Rang de Basanti in Action

For those of you who thought that the events in Rang de Basanti are impossible, think again. There was a peaceful procession of medical students in New Delhi and the Delhi police used lathi charge and teargas and violence to ward them off. The protestors were for a cause and their methods were peaceful. Like RDB, the villian is a cabinet minister. And the police were indiscriminate. Time is soon running out and at some point we have to fight the locusts who have managed to control India for the last 60 years. But, we should do much more intelligent work than the innocent youth of RDB. We are not having a single enemy. The thing that stands before us is a heinous system of reservation that has brainwashed people enough that most people just fight on its implementation and forget its unjust concept. The system of quota is against the spirit of Indian Constitituion's Article 15 (equality and non-discrimination based on birth) and is also against the spirits of democracy worldwide (US and European courts have illegalized quota systems)

References:
Students protesting story

Tank Man

One of the most incredible personalities in the recent history is this tank man of China. During the Tianenmen square protests, where Chinese students wanted democracy and gathered at the historic tianenmen square, in Beijing, they witnessed such a blood and horror that charecterized our era. The Chinese government used tanks and heavy armoury to break the protest of innocent, weaponless students. But, one man chose to defy them. He stood valiantly against all the tanks and its stunning to look at that picture and the video, where a human 'warrior' stands brave against dozen armoured tanks. See this video.

If someone needs courage, then you need to see this. I'm always impressed with such people who can terrorize 'fear'. They are real humans, who stand courageous for a just cause. Unfortunately, we have become a society of dumb people, who are willing to compromize values, who are willing to be voiceless before injustice, who are villing to be cowards before fear and who become the main source of the evilness of the society.

"Evil can proceed only when the good become silent"

Protectionism in Europe

After a long time, I'm writing an article that doesnt directly concern India. The reservation (a combination of Affirmative Action and Racialism) issue in India has taken so much of my time that I could not concentrate on any other story. I wanted to write about the French job contracts in keeping up with the worldwide viewership of this blog, but I could not put up the articles although I wrote up an article in Wikinews.

For those of you who didnt follow the youth riots in France, earlier this month, let me explain in brief. There was a labor law reform in France that would allow employers to hire and fire freely young employees, under the age of 26, for the first two years of trial period, which is felt as a ncessary reform for modern companies to work. But, riots erupted so much that the deal was throw out and the main architect of the deal - de Villepin's (French PM) political career is doomed.

Unemployment among youth is extremely high and this not only generates riots, but also worsens the impact of already ageing country. If more than 25% of youth are unemployed and the average population is well past middle age, France is in deep trouble.

In this context, comes the CPE (First Job Contract) which would allow employers to fire their workers in the first two years of trial period, if they are under 26. The things surprizing for me is why only till 26 and why only 2 years of trial period. While, the rest of the world has come to terms with jobs where there is no guarantee that anyone will be retained for any length of time, I find even the CPE is a bit unrealisitc and not-enough reform. But, the French people surprize by having an enormous extent of riots and strikes that de Villepin (French PM) was forced to take back his policy. This is a crucial event that might dictate the future of this country.

First, France is not going to get any modern industry, without basic protections for the employers. How do you expect Yahoo or Google to give an employment for life, when they cant predict what will be their future in the next 5 years? Already, the French are ageing and so the modern companies dont find much market to sell and have little choice of workers. Thus, all the wealth generating modern companies will go to emerging markets with lighter labor laws, and French will be saddled with old-age companies.

Second, the defeat of de Villepin (who has been victimized for this policy and could lose his Presidential ambition) will dissuade the French politicians from talking reality to their subjects. They would be forced to tell the people, what they want to hear - a modern welfare economy, and this could spell disaster for the country.

Third, riots will worsen. The French people were rewarded for their unjust riots. Now, they will get the feeling that they can stop the govt. by indiscriminately goin on riots. As France starts to go down with a sagging economy the riots among both citizens and immigrants would rise and will bring France economy to a halt.

The problems are not just isolated to France. They are present in similiar or different forms in the rest of the Europe, where left wing socialists join hands with right wing nationalists to stop the countries from accepting reality and join the modern economy. During 1998-99 German govt. was forced to stop hiring more of Indian computer engineers, which significantly affected the growth of German s/w companies compared to their American counterparts. Last year, they(French and Dutch) stopped the common Euro constitution, which would allow the tiny continent of Europe to unite, as it gets impossible for them to make their voice heard in this world of giants.

