Columbus Dispatch

Rangoli at Caroline

2011-12-11T14:32:00.000-05:00

Two weeks after the Thanksgiving card-making, colors came to Caroline with the Rangoli activity. I bought three Rangoli patterns and some colors from Columbus. I couldn't get many colors, so I bought a packet of turmeric to add variety.

The kids worked in teams and rotated on the patterns. You can see the results getting better with time - less messy and more variety in colors towards the end. Some of the kids were so into it that their dresses reminded me of Holi, and they didn't want to stop even after it was time to go. Needless to say, the janitors at the school had a tough time getting the stains off the floor (a strong dose of Chlorox finally did the job).

Thanksgiving Card-making

2011-12-11T13:58:00.001-05:00

The kids at the Caroline Elementary School in Caroline, NY made hand-painted Thanksgiving cards a week before Thanksgiving, thanks to my co-instructor Nandita Mathur. All of them were lovely, but I only captured these two on my camera:

This one was made by Alina (you can even notice she signed off her name in Hindi, which we had taught all the students to do in the first class).

This really cute one is from Teddy. It says, "I don't eat turkey, but I love corn" and is accompanied by a corn cob on the left, with a supposed representation of two people eating lots of corn on the right.

Fall in the Finger Lakes Region

2011-11-12T19:11:00.001-05:00

2011 Big Ten Football: Week 3 Predictions

2011-09-17T11:46:00.001-04:00

Predictions for Week 3

Legend: I predict the team in bold to win the game. The home team is listed first, followed by the visiting team.

1. Miami - Ohio State

2. Illinois - Arizona State

3. Notre Dame - Michigan State

4. Nebraska - Washington

5. Northern Illinois - Wisconsin

6. Iowa - Pittsburgh

7. Temple - Penn State

8. Purdue - Southeast Missouri State

9. Army - Northwestern

10. Minnesota - Miami (Ohio)

11.Indiana - South Carolina State

12. Michigan - Eastern Michigan

Season prediction: 7-5 (.583)

Impact of Tropical Storm Lee on Fall Creek

2011-09-12T13:46:00.001-04:00

Fall Creek at the Beebe Lake in Cornell University campus (Ithaca, NY)

On Sep 8, after getting nearly 5 inches of rain in 2 days (Photo credit: Cornell Chronicle Online):

The same location, 2 weeks ago:

2011 Big Ten Football: Week 2

2011-09-11T19:44:00.004-04:00

This week was quite rocky for the Big Ten teams. Some had blowout wins (Michigan State, Wisconsin), while some were not so lucky (Minnesota, Purdue). Two of the games went down to the wire (Iowa, Michigan). Let's see how they fared, and how well my predictions worked.

Legend: The team in bold was predicted to be the winner ahead of the game. Blue indicates a correct prediction, while Red indicates the prediction was not realized. The home team is listed first, followed by the visiting team.

1. Michigan State - Florida Atlantic

2. Ohio State - Toledo

3. Wisconsin - Oregon State

4. Iowa State - Iowa

5. Illinois - South Dakota

6. Northwestern - Eastern Illinois

7. Minnesota - New Mexico State

8. Penn State - Alabama

9. Rice - Purdue

10. Indiana - Virginia

11. Nebraska - Fresno State

11. Michigan - Notre Dame

Prediction result: 7-5 (.583)

AID Welcome Party this Saturday

2010-09-27T14:46:00.005-04:00

Bloom-burgh!

2010-06-26T14:10:00.003-04:00

Boston Diary

2010-03-12T19:34:00.019-05:00

My flight to Boston had a layover at the The Reagan National Airport just off Washington, D.C. The airport is well-located, as you can see the Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol from the airport.

Washington is still enamored by the Obamas, as seen by the slew of books on display at the airport book store.

The Church of Scientology was right opposite Srivathsan's apartment.
Charles River is beautiful and serves as some sort of a boundary between Boston and Cambridge.

(L: Cambridge skyline as seen from the Boston side of the river, and R: Boston skyline as seen from the Cambridge side of the river)

The Quincy Bay reminded me of the Santhome Beach:
Next up, the Bunker Hill Monument:

The day was capped off with a visit to the Charlestown Navy Yard where the USS Constitution is stationed.

Cambridge is a very bike-friendly city, as can be seen with the bike lanes that sometimes move from the road to the walkway.

The big attraction on my way back home from the conference venue was MIT's Stata Center.

Also on the way was the Broad Institute, a genomics center affiliated with MIT and Harvard. They had quite a few computer screens facing the outside, which showed some cool genetic screening and sequencing work.

And finally, I saw this on Hanover Street, also called Little Italy. Apparently, Massachusetts is having fun with its newly elected Senator.

Here's a slideshow with some more photos:

Reflections from the Boston conference

2010-03-12T17:37:00.009-05:00

(L: Kendall/MIT Station on the Red Line and R: Kendall Square as seen from the Marriott Hotel, the venue of the conference)

I got back from Boston 2 days ago where I attended the Water Environment Federation's Urban River Restoration Conference, and wanted to write this down before my memories fade away. I will write a few things about Boston in my next blog entry, hopefully with some pictures, but for now, some observations and incidents from the conference:

1. Elected officials can be sensible: The plenary session at the conference was followed by a panel discussion involving the co-chairs of the conference and some invited guests. Prominent among them was Ms. Henrietta Davis, Vice-Mayor of Cambridge, MA - a city in the Greater Boston area that borders Boston along the Charles River. I found her quite knowledgeable in the area of city planning and waterfront development, topics that were the theme of the conference. The interesting thing is that she is not appointed by someone to this post, based on any expertise in this area. Instead, she is an elected official who has to give campaign speeches and participate in public forums/debates to retain her job. The fact that her constituency includes two of the finest internationally-recognized institutions - Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is only a small consolation. The city is economically and racially diverse, just like any metro city (if you think getting elected to the city council is easy, think Harvey Milk). I found her making sensible arguments and providing cogent responses, and not giving cliched talking points and campaign statements. She seemed to have traveled to other cities and attended other conferences in the 'Green Development' area. If she stands for re-election anytime, consider this an endorsement from me.

2. Not Indian anymore: I met a professor from Canada, who teaches at Queen's University and works on onsite wastewater treatment, the same topic that I work on broadly. We got talking about our mutual works, and I explained to him the state of onsite systems in Ohio and my proposed project, where I happened to mention the term 'health impacts', as it connected to my study. He then replied, "....and you know, healthcare is a big issue in *your* country." Hmmm... so he meant the U.S. by 'your' country. Interesting..!

3. You don't have a card?: I also met the North American director of the International Water Association and got into a conversation. She said her office likes to maintain contacts with universities and wanted to have my card. I replied that I am a student, assuming that she will understand what I meant (that I didn't have a card). Just when she was handing me her card, she noticed that I was not making any effort to take out a card (that didn't exist) and remarked, "..so you really don't have a card". I was definitely surprised, since I didn't expect that people would expect a visiting card from me, in spite of being a student. So, a lesson for those going to conferences - create your visiting card (hand-made/printed/whatever), so you can give your contact information to those who may want to contact you (in case they really want to!).

Old Posts

2010-01-25T13:39:00.003-05:00

Some old (substantive) posts collected here:

2009:

July
March
February

My travelogue:
US-India
India-US

Job Application to The Lantern: Sample Essay

Enrollment Statistics

2010-01-18T22:48:00.013-05:00

I conducted a student survey on "perceptions regarding water and wastewater issues on OSU campus" in November 2009. I got working on analyzing the data. But before I could go too far, I needed to know some details on the demographic make-up of the student body at The Ohio State University, so I could compare my population demography with that of my survey sample.

Here is some interesting information about the demographic composition of OSU students in Columbus campus.

* Male: Female ratio - 51.86: 48.14
* Domestic: International - 92:8
* Ohio: Other states - 85.62: 14.38
* Undergraduate: Graduate: Professional - 75: 19: 6

Now, some information on enrollment by academic break-up:

The most popular major on campus (by numbers): hmmm....Computer Science? Philosophy? Biology? .....The answer is Exploration (in other words, Undecided) with 2816 students. At least, it is better than ending up in the wrong major.

Not accounting for undecided students and the 391 who are part of the Undergraduate Student Academic Services, I have divided the rest (includes undergraduate, graduate and professional students) into 17 colleges. Here's how they match-up against each other (click on the image get high-res view):

Engineering is the most popular field, no surprises there, with 7843 students. But I was surprised to see that the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences has the second-most number of students on campus (7416). In fact, if you separate Architecture (788 students) from Engineering, there are more social scientists studying on campus than engineers! College of Business comes in third with 6540 students, while the next big college is that of Education and Human Ecology (5706 students). The smallest colleges are that of Public Health and Nursing with about 270 students enrolled in each.

China sends the largest set of international students to Ohio State, with 1411 students, followed by Republic of Korea (read South Korea) and India, with about 700 students each. The number of Chinese students jumped 44% compared to last year, while those from other countries including Korea and India dropped by about 3%. Due to the large jump in the enrollment of Chinese students this year compared to the last, the number of international students on OSU campus went up by 7.7% over last year.

Finally, I noticed that there is one international student from Haiti. I hope his/her family and relatives are safe after the massive earthquake. If you are interested in more information, please open this pdf file from the Registrar's website. Information for each Quarter is available here.

In Print

2010-01-07T17:34:00.003-05:00

My second journal article is in print. Click here if you are using a university computer/connection, or click here to view the pdf version.

Citation: S. Vedachalam, J. P. Schmiedeler, K. M. Mancl. 2009. Automation of Delivery Device for Chlorine Dioxide Disinfection. Applied Engineering in Agriculture. 25(6): 915-921.

Consumer Surplus

2010-01-06T00:49:00.003-05:00

More than 3 months ago, I had posted about the quirky way in which my paper got accepted at a conference. Click here to revisit history. At that time, it wasn't decided if I would go and present at the conference.

It's now decided and sealed. I am going to Boston in March to present at the Urban River Restoration Conference. I talked to my project guide in December, and he indicated that there were $500 left in the project account and I could use that amount to fund my travel. In effect, there was a willingness to pay upto $500 for the travel expense.

That's when I discovered Bing Travel. You may hate Microsoft for whatever reasons, but you've got to love Bing Travel. It is the only website to offer predictions on the best time to purchase tickets. Based on historical records, it gives you a simple indicator of whether fares will go up or down in the next few days and what is your best course of action (buy tickets now/wait). I tried it, waited for more than a week, but got what I wanted - cheap fares to Boston.

I bought my tickets today for $283. Assuming that I spend $50 for checking in a bag, I still spend $333 for travel from the project account. This means that Consumer Surplus for the project account is $500 - $333 = $167. This surplus can now be used for some other project-related expense in the future. Consumer surplus is an important concept in economics and I will let you read more about it on Wikipedia.

This time, paper rejection

2009-12-16T10:59:00.002-05:00

I received this in my mail (postal mail, not email) a few days ago from the American Water Works Association (AWWA):

Dear Mr. Vedachalam:

Thank you for submitting your abstract entitled (sic) "Designing an Automated Delivery Device for Chlorine Dioxide Disinfection" to the International Symposium on Waterborne Pathogens Planning Committee for consideration for a presentation at the 2010 symposium.

On behalf of the technical committee, I'm sorry to inform you that your abstract was not chosen for a technical session. The planning committee reviews all the submitted abstracts, taking into consideration the timeliness of the abstract topic, the number of abstracts submitted on a specific topic, and the limitation on the number of sessions.
...

And the letter talks about how my abstract was good, but didn't have a place in the program, yada, yada. I am sad, not for getting this paper rejected, but because I missed a chance to visit Manhattan Beach, California, the venue of the symposium. If you didn't know, the median price of a single family dwelling with an ocean view is close to 2.1 million dollars in that town. Wow!

Proposal Talk

2009-11-29T23:11:00.003-05:00

I gave a proposal talk at my program (Environmental Science Graduate Program) seminar couple of weeks ago. The talk was recorded (audio + Powerpoint slides). Click here to view the streaming presentation.

Michigan Week

2009-11-18T15:36:00.002-05:00

The annual Michigan Week is back. ESPN's Adam Rittenberg has this to stay about Ohio State football coach Jim 'Vest' Tressel:

AP Photo/Jay LaPrete

Ohio State coach Jim Tressel is going for his sixth straight win against rival Michigan.

Jim Tressel may go on to win another national championship at Ohio State.

He'll likely win more BCS bowl games and more Big Ten titles. When he's finished coaching, he might enter politics or open his own sweater vest manufacturing company.

But when we look back on Tressel's place in college football history, he will always be remembered for this week. Michigan week.

No one does it better.

Read the rest of the article here. I think the part about the 'sweater vest manufacturing company' is really funny. But one thing is true: when it comes to Michigan, 'Vest' knows best.

