With the case of Tarun Tejpal exposed there was a media flurry for breaking the news to the audience. But it was a broken news, it did not need breaking. Though I am not against questions Mr. Tejpal, and some media houses questioning Tehelka having double standards this episode needs a deeper analysis.
Sometime back the Niraa Radia tapes appeared in the public. And they were breaking the news. But soon some very interesting personalities also surfaced in the tapes. They included the likes of Ratan Tata and Barkha Dutt amongst others. And suddenly there was a complete radio silence on that. It seems NDTV especially became really silent about this whole issue. But more importantly none of the other media houses dared to raise questions to Ms. Dutt, the tone and manner which we are seeing in case of Mr. Tejpal, via Shoma Choudhary. Since we have already crossed the double standards, I call this particular episode from media having “Triple Standards”. One for themselves, one for the general public and one for vendetta against fellow reporters who might have made them uncomfortable in the past.
Personally for me, the case against Ms. Dutt was for more serious and grave as the future of entire country was being decided, though no “individuals” were harmed. And also the intent and tonality of the Radia tapes just shows how powerful and at the same time morally corrupt the media have become. So far Mr. Tejpal is concerned he admitted to and will perhaps face law for what he has done. But what about Ms. Dutt? No cases, not even a CBI enquiry! The matter has been suppressed well. Forget about law, one has a feeling that collective amnesia that media is presenting in this case will make even people forget that this incident ever happened. Even after all this there seems to be no remorse and none of other journalist dared ask accountability from Ms. Dutt or for that matter anyone else from NDTV. So this vehement attack on Tehelka on this issue seems more like a soap opera which shows that they do not leave out people from media when they are exposed. What about themselves?
I just no longer see Ms. Dutt speaking on behalf of “We The People” for she is no longer one of us, but rather firmly on the other side.
Author: The Mitr
Privatization, Responsibility and Corruption
Privatisation seems to have gone from dynamic ideological choice, to route of least resistance for the state to abdicate its responsibility in a variety of policy areas. Anything difficult and measurable – problem schools; elderly care; waste disposal; big infrastructure projects – is left to private capital. In exactly the same way that outsourcing has evolved for private enterprise, it has become an expensive way of getting rid of problems to which those in charge have no solutions.
…
It is much easier to close a free school than to explain why a state school has gone disastrously wrong.
via theguardian
The same is happening in India. Now they are planning to privatize airports and Indian Airlines on the reasons of efficiency. For education, the government supports private school with aids. When the same money could have been used to better the government schools. In each sector the reliance on private sector to do the jobs is increasing. Even in case of vehicles in government offices, the trend is that you employ a private vehicle and a driver, instead of having a driver on the payroll. So is the case with computer maintenance. In each government office there are private firms which are paid large sums to make sure that the computers are kept running. Why can’t there be an internal department to look after that? The privatization both complete and contractual, lead to massive corruption opportunities for both politicians and the bureaucrats as can be seen in the recent series of scams that have surfaced in India. The main problem that is facing the people is privatization of our natural resources and that of responsibilities of the Government, the resulting corruption is just the tip of the iceberg. It is a symptom of the disease. Even then the major media houses never question, why these mega scams became possible in the first place? They are more eager to make scapegoats out of certain people, but the system which allowed the scams to happen is never challenged.
That said, it seems the ideological stance privatization, resulting in denial of responsibility of state and loss of money from the public purse cannot be halted unless there is a strong pressure from within to halt such measures.
Topological Art
ILLUSTRATIONS FOR TOPOLOGY
From the book Introduction to Topology by Yu. Borisovich, N. Bliznyakov, Ya. Izrailevich, T. Fomenko. The book was published by Mir Publishers in 1985.
ILLUSTRATION TO CHAPTER I
The central part of the picture presents the standard embedding chain of crystalline groups of the three dimensions of Euclidean space: their standard groups embedded into each other are depicted as fundamental domains (Platonic bodies: a cube, a tetrahedron, a dodecahedron). The platonic bodies are depicted classically, i.e., their canonical form is given, they are supported by two-dimensional surfaces (leaves), among which we discern the projective plane (cross-cap), and spheres with handles. The fantastic shapes and interlacings (as compared with the canonical objects) symbolizes the topological equivalence.
