Here is an interesting article in NY Times by Paul Krugman, well known economist and Nobel Laureate. In the article he compares the policies of USA and germany and their respective effects on job outlook in the recession.

He makes one interesting point. That the USA policy has no concrete measures for job protection. In a way that makes sense. In an ideal capitalist world, there would be no extra pressures from anyone for anything. It would just be free markets at work.

While the USA policymakers take pride in ‘not subsidizing’ anything, and cringe at even mention of socialism. It also makes sense. Socialism has been proven to be a failed model.

But does that mean there are no subsidies in USA?

As Paul K. argues in his article, the USA policy is directed towards GDP growth. And this has been tweaked so much over the years in this direction, by making lending and spending easy, that it looks like US government is subsidizing consumption.

If you subsidize production, directly or indirectly, then it helps keep people employed. If you subsidize consumption, then it increases demand. But does that really help in creating jobs? Certainly not as many. Because things can be imported.

Thus we have this big flow in the world economy right now from China to USA. One country subsidizes production by creating massive government owned companies, another subsidizes consumption by making lending easy and keeping interest rates artificially low.

And this might work to some extent when the inflation is in check. If inflation starts spiralling out of control, which in the near  future it likely could, you have lesser and lesser effect of your consumption subsidy.

Where will this end? Only time will tell. But most likely the picture at the end will not be pretty.

The youngest of the three Kennedy brothers, Ted Kennedy, passed away on 25th August 2009. At the time of his death, he was the second longest serving senator in USA. In his long career he played a monumental part in getting many legislation passed and perhaps left a stronger footprint on USA democracy than his older brothers.

The second oldest, Robert Kennedy, was victim of assassination in 1968. Both Ted Kennedy and Robert Kennedy are not that well known outside USA as compared to their eldest brother John F. Kennedy, for the obvious reason that they were not presidents. It is unfortunately not known to many people how much contribution Robert Kennedy has made as an Attorney General. The convictions against organized crimes, Mafia bosses were 800% up in during his term. Both Ted Kennedy and Robert Kennedy steadfastly championed Civil Rights movement as well.

Their eldest brother, John F. Kennedy was perhaps the most flamboyent president of USA. Even today the Kennedy years fascinate people in America. He was the first president who made look America beyond the celebration of WW-II victory by declaring the vision of manned space mission to moon.

All three brothers left their impression of USA politics. But their  father, Joe Kennedy played more interesting role. He was the main driving force behind the political careers of his sons. By hook and crook, he wanted his sons to get the top offices. He was certainly not a man of clean record. His name was often associated with Mafia (many of whom Robert Kennedy tried to prosecute decades later). History of John F Kennedy’s political campaign is littered with stories of under the table deals made by Joe Kennedy.

So how could corrupt father with underworld connections produce three sons who went on to become the torch-bearers of voice of American people? Additionally how could daughter of such a father , Eunice Kennedy-Shriver, go on to become the most respected champion of rights of disabled people? How did this shady evil to benevolent angel transition happen?

The rise of a person or family may begin in corruption, but in several cases their interests later get aligned with the interests of common people. When you get all the money by corruption, what you want is power. When you get the power you want using the money you have, your heart yearns for fame and glory. You feel a void that can be filled only by praise.

And your kids. You can make all the money you want by cheating the system. But if you want your kids to retain the money for their life, you need a functioning system to protect them.

Will this happen for any one of corrupt Indian politician families? Will Lalu yadav’s sons and daughters will pave the path for the next transformation in India? Gandhi family is already making headlines, but so far it is a lot more bark than bite. This is fourth or fifth generation of Gandhis in politics and but they certainly have not altered the course of Indian politics significantly so far. We have many many more such families and somewhere there perhaps lurks the potential ‘future father/mother of modern India’. In those corrupt and over-ambitious families we might be able to find our Kennedys. No matter how and where we find them, find them we must.

What is important is for all of us to stop the cynical cry of “All are corrupt and useless” and find second generation politicians whose stomach are filled and who are now looking for glory road. We have to stop making the basic mistake of looking at politics from “values and morals” perspective and look at it from “common interests , compromise and negotiations” perspective. If the good things come from bad (of previously bad) side, so be it.

A friend forwarded me this Newsweek article talking about how the evolving religious viewpoint in USA is looking kind of like Hinduism.