Fall Colle(r)ction 2009

2009-10-13T20:20:00.005-04:00

An attempt to capture the changing colors

AID Freshers Party this Saturday

2009-09-28T15:37:00.002-04:00

Conference Presentation

2009-09-25T13:59:00.009-04:00

From the inbox:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Congratulations! The following papers have been accepted for presentation during Session 11 of Urban River Restoration 2010 which will be held in March 2010.

Session 11 Creating and Measuring the Value of Urban Rivers
Tuesday, March 8, 2010
1:30pm - 5:00pm

11D 3:30pm Non-Market Valuation of Water Quality Along the Ohio River
Sridhar Vedachalam, The Ohio State University

1 Course Project + Summer Independent Study = 1 Conference Presentation. Wow!

It is not yet decided if we will go ahead and present.

SNL uncovers the truth behind "You Lie"

2009-09-18T14:13:00.004-04:00

If you are not familiar with the "You Lie" incident, I refer you here. This Wikipedia link may get deleted (as stated by the administrators), so please go to this link for more details.

Mary Jo Kilroy is not so clear on that one

2009-08-24T17:18:00.004-04:00

Not only did Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH-15), my local Congresswoman, took a long time to send her response to my email, she does not use the term "public option", in spite of the fact that I commended her for supporting it in her public statements. Here is the complete text of her email:

Thank you for contacting me about health care reform. I appreciate hearing from you.

The cost of health care is one of the most pressing issues in our country and that is why it is at the top of my agenda for this year. Health care needs a uniquely American solution to the challenges of cost, quality and accessibility. Reform must include the choice and freedom that Americans with health care have come to expect. The most important change I hope most Americans will see is the cost of health care expenses going down.

Americans need quality health care that is affordable and accessible and also guaranteed. Health care is vital to our economic recovery and reducing our long term spending. Businesses are paying too much for health care and all of us pay the "hidden tax" of the uninsured. Moving our country forward will depend upon reducing the cost and increasing the choices in health care. I hope to work with my colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, to craft this reform.

Thank you again for taking the time to reach out to me. Please contact me if I can be of further assistance.

The email is at best, vague, and meant for a middle-of-the-line independent/centrist voter. I have a feeling that many of the elected officials are mis-calculating the support for the public option, and may pay for it dearly in the next elections, a la Al Gore in 2000.

Sen. Sherrod Brown reiterates support for the public option

2009-08-19T21:09:00.005-04:00

In a response to my email, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) states (only part of the email reproduced) :

Since first coming to Congress in 1993, I have refused to enroll in the coverage offered to members of Congress until every American has access to high-quality, affordable health insurance. Should a health care reform bill pass that offers a public insurance option, I would be pleased to enroll.

I strongly believe that our health care system is in need of reform. First and foremost, we must reduce the long-term growth of health care costs for patients, taxpayers, and businesses; protect families from bankruptcy or debt because of health expenditures; guarantee a choice of doctors and health plans; invest in prevention and wellness; improve patient safety and quality of care; assure affordable, quality health coverage for all Americans; and end barriers to coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.

What the insurance industry needs is some healthy competition from a public insurance option. This option would not replace employer-sponsored coverage and no one would be forced into it; the public option would simply give uninsured or underinsured Americans the choice of enrolling in an insurance plan that does not engage in the same cost-avoidance tactics as private insurance plans do. The public health insurance option would also be a vehicle for improvements in quality, coverage, and provider-access that sets the bar higher for private insurance plans. This option would be available to all Americans: both private and government employees, including members of Congress and their staffs.

It's great to have such folks in the U.S. Senate!

Paper acceptance

2009-08-05T16:56:00.003-04:00

From the inbox:

31-Jul-2009
Dear Mr. Sridhar Vedachalam:

I am pleased to advise you that your revised manuscript SW-07966-2009.R1 "Automation of Delivery Device for Chlorine Dioxide Disinfection" is accepted for publication in Applied Engineering in Agriculture. The most recent files you submitted (uploaded) will be used.

Thank you for your contribution to the literature of the profession.

Living Sustainably (and bigger)

2009-07-27T12:10:00.002-04:00

Is that even possible? It may not be entirely possible, but give our current state of affairs, we could at least evaluate ourselves to see which set of people are living most sustainably relative to others. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a reputed non-profit environmental group, rated large, medium and small cities based on a sustainability index. Their scoring/ranking criteria is explained below:

We sought the advice of academic, non-profit and government experts to come up with a broad set of criteria by which to measure and compare sustainability efforts in cities across the U.S. The ranking scheme, developed with the help of a scholar from Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, was intended as a tool for identifying, for the purpose of spotlighting, those cities that are taking the lead in addressing the major environmental challenges of our time, from global warming to clean air and water.

The cities were evaluated based on air quality, energy production and conservation, recycling, transportation, water quality, etc. More details on the criteria are provided here.

The Top 15 large cities list is dominated by the West - 9 cities, with 6 from California. Seattle, WA tops the list, followed by San Francisco, CA and Portland, OR. 2 cities from the Northeast, Boston and New York as do the two Texas cities - Austin and Dallas. Finally, two cities from the Midwest complete the list - Chicago, IL and Columbus, OH. Wow... Columbus makes it to the top 15 large sustainable cities in the US...at the 15th spot! See the rankings here:
http://smartercities.nrdc.org/rankings/large

Except for the Texas cities, no other city from the South makes it to the Top 15. Louisville, KY takes the 21st spot, making it the only southern city to feature in the Top 30. Well, Louisville is just a few miles away from Cincinnati, so it does not represent a typical city from the South.

Madison, WI tops the list for medium cities, followed by Santa Rosa, CA and Fort Collins, CO (again from the West). Another Western city captures the top spot for small cities - Bellingham, WA.

The profile on Columbus claims that the city and the Mayor are working towards expanding the bike routes in the city to make Columbus the "biking capital" of the country by 2012.

http://smartercities.nrdc.org/cities/columbus-oh

Healthcare quotes

2009-07-23T12:00:00.007-04:00

Quotes from today's web on Obama's healthcare plans:

Karl Rove writes in the nation's trusted newspaper, WSJ (see my earlier post):
On Tuesday, Gallup showed Mr. Obama’s personal approval was 55%, down from more than 60% a few weeks ago and lower than the 56% George W. Bush had at this point in his first term.

Didn’t know 1% made all that difference. I guess he didn't get to take a Statistics course, before dropping out of college...twice!

Betsy McCaughey using the same mouthpiece:

Since Medicare was established in 1965, access to care has enabled older Americans to avoid becoming disabled and to travel and live independently instead of languishing in nursing homes….. Medicare has made living to a ripe old age a good value. ObamaCare will undo that.

So, Medicare is good, in spite of being run by the....government, while insurance run by the same government can wreak havoc.

Intershame frames the debate quite well:

Complaining that a inherently socialist concept like insurance - the collection of funds by many to redistribute to the needy - will somehow be more socialist if the government gets involved is laughable.

while Gail Collins at The New York Times blames Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT):

Meanwhile in the Senate, everyone is waiting on Max Baucus of Montana. Nothing is going to happen on health care without the approval of Baucus, whose vast authority stems from the fact that he speaks for both the Senate Finance Committee and a state that contains three-tenths of one percent of the country’s population (emphasis mine).

Wall Street Journal: fair and balanced?

2009-07-13T18:10:00.001-04:00

Few days ago, my good friend Srivathsan forwarded a link to a Wall Street Journal article to me on India's success with reducing rural poverty and contrasted it with China's approach. Though WSJ has won an impressive 33 Pulitzer prizes for excellence in reporting, it continues to hire editors and columnists, whose work can be explained in one word: shoddy. One-more word to describe WSJ: neo-conservative.

Via Wikipedia: Two summaries published in 1995 by the left leaning Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting and in 1996 by the Columbia Journalism Review.^[23] repeatedly criticized the editorial page of the Journal for inaccuracy and dishonesty in the 1980s and 1990's. During the Reagan administration, the newspaper's editorial page was particularly influential as the leading voice for supply-side economics. Regarding issues of international politics and national security, the Journal editorial page is squarely in the neo-conservative camp, for example supporting the continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq and the legitimacy of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. The Journal in recent years has strongly defended Lewis Libby, whom it portrays as the victim of a political witchhunt. The editorial page routinely publishes articles by scientists skeptical of the theory of global warming, including several influential essays by Richard Lindzen of MIT.

Although their reporting on the news is fairly impartial and even liberal, its editorial content is too conservative to easily tilt the balance towards the right. Another recent example is the public face of WSJ on TV: Peggy Noonan. Here are two statements she made recently.

On the release of Bush torture memos by the Obama administration, she said: "Sometimes in life you just want to keep walking", and, "Some of life has to be mysterious."

On SC Gov. Mark Sanford's hike to the Appalachian Trail and the revelation of the affair by the media: "Um..I must say I've been thinking about Clinton a lot and it seems to me that in the Clinton era, during that famous story, a new devilishness was unleashed, especially in the media where a new meanness took style."

I started with an idea of commenting on the WSJ article, but went on to write a lot about WSJ itself. I guess I will comment on the article in my next post. Keep waiting.

Somalia - the libertarian paradise

2009-05-12T11:03:00.001-04:00

Six years

2009-03-19T12:50:00.003-04:00

Since the financial meltdown has dominated the headlines for the last few months, I thought of reminding everyone that today marks 6 years since the Iraq War started. Jon Stewart reminded us about the war few days ago in his special segment "Mess O'Potamia".

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

M - Th 11p / 10c

Mess O'Potamia - The Iraq War Is Over

comedycentral.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor

Fallout of the AIG Bonuses

2009-03-18T11:40:00.006-04:00

I guess everyone is aware of the employee retention bonuses awarded by AIG to its executives last Sunday. In the light of the federal stimulus money supporting the company, this comes as a great shocker for many. What was to be an intra-company affair became a national headline for 3 consecutive days beyond that. How did the bonus story became such a rage that lawmakers are considering various options to "get back" the bailout money. Opinion polls show people across the country are aghast at the greed of the company executives and want the money back.

Let's step back a moment and look at the story once again. Congress approved bailout money to support the dying-AIG, presumably because that was one way to prop up other large corporations like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Meryll Lynch, Bank of America, etc. Now, I don't claim this - this theory is from former New York Attorney General and Governor Eliot Spitzer, who spent much of his lifetime pursuing white-collar crimes, before he resigned as Governor following the prostitution scandal. There was an attempt from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) to include a provision in the bailout to cap the executive bonuses a $100,000, but it apparently died in the negotiations. As a result, there were no legal provisions in the bailout agreement to either restrict or cap the executive bonuses.

Fast forward Sunday, March 15: AIG announced executive bonuses, without realizing the ramifications of that action. By Monday morning, the blogosphere and later the mainstream media was full of stories and commentaries about how this action was unethical, even illegal to pay employees who created the financial mess in the first place. Senators and White House officials were asked for their reactions, and everyone's response was: it is shameful, and shouldn't have been done. Some officials even went to the defense, suggesting that it was difficult to stop them from issuing bonuses, since they were part of the company contract to the exmployees. Meanwhile, Eliot Spitzer's successor at the office of New York Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo issued a notice to the company to reveal the names of the executives who were being paid the bonuses. Over the day, lawmakers started deliberations to introduce a new piece of legislation to tax the bonus at ridiculously high rates (one proposal was to tax them at 100%). IRS already taxes bonuses above 1 million at 35%.

Now there are some key questions arising out of this situation:
1. Should the company have issued the bonuses: No, considering the fact that the U.S. government holds 80% stake in the company. So, in effect, it is the taxpayers' money that is going to fund a few executives who created the mess in the first place.

2. Is there a way to get back the bonuses: Maybe, but taxing them is not a great idea.

3. Why shouldn't the bonuses be taxed: Though such a measure would find popular support, I believe it would be unconstitutional to introduce a legislation that would tax the bonuses issued prior to the enactment of the legislation. Whatever happened to being "grandfathered"?

4. Should the executives return the bonuses: That might be the only option left. It is morally incorrect to take home bonuses at the expense of taxpayers, when millions are losing their jobs, much less taking home bonuses. As someone said yesterday, 'morality cannot be legislated'.

5. Did the White House screw up on this issue: Totally. I believe the bailout was mishandled by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and the White House administration. They hoped that AIG would use the money properly, without inserting any enforceable clause in the agreement. They gave easy access to fire in the hands of a pyromaniac asked to watch over a building. How did they think AIG got to this position in the first place?

