tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63970132024-02-28T05:29:52.837-08:00Lokendra's blogWith friends, I love to talk about religion, history, philosophy, political systems, science fiction, technology and issues of the developing world. This blog will also cover such topics.Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-34205525097768174782016-09-07T17:30:00.001-07:002020-07-14T08:36:53.606-07:00Cities can grow exponentially for very long, so what can organizations learn from it?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Recently, I saw this old but great TED talk by Geoffrey
West on the mathematical nature of growth of cities and I can't
resist sharing it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">The main insight we can get here is that in living beings and
companies, growth is a sub-linear phenomenon and hence it plateaus with
increase in size of multi-cellular organisms, animals and companies. This is
because their growth is determined by the economies of scale. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Cities, on the other hand have shown to have super-linear growth
patterns because they grow through innovation and wealth creation. The speaker
says that the constraints faced by cities are Malthusian because managing the
needs of such large populations with limited resources is a big problem. But
cities are still able to grow because they are able to innovate their way out
again and again from this problem of limited resources. We can assume (at least
I assuming) that cities do so by getting either more efficient (cheaper) access
to far-away resources or increasing the efficiency of resource utilization.
This kind of implies that smart cities is the natural evolutionary outcome for
all mega cities that survive.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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As we are talking about cities, another study worth noting here is mentioned in
the following article:<br />
<a href="http://www.citylab.com/housing/2016/06/the-price-of-happiness-in-cities/487823/" target="_blank">http://www.citylab.com/housing/2016/06/the-price-of-happiness-in-cities/487823/</a></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">It suggests
that people living in suburban or rural areas tend to be a bit more happy,
probably because of the self-selection effect i.e. <span style="background: white;">non-urban areas tend to attract people who are generally happy with
their lives and more agreeable. Maybe they have more aspects in their lives for
balancing (e.g. family, preference for leisure, etc) than fast paced young
professionals flocking to the cities for greater opportunities. </span></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">The article says it's basically a matter of
choice, "At the end the day, the positive characteristics of
cities—their fast-paced life, diversity, greater opportunities, and heightened
exchange of skills and knowledge—come at a price. It’s up to individuals to
decide which ones are worth the price of happiness."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">On the whole, my personal take-away beyond these new insights
mentioned above is more like an idea for further research or some new
hypotheses to test with data. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">To set the background for the research questions I will be
proposing later: my assumption is that the sub-linear growth is a result of the
extra control required by biological beings and companies for their survival, or thermodynamically speaking, they prefer low entropy/disorder, which means more effort is required to keep the order.
This need for extra control over everything increases the costs of
coordination to maintain this order/control (or low entropy) - entropy is supposed to keep increasing in a closed system, but we could decrease entropy locally through external efforts (think of AC throwing out the heat from your room by using much more electrical energy to do that task). </span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">In case of companies, at a high level we will borrow the idea of
transaction/coordination costs from the theory of firm by Ronald Coase who got
the Nobel prize for his theory which also places limits on the growth or
organizations based on the coordination costs. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Cities on the other hand aren't (or can't be) controlled so
tightly like internal body functions of an organism or internal
transaction/co-ordinations within a firm. Therefore the costs of coordination
are much less (because of higher and always increasing entropy cities enjoy) and hence we can observe the super-linear/exponential growth.
Such growth is also a function of the network size (population) and thinking
minds we have i.e. emergent combinatorial phenomenon of mixing of different
ideas leading to innovation (and wealth creation). </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">At the end it is about the evolution of a new type of organism
(i.e. cities) which is not tightly controlled (like living beings or companies). Hence its evolution is limited not so much by the inertia (or pull) of the
internal coordination costs (or costs of maintaining low-entropy) as much as by the Malthusian resource constraints. So cities keeps growing forward with the evolutionary force of new ideas (i.e. innovation) by</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> pushing this constraints ceiling/limit further and further through efficiency gains in either resource utilization or access.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Firms everywhere also try to keep out-innovating their
competition for the sake of survival. So what would happen if we come up with a
new type of firm (or legal structure or business models)? Something that
doesn't require running a tightly controlled ship or where the coordination
costs are decreased significantly (through the use of technology). Could such
firms outlive their peers in the market? If yes, then what should be such a
structure/entity/model? Or what are the elements that make such enterprises and
markets?</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Researchers could work on determining whether sharing economy, platform models or
on-demand service provider companies have grown fast mostly because of reduced
coordination costs (through the use of technology). Or if there are any other
type of innovations (except tech innovation) which would allow for the
enterprises to grow exponentially in a sustainable manner. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Also, is technology
based reduction in coordination costs an advantage that is sustainable in the long
term for a firm to keep out-surviving its competition? What kind of ownership
structure should such firms have and how that ownership structure evolves?
Would such firms requires different type of markets rules to exist? How to allow the increases in entropy for companies while improving (or at least without diluting) the customer experience of their offerings in the market? What does
it mean in terms of the happiness of people who would be working in such
organizations and markets i.e. is their a happiness trade-off like it has been
observed in urban v/s suburban/rural living?</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Another thing I feel is that while some of these questions could
be tested on real firm data, probably for internet economy firms, but in most
cases simulating such markets using agent based modeling could be more
fruitful. Though in that case also I really have no idea right now on how to
gather the data for starting set of assumptions or scenarios to be simulated.
Hope this could lead to some real research project someday.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><i>Update 8th Sep, 2016: Just now found another interesting (but longish) talk by Geoffrey West that could be interest for this topic.</i></span><br />
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<i style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Will write more about this talk when I get some time.</i></div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-76261547015610471332016-04-02T14:40:00.000-07:002016-04-02T14:40:02.550-07:00Politically incorrect speech without proper analysis/thought is the outcome of bad education <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The recent incidence of internet trolls harassing the actress Anushka Sharma after Virat Kohli's great performance in the T20 World Cup cricket match against Australia has raised has raised some valid concerns on what is the appropriate way to behave online. The comments of trolls are absolutely condemnable and the way Virat responded later shaming the trolls is the right thing to do. While there is no shadow of doubt in this case regarding what is right and what's not, in some other situations things could be tricky because it is hard to separate the right from wrong. </div>
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There is a critical trade-off between the imposition of political correctness in speech (e.g. how to refer women or other marginalised groups) and the biases that get unconsciously created and strengthened in the minds of people who speak or hear such loose-talk. We don’t want to put restrictions on people's right to free speech (e.g. the comedians, journalists and artists) but at the same time it is painful to see that dumb and trolling statements made by regular folks without fully understanding how that perpetuates the biases and hatreds could really hurt the ideals our societies claim to be striving for - especially when such statements are part of the environment that nurtures kids and youth.</div>
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While I have no clear idea of how this dilemma can be resolved through a set of codified rules (or law for that matter) but the experience tells us that the wise minds (ones with a mature mindset or thoughts) have a much better sense of judgment to navigate such situations. At the same time, it is easy for zealots to paint people trying to manage this trade-off better as hypocritical folks, because they don’t appear fully in favour of free speech they claim to revere. </div>
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The mature minds that could exercise good judgment (and restraint on their own speech) in such complex situations are developed through education. Such an enlightening education happens through the life experiences. The problem is that each individuals experiences are different from others, so how can we be assured that the learnings (i.e. experiences) of all individuals would include or certainly lead to a minimal common set of values and beliefs.</div>
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I believe that we learn anything because we need to use that particular knowledge or skill to solve a problem that we want to solve, or achieve whatever objective we have set in our minds. So then a good education or society has to ensure that everyone has to tackle a somewhat similar set of situations to realize the value of things like diversity, how humans (or kids) learn and build their understanding of the world around them and how all these things fit into the big picture of sustainable progress of our species in the universe. </div>
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Then we could have a hope that those who believe in such a future (and hence can sacrifice some of today's desires for it), would start sharing the similar set of values. Coming back to where we started from, this free-speech dilemma and many other similar dilemmas could only be solved through better education for everyone (see we are already sounding like the propagandists, or maybe it's just a war of different propagandas - ours v/s theirs or some others'). </div>
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Anyway, for the action oriented folks the interesting question to ponder upon is: In terms of implementation, how the information revolution can offer help/hope for providing such an education to all?</div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-9140823099104360272015-01-25T09:19:00.005-08:002016-04-02T14:44:51.809-07:00Building innovation ecosystems - ideas for non financial support from the state<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Continuing on the theme of ideas for stimulating development of
innovation ecosystems, here I list a few ideas which require the support of
non-financial nature – especially from the government side or from agencies
that exist to support economic development in any region. In the interest of
keeping it short, I have excluded a lot many important things than the ones
included. I have just tried to give space to the ideas which usually don’t get
enough focus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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1)</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> <b>Providing
market linkage:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></b>Large
enterprises could be incentivized to source from suppliers which do direct
procurement from SMEs and start-ups at fair prices. Large enterprises can
introduce new technologies and better and safer production practices through
their influence as a large and stable buyer of the products of small
enterprises. Incentives to large enterprises for providing such market linkage
could be financial ones like investments, or reputational ones like
recognition/ reward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">2)</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b>Safety nets for talent:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></b>Human capital is one of the
biggest issues faced by the small enterprises. With state supporting/promoting
initiatives of this nature, getting both professionals and small enterprises on
board would be relatively easy. It could include services like credential
verification, joint medical insurance for all candidates hired through system,
joint and portable pension accounts, skill trainings, etc. Increase in success
rate for small enterprises through this would have positive spillovers in the
form of creation of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>role-models
for next generation of entrepreneurs and professionals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">3)</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> <b>Policy advocacy
coalitions:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></b>There are many
issues/problems in the social enterprise sector where solutions would require
government partnership, support, interventions or new laws to be passed in
state or national legislature. Often multilateral agencies or large non-profits
are best positioned to build a coalition of various stakeholders which will
deliberate on the entrepreneurs’ difficulties and then advocate for or put
forth recommendations to the governments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">4)</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b>IP4Dev:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></b>Many business families, SMEs
(either formal or informal but reasonably big businesses too) show interest in
adopting, investing in and building new businesses on new technologies/products
imported from the technologically advanced Western countries. But they find it
very difficult to find and acquire such intellectual property and the
associated know-how. So creating a platform to facilitate the transfer
technology rights and know-how could potentially provide a big boost to the SME
development objective and increase the number of SMEs. Coupling such know-how
with financing could be even more effective. Such an initiative could also have
a big component of South-South cooperation, instead of being only a North-South
initiative.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">5)</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> <b>Small exits:</b><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Innovation ecosystems are well-knit
communities (or networks) of all stakeholders. Often smart entrepreneurs, who
failed to achieve their planned targets but have provided evidence of hard
work, grit and quality ideas, get rewarded by becoming acqui-hires for the
bigger firms in that market. They in-turn go ahead and become angel-investors
in the start-ups of their promising employees, and so on. Similarly a lot of
knowledge sharing occurs during the meet-ups and in cafes or co-located
offices. A sense of community starts building up and members of the community
are always welcoming and supporting of new-comers. This is a hard to measure
phenomenon and there are no fixed steps to achieve this. Still governments
should strive to help build such autonomous communities in every possible
manner.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">If you have read this
much, then you must also have some ideas or feedback for me. Please do share
your thoughts and I would be highly grateful to you for that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-11152697049454725372015-01-24T05:30:00.000-08:002015-01-25T09:14:50.959-08:00Building innovation ecosystems - some investment based ideas for governments <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Few years back, I was part of a group discussion inside New
Delhi office of International Finance Corporation (IFC) about how social
responsible enterprises can be supported to grow and become mainstream. I
presented some ideas there for discussing. Those were either adopted and
modified ideas, or in few cases my own ideas. All those ideas were
modified/developed based on my understanding of the situation on the ground,
which itself had its basis in my reading and experiences with small enterprises
in India.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In this post (and the next), I have taken a few of those
ideas and tried to briefly explain those in the context of building an
innovation ecosystem for governments i.e. how governments (or their
representative organizations) can positively intervene to build a strong
innovation ecosystem.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We can usually divide these ideas into two categories (i) investment
based ideas, and (ii) non-financial support ideas. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Investment Based Ideas<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b>1. Domestic procurement: </b>Often, strong and competitive teams
with good ideas don’t find it extremely difficult to raise funds from
angels/VCs. But after having built a product they find it very hard to sell it
i.e. often finding the first big (paying) customer becomes the biggest obstacle
in growing as a company. So if the governments really want to promote
entrepreneurship and reduce reliance on foreign vendors, it has to start with
building procurement programs that experiment with a lot of local vendors for
pilot demonstrations. Based on the performance in the pilot projects, it can
then award bigger deals to the competent local firms. This process would
involve facilitating or providing purchase loans to service the orders (i.e.
advances to the awardees for delivering) either directly or through banks. It
should also include provision of advisory support to meet the quality standards
that are expected by the government. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>2. Exit facilitation:</b> In this, the idea is to design a new
investment instrument, which is like a commitment/guarantee of exit to other
funds making investments in start-ups/SMEs if pre-decided milestones are
reached and certain conditions are met. This instrument could be made available
at the deal basis (or maybe at fund level) and made available to all VC and
angel investors in the country or globally at a price. Assumption here is that
these funds would follow best rated investment governance e.g. investment
criteria, monitoring requirements, Technical Assistance plan to make their investee companies become
investment worthy for the government or its appointed entity (e.g. a sovereign
wealth fund) over a period of 3-5 years. This means, the govt. will commit for
investments/buy-outs in to specific SMEs/start-ups (i.e. giving exits to
funds), if quality deal flow is ensured by the funds buying a right to join
such a program.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The rest of these investment based ideas listed in this post
are almost always discussed in the circle of individuals/organizations working
on building innovation ecosystems talk about. I am still mentioning these
because these can’t be ignored as they address genuine needs in the market.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>3. Working capital finance:</b> Almost always start-ups and SMEs
find it really hard to raise working capital based on their cash flows alone
(i.e. without collateral/security) or against the big purchase orders from
their clients (becomes idea 1 above, if govt is the buyer). Addressing this gap
through some special investment facility or by supporting some independent fund
providing such short term loans could provide a great boost to the growth of
start-ups and SME which need such debt. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>4. Launching Sector/Industry specific financial products</b>:
Investments and/or insurance products for different sectors/industries could be
designed and rolled out through investments in financial companies willing to
provide such offerings. Understanding and managing risks through highly
specific financial products is more feasible and sustainable than the generic
approaches for all social enterprises e.g. financing scale-up of schools,
maternity centers, providing working capital finance to livelihood collectives
and insuring players of an industry again regulatory risks, weather, etc.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>5. Mobilizing Large Scale Funds for Early Stage Financing:</b> In
order to have a steady deal flow of growth stage companies for the VC/PE
investors, early stage investments need to happen in much larger numbers.
