Kashmir confusion

First and foremost, I am no expert historian nor an expert political commentator nor a human activist. Now on with what I see ,read and think on Kashmir

The people of State is Jammu & Kashmir including Ladakh , I think have been in the news ( for may be close to 60 years ) for "azaadi "but the bone of contention is only Kashmir. Jammu with its majority Hindu population is quite okay as it is , that is , staying with India.

It is quite clear and obvious that Kashmiris want to be out of India. There is no denying that. I spent 2 months way back in 1987 , of course , I was on some work there and had not gone for review and study of Kashmir issue. It did not require a great mind or intellect to make out that the majority thought themselves as different from Hindustanis and thought that being part of India was an accident which had to be corrected. The divide and thinking clearly was on religious lines. I remember a recent article by TCA Srinivasaraghavan on claims of Kashmiriyat by the Kashmiris. He takes a dig at the vagueness of the whole concept and how Muslim Kashmiriyat is different from Hindu Kashmiriyat

Sporting events between and /or invloving India and Pakistan clearly used to bring out the difference. The office of Eveready Industries used to be more of Kashmiri Pandits and the workmen used to be more from the Kashmiri muslims. A Pakistan win or a India loss used to be celebrated by the workmen (Muslims) and an Indian victory used to be celebrated ( muted fashion) by the office folk ( Hindus )

People who talk of Kashmir being annexed to India being an accident have to just look at what all states were annexed to India. There was no India, it was just a whole maze of Princely states of various hue and colour and had gradually become part of the British Raj . From British Raj, it was transferred as property transfer to the Indian Raj. Some who where yet to part of British Raj were annexed by Sardar Patel quite brilliantly, that includes states like Hyderbad, Goa .etc etc.

All said and done, there was a common culture across the country with variations as we move down south from North of India. And again, right or wrong at some point we or our ertswhile rulers have been signatories to the annexation and we have all over a period of time bought in to the concept. We find safety and comfort in the larger country rather than being part of just smaller countries , like may be a Punjab, Tamilnadu, Bengal etc.

There have been several cases of people wanting to strike out on their own as seperate countries like Khalistan , even Tamilnadu for that matter several years back when the Dravida parties were claiming that the Tamils are culturally different and of course the whole of North east.

We are now part of one constituition and one nation which explicity talks of one nation , soverignty etc . Kashmir is no different from others. Just because, Kashmir is full of Muslims does not grant it a right to seperate out nor claim by a majority in that place give it the right to seperate out. Even now, you ask some of the states, they would want to secede and not want to be part of India. Punjab once though that they were subsidising the other parts of the country and were not able to enjoy the full fruits of their farm labour and productivity.

You encourage a Arundhati Roy , who shares platform with Geelani , a Kashmiri seperatist whose principles are based more on religious homgenity and nothing else, you will end up encouraging a whole lot of other elements. You will have too many fires to douse.

The seperatist voices in other states are a little less vocal these days, since the economy has started doing better.

For all these talks of , not encouraging seperatists, Congress has also miserably failed in kashmir. For all the so called priveleges , including a ban in buying of property in Kashmir by Non Kashmiris, Congress has not improved the lot of Kashmiris inspite of pouring money. Economy by all accounts is floundering. 60 years is a long time for Congress to do something. A simple hypothetical question, if Kashmir had been doing well and people had enjoyed better living, would there be clamour for seperating from India. A definite no. Who would want to part of Pakistan , a failed nation.

Arundhati Roy thinks she is some kind of Champion human rights activist who is always right ,putting her nose in to all kinds of things . One is not sure whether she has a good understading at all of all aspects of an issue. We atleast don't claim to know everthying.

Nobody , none of the human rights activist and in your face secularists like Arundhati Roy, Teesta Setalwad, almost the whole Congress clan ( for political reasons ) and so many so called intellectuals to whom public display of secularism is a ticket to being called an intellectual ,talks of the atrocities on Hindus in Kashmir. None of these human rights activist talk of the atrocities committed by the Maoist on general public, none of them talk of Muslim fundamentalism and bigotry. I am not for a moment defending Hindu bigotry. But lashing at Hindu fundamentalism appears easy in our country and you can get away easily.

People take offense atthe fact that some RSS leader had said that all Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorist are Muslims. While that may be an exaggeration, one can say that 80-90% of the terrorists are Muslims and all for religious reasons.