6. Should we make a big deal out of this? Hmmm... may be, may be not. $165 million is roughly 0.1% of the $150 billion in bailout money AIG received. So it doesn't make sense to go after the bonuses, when there are bigger fishes to fry. But the issue is not about substance, but attitude. The whole episode just shows gross disrespect towards the feelings of millions of people who have lost their jobs and/or homes. To put things in perpective, Ohio's share of the federal stimulus money is nearly $8.2 billion. The AIG bonuses are roughly 2% of Ohio's stimulus share. That might not look like a lot of money, but it can help complete most of the projects listed in this Dispatch article.

And the Oscar goes to...

2009-02-23T09:41:00.005-05:00

So how did Nate Silver's predictions fare against the actual Awards?

He got the Best Supporting Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and the Best Picture correctly. 4 out 6.. not bad, I would say! Penelope Cruz beat Taraji Henson to win the Best Supporting Actress and Sean Penn knocked Mickey Rourke out of the Best Actor award. Sean Penn was a total surprise. May be it was the guilt over the passing of Proposition 8 that made the Academy look at his role more closely than usual. I thought his acceptance speech was powerful. He could be the poster-boy for gay rights, given that he has dabbled in political activism at times.

The other heartening awards - A R Rahman winning 2 Oscars for the Best Score and Best Song for Slumdog Millionaire. Add one for Gulzar (lyricist for Jai Ho) and Resul Pookutty (Best Sound Mixing - Slumdog Millionaire) - A near sweep by the underdog team. So much for the name! To top it all, Smile Pinki won the award for the Best Documentary. You might be surprised to know that the movie was made in Hindi and Bhojpuri and describes the tale of Pinki, a young girl with cleft lip who receives a free surgery from The Smile Train program.

P.S.: A reader asked me if prediction was an educated guess. My response is that though prediction is much more educated than a mere guess, it is more based on facts which precede the event. The 2008 election results were predicted (even state-by-state) based on the opinion polls conducted all throughout the summer, rather than on educated guesses (which is sometimes called guesstimate).

Oscar Predictions

2009-02-19T14:13:00.004-05:00

What do we do when we don't know the outcome of a future event? We predict, and hope that our predictions come true. Is it the same as guessing? More often than not, people blur the line between the two and use the terms interchangeably. You predict that it will snow tomorrow, but you guess that the next throw on the dice will be a six. It is possible to predict the dice throw as well.... and that's what this article is about.

Now that we are approaching the Oscars, everybody wants to take a shot at predicting (or should I say guessing) the winners. There might be some obvious winners (Heath Ledger?), but it's a tough competition otherwise. Many folks base their judgment on previous awards such as the Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild of America, BAFTA, etc but what happens when the nominees split the awards. That's where I found the prediction from Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight fame interesting. Having successfully predicted the state-by-state outcome of the 2008 U.S. Presidential Elections, Nate goes on to predict the winners of the 6 major awards at the Oscar ceremony. Briefly, here's how he arrived at his predictions:

Formally speaking, this required the use of statistical software and a process called logistic regression. Informally, it involved building a huge database of the past 30 years of Oscar history. Categories included genre, MPAA classification, the release date, opening-weekend box office (adjusted for inflation), and whether the film won any other awards. We also looked at whether being nominated in one category predicts success in another. For example, is someone more likely to win Best Actress if her film has also been nominated for Best Picture? (Yes!) But the greatest predictor (80 percent of what you need to know) is other awards earned that year, particularly from peers (the Directors Guild Awards, for instance, reliably foretells Best Picture). Genre matters a lot (the Academy has an aversion to comedy); MPAA and release date don’t at all. A film’s average user rating on IMDb (the Internet Movie Database) is sometimes a predictor of success; box grosses rarely are. And, as in Washington, politics matter, in ways foreseeable and not.

List of winners according to Nate Silver and their chances of winning in percent:

Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight) 85.8%
Supporting Actress: Taraji P Henson (Benjamim Button) 51.0%
Lead Actor: Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler) 71.1%
Lead Atress: Kate Winslet (The Reader) 67.6%
Best Director: Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) 99.7%
Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire 99.0%*
* Nate claims that Milk has an outside chance of winning the Best Picture award (that's where politics plays a role)

Read the detailed analysis at: http://nymag.com/movies/features/54335/

Internship Search

2009-01-03T15:20:00.001-05:00

My search for a Summer internship (2009) in environmental policy (with special emphasis on water policy analysis) is currently on. I am applying to a few institutes, but if you have any places in mind, please let me know.

Featured on namesake media outlet

2009-01-03T14:04:00.002-05:00

I was featured in a namesake media outlet (The Columbus Dispatch) that carries the same name as this blog (or is it the other way around?) sometime after the Mumbai terror attacks. Incidentally, this media outlet is the prominent newspaper circulated in the city of Columbus, OH. Here is the link (scroll down to the last paragraph to see my statement)

Is this science?

2008-07-17T17:22:00.006-04:00

Yesterday, I was in the lab, trying to get my setup working before next Thursday's meeting, when I saw Carrol with some kids coming into the lab. She then introduced her daughter and two lovely grandkids, both girls, to me. The kids were in 6th grade school, and were on vacation from Arlington, TX. Carrol explained to them about my research, but then wanted me to tell them more. So I started explaining to them about wastewater treatment and how I was trying to get rid of the 'microbes' in the dirty water. And then, one of the kids asked me, "Is this science"?

That question startled me for a second. I have interacted with high school kids and have talked to toddlers (who have no other option but to listen, and they can't talk back!), but it has really been a long time I talked to kids in primary/middle school, and that too about research. For kids, there is a clear demarcation of science, history and language. What we see as molecular genetics, wastewater treatment and wireless communication, they see as 'science'.

I replied to her, saying "Yes, this is science and engineering". This was not the only one, there were more to follow. The kid later asked me, "We have our school from 8 in the morning till 3.30 in the afternoon. Do you also have a specific time at which you come here and then leave". The whole conversation with the kids set me thinking on how far I have come from school. At her age, I would have asked similar questions to a graduate student. I don't know if she understood my explanations, but when asked about research and my work, she said, "It is very interesting and exciting". I hope she carries positive memories of this conversation and choses a profession that best appeals to her.

Photos from the ASEE Conference, Pittsburgh, PA

2008-07-01T16:57:00.006-04:00

"Dirty Water" Explained

2008-06-13T12:16:00.015-04:00

So, here goes the much-promised post on my lab-mate's work on treatment of wastewater, coming out of turkey processing plants.

The lab, the boss, Karen Mancl (pronounced Man-sil) and stand-in boss, Rashmi.

hmm...lots of food! wait a second...

Read the label carefully. This is where all the wastewater is stored. Refrigeration prevents decay of organic matter and thereby, the stink that we get in sewers and septic tanks.

Wastewater from the turkey processing plant - "dirty", smelly, red in color, full of animal blood and fat, high in carbon content (BOD)

It needs to go through these tower like structures, filled with sand, pea gravel /textile felt, where it gets filtered. Microbes growing on the media (sand, felt, etc) eat the carbon present in the wastewater, and reduce the organic content, thereby, cleaning the water.

The final outcome looks like this - clear and devoid of any suspended or organic matter. This water has very low BOD, and it almost drinkable, except for one thing - disinfection. It needs to be treated with disinfectants like chlorine, ozone before it can be consumed by humans. I am working on the disinfection, and that will be another blogpost sometime later.

Hope this was interesting enough.

Indian Hockey Federation and KPS Gill sacked

2008-04-28T09:08:00.004-04:00

Breaking News! President of the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) KPS Gill has been sacked by the Indian Olympic Association (IOA). IOA has also suspended the IHF with immediate effect. IHF is to be replaced by an ad-hoc commission, which will continue to govern Indian hockey. A new President and other office bearers will be elected soon. IOA has decided to take over the IHF so that it could be run in a transparent manner.

The decision was taken after a sting operation conducted by Aaj Tak exposed former IHF Secretary Jothikumaran taking bribe on camera to select a player in the national team. Jothikumaran was forced to resign after the exposure.

Gill's removal is seen as a welcome step towards the revival of Indian Hockey. He held the post for 14 years and refused to step down despite criticism from several quarters. For the first time in 80 years, India failed to qualify for the Olympics. Gill was blamed for the continued decline in the standards of Indian hockey ultimately leading to the failure to qualify for the Olympics.

Source: Breaking News Online, CNN-IBN, NDTV News

"Dirty" Water

2008-04-16T10:20:00.003-04:00

My next blog would be on wastewater...specifically, it would include my lab-mate's research (with photos!). She's gone on a holiday, and me and my other lab-mate are taking "care" of her set-up. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, get yourself up to speed on what wastewater is all about.

Oil Price Bubble?

2008-03-18T16:36:00.003-04:00

Supply is up, demand is down, yet the price is soaring. Here's why... (courtesy: Ronald Bailey from ReasonOnline)

Oil prices climbed to their highest level ever, reaching over $108 per barrel this week. And Americans are feeling this price spike at the pump, with gasoline averaging $3.22 per gallon. An analysis released by the investment firm Goldman Sachs suggested that oil prices might soar to $200 per barrel. Does this make sense?

Not really. Although U.S. crude oil inventories have fallen, gasoline inventories are at their highest since March, 1993, notes Tim Evans, an energy futures analyst at Citigroup's Futures Perspective. World oil production was up 2.5 percent in the first quarter of 2008 over the same period in 2007 while world oil consumption rose by just 2 percent. In fact, world production is projected to be 3.3 percent higher in the second quarter and 4.1 percent higher in the third quarter than the same periods a year ago. On the other hand, world demand is projected to rise by just 1.6 percent over the next six months.

In fact, demand is falling in some countries. According to economist John Kemp at the commodities firm Sempra Metals, the U.S. consumed 4 percent less petroleum in January 2008 than it did the year before. Evans agrees, noting that the U.S. demand for petroleum products began falling off last July. Interestingly, this drop in U.S. oil consumption began before crude prices turned vertical and before we began to see weakness in the broader economy. Even China's thirst for oil is abating somewhat. Its demand for oil, which once rose at 10 percent per year, has now dropped to 6 percent per year. In addition, world surplus oil production capacity has gone from a very tight 1.5 million barrels per day a couple of years ago to more than 3 million barrels today, says petroleum economist Michael Lynch.

So supply is up; relative demand is down and yet, the price of oil is soaring. What's going on? Last week, Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson blamed a third of the recent run up in oil prices on the weak dollar, another third on geopolitical uncertainty, and the rest on market speculation.

Let's start with geopolitical uncertainties. Last year, oil consumers watched warily as unrest in Nigeria's oil fields, the possibility of war between the U.S. and Iran, and the antics of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez threatened to disrupt oil supplies. That analysis may have once made sense, but most of those tensions have abated in recent months. Nevertheless, it remains true that most of the world's oil is produced in volatile regions and by erratic governments, so the price of crude must still include some kind of political risk premium.

What effect does the falling dollar have on the price of crude? Most oil price contracts are denominated in dollars. The dollar has fallen in value by more than 30 percent against a Federal Reserve index of major currencies since 2002. This means that the price of imports, including oil, have gone up. To some extent, the chief of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Chakib Khelil was correct when he said earlier this week, "What's happening in the oil market is due to the mismanagement of the U.S. economy." Continuing U.S. trade and fiscal deficits along with lower interest rates are stoking inflationary fears.

That brings us to speculation. Evans observes that since September 2003, the total number of open crude oil futures and options contracts rose by 364 percent. Meanwhile the global demand for petroleum rose by just 8.2 percent. "So the futures and options market has become more important than the physical supplies in driving the price," concludes Evans. "We are seeing investment flows into the oil market that don't have anything to do with the demand and supply of oil."

Investors are treating oil as a hedge against inflation and a falling dollar. Oil markets are part of a ~~negative~~ positive feedback loop in which higher oil prices contribute to higher inflation, which in turn lowers the value of the dollar, which boosts oil prices, and so forth. In other words, the oil market is coming to resemble the gold market (which has also been soaring). Evans notes that most gold traders don't even ask the question of how much gold was mined last year or how much spare gold mining capacity there is.

In the short run, oil prices are very inelastic: A large change in price produces only a small change in demand. If the price of gas goes up a dollar per gallon overnight, you still have to fill your tank to get to work. However, over the long run, consumers and producers respond to higher oil prices. For example, Americans are driving less and have switched to buying more fuel efficient cars.

Higher prices also encourage innovation. Economist Richard Rahn from the Institute for Global Economic Growth believes battery technologies are improving so rapidly that the majority of cars sold in 10 years will be all-electric. This would certainly help drive down the price of oil. Supply is also inelastic—it takes a long time to do the exploration, drilling, and refining necessary to boost production in response to higher prices. This inelasticity of demand and supply means that petroleum prices are very sensitive to relatively small changes in either. This means that prices can fall as steeply has they rose.