Mobilizing large scale funds from sources which have the appetite to make risky
investments (e.g. government, donors) in early stage social enterprises is very
critical for building a strong ecosystem for such enterprises i.e creating the
required momentum towards making this sector equally attractive as regular
businesses for investments in the future. Investment size in such deals is
expected to be in the range of $100,000 – 500,000.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
In the next post, I will write the little bit I know about non-financial ideas.</div>
Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-36912990165788702842015-01-10T08:58:00.002-08:002015-01-10T08:58:48.571-08:00Potential Activities for the university based innovation centers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="text-align: justify;">This post is a continuation of the last post only and lists other
activities/programs which an innovation center within a university could take
up. </span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 18pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
</div>
<ol>
<li><u style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Innovative Communities:</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;"> Such centers could try to promote building communities of students
interested in innovations in different domains to become small think tanks at
the campus and encourage informal peer-learning mechanisms. Facilitation
support could be provided to get the selected ideas of these groups out in the
public domain and to the intended beneficiaries. Here are few potential ideas
for starting such communities:</span></li>
</ol>
<!--[if !supportLists]--><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">a.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">GeekVille: Community of
computer programmers at campus willing to make amazing products and applications
for fun <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">b.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US">Policy Analysis Group: Students
gathering feedback through their research and experiences will analyze and
discuss policy ideas for various issues of our society and political economy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">c.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">Robotics/Embedded systems:
Electronics and robotics enthusiast trying to compete and build interesting prototypes
for fun and learning<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">d.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">Activism through Performing
Arts: Community of students who produce street-plays, movies, etc for
increasing public awareness on topics which either get ignored or are social
taboos<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">e.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">Social innovations group: Similar
to policy analysis group but coming up with solutions which could be
implemented by NGOs, political activists and social enterprises<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span lang="EN-US">Responsible Citizenship
Initiative:</span></u><span lang="EN-US"> Students will be encouraged to think about
and act upon their responsibilities towards the nation or humanity at large.
They will be sensitized to the fact that they are fortunate enough to receive
quality education and opportunities to be able to actually do something about
the problems of our society. Center will help students plan and implement their
ideas to demonstrate their capacity to think and do something about these
intractable problems. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><u><span lang="EN-US">Innovation Study Trips:</span></u><span lang="EN-US"> Students will be provided regular opportunities to attend trips to
companies, universities, research labs to interact with those who solve
real-life problems. Similarly, longer experiential learning trips like village
life immersion or slum experience would be organized to let students spend time
to understand the challenges and problems faced by marginalized people. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span lang="EN-US">Portfolio Assistance:</span></u><span lang="EN-US"> Similar to what design professionals do, students will be
encouraged to build their portfolios during their stay. These portfolios would
serve the purpose of showcasing students’ overall skill set and achievements.
The center will help students access resources or people required to strengthen
their portfolios. This includes building projects or proof-of-concepts of
ideas, etc. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><u><span lang="EN-US">Campus ventures:</span></u><span lang="EN-US"> Students will be randomly allotted licenses to operate small
ventures in the campus for short durations e.g. conduct a poster auction,
manage hostel canteen for a month/semester, run a mess as for-profit venture
during vacations, food stalls during events, etc. They can either exchange the
licenses or form partnerships with those who have the licenses they want or
just sell the license to another student who wants to operate the venture. This
is to encourage thinking like an entrepreneur at a very small level.
Coordination with campus administration will be orchestrated to ensure smoother
execution of plans made by students.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">6.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span lang="EN-US">Open Technology Research
Initiative:</span></u><span lang="EN-US"> Students and researchers would be
encouraged to participate in Open Research Initiatives around the globe. Center
in collaboration with researchers on campus would also start such new
initiatives to encourage best minds everywhere in the world to submit designs
of new scientific experiments, any data collected for these experiments and
their interpretations on Wiki like platforms for specific topics/disciplines. Objective
of such initiatives would be to democratize research and engage curious minds
everywhere in the process of knowledge creation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">7.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span lang="EN-US">Leadership Coaching</span></u><span lang="EN-US">: In such programs, students will be encouraged to plan out their
own leadership training programs and will get support from the center in the
form of nudging or facilitation required for achieving their leadership
training goals. Students will be expected to maintain a reflective journal for
their goals in leadership development, listing – what they achieved and how,
etc. This exercise is expected to build their capacity for, or instill the
value of being self-critical and open-minded – which in turn would enable them
to hone themselves for becoming better human beings, life-long learners and
leaders in their fields. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">8.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span lang="EN-US">Surprises journal</span></u><span lang="EN-US">: I recently read a really interesting post on Slate about how the most
important skill in research, self-improvement and career is noticing the
unexpected or ways in which things went wrong. The approach suggested keeping a
journal of how students found some outcomes surprising and this idea was quite successful
in making students think about their mistakes in a positive manner. In this
initiative, the students were expected to write-down three points about each of
such surprises (i) Moment of surprise (ii) Why it was surprising and (iii) What
this tells me. You can read the whole article here <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/01/surprise_journal_notice_the_unexpected_to_fight_confirmation_bias_for_science.single.html">http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/01/surprise_journal_notice_the_unexpected_to_fight_confirmation_bias_for_science.single.html</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">If you have been reading this far, then I request to share your
thoughts and ideas on how these activities could be improved or what more could
be added to this list. Thank you!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-20451137789551642132015-01-10T08:50:00.000-08:002015-01-10T08:50:00.990-08:00Potential Activities for the university based innovation centers: Innovation Practicum<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Continuing from the last post, the activities for such centers
beyond these standard ones are for building up the entrepreneurial capacity of
students in various ways. These ideas might be able to help the center to
differentiate and be more valuable to students than most such other university
based centers. The most important idea (in my view) which links the curriculum,
learning journey of a student inside the campus and building their capacity to
become leaders and entrepreneurs is the following: </span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 18pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 18pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US">1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span lang="EN-US">Innovation Practicum:</span></u><span lang="EN-US"> One of the key pillars of my approach and suggested intervention to
build students’ capacity to innovate would be the idea of a long term trans-disciplinary
self-study projects – we could call them “Innovation Practicum”. The idea here
is that during the beginning of their first semester/year, students will be
expected to come up with a topic of their choice, which may or may not have any
relationship with their intended majors. For the duration of their stay in the
university, they are expected to keep learning more and more about that topic
as per their own plan – which would be a public document they would prepare but
it can be edited any number of times. Only expectation from the students would
be to give occasional talks/workshops on the topic and be treated like an
expert-in-making on that topic in the campus i.e. if any discussion for
academic/non-academic purpose on their topic happens on campus, they are
expected to lead or contribute. They are expected to know the most about that
topic on campus and to provide advice and expert opinion to professors,
students and anyone who may need such inputs for their projects/work. Topics
chosen could be anything that can be imagined, either a very narrow one or a
very generic one or their existing hobby, and ideally something purposeful e.g.
design of cars, philosophy in science fiction, cryptography, some centuries old
unsolved mathematical problem, Picasso’s paintings, holy grail or robotics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Objective is to <b>provide an experience of deep commitment
and learning</b> about something by themselves, the way innovators usually
emerge. To the extent possible, center should help individual students in
achieving whatever learning goals they choose for this program, and getting
access to resources or people they might need for doing so. Idea is to <b>Learn</b> -> <b>Do</b> (Present or build prototype) -> <b>Teach</b> others (or Do more). Students will not get grades for these
projects (i.e. no academic credits), just the goodwill they generate. Optional
evaluations could be conducted by one or more faculty or outside experts engaged
with the student. Students can change the topics of their research anytime but
that is not encouraged. Evolutionary changes in the topic would be accepted relatively
easily but student is expected to convince the program coordinators and mentors
for that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">There would be a
small fund for everyone to share for pursuing the objectives in these projects.
Funding for Innovation Practicum from this pool will be allocated in the
following manner:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 54.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US">It will be a stage-wise and
stingy funding process i.e. become scrappy and identify the least costly way
and then pitch for getting funds for the nearest possible milestone – which
should typically be around the time of next funding allocation meeting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 54.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">Allocation will be made by all
those who apply for funding through a peer review of ideas in a jury format
(expert + peer reviews wherever must). Applicants will present their case and
reviewers will keep asking questions which applicants need to answer. Reviewers/applicants
can’t get out without a final decision from the allocation meeting – however
long it takes (hours or even days). Fighting it out to convince everyone should
be the motto as these will be consensus based decisions. Inappropriate behavior
will not be allowed in such meetings; however it is perfectly fine if the
situation becomes highly political.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">The idea behind
not having any academic credits for Innovation Practicum is to not corrupt the
incentives by encouraging students to students to work based on their internal
motivations only, but if a university things otherwise then they could have
credits assigned too. In such cases, I would recommend caution and careful
considerations on how to design such a program for the students that doesn’t
lead to misalignment of overall learning objectives. </span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; text-align: justify;">
In the next post, I will list the remaining ideas for such ideas which I could think of. Obviously it won’t be an exhaustive list but definitely a good set of ideas to select and add more to.</div>
<br /></div>
Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-57637968133735098592015-01-09T23:55:00.002-08:002015-01-09T23:55:55.034-08:00University based centers for Innovation and Entrepreneurship<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Two years back, I was asked by the group setting up Ashoka
University in India to share ideas on setting up a university based center for
innovation and entrepreneurship in their campus. Based on some of the ideas I
shared with them, I am writing this series of posts to outline what a
university based center for innovation could look like.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Humanity’s future progress will be defined in terms of long term
strength of value creating institutions (i.e. both for-profit and non-profits),
economic growth (which probably would get measured more in terms of complexity
than scale), and growth in technology and indicators of social good like
justice, equal opportunity, etc. At this ever-increasing pace of change, human
systems of organization too are changing to adapt and evolving as we speak. Future success of India (i.e. both
collectively as a society and the success of individuals in their lives),
hinges on how well we will be able to cultivate, nurture and grow individual
leaders/innovators of tomorrow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Universities are supposed to be training ground to produce leaders
that the India/World of tomorrow needs. Only thing we are certain about the
future is that change will always be happening at an ever faster rate in every
possible way. Therefore universities need to design a holistic learning
experience which would enable individuals to develop into free-thinking
innovators and leaders of tomorrow. While students get exposure to the
theoretical ideas (and their applications in the real world) in their
coursework, a lot of their learning always happens within the environment of
university as a whole. So a university must promote both self-learning and peer
learning in an experiential manner. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Innovation/ Entrepreneurship centers therefore have to be a vital
part of such university experience for the students. These centers should also
be the institution’s preferred means to foster engagement of the university
community with the world for building and implementing the ideas generated in
it. These centers are set-up to take the challenge of creating, nurturing and
encouraging innovation and leadership. So they will have to work towards creating
the conditions that allow multi-disciplinary dynamic innovation networks to
emerge and flourish on their campuses. They have to build catalytic environment
that create conditions conducive for students to form hypotheses and test them
quickly to judge the real potential of their ideas. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Activities of the Center should also happen in coordination to the
curriculum to help students gain maximum in their learning experience.
