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.

Vegetarianism

Taken from http://www.indiblog.com/119/vegetarian-terrorism/

Excellend read it:
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The following article was published in chicken’s digest monthly – May 40016 AD.

Author: Golden Chick.

Chicken population is getting fed up by the activities of CETH (Chicken’s for ethical treatment of humans). Yesterday they vandalized a restaurant of KFH(Kentucky fried humans) protesting against alleged ill treatment of humans in slaughter houses. Before a couple of months they ransacked research labs of chicken & chicken medical co protesting against scientific experiments being conducted on guinea humans.

This inchicken behavior failed to draw enough public attention. Thus these vegetarian terrorists gain confidence and are encouraged to do more such humanely acts. The meat industry and scientific community are suffering huge losses because of these veggie terrorists.

They spread a lie that humans are ill treated in slaughter houses. It’s true that men are castrated without sedatives in slaughter houses, but I would like to point out that this is perfectly legal. Further these veggie terrorists forget that earlier humans castrated bulls in slaughter houses without sedatives. Actually every act of alleged cruelty pointed out by CETH terrorists were all earlier done on animals by humans.

CETH argues against de teething of humans in slaughter houses. But if human teeth aren’t removed these dumb witted humans will kill each other by biting. Space is a luxury in slaughter houses with each human getting 1 square feet of space, so they keep on fighting. Top avoid damage to human flesh, we de teeth them. And no we cannot administer sedatives while de teething. If we administer them meat prices will shoot up by 20%. Further, humans de-beaked chickens without sedatives in the past, so why should we care now?

CETH points out that stunning is ineffective. They say that as a result humans are killed with consciousness and at times are skinned alive and with consciousness. But I would like to point out that the meat industry has reduced this number to a large extent. Earlier around 10% of humans were skinned alive, but now that number has dropped down to 2%. Now let me describe this process and the precautions taken by our industry.

Shackling

During shackling, humans are hung upside-down by their legs on a line of shackles moving fast—approximately 182 humans per minute. Leg deformities and other injuries typical of large broilers may exacerbate the pain as their sensitive periostea are pinched and compressed by the metal shackles. After shackling, 3 percent of humans will have broken bones and 4.5 percent had dislocations. But this is immaterial since they will be slaughtered within an hour of shackling. If the industry tries to reduce shackling speed, then our production time will be drastically reduced.

Stunning and Temporary Immobilization

After dumping and shackling, humans proceed to the stunning area, where they are passed through an electrically charged water bath before having their throats cut. “Humane slaughter,” as defined by law for most species in many developed countries, requires that humans be rendered unconscious and, thus, insensible to pain prior to slaughter. But it is almost impossible to ensure that every human is rendered unconscious because the varied nature of the species hinders the effectiveness of the electrical settings. Doing so would increase our costs by many folds. As a result around 3% of humans escape stunning.

Throat-Cutting

After being stunned—or rather, temporarily immobilized or even entirely conscious after completely missing the stun bath due to avoidance behavior—humans are conveyed toward an automated spinning blade, commonly referred to as the “killing machine,” which is designed to cut their necks. Some conscious humans are able to avoid this blade, as well, by lifting their heads or flapping their sides. Many humans dodge the knives, some completely, some partially, because they are not fully stunned.

Scalding

Humans are dipped into the scald tank, which contains scalding hot water, to facilitate skin removal. It’s true that sentient humans are, indeed, sometimes scalded. Red-skin human carcasses, commonly found when electrical stunning methods have been used, are caused by a physiological response to heat when live humans enter a scald tank. But I would assure you that this number is very low, just 3.7 million humans per year which shows that our plants operate at 97% efficiency levels.

From the above said arguments it would be clear that CETH is exaggerating the activities done in slaughter houses. I would like to point out that chicken gospel says that humans were created for the well being of chickens. Everything was created for chickens and thus religion doesn’t prevent eating human meat. Further from a biological stand point it will be clear that chickens have sharp beaks to tear of human flesh. Chicken Godcreated chickens as carnivorous beings and thus its unnatural for chickens to become herbivorous.Veggie chickens lack essential nutrients and thus lead an unhealthy life style.

Hence I would request government and public to stop the atrocities of CETH and save the meat industry from these vegetarian terrorists.

Triple Talaq - Should it be there in civilized societies

A man in his sleep had bad dreams, called out the words "Talaq, Talaq, Talaq". What's so special about it? After all, we all have talked something or the other in sleep, at some point of time. But, can you imagine that this caused him to break up his happy family life and he is forced to go out of 11 year married life, when has a happy wife. Confused at Insanity? Welcome to the stupid practice of Triple Talaq.