Whenever you begin to hear market gurus decree that "this time it's different," as we did during the dot-com bubble and the housing bubble, that's a sure sign of danger in the market. Naturally, proponents of the peak oil theory claim that the recent run up in prices is evidence that the end is nigh. Evans responds, "Fears of peak oil are what this market has in common with the 1980s, not what is different." Recall that during the "oil crisis" of the 1970s when oil prices were as high as they are today, U.S. oil consumption declined by 13 percent between 1973 and 1983. The higher prices of the 1970s led eventually to an oil glut and prices fell to about $10 a barrel by 1986.

So what will happen to oil prices over the next few years? No one is predicting $10 per barrel oil. However, once the current bubble bursts, both Evans and Lynch believe that the price of crude will settle at around $60 to $70 per barrel in the next couple of years. "It's very hard to pinpoint just how long a bubble can expand before it breaks. Getting the timing right is not an easy matter," says Evans. But he adds, "I think that this is the riskiest time to be long in crude oil since 1980."

OFI Campaign ends

2008-02-02T15:02:00.000-05:00

The One For India (OFI) campaign arranged by AID Columbus came to an end 2 days ago. (See earlier post to know about OFI). We were able to generate $3000 in a span of 40 days and sold about 60 calendars. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this campaign. If you were not able to but would like to donate later or know more about us, send me an email.

One For India

2007-12-21T10:26:00.000-05:00

Association for India's Development (AID) has launched its year-end fund-raising campaign titled "One For India (OFI)". Have you wondered what ONE can do for a Nation?

Make any ONE contribution to bring hope and joy to thousands of lives!
ONE dollar a day can support a village school for a year
ONE dollar a week can provides health care for a village household
Even ONE dime a day can make a difference to someone's life

Make any ONE donation that suits you

AID has a tax-exempt status from IRS, so I urge you to make that ONE contribution today. Donate here. If you would like to know about our activities, please see our latest year-ending newsletter (in PDF).

For more details, send me an email at sridharved AT gmail DOT com

Famous on the Blogosphere

2007-12-12T14:41:00.000-05:00

A weekend full of parties, and the weekend doesn't seem like getting over! On Saturday, we were invited to a dinner at 1531 Worthington Ave by Jayanth and roommates. Sunday was Leena's graduation party at Steve's house, and Monday was a dinner at Premnandhini's house for all our friends.

During Sunday's graduation party, I met Nigamanth and Divya after a long time. We got down talking about several different issues, and suddenly at one point, Nigamanth told Divya and others nearby convincingly that "Oh..! this guy lives on the blogosphere." Then the conversation switched to my blog. Nigamanth said, "There are a lot of people living in Columbus who have not met him, but know him through his blog". Boy, was I flattered? Sudu commented that he too knew about me (through my blog) much before we actually met a party.

I had sort of given up on blogging for sometime. If you write often, you have a flow going on, but once you stop, the inertia sets in and it takes a lot of effort to start writing again. But man, this was certainly a lot of admiration for a little blog that I write not-so-often. Nigamanth's comments have certainly fueled the nearly-extinguished fire within me on blogging. I will certainly try my best to be active on the blogoshpere. Watch out for my next blog, but till then, spread the word!

India @ 60

2007-08-15T13:49:00.000-04:00

On the 60th anniversary of independent India, I pick up the important events that shaped the country over these last 60 years (in chronological order). Others are welcome to share their views and suggest changes to this list:

1. 1947 - Without doubt, the most important event was the independence from the British Raj, after nearly 150 years of colonial rule.
2. 1948 - The first war with Pakistan that followed soon after independence caused a simmering divide between the two countries that is yet to subside.
3. 1950 - Declaring itself a republic, formally breaking all the bonds with the monarch in London and adoption of a new Constitution in 1950.
4. 1955 - Decision to stay away from the US and Soviet blocs; and formation of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).
5. 1962 - The war with China and dispute over Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.
6. 1971 - Liberation of Bangladesh and victory over Pakistan.
7. Early 1970s - The emergence and rise of Amitabh Bacchan as the angry young man on screen.
8. 1975 - Imposition of Emergency by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Agreeably, one of the darkest hours of democracy which lasted for over 2 years.
9. 1983 - Winning the Cricket World Cup in a country devoid of real stars. The victory spawns a whole generation of sporting heros who endorse anything from cars to toothpastes to energy drinks.
10. 1983 - Operation Bluestar and the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Widespread anti-Sikh riots in Delhi, Punjab and other nearby states.
11. 1989 - Rise to prominence of the hindu nationalist party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the General Elections.
12. 1991 - An year of turmoil starts as the then Prime Minister V P Singh brings up the Mandal Commission recommendations, clearly targeting the oncoming parliamentary elections. Widespread protests break-out and schools and colleges are closed for an extended period in most parts of the country.
12. 1991 - Assassination of Prime Ministerial candidate, Rajiv Gandhi by LTTE terrorists.
13. 1991 - LPG (Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization) of economic reforms rolled out by the duo of Manmohan Singh, the then Finance Minister and Prime Minister Narasimha Rao to dole out the country from an impending economic crisis. Indian economy opens up to allow trans-national companies to setup and trade in India.
14. 1992 - Demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, which is soon followed by the serial bomb blasts in Mumbai. The country is torn apart by communal clashes and the ghastly scenes witnessed in 1983 anti-Sikh riots are revisited. Though everyone hoped this would be the last one, Godhra was to follow 10 years later.
15. 1998 - Nuclear tests in Pokhran, Rajasthan put India into the 'Nuclear Club'. Similar tests by Pakistan, and the spectre of a nuclear war between the two countries loomed large. These tests were immediately followed by economic and technological sanctions imposed by a slew of countries including US, UK , Canada, Australia and Japan, apart from a host of European nations.
16. 2000-01 - The Dotcom boom and bust, followed by a slowdown of the global economy. The temporary collapse of the American economy following the 9/11 attacks compounded the problem. Couple of years later, the Indian economy regained its shape, stronger and better than ever. IT and related services, added with manufacturing were the drivers of the new age economy. Agriculture, however, was getting neglected and farmer suicides was just one indicator.
17. 2005 - Right to Information (RTI) Act. Hailed as one of the most progressive laws ever made in the country, it is a powerful tool to combat the rampant corruption prevalent in public administration in the country.

Master of Science

2007-08-02T17:57:00.000-04:00

After a long hiatus, I am back to the blogosphere. It was this day, that was holding me away. And the day finally arrived. Dressed in a white shirt and brown trousers, I left for the lab in the morning. As it approached 2 p.m., I was getting a little jittery. I reached the Conference room half an hour before to set the room up with refreshments and the computer. Ruchika accompanied me in setting up the projector. Very soon, Meera and Komudi arrived. A couple more walked in, before my advisor entered the room. Tension was palpable in the air. Noticing the presence of several people, he said, "We have quite an audience here", to which Kimberly remarked "I know, he's a popular man!".

The incoming stream of people ebbed, and I was ready to begin, except that there was no sight of Dr. Walter. My advisor wanted to start anyway, but Dr. Singh would not have that. In came Dr. Walter, and the room was closed. I was asked to give a brief bio and then start the presentation. The talk went for a little under half an hour, and then the audience was asked to leave. Now, it was just me and the committee. Questions started flowing, luckily one at a time. It went on till about 3 p.m., and then I was asked to step outside for a few minutes. I waited impatiently outside as the committee deliberated on my performance. Then the door opened, and out came my advisor. "All right Sir, you did it. Congratulations", and extended his hand for a firm shake. As I walked into the room, both Dr. Singh and Dr. Walter congratulated me as well, and wished me success in my new program. The thesis was approved with minor changes. Subject to my submission of thesis by August 15, I would be "taking the walk" (getting my degree) in the Summer Commencement on August 26.

Turmoil in the neighborhood

2007-05-14T17:39:00.000-04:00

Pakistan is yet to recover from one of the worst political violence witnessed in the port town of Karachi. What started as an issue between President Pervez Musharraf and Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, has now assumed gigantic proportions and polarized the country into two. The city of Karachi has come to a stop, and the whole country is suffering from social and political unrest, which may soon start to have economic repercussions as well.

Things don't look rosy with the other neighbors as well. On the eastern front, Bangladesh is the scene of intense political activity..well..without a government. The two leading parties, Bangladesh Nationalist party and the Awami League have been questioning the fairness of the upcoming elections and pointing irregularities in the voters list. The country is currently under a state of emergency and headed by a caretaker government.

Down south, Sri Lanka is battling renewed attacks by LTTE, including air raids on the capital city of Colombo. The landlocked Nepal seems to be doing better, months after King Gyanendra was stripped of all royal powers and the state was proclaimed secular by the 7-party government.

It is rather surprising that the Indian government hasn't involved itself much into issues across the border. A stable neighborhood augurs well for the social and economic development of the entire South Asian region, and it is high time the SAARC countries realize that.

Fighting Corruption in India

2007-04-20T00:58:00.002-04:00

I agree it's been a long while since I visited my own blog, leave alone post one entry. Well, the news for now is that AID Columbus is hosting public rights activist and 2006 Ramon Magsaysay Award Winner, Arvind Kejriwal on May 30, 2007. Arvind who heads the Delhi-based NGO, Parivartan has been the driving force behind the successful implementation of the Right to Information Act, an act which gives ordinary citizens the right to challenge the actions of government officials, on literally anything from passport applications to the quality of mortar used in road construction outside their homes.

AID Jeevansathi, Ravi Kuchimanchi has called the RTI Act, along with the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) as one of the most progressive laws to have been passed by the Indian Government ever. Arvind has been extensively touring the US to raise awareness among NRIs and Indian students about the power that this Act has given to the people. Some of the success stories can be found here.

Mammoth Caves, KY

2006-12-25T15:58:00.000-05:00

A sudden trip to the Mammoth Caves in the neighboring state of Kentucky was planned for the Saturday. It was just the three of us - Harsha, Rajesh and myself. We searched for more company, but couldnt manage any during this part of the year, when everybody leaves Columbus like school kids out of classrooms as the bell is rung. We started at 10.15 am, a full 75 minutes behind the original schedule. The brief stopover at an exit near Cincinnati helped us recharge - the vehicle with fuel and ourselves with some coffee. From then on, it was a race against time. Our cave tour was to start at 2.15 pm CST. Even occasional bursts of 90 mph, which was well above the speed limit of 70 mph, didn't give us the confidence of making it in time.

However, with sustained driving above the legal speed limits, we made it just on time. We reached the Ticketing Office at exactly 2.15 pm and saw a bunch of people coming out of the office and boarding a bus. Without any thought, I rushed into the office, and requested for my tickets. The lady at the counter promptly replied "The bus has already left, Sir". I informed her that the bus is still waiting, and that I have talked to the tour guide, without having any idea as to what was transpiring between Rajesh and the guide. She requested my confirmation numbers and printed 3 tickets. I ran out and as we boarded the bus, a sense of relief ran through our hearts. Yes, we had made it!

Now some background information on the Mammoth Caves. It is the most extensive cave system in the world and includes nearly 367 miles of passageway. The caves are nearly 360 ft deep and in its initial days was advertised as a "bottomless pit". Many of the rocks are made of limestone sedimentation, and stalactite and stalagmite formations are clearly visible. Though the cave was discovered much earlier, it remained under private ownership for a long time till 1930s when it came under the National Park umbrage. It was officially dedicated on July1, 1941, and has remained open to public since then.

The Forest Ranger who was our guide for the tour was an old, but highly energetic man named Joe. He recounted several tales of history, and followed it with his own take-home messages. This was one of the first statements he made before we entered the tour - "Most people, when their head accidentally hits a rock, give it their name. Since we have little kids around, please be creative and think of better names". In short, avoid the F-word. Apparently, one of the entrances of this cave was the first Tuberculosis (TB) Sanatorium in the world, because it was the belief of doctors at that time that fresh water and air surrounding the caves was good for health. It was however, never proved right, as 30 of the around 120 patients died, while others did not show much signs of improvement.

I took a few pictures with my low-resolution mobile phone camera in the dark surroundings. Though the quality of pictures is not something I can be proud of, but I would post them here nevertheless (They should be up in a few days).

We came out of the caves dead hungry. We took the first exit on I-65 and our eyes rolled when we saw a Pizza Hut outlet. Though we had to wait for about 15 minutes, but it was worth the wait as we treated ourselves with Garlic Bread and a Pan Pizza that tasted heavenly. From then on, I drove on the Interstate for about 80 miles, till Rajesh took over just before we entered Columbus. I reached home at 12.30 am, and thought if the 11 hour drive was worth the 2 hrs of stay inside the caves. Thinking back, it probably was.