Following could be the objectives of such centers:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<ol>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Create a nurturing ecosystem for
the development and realization of innovative ideas</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Build and strengthen leadership
competencies of the student community at the university</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Make these centers to be “the place”
where smart and innovative entrepreneurs from the larger regional ecosystem would
aspire to come to for realizing their ideas into ventures</span></li>
</ol>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The program to build innovation capacity in students should be
rooted in the belief that deep understanding or expertise, developed through
self-learning over a long period of time with a sense of purposefulness, will
transform the teenagers joining the universities to become innovators/thought-leaders
over time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Building such innovation capacity must be a part of the students’
learning experience – which in turn must be designed by the university as a
holistic life experience for students where living and learning are
intertwined. Hence any interventions for building and improving students’
competencies for leadership and innovation should be in sync with the
curriculum and other activities in their lives on campus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">The broad approach should be to work with the students to:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<ol>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Enable them to become hands-on leaders
and innovators through the Center’s interventions</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Provide access to role models
with similar beginnings as themselves to stimulate domino effect</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Build their capacity to
identify and analyze real life problems to be solved, and provide opportunities
to actually do so by either venturing or for organizations in those fields</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Provide multiple types of
support (financial/professional/expertise, etc) to students for realization of those
innovative ideas which qualify for such support through a selection process</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Opportunities to interact with highly inspiring leaders and thought leaders from various domains</span></li>
</ol>
</div>
Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-70957679211185993462015-01-08T21:05:00.001-08:002015-01-08T21:05:45.295-08:00Qatar's promise for future<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US">Qatar’s
Promise<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Having moved to
Doha some time back, I have been trying to observe and understand this new land
and the dynamics and cultures of people who live here. While one can definitely
encounter people fitting various stereotypes, but my personal experience so far
is that there are far too many of the exceptions for each of those stereotypes
that generalizing the group traits is certainly an exercise in futility. Easiest
claim to make would be that all groups and communities here have quite similar
distribution of various behavioral traits and beliefs as most of the world
would. Again, opinions can always vary because an American might be tempted to
say that s/he doesn’t see much of amalgamation of cultures happening here. At
the same time, as an Indian I could argue that I see so many commonalities in
the culture and even language, that I cannot refuse that as evidence for
amalgamation of cultures.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">While it is
tempting for many to accept preconceived notions (based on hearsay from the
people in their social networks) about Qatari youth as over-indulged brats from
a conservative society, willingness to look at Qatar with an open mind gives a
different picture. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">It probably is
hard for the some people to be able to relate to the pace of change and values
of the cultures not like theirs. What is most interesting to me is that people
here are trying really well to push the boundaries in many different ways in an
organic/natural manner. That is, they are doing so without losing a touch from
their heritage or destabilizing the peace and prosperity they have. Don’t
believe me, but just go watch any sci-fi or other American movie in theaters
here and count the number of Burqa clad women in the theater. Some (often from the
West), who perceive themselves as liberated ones do not seem to be realizing
that there could be something wrong (not everything) in their ways too, which
other cultures maybe doing rightly. Cultures and beliefs always everywhere keep
evolving at different paces in different places depending on the ideas which
can be called the zeitgeist at that place and time. Often these ideas are
technological and hence driven currently by the technologically more advanced nations/civilizations
of West, but these ideas could also be spiritual or based on other beliefs or
experiences of the communities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The above
discussion could be considered valid for many other countries and cultures too;
so it probably would make more sense now to focus on the aspects which are
unique for Qatar. Without doubt, the range of opportunities (as an outcome of
diversity of the economy and size of market) is increasing slowly in terms of
pace (though not acceleration which depends on investment) in Qatar relative to
places like Dubai. This often gets reflected as decreased incentive to nurture
innovation and inflow of entrepreneurial migrants with ideas and capacity to
compete in most countries. But Qatar seems to be opening up steadily without
creating destructive waves to achieve its national vision for 2030 – which was
drafted by the youngest sovereign and the current Emir himself when he was the
Crown Prince. In fact, his authorship of the Qatar National Vision 2030 <a href="file:///C:/Users/Meghna/Downloads/QatarsPromise-LC-Opinion%20(1).docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>document
clearly conveys that the leadership and institutions of the country are fully committed
to realize that vision.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">In the past two
decades, Qatar’s leadership – through its continuous efforts – has ensured that
the natural endowment it has doesn’t turn into a resource curse, as has been
the case in some of the African countries. Qatar’s investments – made with long
term horizons in mind – in areas like education and research have now started
showing promise. The leadership has also been making sincere efforts to build
and maintain trust of subsequent generations of citizens in the institutions
being created, which seems to be working well – something which can’t be said
for the millennials in most other countries where youth and teenagers just
can’t relate to the institutions there. Youth of Qatar feels that they are
getting a fair shot and that's what you need in a country to make its citizen's
to believe in and work towards building a strong future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">It is normal for
some youth will be interested in fast cars or other such materialistic
pleasures. In fact that is the case everywhere in the world – i.e. in both rich
and poor countries. And while some may say that higher levels of faith in
religion is a harmful thing, Islam – more so if not just as much as other
religions – makes its believers to prize austere ways of life, having
compassion and value the fulfilling pursuits like those of knowledge and
spirituality. The western ideas of extreme materialism and consumerism are not
approved by the devout Muslims. Ethos of Islam value experiences, knowledge and
greater common good much more than the things one can buy. Qatar is rated as
one of the most peaceful countries <a href="file:///C:/Users/Meghna/Downloads/QatarsPromise-LC-Opinion%20(1).docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>in
the world and the compassionate faith of people is definitely one of the big
reasons for that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">All this leads
me to a simple hypothesis:- Qatar and its citizens have a unique opportunity to
change the world in ways which other countries can’t. Citizens of Qatar don’t
have to worry about the basic necessities of life and/or even some luxuries. Such
a situation, combined with the peaceful and conducive environment to aspire
along with the examples/ role models set by the Qatar’s leadership, is a
perfect hotbed for the youth to become ambitious and do things that can both
change the world and change world’s perception of this dot on the globe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">When people’s
faith prizes austerity and they don’t have to worry about basic necessities,
the human instinct to find a purpose for the life would lead to development of
passion and excellence in different areas among such people. Given the
interconnectedness of today’s world, it is fair to say that many will get
attracted to working towards tackling the great challenges our world faces
today. So is the human nature, everywhere.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Qatar’s
leadership is already a role model for the people here through their pioneering
and ambitious initiatives in areas like research, education, sports, culture,
and their efforts at geopolitical level on different fronts and initiatives
like Educate A Child<a href="file:///C:/Users/Meghna/Downloads/QatarsPromise-LC-Opinion%20(1).docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
or Silatech <a href="file:///C:/Users/Meghna/Downloads/QatarsPromise-LC-Opinion%20(1).docx#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> to
show their commitment to global and regional causes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Some may claim
that a lot more can be done or should be done – which as per the newspapers here
is also in the pipeline. Everywhere, regardless of what earlier generations
think off or say, some youngsters make bad choices, a large number make safe
but pragmatically good choices and some gamble it all on the good choices they
make. Add to this the Qatar’s nurturing environment as explained above, and it
won’t be too much to hope that Qatar and its people will rise up to opportunity
they have and make their contributions to the history at different levels and
in different places or fields.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Meghna/Downloads/QatarsPromise-LC-Opinion%20(1).docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <a href="http://www.gsdp.gov.qa/portal/page/portal/gsdp_en/qatar_national_vision/qnv_2030_document/QNV2030_English_v2.pdf">http://www.gsdp.gov.qa/portal/page/portal/gsdp_en/qatar_national_vision/qnv_2030_document/QNV2030_English_v2.pdf</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Meghna/Downloads/QatarsPromise-LC-Opinion%20(1).docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <a href="http://www.visionofhumanity.org/#page/indexes/global-peace-index/2013/QAT/OVER">http://www.visionofhumanity.org/#page/indexes/global-peace-index/2013/QAT/OVER</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Meghna/Downloads/QatarsPromise-LC-Opinion%20(1).docx#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <a href="http://www.educateachild.org.qa/what-is-eac">http://www.educateachild.org.qa/what-is-eac</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Meghna/Downloads/QatarsPromise-LC-Opinion%20(1).docx#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <a href="http://www.silatech.com/home/about-us">http://www.silatech.com/home/about-us</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-63539314644611625102013-08-02T00:07:00.000-07:002016-04-02T13:46:32.107-07:00Pi - probability function to find a number in Pi's decimal expansion<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
Yesterday night I was watching a TV series, "Person of Interest" and there was this small wonderful speech about "pi" the irrational number in it.</div>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">This made me do a Google search to find some place where i can look-up my phone number in the decimals of pi and i reached this website </span><a href="http://www.angio.net/pi/piquery" style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"> http://www.angio.net/pi/piquery</a><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"> which allows us to do such a search in the first 200 million digits of pi. As such I was disappointed that I couldn't find my phone number of my wife's number. Anyway, after playing around with this application, i realized that numbers of length upto 8 digits can be found more or less in this app but finding a 9 digit number is rare and the we could just forget the 10 digit numbers. This made me think of a question (i am sure mathematicians must have wondered about this question many times before) that is it possible to build/determine a probability distribution function which can tell us that probability of finding X (some number with m digits) in the first N digits of pi is p(X). </span><br />
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I definitely have no idea about how to approach this problem. But would love to know whether such a function can exist, and if it exists then how or can it be determined (even in some limited form, let's say for the first billion digits of pi, etc), and if answer to that too is yes then what is that probability function? Would love to see any leads for this interesting nerdy problem :)</div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-17244014062294812282013-03-07T23:13:00.002-08:002013-03-07T23:13:20.169-08:00Separating Assessments and Teaching/Content Delivery in Education Sector<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In this century, role of education in an individual/child's life is set to change in revolutionary ways, both in terms of skills required and the way ideas and skills are taught/ imparted. While most of this revolution would probably focus on innovations in the way content is created and delivered/ taught, there is enough scope for innovation in how this skill training part gets connected with the job market. <br />
<br />
This connection is either missing or not strong enough and that is evident now also with the advent of online course offerings increasing at an exponential pace. These courses democratize education in the sense of providing every connected individual with an access to content/ courses. But there is no certainty that the person who passed a particular course or got distinction actually knows that content well and can use that knowledge in praxis. This is because it can’t be ensured that no one is cheating and it is an honor code based certification assuming that students are not breaking the code.<br />
<br />
In case of India (and probably in other developing countries too where number of colleges have increased exponentially in past 1-2 decades) there is another problem. Because of wide-spread malpractices among the student and teacher communities e.g. plagiarism, copying in exams, etc, it is near impossible to ascertain whether graduates of such colleges actually know (all or even parts of) what they claim in their resumes or transcripts. Only option is either to try the candidate and see if she can perform as per the expectations, or if the true caliber of such a candidate could be ascertained through personal networks of the employer. In both of these situations, we see a trust deficit problem hampering the market (for jobs) from functioning well.<br />
<br />
Top ranked or elite universities solve this problem through the signaling effect they create in the resume of their students/alumni. For this purpose they have to maintain a reputation in terms selecting great candidates, train them well and then test them with rigor. As doing all these things together comes along with a lot of conflict of interests, only few universities have been able to do it all well and can uphold their reputation. This is also why these universities enjoy the credibility they enjoy today. <br />
<br />
On the whole, there is a great amount of trust deficit in the market for skills and knowledge. A huge number of educational institutions' lack the ability to create a signalling effect for their graduates in the labor market through reliable assessments. We feel this gap could be filled significantly if some reliable third party/ies can measure and certify the skill levels of individuals in a transparent and competitive manner.<br />
<br />
Such an authority would test the students and certify the scores. These tests would be standardized tests but not generic ones like mathematics, general knowledge, etc. These tests would be for specific topics, skills e.g. regression, content analysis, non-parametric methods, which are equivalents of college/grad-school level courses. A credible authority conducting such tests would theoretically be able to provide everyone an access to trustworthy certifications verifying their knowledge/skill levels on a particular topic within a broad discipline. In addition, same organization or others could also provide experiential/peer learning opportunities for the learners by coordinating study groups, but the primary objective of the organization would be to conduct various types of assessments of skills, competencies and knowledge expertise.</div>
Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-72981138268524707822012-03-04T06:49:00.005-08:002016-04-04T11:34:41.114-07:00Women on my mind<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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International Women's Day (March 8th) is here again this year and the regular question which arises as always is whether it is just tokenism only, or symbolism has some importance too. My personal take is that symbolism is very important because it not just makes us ask the difficult questions about how pathetic record we have on the women's issues, but also because it ritualizes something very important. And, looking at how religions work, one can say it confidently that rituals slowly form habits, like touching your head with the book if it falls or you just accidentally touched it with your feet. So, it is definitely a good thing if we get into the habit of asking ourselves some difficult questions on the women's issues. It is probably just a drop where a flood is required to "level the field", but it is well worth it.</div>
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Along with the question of symbolism, some other issues related to womankind also come to our mind. These include, why we discriminate women (or more generically, discriminate any marginalized group), idea of equality as an ideal, role of nature or nurture in it, moral dimensions of these issues, etc. I am neither a woman nor someone who has given considerable amount of thought, energy and time to understand women’s issues. So I am just putting up my thoughts on three important aspects of women’s issues in general i.e. equality, nature v/s nurture, evolution. This is not a thorough and informed analysis of these aspects too; it is just my personal and CURRENT opinion on these issues. And yes, sorry for the regular digressions - I am just not capable of staying focused on anything.</div>
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<b style="font-size: 100%; text-indent: -0.25in;"><u>Equality:</u></b><span style="font-size: 100%; text-indent: -0.25in;"> The issue of equality is important because it comes up first in any conversation on this topic. This happens because of the existence of exploitative discrimination of women which exists almost everywhere in the world and more so in the poor families and regions with the exception of Middle East.</span></div>
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To say that it is a human tendency to discriminate is not a wrong statement if we were still the competing with the neanderthals. But with the complex society and science we have developed, it feels wrong to say that we haven't yet become open-minded enough to not stereotype or recognize the wrongs done by our ancestors. It is the fear of unknown or different which is typically at the root of any type of discrimination, and though everyone (I hope so) knows that knowing the unknown or open-mindedness (or curiosity) towards new and different ideas, people and everything else is the way to overcome fear and hence (hopefully) remove discrimination or exploitation. Tragedy in this case is that almost all of males live with females in our homes but most know nothing about these issues, because our cultures never let us think that women’s issues are worth that much attention. </div>
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In general Gender Equality as an issue has at the least two sides to it, first of this is the equal opportunity side (exactly speaking, the lack of it). This is definitely a highly pervasive issue of our times and has been so historically too. It is a known fact that at best women get evaluated on their performance while men get evaluated on their potential. Add the societal constraints, nurturing and expectations, and a female's dream of achieving something would mostly remain a dream only. Even the women, who do become successful, are often manlier than the men around them. Britishers described Rani Laxmi Bai as the only man they fought in what they call as the 1857 mutiny. Similar things have been said about Indira Gandhi, Golda Meyer, Margaret Thatcher and many of top female icons of current time e.g. Mayavati, Indira Nooyi, etc. So it is always a men's game and in order to win it, women have to beat men at their own game just like any other winner would have done.</div>
