an entire post and closed the window without saving or publishing it. And then, astonishingly, found the patience to come back and re-write it after a small break. Ahh, the joy of blogging.
Guru (In which Mani Ratnam pulls off an Ekta Kapoor)
'Gurubhai Gurubhai aavya chhe...dhoom dhadhaka laavya chhe...gurubhai gurubhai aavya chhe...dhoom dhadhaka laavya chhe' (gurubhai has arrived, bringing the fireworks along with him). This ridiculous anthem blares at full blast while our protagonist marches on, literally and figuratively. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the world of Guru, a strange movie where an often brilliant attention to detail sits awkwardly with stylisations and cliches that would be more at home in a K-soap.
I was disappointed by Mani Ratnam's much awaited new release. Perhaps, it was a case of failed expectations as most of my friends, who have otherwise impeccable taste, loved it, and throughout the movie I was wondering why. There are things to be lauded in Guru - it is ideologically powerful, making a case for economic freedom, it is as true to reality as a fictionalised biopic can be, it is balanced in its portrayal of the lead protagnists, and the attention to a few details is staggering, for eg. the old railway compartment, the cloth market, the vintage cars etc. However, it never makes for a compelling drama. Not once in the movie is the viewer ecstatic, saddened, provoked to think deeply, or driven to rage. Guru is overlong, badly edited and failed to catch my attention for any sustained periods.
The screenplay leaves much to be desired, and never allows the actors to move beyond certain stylistics, acting-wise. AB Jr. is always slightly goofy early on, always slightly defiant later, Madhavan is always relaxed and self assured, and all the male characters are suitably stoic in death or defeat, as necessitated by the stereotype of the iron-willed male protagonist. Bleh. The songs are totally out of place, and stop the narative flow in a very irritating manner, with a tuneless ditty called 'Ek Nahin Do' being the worst offender. The climax with our beloved Gurubhai(he of the inane background score fame) is particularly tepid as it is a courtroom drama where the protagonist raves and rants a lot but never inspires, for he is a defendant in a case and never really makes a defence for himself. Worse, the scene is shot with all the cliches that would make Ekta Kapoor and KJo proud - there is a percussive background score, the camera zooms in and out of the faces of the jury (the villains about to have a change of heart, apparently), the protagonist is surrounded by stream of consciosuness voices and images, there is the obligatory public applause that gradually reaches a crescendo, and the jury pronounce Gurubhai a 'genius thug' with a loving indulgence. How could you Mr Ratnam? How could the man who gave us the most memorable melodaramatic climax of the 90s in Dil Se direct this kind of drivel? How?
AB Jr is good in the title role, depicting the transition from wonder-eyed and strong-willed to defiant and strong-willed in an adequate, though predictable manner. Aishwarya is ok, her attempts at playing an independent-minded girl and woman good, her attempts at getting into the skin of the character(while speaking Gujarati, for instance) palpable. MithunDa gives us glimpses of the actor who won the national award in his very first movie, with a stirring portrayal of Manek Gupta(or Ram Nath Goenka, simply) - his ego, his quirks, his character, his righteousness, his self-righteousness and the ultimate pointlessness of his rather moralistic fight. Madhavan is good again, but he is too much of a side-plot to make any real impact (incidentally, can anyone tell me who he's playing - S Gurumurthy or Arun Shourie). Vidya Balan is charming, and kisses on-screen with realism, ease and affection, with neither the hypocritical awkwardness nor the calculated sleaze that Bollywood smooches usually carry. The music, except for two great songs, is nothing to write home about.
Guru is ideologically strong and high on realism, however as a movie, as a work of art and of entertainment, it fails on many counts. Average by any standards and mediocre by Mani Ratnam's.
Rating - 5/10
I was disappointed by Mani Ratnam's much awaited new release. Perhaps, it was a case of failed expectations as most of my friends, who have otherwise impeccable taste, loved it, and throughout the movie I was wondering why. There are things to be lauded in Guru - it is ideologically powerful, making a case for economic freedom, it is as true to reality as a fictionalised biopic can be, it is balanced in its portrayal of the lead protagnists, and the attention to a few details is staggering, for eg. the old railway compartment, the cloth market, the vintage cars etc. However, it never makes for a compelling drama. Not once in the movie is the viewer ecstatic, saddened, provoked to think deeply, or driven to rage. Guru is overlong, badly edited and failed to catch my attention for any sustained periods.