I always thought that Hinduism is more of Meta-religion, more of a framework where spiritual traditions evolve. Having multiple gods gives a sense of fragmented-ness, a sense of lack of coherence in spiritual beliefs. But at the same time it gives a tremendous ability to transform itself.

There is no single governing body for Hinduism. There is no indoctrination as such, where you go to a specific place on a specific day and you hear about what is right practice of Hinduism and what is not Hinduism. There is no conversion machine, no coordinated effort to take Hinduism to people and make them Hindu.

Being polythestic (that is the correct word for worshipping multiple gods) gives Hinduism a solid respect for diversity and tolerance for other religions. Because then one more religion or prophet is just one additional gods, which is not a problem at all. That’s why you will find Hindu people going to a durgah or church far more often than the other way round.

Also if you are not familiar, you may find it hard to believe but even the religious Hindus don’t regularly worship or pray to more one than one god. Mostly people find one of the few big gods, like Rama, Krishna, Shiva to whom they resonate to, or to whom their family has been praying.  There might be other idols in the house, but one god or goddess gets most of the attention. In a sense, they are practicing one-god worship. Just that their god does not make it necessary to eliminate other gods from the picture.

Was this diverse nature part of the vision of founding fathers of Hinduism? Again, I don’t think there were any founding fathers as such. The traditions, the philosophy and the rituals can be traced to ancient civilizations in India, but there is no defining moment that made Hinduism this way.

In many ways worshiping multiple gods satisfies more of a political need rather than spiritual need. It is likely that many many empires, gurus and prophets over the years fought and finally decided that since we cannot eliminate each other, let’s learn to live with each other, respect each other.

Modern world is going on strikingly similar path. It is slowly dawning to people that fighting is not worth the gains most of the times and that violence is a bird that always comes back home.

Even if people get converted to your religion, they can still screw you. So world is better off by being let others be themselves. My god is good and your god is good too.

So tomorrow people might be worshiping Jesus, Mohammad and Moses together. Not too far from worshiping Bramha, Vishnu and Mahesh. Just different names.

And, to me that looks a lot like Hinduism.

This is a really good story from ancient Hindu Mythology.

Long long ago, there were was a biggest and powerful empire on earth. The king of this empire was a great person, a great warrior, great wise man and great king the same time. He was revered by all. He was King Pralhad. He was so honored and revered that the king of kingdom of gods became jealous of him.

One day the god-king disguised as an old beggar and traveled to the earth. He stood at the doors of the palace on the morning of one very auspicious day of the year. Kings were expected to give generous donations to the needy people on that day. So when the king Pralhad came out of the palace he saw a big line of people waiting for donation. The disguised king of gods was the last one in the line.

When everyone else in the line got pretty much what they wanted and left, the king of gods was the only one left.

“O King, Will you give me what I want?” He asked King Pralhad.

“Yes.” Said Pralhad.

“I want a promise that you will forfeit all the good things you have.” Demanded the king of Gods.

King Pralhad realized that he was tricked. But he had given his word on auspicious day. So he could not back off now.

“So be it.” He said.

The king of gods smiled and walked away.

That night king Pralhad went to bed wondering what would happen to him now that he had given away all his good things. Thinking, he fell asleep.

He woke up with a sight of brilliant light. That light was coming out of his body. Slowly that light left his body and took a shape of a woman. She started going away.

“Wait. Who are you? And why are you leaving my body?” Asked Pralhad.

The beautiful and radiant woman turned around and looked at him.

“I am the goddess of wealth. Today you gave away all good things you have. Now I have to leave you.”

King Pralhad nodded and waved goodbye. Slowly going away, she disappeared.

Next morning King Pralhad found that a big fraud had occured and he had to give up all his wealth. He had to leave palace and gardens and move to a simple hut.

That night he saw another radiant woman leaving his body. Upon asking, she said she was goddess of power and she was leaving now. Pralhad thanked he for being with him so far and waved her goodbye. The next day King Pralhad was stripped off of his throne. Then later that night he dreamed the goddess of fame leaving him and then suddenly people forgot who he was and kicked him away from the city. He had to take refuge in the jungle. In the forthcoming days, the goddesses of health, the goddesss of luck and the goddess of knowledge left him. He asked those goddesses to be merciful to his kingdom and he let them all go.

A strong, wise and just king of a large emperor, within matter of days was left a destitute person , old and shaky, not able to recognize himself in the mirror. It was like all the worst possible calamities joined hands and attacked him.