Can't understand for the life of me, as to why there should be a seperate law for Muslims in the name of secularism. One can argue that in India there is a seperate law for Hindus. I am against that also

Forget India, take countries like France etc which have one law. Muslims demand a seperate priveleges there too. Meshing with the local culture and being compliant to local laws and assimilating with the local population is not something that the Muslims want to do. They wasnt to maintain a seperate entity even in places where they are settlors.

Tendulkar in ESPN Cricinfor All time World XI

The jury consisting of ex captains and some Cricket Historians etc have come out with the XI and an alternate XI

The First XI is

Jack Hobbs, Len Hutton , Don Bradman, Sachin Tendulkar, Viv Richards, Garry Sobers, Adam Glichrist, Wasim Akram, Malcolm Marshall, Deniss Lillee, Shane Warne

Not much to argue . All of then have proved their worth over a long period , not just flavour of a few seasons.

This kind of team, there will always be a bias in favour of people that you see as against the ones you have just heard.In some cases it works the other way. What you have not seen sounds and seems better than what you have seen. In the instant case, it seems to be the former.

There will always be debates. People will argue Lara Vs Tendulkar etc. What , I think settles the issue in favour of Tendulkar is his longevity , greater professionalis, his versatility and success in all formats. Lara was also good in ODI , but not quite as successful. Apart from his stupendous record in Tests (49 Centuries ) and ODI s also (46 Centuries), just look at his record in World Cups. He may not have won a World Cup, but made Semis once and Finals once. Was man of the Cup twice, I think once in 1996 and again in 2003.

There was a time ,in 2005-06, when people were comparing him unfavourably with Dravid, especially in the Test arena. I recall , even someone like Srinath ( Test player) mentioned that Dravid was possibly a marginally a better test player. That was the time when Tendulkar was plagued by injuries and was having an extended lean period. He came back with a bang from Austrlai series in 2008 scoring 2 Hundreds and 2 Half centuries and was the Highest run getter from India in that series and has not looked back.

One has to concede that Dravid was and is a great player and has been unfortunate that he is playing in the same era as Tendulkar and that too in the same team, but by a substantila margin, it is Tendulkar. Unmatched versatility. Come to think of it, one always felt that how good he looks when he defends or attacks, his average should have been upwards of 60 and not 56.96 as is the case now. If one were to go by averages against Australia and others, most batsman have an average of atleast 15-20 runs plus against other teans as they have against Australia. By that token, , his should have been 75 against other teams, his average against Australi being 60. Unfortunately that is not the case. His average against SA and Pakistan are lesser than his average against oz.

It is the misfortune of great batsman that their worst is always compared with the best of others and judgements made. Their own high standards become a benchmark for them .

Magnified play of Pareto in Human development

Pareto principle expounded by that very perceptive Intalian economist Pareto, talks of how 80% of the value or anything for that matter is contributed by 20% in number and how 20% of the value is constituted by 80% in number. This finds almost universal application , be it in the output of people in organisations, may be traffic on roads in a city ,may be popultation distribution, income distribution so on and so forth.

In the matter of inventions/dicoveries and ideas the ratio could be even more skewed. It is quite possible that inventions/ideas and discoveries that have benefited mankind the most could have been originated by may be 0.001% of the population. Human beings have a tremendous ability to record, replicate and use such inventions/ideas and discoveries to their advantage.

Most of us, almost all of us are beneficiaries if largesse of a small percentage of the population. This being the case,that is almost all of us being benefiaries in almost equal measure of a very few people, it is quite ironical that the wealth distribution is not better distributed .

The economists call the these gaps in "delivery" . Tamil what they say, even when the god grants a boon, the priest does not grant.

Went to watch the Bangalore Test match after almost 30 years

After almost or in fact 30 years I think, went to watch the test match against Australia in Bangalore , the first two days Oct 9 & 10. Oct 9 was a saturday and there was a decent crowd. Heavy security with a lot of restrictions. No food to be carried, mobiles were allowed. Lot of confusion. There is a general cry to promote test matches. But the facilities at the ground did not quite measure up with those sentiments expressed in different quarters.There was heavy rush at the food counter, few guys selling chips etc inside the seating areas were charging exhorbitant rates. No water bottles also were allowed inside. The kind of money Board generates, they can make much better arrangements

Anyway the experience was good, overall experience on the first day it was not not quite to my expectations , but it got better the second day. On Oct 10 , the second day of the match, went after having lunch at home , possibly was better because of that.

First day Australia batted . Saw Ricky Ponting bat ( scored 70+ and played quite well) and the other Australians bat.

