About Coding and Redemption

Mostly at this time of the year with Christmas and New Year around the corner, the mood in office is very laid back, people go away on vacations and there is very little work perse. But not this time. Luckily or unluckily(I am still trying to make up my mind :)), I was literally swamped with work, after sitting idle almost the whole year round (serving the notice period in previous job, followed by 2 months break, followed by ramp-up in new job, followed by the rather dramatic shutdown of our 1.0 project). After a painfully long time, I finally found myself burning the midnight oil at a stretch for one whole week. And the fruit of that labour was of course sweet :)

But this post is about something else. The PoC that I had to work on required building a command-line windows console with scrolling and navigation capabilities. I made use of pdcurses library which is a port of the ncurses library for linux environment. The curses library provides an abstraction over low level graphics related system calls. The best thing about it is that it is distributed with several examples, which can be easily tweaked to fit custom scenarios and hence needless to say, comes very handy when programming under severe time constraints.The pressure point, however, was coding in C which with it's pointer madness did a successful job of giving me countless head banging moments :).

In the process of breaking my head over background and foreground colours and screen coordinates, I inadvertently recalled the Graphics project I had worked on in college. The project implementation and execution was itself pretty smooth, however things got screwed up big time on the final day when we were supposed to present the project to external examiners.In lawn tennis terminology, this would be called an unforced error :). I forgot to place all the files on my pen drive, because of which the project failed to run in college lab. I then had to sit in lab and hand code the missing files with a vigorously throbbing heart and palpating pulses, not to mention that the glaring eyes of the examiners didn't do much to calm my nerves :).I had managed to get it up and running, but the damage was done; the examiner had made up his mind before seeing the project itself and I didn't secure good grades. But oh I passed...what a relief!!!

So in this past week, that college nightmare has come back to haunt in bits and pieces, everytime that something was not working.But the self satisfaction that came from working on this PoC was indeed nothing short of a long awaited coding redemption :).Well done girl!! (pat on the back)

Bigg Boss : The Method in the Madness

Reality shows are all the rage on TV...but that's not reality, it's just another aesthetic form of fiction - Steven Soderbergh

I have been regularly following the current season of the reality show Bigg Boss (the indian equivalent of the UK show Big Brother) on Colours Channel. I had also followed the last season very closely, hence it's only befitting that I dedicate a post to this subject. My interest in this show stems not from the the TRP grabbing content that's aired (it's boring and predictive enough to put you to sleep not to mention that one hour daily is an awful waste of one's precious time), but with an intention of doing an objective analysis of the show purely from the perspective of game theory (not that I know anything about it :)). But none the less, here's my take on it.

Here are some of my observations in no particular order of importance, regarding how to survive in the show

1. Entertain the audience. After all they form the voter base.
2. Acknowledge that the show is actually a game and should be played like one. No point in being swayed by emotions when everyone is busy using their brains. But then don't openly brag about being a mastermind.
3. Apply the concept of "Backward Induction" i.e first consider the moves that are the last in the game and then work backwards by picking the best moves every week.In other words, first choose the final 2-3 people you want to be in the final with, and then keeping this end in mind, nominate the appropriate people for weekly eliminations.
4. Be in the know of all house politics, no matter how insignificant. The more information you have about other contestants and their moves, the better decision you can make to advance yourself in the game.
5. Do not reveal all your cards in the beginning. Make it difficult for others to understand your game.
6. Build an influence over weaker contestants. Peer support is necessary to save your neck from the nominations for weekly eliminations.
7. Don't try to maintain a holier-than-thou image in the house.It's not only extremely boring but also artificial. BE YOURSELF. This will get you the respect not just from the audience but also from your fellow contestants.
8. If on a given week you are up for eliminations (which you will be sooner or later), entertain the audience as much as you can, and try to grab maximum camera footage. If you are not a natural entertainer, then the easiest way to get the cameras to be fixed on you is to pick a fight with some fellow contestant (best candidates for this would be the weaker candidates, nominated candidates,candidates with some negative past, candidates who have been involved in fights before etc.). THE INDIAN AUDIENCE LOVES A GOOD FIGHT.
9. Do not ever say that you are missing home or missing your family. Other contestants will only use this as an excuse to nominate you.
10. Do not try to be overly diplomatic. The audience would consider it as hypocricy.
11. Mix with everyone in the show. A common excuse contestants give for nominating someone is their lack of interaction with that person.
12. Do not shy away from participating in any dispute. Put forward your opinions strongly, but do not try to influence everyone to accept your viewpoint.
13. Even when you are cornered by everybody and everyone in the house has turned against you, do not accept defeat. It might be mistaken for an admission of guilt. AND THE INDIAN AUDIENCE DOES NOT LIKE LOSERS. And for all you know, this might be a joint strategy to chuck you out of the house.So FIGHT BACK and be at your entertaining best.
14. Do not behave like sour grapes at any point. Take everything sportingly.
15. Above all, remember that the show editors will try to stereotype you as a certain character. It's totally your call which side of your personality you want to project the most.