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It is assumed that flexi hours, telecommuting and maternity-issues, can't go along with serious business. Never will we discuss the issue of properly valuing the taking care of family as a contribution, instead of treating it like a zero-wage thankless job. </div>
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Second aspect is the silly argument similar to one put across by the reservation opposing upper caste folks, is why women get reserved seats in Metro or in colleges, jobs and politics i.e. <i>why can't women compete with men as equals if they want to be treated equally</i>? While reserved seats in Metro or a ladies first announcement is just a courtesy, reservation in jobs or politics is a simple means (though not the best) to move in the direction of achieving a somewhat equitable distribution of the opportunities between the two genders given the history of exploitation we have. The real change will start from homes only, when women actually become equally important decision makers in their homes regardless of whether live in cities or villages, or whichever class/caste they belong too.</div>
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Obviously there is a moral dimension of all this also, but then the liberal morals and conservative morals are so different that in a country of faith like India, we better keep that topic for a much detailed discussion some other time. Broadly I would just say that the differences between the two sexes are real and can be complementary too, so respecting the differences and making the best out of them should be our guiding or moral principle.</div>
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Speaking of differences, there is one very important one which appeals to men’s real (animal) nature i.e. women’s sexuality, and many get accused of using it to their advantage. No doubt some women take advantage of their appearance or sexuality, but then same women are also vulnerable when someone starts using force or vilify them in their communities. Irony is, men can be nasty enough to use the system to their advantage or use their physical power to coerce women, or be praised for their ruthless execution of tasks to achieve their goals or even attracting women (a big goal for them). Use of their charm by women is definitely a much more passive and humane way to achieve their objectives. Therefore, I am all in for women using their smile to make their way. Vidya Balan in Dirty Picture or Cleopatra are good icons on this front, and why forget the Mataharis of the world.</div>
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<b style="font-size: 100%; text-indent: -0.25in;"><u>Nature v/s nurture:</u></b><span style="font-size: 100%; text-indent: -0.25in;"> Are men and women genetically wired to be so different the way they are or it is more epigenetic reasons or nurturing which builds all these differences? As I see things, it is certainly a combination of both nature and nurture. There is no doubt that males are physically stronger in terms of athletic things or fighting, but women also have some advantages which show in their longer average life-spans and their ability to endure and survive labor pains or their monthly issues. It is near impossible to defend if one claims that men are more compassionate. At the same time nurture, which has created so many constraints on women- often in terms of their own mindset too, that it could possibly be blamed for all the issues in this gender debate. As more and more women are entering the workforce, the nurture or to say culture forces them to balance their family responsibilities and careers but just spending more hours working both in office and at home.</span></div>
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Whether masculinity as we know it, is an acquired trait or inherited one is a debatable question when you find that only the likes of India Gandhi making it big in our Men's world. But rather than worrying about its origins, I would like to focus on systemic changes which decrease the importance of masculinity in progressing as a civilization. Changing the "Nurture" at a systemic level makes sense because that's all we can do, and we have enough evidence to say that nurture can overcome the barriers of nature.</div>
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As per my limited understanding of nature, evolution and everything else, the phenomenon of Path-dependence is a very important one. Putting it in this context, just like we say that “Rome wasn't build in a day”, so will be the case of women finally getting their rightful place and power. We have such a long evolutionary and then our social history of exploiting women that we can't get rid of it a short time frame. Most probably this process will take a few generations before we as a civilization reach anywhere close to the utopia of gender equality in terms of opportunities and no exploitation. Good news is that these changes are under progress everywhere though at different paces. In rural areas we have many women empowerment programs trying to do some good though TVs might be more effective. Without these also, we had (rare) women resort to taking charge of the family when the husband has been incapacitated by hard-luck or bad habits. Urban females are definitely doing relatively better as their opinions do matter in their homes in varying degrees though not as much as would be their fair share for their contribution or consequences to them.</div>
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The changes required could be mandated through laws or social norms but the hard reality is that those ideas won't derive any legitimacy and hence acceptance among the majority unless it becomes an evolutionary inevitability for our society as a whole. We are now somewhat of a democratic society because of the commitment of our country Founding fathers towards the ideal of democracy. This indicates that today's lawmakers and reformers can certainly provide the guiding direction if we want a world where our daughters get their rightful place. But the difference between authors of our constitution and our lawmakers is that while the former had both luxury and courage to be bold on social issues, the later have both too much of populist pressures and a total lack of courage to be bold on social issues. This is assuming that lawmakers too believe in equality of opportunity for both the genders, which is not true of at least a significant number of them, if not majority. On most fronts e.g. technology, this translates into policies lagging behind the reality whereas ideally it should be otherwise if we want to really realize the future we want and not reach some alternate future by accident as it has been almost always throughout the history.</div>
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<b style="font-size: 100%; text-indent: -0.25in;"><u>Evolutionary case:</u></b><span style="font-size: 100%; text-indent: -0.25in;"> Having mentioned the word evolution above, it seems right that we discuss this aspect. As per my layman like understanding, males dominate because most of the struggles of survival in our evolutionary and social history favored physical strength a lot. At the same time factors contributing to stability were always underplayed because of the perception of equating physical strength and its derivatives as bold and praiseworthy. Childcare is definitely not valued as much as it should be and maybe that would be the case till the world population keeps on growing. Achieving economic growth from having more people does have some correlation with lack of women's empowerment because it forces us to price childcare responsibilities as low as possible. Same holds true of other intangibles women typically provide for too.</span></div>
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Anyway, the point I want make by bringing in evolution is that we as a society are becoming much more feminine at an accelerating pace. Everywhere we are seeing working systems of law and order, and democratic institutions come-up, and economy is being driven more and more by knowledge, not the control of resources. More knowledge means not just increasing complexity but also increasingly co-operative ventures and systems. All these things reduce the importance of physical strength and I am quite sure that if not earlier, by the end of this century we will have machines for doing everything which requires physical strength or anything mundane or repetitive. Medical sciences would have progressed to the level where use of artificial wombs would be the norm and 80 might as well be called as the middle age (this might be a a slight exaggeration but I guess you are getting my point). Nature of work in the future would be very different and humans will have only creative things to do only for their livelihoods. It means if a waiter can't charm and keep her/his customers engaged every time better than a machine, they wouldn't be needed. Entertainment (sports, restaurant and other experience based offerings included) and research would probably the only broad professions left for humans. This also means that the nature of work as we know from our industrial age experience will change drastically. Work would become much more sporadic in nature for a large fraction of the population. Rule of law would too become much more pervasive, in fact evidence is abundant that violence is reducing in all forms almost everywhere on the planet and rule of law is gaining more acceptance and legitimacy.</div>
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With so much more value given to the human life and creative abilities than to the material stuff we own, childcare and other family responsibilities will both get distributed well among genders and valued rightfully. Given the pace we are moving towards such a society where physical strength will become almost irrelevant, I don't see men as a group being able to adapt fast enough. At the same time, women both because of their inherited traits and exploitative nurturing effect of our cultures so far have adapted to, or are normally stereotyped as more compassionate, cooperating, disciplined and sincere towards work and able to manage complexities better or balance work, family and other interests much better than men. All these traits are a huge competitive and hence evolutionary advantage which men in general have not adapted as of yet. For the advocates of attributing females being subservient to nature or genes, this is more scary scenario for then it is for the nurture advocates as it means men would take centuries to adapt (even with the availability of medical/genetic engineering options for doing so) to the new environment. Add to this the charm of a women’s smile and men certainly don’t stand much chance.</div>
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To put it simply, in future women would be the dominant decision makers. If we accept the above mentioned future is as a realistic or a highly likely scenario then we will also have to accept that nations which make lives better and fairer for women would prosper and be competitive in the future we have envisaged. So it is in the real interest of nations of take care of their women if they want a good future and the nations which don’t realize or act soon will have to pay later. </div>
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I am not quite hopeful about India doing anywhere close to enough on this front even when we are so much behind the other big and important countries. But still there are some elements of hope e.g. women in Computer Science is not an uncommon sight in India, maybe because on one hand we like the fact that it is not manual labor while on the other hand our society doesn’t think that women are by nature not good at math and sciences. This translates into saying that creative thinking is not an exclusively male domain in our view. Probably this is something which would play to our advantage, but only if we are able welcome the rise of women in all other senses too. Spreading this message is important, because the case I want to make is that sooner we accept this better it would be for us as a nation, for it is an evolutionary inevitability or the destiny. </div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-43862323934879640382012-02-21T21:25:00.004-08:002016-04-04T11:45:53.405-07:00Interesting Readings: 22-2-2012<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: small; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Let's start light: Interesting Bookcase designs :)</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.furniturefashion.com/2012/02/19/once-upon-a-shelf-10-stunning-bookcase-designs.html?fb_comment_id=fbc_10150586831544001_21442944_10150587462329001#f3a708815c" target="_blank">http://www.furniturefashion.<wbr></wbr>com/2012/02/19/once-upon-a-<wbr></wbr>shelf-10-stunning-bookcase-<wbr></wbr>designs.html?fb_comment_id=<wbr></wbr>fbc_10150586831544001_<wbr></wbr>21442944_10150587462329001#<wbr></wbr>f3a708815c</a></div>
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New Ideas in Online Retail of Apparels - technology & customization</div>
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<a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/02/technology-and-fashion" target="_blank">http://www.economist.com/<wbr></wbr>blogs/babbage/2012/02/<wbr></wbr>technology-and-fashion</a></div>
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Article on rise in power of money in american elections, especially after the Citizen's United verdict of Supreme court #PAC or political action committees</div>
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<a href="http://www.alternet.org/economy/154172/how_a_filthy_rich_196_people_will_buy_our_election/?page=entire" target="_blank">http://www.alternet.org/<wbr></wbr>economy/154172/how_a_filthy_<wbr></wbr>rich_196_people_will_buy_our_<wbr></wbr>election/?page=entire</a></div>
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Efforts to make a really free and democratic internet. Also, shows how internet's current (business) structure of doing things through ISPs has made it easy to control</div>
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<a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-shadow-web" target="_blank">http://www.scientificamerican.<wbr></wbr>com/article.cfm?id=the-shadow-<wbr></wbr>web</a></div>
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Al Gore's manifesto for sustainable capitalism</div>
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<a href="http://www.generationim.com/media/pdf-wsj-manifesto-sustainable-capitalism-14-12-11.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.generationim.com/<wbr></wbr>media/pdf-wsj-manifesto-<wbr></wbr>sustainable-capitalism-14-12-<wbr></wbr>11.pdf</a></div>
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Good and detailed analysis of Obama as President</div>
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<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/03/obama-explained/8874/?single_page=true" target="_blank">http://www.theatlantic.com/<wbr></wbr>magazine/archive/2012/03/<wbr></wbr>obama-explained/8874/?single_<wbr></wbr>page=true</a></div>
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Good article for some ideas on the right balance between incremental and disruptive innovation</div>
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<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/11/balancing-disruptive-innovation-and-incremental-progress-in-medicine/248563/" target="_blank">http://www.theatlantic.com/<wbr></wbr>health/archive/2011/11/<wbr></wbr>balancing-disruptive-<wbr></wbr>innovation-and-incremental-<wbr></wbr>progress-in-medicine/248563/</a></div>
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Clayton Christensen on how new financial tools destroy innovation</div>
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<a href="http://www.ascendcfo.com/pdfFiles/HBR-How%20Financial%20Tools%20Destroy%20Your%20Capacity%20to%20Do%20New%20Things.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.ascendcfo.com/<wbr></wbr>pdfFiles/HBR-How%20Financial%<wbr></wbr>20Tools%20Destroy%20Your%<wbr></wbr>20Capacity%20to%20Do%20New%<wbr></wbr>20Things.pdf</a></div>
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Impact of famous blogs on papers published in economics. Super star effect</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.worldbank.org/impactevaluations/the-impact-of-economic-blogs-part-i-dissemination-aka-check-out-these-cool-graphs?cid=EXT_TWBN_D_EXT" target="_blank">http://blogs.worldbank.org/<wbr></wbr>impactevaluations/the-impact-<wbr></wbr>of-economic-blogs-part-i-<wbr></wbr>dissemination-aka-check-out-<wbr></wbr>these-cool-graphs?cid=EXT_<wbr></wbr>TWBN_D_EXT</a></div>
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Umair Haque on what should we do in life. Though written in reference to Davos WEF. 10 things</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2011/01/ten_things_youre_not_allowed_t.html" target="_blank">http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/<wbr></wbr>2011/01/ten_things_youre_not_<wbr></wbr>allowed_t.html</a></div>
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Interesting ideas on how to redefine education in developing countries</div>
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<a href="http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/redefining_education_in_the_developing_world?utm_source=Enews12_02_09&utm_medium=email&utm_content=1&utm_campaign=Epstein_Yuthas" target="_blank">http://www.ssireview.org/<wbr></wbr>articles/entry/redefining_<wbr></wbr>education_in_the_developing_<wbr></wbr>world?utm_source=Enews12_02_<wbr></wbr>09&utm_medium=email&utm_<wbr></wbr>content=1&utm_campaign=<wbr></wbr>Epstein_Yuthas</a></div>
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Paul Romer's speech - IMF. On economic crisis</div>
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<a href="http://www.imf.org/external/np/seminars/eng/2011/res/pdf/PMRpresentation.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.imf.org/external/<wbr></wbr>np/seminars/eng/2011/res/pdf/<wbr></wbr>PMRpresentation.pdf</a></div>
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Umair Haque's valentine's day post on love - generically on relationships - slightly philosophical</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2012/02/why_love_matters_more_and_less.html" target="_blank">http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/<wbr></wbr>2012/02/why_love_matters_more_<wbr></wbr>and_less.html</a></div>
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Facebook's ranking algorithms - Edgerank and Graphrank described</div>
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<a href="http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/12/27/edgerank-and-graph-rank-defined/" target="_blank">http://www.insidefacebook.com/<wbr></wbr>2011/12/27/edgerank-and-graph-<wbr></wbr>rank-defined/</a></div>
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Great piece on explosion in human population and a sick (though maybe true) argument on how income inequality is just another struggle for survival in the evolutionary sense</div>
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<a href="http://ourfiniteworld.com/2012/02/15/human-population-overshoot-what-went-wrong/" target="_blank">http://ourfiniteworld.com/<wbr></wbr>2012/02/15/human-population-<wbr></wbr>overshoot-what-went-wrong/</a></div>
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Seriously Rapid Source Review- tool to find live-reporting or eye witness sources on Twitter</div>
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<a href="http://www.nickdiakopoulos.com/2012/01/24/finding-news-sources-in-social-media/" target="_blank">http://www.nickdiakopoulos.<wbr></wbr>com/2012/01/24/finding-news-<wbr></wbr>sources-in-social-media/</a></div>
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US Foreign Policy, Iran, methods to increase utility of prediction excercises</div>
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<a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/14/the_unknown_unknowns?page=full" target="_blank">http://www.foreignpolicy.com/<wbr></wbr>articles/2012/02/14/the_<wbr></wbr>unknown_unknowns?page=full</a></div>
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Tibetan self-immolations & extreme Chinese security in Aba </div>
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<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/12/tibets-acts-self-immolation-china" target="_blank">http://www.guardian.co.uk/<wbr></wbr>world/2012/feb/12/tibets-acts-<wbr></wbr>self-immolation-china</a></div>
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Note on the Reality of Tax-progressivity in USA </div>
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<a href="http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/02/16/the-facts-about-tax-progressivity" target="_blank">http://themonkeycage.org/blog/<wbr></wbr>2012/02/16/the-facts-about-<wbr></wbr>tax-progressivity</a></div>
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Ideas and quality of debate in US of 1912 on income inequality as an evil and against democracy</div>
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Bashing FED and hailing Ayn Rand atlas shrugged style</div>
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<a href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/spitznagel2/English" target="_blank">http://www.project-syndicate.<wbr></wbr>org/commentary/spitznagel2/<wbr></wbr>English</a></div>
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We humans have two parallel sets of moral-beliefs to help us make the decisions</div>
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<a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328524.500-why-we-have-moral-rules-but-dont-follow-them.html" target="_blank">http://www.newscientist.com/<wbr></wbr>article/mg21328524.500-why-we-<wbr></wbr>have-moral-rules-but-dont-<wbr></wbr>follow-them.html</a></div>
