Network Computers

Long back, once in a while, my linux computer used to give me this fortune cookie:

Network is the computer; Oops! Network is the network; computer is the computer. Sorry for the mix-up.

Or, something to that effect, which is an obvious joke on the logo of the Sun microsystems.

Today’s Hindu carries an editorial about broad-based computing, which relies on network as the computer paradigm. The homepage of the company referred to in the article, Novatium, also has some information on their netPC.

As usual, the Wiki page on Network Computer is full of information and contains links (among other things) to this FAQ (which is rather old) and to this Byte.com article (which is relatively recent).

As the Wiki article points out, the idea of Network PCs might have been ahead of its time. If so, I would tend to agree with the conclusion of the Hindu editorial that the network PCs along with open source software might actually be able to bridge the digital divide effectively:

For the majority of the people, bridging the digital divide will depend on innovation that exploits low-cost hardware, open source software, and network opportunities such as cabling, mobile telephony, and wireless to broaden and democratise access.

Finally, with all this potential, can Google be far behind? While Google denied the report, a thin client maker says that they did in fact have discussions with Google on the issue.

 

Laurie Baker passes away…

Lawrence W. Baker (Laurie Baker), the legendary architect and a great humanitarian passed away today in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. The Baker method of building low-cost houses that co-exists well with nature and environment has made an architectural revolution in Kerala.

Low cost is only one of the many aspects of his buildings that set them apart from the monsters other architects impose on us. His buildings merge with nature and do not stand apart like a sore thumb, are environmentally inexpensive, make best use of the space available, are designed with the needs of the client, and not just the external appearance or some design trend, in mind, makes best use of available sunlight and winds, thus reducing the need for artificial lighting and fans, just to mention a few. This in a society which discusses environmental issues in large rooms with tall windows, all of them shut tight with thick curtains, artificial lighting and air conditioning, with tea and snacks served in disposable plastic cups and plates. Come to think of it, it is no wonder that we don’t take Bakerji seriously! [Via Random Thoughts]

From the Blogosphere:
Lest we Forget
Laurie Baker – Living for a cause
More o Laurie Baker – Prabhu Karthik

From the media:
Laurie Baker’s creative journey – The Hindu
Of architectural truth and lies – The Hindu

 

When employment with Govt of India was an honour

Ram Guha reminisces about the times when being an employee of the Government of India was an honour:

Truth be told, both Bhawani Singh and my father were merely representative of the times. Among Indians of all classes then hung the clean, if somewhat antiseptic, air of the freedom movement. This was especially true of those in public service; whether an unlettered peon or a scientist with a PhD, to be in the employ of the government of India was recognized as an honour that, despite (or perhaps even because of) its lack of material reward, somehow elevated you above your countrymen. With this sense of honour went a sense of duty and responsibility. Hence the respect with which Bhawani Singh treated the laboratory keys placed in his charge; hence also the doggedness with which my father would refuse to allow me to sit in the Dodge that Mahanand drove.

In the latter part of the article, he ties these up with the Mashelkar fiasco. And, he has some more ‘interesting’ information about Mashelkar too:

In his time at the CSIR, Dr Mashelkar had a reputation for dynamism, for infusing life and energy into a somnolent organization. To be sure, he did things scientists were not supposed to do. For example, he was felicitated in a function hosted by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Again, Dr Mashelkar joined the board of Reliance Industries very soon after leaving office.

What is more, given Mashelkar’s background, Guha finds the plagiarism accusation the most serious of all:

Breaking bread with the RSS, cosying up to corporate India — these are things we have become accustomed to, from our journalists and social scientists at any rate. We should perhaps not be too judgmental about a scientist following the same route. However, the charges of plagiarism will be harder to wish away. For nothing can be more damaging to a scientist than to be told that his conclusions are stolen from someone or somewhere else.

Finally, Guha touches a raw nerve of the Indian science establishment in the last paragraph:

As I write this, news comes in that Dr Mashelkar has resigned from the Technical Expert Group on Patent Law Issues. Although belated — it comes several weeks after the charges of plagiarism were made public — it is a welcome acknowledgement of error, if not negligence. With this, the controversy in the press will die down. However, Dr Mashelkar has still to withstand the proper scrutiny of his peers. I would be most interested in the reactions of the scientific academies of which he is a member, sometimes a leading member. Will they chastize him for violating the ethical code that mandates scientists always to scrupulously acknowledge the source of their data or analysis? Or, will they instead close ranks and let off the errant member of their community? This will be a test of their integrity, as well as their courage.

And, as Guha should well have known by now, even during the height of the controversy, no Indian science or engineering academy (we have a couple, I guess), as far as I know, made any official pronouncement on the issue. And, personally, I do not think there are going to be any.

I have seen scientists criticising their peers in the letters to the editor pages of the Hindu or sometimes in their interviews in the Frontline; however, in this case, I have not seen a single response. Nor are there any letters to the editor of Current Science, where again, such arguments are common.