Hopefully, watching this show has given me the practical heads-up I need to understand the infinitely more difficult world of Game Theory :)

Middle-class Appetite for Social Activism

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; Indeed it is the only thing that ever does

Civil movements with a middle class flavour were a major highlight this year. While the Arab spring in the middle east dominated the international news, closer home we had our own anti-corruption mass movement that was expertly led by eminent social activists like Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi. These movements though completely independent of each other and triggered for different reasons, had a noticeable common thread running through them. At the centrestage of these protests was a hitherto reluctant middle class directing it's ire at an arrogant officialdom. The middle class which has mostly been an invisible entity in mass protests and demonstrations in India, was suddenly in the forefront of the movement, taking up the lost cause of battling corruption that has slowly but steadily been eating it's way into the very moral fibre of our society.

As the movement grew in proportion, most of us belonging to the middle class strata took to the streets, holding placards, shouting slogans, waving flags and participating in group fasts. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter were pivotal to the movement participation, organization and recruitment. In fact, spontaneous protests erupting in several pockets of the country, marked a major turning point in the movement, forcing the incumbent government to sit up and take notice. The political class of the country which so far had faced pressure either from the business enterprises or the BPL community,initially wrote off this middle class unrest as a harmless protest. But when it started becoming clear that the movement won't just die down silently and that the people on the streets meant business, the government machinery finally started churning and cabinet leaders were found on the backfoot. They soon realized that this was not the middle class with the trademark "chalta hai" attitude; this was not a scared lot; on the streets were law abiding citizens who had decided they were not going to tolerate the government's complicity in corruption any more;this was a society finally out of it's inertia and establishing it's assertiveness in public and political causes with an uncharacteristic firmness.

Middle class involvement in public protests has largely been unheard of in the history of this nation. They were not a prominent force during the freedom struggle; in fact the middle class had not yet evolved at the time. The middle class was never a driving force behind the most important reforms this country has seen. The only time some feeble protests could be heard from them, was whenever there was a fuel hike or food inflation. Even on such occasions, the opposition political parties would be the ones leading the protests, and the middle class would be largely inconspicuous on the streets.Of late, officialdom excess and delayed justice as was in the case of Jessica Lal murder or Ruchika Girhotra molestation, has sparked protests from the middle class. But once again this has been mostly sustained by the growing social activism of the media and press and not by any leadership demonstrated by the middle class.Middle class hesitation in getting involved with political causes, or issues that resonate with them, or for that matter their reluctance to even stand up for each other has been only too apparent to ignore and brush aside. Fuelling this apathy has been a lack of awareness and a sadly absent public opinion. The middle class has been neutral at best, and it won't be a far-fetched thought to say that they have even been co-conspirators with the powers at worst.

Given this background,one would instantly question the seriousness and sustainability of middle class social activism that has of late been dominating our news headlines.Has the middle class come of age? Is it drawing it's strength from it's growing numbers? Is the middle class ready to realign it's interests away from the political system? Is the middle class evolving into an influential constituency and effective pressure group? Is it becoming a clout to be reckoned with?

Only time will tell us, whether what we saw this year was just a flash in the pan or was it the beginning of the demonstration of strength by the middle class. This country has so far been witness to a complex relationship between governance, political democracy and the middle class. But the Anna Hazare movement has proved that the middle class can come out of it's shell and take part in movements that are not limited in scope by their apolitical colour but which in fact aim to reform the political system. This was not a movement driven by a mad fit of rage. This was a middle class movement that was well thought of and driven by a long term vision of change.

