Anti-Satellite Missiles make us weak as a Planet

What happens within atmosphere should remain within atmosphere. When we have a whole atmosphere to war in, why take the fight to space? It is like two federal states of a country trying to settle their water disputes on the streets of another country. That said, it is not the mistake of the one who follows the other. Rather, it is the mistake of the one who started it.

We don't want to look like a disunited planet to aliens do we? After all, within atmosphere, we fight as countries. But outside, we stand united as the earth itself. This should be the underlying tone of any future outer-space treaty.

Nationalism as a virtue may be a fine avocation for the 21st century. What we are going to need next is "Planetism".

Why VVPAT is technically not a proof enough for EVM?

There are two ways of looking at it-
1. Faith - we have faith in our strong institutions (in this case Election Commission of India).
2. Proof - we have technical proof that our institutions are strong.

I discuss the second point before discussing the first.

Proof-
      A proof that the vote that I intended to cast has been recorded as per my wish. For this, EC has come up with a solution of attaching VVPATs to EVMs. It suggests that since the button I had pressed on EVM corresponds to the candidate whose name & symbol are shown on VVPAT slip, it is proof enough that the actual vote that was registered in the EVM must be the same as I had intended.

     I have technical reservations in this line of argument. The moment I press the button, two things happen -
1. EVM registers my vote (But I'm not sure whether it has registered my vote as per my choice or not).
2. VVPAT prints out the slip that shows the details of the candidate I had voted for.

My qualms arise from the fact that it is possible to do multiple tasks with a single click of a computer button. It is further possible for those multiple tasks to either be dependent on each other or be completely independent. Now, how does a common man have the proof that the vote registered in EVM is the same as the candidate printed on VVPAT? Is it not possible to write a computer algorithm where, with a single click of a button, a vote is registered in the EVM for candidate B, while candidate A gets printed on VVPAT? I believe that is quite simple.

Does the algorithm that registers my vote in EVM take inputs from VVPAT or vice-versa or are they independent, doing two different things? When we are considering VVPAT slip as the proof of what happened in the EVM machine, we are only considering half the story. When we say, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating", VVPAT is pudding being eaten for sure, but it is only half the pudding. No one knows if even the other half is pudding (the vote registered in EVM) as well, unless he eats that half too.

The moment we are accepting VVPAT as a proof, we are simply trying to conflate "Proof" with "Faith".

If EC wants the citizens to have "Faith" in its moral uprightness, by all means I would have "Faith" in our honorable EC. But when EC has decided to give us the "proof" in the form of VVPAT, it has to also show that the same candidate also got registered in the EVM.

India is rich in computer science graduates. I'm sure any of them would know that what a computer user looks at the screen is not what happens inside the computer chip. Computer chip understands binary code but it converts those calculations into user readable interface using GUI. Hence, What You See Is Not What You Get, or simply, WYSINWYG in case of computers. Computer can also ask for input where the user enters 1+2, and computer calculates it as 3, but we can make it print 4 on the screen. Hence, EVM may register a vote for candidate B but show candidate A on the screen.

Most of the discussion surrounding the EVM has narrowly focused on tampering with EVM machines i.e., the problem of someone "tampering" with EVM machines and doing what EVMs never intended to. But what if even without tampering with it, the very algorithm that was supposed to run on EVMs did two mutually independent things that are not the same?

Faith -
Now coming to the first point i.e., matter of faith, I have nothing much to say except that VVPAT is not proof but it's the same as "no-VVPAT" or simply "Faith".

In case of paper ballots, there were no two independent things. There is only one paper slip. But now, there is a process going on in EVM that is independent of VVPAT. At the end of polling, we are only verifying VVPATs and not cross-verifying what is registered in the EVM along with the particular VVPAT slip.

Way forward-
        I'm sure there should be many other innovative possibilities to give the citizens of India, the "proof" they deserve - the proof that the vote that he had intended has actually been cast in the EVM. I have one suggestion to EC - "VVPAT random coding".

Along with name of the candidate and the symbol, there should be a random electronic chip generated unique code printed onto the VVPAT. The same code should also be recorded against the vote that was registered in EVM. When one verifies the VVPAT slips as per the random code printed on it, the EVM registry should also show the same party symbol and candidate's name. And to make the transparency complete, the complete EVM registry must be available online for every citizen in the country to see. A new entry would be made in the registry for every new vote being cast on the polling day.

Now that's what I call as "eating the pudding" or simply put, "the proof".

Each and every vote cast in the entire country should have a unique code printed. Hence, to put an end to the EVM-VVPAT tampering debate, and to have full confidence in the democratic processes of the largest democracy in the world, what is needed is not simply EVM-VVPAT, but EVM-VVPATURC where VVPATURC stands for VVPAT-Unique Random Code.

