“We can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal” – John F. Kennedy

I have a fetish for bridges! I have been puzzled by it myself: whether its those small structures across our very own Cooum , the Thiru.Vi. Ka bridge across Adyar or the Napier Bridge near the Madras University or the Howrah Bridge in Kolkata or the Laxman Jhula in Rishikesh or the Blackfriars bridge across the Thames or the San Franscisco Golden Gate. Recall the movie the ‘Bridge over the River Kwai’ or the TV ad zooming in on the magnificient Tower Bridge of London?! Bridges have me all excited and thrilled. For a long-time I thought this was a fascination promoted by TV and Cinema.

Until I came across this book by Ivo Andric titled the “Bridge over the Drina” It is a fantastic book and clearly ranks as one of the greatest pieces of world literature. Over a period of 300 years, the destiny of the town and the individuals and communities living near the river Drina get inextricably interwoven with the history of the bridge. The bridge becomes a metaphor for the life around it. Andric’s masterpiece documents the unities and challenges between ethnicities and faiths, Bosnians, Serbs, Jews, Muslim and Christians and their relationship with the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. The bridge is a silent witness to the history of Europe over centuries.

Cut to the chase. I turn to the contemporary developments across the world including our country. It seems as if some storms are causing bridges to break down and the chasms widening. There seems to be a growing passion for hate! Horror of horrors. Why would anyone want to have a passion for hate? Nicholas Fraser in his book ‘The Voice of Modern Hatred’ sets out the contours of this problem in Europe. This is truly a global problem. Hate is like a ‘malignant tumour’. Young innocent minds have been poisoned to dislike entire cultures through the sustenance of stereotypes. This is because increasingly one can notice a gross distortion in the way entire cultures, communities and identities are being represented especially in the electronic media mainly because of the violence of terrorists. There are other kinds of institutions and organizations too that indulge in violence but that is a separate subject.

I find myself very concerned with the manner in which society and media creates ideas and images of groups of people and their impact. These images to cite a few often take the form of ‘Muslims’ versus ‘Hindus’, ‘Maharashtrians’ versus ‘north Indians’, ‘Hindus’ versus ‘Christian’, ‘Dalits’ versus ‘upper-castes’, ‘Sunni’ versus ‘Shiah’ , ‘Sinhala’ versus ‘Tamil’ and ‘Christianity’ versus ‘Islam.’ The stereotypes and caricatures of ‘us’ and ‘them’ seem to be on the increase. The blame game as to who is responsible for what mess goes on endlessly.

In this madness, where are innocent, peace-loving people to go? Whom can they turn to for solace? Most sober people have adopted the posture of “Forgive them, O’Lord for they know not what they do!” The less said about the political class the better. Of course, there are always exceptions among them. What about the intellectuals? We are reminded of the ‘Prophet of Gloom’ in the form of Samuel P. Huntington who is (in)famous for his theory of the ‘clash of civilizations.’  His theory of clashes found its practitioners in the person of those hawks who promoted the invasion of Iraq and the ‘war-on-terror’ with all its attendant disastrous consequences. Such hawks made the world a more dangerous place. As for me, I draw solace from my favourite subject ‘history’ which would indeed judge these hawks and their global disciples very unkindly.

History is a great teacher. The problem with us is that we are poor students of this subject. The common refrain is that our teachers made this subject boring for us. Alas, if life were to accept such excuses, then everything would be a cakewalk. We would have often heard that those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. I would like to add repeat it at a huge cost to themselves and everybody. I wonder why anybody in their right mind would want to incur these costs. My friends and colleagues often ask me ‘what is the solution to all this? I wonder when an individual falls mentally ill, we escort him/her to a shrink. When a whole society falls sick, what do we do? Which physician knows how to treat ‘collective schizophrenia’? As I write this, there has been terrorist violence in Delhi and attacks on Christians in Orissa and Karnataka.

We are now faced with an epidemic of hate of sorts. Those who believe in religion say that these are signs that the world is coming to an end. Yet others attribute the problem to primordial sentiments and say that it has always been that way and will continue to remain that way. I refuse to buy any of these arguments. I firmly believe that human beings are capable of acting in their self and collective interest in a positive and enlightened manner.

