Its "Towel Day"

Its Towel Day today. Why Towel Day? Well, if you dont yet know about the Holy Remarkable Book - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, this is what the book has to say on the topic of Towels:

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of akrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-and-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid nimal, it ssumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough

So take a towel and wrap it around your head. Then listen to this Song and have a good day!

Song written by Joby Talbot for the soundtrack of the movie The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, dedicated to Douglas Adams who breathed his last on 11 May 2001. A dolphin animation of the song here.

For the uninitiated, Douglas Adams' birthday is celebrated as Towel Day across the world. The man has left enough sarcacsm in the world to laugh about things. Towel Day is one I suppose. Read more on why Towel day here. He is one of those english men the whole world loves. I mean given the history of the British, it is tough to find such "English" men, you know!

PS: Yours truly is a little busy and thus has temporarily disabled the "Interesting Post of the Week" thread. Thread to be restarted very soon!

Corretion: The song is not written by Garth Jennings as I wrote previously but by Joby Talbot. He wrote the original soundtrack for the movie.

मेरा भारत महान हैं या महान था?

I used scream out in my childhood at every possibility that "Mera Bharath Mahan" (My India is Great). Today, when I am left to lament each and every day about the plight of various communities, especially hindus, I am but ashamed about my country and myself. My country because this is not the nation I thought India was. Myself because I am unable to do anything about it! My country is such a tolerant country that it likes to spend loads on minorities by depriving majority community of its righteous share. Reservations were opposed by a majority of people in the country but the government of India turned a deaf ear to their grievances just to appease minorities and secure their votes.

My country had given to this world greatest ever heritage in the world - the vedas. I am eligible brahmin to learn vedas. But I dont because my learning vedas dont feed me! What a pity! I look at my brothers and sisters around me and find that they being minority have been enjoying all the various provisions from the government of India which I dont and I wont, if thing go the same way! For example, all Muslims get aid from Govt of India to go to mecca every year! I was never helped by my Govt of India to go to any pilgrim center in India, leave alone in other countries!

They said Babri Masjid is a historical mistake and thus cant be corrected now in favour of you, the hindus. I was dissappointed but said "ok, there are still many other Ram temples around the country". They said, the existence of Ram is questionable. I was left dumbstruck. I still said "ok, i believe doesnt mean everybody should!". They said since existence of Ram is questionable, thus the Ramsethu might not have been built by Ram but it might be just another formation in ocean. So, we can destroy it for trade reasons. I was frustrated and cried for justice. They said "wait for justice". I am still waiting! I thought atleast I am still an Indian. Then they said that we want to sell the nation's sovereignty to another country called USA so that we can get power to serve six percent of our electricity needs by the year 2012. I shouted injustice. They still went ahead.

My friend Pavan Kumar tells me about Shree Sharada Peeth in Pakisthan. This is just one of the temples I cant even dream to visit because of the psuedo-secular government of india. If I strike back with force and bring down Babri Masjid, they say I am not secular. If I say, then grant me permissions and make provisions for me to visit hindu pilgrim centers, atleast few of them, they say they wont because this is against secularism. If I question this, I am called a fundamentalist.

I go to hindu pilgrim centers on my own expenses. I visit the places and contribute whatever I can in the form of money or other ways to keep the pilgrim centers active and healthy. The government sees a cash cow in these pilgrim centers. So, they take control of the temple boards and churn money. This doesnt stop here. They use the money thus got for developing pilgrim centers for minorities. What a sham the Govt of Andhra Pradesh is that it could steep to such lows that they dare say that out of 7 sacred hills in Tirupathi, only 2 belong to the Temple Board! And yet, both the government of state of Andhra Pradesh and the government of India get to see a renewed mandate. Bharat in the avatar of India has failed to hold my religious interests intact. Would there be a turn around in the state of affairs? मेरा भारत महान था या हैं?

PS: Who ever brought the phrase "Mera Bharat Mahan" into prominent use is a genious. He left the tense of the phrase open. I heard that it was Nehru who first used this phrase. Could be, and you know why he could be!

A Dose of Patriotism

I remember singing a lot of patriotic songs for republic and independence day during school days. Listening to some of them and singing some of them with swelled chest, I used to feel proud of maa bharati. However, as I moved into my mid-teens, I started to understand that the picture is not as rosy as the patriotic songs seem to have pictured. Anyhow, one thing I observed is that these patriotic songs revitalize ones energy to work hard for the nation even in the face of failure.
Recently, I was watching Chanakya (thanks to Pavan for providing the episodes). In one episode, after Ambhi signs a pact with Alaxander that he would help the Greece in their war campaign for world supremacy if he is made the king of the whole of Bharat the people of Takshasila are shocked. During this period, Chanakya was on a mission to get all the soverign states of Bharat under one roof to fight Alaxander and the Greek invaders. Chandrgupta, Chankya's student and a staunch nationalist is ordered by Chanakya to stay put inside the Takshasila Gurukul premises. Even though Chandragupta tries to get out of Gurukul to fight Alaxander, Chankya's other students, acting upon his orders, stop Chandragupta. A disappointed, agitated and sad Chandragupta is then portrayed to have sung the song "Hum Kare Rastra Aaradhan".