The Capitalistic Homo-Sapien: master of one trade but Jack of none.

Is excessive demand for specialization by capitalistic economies denying us the right to be complete homo-sapiens? Does it encourage being extremely functional in a single domain of knowledge and hold in contempt any aspect of human life that involves trying to make him a jack of all trades and master of none? 

Are we over-emphasizing the achievement in one-life time, what would have been possible by several generations, if the homo-sapien were to enjoy and nurture his talents in multiple fields which every one of them is indeed capable of?

Human Extinction Fueled by Uncontrolled Capitalism

Vertical Wipe Out

Scramble Competition - an ecology concept, in my view could be applied to humans as well where top 1% richest own 50% of total wealth => control over 50% of all human-usable resources on earth. With such huge inequalities, rest of the 99% suffer, which might lead to the lack of access to "chances of life" and lack of employment, academic inflation => inability to marry at the right age etc. This can affect overall fertility of the populations of the countries. Can also affect ability of 99% population to have access to quality-life, thereby weakening the 99% genetic pool physically and psychologically and thereby, in the long run, wipe out the traces particular genetic make-ups - community wise or kinship-wise or race-wise, one by one, thereby reducing overall genetic diversity and thus making entire human race epidemic prone. This could lead to extinction of human race. So relating "uncontrolled" capitalism fueled extinction of human race is not so difficult to see.

Lateral Wipe Out

While "Scramble Competition" explains how humans could go extinct with one group aggressively competing with another group of the same generation for a hold over natural resources, over-exploitation of resources by the present generation so much so that nothing is left for the future generations is what I call as lateral wipe out. Brundtland Commission was appointed by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) in 1983 coined the term "Sustainable Development" to draw attention to this very problem.

upcoming...

• Merit - have we taken out humanity while following the flawed, mechanical notion of merit all these centuries? Can Big Data and Artificial Intelligence help add more parameters to define "Effective Merit" to take in to consideration, the more practical aspects and subjectivity of each individual's own socio-economic, geographical, biological and cultural factors?
• AI Future. Not future AI.
• Uncontrolled Capitalism fueled Human extinction
• 3000 AD, as I see it
• Roasting half Marx, full Darwin, a pinch of Adam Smith and garnishing with AI
• ISRO and DRDO: the myths and the realities
• Feedback the Surveys of Employment and the Education
• Education, to each his own.
• Cooking Patriarchy
• The Farmer Fugazi
• Research Soulsearch
• The Unsustainable Happiness
• Civilized within ethnicity and Barbaric across
• Politician, AI.
• Left, Right, Vanilla, Strawberry
• Homo-Hierarchicus, Homo-Universalis
• Child of the State
• Barbaric, Constitution, Statue!
• Beauty lies in the eyes of prosperity
• Whose Truth?
• How much do the politics affect out lives in reality?
• Rich are usually Right but are the Right always pro-Rich?

My first ever digital painting

Center should perhaps stop teaching "NITI" to the states, after 70 years of Independence.

First Past the Post (FPTP) system, or the features such as "being federal with unitary bias", All India Services or the system of indirect democracy were all the Band Aids put over India that was lacerated by two centuries of colonial rule - with the fear lest those wounds should turn septic, lest the unstable governments weaken the ailing country further and lest the small provinces of India should fall apart without a strong center. But may be after 70 years of self rule, it's time to open those Band Aids and look for how much the wounds have healed, how strong, independent and competitive the states have become, who may no more need hand holding from the peevish, senile, doddering Big Daddies sitting in New Delhi, and may be it's time to let the states who have come of age, figure out the world on their own. May be it's time the center stops teaching "NITI" to these grown up states and let them dab the canvas with their own creativity and uniqueness. 

just a passing thought...

Life is a mad bitch cut loose on a biting spree. 

     If you don't keep your feet kickin', 

     you never know when it's gonna be bitin'. 

[9/5/2019]

Cleanliness doesn't mean avoiding or artfully hiding or "othering" of or stigmatizing the dirt. It quite simply means cleaning up the dirt. [25/6/2018]

Lok Adalats definitely have a good intention of making justice accessible to the weak at their doorsteps. Also to reduce the burden of higher courts. But to say that Lok Adalats are the ultimate answer is to create a separate class of secondary/sub-citizens who are only eligible for a justice system that shoves down his throat, a speedy and binding judgement with no recourse to appeal to higher courts. After all, if the rich still make use of and trust the District Courts, HC and SC, then why do we talk of an informal system such as LA's for the poor? Are they free from social prejudices? Are they not opaque? Are they not prone to be dominated by the same social hierarchy that was the cause for litigation in the first place? [29/4/2018]