The screenplay leaves much to be desired, and never allows the actors to move beyond certain stylistics, acting-wise. AB Jr. is always slightly goofy early on, always slightly defiant later, Madhavan is always relaxed and self assured, and all the male characters are suitably stoic in death or defeat, as necessitated by the stereotype of the iron-willed male protagonist. Bleh. The songs are totally out of place, and stop the narative flow in a very irritating manner, with a tuneless ditty called 'Ek Nahin Do' being the worst offender. The climax with our beloved Gurubhai(he of the inane background score fame) is particularly tepid as it is a courtroom drama where the protagonist raves and rants a lot but never inspires, for he is a defendant in a case and never really makes a defence for himself. Worse, the scene is shot with all the cliches that would make Ekta Kapoor and KJo proud - there is a percussive background score, the camera zooms in and out of the faces of the jury (the villains about to have a change of heart, apparently), the protagonist is surrounded by stream of consciosuness voices and images, there is the obligatory public applause that gradually reaches a crescendo, and the jury pronounce Gurubhai a 'genius thug' with a loving indulgence. How could you Mr Ratnam? How could the man who gave us the most memorable melodaramatic climax of the 90s in Dil Se direct this kind of drivel? How?
AB Jr is good in the title role, depicting the transition from wonder-eyed and strong-willed to defiant and strong-willed in an adequate, though predictable manner. Aishwarya is ok, her attempts at playing an independent-minded girl and woman good, her attempts at getting into the skin of the character(while speaking Gujarati, for instance) palpable. MithunDa gives us glimpses of the actor who won the national award in his very first movie, with a stirring portrayal of Manek Gupta(or Ram Nath Goenka, simply) - his ego, his quirks, his character, his righteousness, his self-righteousness and the ultimate pointlessness of his rather moralistic fight. Madhavan is good again, but he is too much of a side-plot to make any real impact (incidentally, can anyone tell me who he's playing - S Gurumurthy or Arun Shourie). Vidya Balan is charming, and kisses on-screen with realism, ease and affection, with neither the hypocritical awkwardness nor the calculated sleaze that Bollywood smooches usually carry. The music, except for two great songs, is nothing to write home about.
Guru is ideologically strong and high on realism, however as a movie, as a work of art and of entertainment, it fails on many counts. Average by any standards and mediocre by Mani Ratnam's.
Rating - 5/10
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Images from Techfest 2007
The lure of John Nash, Arun Netravali and the Royal scoiety exhibitions, as well as the thought of attending atleast one edition of Asia's largest campus technical festival made me change plans last minute and stay back in Mumbai for two more days. Can't help feeling a little shortselled after what transpired next, and thats why this post.
A quick look at most of the events, and I was reminded again of why I have had no enthusiasm for these festivals in the past. Most of the competitions involve robotics, and I hate robots. Now there are some issues about robots that are very fascinating, including the fundamental question of the possibility of machine consciousness, but that is more AI and philosophy. Beyond some utility purposes, in terms of shopfloor automation etc., I see no point of robots as they are today. Robots that can swim, jump, play football, fight against each other...bleh - they are simply mechanical devices (I refuse to call the ones we commonly see as machines), and very pointless ones at that. For the life of me I cannot understand how some people, mostly Japanese, are actually interested in robot dolls or robot pets. The Japanese must be the saddest people on earth - they have zero population growth rate, get no real sex, wear boring suits, have humourless TV shows, get portrayed as sad in sad Bill Murray movies, produce really weird porn, really weird cartoons, inspire shitty Quentin tarantino movies, and are in love with robots. But I digress. The point is, there are some things that are considered cutting edge in terms of technology - robots and computer game animation - that the Japanese are considered masters of, and I have zero regard for them. A significant amount of talent at the very top of computer science goes into these fields, and I have a very strong feeling that it could be utilised much better elsewhere. In societal terms, there is simply not enough return on investment in these fields, though they perhaps make good localized business sense. Besides, robots are ugly.