A Lazy Sunday Afternoon

It's a Holi Holiday

Marianne

Somewhere over the Rainbow

Viva Forever

Farewell Song

Summer Holiday

Top of the World

Oom Pah Pah

Classroom Teaching in India

"Every truth has four corners; As a teacher I give you one corner and it is for you to find the other three" - Confucius

The teaching profession is widely considered to lay the foundation stone for nation building.Teachers have the immense responsibility to nurture students who are capable of thinking out of the box and taking independent decisions so that they can face the toughest of life's challenges and become leaders of tomorrow.With teachers having such an immensely important role to play, it is only fit to introspect on whether our education system and specifically our classroom teaching techniques live up to expectations of the 21st century.Are traditional modes of imparting learning to students within a classroom worthy enough to be continued in the near future or do we need an urgent course correction? Has the time come to adopt a different set of tools to prepare students for the ever burgeoning competitiveness that is becoming so ingrained in our social fabric ?

Below is a list of different methods of teaching and the retention rates they produce,

1. Lecture = 5%
2. Reading  = 10%
3. Audiovisual  = 20%
4. Demonstration = 30%
5. Discussion Groups = 50%
6. Practise by doing = 75%
7. Teach others = 90%

Traditional modes of classroom teaching in India have primarily revolved around lecturing and reading with limited focus on practicals.The driving intent behind teaching has largely been to complete the ever growing curriculum instead of fostering comprehension of the subject matter.Reading out the chapters from the book line by line interspersed with answers to queries from a few inquisitive students and ultimately rounding up everything by discussing answers to the questions in the Exercise section at the end of the chapter has largely been the modus operandi of teaching in any average classroom in the country.This is finally followed up by testing the student's learning through internals,tests,exams etc. where questions are mostly formulated in straightforward and predictable ways and in fact, sometimes are just copied from the Exercise section. Answers are evaluated on the basis of whether all the points from the text have been covered or not.Sometimes even this is sacrificed due to the huge backlog of papers to be corrected, and random marks are rewarded based on superficial things such as handwriting,presentation,direct quotations from the book, quality of introduction and conclusion etc.All this leaves little room to guess that our prevalent education system lays more emphasis on raw memorization of facts and figures than on strengthening student's analytical skills,creativity and ingenuity in approaching a problem.

As most of us would have already experienced that text and lecture based teaching encourages only rote-based learning , besides offering little stimuli to capture the student's attention in the classroom.By easily falling into the trap of monologue, this style of teaching is almost unavoidably characterised by minimum student participation.In fact, our archaic modes of classroom teaching suffer from so many loopholes and drawbacks that having a detailed discussion on the topic would easily run into several pages.So leaving that aside, the question we should be asking ourselves is "Are traditional teaching styles sustainable in the long run? What are the other alternatives? And how urgently do we need to change our education system?"

With passing years, school and college curriculum is only bound to increase and entrance exams will become more competitive.If we were to continue down the existing path, teachers will find it increasingly difficult to complete the curriculum within deadline and students will be simply swamped and over-burdened with study material.There's only an extent to which memorization can work without the assistance of comprehension.The pace of study will become so fast that all the joys associated with learning will be nipped from the bud and students will become more exam-oriented as opposed to learning-oriented.

So there's enough evidence on the table to suggest that we need to start looking at other alternatives.As per the tabular data cited above, teaching others, practicals and discussions are the most effective teaching methodologies.Encompassing all these three is a newly emerging teaching strategy called Cased-based teaching  that has currently been adopted, albeit in a smaller way,  in the premier management institutions in the country.The principal hallmarks of this style are,

1. Students are divided into small groups of 5-10 people. Each of these forms a study group.
2. Students are apprised of the study material prior to the classroom session.
3. After individually going through the study material, the study group meets to further discuss the topic so that as many points can be laid on the table as possible.
4. During the classroom session, each study group puts forth their viewpoints.
5. The teacher is responsible for guiding the discussion towards a logical conclusion, while prodding students for a 360 degree analysis.
6. Most of the time discussions are open-ended and more often than not there is more than one possible solution to the problem.