At the top, branch points of the Riemann surfaces of various multiplicities are depicted: on the right, those of the Riemann surfaces of the functions w=5z√ and w=z√; on the left below, that of the same function w=z√, and over it, a manifold with boundary realizing a bordism mod 3.
ILLUSTRATION TO CHAPTER II
The figure occupying most of the picture illustrates the construction of a topological space widely used in topology, i.e., a 2-adic solenoid possessing many interesting extremal properties. The following figures are depicted there: the first solid torus is shaded, the second is white, the third is shaded in dotted lines and the fourth is shaded doubly. To obtain the 2-adic solenoid , it is necessary to take an infinite sequence of nested solid tori, each of which encompasses previous twist along its parallel, and to form their intersection.
Inside the opening, a torus and a sphere with two handles are shown. The artist’s skill and his profound knowledge of geometry made it possible to represent complex interlacing of the four nested solid tori accurately.
ILLUSTRATION TO CHAPTER III
The canonical embedding of a surface of genus g into the three-dimensional Euclidean space is represented 0n the right . A homeomorphic embedding of the same surface is shown on the left . The two objects are homeomorphic, homotopic and even isotopic . The artist is a mathematician and he has chosen these two, very much different in their appearance, from an infinite set of homeomorphic images.
ILLUSTRATION TO CHAPTER IV
Here an infinite total space of covering over a two-dimensional surface, viz., a sphere with two handles, is depicted. The artist imparted the figure the shape of a python and made the base space of the covering look very intricate. Packing spheres into the three-dimensional Euclidean space and a figure homeomorphic to the torus are depicted outside the central object. The mathematical objects are placed so as to create a fantastic landscape.
ILLUSTRATION TO CHAPTER V
A regular immersion of the projective plane RP2 in R3 is represented in the centre on the black background. The largest figure is the Klein bottle (studied in topology as a non-orientable surface) cut in two (Moebius strips) along a generator by a plane depicted farther right along with the line intersection; the lower part is plunging downwards; the upper part is being deformed (by lifting the curve of intersection and building the surface up) into a surface with boundary S1; a disc is being glued to the last, which yields the surface RP2. The indicated immersion process can be also used for turning S2 `inside out’ into R3.
On the outskirts of the picture, a triangulation of a part of the Klein bottle surface is represented.
A detailed explanation of this picture may serve as a material for as much as a lecture in visual topology.
Plagiarism Vs. Copyright
It is in the interest of the publishers to confuse plagiarism with copyright. And many people wouldn’t know the difference. So here is a difference between the two:
First, plagiarism is a violation of academic norms but not illegal; copyright violation is illegal, but in truth pretty ubiquitous in academia. (Where did you get that PDF?)
Second, plagiarism is an offence against the author, while copyright violation is an offence against the copyright holder. In traditional academic publishing, they are usually not the same person, due to the ubiquity of copyright transfer agreements (CTAs).
Third, plagiarism applies when ideas are copied, whereas copyright violation occurs only when a specific fixed expression (e.g. sequence of words) is copied.
Fourth, avoiding plagiarism is about properly apportioning intellectual credit, whereas copyright is about maintaining revenue streams.
via Plagiarism is nothing to do with copyright
This would also relate to an earlier post, in making the difference between wrong and illegal. It can be exemplified in this case also.
Suppose for her research person A need a particular research article and she or her institution do not have access to it. What does A do?
She asks her friends in other institutes if they have access to this article. That means that the institute they are working in have subscription to the journal in which this article was published. Among her friends person B has access to the article. Suppose she sends A an electronic copy of the article. A is happy, that she got the article. B is also happy, that he could be of help to A. But strictly speaking this is illegal. In the fine print all the publisher website have Terms and Conditions which we have to agree to (without reading them most of the times and they are written in legalese). These terms and conditions prevent us from sharing these articles from anyone else who might not have access to. For example for JSTOR the terms and conditions are listed here. If you read these finely what emerges is the way in which the publishers control the flow of information. For example it says:
Institutional Licensees shall make reasonable efforts to ensure that access to the Licensed Content is limited to Authorized Users and to protect the Licensed Content from unpermitted use.
