Ten Commandments

of Christianity and Judaism:

1) I am the Lord thy God
2) Thou shalt have no other gods before me
3) Thou shalt not make for thyself an idol
4) Thou shalt not make wrongful use of the name of thy God
5) Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
6) Honor thy Father and Mother
7) Thou shalt not murder
8) Thou shalt not commit adultery
9) Thou shalt not steal
10)Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor
11)Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house
12)Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife

kinda commandments in Hinduism: (Caled Yamas)

ahiMsA satyam asteyaM brahmacaryaM kSamA dhRtiH
dayArjavaM mitAhAraH zaucaM caiva yamA daza 17

1) Ahimsa - Nonviolance in thought and action
2) Satyam - Truthfulness
3) Asteya - Not stealing
4) Brahmacharyam - Celibacy until 25 and loyalty to partner after marriage.
5) Kshama - Forgiveness
6) Dhriti - Steadfastness
7) Daya - Compassion
8) Arjava - Honesty
9) Mitahara Moderate appetite
10)Shaucha - Hygiene

Jab deep jale aana.... Jab shyam dhale aanaa

Come when the light is lit
Come when the dusk is set

Do not forget the signs of interst to meet
Do not forget I donno what bisraana means!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMu6oiJ7Jj4

hey people help me .....
~rAGU

ಕಲ್ಡದ ಮನೆ

ಒ೦ದು ಮಳೆ ಬಿದ್ದ್ರೆ ಸಾಕು ಮೂಲೆಲಿದ್ದ ಮರದ ಬ೦ಟ ಹೊರಗೆ ಬರ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಸ್ವಾ೦ಗೆ ಕಡದು ಅಟ್ಟ್ಲುಹಾಕಿ ಹಾಳೆ ಕಟ್ಟೋಸಮಯ.

Exchange Value in scaled economies

It occured to me that it is possible to find a relation between purchase power and exchange value of a currency. This might already exist. But application of such a mathematical relation is amazing. It can become a tool to assess healthy value for a given currency.

This idea is based on the following.

1) There are many scaled economies trading using foreign exchange values of their currecies.
2) Purchase power for essential commodities in two scaled economies have to remian the same so exchange value of currency in other can be estimated.
3) If actual currency values are higher or lower its impact can be assed easily.

We can save energy of the experts who confuse us by giving contradictory assesments on say increase in Canadian dollar. Intution tells me that exchange value should be proportational to purchase power per fixed amount in a currency.

I . E. FEV = k * 1/ PPc

Two assumptions here are: a) PPc for two economies are same. b) Trade significantly (linearly) affects PPc.

This is very crude. But I will come up with something more concrete in the future.
~rAGU

Burn IT Burn Bengalooru

Burn IT Burn Bengalooru said CNR Rao, a world renowned chemist from Bengalooru. He is shocked that IT has created intellectual grabage. "A coffee and a masala dosa in Vidyarthi Bhavan" kept him and Bengaloorians happy. Look who is talking - a real Bangalorian.

I respect CNR Rao. I respect all the scientists and research assistants working there toiling to make break through. Many of us in IT industry do. We infact feel guilty that we could ot contribute, but that is compulsion. When my friend, a PhD student in physics dropped out and joined IT, I was shocked as well. Before we talk about this brain drain to IT, let us talk about Bengaloorians.

Most of the real Bengaloorians do not know fluent Kannada. A survey indicated that around 90% [as read in a newspaper survey in 1998, on my first visit to Bengalooru] either can not read write or speak in Kannada. So much for the real Bengaloorians whose scholarship we are to respect. Can somebody name a real Bengaloorian Kannada poet? Why should rest of the state care for such Bengalooru? Being the capital of the state, Bengalooru does not care about the heritage of the mother language, which even the Greeks felt comfortable using in their dramas[1], why should rest of the people in Karnataka respect Bengaloor's heritage? These same Bengalooru's kids use the word "Yak" to refer to kids from villages and slums. CNR Rao says there was more music in Bengalooru before. I do not think so. Cultural programmes have increased over the years. It depends on which you choose to concentrate: Bengalooru Habba that let us hear amazing classical music or the pop ones in palace grounds. All these real Bengaloorians are the people whoes parents or grandparents migrated mostly from villages in Karnataka, Andhra and Tamil Nadu. The children of these migrants are real Bengaloorians and recent migrants are fake Bengaloorians?

"A coffee and a masala dosa in Vidyarthi Bhavan"? There are people out there who do not have enough money to pay the bills of Vidhyarthi Bhavan. Should we stop at respecting scholarship and intellect of real Bengaloorians or do something to those starving kids. Now we have these real Bengaloorians Barking when the starving have started to make fortunes. They have to because they too wanted to eat masala dosa in Vidyarthi Bhavan.

IT companies pay taxes. Every IT guy pays about 30% of his earning. Why are real Bengaloorians not cautious about civic responsibilities? Why should the roads be built asks CNR Rao. May be because 20 billion$ export business also pays taxes to get services from the government.