Finals week getting over; reach out for the Gator-ade

2006-12-05T23:36:00.000-05:00

The first week of December is fever time in Columbus. Didn't you tell me that the entire Fall season was kind-of feverish with that silly game of football? Oh, yeah! but having spent the whole quarter watching and cheering for the Buckeyes, students realize at the end of the quarter that they haven't done anything worthwhile, and now it's too late to go back and read the first lecture when final exams are just around the corner. For many courses, the final exam is the make-or-break session - those 2 hours decide where you are going to end up in class.

That still doesn't take away the attention from football. The season-ending BCS rankings were released on Sunday evening. The Florida Gators have been picked as No. 2, ahead of Michigan, to play the top-ranked Buckeyes in the BCS Championship at Glendale, AZ on Jan. 8. Though people have been crying foul over the unfair system that left Michigan high and dry, we at Columbus are focussed over our next No. 2 ranking opponent this season. The Buckeyes have already faced 2 No. 2 teams this season - Texas early season and then Michigan in the season-finale. No other team in College football history has defeated 3 No. 2 teams in a season, and if we are able to dump the Gators, pretty much like we did with all other teams this season, that will surely establish the Buckeyes 2006 team as the greatest in college football history.

BCS...here we come! Meanwhile, I'll get my flu shot.

Comfort Zone

2006-11-22T18:07:00.000-05:00

We always feel at-home and comfortable in a tiny sphere surrounding us, called the comfort zone. It could be as simple as your home and a set of friends surrounding you. But if you look at it objectively, at every point of our life, we try look for a "comfort zone" and try to settle in there - sitting in the same bench every class, taking the same way back home, and eating the same type of food at a particular restaurant

Given a chance, we'd like to do the same job, stay in the same city and meet with the same set of people. The more you stay in your comfort zone, the tougher it is to get out of that. And, it requires not only conviction in oneself, but a deep urge to do something different and radical that can make a person get out of that territory, that he now thinks as his own.

Look around yourself and see the boundaries of your comfort zone. Move around, think radically and see if you can get out of your comfort zones into uncharted territories. Believe me, you'll feel the difference not only in yourself, but also in things around you.

Note: This blog posting was inspired by a phone conversation with a friend.

It's not just about football, stupid

2006-10-23T02:41:00.001-04:00

Almost every school in the US has a football team. It is immaterial whether they win or lose, they always face a full audience. When I first heard that the Horse Shoe hosts more than 100,000 spectators every game, I was surprised. But then this is Buckeye Nation, I was told. A place that knows only 2 colors - Scarlet and Gray, with everything else being so Michigan-like. Its no surprise that everyone in this nation cheers for their school team when it comes to competitive sports, more so when it is football.

So while watching the game, you are as likely to bump into a recent alum, as you are into an 70-year old lady who graduated with a degree from the campus more than 40 years ago. So it matters as to which school you graduated from - you get tagged for your entire life as a Buckeye, Spartan or a Wolverine.

Last Friday, our Dept celebrated the dedication ceremony of our new building, the Scott Lab. There was a small outdoor function, followed by a self guided tour into the labs and classrooms. Expected guests were likely to be alumni and donors. I volunteered to be in my teaching lab during this period, so that I could show the lab set-ups to these guests. I was really surprised to see a lot of people turn up for this program, many of them well past an age, the govt calls the retirement threshold. A lot of alumni walked into my Lab, curious to see how the labs have changed 20 or 30 odd years after they graduated. One notable instance was that of an old, well-built man who told me he graduated from this Dept more than 50 years ago. When I showed a sense of surprise and disbelief on my face, he quickly responded, "I know, you won't believe it". It left me thinking - What binds them to this institution, that they feel like coming back after 50 years to the very place they left, knowing well that time changes not only people, but their thinking and outlook as well

I have hardly seen this happen in India and very rarely heard anything like this. Though we pride ourselves as a nation built on 5000 years of culture and tradition, a bond of this kind with our educational institutions never seem be part of that great tradition. Does that reflect poorly on our ethos or simply speaks of the quality of institutions we have. A point everyone needs to ponder on.

Travelogue - Return trip

2006-09-26T23:00:00.000-04:00

Chennai International Airport 0700 hrs IST

I am not sure if I will be able to compile the travelogue for the return journey as well, partly because its like going through the same set of things one more time, and more importantly, I am severely tired and totally out of shape after the 2-day function got over yesterday afternoon.

I am currenly at Chennai airport waiting area, having finished my security clearance, and baggage check. There was total chaos at the entry point, followed by another round at the baggage check-in area. There was no message board at the Gulf Air counter, and I had a hard time figuring this out. Some time later, a Gulf Air official apologized for the delay. I wanted to rip him apart immediately. I asked him if they couldnt put on a board indicating thier check in counter. He quickly ran away, and resurfaced with an excuse that the message board wasnt working. I then reprimanded him for not having any signboards or directions for the passengers to smoothly move from one spot to the next. Within 10 minutes the message boards at the Gulf Air counter were functioning, and the official promptly came upto me and informed the same. He then thanked me for the raising the issue and apologized again.

I then checked-in my baggage,and I was informed that the flight is getting delayed by an hour, and that light refreshments will be served after the security check-in. Check-in was smooth, and the baggages were well below the allowable limits. I was giving the boarding pass till Muscat and asked to collect further boarding passes at Muscat. During the immigration, the lady at the counter looked at the apssport for along time, and asked several questions about my location, occupation, etc in a suspicious tone. With security check over in no time, it was time to wait for the boarding. I, meanwhile, had a good sleep for close to an hour, and got up to stand in queue for the refreshments being served at a nearby counter. Immediately aftwerwards, the boarding started. By the time the plane started, it was full 2 hours late.

Seeb International Airport, Muscat, Oman 1230 hrs local time (1400 hrs IST)

With the schedule departure of my next flight to Bahrain being 1130 hrs, there was just more than an hour to get my boarding pass and check un the next flight. The counters serving the boarding passes were in complete mayhem. There was a huge crowd of people waiting to get their passes. Total chaos prevailed and passengers were getting restless. I stood in one of the lines and only later found out that the particular queue was serving a delayed flight to Jeddah, and there were 97 passengers stranded. (I got to know the exact number through an official who made an SOS call to a higher offical requesting for immediate help). I was getting anxious and restless at this moment, not knowing whether I would be able to catch my connecting flight in time A lady at another counter called for Bahrain passengers, and I moved into the line in front of her. Few moments later, she called "Madras-Bahrain", and I promptly raised my hand, and handed over my tickets. She searched around for sometime and found out already printed boarding passes for me. The departure time for the flight had been re-scheduled as 1200 hrs, half an hour behind schedule. I made my way through the departure gate and piced up a Mango Pulp drink and a chocolate cake piece to satisfy my hunger. After getting seated in the aircraft, there was no sign of the plane getting started for long. They were waiting for some missing passengers, and after a long time, decided to disembark their baggage and proceed with the journey. The plane started at 1330 hrs local time, 2 hrs behind the original schedule

Dubai International Airport Local time 1400 hrs (IST 1630 hrs)

The flight to Bahrain has a brief stopover at Dubai. The Muscat-Dubai flight was just under 45 minutes, so it was just take-off, refreshments and then landing. In no time, we reached Dubai. Passengers heading to Bahrain were asked to remain seated in the aircraft and not allowed to disembark. The crew then made several checks of the boarding pass and made repeated efforts to take a head count. in some time, we would be taking off to the next destination, Bahrain. Dubai-Bahrain journey is also a short one, close to 45 minutes. I need to find out if I would be getting a hotel accomodation at Bahrain.

Al-Muharraq, Kingdom of Bahrain Local Time 1630 hrs (IST 1900 hrs)

After the short flight journey from Dubai to Bahrain, I was provided with the transit visa and and a hotel voucher immediately upon arrival at the airport. I was driven to Hotel Windsor Palace along with 3 other transit pasengers. At the hotel, they kept our passports, and assured that they will be returned at the time of check-out. At the hotel, I took a sufficient nap, had my dinner and then watched the first quarter of OSU-Penn State Football game. I am back at the Airport now, waiting for my next flight to Frankfurt.

Frankfurt International Airport, Germany Local Time 0900 hrs (IST 1230 hrs)

I think the 2 hr syndrome isnt leaving me at all. My next flight to frankfurt also left approximately 100 minutes late. Dinner was served late night (thankfully!), and I had a good sleep. The seat next to me was vacant, and hence I had no company for this leg of the journey, except for the last few minutes. I was taking a short nap in the morning, when this girl jumped over me to sit in the vacant seat, since she had to cross-0ver two other people and a tray full of breakfast, and felt I was a much smaller obstacle to jump over. That was just about half an hour before the landing. She introduced herself as Victoria (though I am sure she must be using the k instead of c in her name), and was a Architecture student, studying in Germany (didnt get the name of the place, except for the lake that's close to their campus and borders Germany, Austria and Switzerland). She was returning from a trip to Phillipines, and was looking forward to going home before joining school.

I got down at the airport, and took the skyline to reach terminal C6 to catch my next flight to Dallas. I bought a bagel-like bun (with no hidden meat!) for 2 euros. the lady at the counter wasnt accepting dollars or credit cards. Luckily, I had just more than 2 euros from the currency I gained during my earlier stopover at frankfurt last month. I paid the cash and took a seat. Just found that the buckeyes trumped the Nittany Lions 28-6. The Buckeyes look like they are in serious form to avenge their last year losses. I am waiting for the flight to get into the US...

Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, TX Sept 24 Local time 1500 hrs CDT (IST Sept 25 0130 hrs)

A very interesting thing happened before I boarded the flight at Frankfurt. Just half an hour before the boarding time, I showed my boarding pass to the official at the American Airlines counter. The lady directed me to the first counter on the right to go through some security check. when I showed my boarding pass, the dude at the counter went crazy. he said "Sir, you are too late for this flight. You were supposed to report here one hour before boarding for international flights. We will put you in the next flight". For a moment, i thought this guy was playing with me. How can he deny me a seat when I already have a boarding pass. I said I have been waiting here near the gate for a long time, and that no one ever directed me to such a check. There should have been some announcement or message asking me do so. At this, the two ladies at the nearby counters nodded, showing agreement with my point of argument.

I was asked to show documents like I-20, letter of support, and asked questions whether the checked-in bags were mine, and if I was carrying any banned item like liquids or gels. Immediately after finishing this check, I ran to board the flight. Without doubt, I was one of the last few guys to get into the flight, and for the first time in this long journey, my flight started on time. Food again became a proble, when the air hostess informed me that no reservation has been made agianst my name. I was made to wait for a long time,after which she asked me if I ate cheese. Immediately, I was provided with a large bowl of greens, and a couple of hard breads with cheese and some grapes. There was lot of food, and it took me close to 45 minutes to finish my lunch, and all this while I was made to feel like one animal, munching on cut vegetables.

I felt relieved on landing at Dallas. Finally, I entered the US - a known territory. I had to go through the Immigration and customs, where luckily no questions were asked, and I managed to bring in loads of podis (masalas) and some murukku. I checked in my baggage one final time, and waited for my next flight. Meanwhile, I grabbed a cup of coffee from Starbucks and made a few phone calls.

Port Columbus International airport, OH Sept 24 2100 EDT (IST sept 25 0630 hrs)

Our flight reached the airport 20 minutes before time, and was made to wait at the taxi in order for a gate to clear. Meanwhile the Captain apologized for the wait and remarked "All this for reaching early!". Harsha and Vathsa came to the airport to pick me up, and within no time, I was home. Yipeee!

Update: Went to school the next day and met my advisor, Lab coord and signed my Appointment paper for this Quarter.

Ponytail's Dead!

2006-09-07T05:09:00.001-04:00

In a shocking incident today, the Ponytail was cut off at a local salon here in Chennai. The immediate cause of its demise was not known, but reports suggest that there was internal pressure as well demand from outside to take it off. The Ponytail came into existense around the month of June 06 and had its own set of followers and worshippers, back in Columbus, OH. Its end came around 11 O'clock in the morning. The news of its demise has not gone well with its fans, and there have been condolence calls since morning. Reports indicate that the salon shop took less than a dollar to execute the operation. An investigation is underway in this regard.

Zed's dead, baby! All fans and well-wishers are requested to pour in their memories and condolences on this blog.
-News from Our Special Correspondent reporting from Chennai

500

2006-08-31T14:04:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I had the 500th visitor to my blog. From?...take a guess - it was China. Sitemeter was unable to confirm the exact location of the visitor, but I have his IP address. He didn't spend much time on my blog, so he must be one of those casual browsers, who do blog-hopping.
In case, you are The 500th Visitor, I would want to reward you (like those radio shows). Let me know :-)

Travelogue

2006-08-25T02:35:00.000-04:00

This document has been edited several times over the last 2 days, and is now complete

The moment of reckoning is finally here. This is one day I have been waiting for - I head home today. Excited, yes! Apprehensive, yes!