France, like the rest of the Europe, is surging with opposing currents of leftists and rightist wing nationalists both of whom have marginalized the logical politicians. While the leftists try to promote more of isolationism and protectionism, in the name of labor rights, the rightists believe that France has a special place in the world and promote racialism and harsh treatment of immigrants. While we could understand the problem posed by indiscriminate entry of immigrants in the form of refugees and low-paid workers to add with the problem of poorly skilled second-generation kids of immigrants, we have to Agree that France has done preciously little to solve the actual problems.

France, along with the rest of Europe and to some extent Japan, is unable to come to terms with the modern economy and globalization. They are unable to understand the mammoth changes visible on the horizon, with India, China and to some extent Brazil and Russia rising as massive economies. They still dont realize that their wealth was mainly earned with the majority of the world was sleeping and chained in imperialism where they got cheap resources and labor supplies and got markets without much competition. Otherwise, a relatively small country tucked in Europe, without much of mineral resources and historical heritage, compared to many Asian countries (like India and China) couldnt have become a great economy. They had progressive policies, when rest of the world were riddled with the chaos of monarchy, clanism and communism.

Now, the rest of the world has started to wake up. Countries like India and China demand their fair share of world resources and wealth. Thus, France has to come up with reality. They cant expect their yesterdays to be same as tomorrow. They built up an overly welfare state on top of wealth, which wouldnt have come had they not interacted with the rest of the world. Now, there is no choice for them. They cant afford to close their economy. Their companies cant afford to be big by having only tiny markets of few million people, while giant Indian, Chinese and American companies drive them out from the rest of the world. At some point they have to realize that the only way Europe can prosper is by competiting with the rest of the world and thus there is no way they can avoid globalization and tuck themselves into the cozy blanket of protectionism.

Let us hope that they will realize Reality, before it gets too late.

Why not let us make a movie?

Reservation can hurt people and can kill them.

One of my cousins, who was one of the national level toppers in 1992, attempted suicide when Mandal commission was implemented and he was denied his dream Medical seat. After weeks of intensive care treatment in one of the country's best hospitals, his life was saved.

My family priest's son became a lunatic 15 years ago, when he was given a false information that he didnt get a seat, when he actually got one. Its pathetic to see a topper student running like a lunatic for 15 years.

Reservation has created much more horror stories than this and so many immolations and suicides have occured. So many families have been destroyed and doomed. So, many became mentally and physically ill.

Why, not let us collect our real-life stories and make them into a mini movie. We can select a best story and with just a video cam and 10 decent actors we can make a mini movie and with the comments of thousands of members we can really edit it to portray the actual horrors of reservation.

If it gets successful, we can invite even a mainline filmaker. If Rang de Basanti can get hit and change youth mindsets, why not let us change india with our real stories?

The orkut community for the interested members:

The wiki for developing the movie script and story:

Is everything applicable for everyone

Why did Jesus Christ give this statement?
"Don't give that which is holy to the dogs, neither throw your pearls before the pigs, lest perhaps they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces" - Matthew 7.6

Why did Lord Krishna choose Arjuna for delivering Bhagvat Gita, and not Bheema or any other person?

Why were some philosophies kept very secret from the masses? Even the divine prayer "OM Namo Narayana" was kept hidden from the masses for a long time till it eventually got out by the discourse of Ramanujacharya.

This is one concept that is troubling me for a long time - can lions become monkeys or viceversa?

Interview of a pro-reservationist and a anti-reservationist

A pro-reservationist and anti-reservationist are talking about cleaning river pollution.

Interviewer: What is the best way to clean up polluted water sources in India?

Anti-Reservationist: Work on the sources of contamination, produce methods to purify the waste and remove the junk from the polluted water source.

Pro-Reservationist: That kind of a work is troublesome and takes time. The best way is to connect all the polluted water sources to Ganges.

Interviewer: What? Wont it destroy the serenity of ganges and where are we solving the problem of cleaning up?

Pro-Reservationist: We dont need to bother abt cleaning up. Ganges runs pure because thousands of years it suppressed all those smaller water sources. Thus, we would make it equally impure by draining our water sources there, and in this way you cant call these water sources polluted, as every other water source also becomes impure.