This song fills ones heart with great pride and love to the motherland. The song is so generic in nature, that it can be applied to any nation and any citizen. Every word is placed in this song in such a way that it gets right away embedded into the minds and hearts of the listeners. No wonder, this song is one of the favourites in various circles of RSS as well other unapologetic and patriotic organizations in the country. Written by Jayshankar Prasad ji, a pioneer of Chayyavadi (neo-romanticism) hindi poetry, this song is truly high quality stuff. It is sad that today's bollywood lacks poets who can weave a mala of words which get embedded into the heart and mind and bring a smile on the face!

You can download the song from here. There is also a video of the song on google videos from the series Chanakya.

Complete text in Hindi

हम करें राष्ट आराधन

तन से मन से धन से

तन मन धन जीवनसे

हम करें राष्ट आराधना………………।।…धृ

अन्तर से मुख से कृती से

निश्र्चल हो निर्मल मति से

श्रध्धा से मस्तक नत से

हम करें राष्ट अभिवादन…………………। १

अपने हंसते शैशव से

अपने खिलते यौवन से

प्रौढता पूर्ण जीवन से

हम करें राष्ट का अर्चन……………………।२

अपने अतीत को पढकर अपना

ईतिहास उलटकर

अपना भवितव्य समझकर

हम करें राष्ट का चिंतन…।………………।३

है याद हमें युग युग की

जलती अनेक घटनायें

जो मां के सेवा पथ पर

आई बनकर विपदायें

हमने अभिषेक किया था

जननी का अरिशोणित से

हमने शृंगार किया था

माता का अरिमुंडो से
हमने ही ऊसे दिया था

सांस्कृतिक उच्च सिंहासन

मां जिस पर बैठी सुख से

करती थी जग का शासन

अब काल चक्र की गति से

वह टूट गया सिंहासन

अपना तन मन धन देकर

हम करें पुन: संस्थापन………………।४

Count the beat - 1

Even as the state government of Andhra Pradesh and Government of India are getting ready to rule the next term of 5 years, Hyderabad was shocked by a terror attack.

Unidentified gunmen fired shots at a police picket in old city killing a home guard and critically injuring another constable in Falaknuma, barely 200 yards from the police station, on the second anniversary of the bomb blast in Mecca Masjid, on Monday.

Yes the count begins. The unidentified attackers had the audacity to attack the constables in broad day light and walk away calmly. The citizens of faluknama were shocked as this report mentions.

With the Mumbai terror attack and subsequent attack on policemen at IS Sadan in Santoshnagar fresh in their minds, the latest incident of terror suspects spraying bullets on policemen has left people scared. Anxious employees rushed home early or stayed back in offices till the late hours once the news broke out.

Anxious parents called up their children inquiring their whereabouts and employees got busy with their SMSes to alert their near and dear ones. “My parents asked me to return home early after they heard about the incident. They were worried a lot after seeing visuals on the news channels,” said a civil contractor M. Madhubabu of Lal Darwaza in old city.

I say there is no need to be surprised. These butchers are not going to stop unless the government shows the guts to bring in tougher laws to stop them. But then, I am sure they wouldnt because tougher terror laws are not secular. Yet we give an extended mandate to the government on India and even to the state government of Andhra Pradesh. Lets be sure of one thing. We cant have congress leading us and we cant have security. It is either of the two or neither of the two.

You aint seen nothing yet. There was a time when general public in Hyderabad were afraid to even use city bus service to commute to work. This government is still stoned after the unbelievably strong verdict from the people and I am sure they would let this pass but this is just a start. Lest we forget this is attack number 1.

Let us get ready for the upcoming ones. Keep a watch on everything around you because this government wont keep a watch on anything. We have elected a government which had no conviction in dealing with terror. We have no right to be surprised if they continue to be dumb about checking terrorism. Be vigiliant citizens, the (arithmetic? harmonic? geometric?) progression of attacks is coming our way.

Set Back

UPA is clearly going to form the next government. NDA has lost it. Where did it go wrong? There would be lot of analyses from differnet quarters of the media and bloggers too in the coming few days. In my personal view point, India is going to face a tough 5 years ahead.

BJP needs to make inroads into AP, TN to dodge the set backs in states like UP and Rajasthan. In this election, BJP had set backs in both these states where BJP simply didnt garner enough votes. The vote shares are not yet clear. This would show how far BJP could push itself in all these states. In MP, BJP was down 10 since last time. These kind of setbacks cant be dodged if BJP is not present all over the country.