Then one night, while Pralhad was sleeping under a tree in remote jungle, alone and hungry. He again he saw a brilliant glow coming out of his body and it morphed into the most beautiful goddess he had seen so far. Barely able to speak, he asked her who she was.

“I am the goddess of character. I am leaving you now, as you promised to give everything away.”

With much efforts, Pralhad got up.

“If you are the goddess of character, I don’t want you to go. Please stay with me.” He pleaded.

“But how can that be? You gave promise.”

“I was tricked. And if by keeping you I am breaking the promise, so be it. I will burn in hell for some time. But if I have you, if I have my character, I will know how to get out of the darkest hell.”  Pralhad argued.

The goddess was adamant on leaving. But Pralhad pleaded and prayed. He argued with her for seven days and nights. At last she agreed. She smiled and entered again in Pralhad’s heart on the dawn of eighth day.

Wary and tired he slept through the day. And when night came, he was awakened by a strong brilliant light again. He saw that it was goddess of knowledge.

“I am the daughter of goddesss of  character. I always like to stay with my mother.” She said and smiled and entered his body.

Then came the goddess of power. She said she was daughter of goddess of character too and wants to stay with her mother.

And then came the goddess of health. She said she was the daughter of goddess of knowledge and always likes to live by her mother. Then came the goddess of fame and glory.

One by one they all came, explained their relation to the goddess of character and entered the body of Pralhad.

Soon he got back his kingdom, his wealth, his power and he was emperor Pralhad again.

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Moral of the story: Those who will manage to retain their character in the bad times, will evantually  get everything back. If you have character, it’s only a matter of time.

The perpetual confusion in my mind about how this world works in general , what matters and what does not matter has just grown more intense after looking at the current swine flu panic spread worldwide.

The Times of India headline talks about spread of Swine flu in India. A few more fatalities were reported. Hundreds of new infections were reported as well.

There is no doubt that if a life can be saved, it should be saved. But I have a question. If a disease claiming a thousand lives worldwide gets so much attention, then how much attention a disease claiming one million lives per year, year after year, should get? And then why, in last 20 years, we have never seen a newspaper headline about Malaria?

Yes, Malaria claims far more lives (of order of million lives per year) than SARS, Swine Flu and most of these well publicized diseases combined. And it does consistently, year after year, decade after decade. Only difference is these lives lost are not located in developed or developing world. Many of them are poor children in Sub Saharan Africa and Asia.

I am not usually the one to cry conspiracy. But I cannot help wonder why the diseases that can be cured by vaccine are getting far more publicity? It would be foolish to claim that someone is purposely unleashing viruses. I am not saying that. But by raising the panic level, the big pharma companies stand to benefit hugely.

Forget whether the tree falling in remote jungle makes noise or not. Ask yourself another question. If a million children die in remote rural areas, and the death is not reported in any newspaper, then is it a news? If no one in modern world (this includes urban part of developing nations like India)  contacts the disease, then is it a epidemic?

I make sarcastic remarks about Britain and British people once in a while. I have some British friends and I never say things in front of them. But in typical Indian crowd, or crowd without British people, I have made such remarks.

Some time back, I was watching a detective serial on TV. There was a psychoprofiler who mentioned something about “perpetual victimization”.

Something clicked inside my head. The pattern of thoughts inside my head could be correctly described as perpetual victimization. I think of myself as a victim. I think my country as a victim. Several groups within India think themselves as victims of some other groups. Overall we think we Indians are victims of colonization. As a Hindu, I think Hindus have been persecuted in Muslim rules and thus therefore are victims. Non-Bramhins think that they are the victims of Bramhins.

And this victimization is endless.

Go to any online discussion forum and start talking about bad things in India and see how people get fired up. Forget anywhere else, even on this blog, there are some postings about Aryan Migration and many many readers seem to be of the opinion that linguistics and Aryan Migration theory is the product of mean and vicious plan of Max Mueller. And thus they suggest that Indian history is therefore a victim. May be Max Mueller was wrong. Why he has to be evil?

For a moment think of him as wrong instead of evil and your sting of discomfort will be much less.

It’s scary when the only thing that brings together is victimization. The vision of modern India should not be based on such victimization. It should not be based on the list of things that were denied to us. It should be solely based on our dreams. Bygone is bygone. We cannot change the past. But we can change the future.

From what seemed like centuries in blogosphere, today I suddenly had impulse to write again.

