The Sunday Rant

I have never fancied myself to be an economist. I don't have any formal training in it nor have I read a full book on the subject. Whatever I know about economics is whatever I've picked up from the rudderless trawling on the internet and from newspaper editorials. Common-sense makes for the best economics and that is sadly what has eluded our policy makers for the last 60 years.

A couple of weeks back, there was a session on Indian economics where a gold medalist somebody from some top university came and gave us a lecture on the Indian economy - the history and the current state of our nation etc. It was all well and good until we came to this slide which was discussing the strengths of the Indian economy. She kept stressing on the huge skilled labour force available in our country, which is a sign I guess of the cognitive disequilibrium affecting most arm-chair economists nowadays - very little understanding of the ground situation. Please send me all the skilled mechanics, drivers and electricians that you can find and I assure you I’ll get jobs for all of them, but the sad fact of the matter is that there is an acute crunch for skilled manpower and attrition rates in many industries are probably higher than even BPO firms. I let it pass. To be fair to her I don't think she was the one who made that presentation in the first place. And then it came- the final strength of the Indian economy - subsidies. I wanted to cry BS but I held back. The WTF moment came and passed without anybody so much as battling an eyelid. The blasphemy of it all was too much for me to hold back for too long and soon found release in the Q&A session that followed. I stood up and pointed out the obvious. Incentivizing anything to improve production without actually improving the efficiency is not a strength of the system, instead it should be listed among one of the weaknesses.

One point that was listed out as a challenge to the agricultural economy of the country was the fact that 60% of our arable land was monsoon dependent and not irrigated. Let’s use this same example to demonstrate why most subsidies are bad economics, a punishment for the ordinary tax payers and a prime example of disastrous short-sightedness. Take the subsidies on fuel for example. The government euphemistically calls it under-recoveries and it usually runs into lakhs of crores every year. For the benefit of readability lets round it off to say $20bn every year (1 lakh crore). Where does this money come from? Ours is a deficit economy as is and the $20bn is normally not provisioned along with the regular subsidies in the budget. So the government floats bonds - in effect postponing the eventual pain that'll surely result from such frivolous and foolish spending just to curry favour with the rural farmer who sadly does not understand how the government is pushing him into a bottomless pit. The bonds will have to be paid up by somebody, sometime and when that time comes, the government will have to rely on the only way it knows to make ends meet - increase taxes.

Subsidized fuel has lots of problems of its own. The incentive for more efficient uses for the fuel is lost. When fuel is so cheap, the incentive to invest in and adopt cleaner and efficient burning technologies is lost. What the fuel is used for is of greater concern. Most of it is used up in pumping up ground water to irrigate the fields leading to the eventual lowering of the ground water level which in turn leads to deeper bore wells being dug until one day, the ground water mixed with all the subsidized fertilizers and insecticides become so toxic that the whole area becomes inhospitable leave alone cultivation.

The government of course has to think about only getting re-elected within the next 5 years and it suits them well to throw away the hard earned money of the millions of tax payers without any remorse. Instead of subsidising this fuel, what if we'd used this money to improve the irrigation on the 60% non-irrigated area? What if we built canals linked to rivers or reservoirs to provide water round the year? If this results in an increase of agriculture output by say 20-30%, isn't that enough to compensate for the extra that the farmer has to pay for fuel, the consumption for which has surely come down since he does not have to use the borewells anymore? If we spend that same amount of money in the next 5 years and bring down the 60% of non-irrigated farmlands to less than 20%, then are the benefits going to disappear after 5 years? The construction of new canals and reservoirs etc. is going to provide jobs to lots of skilled and unskilled manpower. The inland waterways thus created could even be used for very efficient transportation of goods. The economy would be catapulted to a higher orbit and we would have taken the boldest step towards self-sufficiency and reducing our import bill in decades.

If it was all so obvious why haven’t our great leaders with their much vaunted Ivy league and Oxbridge degrees been able to do much good? Damned if I know.

The short debate also brought up the issue of 2g license pricing. The opinion put forward was that the abnormally low licensing fee was infact a subsidy to help increase tele-penetration. The corruption was bad enough but to know that even after 60 years of systematically weakening our economy with subsidies, we would try to do it all over again is sad. More rants on that in a different post.

Conviction

I think I've figured out why people believe in a higher power.. sometimes its rather too tempting to throw up your hands and leave it to fate and god.. to fall down on your knees helpless and cry out for divine intervention and a miracle - the shameless capitulation, the meek surrender in the face of adversity.. Most people turn more devout the day they realise that all life is futile and all actions inconsequential to the universe. I know.. I've been tempted. No matter how hard life hits at me, however hard i fall, I will still believe in myself and what I stand for. I will not fall into the illusion of a higher calling and grand plan written out for me. I have none. If I do something good it's because I wanted to do it. If i make a mistake, I'm responsible for it. I have the strength to live with that conviction.

Fight

I want to be in motion - perpetually. I want to be challenged - constantly. I want to be exhausted and then find that surge within that keeps me going. I want to be prepared for when the time is right, I will fight.

