Ayodhya verdict

Ayodhya is an antonym for war. The name is associated meaningfully with the likes of Ram who was averse to waging a war ; Ayodhya can have no attributes of a person, a descendant of Genghis Khan,  who waged multiple wars to gain territory and commit unspeakable atrocities.

It is unfortunate that Indians are known for their xenophilia. Evils emanating from this tendency were highlighted by George Washington in his famous 'Farewell Address': (tedious but worth reading):

"So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils. Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter."

It is not surprising, therefore, that criticisms abound about the Supreme Court's unanimous decision in the Ayodhya case. Archaeological Society of India had firmly concluded that the Masjid was built on the ruins of a non-Muslim construction. This was typical of the acts of a murderous marauder. Clamour for imparting a higher legal title to a merciless invader indulging in lawless adventure than to wronged and helpless locals is a typical manifestation of spineless xenophilia.

Come clean on NEET

The Madras High Court has made some spectacular observations in a NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test) - related case. These observations are perhaps born out of genuine concern for the poor students. But apparent failure on the part of honourable judges (N.Kirubakaran and P.Velmurugan) to ask relevant questions seems to have misled them.

In Tamil Nadu, a preponderant majority of successful students in NEET has gone through private coaching which costs around Rs.5 lac. This isolated statistic has made the judges observe that NEET is anti-poor. Is this the case in other states also?

There is widespread resistance (fuelled by donation-greedy medical colleges promoted by political leaders) to NEET only in Tamil Nadu. It is not possible that other states are not concerned about the prospects of poor students. Students in other states are able to clear the NEET exam even without additional coaching because the educational standards in their state schools are good enough to enable their students to get through NEET.

So the answer to the problem faced exclusively by poor students in Tamil Nadu lies in improvement in the standards of school education. Instead, if we do away with NEET, we will only throw the baby with the bathwater. The court's gratuitous question "Why can't the Centre cancel NEET like other systems implemented by the Congress-DMK regime?" unnecessarily paints the issue in political colour.

Tamil Nadu should stop treating the students as dumb folks who need to be protected from knowledge and start respecting them as eager minds which have a welcome hunger for relevant knowledge.

Artificial Intelligence on steroids

Google recently announced that they have designed a quantum computer that processes in just 200 seconds what the most efficient computer that exists today will take 1,000 years to process. ‘Quantum Supremacy’ has arrived!

It has been speculated for quite sometime now that the Moore’s Law which states that the speed and capability of computers can be expected to double every two years, is becoming outdated because the limits of computational ability are approaching. The advent of quantum computer has obsolesced the Law in an unexpected way!

John McCarthy who coined the term ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (AI) defined it as the science and engineering of making an intelligent machine. The question therefore arises as to what is intelligence. Intelligence may be classified or taxonomised in two different ways. The macro taxonomy as defined by psychologists Raymond Cattell and John Horn is crystallized intelligence and fluid intelligence.

Crystallised intelligence is accumulation and retention of knowledge. It comes out of experience and memory. Fluid intelligence is the ability to think, connect the dots and come to decisions. Both are important in order to succeed in life. Therefore AI also is supposed to incorporate both.

The micro taxonomy is elucidated by Howard Gardner. He contends that intelligence is of nine different types. These are spatial, kinesthetic, naturalist, quantitative, existential, linguistic, musical, inter-personal and intra-personal. These intelligences are exhibited illustratively by pilots, dancers, botanists, engineers, spiritualists, orators / writers, singers, leaders and psychologists respectively.

It is not possible for a human being to be adept in all nine types of intelligence. However, it is theoretically possible to design artificial entities which will exhibit all of these.

Artificial intelligence of a computer is categorized as Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI), Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) depending on the variety of tasks the computer can perform. ANI is the limited capacity to perform only one kind of task. AGI involves the ability to perform any task that a human being can do. ASI transcends the limitations of human intelligence and is the ability to do what humans cannot.