The two guest lectures were also disappointing. The Video conference with Dr Netravali was reduced to an audio conference due to the repeated failure of the video connection, and because the talk was as general as 'the future of digital communications', most of it was uninspiring. There were a few interesting things however, including some of his predictions for the future and his exhortation to current students to implement certain tech advances that he termed 'gifts'. The converse happened with Dr John Nash's lecture. The communication links worked perfectly, however the talk was extremely specialized - 'Agencies In cooperative games', and a large part of the audience had gathered only to get a glimpse of the man made famous by 'A Beautiful Mind'. (not their fault entirely, the IITians had themselves hyped up the event in similiar terms and I was surprised that 'A Beautiful Mind' featured more in their promotions than 'Game Theory'). The talk was very specialized, and worse was not even a talk really, for Dr Nash actually only read out and tried to explain large portions of small-font typewritten text that no one in the audience could understand. It would have worked much better as a face to face lecture rather than a videoconferenced talk. I must also share part of the blame, for not having read game theory fundamentals before I went in to attend a talk with a rather specialized focus.
The Royal scoiety exhibitions were also OK, with the Mind Reader catching my interest. I'm convinced that cognitive science is the field in which we will have our next scientific revolution, and the nature of the field means that there is finally an area of study that can do true justice to the interdisciplinary tag.
All these things notwithstanding, I think I'm still better off having attended the two days. Also, got a Shell t-shirt as a freebie for some quiz question at one of these events!
A quick look at most of the events, and I was reminded again of why I have had no enthusiasm for these festivals in the past. Most of the competitions involve robotics, and I hate robots. Now there are some issues about robots that are very fascinating, including the fundamental question of the possibility of machine consciousness, but that is more AI and philosophy. Beyond some utility purposes, in terms of shopfloor automation etc., I see no point of robots as they are today. Robots that can swim, jump, play football, fight against each other...bleh - they are simply mechanical devices (I refuse to call the ones we commonly see as machines), and very pointless ones at that. For the life of me I cannot understand how some people, mostly Japanese, are actually interested in robot dolls or robot pets. The Japanese must be the saddest people on earth - they have zero population growth rate, get no real sex, wear boring suits, have humourless TV shows, get portrayed as sad in sad Bill Murray movies, produce really weird porn, really weird cartoons, inspire shitty Quentin tarantino movies, and are in love with robots. But I digress. The point is, there are some things that are considered cutting edge in terms of technology - robots and computer game animation - that the Japanese are considered masters of, and I have zero regard for them. A significant amount of talent at the very top of computer science goes into these fields, and I have a very strong feeling that it could be utilised much better elsewhere. In societal terms, there is simply not enough return on investment in these fields, though they perhaps make good localized business sense. Besides, robots are ugly.
The two guest lectures were also disappointing. The Video conference with Dr Netravali was reduced to an audio conference due to the repeated failure of the video connection, and because the talk was as general as 'the future of digital communications', most of it was uninspiring. There were a few interesting things however, including some of his predictions for the future and his exhortation to current students to implement certain tech advances that he termed 'gifts'. The converse happened with Dr John Nash's lecture. The communication links worked perfectly, however the talk was extremely specialized - 'Agencies In cooperative games', and a large part of the audience had gathered only to get a glimpse of the man made famous by 'A Beautiful Mind'. (not their fault entirely, the IITians had themselves hyped up the event in similiar terms and I was surprised that 'A Beautiful Mind' featured more in their promotions than 'Game Theory'). The talk was very specialized, and worse was not even a talk really, for Dr Nash actually only read out and tried to explain large portions of small-font typewritten text that no one in the audience could understand. It would have worked much better as a face to face lecture rather than a videoconferenced talk. I must also share part of the blame, for not having read game theory fundamentals before I went in to attend a talk with a rather specialized focus.
The Royal scoiety exhibitions were also OK, with the Mind Reader catching my interest. I'm convinced that cognitive science is the field in which we will have our next scientific revolution, and the nature of the field means that there is finally an area of study that can do true justice to the interdisciplinary tag.
All these things notwithstanding, I think I'm still better off having attended the two days. Also, got a Shell t-shirt as a freebie for some quiz question at one of these events!
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Land, again
Just had to write about this ever since it has struck me. With all this controversy about the Singur acquisition, why is is that none of the commentators on the blogosphere find it fit to criticise Tata Motors for their role in the whole controversy. Is it because that will mean opposing a business house, a capitalist, an epitome of a liberal economy? Or is it because criticising the government is the more 'done' thing as part of the liberal discourse, the easier way out in any controversy? The Tatas have enough MBAs, economists and general other such informed souls to know and understand the concept of individual freedom, property rights, and suchlike. If the government is acting as a land recovery agent for them, surely it is because they have asked the government to do so. If there has been an underpayment to the people losing their land, surely it is in part to indirectly subsidise the costs to Tata Motors. Why have they taken these route, and more importantly, why have they not been criticised, except by politicians/activists who will anyway attack any corporates as and when they want?