Interviewer:?#!@&

Rang De Basanti

Today, I saw the movie Rang de Basanti, a story about how 5 happy-go-lucky Indian youth get transformed into fiery revolutionaries and finally give up their live for a cause.

It left a deep emotional scar on me. It brings back the question that I keep asking me often.

What does freedom mean for a nation, where a girl gets raped every 4 seconds, a child is forced in slavery in work and taken away from education, where a person gets traped in bonded labor and a person is discriminated by untouchability and poverty? What does prosperity mean for those people who doesnt even have access to basic necessities food, clothing & shelter and where thousands die of hunger and malnutrition and totally avoidable diseases everyday? What does development mean for a nation where hundreds of millions earn less than $1/day and 400 million people can't even read or write any language? What does equality mean for those people, who cant draw water from the well, due to their lowly birth? What does opportunities mean for those people who dont even send their kids for primary education?

How do we attain Azadi for the nation of India?

Whom are we going to get our freedom from? Is it going to be from the foreign powers that imperialize(d) us? Is it goin to be from those worst criminals who rule us under the guise of politicians and make laws for us? Is it goin to be from the totally corrupt beurocrats whose misplanning kills our nation everyday? Is it goin to be from those law enforcement persons who commit as much crimes as those, from whom they are supposed to protect us? Is it goin to be from the govt. officials who badly enforce all of the governmental measures? Is it goin to be from the caste and religious leaders who seek to whip up the emotions of the people and gain sadistic pleasure? Is it goin to be from those poor-quality teacher, killer doctors who do false operations, deadly engineers who design those collapsing bridges .....

We have thousands of people from which we need to get freedom from, and this we use as an excuse for our inaction. We hide behind the walls of coverdice, by blaming everyone around us. We hide behind our silence that veils our impotence. If there is something that we need to get freedom from, It is WE whose coverdice and impotence sustains the despots. It is our silence that grows the clutches of violence. IT is our inaction that puts our nation in peril. If we watch a crime happen before us, and dont stand up to it, we are as much part of the crime. In this way, every one of us are CRIMINALS.

We need to change ourselves. We need to wash our sins of inactivity and corruption. We need to feel guilty of every minute we waste, as we lose a chance to save someone from violence. We need to feel guilty of every resource we waste, as that could have been used to save hunger and death. When there are people who commit suicide for Rs.10000 ($200) of their agricultural loans, unable to raise their family due to drought and famine, we need to know the preciousness of what we have. It is our success and prosperity that we are goin to work on and channelize them for the growth of everyone of us, not by the stupidity of communism, but by market prosperity and entrepreneurship skills.

We need IAS officers, professors, engineers, scientists, lawyers and social thinkers who can set our economy and society on a roll. We'll solve the problems of society by our collective will and potential. If every educated youth, taught an illiterate to read and write a basic script in a year, within 5 years, we can wipe out the whole problem of ILLITERACY. If each one of us could just share our success to a rural kid and motivate him/her and provide them basic information, we could wipe out the whole problem rural in-development. And We need the revolutionaries whose thoughts can set the society on fire and whose ideas can inspire whole fields of thought.

Everything is in the realm of us, but still we find it comfortable to be stupid, loser, cowards who grumbles against everybody else. It is WE who are going to change....

INQUILAB ZINDABAD

How can you accept Poor quality

This going to be my last post on reservation. I want to move on and cover wider stuff concering the world. If someone could not be convinced by the previous 6 articles, on this blog that illustrated the perils of reservation, let them as well be. A last try on those people.

IF you are an avid fan of cricket (or some other sport) how much tolerant are you going to be if the best player of the team (say Rahul Dravid) is going to be dropped just becaz he is a forward caste person and you need to provide chance for a person who totally doesnt play good cricket (say, someone like me) just becaz he is from lower caste and/or poor and/or from backward regions and/or he has some physical diability. More, if the match is goin to be as critical as a worldcup final against Australia or Pakistan. Wont people go on riots.... Can I justify my inclusion stating that I'm from a backward community that has never played Cricket in the last 1000 years and thus didnt have a LEVEL PLAYING FIELD :-)

If you have such standards for something as trivial as Cricket, why not for Medicine or Engineering or Management. If you believe that a bad player can affect your stupid sports team, how can you allow those bad players to come into critical services, on which your life and survival might depend on.