All I can think of now is to get ready for 5 years of mis-rule. The question that come up in my mind

Would there be more terror attacks like we had in the last 5 years? 

Would there be more statements like "muslims have first right on all resources of the country"?

Would there be more mis-use of tax payer money like what CAG had asked about last year?"

The answer seems to be, unfortunately, "Yes".

Secular Blah

This surely has to be the Quote of the General Election 2009. The Strong PM of the country, Mr. Manmohan Singh commented on Nitish Kumar's handshake with Narendra Modi. Nitish Kumar responded:

“He should stop behaving like the vice-chancellor of the university of secularism. If somebody extends a hand to shake what would you do? It is a matter of common courtesy. I have proved my credentials through my work”

Update: Around about 2 hours before I posted this, B.Shantanu posted something similar on his blog quoting the same Pioneer article as I have linked in this post. I hope I havent infringed any copyrights :)

Is Software Secular?

I have always had this notion that Computer Software is just binary bits. You know, ones and zeros aligned in a particular way to do a particular task on an array of well organized transistors. But it turns out that it is not so. It seems like software is now going to be religion based.

I have heard of Linux in various languages. Ubuntu provides linux open and free in various languages including Hindi, Gujarati, English, Polish, Russian, Hebrew and many others. But it seems someone online is providing Ubuntu Muslim Edition.

Lets look at the phrase for a moment. Ubuntu Musim Edition? Musim Edition? Are you kidding me? Does Software have a religion, damn it? It is a stream of ones and zeros you fools. Just because you load a software which generates verses from Quran doesnt make it Islamic Software!! 

If you want to really attract Muslims, call it Ubuntu Arabic Edition. Why Ubuntu Muslim Edition? Linux for Muslims? Unfortunately, Ubuntu community always talks about Ubuntu as Linux for Humanity. This Ubuntu seems to be not for humanity but for muslims. Great!

Is this a silent support to the terrorist organizations which need software to for online wired banking transactions? We can never be sure. This is one problem with OSS. Any one can download it, modify to suite ones own needs. Thus you never who is using it for what! I hope OSS movement is not hindered by such vested and perverted interests!

I am however sure of one thing though. The great secular republic of India will embrace this software calling it the best model of secular software in the world. I mean if computers are installed across the country in various schools and colleges, our secular leaders would protest that there should be Ubuntu Muslim Edition installed in Mulim dominated areas. Yeah, thanks to the secular fabric of the nation.

Over Head Transmission

When I read this on Varnam, I reached here. Then when I read some other posts on Rahul Siddharathan's blog, of which I understood very little, a question came up in my mind

What is computational lingusitics?

This question led me here. From here, I came to know that one of the fields of research in computational lingusitics is Computational Complexity. This led me to theory of computation, which is ofcourse the background of all the computer science problem modeling. So I read a little bit about this.

I knew from some general reading and discussions with my friends that P and NP classes in computational theory meant Polynomial time complexity and Nondeterministic Polynomial time complexity respectively but never got any clear understanding of Theory of Computation. This raised the question:

What is Computational Complexity anyway?

So went back to Computational Complexity page on wikipedia. I read a little and got a little idea but I decided that I would need to really take up some books on theory of computation to understand in a better way. However, the point of this post is different.

While reading about Computational Complexity, I also read about AKS primality test. AKS Primality Test is today a very important algorithm in Computational Complexity branch of Theory of Computation.

For the un-initiated, AKS Primality test is the algorithm announced by Dr. Manindra Aggarwal, Neeraj Kayal and Nitin Saxena in the year 2002. The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK) computer scientists developed this algorithm whose computational time complexity is defined by an "unconditional deterministic polynomial". Till they wrote this paper, no one knew an algorithm that could work out and tell you if an integer n is Prime, in deterministic amount of time.

This algorithm can tell you if given an integer 'n' is a prime number or not in O(log^(21/2)n) of computational time.

I read in newspapers in 2002 about these guys but never gave a thought about what they had achieved. AKS primality test was a path breaking observation. Lot of people improvised on it later but it was historic paper in the field of Mathematics. The algorithm is today used in scores of applications including crypotgraphic applications which help you safely transfer money from your bank account to your father's account back in your home town.

I cant comment on the paper, given my wafer thin knowledge of theory of computation and computational complexity. When I downloaded it from here and went through it, I was looking my computer with a dropped jaw "ఏంటో ఏమి అర్ధం అవటం లేదు!". I remember using the phrase "Over Head Transmission" during some lectures/reading sessions in Bachelors study especially when studying about Electro magnetics and Aantenna design but I truly understood what OHT is today after reading this paper!

