Electoral Indifference

I am not sure if the generation of my mom and dad was as polarized as we are at this age. Were they as filled as we are with the juices of 20s – as spellbound as we are by the magic of youth? I cant go back in time and whatever the older generation remembers is bound to be wrong or not accurate enough to make any reasonable assessment, after all their juice is running out. Oh! Wait – They were in era of Indira Gandhi and they were in their “youthful” years when Mrs. Gandhi imposed emergency, they saw a political revolutionary in form of Jay Prakash Narayan, they and also saw rise and fall of Junta Party first hand. There were people who hated Indira and sought messiah in JP; there were those who reviled JP and worshiped Indira. Look where are your parents now? Look around and see where is our country now? I don’t know which side of aisle my mom and dad were. I only hope that they chose a side, and were not indifferent about India’s future – which I fear they were.
Elections, and the drama around it brings best and worst out of our politicians; mostly the worst. Elections also bring out best and worst among us those who have selected a side. What are we? Are we fans, followers, believers, or are we just empty earthen wares, eager to be filled and easy to be replaced, rolling around and finding ourselves at one side or the other. The sliver of Indian population that I observe while sitting on my desk, is not enough to infuse statistical confidence in anything that I might suggest or proclaim. But from what I see, I wonder if this very population is unaware about the difference between the meme and fact, media and news, information and knowledge and most importantly are they unaware that there is a big difference between standing behind a politician and standing behind principles. My observations suggest that many of us are picking memes over facts, media over news, information over knowledge and politicians over principles. Reason many are doing so is because at a deeper level – they are also indifferent.
We are the youth of India, and nothing is impossible for us besides accepting the challenge that our fragility poses before us. It is comforting to believe in what is easy to believe. It is easy to digest information and time consuming to process the knowledge. It is easy to view our world in black and white and forget what it takes to make black black and white white. It is easy to be on one side and not hear and see what other side has to say and show – as assuming deafness and blindness is our Gandhian right.
This drama, 2014 Lok Sabha election will soon end. I have seen your marked fingers, post coitus images of your vote-porn. It seems you have played your part in this drama. Well done. Till 16th of May, your assumed deafness and blindness will be towards things that are external, after 16th, slowly and slowly, this blindness and deafness will spread towards internal agencies. Once back in your cocoon you will resume what you we know best – total indifference. Some would be happy while they recede in their cocoons, some will be sad for the demigods that they worshiped or believed in would either be in the Parliament or not.
What about me? If I am one who is watching it all from the distance, where will it all leave me at the end? I think I will be left tired and pained, as the main actor according to me would have given a flaccid performance and yes, I will still be sitting on my desk. 

 

Writing…Let there be shit

Few years ago, I thought that I could become a writer if not anything else. Few years elapsed, I read few more books and postponed the date when I was scheduled to begin writing. Then came a point, when I felt that I can be anything but a writer. That point came because I have had read more and more. Finally came the realization – one needs to pass through Shitopia to reach Utopia.

There is indeed a process, and that process is quite simple – write, write, write as much as you can write. How can one write endlessly? Honestly, the answer has eluded me so far. My guess is that for mortals, writing endlessly can come only if you read voraciously. Reading is the second most critical thing if one desires to write anything. I think this applies to all forms and mediums of writing. If one intends to write tweets, by write I mean worthy tweets, then one should read tweets. If one desires to write research papers, then one should read those. I havent reached that point, but it seems there is that point where both reading and writing becomes part of muscle memory. The understandable lag between fingers and brain as well as the unfathomable lag between eyes and brain starts reducing. I think the master writers are able to write at the speed of thought.

Ira Glass, in the video above summarized my emotions quite appropriately. There will be shit, and the matter of fact is that there should be some shit. The crap that artist produces is part of the process. Process of self effacing, self pity and self reflection are all part of it. One should be ready to embrace them all.

Thats about the process of writing, and truth be told, others have written about it in much better terms. I will suggest to any aspiring writer (of any genre and type and for any medium) to visit BrainPickings and search for “writing”. Maria Popova at that site has curated beautiful content on art of writing.