Change of name

As you would have noticed, I've changed the name of this blog. I felt that the articles here should have a force and voice of their own than the dull "Balaji's titles" suggest. But, I'm not sure whether this would affect the overall coolness of this blog that chararectrized the moderate nature of it till last week.

Readers, what do you suggest? Are you comfortable with this name, or shall we change to something else, or shall I revert back to the existing title? Kindly comment on it.

I'm against the whole concept of reservation

While listening to some of my friends on reservation, I got the opinion that many of them are against only the percentage or its implementation, but very few question its own principle. We have been so schooled that we are made to think that "Reservation is indispensible". I see that many of my friends find it so hard to rethink the whole concept.

Some of them argue that there must be reservation atleast based on economic levels, sex or physical ability. Even I was tempted by this seemingly convincing argument. After all, I'm highly sentimental and particularly I'm very sympathetic towards physcially diabled people. So, should I make an exception?? After, thinking logically, I feel the answer is NO. There should not be any reservation of any kind. Why?

Suppose, our reservation practice is ideal and we really find a downtrodden person and want to elevate him. Say, we give him a position of a civil engineer. Since, he was not qualified in the first place, he might not be able to compete in the exams. Ok, lets make further concession and allow him to pass, seeing his pitiable conditions. Since, he was not qualified in the first place, he might not get jobs that his peers would get. Again, we make concessions and give him a job and so on. This process continues for life and we made that guy a slave to our whims. He becomes forever dependent on us and all his self-respect is gone. what would be left of him?

But, worse, what if that guy designs a bridge? Since, he never came by meritorious means there is a high probability that his designs will be sub-standard. Thus, there is a greater chance for its collapse and if it collapses what happens? We 'uplifted' one guy and pushed down a whole group of people in the form of accidents and death. For his upliftment, the entire society gets punished!!! This is not an hypothetical story... It happens in everyday INDIA.

Thus, after his admission
1. If he is not allowed to pass - both the instituion and his resources and time are wasted
2. If he is allowed to pass and doesnt get a job, the instituion's recruitment standards get lowered and he is doomed
3. If he gets a job, the entire society is put in a danger

Whatever be the case, his admission is a lose-lose situation for everyone.

If s/he were a doctor, s/he could put so many life's in danger through improper medication and inability to stop diseases. If s/he is a teacher s/he could put the career of so many students in peril. If s/he is a researcher, nation's R&D gets impaired.... Now can you begin to see why we have so many problems around us.

Now, ironically the backward sections of the society are more in danger, because of their lack of choices. The economically forward people have a choice of good doctors, good teachers and sometimes even good road (like the Mumbai-Pune expressway). Or they can even leave the country. But, the poor and downtrodden have to deal with all these sub-standard doctors, engineers, teachers, administrators and their lives are doomed.

Thus, reservation is one of the cause for India's rural in-development. If people really care about the poor, downtrodden and the illiterate, we should work really hard to remove the whole concept of reservation.

Reservation Vs. Commjnism Vs. Racism

Kindly go here

A letter to the Indian President on reservation

(Mail delivered on April 10, 2006)

Dear Mr. President,
I read in the press that your excellency have shown a sense of approval for the reservation polity in elite institutions, by arguing for an increase in the seats of IITs and IIMs and giving them for the backward castes. I feel it is disturbing, for the following reasons.

1. Can those institutions increase intake without affecting teaching and research quality?

2. If intake could be increased, why is it not done now and released into mainstream merit?

3. What about the brand image of IITs and IIMs? So far, they represented the elite Indian students and this brought all their prestige much above any other Indian institution.

4. How do we address the issue of brain drain? We overseas Indians would like to come back to India and teach, research and start great educational and commercial institutions. But, now we fear to come in. Similarly many of the IIT-JEE passouts would be readily recruited by American Universities and IITs would lose our cream right from undergrad.

The main arguemnt is Merit. Your excellency has shown as an great inspiration by fighting hard from a poor rural boy to grow into the most loved President. But, if we introduce reservation we would lose such people, as those who use reservation can never come out of guilt, forever.

Any person of any background can grow up in the present India, by just using his/her brain. There are so many institutions and eventually we would recognize such talent. Such heroic struggles would become a great pride for that person. But, now these people are going to be deprived of the most basic essence of human life: competition.