Since case-based teaching is very student-centric as opposed to lecture-centric, it successfully creates a breeding ground for student participation.Under this, spoon feeding and a passive flow of information from the instructor to the student is replaced by an environment that is conducive to letting the students construct their own knowledge, challenge assumptions, expose contradictions and ultimately leading to new knowledge.During the classroom session, students are actively processing the information,instead of just absorbing the information.The results of this collaborative learning model is that we nurture quality students with a strong understanding of fundamentals and having the ability to critically appreciate a problem and it's solutions.

While case-based teaching is a good fit for social science based courses, science and maths related subjects require a blend of case-based teaching and lectures. This is so, as in the case of the latter, significant work needs to be done by the teacher on the classroom board by way of demonstrating theorems, formulae etc.Nevertheless, case-based teaching seems to be a more valuable way of utilizing time within the classroom as the focus is more on fostering comprehension and analysing the topic from all possible perspectives. Once students understand the topic, memorising becomes so much easier, probably even fun !

The fact that a paradigm shift is needed in our classroom teaching styles is more than evident.Teaching methodologies that encourage students to think independently, enables them to handle pressure and nurtures their confidence are the need of the hour.As we get surrounded by more competitive times, it's become necessary that we stem the rot in our education system that currently seems all but poised to becoming a breeding ground for mediocrity.Because, Thinkers and not Nerds is what we need from our future generations !

A Punctured Soul

What do you look for on those empty walls?

Why don't you turn when you hear my call?

Why bygone happy days you fail to recall?

Tell me, what demons make you feel small?

Why do you look so lonesome and cold?

The grey streaks of hair make you seem old,

Your pent-up feelings throw you out of control,

That fine spirit within which you constantly withhold.

Don't you see any meaning in your precious life?

Why can't you forget your earlier strife?

Oh, looking at you makes me cry,

Coz' you live through your days half alive.

And I sit next to you, trying to console,

But your stubborn yet beautiful mind is already closed,

All my words, they just keep draining down a hole,

Oh there's nothing more painful than a punctured soul.

A Sister's Dreams

He fondly cuddles her when she's still a baby,
Pampers her with boxful of candies,
Watching his every step when she's in his arms,
Careful to protect her from any unmeaning harm.


As she blossoms out of her childish wonder,
It takes her sometime to muster,
Why he never looks her in the eye,
Why he is always so silent and shy.


She holds his hand when they go for a walk,
Describing aloud the things that they cross,
The bright sun and the clear blue sky,
The dancing trees and birds flying by.


She fakes the excitement in her words,
Watching his face for every jerk,
Inside her heart, there is playing a melody,
Trying to push away the pain and reality. 


And she pores herself into his incomprehensible books,
Glad that he can't make out the boredom from her looks,
Patiently running her fingers through the world atlas,
Listening to tales from history with astonishing aptness.


She watches him silently fumbling for the door,
Stumbling over something lying on the floor,
With the mickey-mouse radio tucked close to his ear,
Songs from a bygone era that bring him cheer.


As she strokes in her arms his broken guitar,
Her restless mind travels deep and far,
Searching for answers that hide away in disguise,
After endless hours she is still unsatisfied.


She draws the conclusion, feeling resigned,
That she must be the light to those eyes that are blind,
In her prayers everyday, she begs for a miracle,
That one day he would see her, fully able.

Battling Political Corruption : Mission Possible ?

Calvin : Do you believe in the devil?You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation,corruption and destruction of man?
Hobbes : I'm not sure that man needs the help.

 On the eve of 2011, Nitish Kumar, the Chief Minister of Bihar,announced that he was mandating asset declaration for public servants including ministers in the government.Since then, the personal assets of all the ministers has been uploaded on the Bihar government website. While political adversaries have termed this as an eyewash, neighbouring states which are mired in corruption, have started advocating the same formula to their government for battling corruption.

Acquiring assets that are disproportionate to one's known income, is the most apparent outcome of any case of corruption.Which is why, mandatory decalartion of one's assets by public servants is definitely a step in the right direction.Public scrutiny of their wealth and assets, will surely keep our babuwallas on their toes, and ammassing wealth will probably become a more difficult art.Asset declaration is already a compulsory step for politicians when they run for elections; however doing this on an annual basis will be more effective as at the end of 5 years, the damage done would probably be too huge to undo.