As there are good suggestions for writing, there are few that are not. As much as it is important to absorb and practice good practices, it is equally important to stay away from deleterious habits. An interview of Pankaj Dubey carried in Tehelka, illustrates the case of bad suggestions. The best selling author Pankaj Dubey in this interview states that he has does not read, because he wants to remain uninfluenced. I reckon that by reading he means, not reading other novels. His first novel has done well, and hence he deserved an interview in a national magazine. Let that be so. But if that is the case, not reading – remaining uninfluenced, then why do literary greats keep harping about other greats as their source of inspiration? To put it plainly, my only advice for those who are on same boat as mine, to those who aspire to write something meaningful is that please read as much as you can. There can be no better teacher for you than authors who have put free lessons in form of their work. If you write in Hindi, then what could be better than getting inspired by Premchand; if English is your preferred language then how about James Joyce as your teacher?

Disappointed in my friends

To be honest, I am seriously disappointed in some of my Indian friends because of the way they are indulging in political debates. My male friends stand as educated men, representing fine pedigree. Their education, pedigree or civility however exits to another dimension, when it comes to discuss politics of the country. When it comes to political debate, their tone is accusative at best and offensive at worst. They rationalize unrationalizables, and it seems that process of reasoning is something alien to them. They have picked sides, and now they prefer to be deaf. Devoid of thought and filled with empty rhetorics, there lies a legion of my friends who hold bricks that were to be used to build our nation. Same bricks, which they are now busy throwing at each other. Such are they, locked in their political camps, sounding angry, often pitiable and frequently obnoxious.
Then there are my female friends; quiet as ever. Opinionated but silent. Oh! they have a vision, probably brighter, but they prefer to keep it to themselves. They are waiting for a podium, right place to put their thoughts, for things like Facebook/Twitter does not deserve their vision or opinions. Therefore all that my prying eyes can see is a blind masculine version of politics in my country. Probably in a very Mahabarat-isque way, my female friends have assumed blindness.
So the overall political debate that is happening is overtly masculine in nature, devoid of civility, with copy-cat logic, and for me – Painful.

Relationship of social movements with politics

Social Movements happen/occur when, politics is infused with courage. Rationale or actions are seldom new, but courage is always new. Distancing it from the functional politics, by terming it as ‘warm-up before political action’ is akin to discrediting its importance. Social movements, are very much part of functional politics. Often, because social movements begin from the fringes of functional politics, we think of it as something alien, while terming it as reactionary or revolutionary. Rather in fact, they are as much as product of existing political structure as much as they are harbinger of new order. However, there is a difference between social movements and instituional politics. Both of them feed on each other, like two snakes eating each others tail, encircling the society.  

Women in Tech – Case of inherent insensitivity

I initially wanted to write a small post on Facebook. Darn, facebook does not allow for developing context with multiple links in a single post. So, if I have more than few things in mind then FB is not the best option.

This post is in reference to the Donglegate (as termed by Wired). The Wired article is a commentary on the things that happened in recently concluded PyCon and as reported (first hand) by Adria Richards on her blog. All of this is few weeks old. {Personal note: I cant trust my friends with sharing information on women in tech} and was also aptly reported on Jezebel.

Let me parse the events as pithily as possible so as to develop some context.

Location – PyCon (Conference of Python coders; men and women alike)

Few coder dudes decide to make a rude joke among themselves using terms – “Fork” and “Dongle“, listening to which Adria Richards takes their photo, share it on Twitter and call upon the conference host to complain about them. Guys were then escorted out of conference and Adria later wrote a blog post (referred earlier in this post).

Things didnt end there, and the dudes as well as Adria were reportedly fired from their respective companies, where they were working.

I generally do not conform to any “-isms” and neither I consider myself any kind of “-ist”. Case in point being feminism and feminist. This I do so to avoid being associated with any stereotyped caricature, which I think are fueled by those who are stereotyped and those who stereotype. But when it comes to women in technology, and more general women in workplace, I do prefer to err (if I have to) on giving advantage to women.