Being a long journey with numerous stopovers, I am going to make it interesting by giving a detailed account of the journey through this blog. Keep checking back for updates.

Aug 24 0725 hrs EDT Columbus, OH: Komudi comes home to help me get to the airport. In spite of the morning traffic, Komudi's deft driving help me get to the Columbus airport in no time. I am in line for bagagge check at the American Airlines (AA) counter and it seems to take a long time. The lady at the counter is apparently unable to locate my flight on the last leg from Muscat - Chennai. After making numerous attempts to locate the flight, she decides to call it quits and calls up Gulf Air, their code share partner. A small change in the flight timing was the cause of the confusion.

I go through the security check immediately afterwards. A brown guy with long hair, carrying a backpack and heading somewhere towards the Middle East - all the ingredients ensure I was checked more rigorously than other passengers.

0830 hrs EDT: I reach gate 33A, from where my flight is scheuled to take off. I pick up the TIME Magazine from a gift shop. Hillary Clinton is on the cover - not an interesting cover story to read, but all the other magazines are just trash, so I dont have much to ponder on. I decide to enter the Starbucks Coffee outlet and pick up a latte'. It smells good and tastes awesome. Finally, I get to have a coffee in a American cafe' which tastes good to me. Finally! Port Columbus International Airport allows free wireless internet connection, and I decide to make the best use of it. I am hoping that I might find such easy internet access at other aiports as well. My next stopover is Dallas, TX.

Contd. from Dubya's ranch.....

1430 hrs EDT (Local time: 1330 hrs CDT) Dallas Fort-Worth (DFW), TX

The flight from Columbus left 15 minutes late. It was a small plane, probably a 50-seater, with single-seats on one side and double seats on the other side. I got one of the single seats. As the plane took off, I was totally emotionless, with no expression or thought. Soon, the plane was flying at an altitude of 37000 ft above sea level.The descent was not pleasant, as I started experiencing a buzz in my ears.

Dallas Airport is a lot bigger than the one at Columbus. There is a skyline connecting different terminals. I get down at the terminal B26 and I need to reach D30 to board my flight to Frankfurt. I am supposed to take the skyline, but I am on the phone, and I just keep walking till I reach the D terminal. Its a long walk, but I notice some restaurants and I stop by a Pizza outlet. 'Sorry, we are outta Veggie Pizza', is the lady's response. 'If you want no meat, you can have a Cheese Pizza'. And, then she gives me the $5.49 offer of Pizza, Salad and a drink. I accept it immediately and pick up my food and head to the D30 terminal. My flight is scheduled next after the one heading to Ontario, Canada. The wireless here is not free, as in Columbus. T-mobile offers wireless at $6.00 an hour. I am contemplating whether to take it or not. I decide not to, since it has been just 3 hrs since I left Columbus. So this part of the journey will go online at frankfurt, Germany

2000 hrs EDT (Local time: Unknown) Somewhere in the mid-Atlantic

It has been 6 hrs into the journey, and I am begining to get fatigued. The flight took off at 1500 hrs (local time) from Dallas, TX and I slept immediately as the plane touched the skies. I get up in time for the second round of beverages - a glass of orange juice, having missed the first round. Within an hour, lunch is being served. 'Sorry Sir, we dont have any vegetarian food. You should have placed a request beforehand' informed the middle-aged steward. Why do I feel someone told me this before (Vathsa??). salad is again my food, only this time it's the lunch. The steward is gracious enough to offer me another plate of salad, which I politely refuse - how long can I eat only ghas-phus (raw greens). There are some cookies and ranch, both made of egg. I refuse them as well. I watch some part of a movie which is about a set of girls practicing to be future gymnasts. Decent movie - though I cant identify the stars. I take a short nap, and get up to have round of coffee. There are a few radio channels, but I cant listen to them for a long time. So at the cost of faster battery consumption, I listen to music from my laptop. It might be some time before dinner is served, but it hardly makes a difference to me. I cannot take the salad one more time. The cookies I bought at CVS may come in handy. waiting to get down at Frankfurt to have some real good breakfast.

Aug 25 0230 hrs EDT (0830 hrs Local Time) Frankfurt, Germany

I catch another 2 hrs sleep before we reach frankfurt at 0730 hrs in the morning. Its a different culture here, I guess. Things are not that fast. Even though, Frankfurt is abig airport, there seems to be very little activity at the airport and the some of the shops are not yet open. I try to have some breakfast, but end up burning 9 dollars for a small cup of Espresso Coffee and a patty with hidden beaf (which I throw away after one small bite). I need to wait for another 3 hrs till I catch my next flight to Muscat, with a 2-hr stopover at Bahrain.

Aug 25 1230 hrs EDT (Local time: 1900) Al-Muharraq, Bahrain

Before leaving frankfurt, I was able to grab a rather-hard sandwich at a restaurnat inside the terminal. The tab: Euro 4.80, but at least it was filling. The last leg of the journey was not too tiring, though, by this time, the long travel is taking a toll on me. I found a good company in an Afghan lady who was heading to Kabul. She kept up an interesting conversation on Indian movies, Shahrukh Khan and the present situation in Afghanistan. The airhostess arranged for a vegetarian meal, and for the first time in close to 36 hrs, I had a proper meal with rice and bhindi (ladyfinger/okra)subji. I slept quite sufficiently and was woken up by the airhostess asking me to straighten my seat since we were about to land. I am right now in Al-Muharraq International Airport. The airport s full of Indians and it resembles any Indian airport with ppl moving in random directions and utter chaos at certain checkpoints. The check-in has started and I will update the blog at Muscat, Oman

Aug 25 1500 hrs EDT (Local time: 23.00 hrs) Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

I slept for an nhour in the 1-1/2 hr. flight from Al-Muharraq to Seeb International Airport, Muscat. In the process, I missed my beverages and food. After getting down at Muscat, there wasn't much time. I had to rush immediately to the next gate to catch my last flight of the day (or night?). My name was already being announced on the PA system, asking me to report to Gulf Air terminal immediately. There was just enough time for me to grab a Nescafe. The guy at the counter didnt accept any credit cards, but was Ok with any currency. He repeated: any currency. The tab: $1. The airport is a lot better than the one at Bahrain. There were even announcements made in Hindi.

Aug 25 2100 hrs EDT(Local time: 0630 IST)

Gulf Traveller, a budget airline of Gulf Air is my airline for the Muscat-Chennai trip. There are mostly Indians in this flight. Its a Boeing 767 flight, half-empty. As soon the flight takes off, I ask one of the air-hostesses if dinner was being served, as I was getting really hungry at this time. I was assured food and drinks will be served soon. 'Sir, do you want Chickan or Veggi-thaarian' asked the air-hostess in Thai/Indonesian accent. I grabbed my dinner and asked for a glass of juice. Dinner had rice, bhindi-subji and South Indian-styled Barota. A tamil movie, Thambi, was being screened on-flight. The movie was genuinely below-average, and I wonder how such movies get screened on international flights. We touched Chennai airport at 5.00 am and the Captain apologised for the delay of 15 minutes. Big deal!, at least I am home.

The immigiration process takes less than 10 minutes and I walk through easily to the baggage counter. My fears of delayed baggage were set to rest, when my baggage arrived in less than 10 minutes. I was out of the aiport soon, and saw my parents waiting anxiously for me. I was given a rousing welcome at home, but that was not the case with my pony-tail. My mom is pestering me to get that silly-thing off. The pony-tail is counting its last few days, while I try to veer-off jet lag during the day.

And thus, ends my travelogue....

Happy Birthday, India

2006-08-15T14:11:00.000-04:00

On the occasion of the 60th Independence Day of India, I have composed this short poem, which goes by the title:

I call her mine

For centuries, she has been in existence
with a chequered history, equally intense
From across Kabul the Mughals rode in,
to grab the land, everyone wanted to win.

A few generations down, before they could smell
the Union Jack had it under their spell.
With no shirt on, walked a frail man
called the 'great soul, he walked on.

Looking for riches, people crossed the seas
Many got wealthy, some just peas
I may be one from the 'wannabe' tribe
But I still love the country I call mine

To read more on Indian history, click here

Definitions:-
Mughal: Persian word for Mongol. Invaders from Central Asia, who ruled Indian sub-continent for 250 years
Great Soul: Refers to 'Mahatma' Gandhi, The Father of the Nation and apostle of peace world over.

41 hours inside Wal-Mart

2006-08-12T19:58:00.000-04:00

Came across an interesting article on this young college student spending 2 days of his Spring break in a Wal-Mart center. It's an old article, but still a good read.
Spring break in Wal-Mart

Wooster update

2006-07-25T14:56:00.000-04:00

Thought I would give a small update on that Wooster Trip. Last week, we had again been to Wooster, this time to get the confirmation letter for Rajesh. He got the job as a Design Engineer at TekFor Industries. This weekend, he packed all his belongings and left Columbus.

I havent been doing anything great over the last few days. Research work has been slow, with my advisor's presence being on-and-off. I wont be blogging, till I get something interesting to write or something dramatic happens in my life. RIP.

Knocked down, but not yet

2006-07-14T16:18:00.000-04:00

Rajesh graduated last month with an MS in Industrial Engineering, and has been on a job hunt since then. Last Tuesday, he had an on-site interview with TekFor, a small forging company based in the rural hamlet of Wooster, OH. Since we all room mates were pretty much jobless, we decided to hop on the road trip.

While Rajesh was being interviewed, we tried driving around the town (the term 'town' is an exaggeration here). We found Christmas Run park to be the ideal spot to spend our afternoon. After walking around the park a litle bit, we took some time out to take a few photographs. We also climbed a small trek with a stream of water running parallel to it.

We ended up home by 6 pm. With a day spent like this, I would have had no reason to complain. However, the memories of the entire day were wiped out in a moment when I got to know about the ghastly terror strikes in Mumbai's local trains. The magnitude of the attacks has been so severe and its impact so pronounced that the news report made it to the front page on The Columbus Dispatch, a popular newspaper in Central Ohio.

Its very easy to blame the government and the Police for the intelligence failure. While talking to some of my friends, they did echo such feelings. However, it needs to be remembered that even major European cities, like Madrid and London underwent such serial blasts in their public transport systems in the recent past. Sitting here, far away in the US, I cannot blame anyone, but only feel sad. The immediate restoration of Mumbai's lifeline was a fitting response to the bombers. I salute the spirit of this vibrant city! Finally, a few lines from Chumbawumba's Tubthumping lyrics for the bombers:

Don't cry for me
Next door neighbour

I get knocked down
But I get up again
You're never going to keep me down

Happy Birthday, America!

2006-07-04T01:50:00.000-04:00

On the eve of the Independence Day, we went to the Red, White and Boom show in Downtown, Columbus - supposed to be biggest in the US. Seemed like Diwali 4 months early :-)

Trekking ho!

2006-06-29T13:05:00.000-04:00

A tryst with nature is up on the cards during the weekend, when a group of researchers (I am the only exclusion in a group having 4 PhD students, with the possibility of the Poet-Scientist joining us) undertake a trek to the George Washington National Forest, located on the Virginia-West Virginia border, about 6 hrs. drive from here.

Keep checking back. I would post details on the trek and some photographs in a week.

Gone with the Spring

2006-06-08T01:55:00.000-04:00

The Spring Quarter came to an end today. However, summer has already begun, with day temperatures breaching the 30 degrees Celcius mark. I remember having promised to put up some more Spring photographs in one of my posts long back. At that time, I had hoped that I would buy a new Digital camera. However, in view of the looming expenses and the fact that I am not funded for the Summer term, I decided to forgo the luxury of high-quality digital pics and instead offer you some low-resolution pictures taken from my mobile.

So here you go:

Standing at crossroads: Which way to go?

Renaissance Festival at the South Oval. Notice the clothes worn by people in the background - reminscent of the 1400s.

Dreese Labs at twilight

Bright colors welcome pedestrians before the Oval captures the mind

Home

Storm brewing up the sky - just before thundershowers shook the city a week back

West Campus

2006-06-08T00:01:00.000-04:00

I never realised that the most beautiful part of the campus was the part I had hardly visited - West Campus. This happened quite a few weeks back - I was planning on attending a seminar organised by the Industrial Engineering Dept. on a bright and sunny Monday evening (4 p.m). I took the campus loop and got down at the west campus bus stop, but couldnt see any building nearby. I walked on what seemed like an empty and deserted street, only to see two buildings far away. Already late for the seminar by 10 minutes, I figured out that it could take me 15 more minutes to reach the nearest of the two buildings. Not engaging in that futile exercise of trying to reach the seminar venue, I chanced upon some of the most serene and picturesque spots on campus. The following photographs were taken on the same day, except for the last one, which was taken while we were having our usual cricket practice session.