Another problem was , there was only one giant screen and that was located on the same side that we were sitting close to North stand. You miss something, you can't catch up later unless you come home and catch up the highlights.

It is a different experience , watching match live and in a stadium. Of course you need to get the right position. North stand was directly in line with the Pitch. You could see the movement to some extent. Of course part of the viewing pleasure goes , since the seats are located slightly away. This in a stadium which is supposed to be close to the pitch. Three dimension and full view of the ground all make up for what you lose on other aspects .

Last match , I had gone was in MA Chidambaram in 1980 , I think . Australia Vs India, im Hughes team against Gavasakar;s India. Recall Kapil scored a quick 80 plus. I had gone for two days , I think. Recall Border hitting a Century. I hope I am right. Doshi got 6 wickets, I think.

Second day of this Bangalore test, the high point was watching Sachin Tendulkar bat. He was 44 not out on Sunday ( came in at a critical juncture after Sehwag and Dravid had got out ) ,batted calmly and picked up a few boundaries picking the gap beautifully. On Monday( third day and I did not go) went on to score 191 and continued the next day and ended up with 214. Earlier , that is on second day, Sehwag after a few exciting strokes got our . Murali Vijay looked good, he went on to score a century the next day. Dravid was a bit of a disappointment on Day 2 . Got out chasing an outside the off stump delivery from Mitchell Johnson. Only saving grace of this was , got to watch Tendulkar bat for a little over an hour before end of day's play.

Good thing was , India went to win the match after some hiccups.

The Man who knew Infinity by Robert Kanigel

Srinivasa Ramanujan may have had a short life but his short life had captured the imagination of a cross section of Mathematicians, intellectuals , commoners for the sheer romanticim of rags to riches of an intellectual type.What adds to the aura was that he almost completely self learnt maths and rediscovered in quite a number of cases already discovered Higher mathematics on his own.

Robert Kanigel has brought a deep understanding , a humility in trying to learn and understand the social miilieu , at that point of time,in South India, the social millieu , more specifcally of the South Indian Brahmin community. The way he has reasearched and brought out the background and underlying meanings of certain practices , words ,is remarkable. He throws in underlying meanings of Sannidhi, derivation and meaning of Triplicane( Tiru alli keni which means sacred lily tank ) talks how Ramanujan developed his skills playing Adu Puli ( Tiger and Goats literally ) with his mother or was it Pallanguzhi ?. He beautifully brings out the earlier generation practice of child marriage and the convictions surrounding it, the conflicts between a young daughter in law from a lower strata ( economically ) of the society and the domineering mother in law. How the daughter in law is kept away from the son.

Very perceptive observations by the author.

He explores the mind of the genius , how from a person who was excelling in all aspects of academia, he gets so focussed on mathematics to the exclusion of all other subjects.

He talks of how the education system was not quite amenable to encouragement of a genius. Our education system encourages average ability or to put it crudely, mediocrity across rather than extraordinary ability in one area . How success or view of success by society and how job opportunities are dependent on a formal degree rather than just ability.

One thing to be said in favour is that there were quite a few people who saw the genius in him and gave him a leg up starting from Ramachandra Rao, to Narayanaswami Iyer to Seshu Iyer.

etc.

The author also delves on the system in Cambridge, Tripos which was possibly the toughest and which to a large extent encouraged problem solving of known things rather than a laissez faire of an open research. The author does extensive research on Hardy and the English millieu at that point of time.Hardy was one of those great intellectuals who found the Tripos very oppressive . He was all for pure reasearch. The author captures a view that post Newton, there was an era of English mathematicians living in a world of ,mathematics of taking past as sacrosanct, as axioms and not really questioining or even exploring newere concpets. The rigour of proofs and evidence brought in by the European mathematicians was lacking. Hardy was one of thos who took the lead in bringing back the rigour and spirit of exploration .Hardy remained a bachelor all his life . Was a devoted brother , his sister too remaining a spinster. Was a man with great interest in Cricket. Typical English Intellectual with interest in Cricket and great interest in Pure maths .

After several failures in Coleges starting from Kumbakonam Colege and Pachaiyappa's college, Ramanujan does get some encouragement from people within the Mathematics Community. Was afforded for sometime some private scholarship by oen Ramachandra Rao. Later based on recommendations by various people manages to land up a job in Port Trust.Gets encoraged by some Englishman in India who were in Government employment.