This clause essentially makes what happened between A and B illegal and just for sharing this article they might terminate the B’s institutional access to JSTOR. Now we can ask this question that whether the gesture on B’s part to help A was wrong and illegal both? As per definition by JSTOR this is clearly a violation of copyright. But what is the status of A’s research which emerges from this article given by B. Is it illegal? Can it be called as plagiarised (A gives proper citation of course)?
If you apply Kolhberg’s theory of moral development, the person who has the most developed morality will perhaps help the other without bothering about the copyright!
Illegal and Wrong
We have to get out of the mindset of thinking that things are wrong because they are illegal. People make laws and people can change those laws.
via Silk Road
Often people equate being illegal to being wrong. Though this may be true at times, it need not be always true. This is a fact that many people forget and do not think about.The laws that we have were made in a specific time with conditions pertaining to those times. And the fact that they are made by people. They may not be relevant any more. Or it might be just that the laws presented views of the majority or of the rich and the powerful. And many times breaking the law itself is the right thing to do. Gandhi in his life showed this many times. So was it wrong when Gandhi broke the salt law, for example? If there is a law against speaking about wrongs government does, it would be illegal to break such a law, but would it be wrong?
LaTeX Notes
This is a post for self-reference.
There are many LaTeX packages that I come across, and forget about them.
This page will keep a track of those packages. It will be updated with new hacks and packages that are useful.
- For using Linux Libertine (arguably one of the best ) fonts in mathmode
\usepackage{libgreek}
- For making gantt charts natively in LaTeX
\usepackage{pgfgantt}
- For including video/audio files in Beamer presentations
\usepackage{media9}
Kindle, Lego and E-Books
What do you do when Digital Restrictions Management prevents you from doing a lot of things on your own device. I do not know if we can even say it is a device we own, as the company offering books to us can revoke the books at will, without asking you. This was infamously and ironically seen in the removal of Nineteen Eighty Four from Kindle devices without their owners permission.
This is what RMS has to say about Kindle and its practices by Amazon:
“This malicious device designed to attack the traditional freedoms of readers: There’s the freedom to acquire a book anonymously, paying cash — impossible with the Kindle for all well-known recent books. There’s the freedom to give, lend, or sell a book to anyone you wish — blocked by DRM and unjust licenses. Then there’s the freedom to keep a book — denied by a back door for remote deletion of books.” — Richard Stallman
So what do you do against such mal-practices and devices operations which are defective by design?
Since these companies do all in their power to prevent users from taking any stuff out, using all hi-fi programming, what can one do about them?
Here is one low tech solution! And one fine use of Lego Mindstorms!
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/73675285 w=400&h=225]
via DIY kindle scanner
Also if you are rather old-fashioned, and even lower tech solution would be to simply one can just make a carbon-copy of the Kindle e-book from a copier or scanner, thanks to their E ink technology, it is as good as a printed book.
Case Building
“So this case is building and this case will build,”
via ToI
It seems the US of A is bent on waging a war against Syria to remove Assad. First the civil war, which was a war by proxy. Many thought that what happened in Libya could also happen in Syria. But Assad proved more formidable than Gaddafi. And after months of civil war, there seems to be no end to Assad’s rule. This must have upset the US much, after all a proxy war also costs money. And if you do not get any returns, we you make more investment to get the returns. This is what US seems to be doing in this conflict. Of course, they could have politely asked Mr. Assad that he should step down voluntarily, but many doubt that if this would have worked. In case of Syria, Russia is backing them, so there seems to be some hope for them.
