A Sad Rant

Just when you think the pall of hypocrisy and contorted views can't cast a longer shadow upon our supposedly educated society, something comes along which perfectly well makes you believe otherwise. Let me tell you a couple of examples that I encountered over the end-semester break...

December 23 (or so I remember)...I was watching the Gujarat elections' coverage on CNN-IBN. One of the 'experts' being questioned was Teesta Sethlavar - well,I might have got the spelling wrong...don't care about the spelling though since I guess the name would sound right enough) - a self proclaimed social activist. A question posed to her spoke of why the only human rights violations during the 2002 Gujarat riots are the only violations they saw. The question went on to ask about the lack of action of these very human rights activist groups in the case of the blatant atrocities that were committed in Nandigram. The reply didn't surprise me. The reply could have made the best diplomat proud in the way the question was dodged.

January 7, today...Sachin Tendulkar scored a hundred at the SCG, and the same media, which was vilifying him for such reasons like not scoring/failing under pressure/scoring too slowly/getting out in the 90s and what not, showered upon him the same adulation reserved for demi-gods who can do no wrong? And funnily enough, we had all these discussions popping up about whether Tendulkar now deserves to be awarded the Bharat Ratna...And of course, then we have people who were vehemently opposing the possibility of the government ever taking such a step (a social activist was one of them, surprise surprise!!!!)

Now, don't get me wrong! But there are two fundamental flaws in the topic of discussion itself. First, the Bharat Ratna should be awarded to persons in recognition of a life time of work. In Tendulkar's case, he might be nearing the end of his career but he's certainly not hung up his bat. The honour can wait...but having said that, I must also emphasize that the honour must be given, which brings me to the second flaw in the discussion...

When we have people who grossly underestimate the power of a particular medium talking about achievements of a person engaging himself in that medium, we get senseless reasons being thrown about which only succeed at tarnishing not only the person's achievements but also the medium itself.

Sport is a medium that transcends the physical and psychological sphere. The joy and inspiration that we, as plain and simple supporters of a sports team, get out of watching a genius wield his bat around like a wand, cannot be quantified in terms of sheer direct influence on a person's life. Isn't the example of the heights attained by Sachin through sheer hard labour an inspiration to everybody who wishes to achieve something in life? Isn't the example of his undying hunger on the cricket field a lesson in keeping the flame of desire glowing inside one's mind?

It is time we looked beyond strictly defined rules and analyzed the real influence...the real service done by a person to the nation...Sachin has done a service to the nation which few in post-independence India can claim to have done...he's made us proud of being Indians...he's given us a reason to hold our collective breaths when he steps out to bat...he's given the great Indian middle class a reason to believe that the sky is the limit for their achievements...

It is for only this reason that Tendulkar must be honoured...but only when the time is right (and that time certainly isn't now)

Unfortunately, the media has made this issue a media circus. No doubt, it is going to be the same group of people who will be the first to vilify Sachin once again when the going gets tough.

Sadly, it is this hypocrisy that is gnawing at our collective conscience. People might never have liked others climbing ladders to success even while they themselves lingered on the lower rungs, but now our society and its components have begun doing something that's even worse...We've begun pulling down those who show the spirit, the endeavour and the industry to attempt to climb the ladder.

Maybe it is time for change...Probably it's upto us to find a way to make sure that the values we treasure don't get lost in a race for instant popularity...Probably it is upto us to concentrate on our own success - and that too, without trying to vilify and harm others.

Of Open Source, Patents et al

As the open-source v/s closed source debate rages on with companies and brands on either side of the fence each trying to gain the upper hand, it seems that Microsoft has started to change its policies to ensure sustained control of the software markets.

A perfect example of this is Microsoft's policy in China which includes tolerating piracy - one of the reasons why China has not yet woken up to the Linux-driven open-source revolution. Apparently, it took Microsoft nearly 15 years of struggle in the Chinese markets and billions of lost dollars to formulate its plan of pricing its products at the lowest possible rates and working in sync with the Chinese government - a policy that has paid dividends. Apparently Bill Gates says that while it was terrible that people in China pirated so much software, if they were going to pirate anybody's software he'd certainly prefer it be Microsoft's.