AI can work 24 hours a day unlike the human intelligence. AI can execute hazardous and boring jobs without complaining. It can consistently perform activities flawlessly, a far cry from what a human can do. On top of all this, AI does not have a bias of its own. Contrarily, an unbiased human being is perhaps an oxymoron.

The Infosys drama

The whistle has been blown once again in Infosys. It is alleged with recorded evidence that the CEO Salil Parekh and CFO Nilanjan Roy care two hoots for accounting niceties and they have been exhorting the Finance team to play ball. The whistle-blowers claim that the CEO has told the Finance team, "No one in the board understands accounting principles, they are happy as long as the share price is up. Those two Madrasis (Sundaram and Prahlad) and Diva (Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw) make silly points, you just nod and ignore them."

If the CEO has really said what is ascribed to him, he has no right to continue in the company. If the CEO has no respect for the board, either the CEO or the board needs to quit right away. It is easier for the company if one person departs. The term 'Madrasi' has multiple meanings. Originally it referred to a person from Madras Presidency which was a substantial part of southern India. Later on, the word started representing anyone from the Madras state (now called TamilNadu). There was a time when the north Indians would refer to anyone uncomfortable with Hindi as a Madrasi. Now that most people from the south are proficient in Hindi, this epithet has lost its linguistic meaning.

The sense in which Salil Parekh has used the term perhaps is that any person who asks an inconvenient or trivial question is a Madrasi.  Prahlad, a relative of N.R.Narayana Murthy is probably not a Madrasi since he could be from Karnataka. Since the CEO is averse to Mr.Prahlad, he may also be spoiling his relations with NRN which means that Parekh's departure is only a matter of time.

Mr.Seshasayee, a former Chair of the board, must be enjoying the fun now. He was overthrown unjustly or so it appears in retrospect. It is time for the present Chairman, Nandan Nilekani to take tough decisions. He has to explain why the board has apparently been quiet for almost a month since the whistle was blown. The audit committee has belatedly retained Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and Co. to investigate the matter. A predictable but costly trick to buy time.

The drama taking place in a company whose promoters are justifiably known for better corporate governance is a cruel joke on the shareholders. The company's share has lost 14% of its value in the market since the news became public. Who or what is to be blamed for this? The CEO's urge to 'perform' by hook or crook or the market's expectation of sustained growth or the board's incapacity to assess how the company was faring or the 'Madrasis' ' penchant for questioning?

N.Ram's blitzkrieg

Ram has launched a blitzkrieg to retrieve P.Chidambaram from the ignominy of incarceration. A lengthy leader in The Hindu , an article in the same newspaper questioning the legality of custodial  interrogation and Ram's retweet of Kart Chidambaram's "4 Raids, 25 Summons and Custody has yielded results!" (sic) are the day's loyalty fee to PC.

Let us deal with the main arguments one by one. 1) Why pre-trial imprisonment? Is it not punishment before judgement? There are thousands of pre-trial and under-trial prisoners in India. This has not been held unlawful by the courts. PC brought pre-trial imprisonment upon himself by his execrable conduct in responding to the investigative agencies. The Hindu which did not feel the necessity for condemning arbitrary arrests and torture of innocents during the Emergency is now pleading for freedom of an allegedly corrupt former minister because he happens to be Ram's friend. When Kanimozhi and A.Raja were lodged in Tihar jail pending court hearings in the 2G case, PC found nothing wrong in the law taking its own course. (Of course, The Hindu was not in favour of their arrest also.)

2) "Custodial interrogation should be disallowed because one should not be forced to incriminate oneself." This argument is acceptable in the case of common people against whom 'third-degree methods' are possibly adopted during such interrogations. Investigative agencies dare not apply such methods where a person as well-connected as PC is involved.