Encourage by local support and prodded on, Ramanujan does manage to write to Hardy. Introduces himself as a clerk who is not formally trained in Maths and not following the treaded groove/beaten track but is striking out his path. Sends several formulae on prime numbers, infinite series, sends his article on Bernouli's numbers. Send enough to create interest in Hardy but also no proofs that also creates doubts in Hardy's mind

Hardy refers the letter to another great mathematician of his time. Littlewood, to ascertain the genuinness of the person and the capability of the writer (Ramanujan). Comes to a conclusion that , the writings were not that of a quack but a brilliant mind , probably not trained. Makes arrangement to get him over to Englang. After initial reservations, Ramanujan undertakes the journey to England. First two years makes significant progress. His area of spcialisation was more on numbers, Prime numbers, Composite numbers, integers , inifnite series, partitions, continous franctions. He does add to his arsenal under Hardy's tutelage without really losing his originality and creativity.

Lack of vegetarion food during wartime ( First world war ), the cold weather , lack of communication from wife and simmering unrest on the home front between his mother and wife , his own reluctance to take proper care of his health, sickness etc , renders him sick or aggravates the sickness. Diagnosed at various points of time as Tuberculosis, amoebiasis, he had to return to India in 1919 after of course a great recognition in the form of Fellow of Royal Society. Hardy plays a pivotal role in having this expedited.

After return to India, while he does have access to good food, the damage had already been done,. It was just downhill in terms of health, he does prodice some great matehmatics towards the end, which is termed the " Lost notebook". Dies in 1920 at the age of 32.

Great life cut short at the prime. Imponderable are, what coul dhave been the achievement if only

- he had got more training at an early stage

- if he had been familiarised with development in mathematics the last 100 years

( he spent significant time rediscovering several aspects of mathematics)

-he had lived a bit longer

But one also has to concede that he acheieved what he did only because by a starnge quirk of fate and circumtsances. his capability and work came to the fore and he spent time in England and quite a number of his work found its way to good mathematcians.

His notebooks filled with several theorems and formulae when he was in India as also his : lost notebook" have been researched and are still being researched and some new applications and use are being discovered.First by Watson , later by George Andrews and much later by Bruce Brendt .

One things is sure, he had caught the fascination of the south Indian brahmin psyche so much that , post his death for almost 40-50 years, good mathematicians who came out from south were inspired by Ramanujan to take up mathematics .He still is a great inspirational figure. What is amazing was single minded focus on mathematics and fiery desire to do what he liked best , in the midst of huge personal problems, relative poverty .

Very well researched and written.

Sad news- Passing away of an ex colleague

Got to know the shocking news of passing away of Venkateswaran ( Venkat ), who used to work along with the undersigned in APC . Excellent person, very calm but extraordinarily efficient and effective person. He used to take care of Engineering. Was in Motorola before joining APC. In between left APC , joined Elcoteq but rejoined APC.Was a vey active member of the APC team under Javed.

Was an excellent engineer , good organiser and a very good human being.

Recall the very effective way he used to organise APC Annual days along with Suneeta ,Praveen Das and Devdas.

Understand that he was diagnosed with Bone marrow cancer just about a month back . Came out when they tried to probe reasons for fever. Very sad. Found it very diificlut to digest the fact. He was just 36-37. Prosys Manju sent across a message. Later spoke to him. Shivram spoke and later Suneeta.

Sadder part is , he is survived by his old parents , his wife and sister .

Srinivas babu just now spoke .

May his soul rest in peace. Sincerely pray that God gives his family the strength to bear the loss.

Just an update

Have given reading a pause for the last two months after a fairly hectic reading period of around 6 months. Right from Sept 1 st , after leaving employment, had been reading up a quite a bit and in fact had been posting reviews on most of the books. Last time, that I managed to do this kind of reading was after CA Final exams and to some extent last employment gap , that is between Future metals and Mantri Developers.

The reading that I did after CA exams was more of fiction and this time , I would think it would have been 40:60 , Fiction : Non fiction.

This time the gap has been much longer.Reading has taken a back seat in the last few months , now that we have started working from office at Rajaji nagar. Few contracts are trickling in but not a deluge or for that matter not very remunerative by any stretch of imagination as of date. All that we need to get is just one decent break in terms of a decent deal. That will give a great deal of confidence .

Atleast, would have been happier if the Sonata software had taken off or I had chosen to sell once it reached Rs 65. Now it has slid back to Rs 59.

I am still hoping that TNPL ,SPB and Vardhman would get to 2-2.5 times the current market prices of Rs 98, 198 and 260 respectively

Have rejected another interview offer , one Namdhari seeds. Not sure whether , it is the right decision or should have atleast attended the interview