For any law to not just become an Act but to see success in implementation, it should pander to the most basic human traits. It should not only be sound in conventions of law but should be designed such that any implementing human is expected nothing more to be, but be a human. If humans are basically selfish, the law should be designed such that the implementer's very selfishness will see the law to success. His human need for appreciation, his thirst for incentives, his penchant for security of his own livelihood and his family - only these can make a law successful. The moment a law expects implementor to be more than a human - altruistic, selfless, it sows the seeds of its own death. For, selflessness is a socially created nicety in societies, which can be thrown out of the window the moment the implementor exits the society and enters his own self. [3/4/2018]

India has the tradition of creating a new institution, body, agency or a scheme whenever an issue arises, rather than trying to address the issue itself. If CBSE paper leaks, remedy is creation of National Testing Agency. If MCI is corrupt, create NMC. If banks have huge NPA's, create PARA. But after a few year, these new institutions get riddled with corruption, so much so that the body itself becomes an issue and to resolve it, the government dissolves the body and freshly creates a new body. This has led to multiplication of institutions - 10 each dealing with the same aspect of the governance, further leading to confusion and diffusion of funds with each institution suffering with the same problems of lack of transparency, corruption, lack of sufficient funds and inefficiency. No one knows one-to-one correspondence about which issue is exactly dealt with by which body. If a citizen approaches an office, he is told off to visit another office as it comes under the domain of another body. This disables citizens in accessing the government services. The day we dare to directly address the "issue" rather than beating around the "bodies", we will become an efficient country. [30/3/2018]

We can compensate for the lack powerful computation hardware with efficient algorithms-based software as long as the application doesn't demand both powerful h/w + efficient s/w. Same applies to human brain (by utilizing the time sincerely and more efficiently). There are very few who have great h/w + also put it to efficient use. Hence, someone else with less powerful h/w can out compete someone else with best of brains but slacks off. [29/3/2018]

Except for his biometrics and the biological limitation of there being no possibility of claiming otherwise as far as who his parents are, a human should be able to identify himself every which way he fancies and it should be his fundamental right. It is not for others, not even the parents to decide what his identity would be for the rest of his life. That's the true "personal liberty". [28/3/2018]

Why do we call it "hoarding" when farmers save it for the profitable times? What's wrong with that as long as our country's food security is met? Don't capitalists do the same thing? Saving and investing at the right times to make maximum profits? When there is a fall in private investment in the overall economy, is it not because the capitalists are waiting for the right time and thus are "hoarding" their money at the moment? Why is it that when every class thinks of profit, farmers are the only people who need to make sacrifices to offer their product at the cheaper prices? Well the instant refrain to the argument would be that it is not the actual growers but middle-men who are guarding the APMC gates and are hoarding. But why do you care? Don't act like you care for the farmers more than middle-men. Last time I heard from you, you were the staunchest supporter of Adam Smith. Has the invisible hand that was supposed to assist people in Agriculture sector been chopped off? Only thing you stand for is to protect your own invisible hand. The argument here is not about middle-men or farmers. Yes, middle-men are bad. Get rid of them and enable farmers to have enough capability to hoard. But nevertheless, hoarding is the most "free-market thing" to do. Anti-hoarding measures of the government only aggravate the Cobweb Cycle of low supply + higher prices one year --> followed by supply glut, low-prices and losses the next. [28/3/2018]

As I note down for the the exam, the topic on how India should pass a data protection law and control the access to personal data by the foreign companies, my notes in Microsoft Word gets synced to Google servers, swiftly, silently and graciously. And I write this quote down in Google Blogger! [27/3/2018]

I believe we not only think in images but associate much stronger connection to the memories in those images, the music and the fragrances which transcend us back in time. A song associated to somewhere in time or the olfactory association to a place can transport us across the time in a moment. [26/3/2018]

We could go back in time by saving it now. [22/3/2018]

Europeans say "what a nice sunny day, let's go out for beer", Indians say "what a pleasant, cool day. Let's have pakode at home!". [16/3/2018]

Every time we Indians don the nationalist cap, some lives are extinguished on the border, and every time some lives are extinguished on the border, we don the nationalist cap. [16/Mar/2018]

"World Economic Forum said the private sector still considers corruption to be the most problematic factor for doing business in India." Does that sound funny to anyone? Corruption always involves two accomplices - one, a government official and the other _____? One cannot be corrupt without the other - it's a chicken-egg problem really. However the question is not how it started. Rather, it is about how it is fueled, greased and perpetuated. [13/Mar/2018]

We are not what and how much we've read or seen. We are what we have owned up as our own and are able to express and write from that. [13/Mar/2018]

There are two ways to look at it, this thing called life: either everything matters and crib about it until the end or simply, nothing matters. In the end, we all split into atoms to be part of a rock, a tomato, a bird or a star. [1/Sep/2013]

Every second u r at the best moment of ur life as u r the youngest u can be. [9/Mar/2010]