There is still hope for and in reason. I believe that rationality can still play a role in the face of the madness of hate. I believe that millions of people are puppets on a string, or pawns in a chessboard or gullible creatures following the pied piper. It is the ability of ‘vested interests’ (the list is long depending on the context)  to elicit consent from the people to their being manipulated. There is adequate proof in historical studies that masses get easily and unknowingly misled through a set of motives different from what is in their interest. And that is indeed what is happening in this world. If there was no perception of threat to each other’s community, several politicians would be called upon to deliver on issues of bread and butter which are far more difficult than pitting one group against the other. This is true of the East and West, North and South, whether its of India or the rest of the Globe. Distraction by peddling hate is a favourite form of politics for those who are desperate for power. We have all seen in contemporary politics, the love for power. We need to show ourselves the power of love!

Now that the picture is clear, what can individuals do? To start with, we can borrow Nancy Reagan’s famous slogan “Just Say No” to hate. To prejudice. To disunity.

We can then build bridges. Bridges of Love. We can all do it small ways.  Begin with our neighbours and colleagues – do we in the first place know who they are? Do they have families and children like ours? Take an active interest in their well-being. Move beyond that to the residential area or the street or the locality in which we live. Can we build bonds of trust and oneness? As Kennedy rightly argues are we not all faced with the same challenges? We wake up, go to work, fend for our families, return take care of our near and dear ones. We all have children about whose welfare we are worried about. We all have elders who in the sunset of their lives need our company as much as we need their blessings and counsel. There are plenty of interstices and intersections where these bridges can be built. We just have to think creatively about it. Festivals, Ceremonies, Family occasions, Music, Movies and so much more are unexplored arenas of building a sense of togetherness among individuals and communities. Can the effort of an individual in this matter? Certainly. Drops make the ocean. Its better to light a candle than to curse the darkness!

The challenge before us is to build bridges -across time and space; across castes, communities, religions, races, languages and not to miss gender. We need these bridges badly. There will always be naysayers. The villains. The troublemakers. Is it not noteworthy that during war, bridges are the first structures to be destroyed to prevent the movement of people and supplies? To those who believe in a God, (s)he made us such: different from each other. Varied and Diverse. Tomes have also been written on the ‘unity of existence’ that brings together all these differences. There is no religion that by itself preaches hate - that religions can be used to create tensions is a different matter. I believe that the ties that bind people with one another are sacred. Let no one undo those bonds of togetherness.

It is the bridges that connect us all. I for one am a die-hard romantic. Its high time that all peace-loving people resisted the stereotypes promoted by the media and thought beyond them. I raise a toast to several friends, colleagues and the ‘common man’ who have rejected these caricatures. I was brought up on the staple of ‘Enlightenment’ with the firm belief of a ‘common humanity.’ I believe friendship and love will prevail. I think we need to take ‘bridge-building’ more seriously than ever before. We have to work at it.

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The press is agog with articles on the collapse of the Doha round. It is sad indeed that after 7 years of negotiations the agreement collapsed on a single issue. I have been reading the articles and trying to make sense of what exactly has happened. I thought i will share with you what i learnt on this important issue that confronts the world today. Hoping that the rest of the community also has some additional wisdom that can be shared, as always.

Agriculture

The WTO has been quite successful negotiating other popular agreements like the GATT and TRIPS and others. Negotiations around agriculture started in Doha in the year 2000 and hence the name Doha Round. The main negotations have been around creating a framework that opens up agriculture markets both in developed and developing countries which obviously will give a big boost to the world economy as it has done in other areas of global trade, not withstanding what the opponents of global trade have to say.
Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM)

The entire Doha round which reached consensus around 18 of the 20 topics at hand, could not reach agreement on the issue of “Special Safeguard Mechanism” - Issue no. 20 was around Cotton which the negotiators could not yet get around to due to the impasse on issue no. 19. Cotton, apparently, another big issue especially for the African and Latin American countries which wanted to extract some concessions from the US and EU, but that is a separate topic.

The SSM, in lay terms, is a mechanism which is there to help the developing countries raise tariffs on agricultural imports if they find that their internal market prices crash due to imports. The issue is India (with China giving support quietly) wanted to increase the provisions in the SSM for increasing the tariffs by a margin unacceptable to the developed nations (read US, EU).