Intersting Post of the Week - 6

This week's most interesting post comes from Padma Sree Iravatam Mahadevan on The Hindu Magazine dated Sunday, 3rd may 2009. The article titled "The Indus non-script is a non-issue" concentrates on the recent findings of a team of scientists from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and the Indus Research Centre of the Roja Muthiah Research Library (both at Chennai), and backed by a team from the University of Washington at Seattle. JK on Varnam had discussed the findings in brief. These finding were challenged by historians interested in Indus Valley civilization. Michael Witzel and Steve Farmer vehemently disagreed with the findings. Mr. Mahadevan in this article tries to prove that Indus Valley Civilization was infact literate with well defined script and that also it is pre-aryan. This article deserves a rigorous study by those interested in the history of civilization of India.

First, briefly about Iravatham Mahadevan. The Hindu in the same article:

Iravatham Mahadevan is a well-known authority on the Indus and Brahmi scripts. He is the author of The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables (1977) and
Early Tamil Epigraphy (2003).

From wikipedia, we get to know of a littel more about Mr. Mahadevan. Harappa dot com quotes this about Mr.Mahadevan

A Tamil speaker, he has used historical linguistics and statistical studies to examine the Dravidian components in Vedic Sanskrit, and how these might point to interpretations of the Indus Valley script. Known for his breakthrough decipherments of the earliest Tamil Brahmi writing, his thoughts on the relationship between ancient Indus writing and Brahmi writing bear weight. A longtime civil servant, he used a fellowship opportunity to put together the first script concordance of Indian seals in 1970.

The article goes at first into some history of how the 2004 paper in Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 11: 2, 2004 titled "The collapse of the Indus script thesis: the myth of a literate Harappan civilization" by Richard Sproat of Oregon Health and Sciences University, Portland and Michael Witzel of Harvard University. Pavan of Dont Panic shared, via e-mail, this huge document* which has a series of articles written by Michael Witzel, N.S.Rajaram, David Frawley and others discussing about Indus Valley Civlization and Harrappa Civilization with Vedas as the backgroud. This document would serve as a good started to see how the world historians look at History of India.

Mr.Mahadevan in his article tries to point out his personal perspectives about how the archealogical, lingustic evidence is good enough to believe that indus was not illiterate. However towards the end of the article, Mr. Mahadevan explains why he thinks Indus Valley Civlization was non-aryan and pre-aryan.

• The Indus civilisation was urban, while the Vedic was rural and pastoral.

• The Indus seals depict many animals, but not the horse. The chariot with the spoked wheels is also not depicted. The horse and chariot with the spoked wheels are the main features of Aryan-speaking societies. (For the best and most recent account, refer to David W. Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel and Language, Princeton, 2007).

• The Indus religion as revealed in the pictorial depictions on the seals included worship of buffalo-horned male gods, mother-goddesses, the pipal tree, the serpent, and probably the phallic symbol. Such modes of worship are alien to the religion of the Rigveda.

He then gives a linguistic account of why Indus Valley Civlization might be Dravidian. After reading these article, many questions pop up in my mind.

If Indus Valley Civilization was not literate, how did they administer well planned cities like Mohenjo-daro. Without a proper mechanism for written communication, would this have been possible? If we do believe that Indus Valley Civlization was Dravidian as Mr. Mahadevan points out, would it have been that Aryan Invasion Theory, which has been questioned and many theses prove it wrong, is infact true? If Aryan Invasion Theory were also to be false, then would it be true that Sukracharya's descendants moved towards Iran, as has been mentioned here,

The fact that the Devasur conflict was among two sections of Aryan kings and ages(Rushis) out of which one section was worshiping divinity under the name of eva and the other section worshiping divinity under the name of Asur. Ushanas shukra along with the petty king Vrushparvan, was the presepter of the section worshiping divinity under the name of Asur. These difference were aggravated in
such a magnitude that at a later period his descendants and followers had to leave saptasindhu and settle elsewhere, probably in Iran. The priests of ahur worshiping sect of ahur Mazda of Iran are called atharvan.

moved towards Iran from North after some difference in opinion with Brihaspati. May be that is the reason why traces of dravidian language were found in Afghanistan, Iran and Brahui regions and might it be that Sukracharya and his followers were the originators of Dravidian civlization as a protest against the other sages or may be they simply wanted to establish a seperate branch? It is certain that Sukracharya was in Kerala for some time if one looks at Asura King Bali's story and Vamana avatara of Sri Maha Vishnu. A lot of questions! We can only wait and watch to see the untouched secrets unravel as further studies continue.

*Many thanks to Pavan for sharing a wonderful document with me. It is a very pleasent coincidence that just weeks after I started reading this document, the paper on Indus Script got published and the consequent train of events happened.