I would request your excellency to seriously reconsider your position on reservation. The upbringing of handful of backward caste students should not be at the cost of India's institutions of pride. If our national institutions get diluted we face a very grave risk of economic collapse, in this highly competitive world environment.

Reservation Vs. Communism Vs. Racism

Also read: Crime against Humanity

A letter to the president

One of my friends put it fantasically - "Unity in diversity what politicians say, lets distribute fools also uniformly". Reservation, like Communism, is bad not just for its implementation, but it is rotten in its whole principle.

There are intelligent guys in every community and every walk of life. They have different economic and social backgrounds and so I agree that there is no equal competition. But, the purpose of this life is its competition and the struggle.

There was story about a scientific experiment involving a caterpiller turning into a butterfly. As the students watched the butterfly struggling to come out of the coccon, a student took pity and helped the butterfly out and after a few minutes it died, because it was denied the opportunity to struggle and develop strong wings (Strory paraphrased from "You can win", pp.46)

From animals to humans to everything in life, the purpose is in its struggle. The greatest of human stories lie in this. This is one reason, why some of the great rich men came from poor backgrounds, inventors came from not-so-educated backgrounds. Guys like HEnry Ford, Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Edison, Hellen Keller.... fought against all odds.

So, even if its conducted ideally, reservation removes the whole purposes of lives of backward communities. It kills their motivation and inspiration. But, the problem gets infinitely larger due to corruption and despotism. So-called forward communities get punished and face India's version of genocide. It also continues the caste system (people are decided by birth) and produces a cycle of guilt on those who use the reservation system. Even after 60 years of Independence, I'm called forward caste and is it not unconstitutional...

Reservation, like Communism and Racism, are from the rotten ideas of 20th century. They are conceived, produced and practised by fools, despots and psychotics who had bitter experiences in their childhoods. Let us not continue it in the 21st Century. Even if it practised in a lower scale, a holocaust is a holocaust and even if the criteria for selection is different a genocide is a genocide. Reservation falls in the same category - whether we practice in a lesser scale or whether we use different criterion, we are doin grave injustice to the future generations.

Reservation is a crime against humanity

Also read: Reservation Vs. Communism

A letter to the president

What is common between German Holocaust, Srilankan Genocide (that wiped off all the top-performing Tamils in 1950's and became a seed for today's crisis), Russia's communism and India's reservation? They are all wars against a performing minority by unperforming majority. Worse, the war is so subtle that the victims are deaf against the drums of war. It is a slow and painful torture...

I wrote my previous post on the draconian proposals to introduce the concept called 'Reservation' (which literally means, specific sections of society should be entitiled to a minimum number of positions in an institution regardless of how poor r they for the slated position) in India's elite institutions. The article was quoted in Times of India. Few people wrote me back. From their opinion and from what I found on other news sources, so many people favored reservation should be based on economic or dwelling place background (people from rural places should get a preference). The biggest problem in this approach is the concept of reservation itself. I'm not saying that reservation should not be based on caste, etc. I'm saying that there should nothing called reservation itself - be it based on caste, sex, economic level, etc.

I believe that institutions should be based on performance, just as how the sports are based on pure performance. If someone doesnt have a skill to score century, forget becoming a Tendulkar. U cant become a Tendulkar or Agassi or Schumi unless u perform like them. Simple!!! It nurtures competition, inspiration and motivation. It also helps the society know who is a TEndulkar differentiated from some poor batsman. Tendulkar is Tendulkar, Einstein is Einstein, a donkey is a donkey and A is A.

If suppose Indian cricket board decides that 20% of Indian team should be from rural places, or should go to poor or lower castes, or if olympic committe decides that 30% of olympic medals should go to underprivileged wont you consider the proposal bullshit? Or suppose, if the Nobel committee decides that some poor scientist X's work is better than Einstein's Relativity just because X is poor or from underprieveleged sex or community, wont you feel the committee is doing injustice to science?

Reservation is not just illogical and stupid, but it is a crime against humanity. By giving the undeserved a place, you r denying the life for a deserving candidate. Whenever you reserve specific portions in an institution you kill the hopes and aspirations of those young guys, whose life is destroyed by denying him/her a place. You are also belittling the good performers from those underprivileged sections, who would have won positions on merit. By providing reservation for seats for poor performers in their community, the entire society would see even that good performer as someone who is unworthy of merit. This cycle of guilt and inferiority complex would run ad-infinitum. Thus, there wont be any motivation for persons from those communities to perform and only this can bring down their community, and not the absence of their people in the big institutions.