Yes, I know the obvious answer. Tata Motors will act in their rational self interest, if there aren't provisions for direct sale, and there are provision for government backed acquisition, why wouldn't they use these provisions? The government however, represents the people. It must take decisions and make and implement policies for the representative or the individual's interest, etc. Sorry, but this logic runs thin. The government is not the 'government', some abstract quantity, but the particular individuals and officials making up the government legislature and executive. When they strike a deal with Tata, they are also acting in their 'rational self-interest'. We expect better from them because they are the 'government', they run on our taxes, they represent us etc. but if we do so, we must also expect a certain ethical high standard from the corporate houses, whether they directly represent us or not. A liberal citizenry and a liberal government needs corporates that believe in the same tenets of liberalism - crony capitalism is a two-way wrong.
I would probably not have thought about this so much had it not been for the fact that this is the Tatas, the guys who set up the Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital, the IISc, TIFR, Air India, the Taj Mahal hotel. The Tatas, the relatives of Homi J Bhabha. The one business house that I have admired without any reservation whatsoever. Rational or irrational, I expected better from them.
Another interesting thing is the fact that most bloggers have also criticised this acquisition as being typical 'communist' policy. Just as the left-liberals have certain pet targets that must come up, irrespective of relevance (America, upper caste Hindus, all corporates, etc) the free market liberals have their own straw effigy to be burnt at every instance - the communists. Thin logic again. Bengal is not the only state acquiring land aggressively for SEZs etc, and most of the other states are not ruled by communists. India's socialist past may have given these governments the tools to indulge in some self-gratification in the name of development, the urge to act in 'rational self interest', however, is not a by-product of socialism/communism. Truth is, the inherent properties of communism or any other ideology have nothing to do with the current spate of land acquisition by the state governments, it is just that when it happens in a communist-ruled state, the hypocrisy is more evident, which really is tangential to the central issues of land ownership, property rights, industrialization and government intervention.
Also, read this Modi on liberalization
The man all liberals love to hate is the only one who is absolutely clear and categorical about the liberal way to industrialize. What irony!
Yes, I know the obvious answer. Tata Motors will act in their rational self interest, if there aren't provisions for direct sale, and there are provision for government backed acquisition, why wouldn't they use these provisions? The government however, represents the people. It must take decisions and make and implement policies for the representative or the individual's interest, etc. Sorry, but this logic runs thin. The government is not the 'government', some abstract quantity, but the particular individuals and officials making up the government legislature and executive. When they strike a deal with Tata, they are also acting in their 'rational self-interest'. We expect better from them because they are the 'government', they run on our taxes, they represent us etc. but if we do so, we must also expect a certain ethical high standard from the corporate houses, whether they directly represent us or not. A liberal citizenry and a liberal government needs corporates that believe in the same tenets of liberalism - crony capitalism is a two-way wrong.
I would probably not have thought about this so much had it not been for the fact that this is the Tatas, the guys who set up the Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital, the IISc, TIFR, Air India, the Taj Mahal hotel. The Tatas, the relatives of Homi J Bhabha. The one business house that I have admired without any reservation whatsoever. Rational or irrational, I expected better from them.
Another interesting thing is the fact that most bloggers have also criticised this acquisition as being typical 'communist' policy. Just as the left-liberals have certain pet targets that must come up, irrespective of relevance (America, upper caste Hindus, all corporates, etc) the free market liberals have their own straw effigy to be burnt at every instance - the communists. Thin logic again. Bengal is not the only state acquiring land aggressively for SEZs etc, and most of the other states are not ruled by communists. India's socialist past may have given these governments the tools to indulge in some self-gratification in the name of development, the urge to act in 'rational self interest', however, is not a by-product of socialism/communism. Truth is, the inherent properties of communism or any other ideology have nothing to do with the current spate of land acquisition by the state governments, it is just that when it happens in a communist-ruled state, the hypocrisy is more evident, which really is tangential to the central issues of land ownership, property rights, industrialization and government intervention.
Also, read this Modi on liberalization
The man all liberals love to hate is the only one who is absolutely clear and categorical about the liberal way to industrialize. What irony!
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