There is the linked issue of the generous farm subsidies that the developed nations give to their farmers. US made a token concession on this but no where near what the developing nations wanted. Of course, no one wants to talk about this as a contributory factor, but instead choose to pin the blame on India (China has intelligently played the silent role but supported the Indian position).

Why is India Worried?

The point which probably is missed out in the discussion is that 70% 20% of India’s GDP comes from Agriculture with 200 million farmers dependent on it. By contrast the US has just 1 million farmers and the contribution to GDP is very low (< 2%). The average land holding of Indian farmers is less than 5 acres whereas the US farmer farms thousands of acres by using scale farming.

And given that the US and EU generously subsidize their farmers, cheap farm exports from the US and EU can swamp the markets of developing nations and put millions of poor farmers out of business. This is in essence the real threat that India wants to guard against.

The Mexican Example

I wanted to see if this is indeed a threat or is it simply the UPA government’s posturing to pander to the Indian farmer and secure the vote bank. My research turned up the devastation suffered by the Mexican corn farmers - under NAFTA, US farm exports to Mexico increased 18 fold and has put a third of the farmers out of business in 8 years since NAFTA was signed. In another 6 years, the Mexican corn farmer is expected to completely dissappear. Sadly, corn was first grown in Mexico 5000 years ago.

Similar to India, the Mexican farmer’s average landholding is just 5 acres.

Epilog

I think this is a legitimate issue for developing nations which are still very dependent on farming. If the US & EU want to preach free market economics to others, they had better cut their farm subsidies to zero, or let India’s SSM proposal go through.

Additionally, i think India has to adopt scale farming techniques rapidly. The threat of cheap farm exports from the developed nations swamping India is very real, with or without Doha. That is the only way we can cut food prices down in India.

What do you all think?

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A week ago, I saw an ad on the television about a new microwave. Whirlpool India has introduced MagiCook 22C Grey 22Ltr Convection Microwave with a Micro Tawa option, which can make a Dosa, Pizza, Parathas etc. This convection microwave uses Combination cooking method which combines traditional cooking(bottom up heating) with the microwave technology for shallow frying. For the CRISP mode, it is a combination of Microwave and Grill together, when the Tawa is set to a certain power level the active layer of the dish is uniformly crisped and browned to perfection thus creating the Maillard Reaction.

I started my research to understand the basic Oven and its types.

An Oven is an enclosed compartment used for heating,baking or drying. The earliest known ovens existing in the Indus
Valley Civilization and the proper front loading ovens were used in the Ancient Greek for making breads.

Now let’s see what is the difference between Microwave Oven, Conventional Oven and Convection Oven.

A microwave oven works by passing microwave radiation through the food.A conventional oven has heat radiating from a single or multiple sources and heating the internal area of an oven and cooking your food.

A Convectional Oven uses a fan and a heating element to create air flow patterns inside the oven, thus ensures optimum browning of the food in the fastest possible time, sealing the juices and prevents drying out of meats.

Look at the picture below, let me now tell you about a Convection Microwave.

Convection microwave ovens combine a convection cooking with microwave oven to cook food with the speed of a microwave oven and browning of the convection oven. Convection microwave ovens are more costly than the regular microwave ovens.

A convection oven will have about a 25 to 30% reduction in cooking temperature, and a 21% reduction in cooking time, compared to a conventional oven. This comparison will vary, depending on factors including, for example, how much food is being cooked at once or if airflow is being restricted by using an oversized baking tray.

Convection Microwaves were initially considered to be high-end kitchen appliances. They were more expensive than a conventional oven. Over time the price of convectional microwaves has dropped and can be bought for around the same price as a conventional microwave.

Please share your experience if you have tried it already. Does it really make good dosas and Parathas? 

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Nothing ever changes, does it?