Brain drain to profitable business is a universal problem. Such problems need to be addressed at different levels and CNR Rao`s comments are welcome as it will initiate a debate and put the process in motion. Even the Software Engineers have this problem. When I worked for a Bengalooru based firm my manager commented, "call centres are paying such huge salaries how are we to keep our business going?". Service sector in engineering draws more people as it pays more. Firms in intellectual property based business and high technology business have problem retaining smart engineers. There is nothing new here. What is new is Bengalooru’s exposure to such problems. It is true that the problem is acute.

However if people who shout are those could not score well in competitive exams, and/or those who could not get into engineering, or those missed the train by being ignorant, this is no more than garbage. I would appreciate if they suggest a solution that is more sensible than burning IT or Bengalooru.

Are real Bengaloorians claiming that there was no slum in Bengalooru when there was no IT boom? What did they do about it? Was that not part of the heritage of Bengalooru? Those who talk of peace and serenity should also speak for all the classes. Elitism comes easily. Social conservatism comes from the elite who could afford good education and those who could enjoy the serenity. What about those who could not pay fees to enter institutes like IISc? Are such institutes open to scholarship? NO. IISc displays a board at the entrance "Trespassers will be prosecuted". So much for the premier science institute in India. I will give my own example here. Those who talk about sholorship do not care about science. I wrote an article in 1999: "Paradoxes in Special Theory of relativity" (Resonance - Indian Academy of Sciences). I was in second year engineering then; a 19 year old in a remote engineering college was trying to do some work reading journals and books, in the college library . It received a 3 line review comment. Is it not the responsibility of the people who talk about science and scholarship to give an encouraging and critical review that will help improve writing? Elite of Bengalooru care about their status. They do not care about scholarship. It is from these butts that we see fuming gasses coming out. The elite of Bengalooru neither understand nor willing to think about the hardship that people in other part of the state face. For example, because of all administrative headquarters in Bengalooru a person from Belagaavi (Belgaum) has to travel 600 odd kms to get a work done? Are these elite who are worried about the heritage aware how much money these poor people have to shell out to keep the "heritage" of Bengalooru intact?

I am for taxing people like me to fund research in basic science. That will help pay good remunerations to competent scientists. I do not mind loosing 5% of my salary for such a cause. May be 5% more cess on NRIs.

By the way, I am not going to Vidhyarthi Bhavan next time I go to Bengalooru. It is costly and suppliers do not even look at you. I am happy eating Chitranna at those road side camps and a glass of kabbina haalu.

~rAGU

References
[1] Dr. Hultzsch, E. (1904), "Remarks on a papyrus from Oxyrhynchus", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1904: 399-405.

Woman and Liquor

The supreme court of India ruled that it is legal for women to be serving liquor (tending bar). I am pissed off at the SC. Not becase it gave freedom to women but becasue it did so preferentially.

SC has no time to direct governament to fix the ambigious Indian laws on prostitution. The judges are not bothered about women being forced into prostitution. No one cares about the women being trafficked. But they are so much caring and cautious about the freedom of the middle class women who have som ehotel management degree or diploma who want to make more money. No one needs to inform the SC; it has not given justice to the murdered bartender Jessica Lal yet.

I care more for the dignity of the women being trafficked than to the freedom and poverty of the upper middle class women who want to be bar tenders.

It is time judges stop masturbating and start using their kidneys and give balanced decisions that improves the condition of the women who are underprevilaged. I will join them in a milk bar when they have fixed the more important issues. I do not mind a young girl tendering. Do I?

~rAGU

of idols and ideals

What is the difference between faith and freedom? Not much, as many might expect. Let us dig deep.

Faith conditions us influencing what is comfortable and what is not. Faith unlike what is often argued is not just about GOD. God becomes a heading to the articles of definition of what is comfortable. In other words "life style".

Freedom is often explained egocentrically. Concept of freedom probably exists because of existence of inhibition: inhibition within and inhibition from external sources. It is this tendency to oppose inhibition that defines freedom.

Conditioning significantly influences the notion of freedom. It also uses the pretext of morals to impose inhibition. This is "right"; that is "wrong", type of notions redefine freedom. We get "comfortable" in certain set of such inhibitions. It appears that, since long, faiths have formed a frame work that can almost stand for what defines our comfort. When we are not combatable we feel our "freedom" is under attack. This is synonymous with the attack on faith.

We come to stage where attack on faith is directly interpreted as attack on freedom. Thus the faith and the freedom are two different concepts; they stand equated under the circumstances we live today. If this is not convincing some historical examples will help us understand this equation.

It appears that the Indian polity and the economy were independent of each other to a fair degree. Thus changes in polity did not affect the population to an uncomfortable degree. Why? Faith remained the same. People felt free to live their social and religious life, the way they wanted. Indian Rebellion of 1857 started when British interfered with the religion. That was really an attack on freedom.