That said, tech to my experience is indeed insensitive when it comes to women. It is so very inherently; often so that people (mostly guys) dont even realize that they are being insensitive towards their female peers. Many a times, women in tech are so very ready to conform to the standards that are already established. When I am talking about women and men, then it is not just those who are in workplace and quite well known in their own rights. I am talking about women and men while they are learning, in colleges and in schools. Insensitivity towards women is deep rooted and stems from environment in colleges and universities. Being and electrical engineer, and having paltry sum of girls as class mates allows me to say so.

 

Our behavior is guided by historically low number of girls in tech. Hence the inherent sensitivity. Insensitivity breeds because of the numbers – majority defines the environment in its own way. Minority may thus feel marginalized knowingly or unknowingly. This can happen to guys too, in a workplace which is dominated by females (in terms of numbers and not behavioral domination).

 

I guess that is where the intervention is required for the majority. Intervention should kick in not when discretion occurs, but when the numbers start speaking.

If your workplace is having more males than females then get someone from outside to talk to your folks about how their behavior might be affecting their female colleagues. And also talk to women and tell them that there are things that are not ‘OK’ even though they might feel so. And this should also apply in rare scenarios where there are more females than males in workplace.

Said all that, tech definitely needs more women, not for the reason of equality but because tech as a field lacks ingenuity that comes because of gender defined experiences. And to have more parity, males in tech needs to be careful and and more considerate than they have historically been. Even if it comes at a cost of not cracking dick/fuck jokes.

Marriage is not about two people, it is about two networks

I would be the first person to admit, and without any shame that bathroom is the best place to have ideas. A good shit is as good as a nice meditation. Both leaves you with good ideas.

As an Indian in United States and then as a part of societal construct (because of my field) I have often been asked about the merits or demerits of the arranged marriage culture in India (South Asia in general). I have given long answers lasting more than half an hour, and short answers lasting only few seconds. Said that I do not consider myself an expert in Indian society, and I do let my audience know this fact. But this article is not about how I try to illustrate the concept of arrange marriage but it is about we might see next series of innovation in conjugal pairing.

The older concept of arrange marriage was based on certain factors and was predominantly based on networks. Marrying in same caste helped limiting the network size. In ideal scenarios the parents will find a suitable match two or three degrees apart. That assured few things, firstly it ensured cultural homophily. This fact is wonderfully illustrated in Connected, a book by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler, which I recently finished.

Retrospectively every marriage is an arranged marriage. Arranged either by parents, friends, or networks. One can be more sure about the homophily if one is sure about the degree of separation. Thats the inherent hypothesis behind the approach that I am going to suggest. Somehow, if I were to know the degree of separation between me and my future partner then to certain extent that knowledge will reduce the risk. Thus putting me in a better situatio

n that what Shaadi.com or Match.com will provide. Generally matching site use matching algorithms based on characteristic matching. What I am suggesting is something like Linkedin’s way of showing how far one is from a person and the way Facebook suggests you more unknown people as if they were somehow supposed to be your friend.

 

This will need data, data that cannot be gained through scraping the internet. It would be something like this – X, who is seeking a partner will be asked to submit his list of friends (essentially emails or Facebook profiles); Y would also have to submit the same, wherein Y is the supposed partner that X is seeking. Now, here comes the tricky part – can we ask these friends to submit list of their friends? We are essentially asking the names which we can match and establish the degree of separation between X and Y. Data that is already available on Facebook is more than enough for such network model. To be honest, if one were to scrape data from Facebook then one may find a suitable match much sooner than matching sites.

I have drawn several conjectures, and one of the major is that I am considering that my friends are like me. Which is often not the case as most of the times we add people just because we can add them. In such cases the chances of errors are higher. Mathematically, it is an exciting question, and with time in future, I may very well approach this problem.

WiFi in trains is a good idea

So, I have been hearing lot of noise on social network regarding the uselessness of proposing to provide wifi in certain Indian trains in near future. Now to those who are unaware, I am referring to the proposition made by Railway minister in the annual railway budget. (Yes Indian railway is big enough to have a separate ministry and more importantly a separate budget than annual finance budget)

The argument made by people and to some extent fueled by folks in Aam Aadmi Party is that railway as an organization and ministry in particular has been unable to provide basic facilities, hence providing WiFi is a shallow and unwanted intervention.