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Interesting finding: Specialized skills force people to vote for welfare state as they have already made a risky investment in acquiring such skills - folks with generic skills go against welfare state. School and education systems provide and shape such input into labor-force and political-economy</div>
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<a href="http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~iversen/PDFfiles/SocialPreferences.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.people.fas.harvard.<wbr></wbr>edu/~iversen/PDFfiles/<wbr></wbr>SocialPreferences.pdf</a> </div>
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How people become experts in anything - deliberate practice</div>
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<a href="http://hbr.org/2007/07/the-making-of-an-expert/ar/1" target="_blank">http://hbr.org/2007/07/the-<wbr></wbr>making-of-an-expert/ar/1</a></div>
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How experts/winners can sustain superior performance</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/02/nature_nurture_know-how_1.html" target="_blank">http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/<wbr></wbr>02/nature_nurture_know-how_1.<wbr></wbr>html</a></div>
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Mathematical equations which describe most of physics</div>
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<a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328516.600-seven-equations-that-rule-your-world.html?full=true" target="_blank">http://www.newscientist.com/<wbr></wbr>article/mg21328516.600-seven-<wbr></wbr>equations-that-rule-your-<wbr></wbr>world.html?full=true</a></div>
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In future both education and work would become more and more informal, and look like a coffee-shop</div>
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<a href="http://blog.speculist.com/scenarios/the-coffee-shop-take-over.html" target="_blank">http://blog.speculist.com/<wbr></wbr>scenarios/the-coffee-shop-<wbr></wbr>take-over.html</a></div>
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Risks and injustice because memories are fuzzy. Also, how new memories can even be created</div>
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<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_memory_doctor/2010/06/the_memory_doctor.single.html" target="_blank">http://www.slate.com/articles/<wbr></wbr>health_and_science/the_memory_<wbr></wbr>doctor/2010/06/the_memory_<wbr></wbr>doctor.single.html</a></div>
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On drugs that could enhance or boost memory</div>
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<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/future_tense/2012/02/memory_enhancement_technology_and_a_future_without_forgetting_.single.html" target="_blank">http://www.slate.com/articles/<wbr></wbr>health_and_science/future_<wbr></wbr>tense/2012/02/memory_<wbr></wbr>enhancement_technology_and_a_<wbr></wbr>future_without_forgetting_.<wbr></wbr>single.html</a></div>
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Learning disability/dyslexia means a person can't focus for long but there is trade-off and it may mean such people can detect abnormalities in confusing patterns faster</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/the-upside-of-dyslexia.html?src=me&ref=general" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/<wbr></wbr>02/05/opinion/sunday/the-<wbr></wbr>upside-of-dyslexia.html?src=<wbr></wbr>me&ref=general</a></div>
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How Chinese property ownership concept got started in 1978 in a small village, and then China forever</div>
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<a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/20/145360447/the-secret-document-that-transformed-china?sc=tw&cc=share" target="_blank">http://www.npr.org/blogs/<wbr></wbr>money/2012/01/20/145360447/<wbr></wbr>the-secret-document-that-<wbr></wbr>transformed-china?sc=tw&cc=<wbr></wbr>share</a></div>
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Speech by Christina Romer of Berkeley on financial crisis</div>
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<a href="http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/~cromer/Written%20Version%20of%20Effects%20of%20Fiscal%20Policy.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/~<wbr></wbr>cromer/Written%20Version%20of%<wbr></wbr>20Effects%20of%20Fiscal%<wbr></wbr>20Policy.pdf</a></div>
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Great post for data-visualizations freaks</div>
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<a href="http://www.themillions.com/2012/02/this-chart-is-a-lonely-hunter-the-narrative-eros-of-the-infographic.html" target="_blank">http://www.themillions.com/<wbr></wbr>2012/02/this-chart-is-a-<wbr></wbr>lonely-hunter-the-narrative-<wbr></wbr>eros-of-the-infographic.html</a></div>
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Why privatization of public goods may not be a good idea</div>
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<a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/02/05/the_privatization_trap/singleton/" target="_blank">http://www.salon.com/2012/02/<wbr></wbr>05/the_privatization_trap/<wbr></wbr>singleton/</a></div>
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Charts shown to US Senate on income inequality in USA</div>
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<a href="http://motherjones.com/mojo/2012/02/mind-blowing-charts-senates-income-inequity-hearing" target="_blank">http://motherjones.com/mojo/<wbr></wbr>2012/02/mind-blowing-charts-<wbr></wbr>senates-income-inequity-<wbr></wbr>hearing</a></div>
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Ideas for good business practices in retail sector</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/source/2012/02/05/four-cornerstones-of-good-business-practices/?mod=e2tw" target="_blank">http://blogs.wsj.com/source/<wbr></wbr>2012/02/05/four-cornerstones-<wbr></wbr>of-good-business-practices/?<wbr></wbr>mod=e2tw</a></div>
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Open Government Initiative by White House to put most data in public domain </div>
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<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/toolkit" target="_blank">http://www.whitehouse.gov/<wbr></wbr>open/toolkit</a></div>
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Interesting infographic comparing Africa's size to most of the important countries</div>
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<a href="http://static02.mediaite.com/geekosystem/uploads/2010/10/true-size-of-africa.jpg" target="_blank">http://static02.mediaite.com/<wbr></wbr>geekosystem/uploads/2010/10/<wbr></wbr>true-size-of-africa.jpg</a></div>
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Joseph Nye on Women's role in Future - building up from Steven Pinker's book The Better Angels of Our Nature</div>
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<a href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/nye103/English" target="_blank">http://www.project-syndicate.<wbr></wbr>org/commentary/nye103/English</a></div>
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Article on how conservatives are genetically different from liberals</div>
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<a href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/buruma59/English" target="_blank">http://www.project-syndicate.<wbr></wbr>org/commentary/buruma59/<wbr></wbr>English</a></div>
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To find new and interesting books to read</div>
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<a href="http://bookpickings.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">http://bookpickings.tumblr.<wbr></wbr>com/</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.ebookreaderbuzz.com/2011/12/5-cool-sites-to-help-you-choose-which.html" target="_blank">http://www.ebookreaderbuzz.<wbr></wbr>com/2011/12/5-cool-sites-to-<wbr></wbr>help-you-choose-which.html</a></div>
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Technology progress has been superexponential in last 2 centuries</div>
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<a href="http://www.santafe.edu/news/item/technology-progress-superexponential" target="_blank">http://www.santafe.edu/news/<wbr></wbr>item/technology-progress-<wbr></wbr>superexponential</a></div>
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Economist's article on how scientists are trying to understand why the universe is expanding</div>
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<a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21547760" target="_blank">http://www.economist.com/node/<wbr></wbr>21547760</a></div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-34216061291271473902012-02-08T12:13:00.000-08:002016-04-04T11:45:38.222-07:00Fair Profit Company: Making Case for a New Type of Entity for Social Enterprises<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Increasingly a lot of dissent has been rising towards Capitalism that the system doesn’t contribute enough to the welfare of society at large. The reason behind this is that businesses are viewed (most often rightly) as the primary cause for social, environmental, and economic problems which different societies are facing. To put it simply, businesses and businessmen are now being widely perceived to be prospering at the expense of society at large. <br />
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The fiduciary duty of companies to maximize shareholder value only at the expense of everything else (otherwise they could be held legally liable) and the short term outlook followed by the companies are cited as the underlying causes for this loss of legitimacy for the Capitalism as a system. At the same time, governments and civil society organizations also try to solve the problems faced by the society at the expense of business. The trade-off between economic efficiency and welfare of the society at large has been taken as given, and guides the interventions by the government and civil society actors.<br />
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Here is a simplified take on what happens:</div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->Capitalism was the outcome of an attempt to create a system for efficient allocation of capital in the projects/ideas with highest possible returns.<br />
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->This lead to race among the investors to increase their returns on capital, which in turn demanded faster returns too. This quest for ever increasing and faster return got institutionalized with the advent of stock markets and VC funds.<br />
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->The narrow focus of investors in the return on their capital alone, meant that they and the businesses they had invested in started ignoring the broader influences which determine their success in long-term.<br />
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->This resulted in negative externalities for the environment and society, costs of which they were not supposed to pay and hence with economic growth the costs of these externalities have started weighing more day-by-day due to accumulation effects.<br />
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->One of the core strength of Capitalism is competition for promoting innovations to keep an economy vibrant. But the excessively myopic pursuit of returns on capital started meaning that companies needed to maintain their competitive advantage<br />
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->This in turn leads to big companies trying to make sure that competition dies out by using their money and other advantages to deter the entry of new players in the industry, which means decrease in innovation.</div>
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It is established that private ownership and efficient allocation of capital by markets i.e. Capitalism as we know today, is probably the most powerful, flexible, and robust system for growing society’s prosperity. At the same time, we know that the economy is just an aspect/part (probably the most vital one) of the society and the purpose of every society/ civilization is the welfare of its citizens. So economy and its constituents i.e. businesses should also serve that greater cause. But as interests of Capitalism are increasingly getting pitted against the broader interests of our society, Capitalism has to evolve to meet all the objectives of the society. Fortunately, this evolution of the role business in society has been happening albeit slowly over time, but the big push has come from increasingly growing number of social enterprises. </div>
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<b>Rise of Social Enterprises<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Social enterprises or socially responsible businesses try to solve this problem of negative externalities by internalizing the costs associated with them. This mean, shareholder value maximization is a part of the broader agenda for such enterprises. Their agenda could be to reduce environmental footprint, increase the welfare of the local communities, empowerment or focus on marginalized sections of the society, and in general a longer term outlook for the business ecosystem as a whole in the industry and locality they are working in. This means long term welfare and interests of all stakeholders in the business like consumers, employees, community, suppliers or other stake holders from the value chain has to be kept in mind while making decisions, and not just the interests of investors/shareholders.</div>
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Rise of social enterprises will go down as the characteristic transformation of our times in the economic history to be written in future. Governments and other influential bodies supporting this transition in the business is conducted would be hailed as the pioneers. The reckless pursuit of shareholder value maximization in turn got translated into making of GDP and the growth rates as the only criteria for measuring development of societies and countries. Other dimensions of development of society just got ignored, which has given rise to or increased the extent of many of our societal problems. Therefore the renewal or evolution of capitalism as a more inclusive system, would serve as a systemic intervention of bottom-up nature to solve the problems we have in our world today by promoting a nurturing environment for the innovations for this purpose.</div>
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<b>Problems<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Various structures and models are being tried by social entrepreneurs for achieving a balanced growth along with the welfare of public or fulfillment of other social goals like livelihoods security, health, education, empowerment of marginalized, etc. Some of these efforts have been highly successful but on the whole social enterprise ecosystem is not in the shape it should be to make it possible for new social enterprises/innovations to get into in the market and scale-up fast enough. While there are many dimensions of this ecosystem that require attention and support from the government, we would focus here on three very specific and heavily inter-related aspects.<br />
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span><!--[endif]-->Our current laws don’t provide for an alternative to pursue the society’s interests as a whole through sustainable models or mission driven businesses. Company law doesn’t provide for scope to pursue a second or third bottom-line beyond profits, though some entrepreneurs have tinkered with existing structure of a company to suit the needs of socially responsible business. Many new social enterprises get torn between their social commitment for which the business was started and their fiduciary duty.<br />
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span><!--[endif]-->Philanthropic donations, government programs and aid-money have tried to address the challenges of human development with a mixed record so far, and social enterprises are also a similar attempt which many believe to be having a great potential. For investors and anyone else to be assured that social returns expected on their investment are being reaped, a standardized system of measuring the social impact is not in place. So far people use proxies for the impact which can’t exactly be compared across different projects/ideas because of the differences in the methodology used and things measured. Profits or financial returns on capital are easy to measure and compare. A well developed social enterprise ecosystem would also require an equally good societal impact measurement system to compare different types of impact. Impact measurement methods used by development projects could definitely be of help here. Existence of a reliable standardized impact measurement system would also enable us to differentiate between false propaganda/claims by some corporations v/s the real impact.<br />
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span><!--[endif]-->Lack of reliable impact measurement keeps socially responsible investors suspicious and low on confidence to make investment decisions. This causes a slow investment rate which combined with lack of liquidity of such investments becomes a huge constraint for the social enterprises.<br />
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In order to solve the problems mentioned in above sections, many jurisdictions have been adopting different methods. Based on the ideas implemented internationally to tackle these problems, we recommend following strategies:<br />
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<u>New legal structure</u>: Allowing for new type of entities (let’s say Fair Profit Company or FPC) to be registered in which shareholder primacy gets diluted in favor of public welfare in general, with increased transparency and accountability is definitely going to encourage and support mission driven entrepreneurs. Such a legal structure would allow for shareholder value maximization after ensuring that the social mission of such a FPC doesn’t get compromised.</div>
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Here is a representative (and tentative) list of features of such a legal structure:</div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span><!--[endif]-->FPCs would give first priority to the explicit commitments to community welfare objectives mentioned in their charter or Memorandum of Association.</div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span><!--[endif]-->Cost of negative externalities created due to the business will get accounted into the financial statements of FPC to tackle these externalities by internalizing them.</div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span><!--[endif]-->Minimum fraction of ownership to be given to different stakeholders would get mandated e.g. 10% to blue-collar employees, 10% to the suppliers, 10-14% to the communities where FPC markets its offerings and 15% to the communities where the FPC is located.</div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span><!--[endif]-->Good corporate governance practices would be enforced with high penalty clauses</div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span><!--[endif]-->Explicit commitment to pursue long-term outlook has to be made in the charter and executives would be given flexibility and decision making power to achieve the goals set by shareholders</div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->6.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span><!--[endif]-->Commitment that fixed fraction of the profit (upto 25% max) will always get distributed as dividends, unless ruled otherwise in the General Body Meeting in that fiscal year</div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->7.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span><!--[endif]-->These corporations can take in grants with tax benefits to the donors, just as non-profits are allowed to accept grants</div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->8.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span><!--[endif]-->Foreign investments could easily be made without any restrictions and need of approvals, both in the form equity or debt i.e. easy FDI and ECB allowed through Direct route</div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->9.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span><!--[endif]-->Extra reporting requirements would be there to both ensure transparency and accountability, and to monitor progress on the social mission of the FPC<br />
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->10.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span><!--[endif]-->All tax liabilities for FPCs would be calculated just as it is done for the other companies registered under the Companies Act of India, 1956</div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->11.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span><!--[endif]-->Cost of measuring social impact can be reduced from the tax liability of an FPC within the permissible limits </div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->12.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span><!--[endif]-->Heavy penalty for fraudsters not fulfilling the community welfare objectives of FPC or compromising its social mission</div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->13.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span><!--[endif]-->To increase labor availability for FPCs, deduction in the income tax liability for the employees of FPCs could be provided</div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->14.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span><!--[endif]-->No license required or significantly eased requirements for getting license to provide goods and services which are highly regulated, including the provision of public goods i.e. power, water, education, health, security, mining, communication, public infrastructure, etc</div>
