Poorest Person in the World?

Since the past few weeks the Indian media is abuzz with the list of the financially "richest" people in the world. The booming stock markets have a role to play in this as well... Details and breakup of their wealth has been published and a lot of space has been devoted to articles covering the news.

We all know who these people are (nothing against them, they have given a lot to the world), some of us may also remember the entire list and personal wealth of the top 100 "richest". Thousands (if not millions) of dollars are spent each year in counting and tracking their wealth.

Reading these again and again made me feel hollow inside. How many of us know the name of the poorest person in the world? Or for that matter how many of us even remember the number of poor people we have seen in our lifetime? I do not...

Why do poor people never occupy the news? Some say it is "disturbing"... some tend to ignore them... many others take advantage of them... and I just sit and feel bad about it all...

It reminds me of Gandhiji's Talisman which occupied the inside covers of all NCERT books in my school days. Maybe, some day I will be able to use it:

"I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away."

- Mahatma Gandhi

Shubh Deepawali :: Illuminating the Path

Shubh Deepawali
The festival of lights

A torch illuminates only a short distance along the path.
However, a simple torch, if kept burning, can guide one through the densest of forests in the darkest of nights...

Life is like a journey through dense darkness...
We need a guiding torch and the strength to keep it burning...
May this Deepawali illuminate us towards/on our path and guide us through the next year...

Shubh Deepawali

Academic Research in India

Also available here

There has been a lot of discussion on the standards of technical academic research in the country and the fact that we do not have sufficient Ph.Ds coming out of colleges to propel the country into the next level of technical growth or maybe even sustain the current growth levels. Several reasons have been cited and discussed. I would focus on one major reason, which in my opinion, has led to low standards of research in even the best of the institutions in the country.

Most research that I have seen during my college days (at least in my area of research -- communications and signal processing) had been driven by problems defined/seen in research papers published in international journals/conferences. While technical language is the same across the world and the efforts being put to try and solve these problems in our institutions is high, there is a fundamental lack of understanding of these problems simply because we have never seen these systems work practically.

In my example, I was working on a wireless algorithm for base stations and I had never seen a base station in my life! When I raised this issue, it was belittled and disagreed upon. My point of contention is that engineering research is not just about solving mathematical problems and simulations. It is an iterative process involving three steps:

1. System modeling
2. Solving the mathematical problem and simulating
3. Applying the solution to the practical problem and verifying the solution.

Now, we are very good at the (2) but since we do not have a feel of the real system, we are not good at (1) and have no means of verifying the solution in most cases (3).

There could be two reasons for this:

1. Lack of any Indian technology companies involved in R&D activities.
2. Not looking at the right problems which are available around us.

Both of these are probably true. While (2) is another problem that the research institutions are dealing with (lack of research interest in local problems and developing local solutions), I want to bring forth (1) as an important reason for the falling research standards in the country.

Engineering research always thrives through an ecosystem involving both the academia and the industry. India has excellent academic institutions and some exceptional people in them. However, the lack of local R&D companies means a lack of good, real problems to work on which leads to people taking up problems from international journals and solving them without a fundamental lack of understanding. This is not only discouraging for good people to join these institutions, it also creates a hollow among graduates of these colleges since they have not worked on any real-life problems and solved them completely.

We need better Indian industry in the technology domain and we need them to interact closer with the academia.

Courage and Suffering

Are courage and suffering synonymous? Does it require courage to suffer? Do brave and courageous people suffer?

I was reading one of Swami Vivekanand's lecture on Vedanta (Complete Works Vol. 3 -- Lectures from Colombo to Almora). He talks about the powers within us, the Advaita philosophy of tat tvam asi. During this, he says something like (I do not remember the exact words) ...we are brave, we are the One, the all-encompassing, the all-suffering... On one hand he says that we are The One and hence are not bound by anything, on the other hand he says that we are also the "all-suffering".

This post is not to debate the sanctity or validity of Advaita. The point in my mind is whether a courageous person needs to be all-suffering?

This is a very interesting point and something deep inside me totally agrees to this... suffering is not easy... one needs a lot of courage and determination to suffer and come out of it... Success always passes through the path of suffering in one form or the other... It does require humongous courage to endure suffering...

Thus bravery is not brashness, it is not arrogance... it is actually highlighted by the tenacity of an individual to endure the harshest... Each person has different ways of fighting... Everyone may not rise violently against it. In fact, violence may not be a possible option in most situations... but the fact the he/she maintains their balance through the thick of it all makes them brave and courageous...

Running away is another option.... but we all know that it is harder to endure suffering than to get out and run away... (Again the question arises, how to define limits to suffering before giving up? Or is there any limit at all? -- Will take this up some other time...)

It definitely requires courage to suffer....

"A champion should have both will and skill. But the will should be stronger than the skill"
- Mohammad Ali

Netaji

Today I saw the movie Bose by Shyam Benegal. Even though I knew the outline of the story but seeing it being played in front of my eyes hit me. It made me realise the audacity and the courage of Netaji's plan. No matter how hard I try, I can never imagine someone making such a move. How can one leave his motherland to search for a way to free it militarily from outside!

Firstly, believing in such an idea and internalising it would require the clarity of a mirror and nerves of steel... Secondly, there will be so many questions, so much self-doubt that he would have fought with... I am dumb-founded that someone like him actually existed in my country...

Unimaginable courage... unthinkable sacrifice... out-of-the-world inspiration... My life unto him... my life unto him...

Lamps...

Recently, I came across a very beautiful couplet in Hindi...

"Kisko rehte hain bure waqt ke saath yaad?
Subah hote hee chiragon ko bujha dete hain log..."

Who remembers companions of hard times? Every morning people extinguish the lamps...

-Mohit