In one famous statement by Kumar Vishwas – रेल में चाय-वाय तक ठीक मिलती नहीं ये वाय-फ़ाय लगवा रहे हैं ! दर्द पेट में हैं ये डीओडोरेंट ले कर आये हैं ! हमारा धोबी नत्था पूछ रहा है ” ए बाबु तनी हमका बतावा …इ बाई-फाई का संडास में भी काम करता है जी ? हम तो उहीं बैठ कर जात रहिन आपने गाम..” This has been shared many people, and besides coming from popular figure it does echo certain sentiments of common people (who are mostly middle class – they make most noise on social network).

Adding wifi makes business sense. Indeed quality of tea is not good, but then wifi is not a food item. Indeed railway reservation suffers from twin bottlenecks, 1. low bandwidth during reservation and 2. there are no trains or infrastructure to support more trains. Does this mean that government should not provide other facilities?

Yes it does, if government is re-appropriating money without give much thought and setting up priorities. But then when it comes to wifi, and if private parties provide internet then we should not have problem. Its a revenue source for government, not another way of spending money. 

Cartoon by Sagar Kumar via Carttons Againest Curroptions. No copyright infringement intended.

Said that, there are added positive externalities of having internet in train. It assist communication and business. A deal made, a communication done is a  certain economic activity which cannot be allowed to be hampered. Yes, wifi is not beneficial for a poor person, who cannot own mobile phone, leave alone a laptop or tablet. But then this country (India) is not just made up of poor people. Certain economic or policy decisions are to be made in keeping larger things in picture.

Those who want to argue that mobile internet is already available then I would like to tell them that I have yet to see them penetrating as heavily as wifi in rail would do. There are more laptops than there are wireless modems. Leave alone the issue related with coverage.Indian railways spans through jungles and places where reaches no cell connection.

India needs technological advancements, and it helps poor in longer term. Post liberalizationand technological advancement, more people in India has come out of poverty than ever before. Technology is a great equalizer. Hence government should eliminate as many barriers as possible in availing best of the technology to most of the people.

Now, if people want to pin the government down then they can do so on following topics –

• What would be the speed that you would be providing for wifi?
• How would you ensure that there be no corruption when tenders are doled out?

Please argue on fundamentals, not on empty rhetorics. The day society starts thinking ‘government’ as them then that very day they ensure that it would be a battle and not a collaborative process. If you want to change the government then be the government.

Refusing to Arrive Late on Same-Sex Marriage

Businesses going gay! via New York Times

This insistence of American businesses will have a global impact. Governments in countries like India, which are very much open to international economics will be forced to take sides legally. In hyper-competitive societies like India and China, inclusion takes different propositions and become more complex. Thus ‘$’ becomes an important tool in solving the sociocultural Gordian knot.

Mr. FM, smart phones needs to cost less, not more

I sometimes (all the time) fail to understand the real purpose of itemized taxation, the way it is done Indian budgets. What confuses me further is the insight thrown into determining which item should be taxed more and which one less.

Ideologically I am not averse to higher taxes, given government provides better services, or nation needs my money, which in India’s case, it does. But I am left perplexed by latest tax increase on smart phones.

Government or Finance Minister is being parochial by thinking that smart phone is a luxury item. India is still a country where rationalizing of buying a new computer is comparatively tougher than doing so for a mobile phone. When we are talking about smart phone, then we are talking about significant amount of computer power in hands, literally, in hands of people who do not wish to invest in computers. Again, India is a country where mobile penetration is higher than broadband penetration. Smart phones or so called higher end phones thus becomes a gateway for information.

There are other positive externalities too. Specially so in case of software industry. Major portion of industry is either shifting towards mobile or in other words mobile software industry is seeing great deal of activity and investment. By increasing the price of so called high end devices, you are simply reducing the demand. Lesser number of smart phone means less impetus for developers for developing apps and softwares for Indian audience. More importantly we are not going to see Indian development houses any time soon. This also means that the internet speed would be meager, because there is no competition from wireless internet option, simply because not many people would be having.