And it is almost laughable, when US president or his ADCs say the word “evidence”. They are crying wolf again. Maybe one should ask US president, where are the WMDs in Iraq? This was the presumed reason for their invasion of Iraq, though some believe that actually it was the oil of the American companies that the Iraqis were living on hostage, which actually led to the war. But, even after so many years, they have yet to find any evidence for WMDs in Iraq. Perhaps, they supplied them to Syria, which is using them against their own citizens. So this is not a new war, but a continuation of the Iraq War. This is also reflected in comparison of Assad to Saddam and Hitler. And what about Hitler? Since the comparison has been made, this attack might be a continuation of the World War 2, in which holocaust happened, and now due to which innocent people in Syria will be killed with “precision strikes”. That explains the Israel part well in the column.
And morality it seems has changed its meaning in Amerika. Perhaps one should not forget that US of A has done war crimes
Can a government that supported the use of chemical weapons in one conflict claim any moral, political or legal authority militarily to attack another country for using the same weapons, particularly when the attack is not authorised by the UN Security Council?
Not only did the US aid the use of chemical weapons by the former Iraqi government, it also used chemical weapons on a large scale during its 1991 and 2003 invasions of Iraq, in the form of depleted-uranium (DU) ammunition.
As Dahr Jamail’s reporting for Al Jazeera has shown, the use of DU by the US and UK has very likely been the cause not only of many cases of Gulf War Syndrome suffered by Iraq war veterans, but also of thousands of instances of birth defects, cancer and other diseases – causing a “large-scale public health disaster” and the “highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied” – suffered by Iraqis in areas subjected to frequent and intense attacks by US and allied occupation forces.
Thus what we have now is a situation in which a government (the United States) that has both supported and committed large-scale and systematic war crimes in one country (Iraq) is leading the international effort to stop Iraq’s neighbour Syria from continuing to use chemical weapons against its own people.
via Al-Jazeera
He invoked the crimes of Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein and the potential threat to Israel from Syria and Iran… (op cit.)
This perhaps tells us one more thing. This actually might be a continuation of World War 2 and Saddam and Assad are seen as heirs of Hitler. And they have to punished because there was a holocaust, see how logically the problem of Israel emerges in all this chaos!
Of course the next target seems to be Iran, but for now, it seems they would be happy to get Syria as well.
Although Obama has asked for congressional approval for the attack, this approval is not mandatory for the attack. It seems this is just a strategy to make it look legitimate. And after UK has bowed out of the possible attack, it seems that Obama will have to use the later option. And all the (un)evidence, is used to case building the case against Syria.
And finally this entire episode can be seen as actualization of the statement:
If you don’t come to democracy, democracy will come to you.
Cost of environment
Former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha on Tuesday blamed Congress leader and union minister Jairam Ramesh as being “singularly responsible for shaving off 2.5% of the GDP” by not giving environmental clearance to projects during his stint as the environment minister, escalating the war of words between the two.
via ET
Mr. Sinha should understand that economy is not everything. If at all protecting environment costs so much of GDP indirectly, even then it is okay. Perhaps we should provide 2.5% of GDP to protect our environment, and that would ensure it will remain for posterity. The rampant rape of environment in form of various “developmental” projects and its toll on the flora and fauna is something that needs to be stopped. For example consider the illegal and legal mining in Goa and its impact on the fragile ecosystem there. Ramesh had a choice, and he exercised it. How many ministers do that? If the environment ministry will itself not worry about the environment then who will? Sinha in criticizing Ramesh seems to have forgotten this basic fact. Otherwise what is the reason for the Environment ministry to exist? For there are certain things that cannot be equalized in terms of money, and our flora and fauna is one of them. Mr. Sinha should understand that extinction is forever, no amount of money can bring back lost species or lost ecosystems. But people who are corrupted by lure of money at any cost (to environment and other people) will not understand this. Even if they do, their priorities are set by the bottom line, which is money.
The Textbook Liberation Project
“We aim for maximum financial impact against the publishing industry and maximum political impact among the University administration and faculty. This will force the complicit parties to declare which side they want to stand on,”
via TorrentFreak.