Reservation based on any criteria - caste, creed, background, economy, sex... denies a good performer a chance, in the society. You are unjustly punishing him/her for the sole act of good performance. Once a society punishes a performer for good performance, the society loses its right to E X I S T.... (In case of Germany, millions were dead and Europe was transformed, for Russia it collapsed and disintegrated and Sri Lanka has plunged into an everlasting crisis. Which one of these paths, do you desire for INDIA?)

Nathula Pass:Bringing India China together

While India and China are affecting the world in a big way, the trade between them is still low, even with the breathtaking growth since 2000. There is an enormous potential for these 2.3 billion to trade, as these two countries complement each other, in most things. For trade to happen in a big way and to end tensions at the border, border trade is a key thing. If the trade and cultural interactions happen in an ideal way this could create the world's most power trading zone in the economic history of this planet. It would also bring lots of jobs to the often impoverished border residents. Now, with the building of a big market near Nathula Pass, Sikkim, this is goin to happen, soon.

Nathula Pass is a beautiful mountain pass, at a distance of around 56 kms from the Sikkim's capital of Gangtok. It has one of the highest motorable roads in the world, at a height of around 15000 feet!!! When I went there immediately after its opening to the public, in 2004, I had a breathtaking and unforgettable journey. The beutiful green and snow covered mountains betray the tensions that surrounded this pass for almost 40 years. China claimed this entire state, while all its people and rulers want to be in India. Finally, China had to concede and now they have recognized this as a part of India. I hope the border trade goes further in building a strong India-China.

Read More:
Outlook article
India Daily's editorial

First Big Achievement of my blog

I was pleasantly surprised when I was pointed by my friend Nimish to an article in Times of India that quoted my blog. See the quote in: Times of India headlines about my article . This is the first time, a reputed print media has quoted my article and for a small blogger this is big. I'm happy about this.

Earlier, my article on Islam was quoted by a relatively bigger blog Chipmathis and my article on Iran was quoted by another group of bloggers here.

Meeting with the Senators to lobby for Indian Nuclear deal

In the midst of a busy session where Condi Rice had given dramatic presentation on Indian nuclear deal to the house and the Senate and when the Congress was deciding on an important Immigration bill, I had the chance to attend the most distinguished meeting of my life, so far, at the United States of America's Capitol Hill.

It was a part of lobbying efforts done by the US-Indians Political Action Committee and a quarter of the audience were eminent Congressmen of United States, including the respected Rep. Tom Lantos, Rep. Pallone (founder of India Caucus), Sen. Obama (in charge of Asia-Pacific Region in foreign relations committee). The remaining consisted of distinguished persons like Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns (who negotiated the nuclear deal with India), Indian ambassador R.S. Jassal and trade representatives and distinguished members of the Indian American community and the small meeting room was teeming with these great men.

On the side, I was feeling odd man out being the only student and seemingly the only person in 20's, to be meeting with these people. I got the first touch of the governmental processes of the world's greatest democracy and hearing the eminent speeches of these politicians, my respect for United States has gone higher. I wish Indian politicians were like these. Let me now go over the meeting, shortly.

The nuclear deal has caught the imagination of people and I was enthusiastically reading about it for the past 2 months, in depth. Even the night before my Microsoft interview, I was ardently reading a dozen articles on the deal and so it is no wonder that when I got the invite to attend the meeting from the USINPAC, I immediately accepted it, though I had a thesis to go. I felt that I might not get such an opportunity in the immediate future, as I would be moving far away from D.C. So, today morning, I left for DC and after a 2.5 hour journey, I reached the Capitol Hill. Even after seeing it a half-a-dozen times, I'm always inspired by this great Capitol (which houses the US Senate and House of Representatives), as it represents liberty, free speech and democracy of the world. I had a leisurely walk around it and 15 min, before the meeting (at 2.45pm), I decided to move in.

I was surprized to see the gaurds allow me to go in front of the long and winding queue to enter the Capitol Hill, just on showing the email invite. I had a 2min security check and within 5 min, I got my Official Business Visitor badge and entered the pillars of democracy without any hassles. It was full of people - visitors and legislators and businessmen coming there for various purposes. Though I got the wrong roomname from the committe (by mistake), I was well directed by the receptionist and within minutes I reached the small room on the corner - HC 8. I was welcomed by the Mr. Manoj, a senior official of USINPAC, who was surprized to see a person walking in Business Casuals. He pleasantly pointed to me that the important meeting required a highly formal attire and so I missed up a opportunity to personally meet with the senior officials. Still the experience of belonging to a 40 odd eminent audience, was great.