Islamic religion has this practice of triple talaq (utter the word talaq three times to your spouse and you are divorced) and it is as draconian as it is insane. It is reported to have been out of Quaran but still a part of Sharia law. So, if any Muslim utters these to his wife, he is divorced and cant live with her. They are separated and unless they marry someone else and live with them for "atleast one night" and then use the same triple talaq to divorce them and remarry with the original spouse. Whow!!! I never imagined such insane practices exist still in 21st century.

So, in this case this guy told these words accidentally in his sleep and his wife by chance heard it and casually spoke about this funny incident to her friends. The Islamic clerics knew it and bam... they are to be separated. In an older case, a couple acting in a movie uttered these words as part of the movie dialogue and they were separated in real life!!!!! In many cases, it also puts women in bad state as a weak wife can be readily divorced by a husband, just by uttering three words.

The craziest thing is such laws are also enforced in the so-called secular India. Indian polity who want to seem secular practice such stupid practices of having separate laws for each religion.

When will India ever obtain true Independence (against ignorance, bigortory, chauvinism, racialism, discrimination, inequality)

References:
Sleep talking man loses Wife
What is Triple Talaq?
Ban Tiple Talaq

Murder of IIT & IIM

Indian government is taking a great initiative of murdering the two of the golden goose that India is really proud of - IIM & IIT. The weapon to be used is the same used every where else that made India the most poor nation - RESERVATION. Yes, Indian government announces to implement that draconian MANDAL COMMISSION recommendation for the IITs & IIMs. See the insane Indian minister's announcement here.

A small background to this stupid principle... Indian society had a system called caste, that divided the society based on the type of labor. Expectedly, some type of labor was considered better than others and so the division of labor became a tool of inequality. As the society progressed through thousands of years of evolution and attacks, some practices became hardened and the principles that backed the practices vanished. In this case, the caste system became worse enough to prevent social ability and people were decided by birth, on what type of occupation they can perform. It was terribly unfair and social thinkers sought out to remove the stale practices resulted out of this bad principle. So, there were attempts to bridge this unfair treatment. So far so good.

But, what happened after Independence was that there was policy to reserve specific proportion of seats in academic institutions for these backward sections of the society. This is equally unfair, as people are getting punished for bad practices that their ancestors committed. And, as caste groups got stronger they demanded similar lower caste treatment for them and in many states almost 70% of seats are reserved for lower castes, leaving very little for competition. This killed competition, innovation and motivation. India sunk to more and more levels and finally by 1991, it became a begger nation on the verge of bankruptcy. Politicians benefited from provoking social sentiments and the small group of creamy intellectuals were sided and by naming them forward castes, they were denied of places in academic institutions and jobs. Since, they were small they didnt have the muscle power to counter the reservationist Hitlers. Bloodshed happend in society in the form of poverty and the lucky few escaped abroad.

By great luck, India started to embrace globalisation since 1990's which unexpectedly countered this horrible practice a bit. By bringing in more jobs and insitutions, even people of forward castes could progress and within a decade this suppressed group progressed really well and given the low reservation in the national elite insitutions, IIT and IIMs prospered and India became a great growing nation. But, the government now tries to stamp on the very heart of the system that brought India out of its shabby past. India's elite acadmic institutions and private corporations, who arteried this great revolution by mitigating reservation, are under target. They are to be forced into reservation. The cruel tools that killed India in the first 44 years of its deadly past are to be used again.

In principle, the scenario is similar to the one in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" (IF you have not read that book, you are seriously missing something in life). There are some group of hard working innovators who built this nation and the remaining are a large majority of leechers who want to lick their hard-earned efforts. The successes of innovators are going to be used as weapons against them. India's elite who built majority of the great nation we see today, are going to be punished, penalized by a group of politicians who believe that they want a share of the prosperity that these elites have rightfully earned.

If you see the problem clearly, you can see the solution: SHRUG. If the nation ever repeats this gory practice of reservation, it is the duty of its great elites to give up this nation. Get out of it and dont be a part of its work. If all the great elites of IIT get out of it, then the government will see that all this institution has is walls and lawns. They can bring all the castes they want and they can shred every grass in it. Let the govt. know who is responsible for bringing up the growth of these insitutions. When, the nation sinks to the deadly state when all the elites leave it, then they will see what the remaining people are worth and let the remaining people know what they are worth. They wont face any discrimination, rigorous competition and there wont be any 'forward caste' person to take away their jobs. Then, they will know what brought them down - it is not the discrimination of the forward castes, but it is their mindsets. Till they realize the worth of the elites, they will never realize the truth. Indian polity requires harsh treatments.

No man can be ensalvened without his consent. There can be no discrimination against a person who doesnt feel inferior. When people talk of discrimination let them remember these lines.

If the Indian polity doesnt realize the truth, we should prepare for the ultimate thing: SHRUG all responsibilities for our nation, and form a new free society.