So the headline today is that USA and Russia decided to reduce their nuclear stockpiles. Both the powers still have enough firepower to burn down the entire globe several times over. So the world is not fully out of the shadow of nuclear annihilation possibility. Nonetheless reading news about reduction of nuclear weapons feels better than reading news about more weapons and missiles.

However the prospectus of the nuclear arms free world remain as dim as always. Let me allow to explain why. Just like the nuclear explosion is a chain reaction, nuclear proliferation is a chain reaction as well. Since USA had nuclear bomb, Russia and China got one. Since China had nuclear weapons, India got them. Since India had them, Pakistan felt it was necessary to have nuclear weapons.

If two nations have had some kind of serious animosity between them, and if one nation gets nuclear weapons, another nation feels utterly exposed without them and feels compelled to go nuclear. So we can be pretty much sure that this reaction will continue downstream.

If we ever have to achieve nuclear disarmament, someone has to come up with a foolproof defense to nuclear attack, that will reduce the value of nuclear weapons as strategic counter-measure to nuclear attack. Or someone has to come up with an attack as harmful as nuclear one.

Biological weapons immediately come to mind. And they can be far more dangerous.

Without these two, there is no hope for nuclear free world. Tomorrow, even if USA drops all the N weapons it has, still Russia might decide to keep them. So the reverse of the proliferation  might not be a chain reaction.

On my recent trip to India, I visited a police station. I had heard about Mohalla Committee and I wanted to find out more about it. The information I got was truly eye opening.

Mohalla Committee concept was a brainchild of police officer Mr. Khopade, who first-hand witnessed the Hindu Muslim riots in Bhivandi. He witnessed how rumors spread, how people with malicious self-interest took advantage of the situation, how the communities segregated and how it all evantually lead to complete breakdown of law and order.

And then he came up with an excellent idea. Mohalla Committee. A group of citizen closely working with cops on continuous basis.

This group meets regularly, every month or so. The main emphasis is on proactive activities to diffuse tension and keep communication. This helps reduce rumors spreading. This prevents people with vested interests from taking advantage of the situation. Since the establishment of Mohalla Committee, the Hindu Muslim tension in Bhivandi has reduced considerably.

Today Mohalla Committees exist all over Mumbai. These groups meet regularly with local police. They keep track of crime statistics. They keep track of local miscreants. They have a record of emergency services in the area, doctors, hospitals, ambulances. They organize joint petrols in the sensitive areas.

What I find most interesting is how a instution, Police in this case, has become more proactive, more connected, and as a result a lot more effective in solving the problems of the community.

Some time back, I was discussion object oriented programming with a friend of mine and we were talking about importance of Interfaces. He explained me how if the interfaces are not designed properly, evantually it results in the whole system becoming dysfunctional.

What we have here is an excellent example of rebuilding interface of an institution. The regular interface for interaction of police and citizen was police station. This interface was extremely insufficient and narrow. Problems like communal riots could never be effectively addressed by this interface.

So Mr. Khopade created a new interface, Mohalla Committee. With help of this inteface, police could spot potential flash points a lot earlier. They had people from community on their side and as a result they now had wide array of tactics available to them that was not available before. This resulted in vast improvement in effectiveness of an object called police station.

Perhaps it’s time for all of us to re-engineer our institutions like this. Take a dysfunctional system, brain storm over what’s the failure and come up with a new interface to address the shortcoming. The solution may require a social system like Mohalla Committee or it may require a technological solution like sending SMS warning of flooding.

So if the garbage in the area is not being picked up, form a mohalla committee with municipality officials, investigate what is the real problem, take continuous and proactive action to see to it that the problem is either solved or minimized enough to become tolerable.

In short term, it should be focused on problems. In long term it will lead to rethinking of institution, its purpose, its capabilities and resources and its realistic goals (not value based assesments of what should ideally happen).

To begin with we have to start assessing our real failures. We have to acknowledge that we have failed to create effective instutions at several places.

We must stop playing the blame game and understand that several best players can come together and can form a bad team. A team where the players strengths and weaknesses don’t complement each other. Instead coming together as a team undermines their strengths and amplifies their weaknesses. We are a team where individual Indian is not less intelligent than individual American or Chinese person. But one billion Indians, together as a country, still fall behind America or China. We need to stop improving the players and start improving the team.

Is a country of millions of software engineers upto this challenge of system redesign? For sure, Mr. Khopade has shown that it can be done.