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<u>Impact measurement standards</u>: Setting up a government recognized Standard for impact measurement calculations in the Indian context is a must to be able accept the reports submitted by the FPCs for the purpose of monitoring progress on the social mission of FPCs. </div>
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<u>FPC Impact Rating</u> system based on both the absolute impact metrics, peer-rating by other FPCs, NGOs and the community, and/or standardized social audits should be given recognition by the government. Such a rating system would enable everyone to compare the performance of FPCs with each other. </div>
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<u>FPC Stock Exchanges</u>: To provide liquidity to the shareholders and FPCs an opportunity to raise capital from public, government should facilitate setting up of new stock exchanges where only FPCs of all sizes can be listed. Spot exchanges or share trading sessions for the trading of shares amongst the community members, employees, suppliers etc. should be organized regularly in the location where FPCs are located. FPC Impact Rating system would serve the purpose of providing the information required by such buyers and sellers for getting into the trade.</div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-65218112364593348912011-06-19T11:01:00.000-07:002016-04-04T11:41:58.450-07:00Just Another Cynic's Take on the Current Brouhaha Over Corruption and Politics in India<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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With Baba and his fast to mobilize masses in the fight against corruption, Anna and gang trying to bring PM under Lokpal's gambit and government taking stands/actions which to be fair it can definitely take legally, but then they make government look like a bunch of arrogant powerful folks. We have all shades of arguments being thrown in the debates we watch on TV or read in newspapers. Whatever these arguments are, at least everyone says that they want to solve the corruption problem, so let's go through some of their stands and arguments briefly.</div>
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First, we have Anna Hazare, whose fast did energize many intellectuals and enough in the middle class to support him because they were frustrated with the corruption scandals which have surfaced in the recent past. He and his colleagues believe that creating another giant power center cum government institution of Lokpal will solve the problem. Without getting into the debate on what should be the right size of government, let's accept that having a Lokpal with adequate powers to keep a check on the government and politicians definitely sounds like a good idea in the current times and in the Indian context. But team Anna's adamant stand on having PM under the Lokpal's gambit makes me wonder that if they would end up compromising on some other more critical aspects of the Lokpal bill in their attempt to have this symbolic victory over PM.</div>
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Next is Baba Ramdev, who has been making his speeches against the government on the corruption issue since past few years (I don't want to get into his claims about curing AIDS or medicines like Putravati or any other similarly ridiculous ideas). Disregarding some of the intellectuals who feel that Babaji felt jealous Anna's rise on this agenda and did all this, we can say that some times he even makes sense to the intellectuals. On the whole, probably he is creating some amount of positive energy in India through his yoga and speeches. But finally, with all the drama, a short lived fast and his flip-slops, he has definitely lost some of his credibility.</div>
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BJP/opposition: VP Singh took on the corruption issue of a Rs 64 crore scam and snatched the power from Rajiv Gandhi, who had led the Congress to get highest ever MP seats in the previous election (404 MPs). Contrast this with the current situation, BJP and other opposition parties have had the opportunity to take on the current coalition government on the scams worth humongously larger amounts of money than Bofors. Their inability to mobilize public support from the already frustrated citizens of India, clearly raises a lot of doubts about their capability (or the quality of their leaders) to come into power in the center in 2014 or maybe even 2019. Whether it is their lack of capacity or fear of getting trapped later because they also are equally corrupt can also be debated. In any case, opposition's showing has been pretty weak on an issue which is by nature a political issue.</div>
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Coming to Media, it is a group which definitely feels that they are the watchdogs for the government and convey that they are morally more responsible than us lesser mortals. Some of them have may have earned this feeling, but it is a shame for the media that the starting source of most good stories in the recent past has been civil society organizations (a topic for another post). Probably the economic pressures keep them from becoming anything but business of sensational infotainment. Whatever it is, they have been trying to take sides with Anna's team, or government. Ones taking side with Anna blindly are probably doing so because they can get more eyeballs, whereas the others lambasting Anna's team (and also NAC) for trying to hijack the role of politically elected lawmakers maybe doing so because feel they are smarter than others because they know the constitution.</div>
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Finally, we have the maibaaps in government i.e. Congress, which (along with opposition parties) seem to be totally ignoring the fact that politicians as a class have lost credibility in the eyes of us commoners. It doesn't mean that they won't win the next election, because to their advantage corruption and the amounts of money involved in an election make the electoral politics out of bound for rest of the mortals and the leaders of civil society organizations. And such is the audacity is our leaders in the government that they want to crush any of the efforts of civil society or public to even protest. In Baba Ramdev's case, his naivete in politics was leading him to a path of destruction only, but then government has to crush the movement, which made him gain empathy from even the intellectuals who disliked Baba for some of his ridiculous ideas. To add to this self-inflicted injury, they went ahead totally rejecting the idea of bringing PM into the gambit of Lokpal and made the statements which came along with their strict stand. It is a negotiation which definitely could have been handled much better, and thankfully they have now come to the idea of having more options on the table like keeping PM out till he/she demits, but it's so late that it just makes them look like bending a bit after they realized they can't do without it. </div>
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Showing you can crush when you have the power do so, is not considered being responsible. Compare the center's handling of Baba Ramdev with how Ashok Gehlot handled the Gujjar agitation in Rajasthan. Nobody would doubt the integrity of some leaders in the Congress but still their strong reactions to these protests are just creating more reasons for the public to not trust them. </div>
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An odd thought here is that VP Singh was a rebel from Congress, and given that no one in the opposition has shown potential to lead the country in this fight against corruption, could it be possible that someone from the Congress would capture this opportunity. A rebel would definitely make a really interesting political drama, but it could tried someone staying within the system too e.g. Rahul Gandhi. Again it's an opportunity for him and someone else too, but we would have to wait if these men of power would just stay risk averse as they been mostly or take their chances.</div>
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Anyway, maybe because I am ignorant, I feel that this whole problem is much more complex than any of these stakeholders try to portray it to be through the solutions they propose. The near universal acceptance of corruption in the Indian society can make one say that within limits corruption has become a part of the culture for most Indians. Elites and some civil society’s members may be able to take a higher ground and claim that they have neither given nor taken a bribe ever, but rest of the mortals have their benchmarks of how much corruption is tolerable and what is a cancer for the society.</div>
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People are certainly looking for the options to place their trust upon, at least the voter turnouts at all the recent state elections suggest so, but there aren’t any options. That’s why they find it easy to trust some crusaders for their cause from the civil society when that role should ideally have been played by the politicians. It’s not just the people, but even the real centers of power like our PM, Mrs. Gandhi and the likes also find it easy to trust these NGOish leaders and thinkers than the politicians from their own party, and that is why we have a NAC. </div>
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My take on the situation is that it is all mesh of many vicious circles. Our polity has failed to provide us with the competitive leaders, primarily because it is nowhere close to equal opportunity world because the money required to be considered as a serious player is very high. This unfair competition then enhances to incentives to be corrupt, and then these corrupt leaders find themselves lacking any authority to stop others (bureaucrats, judiciary, govt employees) from being corrupt. Adding to all this the rising aspirations of citizens of our democracy living in an increasingly connected world where they can easily see that the possibilities of growth could be beyond imagination, and the result we get is what we see today: an economy quite entrenched in corruption (even in the private sector) with people have become very pragmatic and care more for their goals.</div>
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Another institution like Lokpal could also probably follow the same path and become corrupt over time if corruption problem is not targeted holistically. We need to clean up our judiciary, administration, politics all together while maintaining a right balance of power among these players and also managing the economic growth in a inclusive manner at the a good rate of growth. From where the change can start is a dicey question especially with so many entangled vicious circles, but more or less we can agree that politicians are the most likely candidates who could lead India through this transition, though not alone. We can just hope that either our existing political leaders will transform into such responsible and visionary leaders, or we will soon see another crop of leaders which is highly competitive and capable to deliver up to the expectations of public.</div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-78876619561661017382011-04-17T12:27:00.000-07:002016-04-04T11:39:40.997-07:00Case to Increase Resources for Computer Science Research in India Greatly.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Recently, I happened to see a report US President's Council of Advisors in Science and Technology (PCAST) on the Networking and Information Technologies <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/pcast-nitrd-report-2010.pdf">http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/pcast-nitrd-report-2010.pdf</a></div>
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This report has a lot recommendations from an esteemed group of advisors for President on how US should move forward on the information and communication technology front. Obviously, there are many interesting bits in the report and most of the recommendations would be useful for India and other countries too. But what really interested me most was a sidebar box on page 71 titled, "Progress in Algorithms Beats Moore's Law". This box says that the increase in the computational efficiency due to improvements in the hardware is many time less than the improvements due to more efficient algorithms. </div>
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Basically, it says that we all admire the improvements in the hardware capacity which has been happening at the rate forecasted by the Moore's Law since decades, but probably we either didn't realize or at least never acknowledged that math geeks have been beating the Moore's law since always at a much higher rate i.e. when hardware efficiency was doubling every 18 months, algorithms were trebling the computational efficiency further in the same period.</div>
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It is incredible that this has been the case and given that Indian has been doing decently well in computer science research, I suppose it is something to feel nice about for us as a country. Though we shouldn't but if we try to think of a stereotype of Indian researchers around the globe, then most good or reputed researchers will fall in the category of scientists doing theoretical or simulation type work than doing hands-on experiments. That's my perception and maybe wrong, but I think that lack of good laboratory's in India had a lot to contribute towards Indian scientists not doing as much experimental work as researchers in US would do.</div>
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If this stereotype or assumption is true (which I believe is) than we certainly stand good chance in competing with anyone in the world in the computer sciences. Probably no surprise to most Indians, but still worth noting that we are a highly competitive player in a research field, especially the one which is enabler for better research in almost all other fields. Indian government should focus a lot more on developing this strength of our further, and probably encourage researchers abroad to come back to India. I am hoping that someone in our government keeps a tab on such news and would provide the right inputs to the policymakers. There is no bright future without science and innovation, and this is certainly one of the opportunities which we can't afford to miss or not capitalize fully, if we want to have the India of our dreams.</div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-31034181375502588552011-04-11T06:49:00.000-07:002016-04-04T11:39:23.106-07:00Middle Class Rises<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The success of Anna Hazare's India against corruption movement is of great importance, especially for the young generations because it the first time in our lives (i.e. younger people) that we have seen the whole middle class uniting so passionately for a cause with so much of positive energy. We have seen people uniting previously in case of Reservations and Ram Mandir, but in both the cases a lot of negative energy and probably money from narrowly interested groups was involved and some or other political party stood to gain. This time it is very different because no political party is going to gain, because it will change the very foundations of the way politicians and parties operate.</div>
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First it was Indian Cricket team and then just after Anna have provided middle class India with confidence and hope that I believe will transform us into an energized nation. For our politicians, it has always been easy to manipulate or coerce the poor class which constitutes the majority in India due to many reasons which requires a separate discussion. At the same time, middle class was rightly perceived to be as the people too busy with their aspirations of individual/family growth at the cost of society at large. Those who were interested in politics, just saw it as means to gain power which could easily be translated into money later. This perception has certainly been challenged and changed by the India Against Corruption movement and its success. </div>
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Never before we have seen the middle class becoming the part of a peaceful and positive movement to achieve something so substantial for the whole society. This movement had grown much beyond the civil society and people (not just youngsters) felt really strongly towards its objective, though a lot of them had only half-cooked knowledge about the exact means i.e. the Lokpal legislation. This will force the politicians to not ignore the middle class anymore and hopefully result in more competitive, transparent and results oriented politics at all levels. </div>
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Probably some enterprising leaders will not only see the opportunity/possibility but also create an agenda and means to organize the middle class again in this manner for some or other equally appealing cause. We as middle class know now that we can certainly achieve something equal, if not bigger than the Lokpal bill, and that itself is big boost to not just the self-esteem but to their involvement in community affairs too. </div>
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The point I have tried to make in this post is that this success means lot for all of us in terms of its unintended spillovers. It would make politics fairer and hence accessible, and at the same time, it would increase not just the interest of middle class for being a part of the system/politics but also their confidence for doing so. My belief is that this would do a lot more to level the playground and remove dynasty politics, than most other efforts/ideas to do the same. Finally, I think it is great to witness this rise of middle class and the best thing is that it was a Gandhian effort which made it all possible.</div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-45278122982665151532011-04-07T13:25:00.000-07:002016-04-04T11:38:49.490-07:00Wishing my best to Anna Hazare's movement - India Against Corruption<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It sure is worth great admiration, otherwise people won't be flocking around Jantar-Mantar in order to support Anna. The timing of his fast is also good, because the momentum (or public support) against corruption is pretty strong so probability of such a bill passing even though very small is at its highest now. If that happens then, this will be the third great victory in recent years for the common man, first two being passing RTI Act and winning the World Cup.<br />
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Anyway, I wish and pray that this bill sees the light as a law without any dilution, though I am slightly uncomfortable with another big increase in the size of state but I guess it is well worth it. As Mrs. Gandhi has come into the picture, my hopes have certainly increased. Though I am not 100% sure if her efforts may not be enough to achieve this humongous goal. I think Anna and colleagues also expected than Mrs. Gandhi will come in their support sooner or later and won't let her advisors make her try to dodge this issue, which is dear to her heart too. Still, it is not her will or sincerity that I doubt, but it is her capacity. She has so much power because it is beneficial for everyone in the Congress, the good guys, the bad guys, the competitive ones and the incompetent sycophants. Nobody wants to disrupt the status quo and also want to keep making the best out of it till they can. Passing this bill undiluted would harm most of them and they will try their best to not let that happen.<br />
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As for BJP and various other parties, they are worried like hell too. As for Congress governments (including the Centre and states), this bill would almost be a death pill for their state governments, but noone can afford to come out against the bill. So they all are just praying that the small power centers of the most experienced party Congress succeed in diluting the bill significantly. Also, we know that in the big cities middle class is coming out in support of Anna but most of people and their representatives are from the lesser known cities, towns and rural areas. We haven't heard much about how much active support is there for this movement.<br />
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In cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore we can easily find a huge number of middle class Indians whose jobs just don't involve any involvement with the government, and they are more aware and seasonally activist too. But I am not sure that rest of the India, which is quite different from these cities, will also provide a similar support to the movement so that the momentum doesn't die out slowly. I guess, this is certainly the juncture where media can play a huge role by shaping the public opinion. Let's see if they turn out to be a sell-out again or would show some conscience this time.<br />