But the cynic in me tells me to take this development with a pinch of salt. Firstly ,having minister's declared assets available as public information, lays the onus on vigilant citizens to uncover any discrepancies.Are we not lacking a statutory independent monitoring agency dedicated to keeping an eye on assets of public servants?Secondly, asset declaration although made mandatory has not been made a constitutional law ; so nothing prevents the next government from doing away with it and likewise nothing prevents the current government from breaking their own rules if political opportunism demands so.Thirdly, the announcement is silent on punitive actions for the guilty.For if we were to look at history, then for all we know, either the tainted politicians will escape jail term or would be out on bail and once the public memory fades would be reinstalled in the cabinet.Isn't legislation that bans corrupt politicians from being inducted in the government , the need of the hour?

The announcement is a baby-step at best and hence should be welcomed with gaurded optimism.There have been too many corrupt politicians, too many scams and too many coverups in the history of independent india ;public confidence in the government's sincerity to take strong anti-corruption measures has reached rock-bottom.Instead of clamouring for one another's heads as is the political fallout of any corruption scandal, it's high time that political parties of all hue and faith come together and enact strong legislation to combat this monster.The Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 can do with much needed reforms. The LokAyuktas and the CVC can be given more muscle eg. suo moto powers to look into cases of corruption and power to ensure that their recommendations to the Government are acted upon.At the end of the day, it's anti-corruption legislation that will help to nip the problem at it's bud and not simply lip service or political blame game.It's high time that we changed the debate from "Who all are guilty?" to "Why don't we reform our ancestral anti-corruption laws to take stock of today's realities?" This indeed would be the ultimate acid-test for judging the sincerity of our politicians.Because the people of this country have tolerated the political soundbites following any scam for far too long.

The great IPL tamasha

For $2.4 million, to Kolkata Knight Riders, he is (gap) sold (followed by a bang on the table).Thank you!

This was the first time that the IPL auctions were being telecast live (the IPLwallas have no dirth of ways to make some easy moolah) and even though I am not a IPL diehard fan, I coudn't resist the temptation to waste some hours watching the tamasha.Of course, my curiosity arose not from the game of cricket, but all the headline grabbing controversy surrounding IPL in the last season. And yes, I also wanted to see what a live auction is really like.

As the auction progressed, KKR bought Gambhir for a whopping 11.04Cr, Yusuf Pathan and Uthappa attracted some aggressive bidding, the dashing Dhoni lookalike Saurabh Tiwari created a mini ruckus between RCB and Punjab, our very own dada found no takers and The Wall almost went unsold, not to mention that highly reputed pardesi players went either unnoticed or got sold for comparatively paltry amounts.This was an auction that defied well-established norms and logic regarding player selection, but most reputed cricket jounalists and commentators actually managed to find a method in all the madness, saying that IPL4 was a vote for youth over experience.

The fact that IPL bidding prices are disproportionate to player ability and reputation is something that is well known and extensively debated since the first season.The twenty-twenty format of the game does not require strategists, experience, survival capability and a flair for good shots as much as agility on the field and the rudimentary ability to hit the ball hard.With it's loud marketing and hired bollywood glamour, the IPL brand and business model , that relies heavily on fanbase strength for it's profits, has already started spelling the death knell for the Test and ODI formats.

Entertainment over cricket, glamour over fundamentals, youth over experience;one cannot but help asking whether or not this is sustainable in the long run?Won't the constant brouhaha surrounding IPL ultimately lead to fan fatigue? And what kind of culture are we endorsing by paying astronomical amounts to youngsters while brushing aside experienced elders?Are we nurturing genuine cricket talent or are we too preoccupied in conferring celebrity status on match-winners?The million dollar question remains, is the game of cricket going to be the only casualty in the long run?How much would have been lost by the time the glitter and shine comes off?

Culinary Recognition in India

Today afternoon I was watching the repeat telecast of the NDTV Food Awards that was being hosted by the funny highwaymen Rocky and Mayur.The event was brief and classy, and had some enchanting song performances by Shafqat Amanat Ali.It was the first ever food awards being organised by NDTV (maybe it was high time as the channel has a significant number of excellent quality food shows) and awards were given away on a total of 10 categories, including Best Bar, Best Dhaba and Best Regional.