Now assume that the story took a slightly different turn in the middle. The prosperity of three fishermen and the weaver continued. Then a fourth person came to the village. He was good at teaching kids. So he told the fishermen, why don’t you give me some fish and I will teach your kids. They agree. Soon another person comes who has a freezer so fish stay good for longer time.

All wanted to help each other and get help in return, but it became difficult to do the transactions using fish. So the weaver came out with a different idea. He showed all of them one particular rare to get sea shells which only he knew where to get. He said “You guys just give each other these shells. If you ever need fish, just come to me with shells and I will give you fish in return for shells. I will give you two fish for each shell.”

Now all happy again, on their way. Soon more people come and more businesses take off. People needed more shells. Initially the weaver was hesitant to just give out shells for transaction. Because if everybody one day turned up for claiming their fish in return of shell, he would not have enough fish. But people losing business opportunities for the lack of shells. So he came up with an idea. He sent everyone a letter with a bunch of nice words but at the bottom, in small letters he wrote “Now on you will get only one fish for one shell instead of two.”

But people were using shells mostly for schools, medicine, etc. (i.e. the service industry). So they did not notice that they are getting less fish for their shells. In fact now more shells were in circulation and people were able to do more stuff. So they did not complain.

Even then the demand for shells outstripped the supply. So the weaver issues another notice saying that no fish will be issued if you go to him with shells. Also because he could not find shells, he started issuing picture of the shells.

People came up with lots of things they could sell. People came up with lots of things they could buy. People came up with all kinds of games to put in some shells and get more shells. Two things they never doubted. One – if they have enough shells, somehow they can always convert them to the things they want. Two – if they loaned shells to someone, somehow they will always get back more shells in future.

One fine day, one person did not return the shells , or pictures of shells, he/she borrowed. So the person from whom they were borrowed got scared and stopped loaning his shells. These two persons were big enough for everyone to notice. When people saw them failing, everyone got scared.

And people just stopped trusting each other and doing stuff that was in common mutual interest. Everyone tried to cover their own ass first even if it meant paying heavy premium. Going back to the fishermen, they noticed that the man they rented nets from did not really have nets to cater everyone if everyone showed at the same time. So each fisherman kept the net for longer and longer even if it was idle and even if it meant paying more rent for the net.

Thus resources were being used extremely poor way and wealth was being destroyed in paying risk premium on each person’s part. Eventually all that was built on assumption that others can be easily trusted, failed and all that was left was three fishermen with two nets.

Every business transaction is banking transaction. Every party in the transaction plays two person prisoner dilemma game. Sometimes the prisoners agree together not to confess and walk out of jail early. Sometimes the prisoners screw each other,  assuming the other person will not co-operate.

So when people trust each other blindly, they come together to loot nature, as the amount of natural resources becomes the constraint to grow. When people lose that trust, the trust itself becomes costly commodity and increases prices of everything else.

So a couple of days back, I sat down for meditation. Not for religious reasons, just to make my mind a bit quiet. And here is a realization I had that I would like to share.

I was laying in chair, relaxed, focusing on my breath. My brain was busy creating pictures and images in front of my eyes. Time to time I was realizing that I am not focusing on my breath any more and I would again try to focus. But soon again the train of thoughts began rushing in my head.

Have you noticed how the thoughts are always related? Like one thought has something to do with the next one? And for some reason every attempt of me taking my attention back to my breath was creating a new chain of thoughts that somehow had to do with me dragging my attention and trying to focus on my breath.

Then suddenly I realized one thing. It was my mind that was making something out of a meaningless, consequence-less, monotonous, repetitive,  simple activity like breathing. It was my mind that was cooking up thoughts and emotions from where there were none. The thoughts seemingly came out of nowhere, but somehow my mind tricked me in believing that they have something to do with breathing.

I opened my eyes and looked around. Then , for a short moment, I realized what all the Zen fuss of emptiness is all about. All the shapes and forms around me, the chair, the table, the computer on table, the window panes and the trees outside, existed in a world devoid of any significance. It was in my mind they had relations with each other and had consequences and had purpose and attributes and good/bad characteristics. By themselves, they were just that, shapes and forms. silent ,peaceful and in harmony.

It was like two parallel universes. One in which all these things existed. And one in which my mind made up a story using these objects.

By themselves they were empty. Mind filled them up with meaning.