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The anger and mistrust of politicians is certainly there everywhere. I hope it gets energized in all the small cities too, so that we can actually see the change we want to see in our system.</div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-2581720800050331912011-04-05T13:16:00.000-07:002016-04-04T11:38:33.038-07:00Strange Fascination for Gandhi's Sexuality<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">Currently very popular due to the recent controversy, Joseph Lelyveld's new book on Gandhi cites a few selected sentences from Gandhi's letters and some of his actions which can certainly imply him to be of bisexual nature, in the Western (especially American) context. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">Mr. Lelyveld claims to have "treaded very carefully" with the information, but being an Indian (and not because I admire Gandhi) I would like to say that he probably didn't have enough information. I say so because I think it would require a very good understanding of the Indian culture to be able to make such statements, and I am not sure if he had such an understanding, even though he has spent a considerable time in India.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">To begin with, sleeping in one bed with another male is normal for males in India, in fact at times it is the preferred arrangement when there are more couples (guests) in a house than rooms. Sharing a bed, in fact even if a really small bed, where it is hard for two people to sleep without physically touching other person is really no big deal, and any Indian can testify for that. In fact, it is no big deal for Americans to confuse a normal heterosexual Indian male who moved out of India recently as someone with bisexual tendencies, because of the way they would interpret his actions. In a normal man's life, homophoebia in America is certainly many degrees higher than in India, though Indians being good hypocrites and have a very bad appetite to digest this idea when discussed in public.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">Our conservative and closed society has made us much more open in front of same sex people, especially the way Indian guys seem cozy or careless with other guys bodies' touching them. Idea of an individual's space is really not a common occurrence in India. Also, in the absence of open and close friendships with the other sex, someone resorting to a strong (though touchy feely type) relationship with a person of same sex, shouldn't be considered anything more than what it is. It took me a reasonable amount of time in US, to understand the difference and behave accordingly. In India we used to hug guy friends and shake hands with female friends, it was just opposite in US, basically most things which are perfectly appropriate to be done in public for a guy and girl e.g. walking/sitting while holding hands, is considered appropriate in India for two guys too. In fact, in more conservative areas same behavior by a couple in public would be totally unacceptable :-)</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">Anyway, I wasn't lucky enough to be born in Gandhi's times so I don't really know how magical his influence was, but I sincerely think that if millions worshiped him and were willing to die for him from the hands of enemy without any retaliation to the enemy, then he must come across as someone really very powerful and godly. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">My point is that maybe Mr. Lelyveld read more than what it was between the lines or in the lines. Otherwise also, I think it is not wrong to assume that such a godly status is not awarded to anyone who doesn't do what he preaches. So, we can safely say that even if Gandhi was bisexual by nature or genetically, he would not have broken his vows of abstinence for anyone, either male or female. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">When I heard the news of this controversy, I couldn't stop laughing because just a day earlier a Hindu conservative was trying to convince me that Gandhi used to eploit minor girls and other women in his Ashram, etc. So, my first reaction to this controversy was that it as a funny fight between a Hindu conservative (who generally tend to hate Gandhi.. more on that in another post) and a Western Liberal. </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">Interestingly, almost all of this controversy has gone viral before anyone has even read the book, which I read focuses on other aspects of Gandhi's life and has only a very short discussion on this controversial topic. Probably people are also making the same mistake which author has made (i.e. if he has made one.. this is for disclaimer's sake because I also haven't read the book), which is, reading more than what it is there in between the lines.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">In any case, one thing is certain that this strange fascination for Gandhi's sexuality will never die both because of the Hindu conservative who want to prove him as a fraudster (probably because they blame Gandhi for partition and other issues very dear to their hearts) and because of the western liberals who may just be too curious to begin with, and then finally start seeing what they wanted to see, while they might be unconsciously choosing to not see it all from the way things really are in some other culture, cultures which they can't fully relate to or understand.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">Whatever it is, or even if Gandhi broke his vows of abstinence, nothing can make him any less of a man then he was in our history. And yes, it is finally so nice to hear that for once government of India will not ban a controversial book :-) It seems, even after death Gandhi is leading India in teaching something important, i.e. freedom of speech.</span></span></div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-44878452291612837572011-04-03T00:16:00.000-07:002016-04-04T11:38:10.318-07:00Dhoni has Lifted India's Morale with Cricket World Cup<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span">By winning the world cup MS Dhoni's has done something really significant for the people of India at a moment in history when it is most helpful. It also has a lot to do with the way it all happened, i.e. India not choking after Sachin was out early in the game. We, in this a country of billion were not certain if the future really belongs to us, as media and many reputed names around the world keep saying. Now we have learnt that we can really aspire to be a world leader, and that is a great feeling.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">Other sports, our research system and business environment are mostly resource constrained to achieve something like this, and our politicians certainly don't have either credibility or guts which could have a similar impact. To experience the impact of this win, I also decided to hit the road to India gate in Delhi for joining the victory march when someone told me a lot of people are collecting there to celebrate the world cup victory. As I saw later on TV, similar things were happening all across the country. It was a phenomenal experience, seeing the crowds cheering and congratulating strangers, dancing and celebrating the victory as wildly as they could. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">One could sense that almost all of them were much more happy because inside their heart all of them had probably lost the match once, like they often lose other battles in their everyday life. Sri Lanka, a tiny country with resources nowhere close to India's cricket associations and many more internal problems than India, had also taken over the minds of all Indians for sometime. It happened most likely, because our self-confidence has never been in a great shape before and probably because we have no memories of winning something like this, and though we felt it could be done but we were not sure. So rightly at the time when the new generation of India wanted to believe in itself, Dhoni delivered this win to make it possible.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">I was on cloud nine seeing the "we can do it" or "we did it" feeling in everybody's eyes I saw yesterday. Friends from everywhere in India and even London, San Francisco and New York said that the same of victory marches there. It is no exaggeration to say that what Dhoni has done is the best thing which has happened to India in the memory of my generation. We haven't experienced such a feeling of national pride ever before.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">People said at the semi-final that it doesn't matter if we win the World Cup of not, but we must not lose to Pakistan in the world cup, because maybe deep down in our hearts we knew that winning over Pakistan is possible but we feared that the World Cup is something much bigger and maybe nearing impossible. We wanted to satisfy our ego by setting up a lower, achievable target of winning the India-Pak match as a non-negotiable target. But the celebrations of yesterday night will shut everyone's mouth who said that winning to Pakistan was more important to all of us than winning the world cup. It was just that we didn't fully believe that we could win. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">I believe that now we will start seeing the spillovers of this win as leadership in other sports, science, technology, business and (hopefully) politics too. Thank you Dhoni, for winning the World Cup for us! We will not remain the same ever again.</span></div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-28400186818040243342007-11-04T17:31:00.000-08:002016-04-04T11:37:49.914-07:00HIV/AIDS Based Divorce Ruling<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I happened to come across this old ruling by a judge in Delhi. </div>
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<a href="http://www.medindia.net/news/Landmark-Verdict-Angers-AIDS-Activists-28806-1.htm">http://www.medindia.net/news/Landmark-Verdict-Angers-AIDS-Activists-28806-1.htm</a> </div>
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Though the ruling is old, I think it is definitely a debate of huge importance in our times, and it will shape the future of HIV infected people and their spouses in India. No doubt that this decision is a cruel one for the HIV positive person, but we do need consider the consequences of this decision (or it's opposite) before deciding which way we lean.</div>
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One view is that though this ruling is cruel for the infected person, it would be of great help to the woman in the Indian society. I don't know the real numbers, but I feel it would safe to assume that in our society more men get this disease because of their promiscuous behavior and then communicate it to their wives unknowingly or may be at times carelessly. In such a situation, a verdict like this would certainly be a great boon for the women who don't want to stay with such a husband. </div>
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Another view would be that women married to HIV infected spouse will stay with them anyways because of our society's belief that woman has to spend her life serving her man, and women leaving their husbands in sickness would be really looked down upon and we can't even imagine what kind of witch-hunt or mob-justice would be used to punish such females unfairly, who will take divorce from their HIV infected husband unfairly. At the same time, males would be able to easily use this precedent to divorce their HIV infected wifes at will without any fingers being raised.</div>
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Third way to look at this could be the intellectual way of thinking that it is an issue of rights of healthy person versus rights of an HIV infected person. Definitely that debate can go on for very long and would be very interesting too. In fact, I am not sure which side I will be in that debate. But ideologically I believe that everyone should get a choice to live their lives the way they want, which would translate into the favor of the judgment, though I don't agree with the logic provided by the judge. But at the same time we do need to make sure that just providing a right is of no use if we cannot ensure that the rights given to people can be exercised by every individual without any hindrance, especially by those belonging to the weaker sections of society. Unfortunately, our society doesn't have a good track record of ensuring the rights of marginalized and minority are safeguarded. So I am in favor of keeping the discussion open to come up with innovative ideas to safeguard the rights of women in this case.</div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-85262374516060120672007-10-16T13:29:00.001-07:002016-04-04T11:36:21.267-07:00ICT in Healthcare for Rural and Urban areas: Telemedicine<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This could be an good idea for people who want to start a business which serves a noble cause too, specifically in the domain of Healthcare. So the basic idea is to provide an asynchronus clinical diagnostic decision support system (CDSS) to healthcare professional on a hand-held device like (tablet/pda/notbook) or a desktop . The way CDSS works is, we have a very big number of cases and expert opinions combined to form rules for diagnosing what disease the next patient (case) has an the basis of symptoms seen. Most systems use bayesian algorithms to formulate these rules. When a new case comes, on the basis of information on symptoms observed and other relevant personal entered, system suggests what diseases could possible be there with probabilities for each of these and explanations for why that disease could be present. It would also suggest what tests should be done to make a diagnosis and in what sequence. Finally the healthcare professional (most often a doctor) makes a decision or diagnosis and treats the patient for that disease. Ideally each new case with final test results and the diagnosis decision should be updated in the system so that rules also get updated for treating the next set of patients better.<br />
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Additional support for treatment guidance and sending reminders for taking the medication or check-ups etc can also be provided. Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in healthcare is increasing but has not been fast enough to catch up with the pace at which technologies are developing. Technically, building such a system is really not a big deal but there is a lack of effective delivery mechanisms which gets adopted well into the healthcare community which apparently is normally not well-versed in use of ICTs. Right now such systems come along with hospital information systems and are thought of as something big, complicated and expensive. What I think is, we can just use Google Gears (<a href="http://gears.google.com/" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" target="_blank">http://gears.google.com</a><script><!-- D(["mb","). Just have a look at this message below, and I am sorry if the idea in the text below sounds very profit-oriented. I had to write it like that to lure the people in business I was trying to approach.\n\u003cbr\>\u003cbr\>I look forward to hearing from you soon. \u003cbr\>\u003cbr\>Thanks a lot!\u003cbr\>\u003cbr\>Sincerely,\u003cbr\>Lokendra\u003cbr\>404 583 7474\u003cbr\>\u003cbr\>I am Lokendra, I used to work for SINE when you guys had moved in. This mail is to describe the idea I mentioned to \n\u003cspan name\u003d\"st\"\>Rakesh\u003c/span\> about which I think it may make a great product for Webaroo. \u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\> \u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\>Basic idea is to provide an asynchronus clinical diagnostic\ndecision support system (CDSS) to healthcare professional on a\ntablet/pda/notbook. The way CDSS works is, we have a very big number of\ncases and expert opinions combined to form rules for diagnosing what\ndisease the next patient (case) has an the basis of symptoms seen. Most\nsystems use bayesian algorithms to formulate these rules. When a new\ncase comes, on the basis of information on symptoms observed and other\nrelevant personal entered, system suggests what diseases could possible\nbe there with probabilities for each of these and explanations for why\nthat disease could be present. It would also suggest what tests should\nbe done to make a diagnosis and in what sequence. Finally the\nhealthcare professional (most often a doctor) makes a decision or\ndiagnosis and treats the patient for that disease. Ideally each new\ncase with final test results and the diagnosis decision should be\nupdated in the system so that rules also get updated for treating the\nnext set of patients better. \u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\> \u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\>Additional support for treatment guidance and sending reminders\nfor taking the medication or check-ups etc can also be provided. Use of\nInformation and Communication Technologies (ICT) in healthcare is\nincreasing but has not been fast enough to catch up with the pace at\nwhich technologies are developing. Technically, building such a system\nis really not a big deal but there is a lack of effective delivery\nmechanisms which gets adopted well into the healthcare community which\napparently is normally not well-versed in use of ICTs. Right now such\nsystems come along with hospital information systems and are thought of\nas something big, complicated and expensive. What I think is, we can\nhave a webaroo kind of application which is an asynchronus application\non any client and updates the rules by periodically sending the\ninformation about the cases treated in the last unconnected period and\nalso downloading the information about updates in the diagnosis rules.\nThis way we can provide a good product at affordable prices to the\nusers.\n",1] ); //-->) </script> ) as a platform application to build up our own asynchronus application which can run on any client and updates the rules by periodically sending the information/data about the cases treated in the last unconnected period and also downloading the information about updates in the diagnosis rules. This way we can provide a good product at affordable prices to the users. Google provides APIs for using its applications to anyone, and that is a great resource which many entrepreneurs may want to exploit for delivering their services. </div>
<script><!-- D(["mb","\u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\> \u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\>Amount of information being generated in healthcare is so huge\nthat it is almost impossible for professionals to keep up with all the\nlatest information in the field. Such systems are an answer to it, as\nsuch this is something people have known since long but now is the best\ntiming for launching such systems as healthcare professional are\nincreasingly adopting ICT based systems into their practice. Points\nmentioned so far hold true for the urban and developed areas around the\nworld and for the underdeveloped areas too. But for underdeveloped and\nremote areas where doctors are rarely available there is one more\nimportant application of this, providing healtcare advice through\ntelemedicine using such decision support systems is an emerging area\nand a huge market around the globe. \u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\> \u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\>One part of such a business would be to collect the information or\ncases and develop a system which lies on the server. This is possible\nwith some investment of time and money and many firms can do it so to\nbeing with an alliance can also be formed. The second and most crucial\npart would be to efficiently provide such a decision support to the\npractionors or telemedicine providers in user friendly way. Direct\ndiagnostic advice to consumers is out of question right now because of\nthe legal issues involved but as some legal barriers fall in future due\nto increased trust in technology, major players would be able to take\nadvantage of those new laws too. Existing webaroo system of providing\nthe web in a condensed form asynchronously to client devices has most\nof the features which would be required to implement a health decision\nsupport in the form proposed above. \u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\> \u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\>Governments and insurance providers have a huge interest in\nreducing healthcare costs and increase efficiency of the healthcare in\ngeneral. With support of such a system a lot of spurious diagnosis\ntesting could be avoided, because that happens due to either some\npersonal interests of doctors, hospitals and testing labs, or because\nof the over cautious approach towards diagnosis adopted by the doctors\nand healthcare providers. These spurious tests acount for about a third\nof total lab tests done specially in the developed economies. So we\nhave stakeholders in the market who have a strong interest in promoting\nsuch products and may be making these mandatory in future. New breed of\nhealthcare professionals are receptive to the idea of using ICTs for\nproviding better healthcare and other complementary products, systems\nor ideas like electronic health records for individuals are also\ngetting acceptance into the market. On the whole use of ICTs in\nhealthcare is gaining momentum and this kind of product/service to\ndeliver diagnosis support would be one of the pillars to provide\nhealthcare in a networked manner. ",1] ); //--></script><br />
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The amount of information being generated in healthcare is so huge that it is almost impossible for professionals to keep up with all the latest information in the field. Such systems are an answer to it, as such this is something people have known since long but now is the best timing for launching such systems as healthcare professional are increasingly adopting ICT based systems into their practice. Points mentioned so far hold true for the urban and developed areas around the world and for the underdeveloped areas too. But for underdeveloped and remote (rural) areas where doctors are rarely available this application is going to be far more beneficial, if we can provide healtcare advice through telemedicine using such decision support systems. It is an emerging area and a huge market around the globe. Small entrepreneurs can also start such a system, and if such small entrepreneurs can become the part of a bigger network (something like a cooperative) for sharing the data collected, then it would definitely be called as a great innovation. I believe one group trying to something very similar thing is www.d-tree.org and I am certain that there would be many more small businesses or non-profits working on this idea. </div>