3) "So many raids, so many summons and yet what has been found?" This is exactly the problem with the alleged offenders whose loyal contacts cultivated over time in many places brief them on confidential information on raids. Chidambarams are intelligent enough to throw the investigators off the scent and then ask "what have you found?" The perverted smartness of PC leaves the CBI and ED with no choice but to seek extended incarceration and custodial interrogation of the accused.

4) It is disappointing that PC is treated differently from other prisoners. How many prisoners are permitted to avail of home-made food? How many of them are allowed to meet their relatives on a daily basis?

Abhijit Banerjee's inconsistent criteria

Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee is one of the three economists honoured with the Nobel this year for adopting Randomised Controlled Trials in attempts to alleviate poverty. These trials emanated in the pharma industry and adopting them in economic studies is a trail blazer in its own way. Just like any adoption of a new methodology in any field, this transplant of a pharma idea in the economic field has attracted a lot of scepticism. But the Nobel committee thought it fit to award the prestigious prize to the pioneers in this area namely Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer.

It is an opportune time for Banerjee and Duflo to market their recently published book "Good Economics for Hard Times." Any trial aims to isolate the variables which result in a particular consequence. For example, one may try to find out which variable results in faster reduction in poverty: adoption of Universal Basic Income or incentives for investment.

These trials will yield useful results only if strict criteria are made applicable to understand the cause and effect relationship. If Banerjee's recent utterances are any indication, Banerjee does not seem to apply consistent criteria. He keeps saying that high rates of income tax do not negatively impact economic growth. He arrived at this conclusion because the American economy grew at a fast pace during Dwight Eisenhower's presidency when the marginal tax rate was vertiginous at 95% (Is it not possible that other variables counterbalanced the impact of tax rates? There was no controlled study done.)

Applying the same logic, when Banerjee was asked if the NYAY proposal was an electoral failure because the Congress party which included this in its electoral campaign was comprehensively defeated, his response was disappointingly different. With an apparent self-interest (Banerjee was one of the architects of NYAY),  Banerjee claimed that there were other variables which caused the defeat of Congress at the hustings.

N.Ram on P.Chidambaram

N.Ram of The Hindu confidently claims there is 'no evidence against Chidambaram.' He may well be right. However, his conclusion that 'monstrous injustice' has been done to P.C. is monumentally wrong. While talking about Chidambaram, Ram becomes as clever as the former. He only says there is no evidence of wrong-doing; he does not say that P.C. did not indulge in wrong-doing.

Why am I saying this? There is a report in The Economic Times today ( The Hindu does not believe in publishing such relevant news) regarding the invoices sent by Chess Management Services Private Ltd to INX Media for payment after FIPB absolved INX Media. Some of these invoices were drawn by Advantage Strategic Consultants Private Ltd. These original invoices were returned to CMSPL later, on their advice. These invoices would prove the connection between these two companies and PC's son and such evidence would expose the scam. Therefore, the scamsters were cleverly ensuring that any palpable evidence would be out of the reach of any future investigator. Thus the modus-operandi was "Commit the crime, make money, but destroy the evidence." So, Ram is absolutely right in saying there is no evidence! There cannot be, when the criminals are thoughtfully clever!

Ram also claims that the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court came to wrong decisions. These courts were privy to confidential information provided by investigating authorities. We may not know what this information is; but Ram would know because he has access to all confidential and secret notes (remember Rafale Notes?). Would The Hindu reveal what this confidential information is? Without this information, Ram could not have concluded that the two courts erred in their judgments.

Lord Ram is known for protecting anyone ,even if most sinful, once the person offers Saranagathi to Him. Narasimhan Ram probably feels that it is his duty to protect his friend. Let him be faithful to his friend. But let him not accuse the honourable courts of perpetrating injustice. Ram's grievance that PC is wronged for political reasons does not entitle him to demonise the judiciary. He has advised that a review petition or a curative petition has to be moved immediately, as if Kapil Sibal and Manu Singhvi are ignorant !