So does this prove that Microsoft is worried about maintaining its long-standing dominance of the software markets? You bet. Open-source is both the present and the future. Why must Windows be priced exorbitantly when all its features (and even some more powerful than those) are present in Linux which you can all download and use for free? The people in Redmond realize this grave threat to business and there are some policies which indicate changes are afoot.

For example, take the instance of Microsoft releasing Visual Studio Express Editions for free. Maybe it realizes that with so many languages all packed with platform-independent features available in the market (Java, Python to name a few) it can't afford to rely on its Windows environment to ensure the survival of its Visual Studio suite. And hence the available free downloads (albeit with restricted features yet enough of them to be going on with.)

So is Microsoft going the 'free' way? Apparently not, if reports of patent terrorism are to be believed.

So will it finally give up its policy of trying to preserve its intellectual property by obfuscation? Will it realize that opening up their source codes will accelerate the development of computing? Doesn't look like it.

For the biggest argument that closed-source has is the attempt to protect intellectual property at all costs. Time for that to change, methinks.

Speaking of protection of intellectual property, there is interesting and most disturbing evidence emerging of an increasing number of lawsuits by inventors of new treatment technologies, citing infringement of their intellectual property that is threatening to interfere with effective treatment of patients. I mean, imagine what happened if you went for a surgery where it would take three weeks to recover fully instead of one where you could be up and running in three days flat only because the latter is protected by patents all over the board.

Perhaps it is time we looked hard and long at the concept of intellectual property and patents and did something to change the fact that the current system is proving to be a hindrance to progress and innovation.

Wah Taj!

Well, isn't this what we found splashed all across our television screens on the morning of the 8th. With the satisfaction of averting a self-dreamt national insult behind us, people went all out to celebrate (or so the media would have us believe) The most ironic thing that I find though within hours of declaring 'THE NEW 7 WONDERS OF THE WORLD', the same website now calls for 'THE 7 NEW NATURAL WONDERS OF THE WORLD' - a list that is to be announced on 8.8.08.

Probably this is something that is beyond what I think - in other words, it does not matter what I think about this...after all, everything is done and dusted and the list - a result of millions of votes from across the world - has been released. But I do question the validity of this list.

How do you define a wonder? This in itself is a very subjective question and the boundary lines which differentiate this question from others on many aesthetic and metaphysical issues are probably so blurred that I'd rather not go into this topic.

Of more interest to me is the nature of people who have voted in this poll. The obvious fact that most of the people who've voted haven't ever visited the monuments they have voted for. Can such a voter imagine the awe that must fill a devotee when he/she stands in the shadow of Christ the Redeemer atop the Sugarloaf mountain in Rio? Can such a voter feel the throb of a hunger for blood and savagery which a gladiatorial bout in the Colosseum would have elicited centuries ago? Can such a voter truly appreciate the ingenuity involved in building the Great Wall of China for the purpose of imperial defence?

Instead of a survey that weighed in these factors plus many more like architectural ingenuity and difficulty, significance and symbolism, we got a poll where heavily populated nations could dominate the voting and hence push forth their candidates.

All said and done, I feel that the bottom line remains as to how we can compare these great monuments and grade them as better than the other. How can we choose to honour some monuments and not others, despite the fact that they all stand for the same thing - the triumph of human creativity and ingenuity as mankind strove (as it still does) for a world that stands for comfort, beauty, love and happiness.

Promise of A New World

I swore to myself when I started this blog that I'd never have 'techie' posts here. It's my belief that unless you are a very good sci-fi author with oodles of imagination to supplement tons of ability with words, you can't make techie stuff appear good reads for everybody; and since I haven't proved myself to be either, hence the reason for my resolve.

But over the last few days, two things have caught my attention and excited me to such an extent that I've now broken my aforementioned golden rule, not once but twice in quick succession. The first of course, was the concept of $100 laptops; the second is the incredible concept of surface computing.