That got me thinking about my own childhood and how things really haven’t changed much for the kids. Its almost 3 decades since I was that age and I was heavily into Hardy Boys as well. It was the 3 Investigators series (jupiter jones et al), Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries in that order of preference. I did read a few Perry Masons but those didn’t catch my fancy. On the comics front, Archies, Asterix and Tin Tin used to be huge favorites amongst my peer group. I still enjoy reading these. I can’t say that about Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. I suspect I’ll still like the 3 investigators but haven’t tried reading them recently. Something to be said about the timeless appeal of Archies, Tin Tin and Asterix. Some Mandrake/Lothar, Flash Gordon and other such comics were also thrown into the mix for variety.

Before Hardy Boys

Before I hit the age of “Hardy Boys” I was heavily into Enid Blyton’s famous five series. Whenever I think about Enid Blyton, I have this pleasant feeling. I should say it is the Enid Blyton books that firmly implanted english books into my mind. Before that I would read all kinds of fantasy stories in Tamil and some classic Tamil Muthu Comics series Irumbukkai Mayavi (Man with a iron hand - loose translation) etc. When I was about 7 or 8, I used to read with great interest, a comic strip series in the then tamil weekly magazine Gokulam called “Bale Baluvum Bottle Boodhamum” - loosely translated as Balu and the Genie from the bottle. I’m trying to look for it now in Chennai and I’m unable to find it. I’ll be so thrilled to get hold of a few copies.

After Hardy Boys

Later I graduated to Alistair Macleans, Robert Ludlum (Bourne Identity being my top favorite of his) and some Sydney Sheldons and Irving Wallaces. By this time I was in college.

Once I passed out of college and entered the work force, I somehow lost interest in fiction. I’m heavily into non-fiction genres - lots of books on management. Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger is the most recent fiction I read (although the story is inspired by real life incidents). Somehow the movie never captured the passion for swordfishing that well. Sebastian Junger brings it out in his book extremely well.

Current Interests

My interest in anthropology, history and culture were really brought to the fore by Mark Kurlansky’s Cod and Salt. Later, Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse have permanently kindled my interests in these topics. I take a lot of interest in neuroscience lately thanks to Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran’s books Phantoms in the Brain and Emerging Mind. These 2 are amongst the best books I have ever read. Thanks to Archana Raghuram for recommending Phantoms in the brain.

Nothing ever changes, convinced?

Coming back to the topic - it is really intriguing to me that in the age of video games and the internet, Hardy Boys and the likes still hold sway amongst the kids. I haven’t interacted with American kids that much, but maybe someone can throw some light on what the kids there read?

JK Rowling’s Harry potter definitely holds sway I’m sure. Harry is popular in India as well. Overall it points to the fact that there is a big gap in the books available for Tweens and Teens. JK Rowling has masterfully exploited this lacuna. But I think there’s still plenty of opportunity for a new author to come in and appeal to this young population and create the next Hardy Boys.

What does your book reading pattern look like over the years? Does it resemble mine?

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Mind you, this classification is entirely based upon using these techniques behind the firewall. Inside my company, blogging is a rage as of now and because of the encouragement it offers for the reading mindset, it has become a great way for disseminating information/knowledge on a variety of subjects.

People actually come to the blogs to read stuff which is much different from any centralized KM system I have seen so far. Most KM systems would fall under the purpose driven mindset and hence ability to disseminate knowledge is lower unless it fits the purpose being fulfilled.

Another important aspect that Arun touched upon is Search. With today’s Enterprise Search technologies - Google Appliance, Microsoft Sharepoint, IBM Omnifind (it is now available as a free download co-branded with Yahoo), SAP Search Appliance, Oracle Search etc, Searching inside the firewall has become a very important application. Blogging does require a lot of effort to sustain but in an enterprise context, with a sufficient number of bloggers someone somewhere is always writing some thing, so the system generates a lot of traffic because there is always something new to read thereby fueling the reading mindset to come back for more.

I think the other attributes are somewhat self-explanatory. Overall, Blogs, Wikis and Forums complement each other very well and are an excellent fit for any modern KM strategy. I have also included Email just to show how poor it is from a KM viewpoint. Do the readers agree with my ratings? Are there other attributes that you would like to see?

Flashback:
1. Thanks to Google - the WIMP interface is dead. A post that i did a while ago explaining why Search is becoming important. It attracted the attention of Nick Carr, Sadagopan and the Zoho team.
2. Why the WIMP interface is dead. A follow on post that explains in a more in depth fashion why Search is important.

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