On account of deciding not to sound far reaching, I am not including any argument of how this move may stymie hardware development growth in India. Just to put things into perspective, the cutoff point is at Rs. 2000.00 (~$40). For any phone that is going to cost more than this figure, will see a 6% rise in excise duty.

In the time when I would have been happy with a reduction in prices, this increase, however meager it may sound to few, does not go down below my throat. Yeah, there is a lump forming…

Fiscal sensibility is one thin, and fiscal foresight is another. I am not sure, how much good this move will do, but I definitely think that this decision per say lacks foresight.

On an unrelated point, I am exceptionally happy with increase in excise duty on cigarettes and SUVs. They have low net worth for the society and brings small gain for individuals who consume them.

Case of missing social network

There is vast literature on how people in society collate and form groups. Success of any democratic structure depends on this collation. It is for this reason, that autocratic regimes primarily attack on groups or group formation. In a group, 1+1 ≠ 2, it is always greater than two. 

If you have to appreciate the power of groups or social networks, then you may want to stand in a road side tea stall in India. Often, the average literacy will not cross high school at such places, but the discussion or at least the intensity, will match the talking heads in CNN or BBC. That is an example of a social network. 

My contention is that as a country, India could not develop enough social networks for youth, specially post high school. One will surely have a set of network generated because of how one is embedded in to the system. Say, if I am in college, I am bound (mostly) to have a social network because of the mere fact that I am there. I will make friends in college and hence I will have network. But what after that? Gym? Yes. Different academic coaching classes that people take will also provide another avenue to enlarge ones social network – which will overlap heavily with ones college based network. The overall diversity of network would be low. 

There is another major issue why I will shy from ranking these social networks highly. They are predominantly formed because of how one is embedded into the system (read society). Diversity in social network would be lower, and level of independent choice would be dismal. Since one does not have much choice in formulating such a social network, there are not many avenues for democratic experimentation. Hence, there are no democratic lessons learned and none is practiced. 

Please be mindful that democratic experiments or lessons that I am talking about need not just be those which involve voting; there are multiple lessons that very implicit in nature and are learned because of our experience. 

There is not a single ‘Meetup’ group in Bhopal. There is no event which ‘Eventbrite’ can show. And I found similar statistics on other similar sites – sites that help in organizing group activities. People are not forming groups that exposes them beyond their environment in which they are embedded. They are not organizing themselves. They are not interacting with people who are not from their immediate network but think like them. They are not exploring human connections – and hence doing nothing to strengthen democracy. 

During various discussions, people ask me how we as Indians can solve our problems, corruption being the primary one. The underpinnings of this problem are same in almost all the democracies. They ask me because, it is me who put two years of his life to soak in knowledge related to public policy, and they think I know the answers. It is often tough to tell them that I dont have the answer and hence I get into these discussions which soon convert into debates. Most of the times people (my friends) are asking for immediate solutions; a quick respite. I do fall into this trap and try to formulate some solutions, and often disown them because of some fault or other. I do tell them (most of the times) that solution to such devious problems cannot be quick. And the solution to problem like corruption cannot be direct. If direct then in context of India, that solution cannot be sustainable. One of the important steps to fight corruption is to strengthen democratic structure.

What makes democratic institutions strong? Groups. Networks. People. 

If people are meeting, discussing and interacting with wider set of people then they will inadvertently expose themselves to wider set of ideas. There would be wider appreciation of different views, and better understanding of ‘real issues’. Which God I believe in does not in any way affect my discussions on photography or the risks that one might face in street photography. But are there any avenues where I can be part of such a self organizing photography group, in Bhopal? I dont know. I havent seen any.

When groups form, they lead to multitude of positive externalities. It makes society more fertile for new ideas, and set it for innovation and development. I am emphasizing on this not because it is the solution to our social problems, but it sets the foundations for solving them. 

The social network which is beyond the one in which we are embedded is missing. Unless we create one or find it, till then I am not sure will be able to produce sustainable solution for our problems.