Finally, to be fair to Mashelkar, the committee did consist of four more members; there are not any comments from them or about them in the press either, which again is surprising!

When there was another plagiarism complaint against a physicist for example, the physics community did respond to it effectively. So, the silence of the scientific community in this case, coming to think of it, is indeed eloquent, and something to certainly mull about!

 

OBC Reservations – Supreme Court Verdict

The Supreme court has stayed the implementation of the OBC reservation in its current form.

The Court ruled that the 1931 census could not be a determinative factor for identifying the OBCs for the purpose of providing reservation.

I personally see this as being a good thing in the light of the recent developments. This means that govt will have to first do a study to identify the OBCs and then come up with a proposal. Such a thing is absolutely necessary for a program of this magnitude. As in the past the legislature could have legislated against such a decision and put it in the ninth schedule. But the supreme court recently ruled that anything placed in the ninth schedule is also subject to review.

Difference between reservations for SC/ST and OBCs.

This verdict does not mean that reservations of any kind should be stopped. However there is a huge difference between the reservations for SC/ST and the OBCs. The SC/STs are provided reservation because they have suffered for being SC/ST. Hence they are provided reservations based on the single criteria that they are SC/ST. No other criteria is needed because that one criteria is sufficient. Having said that I believe that even that program can be improved. This program, for all its shortcomings, has worked for SC/STs. It has had its success.

For the OBCs, the reservations are based on the fact that they are socially and educationally backward. If someone needs to get benefited by this program, he needs to be identified and proven that he is backward. For that one needs to collect data. As realitycheck has always pointed out that one needs to identify the beneficiaries in order for a program of this scale to succeed. The Supreme court has basically said the same thing about the data that was collected in 1931. The supreme court has not said NO to reservations. It has asked the govt to prove that the people who will benefit from this are really OBCs. Once the govt. gets into the exercise of identifying the OBCs there will be lot of political repercussions to these. That should be interesting to watch in the coming days.

Verdict like these and proper dealing of the issue of creamy layer would go a long way to ensure that the beneficiaries of this program are the ones that really need it.

 

The Babri Saga

Sunday,06-Dec,1992.I was a child of 8 years.I was watching DD News along with my parents.There were some images being shown on the TV.A mob going wild,demolishing a structure.I asked my mother what it was, and she said ‘Some foolish people are demolishing a mosque.’I asked why.She had no answer.Neither did millions of Indians.

Babri Masjid haunts our generation.Every 6th of December is a black day.Protests pour out all over the country.The law and order situation becomes fragile.The security forces are put on high alert.Why do we need this?

Hindus and Muslims lived together peacefully for hunderds of years in this country.Agreed,there were a few disturbances.Yet India proved itself to be resilient and the differences were settled amicably.Where is that resilience now?Why do millions of people fall prey to the fancies of stupid politicians?

People say Lord Rama was born there,at the exact place where Babri once stood.I didn’t know that technology has developed to an extent where we can predict the exact birth location of a person.OK,agreed that Rama was born there and later the Muslim rulers built a mosque at the place after demolishing the temple that was there.So the Hindu fanatics demolished the mosque. Now let us assume that a temple has been built at the site.What if a few hundred years down the line a Muslim mob demolishes the temple because a mosque existed before the temple has been built?

We,the Indians,have umpteen number of issues that require a very serious attention from us-Poverty,Hunger,Child Labour,Dowry,AIDS,Corruption..the list goes on.It’s time for us as a nation to get over such petty issues.

Let us have a new beginning.We gave the world the weapon of Non-Violence.Now let us show the world our resilience.Get over Babri.Get over Gujarat.Let us build a monument that buries the centuries of hatred between the communities.Let us build the four lion statue from Sarnath. A massive one.Bigger than the Eiffel tower,bigger than Lady Liberty.

The replica of the statue erected by a Buddhist king,Ashoka,standing on the place where Hindus and Muslims fought each other.The four lions bury the centuries of hatchet under their massive feet.They roar in the four directions,announcing the arrival of India,as a nation.As a nation of single religion,Indianism.

 

Online Grievance Forum

I got this as an email forward. Thought I would share it here.

Government of India has an online Grievance forum at
http://darpg-grievance.nic.in/

The government wants people to use this tool to highlight the problems they faced while dealing with Government officials or departments like Passport Office, Electricity board, BSNL/MTNL, Railways etc.

This actually works as one of the person in CSC (Chennai Satyam Center) found. The guy I’m talking about lives in Faridabad . Couple of months back, the Faridabad Municipal Corporation laid new roads in his area and the residents were very happy about it. But 2 weeks later, BSNL dugged up the newly laid roads to install new cables which annoyed all the residents including this guy. But it was only this guy who used the above listed grievance forum to highlight his concern. And to his surprise, BSNL and Municipal Corporation of faridabad was served a show cause notice and the guy received a copy of the notice in one week. Government has asked the MC and BSNL about the goof up as its clear that both the government departments were not in sync at all. So use this grievance forum and educate others who don’t know about this facility.