Although it was an excellent initiative on the part of the channel, I was slightly let down by the rather paltry number of award categories.Some categories like "Best Asian" and "Best European" were very broad-based and could have been classified further along the lines of Italian, French, Mediterranean,Oriental etc. cuisines.Some categories sounded incomplete, e.g "Best North Indian", but no vis-a-vis "Best South Indian".Similarly, the Best Regional category could have been broken further into Punjabi,Avadhi,Gujarati etc. as it's probably not fair to compare say Bengali food with Punjabi food.With New Delhi restaurants bagging most of the nominations, it left room for doubt on the nature of restaurant coverage that was considered by the jury.

With increased curiosity, I then scoured the net for similar culinary achievement awards, but could only find the Times Food Guide and Nightlife Awards that deserved any mention.The Food Forum India awards were another noteworthy awards, but they are focussed on excellence in food retailing, in other words the business aspect of food and not the food itself.With India having such a rich culinary history and considering the rapidly expanding food business in the country, it is really appalling to see the lack of platforms for recognising culinary achievement in India.

When watching Masterchef Australia episodes on tv sometime back,  I learnt about the restaurant grading mechanism that is prevalent in Western countries ,most prominent being the Michelin Stars (Europe), Mobil (US) and Chef Hats (Australia).Once again, I couldn't find any similar grading mechanism for Indian restaurants.Although, there are a good number of food guides published annually, these guides generally talk about everything under the sun , like the restaurant ambience,service,value for money, food quality etc. but stop short of grading. A standard, widely accepted restaurant grading scale is thus, currently lacking in the Indian food industry.

Culinary recognition initiatives by NDTV and TOI are indeed very promising starts. However, having a more comprehensive recognition and grading mechanism would go a long way in raising restaurant standards, which would ultimately also benefit the regular restaurant goer.Because as Jamie Oliver said in one of the Masterchef shows "Life is too short to eat crap".

India's foreign policy : Is it in trusted hands?

A secret US diplomatic cable titled "Iran manipulating Indian elite opinion-makers" exposed by Wikileaks reveals that K.V Rajan, then Chairman of the National Security Advisory Board(NSAB) had requested an urgent meeting with the US embassy Charge d' Affaires to apprise him of an all expenses trip that Iran was organising for Indian "politicians,scholars and commentators" to which he too had been invited. Rajan suspected that this trip was part of an Iranian Government effort to encourage anti-American, pro-Muslim scholars and think tankers in India to influence PM Singh's supporters to take a more pro-Iranian and anti-US view.Fearing that his own presence in the delegation would hand Iran a PR coup, he cancelled his visit at the last moment. The cable says that to counter Iran's efforts, Rajan proposed that he visit US in his NSAB capacity and hold talks with officials, think tanks and intelligence community to discuss ways to better understand US assessments of Iran which he expected would later feed into NSAB discussion on Iran policy options.

The NSAB consists of persons of eminence and expertise outside the GOI who provide inputs to the National Security Council (NSC), which is the apex agency looking into the political,economic, energy and strategic security concerns of India.The National Security Advisor (NSA) is a member of the NSC who is also the primary advisor to the Prime Minister, the Indian Cabinet and the NSC on internal and international security issues.

Since then Rajan has rubbished the US cable.Considering that the cable is correct,it clearly indicates an attempt by Rajan to manipulate opinion making in NSAB by deliberately trying to create grounds for allowing US assessments of Iran to creep into India's Iran policy making.His request for security discussions on Iran with US officials were prompted not by genuine security concerns but in order to negate any influence Iran's soft power might have on Indian opinion makers.

Personally , I would really doubt that this is a one-off incident and if one looked deeper, probably many precedents would be revealed. Also, it's likely that foreign policy crafting in any country would be vulnerable to such lobbying acts.This begs the questions, Are our policy makers acting solely in the nation's best interests or Are they proxies trying to influence Indian policy making with the interests of another nation? Can we really pin our hopes on them to do an unbiased job? Can we trust them?