The meeting had some scintallating minor talks: Sec. Burns had a very great speech, where he beautifully pointed out the role played by India and put it in beautiful words: "If we are following double standards, so be it. If double standards means distinguishing India from Iran and North Korea, then are proud of those double standards... India had an exceptional track record and it is great to have such a member in our regime... Given the high quality of Indian engineers they could have tripled their arsenal in the last 20 years but they didnt do it and this shows their commitment towards non-proliferation".

Rep. Lantos (I followed most of his statements in the Press and got the impression he is quite a tough guy) was surprizingly old and he had some good words for India. At the same time, as he pointed out with his meeting with Shyam Saran (Indian foreign secretary) he was highly wary of India-Iran relationships and he didnt mince words in it. Many of the senators also joked about the Indian air pollution, water problems, poverty etc. and wanted to take action for it by offering US help. One Senator criticized India for allowing research on Biotechnology while preventing US based Monsanto and other companies to export seeds to India. Others also pointed out at the pollution caused due to low quality of Indian coal. Rep. Pallone who is very close to India, criticized Prez. Bush for not lobbying with the Congressmen and also requested Indian Americans to setup a permanent "War room" to be a central point for these discussions.

But, on the whole, everyone was in high praise of India. I was the happiest person on earth to have my country recognized so much. I was waiting for years to see India going so strong. I was glad that I'm also a small speck in the great deal of things happening to India. The happy feeling that I have now, is matched by only 2 other events of 2003 - long one-on-one meetings with the Indian President at his office on Feb 26 and Aug. 13, 2003 and the greatest research presentation that I've done, at IIT Kanpur (March 2, 2003).

The beauty of Computational Science

My main interest lies in Computational Science (after all, we dont call astronomy as telescopic science or chemistry as test-tube science, then why do we call the study of computation by the dry word called computer science. We are supposed to study computation and its scientific model and dont bother about the creation of the tool called computer). I'm a die-hard fan of it, ever since I had my first Computational science class in my 8th grade. I believe that one of the greatest human work after fire and wheel lies in the invention of this field. How could I make such a preposturous statement?

Computational Science fundamentally changed how we live, work and think. It brought a new world, a world that obeys more of Discrete Math than Physics. Once, we interface a physical world element into this Mathworld, we can do a whole lot of things. We can play with time, we can play with space and we can defy gravity and so many of the physical laws!!! We can test nuclear bombs, simulate flights, design machines.... everything in this Mathworld. Thus, humans have created a new world, in the process of creating Computational science. The process of moving from physcial world to Mathematical world is not well appreciated by most people. In fact, this non-realization itself is a success of Computational science.

I believe that there are only two fields of research now: 1. How to bring the real world into Mathematical world, which is the duty of physicsts, economists, engineers.... and 2. How to play in this Math world, which is the duty of Computational Scientists?

I've heard so many people say that Computational Science need not be learnt by methodical means, and they could study by attending some non-regular courses, by offering institutes. They believe that learning C or Java or software engineering makes one, a computer scientist.

If you know to hold a brush and put colors, can you paint like Da Vinci? If you know alphabets from A to Z, can you write something like the Shakespheare's Julius Caeser? If you can clean a telescope, can you immediately become an astronomer like Galileo? Then, how can you become a Computational Scientist, just by learning a language or coding an application. Computational Scientist is a way of thought, a feeling and a way of life. It lies in the beauty of Math and philosophy. It lies in the beauty of a state transition. It is as beautiful as theoratical physics, as action-packed as organic chemistry and as elegant as Mathematics.

It is an absolute pity that students of Computational Science are not taught the beauty of this great field. Instead of dwelling in the beauty of its state, logic and information and various organization theories, people are just taught a whole bunch of languages, a lot of systems, and worst, some packages. They tarnish the whole image of computer science.

I believe that the universities should separate the beautiful core Computational Science and name it as Computational Sciences and jealously guard it from Systems, engineering and Software sciences concepts. Let us hope to see one day, Computational Sciences taught to us.