To know more about this, you can look over the papers from a couple of days ago, or you could wiki it, or just visit the homepage of Microsoft Surface. This is hardly a place for putting up all the details of the project since I do not know everything, nor am I an expert in this field. But it is the possible reach of this enterprise that excites me.

This is possibly the first genuine step to make computing a part of our daily life, and I mean computers as a integral part of everything we do. Okay, it is a big part even today; but computers are still ensconced within the traditional display, input and processing devices - at least to the general public. Sure there are microprocessors everywhere - as traditional microprocessors or microcontrollers, but they are not quite capable of multi-tasked all round computing, are they? (Do correct me if I am wrong in saying any of this) But Microsoft Surface is the first attempt at breaking this notion.

It's probably too early to say this, but I think we are heading for a Star Wars style world full of computers and devices having brilliant computing capability. We are heading towards an exciting, brave new world where our creations - machines led by computers - will enable us to reach greater heights of progress and technical advancement. It takes software and hardware development and inter-relation to a whole new level altogether. And these are the reasons why, this new concept excites me. Despite all the immediate inflated costs and stuff, this shows the way towards the next generation in computer evolution.

I wonder whether Alan M. Turing, when he invented the first computing machine, ever imagined this stage in computer evolution. If he did and had he been alive, wouldn't he be having a smile on his face on this day, looking at the direction his invention his original invention is taking and the limitless possibilities it is providing to mankind? And if he didn't, wouldn't he still be happy that his invention has reached such zeniths, with even more peaks to scale?

Modern Day Cynicism

A six-day break from blogging for no reason other than the lack of stuff to write - that's been the story of the past week for me at home. But on the flip side, while I haven't had much to express, I've had a lot to observe, a lot to mull upon and finally, something to write about.

To start with let's look at some of the major news stories from the past week:

• Agitations in Rajasthan over the OBC reservation issues - pity that certain groups of people consider fighting for a right to circumvent the path everyone has to take as a righteous struggle; pity that even after 60 years of independence, the specter of reservations haunts us.
• The FBI foiled a planned attack on the JFK airport in NY.
• The progress of the monsoons hits a roadblock with the formation of a cyclone 800 km southwest of Mumbai.
• There were fears of an outbreak of smallpox in Bangladesh and Myanmar, which eventually turned out to a false alarm with the WHO confirming it as an outbreak of measles.
• NDTV expose purportedly showing the collusion between the prosecution and the defence in the sensational BMW hit-and-run case aired on TV.

Now, the print media did dwell on each of these issues in some length or the other although one could argue that they had to do so for fear of lacking the necessary content to fill up the few blanks within their pages. After all, you can't fill a whole newspaper with advertisements - not that TOI and some others would mind.

Let's look at the television media on the other hand. Each of these events appeared, yes, but with sensational claims, twists and turns along the way. And that brings me to the point of asking whether the media in the country looks for news in search of the truth or is sensationalism the major criterion for breaking news. Whatever it is, the phenomenon of television ratings and market share seems to have caught up with the media, causing an overkill of sensational, eye-grabbing headlines - some true, some blown-up beyond proportion.

I do wonder sometimes whether today's media - the self-style voice and saviour of the people - care about the people themselves whose cause they are fighting for. The general cynicism and lack of preparation that goes into the coverage of news stories is all so apparent to me. News channels have become an extension of tabloid tattle, whereby issues like celebrity hookups are given supreme priority. And when the issues that really matter do come to the fore, one can be rest assured it's due to the sensation potential of that issue. Add to that the bias regarding many many issues that are covered - and you realize that Indian media, amidst all the cynicism, is ill.

It is this cynicism that we have to rid our mindsets of. For I believe a reason for the widespread cynicism in the media is that the people themselves demand it. When you are in the business of selling news to people, you better give them what they want; and it seems this is what is happening in India at the moment.

However, that does not mean there are no good journalists out there. There are people who are doing a really good job out there. Without taking names, I'll be the first one to admit that there are people in the media who earnestly believe in their duty as the voice of the people and try to bring out real issues from beneath the cloak of sensationalism. And I for one hope that the number of this increasingly rare breed of journalists sees a considerable increase.