Now, Hindus in Malaysia are protesting (read the link) against marginalization of the ethnic Indians (read Hindus) in Malaysia, a Muslim country. It is reported that thousands of temples built by their ancestors were being demolished and idols bulldozed. They now feel their religion is under attack. Freedom is under attack, is this a joke? :)

Louisiana State in USA uncharacteristically elected a brown man to the office of the governor.
Piyush Jindal is a man born to Indian parents (read Hindus, also read the link). However Bobby (his nick name) is a Roman Catholic Christian and supposedly he is considered as being to the right of the right conservatives! His life is in line, to make the audience comfortable he has to be that way, although acting otherwise was not a necessity.

I hope I have given enough proof why most think, attack on faith is attack on freedom. (I am guilty of not thinking much about inhibitions caused by economic compulsions. Which I will take up in the next write up). We look for comfort. Faith to some extent defines comfort and comfort defines our more general rules of what is acceptable, which we call ideology!

Integrity is at infinity. Ideologies are afterthoughts. What is more close to what we base our actions on are comfort and discomfort. This also applies to animals. Animals are sensitive to conditions but humans are also sensitive to concepts!

~rAGU

Hi Ram!

"Hey Ram", it is said, are the two words Mahathma Gandhi uttered when he fell to the bullet of Nathuram Godse (a journalist, a Marathi Brahmin, and a Hindu extremist).
Notice Ram! here.

"Mohan" in Mohandas Gandhi's name refers to Krishna. Mohandas means devotee of Krishna. Krishna was the 8th avatar of Vishnu. Rama was the 7th avatar (incarnation)
{ Avatatara => Descended, Avatara = one who has descended }
Notice connection to Ram! here.

Nathuram Vinayaka Godse, Gandhiji's killer was named Ramachandra at birth. My friend tells me that Godse's parents treated him like a girl and made him wear a Nathani (nose ring). He thus became Nathuram.
Notice Ram! in Godse's name here.

Finally my name: Raghavendra means the same thing. Raghava = One who is born to the clan of the king Raghu and Indra = sacred. The ONE born to Raghu clan is Rama. Rama means "one who is pleasant". (ramayatE iti ramaha )

Is this character a myth? Was Ayodhya (impenetrable) a mythical city? Was sita the wife of Rama a myth too? Well may be! But if you go by Tamil politician his holyshitness Karunanidhi
("From which engineering college did he graduate"), there is no record in any engineering college about Ram's admission! (Definitely not in IIT Madras! (Madirasu = in alcohol))

If you ask communists especially Budhadev Bhattacharya: "Ram was born in the imagination of poets and Ram Sethu is a natural formation under the sea". What is the primary source he is citing to prove his claim? [His imagination 2007, unpublished]. Some tell me that these communists are supposed to believe in science.

To me Rama is a man who defines the core of my identity.
Valmiki reports Rama to have told, "Aatmaanam Maanusham ManyE Raamam Dasharataatmajam" (I consider myself a human. I am Rama the son of Dasharatha.

{Dasharatha means one who could ride chariot in 10 directions - you know 8 directions and other two are UP and DOWN} {Oh NRI friends, stop being smart. He could not drive in 6 others directions, do not bring in the coordinate geometry here. I know you have high expectations min d you he was not Shodasharatha!)

Weather Rama was part of history or mythology does not matter. I am student of science and thus only thing I can say is "we do not know". But what matters is this 'hate', and 'vandalism' to satisfy their egos and what not.

I said Hi Ram! Just wanted to say Hi! you know.
~rAGU

Libertarian Paternalism

Oh ya, a fancy name for what most parents do. (read the original paper here)

Watch the wonderful video of the lecture by Barry Schwartz. This sounded to me like a typical Indian philosophy lecture: Why less is more - the paradox of choice. Yama, the first part of the astanga yoga (-- Patanjali)

1. Ahimsa
2. Satya
3. Asteya
4. Brahmacharya
5. Aparigraha: keeping only as much essential.
   

"You love doing X and get more money in Y. Go for X", he says. Happiness is not a function of achievement; it is relative to expectation.
No objections boss ; you are right.

~rAGU

Robert Hawkins and Stephen Hawking

Why am I doing this? I am doing this becasue I am enraged. Boiling is the right word actually. But people make tea out of boiling liquids, these days. So let us talk coolly.

Here is the profile of Stephen Hawking and then we have the profile of Robert Howkins. You know Hawking but the latter is not so well known. Well, he was a teenager, like I was a decade ago, who shot and killed 8 people (like I did not). Now se this: Guns Germs and Steel. (Ignore that white man's burden)

Now read this: USA Heavily Armed Soceity. Also this: Common Sense :). What do you think? Not so common these days. Read this USA Gun Statistics! Hilaious is't it. So be it. Everyone wants to laugh and do nothing about guns!

My common sense says something else. NO ONE NEEDS GUNS. We can protect by dissarming. We can fight if we arm ourselves.

Coming soon:
Liberals - A combo burger of political and economical philosophies with the heavy indulgence topping and enough unreasonable ego sauce), I am gonna tear you in to pieces!

~rAGU

free_culture

Lessig speaks:

http://randomfoo.net/oscon/2002/lessig/free.html

The punch line. "It's not about right or left, it is about right or wrong"!

[1] http://www.eff.org/

[2] http://www.publicknowledge.org/

[3] http://lessig.org/

[4] http://eldred.cc/