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The first part of such a business would be to collect the information or cases and develop a system which lies on the server. This is possible with some investment of time and money and many firms can do it so to being with an alliance can also be formed. There are numerous initiatives at different universities which have already have a lot of data with them, and I believe one can either partner with them or just buy the data from them. The second and most crucial part would be to efficiently provide such a decision support to the practitioners or telemedicine providers in user friendly way. Direct diagnostic advice to consumers is out of question right now because of the legal issues involved but as some legal barriers fall in future due to increased trust in technology, major players would be able to take advantage of those new laws too. Existing APIs of Google Gears can provide the web in a condensed form asynchronously to client devices, and hence have most of the features which would be required to implement a health decision support in the form proposed above.</div>
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Another orthogonal but important aspect here is that governments and insurance providers have a huge interest in reducing healthcare costs and increase efficiency of the healthcare in general. With support of such a system a lot of spurious diagnosis testing could be avoided, because that happens due to either some personal interests of doctors, hospitals and testing labs, or because of the over cautious approach towards diagnosis adopted by the doctors and healthcare providers. These spurious tests account for about a third of total lab tests done specially in the developed economies. So we have stakeholders in the market who have a strong interest in promoting such products and may be making these mandatory in future. New breed of healthcare professionals are receptive to the idea of using ICTs for providing better healthcare and other complementary products, systems or ideas like electronic health records for individuals are also getting acceptance into the market. On the whole use of ICTs in healthcare is gaining momentum and this kind of product/service to deliver diagnosis support would be one of the pillars to provide healthcare in a networked manner.</div>
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I believe, it is a good idea for anyone who wants to make money and also do something meaningful. Also, everyone is aware of the humongous size of healthcare market. If anyone would like to discuss more details on this then I would be more than glad to so :-)</div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-47875633775244078132007-10-06T22:49:00.000-07:002016-04-04T11:35:28.786-07:00Why competition is a local phenomenon?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In the early days of college, I used to wonder (rather I still wonder!) about this phenomenon. However good, strong or competitive people may be at anything for any level higher to their current level of action, but they get hurt most when someone at their current level of competition beats them. I will try to use a small exercise to illustrate what I mean: try to recall of one activity in which you were really strong in high school and you continued it later also and managed to reach heights which were far bigger than what others in your high school thought you would ever be able to achieve.</div>
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Now recall your strongest competitor back from high school in the same activity. It may have happened many or at least some times that due to any reason whatsoever, this other person would have beaten you. Each time this happened, your heart would have burnt to ashes in a second and the next few days were hell :-) Remember how hard it was then to accept that you lost to such a sucker :D Now it doesn't matter but just try to think what or who matters to you now? :-) I am yet to find someone who is able to separate her/himself from the present competition they face. It is the present and the competitors in the neighborhood or physical proximity which makes the adrenaline rush when you are competing, and if it doesn't then you are not in a competition. Either you are a sure winner or you have already accepted that you can't win. But we never get bothered by the far better or stronger competitors whom we know but with whom we are not competing at that point of time, though we will definitely hate them or feel jealous of them when in future we are running the race with them .<br />
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The point here is, it is primarily the local competition which drives your growth. It holds true for organizations, groups and countries or any other form of an entity as well. Constructive competition has always been local in time and location. You will find this point being emphasized by many smart people in the history. In fact, in the recent times when one of the most famous business thinkers, Prof. Michael Porter of Harvard had proposed his claim to fame theories on competition, he used this phenomenon a lot. I have read his work in the field of economic development where he just took the same concepts to a higher or macro scale. He says that very strong domestic competition in an industry for a country has historically been the pre-cursor to that country's global dominance in that industry. He also says that we will always observe some very adverse conditions and some pre-existing strengths or support structures which make this path to global dominance possible. So in a nutshell, adverse conditions and pre-existing support structures make the local competition fierce and hence competitors very strong in the long run.<br />
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So coming to the level of our everyday life, however bad things people say about the dark human emotions like jealousy and anger (for revenge), smart people have been able to use these to their advantage and win the game. How sustainable this method could be in the long run is really debatable (I personally don't believe it is very sustainable in the long run) but in the short run it is definitely the way to follow, if one wants to progress or grow. I guess if we just take this debate to a very high level then we can say that it is the classic debate about capitalism or socialism :-) So I obviously am a non-existent speck of dust in front of the intellectual giants who are advocating both sides of this big debate. But I do believe that wherever healthy and fair competition exists, it definitely is the engine of growth. Also we should not forget that when the gap between the strength of competitors is very large then it never remains a fair competition unless the strongest is a benevolent person/entity/country.<br />
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Again, I still wonder why it so happens that we are always jealous of the person running next to us in the race. Is there something which nature wants to tell us through this?<br />
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By the way, an interesting aspect of internet which is worth another posting is how it changes these fundamental or natural law of competition :-)</div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-76246021303813918552007-09-26T16:16:00.000-07:002016-04-04T11:34:12.295-07:00The Idea of Choice<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Back in my undergrad days, when we were taught the concepts of dynamical systems (it is about how a point's position is varying over time), I first heard about the idea of bifurcation points in physics, which is a point beyond which two paths are the possible for trajectories for the same point. I found it a very interesting concept then because to me it represented some unknown conditions leading to two or more possibilities for the future.</span></div>
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Later when I was reading the Indian philosophical books, Bhagwad Geeta and Upanishads, again and again I found the mention of an obvious phenomenon that choices an individual makes define the future. For the westerners, I would say, in the movie Matrix and its sequels we find this idea being thrown to us quite often. Of course one can find that a lot of work has been done on this topic of choice by many philosophers, epistemologists, economists and science fiction writers etc (broadly speaking, people who want to figure it all out :-).<br />
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And recently, while working a paper for my research I had to include some aspects of investment decision making (FYI: as a student I try to do some research also for living and its focus is on economics of innovation or technological change, this is what gives me the money for food :) I have a long list of other research areas also where once in a while I try to write some course paper or do some general readings, it includes: Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D), environmental sustainability, economic development, evolutionary economics, industrial organization). So the point I wanted to make is, everyone says the same thing that choices made today shape your future tomorrow. Statistically and philosophically these choices do get defined by the interplay of the forces of evolutionary pull and historical past. By the use of words "historical past" I mean that the change which happens over time is path dependent (in simple words, nothing changes suddenly) and evolutionary pull is the evidence of the fact that we are alive, thinking and have desires to change things, and for that at times we do anything required.<br />
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This is getting longer and sounding more and more confused now, so I will try to cut short and maybe say precisely what I want to say (which I believe I don't know now). So we find that since the beginning of civilized societies intellectuals have been talking about the importance of choice, we can find many developments in mathematics and economics (evolutionary game theory, decision trees, options theory, etc.) which try to mathematically explain and model this phenomenon. Obviously math as of today can not model this fully but all this just shows the convergence of thoughts over different disciplines, which emphasizes the fact that choice is something very powerful. On a optimistic note, we know that whatever the odds are, we are the ones who make our choices.<br />
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Therefore at the level of a simple discussion to share knowledge, so far my understanding of all this in relevance to our everyday lives is a very simple and obvious fact. We need to have a sense of direction in life, or know what we want (the biggest question :-) but in order to acheive that doing our best in present is the best thing we can do. This will decide and lead us to the whichever next set of choices we will have. Hence taking us to the next bifurcation point of our life, from where again different paths are possible. No matter what your choices would be, it is the doing your best in the moment which will make the changes possible. I guess the Bhagwad Geeta's one of the most famous verse puts this idea across in the best possible manner, ""Karmanya Vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana, Ma Karmaphalahetur Bhur Ma Tey Sangostva Akarmani". It means, we can take action so we should do that in best possible way, following results is not what we should be doing and we should never fall for the idea of inaction, that won't take us anywhere.</div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-9135358368798771012007-09-11T11:38:00.000-07:002016-04-04T11:35:48.193-07:00Micro-Finance in Urban Areas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="text-align: justify;">Micro finance has not been successful so far in helping urban poor due to many reasons. Obviously just giving money is not THE SOLUTION. We need a lot many other support structures/reforms so that the poor people can exploit the opportunities better. A big list of such support structures and reforms could be made, but most of those things will be under the control of government. Here in order to just think of a market based solution for making these initiatives successful, I would like to address a specific problem which micro-finance institutions (MFIs) face in urban areas.</span><br />
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When we consider the incentive for MFIs to go an lend money to poor people in urban slums, they have a big discouraging obstacle, i.e. repayments. Repayments in micro-finance are dependent on factors like how stable (location-wise) the population under the experiment is, community ties, shame factor within neighborhoods etc. Urban slums in India and probably everywhere in the world would score badly on these indicators. Population is very dynamic, as in many new people keep coming in to the cities from rural areas looking for jobs and many leave to go to other cities or their villages or somewhere else within the city. Social or community ties are very weak because most people are recent acquaintances only and otherwise also they are not relatives or close family friends since decades as it would be the case in villages. Hence people have no shame in defaulting loans because they don't care about their neighbors.<br />
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All these reasons are expected to lead to a very low repayment rate in urban slums for MFIs. Hence they would not like to roll out their operations in these areas. One possible solution for this could be to invest in human capital or people. What I mean to say here is, the micro-credit loans should be given to learn new skills to start a small service or to look for jobs. Borrowers should be required to make a PAN (social security card equivalent) in order to qualify for the loan. And most importantly, a accreditation and job-search assistance service should be run along with. So even if someone wants to take loan and work as maid at any middle-class family's house. MFI can confirm on receiving a call that their new employee belongs to the MFI's borrower network and hence can be trusted relatively more than any other person. This is a good incentive for the borrower to stay connected and make repayments on time as her/his livelihood becomes more certain.<br />
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Similarly, because an MFI can start and manage a job-search assistance service, if they do so (or outsource that), they give the borrowers all the more reason to remain a part of the network by keep repaying the loans on time. Additionally an insurance premium could be added to the interest rate in order to cover the borrowers from unfortunate circumstances where they don't get any jobs or are not able to sell their services, due to which they won't be able to repay the loans.<br />
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This idea is not in perfect shape but it definitely provides a good line of thought to approach this problem. There are some catches and I am sure innovative solutions for those could be thought of. Anyways, urban poverty is a fast and steadily increasing phenomena everywhere and we need to come up with new ideas to tackle this problem. I hope this could be one way to think about it, because at the end of the day these poor people come to big cities in order to earn more than what they could earn in their villages. So we should probably just focus on how we can help them achieve their goals and in return they need to just repay their loan, which enables them to remain in the network which opens door to more opportunities and a possible support mechanism in their unexpected bad times in future.</div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6397013.post-88061285735741134952007-09-10T04:24:00.000-07:002016-04-04T11:36:03.146-07:00Hereditary Lineage in Indian Politics<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Recently I was having a discussion over how good or bad having Hillary as the next president of US would be considering the fact that her win will mean that US would become a country ruled by the members of two families for at least 24 years. US will then have a whole generation which can imagine only either some Bush or Clinton as their president. I intend no offence to Hillary's capabilities or doubt her competence to govern the country, but this idea of continuous 24 or 28 years of US presidency shared by two families sound depressing. These two families may represent two opposite ways of thinking prevalent in US but probably anyone can imagine that there is a fair chance that they don't represent enough new or fresh thoughts. George Washinton didn't go for a third term in order to set a precedent for coming generations so that fresh thoughts from new people can keep coming into the Whitehouse. However capable or great a leader is, he/she will tend to think the same way and for a nation to stay ahead new thoughts and ideas should keep coming from the leadership. Having these two families rule US for so long doesn't seem to be in sync with that fundamental belief of George Washington and US.<br />
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Anyways, this led me to think about India where since my grandfather's time one Nehru-Gandhi family has ruled the country for most of the time. I admire Nehru even though I feel he made some wrong decisions. I guess his decisions could be justified in the context those were taken. His descendents have done both blunders and some wonderful things for India but its the same family and however different these individuals maybe, finally they end up thinking in similar ways. So the next obvious question which came to my mind was how prevalent the family lineage system is in Indian politics? It's not just about the Gandhi family, I felt maybe all over India in small cities too we can this failure of Indian democracy to bring new people with fresh ideas.<br />
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So I thought why not try to look for empirical evidence for this phenomenon because I felt there would be many interesting patterns of succession in leadership varying across regions, religions, economic status, gender and education levels etc. Hence I started to look for data on this and I found that Election Commission of India's (ECI) website has the data online for who all were the Members of Paliament (MP) and Members of Legislative Assembly (MLA) since 1977 but no data on their blood relationships with other MPs or MLAs. I asked two prominent Indian political scientists Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Yogendra Yadav also about how can I collect this data. Dr. Mehta didn't know and referred me to Prof. Yadav, who told me that he has data on all MPs since the first Indian general election in 1952 but he does not know of any source for data on their blood relationships.<br />
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This makes the problem more interesting and challenging, so I thought of an idea for collecting this data. Just to reiterate, the core research idea is to match the ECI data on all MPs and MLAs since 1977 with the information on whether there were or are any blood relatives of these MPs who were either a MP or MLA before or after, in their own constituency or some other constituency with the information on the caste, religion, region, gender, income and education levels of these MPs and MLAs etc. I believe this could make a decent research paper based on inductive reasoning. Additionally we will try to collect information on any natural calamities or crisis (riots) etc during the tenure of these public representatives, their campaign focus and public perception of corruption levels during their tenures.<br />
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The idea for collecting this data which I thought is to get the voluntary submissions by general public about their local MPs on some internet website, something like a wiki. It would be like an open-source research project :). I feel it is an interesting idea to try, though I am not sure whether it would be successful or not. And even if I am able to get all or even 90% of the data this way over the time period of an year or so, then also there will be all kinds of reliability issues with that data. I dont care if this kind of data is deemed unreliable and I can't publish the results in a journal, but I strongly feel that if this can be done then it would be an interesting experiment for collecting data in social sciences.. :) I guess the idea is not something new, specially in this information age but its application and operationalization in this context is definitely a new and challenging thing and hence it is worth trying. In fact about 40% of data has been collected representative results could also be shown on the web and updated regularly.<br />
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I will try to put up the link for the website which will collect this data here as soon as possible. I will then hope and pray that this experiment becomes a success. It probably could also provide evidence that all over India people accessing internet are interested in politics. And if it happens, then more such experiements will spin-off to collect the data which is otherwise very hard to collect and can provide us some meaningful insights about our own society. Insights which probably would make people think whether what they observe is right or not and what can they do change things which they deem wrong.</div>
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Lokendrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691765243486031877noreply@blogger.com0