This way we can at least raise our concerns instead of just talking about the ‘ System’ in India . Invite your friends to contribute for many such happenings.

 

And you thought t’was coz WE dint play well…!!

 

Now you know!!!

Any ideas which newspaper this is from??

 

UN Body Slams India On Dalit Violence and rightly so!

 

When Manmohan singh equated untouchability to apartheid, I felt good that someone at the top is finally calling a spade a spade. I felt that international pressure be put on India to take some concrete steps to improve the conditions of Dalits. As Nitin pointed out in the comments section that sanctions against India might not be the right thing for it, I wonder what else can be done. For years, Dalit activists have tried to equate the plight of dalits to that of racism and the Indian delegates have always defended arguing caste is not same as race.

Now when CERD slams Indian on dalit violence, I take it as a good sign.

A UN committee has equated violence against Dalits in India with racial discrimination and questioned the country’s record on treatment of the socially marginalised.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has called upon the Indian government to ensure an immediate end to the violence on Dalits

The report further confirms that systematic segregations of Dalits very much exists. This is nothing new to us but when a UN body accepts it, it is a big achievement for the activists.

The report also mentioned “the Indian delegation’s arrogant rejection of well-documented abuses against Dalits before UN experts in Geneva” and added that it “mirrors India’s systematic denial of Dalit rights at home”,

What was the Indian delegation trying to say by rejecting the abuse cases? Prove that Dalit attrocities don’t happen? Even in the light of events like Khairllanji, these guys have the audacity to refute it? Not only that, as usual they tried to deflect things by getting into a semantic between between race and caste.

The report said the Indian delegation resorted to a semantic debate on the difference between caste and race.

I understand that untouchability is not an official state policy, but I hold the state equally responsible because it is an unofficial state policy and that is even worse. The police doesn’t file complaints, the media doesn’t give them proper attention, the politician just consider them as vote banks, the NGOs can do only so much and the elite doesn’t understand what social justice is all about.

I still think that International pressure when put on India, only then will the state really act. Till then it is difficult to wake this giant from slumber.

cross posted here.

 

What happened to CNN IBN’s website?

To me it looks like CNN IBN has forgotten to pay their domain renewal fees. Their website, www.ibnlive.com now points to a ring tone site. I know it’s too early to write an obituary but I liked the site because it use to give content (text and video) for free.

Hope you are back up soon.

 

Mutiny weekly wrap-up: March 18–25

It was another eventful week in Mutiny, and here is a categorized summary!

1. Music: Jo began the week with some cool news about the availability of teasers from BlogSwara and followed it up later with the news of the launch of the site.
2. Science: Cakerfare discussed the idea behind genetically modified malaria resistant mosquitoes in tackling malaria, while Vishal followed the story of the discovery of 3.8 million year old rocks and the relevance of the discovery to geological theories of plate tectonics.
3. Cricket: While Chacko was optimistic about the chances of the Indian team and did some number juggling, later in the week, Sridhar Kondoji felt that the products endorsed by Indian cricketers need to be boycotted as a mark of protest against the abysmal performance of the team India.
4. Pseudo-religion: Gentledude admonished Indians for their blind faith in godmen with specific reference to Baba, and followed it by another post on the paradox of Lord Balaji being the second richest god in the world, while half of India is languishing below poverty line.
5. Education: Polite Indian wonders if corporate punishement is needed at all, and concludes in the negative.
6. Society: While Nita wrote for the need of sensitivity on the part of all of us in the wake of Sikh community taking exceptions to Sardar jokes, Guru pointed to Andre Beteille’s article which argued caste to be an Indian socio-economic institution.
7. Justice: SwethaIyer’s confidence in the Indian judicial system is reinforced after the verdict of guilty for the accused in the killing of Manjunath Shanmugam.
8. Management: Vishal, while narrowing down on the reasons for the dumb decisions that managers make, also identifies five signs that indicate trouble in an organization.
9. News and Media: While Guru laments the dearth of “real” news, Nita finds that the marriage of Liz and Arun Nair is still the hot selling item on the streets.
10. Tips: While Jo tips us about the free phone call service Fone Mine, Sridhar Kondoji tells you what to do when the markets are down.
11. Issues: Guru felt that the Mashelkar committee should be terminated, and (in a follow-up post on brain drain) indicated that brain drain is not that bad after all; and, Jo dedicated a song to the victims of Nandigram.
12. Interview: Ujj interviewed Vinod George Joseph, the author of Hitchhiker (shortly after his review of the book).

Hope you enjoyed reading mutiny and voicing your opinions on issues as much as we enjoyed our writing and hearing from you.

Hope to see you in these parts of the blogosphere soon, again!