The West Campus parking lot

The sun tearing through the clouds, enabling us to have an extended practice session.

Quest for journalism ends tamely

2006-06-07T01:28:00.000-04:00

Two weeks back, I saw an ad in The Lantern, the student newspaper on campus requiring Opinion columnists for the Summer term. Having had a penchant for writing (not necessarily a flair for it, though) and being highly opinionist, I saw this as an opportunity to express myself on the big stage. To see your articles appear in the third-largest campus newspaper in the country is a feat every budding journalist would dream of, and the feeling that my views would influence the views of the whole campus seemed so accomplishing.

The selection was based on a sample article that one had to write, choosing from the two topics, due by Friday, May 26 5 p.m.:

1. If elected Ohio's governor, who would better serve Ohio's institutions of higher education - J Kenneth Blackwell or Ted Strickland?
2. Is the proposed 6 percent increase in tuition at Ohio State justified?

Having been in this school for almost a year, I thought I could easily write on the second topic. With a heavy schedule, that turned out to be just another wish. I was racing against time, and with Srivathsan helping me with ideas and editing, I was able to send in the article a few minutes before the deadline. During the next day, I checked my email every 5 minutes to see if the Editor had replied. She finally did, with a comment that my article had 'editorial errors' and that I need to edit and resend my article. With our best efforts, we (I and Vathsa) managed to send the edited article to the Editor by Monday.

After a days' time, I saw another email from her. She had thoroughly reviewed my article and pointed out my errors. I had made a lot of assumptions, and many of the facts were not backed by any research or data. I was taken to task for being superfluous. However, she was happy with my writing skills, and left the decision to me, whether I wanted to take up the job or not.

I thought over it for 2 days, and responded to her that I was ready to take up the job and would careful in future with regard to every word that goes in my articles. Two days later, she did a sudden volte-face and politely refused the offer, she had thrown open just a couple of days back. There I was, within touching distance of a job I had never imagined I would do one day. A classic case of just about there, but not being 'there'.

I am posting the article that I sent to The Lantern. I leave you the task of figuring out the factual errors and assumptions that I made in my quest for being a journalist.

**********************************************************

Is the proposed 6% increase in tuition at Ohio State justified?

Let’s face it! President Holbrook has proposed a 6% increase in tuition fee at OSU; that’s almost $500 more for each student this year. Some students might be relieved to see the hike this year at 6% as opposed to the average increase of 8.5% over the last 4 years. One would ask what justifies this hike. We obviously haven’t seen smarter classrooms, better faculty or even a nominal pay hike at on-campus jobs. And all this in spite of Ohio State having a budget surplus of $50 million and $1.6 billion dollars (huh!) in endowment and Jim Tressel taking home $961 per hour (based on a $2 million annual salary working 40 hrs. a week), while students get paid $7 an hour.

But hold on! Before drawing a premature conclusion, let’s look at the national scenario. Schools across the US have increased their fee this year, and Ohio State is no exception. If Virginia Tech increased their fee by 8.3%, Illinois State University by 14%, WVU by around 7%, UT-Austin increased their non-resident fee by 8%. And, if you think our neighbors in the Midwest suck at fiscal management, then other schools in Ohio are no better, with the University of Cincinnati, University of Akron and Wright State proposing an increase of nearly 6% in their tuition fees.

With national inflation at an all time high of 4.5% and the university facing federal cuts in research expenditure at a time when cutting edge research decides the best university, it is imperative that Ohio State take every measure to ensure not only its survival but also continuation and betterment of research facilities that it is well known for. The recent ranking that put OSU as the 9^th best public research university in the country only adds substance to my point. It is true that the state of Ohio has seen mismanagement of government funds and a subsequent increase in taxes but a jobless growth in Ohio and the Midwest can only be tackled with the excellent education and research provided by schools like Ohio State, which will act as an impetus for job creation.

Being the nation’s 3^rd largest university with 58,000 students spread across various campuses, our administrative and maintenance costs are definitely higher than some of the smaller schools. Being a university that is 140 years old, renovation of old buildings and construction of new ones is inevitable. These activities require a lot of money and tuition fee is one of the primary sources the school is looking up to make up for the shortfall faced.

With the increasing recurring expenditure of the university and state funding being at a historic low, I do find reason for the hike in the tuition fee. All said and done, I feel that an increase in tuition fee every year across all schools in the US is not a healthy trend. There are more ways an institute of higher learning should learn to sustain itself instead of putting the burden on the students. An affordable higher education is the key to generating more jobs and creating a growth-led economy. It is due to the world-class universities and the top-notch education they provide that the United States is the technology leader of the world, and to maintain this supreme position, we must ensure we truly aren’t “left behind”.

Competitive Cricket

2006-05-26T21:44:00.000-04:00

A few days ago, I read an article where someone had posted the cardinal rules of blogging. The first rule was that one should blog daily. Even if there was nothing to write, sitting in front of the computer would cause easy flow of thoughts was the arguement given The author didn't account for the time involved and obviously, didn't think about Grad students while writing this. I struggle for words in my emails to my Mom, written alternate days. Talk about daily blogging- Nice try!

This part of the world is abuzz with cricket on the shores of Atlantic, with the India-WI series keeping us all gripped. If at all there was any award for the most sporting cricket team in the world, the Boys in Blue should be the rightful and only contenders for that award. Our team loves to play competitive cricket, which means, we would do anything to make a match out of any game. At one end, if we can give a run for their money to the Australians (though not always managing to win), we also make sure that audiences get their monies worth even in matches against Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, and as the current tour proves, against a depleted West Indian team, who are ranked 7th in the ICC list and haven't won a major game in the last 2 years.

If the first two matches showed that both teams were nearly equal in strengths and the team holding their nerves right till the end would end up winning, the next two matches proved without doubt, that all talk about this Indian team being a serious World Cup contender was all baloney. Though there is one match left in this series, it is not wrong to conclude that West Indies has clearly been the better side, in spite of having very few world-class players. The only bright side for the Indians has been the getting back of Kaif among runs and the continued consistency of Yuvraj. The top order, for the nth time, failed to click in any of the matches, and this over-dependence on the middle order and lower-middle order does not augur well for a team that is preparing itself for World Cup due next year.

On Sale

2006-05-14T02:42:00.000-04:00

Another episode in the Great Indian Tamasha comes to an end. Lucky, this time, it was restricted to only 5 states, but the whole nation was kept on their toes, until the electoral results were declared on May 11.

The States that went to the polls included Left strongholds Kerala and West Bengal, the unpredictable Tamil Nadu, Assam, the insignificant Pondicherry, and the farcical bye-election in Rae Bareilly. The electoral campaigning was a heated one, with national leaders travelling the length and breadth of the 5 states, in order to leave no stone unturned. Tamil Nadu was a peculiar case in itself, simply unmatched in terms of the freebies offered. If Amma offered free cycles to students and cheaper rice, 82-years old Kalaignar offered everything from rice, gas stove and color TVs to free power and land. While this mega sale was going on Tamil Nadu, the neighboring state of Kerala presented a picture sharply in contrast. There were virtually nothing on sale, and it was an even battle, given that the state has one of the most informed electorate in the country. Given its history of shifting mandates everytime, the Left was confident it will make it this time. Karunakaran's break-up from Congress and his last-minute patch was not seen as a confident sign for the Congress. Another loss-in-face was awaiting Congress in West Bengal, where it once again failed to make its presence felt.

The results are not difficult to analyse. Sheer populism brought DMK to power in Tamil Nadu, though I wonder how they are going to manage all the money for the ambitious promises made to the electorate. When the IT Minster Dayanidhi Maran was asked how they are going to manage this, he confidently replied "Oh that is very easy!". Pondicherry was also swept by the Congress-DMK wave, and returned the Rangaswamy government for another term of 5 years. West Bengal saw no change even this time, with the Left romping home with a thumping majority. Mamta Banerjee was once again made to bite the dust at the hustings. The wily Buddhadeb declared his victory as the peoples mandate to continue the good work the Left has been doing for the past 27 years. Winds of change never seem to blow over West Bengal!

Left repeated its success story in Kerala, wresting power from Congress, after a 5-year stint in the opposition. The conservative 82-year old V S Achuthananthan is expected to take on the Chief Ministership, though the final decision is yet to be announced by the "high command". Assam threw up a hung assembly, though the Congress is likely to form the government, being the single largest party in the new assembly.

Meanwhile, Sonia Gandhi romped home with a thumping victory at Rae Bareilly with a margin of 4.8 lakhs over her nearest rival. Inspite of the low voter turnout, Sonia secured nearly 80% of the votes polled. Though there were demands by the Sonia-loyalists to take on the Prime Ministership as per the "mandate", I fail to see the point in getting elected, barely weeks after resigning the seat. If the whole idea was to cling onto the MP seat, why resign and make yourself a martyr. Another gimmick sold well to the gullible people. Kudos to Priyanka and Rahul!

These results mean greater bargaining power for the Left, now that they have one more state, Kerala under them. Meawhile, Congress is also hailing the results as its victory, inspite of losing in Bengal and Kerala, and winning in Tamil Nadu simply due to its coalition with the DMK. BJP, expected to open its tally in Kerala, once again failed to live upto its promise. The biggest loser in this election must be BJP, for failing miserably in all the states. Though the BJP's response has been that they are not a major player in any of these states and hence, the losses cannot be taken at their face value, I feel that if a party like BJP does not have a presence in 5 states of the country, then they are not fit to be a national party. I am not aware when the next set of state elections are due, but whenever they are, I am sure, we are guranteed of another round of drama, excitement, and a sale-mela!

Free TV.....free power....free car...free housing...free everything......Free India

Test Run

2006-05-05T00:20:00.000-04:00

Last week, I put a sitemeter on my blog. While its obvious that it keeps a count of the visitors to my blog, it also helps me know the demographics of my visitors and how they got referred to my site. This set one of my roommates, Arun off into claiming that having a name like "Columbus Dispatch" is sure to attract netizens from differerent places to my blog. (For those who are unaware, The Columbus Dispatch is a popular newspaper in Columbus and central Ohio). He labelled it as a marketing technique to sell my blog online. The deal was set. I agreed to rename my blog for a brief period of around a week and watch the site traffic. A nonsensical name was given to the blog and the site activity watched.

Believe it or not, the site traffic remained steady over the last week, disapproving Arun's theory that I was indulging in cheap gimmicks and marketing strategy. I do, in part, agree that having a name that sounds like a popular newspaper is a sure way to attract visitors to my site, but thanks to you all, my blog does attract few genuine visitors. Promptly, the name was reverted back to its usual "Columbus Dispatch", though I prefer the softer, British-sounding Despatch. I also recognised that quite a few people have put my blog as a link on their blogs. I have, in part, tried to reciprocate their gesture and also added few new links on my blog.

Btw, Arun maintains a beautiful blog, which is hyperlinked through this site (See the Links section).

Thanks for stopping by my blog,
An idle brain, it helps unclog.

When ideas run dry, and all you see is fog,
this place is always choc-a-bloc.

Riot of Colors

2006-04-21T01:30:00.000-04:00

The whole campus is looking green and colorful. Thought of putting up some of the pictures I have taken in the last few days while walking around the campus. The quality of the pictures may be excused since they were taken from my Mobile Phone.

Outside Hitchcock Hall

Close-up of the plant seen in the background of the first picture

This colorful plant decorates the Siebert Hall

This is part of the OSU Cricket Ground

The majestic South Oval

These trees are found adjoining the Chemistry Dept.

Here comes the sun...

2006-04-16T01:36:00.000-04:00

After months of harrowing winter, which, incidentally was a mild winter by US standards, the Spring has finally arrived. The first indication was people begining to shed their clothes. Bright sunshine, longer days, colourful trees, blooming flowers and liveliness all around just confirmed the onset of the spring season. A walk across The Oval is almost necessary everyday (Equally compelling is a game of Frisby there). The other day, walking across The Oval, I found two girls sitting in front of hundreds of paper windmills. They had erected 3500 of them in support of the over 7000 victims of child abuse cases in Ohio alone. The following picture, apart from being a photo shoot, also expresses solidarity with their cause.

Round-up of the events around the world:

Before the spring could arrive, the heat was already being turned on by the controversial, national debates, both in the US and in India. Bush tried to appease the Mexican population by introducing the Immigration Bill. The Bill sought to legalize the stay of nearly 12 million illegal Mexicans living in the US by asking them to first accept their illegal status and later imposing a token fine on them. The Bill, which generated heated debates and concerns, ultimately fell through and this was another loss of face for the already battered Bush administration.

Half-way across the globe, it was the turn of the Congress Government to propose the 49.5% Reservation Bill in India. It is election time in 5 of the key states and something of this sort was possible, though, not fully expected. Seen to be losing ground in these states, HRD Minister Arjun Singh marshalled his team and played the Mandal card, exactly 15 years after VP Singh had tried it rather unsuccessfully. Such a bill, if ever introduced, will be modern India's undoing after all the reputation it has built for itself as the technology manpower provider to the whole world. God save India!

Reaching for the skies, at Dayton!

2006-03-22T17:30:00.000-05:00

It has been snowing for the past 2 days, but as the academic calendar wants me to believe, its the official Spring Break. Last weekend, I made a trip to Dayton, OH - about 75 minutes drive from Columbus. The city was the home of the Wright Brothers and is aptly named the "Birthplace of Aviation". Just outside the city is the The National Museum of the United States Air Force at the nearby Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

7 people in 2 cars started the journey at 9.30 a.m on a bright, but cold Saturday morning. While there was nothing remarkable about the journey, but what followed was truly admirational. On entering the Museum, we were given the directions map and that set us on our tryst with modern history.

There were displays of various aircrafts, right from the age of Wright Brothers to the ones used in the Iraq War, neatly divided into 5 sections based on chronology. There were separate sections devoted to planes used in WWI, WWII, Cold War period and a Missile section. It was truly amazing to see the use of technology in the war planes that were used in WWII, which ensured the visotory of the Allies against the German and Japanese forces.

We took a lot of photographs, courtesy Benny, whose fingers clicked faster than your eyes could blink. While returning, we also stopped at the Buck Creek State Park near Springfield, OH and enjoyed the sunset with some shero-shayari. In all, a Saturday well spent.

2006-03-22T17:29:00.000-05:00

The team is ready to enter the Museum. (L-R) Anisa, Neha, Benny, Arun, Me and Sagar (Sanchit behind the camera)

I survey the Museum map closely, while Arun poses for the camera

This is the famous Ford Model-T, being used as an Ambulance in World War I

The propeller of the P-26 Boeing "Pea Shooter"

The B-29 Superfortress

2006-03-22T17:17:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Space

With Arun in front of the Boeing B-28 Bockscar, which was used to carry the bomb dropped on Nagasaki.

And here comes the Bomb - Fat Man, the atomic bomb that ended World War II

This one looks straight out of Star Wars: B-2 Bomber used in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars

Everyone enjoys a light moment at the Buck Creek State Park (L-R) Sagar, Me, Arun, Anisa, Sanchit and Neha (Benny behind the camera)

Keeping you "mobile"

2006-02-25T10:57:00.000-05:00

My room mate, "Playa " bought a digi cam a few days back and resulted in this photo. After resisting for long, I decided to buy a mobile phone, though I am not sure, why. At the very first mention, my mom rightly asked me "what for"? I couldn't decsribe. There is more to it than just being in contact. But when you are in a place, where everyone owns a mobile phone and at any given point, you can see more than 4 out of 5 people talking on their cell phones while waking, running, even jogging, even the best of the minds is made to think about this tiny little creation.

I owned a mobile phone even while in India (oh, come on! who didn't?), but it was just a basic model and did what it was meant for - sending and receiving calls and text messages. But I yearned for more. With the whole world shrinking onto your palm , there is a whole range of tasks done with your mobile phone than ever before and I wanted to be in the thick of the technology.

Alright...I am eagerly waiting for my Sony 600i camera phone with an in-built MP3 player. Now doesn't this sound cool?

Busy Quarter and world events

2006-02-17T18:54:00.000-05:00

WOW, what a week that was! By far, this has been the longest and toughest week for me - 2 mid terms, a homework submission, a new Lab to TA and mid term grading for 2 lab sections + some additional responsibility being on the EC of AID-Columbus...huff..puff.. and at the end of it, I am forced to shout "Thank God It's Friday"...woohooo...

My update on the blog is thanks to two of my friends - Nano and Sujoy - who politely made me realize that probably they check my blog more often than even I visit it. Last few weeks have been full of activities. My new job as TA meant that I spent more time on the Lab than on my courses, and research obviously showing no signs of getting started. But I must admit that I enjoyed every day of being a TA. It helps to get to know so much people at the same time, being an instructor, and lots of thanks are due to my Lab coordinator, Kimberly, without whose support it would have been nearly impossible to pull it through the tough initial weeks.

I have had my share of fun this quarter as well. The Intra-mural sports started around mid-quarter and indoor cricket is one of the sports. There are 8 teams in the fray. We have had 2 matches so far, and we won both of them. In fact I have a match in another hour.

Lots of international events also caught my attention - the notable being the proposed Nuclear treaty signing with US and the wide spread protests in Muslim countries over the Prophet Muhammad cartoon. While I havent gathered enough detail on the N-treaty, but I have a strong feeling that India might even try to sell itself to the US, while trying to "secure" our nuclear interest. Over the 2 weeks, I have read about protests and clashes in every part of the Muslim world. Though its quite surprising that the protestors should damage properties and establishments in their own country, the more surprising aspect is the total apathy in the West over the issue, dismissing it as another incident of Muslim fundamentalism. I was having a talk with my roommate today, and he reminded me of John Lennon's statement in 1966, when he said "We're more popular than Jesus now." and that sparked off protests in the US, leading to burning of their albums and cancelling of their US tour. The cartoon controversy doesn't seem to be any different.

The parochial and insular view of the West vis-a vis the Muslim countries (yes, I am talking about Iran and Syria) and the Third World will not lead them anywhere, unless they understand that its time they learnt to live peacefully with other nations, instead of trying to pressurize and threaten them.

Back to campus after Happy Valley visit

2006-01-05T16:51:00.000-05:00

Its been a while since I even visited my own blog! The Fall Quarter got over and it was vacation time! While I continued to work at the Chem. Lab, lot of things got sorted around that time. I chose Prof. Dan Mendelsohn as my advisor. Dan M works on Fracture Mechanics and Vibrations of Beams and crack propagation in them. And then, came the great news - I was offered a TA assignment by the ME Dept and with it came cheer and happiness. My vacation had truly started then. Within 2 days, I left for State College, PA to meet my cousin whom I had met way back in 1998 during his marriage. Remamkable things that I did during this trip:

1. Went out of Columbus for the first time after having set foot in the USA.

2. Took the Grey hound bus to reach State College, PA from Columbus, OH. That was one helluva journey and took me close to 11 hrs. I am gonna think twice before I board that next Grey Hound bus!
3. Went Bowling and won the first ever game I played. Wooohoooo!
4. Went for tubing and almost skiied, but for my cousin, who advised me against doing it without taking proper lessons.
5. Was my first visit to an Indian temple in the US - The Sri Venkateswara temple at Pittsburgh.
6. Had lunch at an American family's house for the first time: At my cousin's colleague Prof. Robert Newnham's house. For the uninitiated, Prof. Newnham was behind making the UltraSound scan, as we know it today.

7. Read two more of R K Narayan's books, thus inching closer to my aim of reading his entire collection.
8. Watched a movie almost every night, thus making sure that I watched more movies in the last 10 days than I have done in the last 1 1/2 years.

There ended the Dream vacation.....thuddddd! I am now back to reality. The Winter Quarter has started, but the vacation hangover made me watch all the 4 Bowl Games with all enthu and passion. The Buckeyes deserved to win the Fiesta Bowl, but the best game was the Rose Bowl game between the Longhorns and the Trojans.

Begining next week I will have to sweat it out in my new job as TA for the ME 570 Measurements Lab. My next blog will be on that! Till then, I have lot of cleaning to do at home before I begin the next week.....

Cost of Comparison - Part II

2005-11-23T17:25:00.000-05:00

After a seemingly long time, here goes my second part of the story...

Soon after the death of Zedong in 1977, the Chinese Govt. decided to abandon the Communist policies followed so far and decided to adopt a semi-capitalist form of economy, trusting more govt. instititions in the hands of private individuals, opening the market to foreign players, and putting up its ailing Public Sector Units for sale.

After trying this experiment for more than 20 years, China finds itself at the pinnacle of world economics. Its exports are soaring, goods manufactured in nook and corner of China are flooding the US and EU markets. But, there is an increasing realisation in Chinese economy think-tank that they havent cultivated enough of fresh ideas and innovative products all these years.

Two decades of mindless copy-and-produce has left them woefully short of the Narayan Murthys, Azim Premjis, Baba Kalyanis, M S Swaminathans and Deepak Puris, that India seem to be having in abundance. When the Chinese look back in retrospect, the absence of such innovators and entreprenuers troubles them to the level that a special task force has been set up to devise means to breed such entreprenuership among the youth and the corporate China.

Against the backdrop of this, I hear comments from people that India should follow the steps of China and aim to be a super-power. Super-power, but at what cost? Mindless felling of trees and over-dependence on fossil fuels has left China slave to the vagaries of nature and the price-regulation of the OPEC countries. I am happy with the way India has been growing, though I would like to see more of Indianisation and localistion in our markets and products. I would like to see lesser dependence on fuel -guzzling automobiles and other modern gadgets. If India is going to merely ape the West, then I cannot imagine what may happen to the environment if every Indian (and every Chinese) owned a car and depended on electricity for even shaving his moustache a few years down the line.

Every Indian may dream an American life, but is he ready to face the consequences such a life may bring about?

Cost of comparison - Part I

2005-11-21T18:25:00.000-05:00

What is the similarity in the articles you would read in The Times of India, The Hindu, Rediff.com, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and sometimes even in Columbus Dispatch - the growing acceptance all over the world that India and China are the world's next two superpowers in-the-making; the fact that 2.4 billion people represent more than 30% of the human population and collectively they could eat up all the energy resources in the world, and push oil prices to levels unseen so far; and the reality that China has raced far ahead of India during the last 20 years and India is trying hard at covering up the gap.

Though, in principle, I do not agree with the view held by the Western media, which is, at times, reflected even in the Indian media, I completely despise the comparisons India is subjected to against China, because there are inherent differences in the way both the countries chose to "develop" economically. (Let me make it clear that I have a different meaning for the term development and I do not necessarily agree with the generally accepted meaning of the term). Before we go into the comparison, let us see the points of similarity between these 2 countries.

1. Both India and China became independent around the same time from colonial rule.
2. They are large countries and have a large population, which, in present age, means that both have a large workforce and a large market for anyone to sell anything.
3. Both of them are in a drive to "develop" economically and have partly or fully adopted the model used by the Western world.

Now lets come to the critical differences.
From the begining, the US had a soft corner for China, which ultimately resulted in China getting the coveted Permanent membership of the Security Council. though many would argue that Security Council and the UN are puppets in the hands of the US and thus make no sense, China made the most use of it and sided with the US on every public forum, and was thus able to turn into a reliable friend which the US could trust on any issue. (Only now the US has realised its folly, when it sees its market literally swamped with "Made in china" products, its people losing their manufacturing jobs to their Chinese counterparts and Chinese economy looking to challenge the supremacy of the US). Though built on the Communist model, very soon China threw the policies of Mao Zedong (pronounced Tse-tung) into the trash bin and went into a frenzied makeover of its ailing public companies which had accumulated losses to the tune of billions of dollars. Interstingly at around the same time, India had experimented with the idea of "Open Market" and by 1977, when the new socialist govt. took over, comapanies like Coke and IBM were thrown out of the country, only to be later called back in early 90's.

.....To be continued in Part II

The plunder of Paris

2005-11-14T12:59:00.000-05:00

Arson, rioting and killing has swept France and left the world bewildered. The country that gave birth to the lofty ideals of humanism -- Liberty, Equality, Fraternity -- is facing questions it has perhaps never faced since the Bastille fell, 216 years ago, and the French Revolution marked an important step in human evolution.

A state of emergency has been declared in Paris and various other metros, first since the war in Algeria in 1955. The riots were sparked when 2 teenagers belonging to the minority Muslim community were electrocuted at a power station while fleeing from the police. Almost immediately the public anger against the French government and its policies was evident in the form of burning of cars, torching of govt. buildings and large-scale rioting.

Though the Govt. claims that the situation has been brought under control, the streets of Paris and its suburbs paint a different picture altogether.

New to this World

2005-11-11T18:20:00.000-05:00

I have been thinking of doing this for a long time, but procrastination is a disease that is akin to an extra-marital relationship. You feel guilty and bad the first time, shy the next time, but after that it just becomes a habit and you enjoy doing it. Finally I shrugged off my laziness and made myself part of this world, that seemed to be a lunatic's asylum just a few years back. Till long I dismissed web-logging as one of those new internet hypes, until Dec.26, 2004 came when the Tsunami struck South-east Asia and various parts of South Asia. That's when I realised the sheer power of blogs - before media reporters could reach the spot of destruction, eye-witnesses had started writing their description of the events on the blog, and within minutes, the whole world knew what was happening in a small village in India.

I salute the power of blog!