Superbad

i dont really get the funda behind raising ur children as good"or perceived to be" good children....i mean the guys hu swears earlier in life are the guys hu turn out to be the alpha males of the grp and they get laid earlier in life and with a lot more women...i started life as a good guy but look where it has led me...i swear as hard if not harder than most of the erstwhile bad guys..i make innocent losers wish that they hadn't been born, atleast not in my lifetime...i'm badder now but its no use is it??the point being it doesnt matter where u start out..u always end up at the same place...of course being a foul mouthed bully right from ur childhood has its advantages..so why do we raise our children to be innocent lambs when they should be pokin their pencils into the next kids eyes and learning to stay on top of competition??arent we handicapping them??

PS im goin to try out putting in smaller spontaneous thoughts into my blog now for more frequent updates..excuse the bad spellings and the grammar and the dots in between

Atheist Rehab

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You've lived your life as an atheist and found it utterly boring- logic and reason are all good but then you miss the magic of life. You want to see lightning and thunderstorms and stand in fear and awe of the Gods who are most surely sending down the great bolts of lightning to strike down on a sinner's head- that and all the good looking girls are God fearing devout theists and they all think you are eccentric when you tell them you want proof to believe in anything. Why can’t you be normal like the rest of us? Therefore you've set out on becoming one of the “low self esteem weak cavemen who stand in awe of thunderstorms and promptly sacrifices his offspring to pacify the Gods”(in your own words of a week ago).

First step- You have to choose a religion. Yes, if you are going to do it, let’s go the full mile- none of the” I believe in God but not in religion” BS. Cuz let’s face it, that'd put you in a minority and again you'd be accused of being eccentric. Saying you don’t have a religion is to most people the equivalent of being an atheist but since you don’t have any special leanings and don’t identify with any single religion, you can choose between the scores of different ways to attain heaven.

There is no easy choice though. Hell by comparison is easily attainable- all you have to do is choose a religion. Choosing anything other than Islam, then Islam damns you. If you don’t choose Christianity then you are damned to Christian hell and so on and so forth. Most paths to God therefore take a detour to hell. So then that’s settled- bags packed to hell you set out to choose a religion. Well why not choose something cool then? You know - be different. Look at Norse, Egyptian, Celt, Greek and the Roman pantheon of Gods before you decide. They usually tend to be a lot cooler with superpowers beyond simple water to wine tricks. When the proverbial shit hits the fan and starts stinking to the high heavens you don’t want to be caught wrong-footed with the Gods having all the wrong skill sets. Thor,(one of my favourites) actually carries a huge hammer to strike down his enemies with accompanying light and sound effects and has a running comic strip by Marvel- how cool is that?? For more help on choosing your alternative religion and your alternative favourite God head to www.godchecker.com. They have the low-down on all the coolest movers and shakers of the heavens. And yeah then there is Valhalla where you go to if you die a warrior’s death. You are taken there by Valkyries who come down half naked on flying horses to take you there. Oh and did I tell you they are hot?

My advice- go for the religion with the hottest chicks or dudes (oh and if you happen to be gay I'd advise you against any of the newer (after Christ) religions- they tend to be pretty unaccommodative and vicious when it comes to things not written in their books of wisdom. If it ain’t written in the books, it’s not supposed to be- die devil -you get the picture). Anyways you have decided to live a life of blind belief and revealed wisdom, (you are expected to use none of your own. That could be blasphemy) might as well enjoy good company while you are at it.

Fight for your religious rights- Choose a religion with the maximum number of sanctioned holidays and then petition the government to call all of them public holidays since it would hurt the sentiments of people of your community if only the majority religions get holidays for their celebrations. That would be so unfair to the minorities. Hell you could topple whole governments for being insensitive to your minority and thereby going against spirit of the constitution.

Proselytize - You can also at a later stage build up your religion's base and when you become a large enough number, you can ask for reservations and have the big political parties eating out of your hand for your votebank. What do you know- maybe 2 or 3 generations down the line your religion will have the largest following and they'll call you their prophet or saviour or better still God's incarnation on Earth thus making you immortal.

Oh and when you do gain in popularity, the other non-cool religions will act like total losers and call forth Jihads, Crusades and Gujarats and kill a lot of your people. You can also retaliate in massive bloody orgies; everything you can lay your hands on is fair game in protecting your religion and killing off the hordes of unbelievers; everything from stolen nuclear warheads to the kitchen sink to become the unquestionably awsomest religion in the earth's history. Godspeed.

(Dis??)claimer: I am a practising member of the Church of the FSM. I was also an agnostic before I was touched by His Noodledom and converted. Life has been a dream ever since and I wanted to share the magic with the rest of you. I take full responsibility for any sentiments that may have been hurt and I frankly don’t care for I am protected by the FSM. I only act according to the wishes of my Master, the One, the only true God, His Noodledom- the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Those who seek enlightenment and who wish to know the true meaning of life please visit http://www.venganza.org

The Ides of August

I had a dreadful August the 15th.I woke up with rebellion on my mind...As the nation celebrated its 62 years of independence from the British I was left wondering what we had achieved with this independence. A fair bit of contemplation later...

Patriotism

Patriotism is such an over-hyped emotion nowadays. Patriotism for the majority of Indians involves not missing any India- Pakistan cricket matches and cussing at every single Pakistani and their mothers. I am talking about you- atleast the majority among you who can so easily put imaginary lines on maps between you and another human being. Who gave you the idea that you being on this side of an imaginary line makes you any better than the guy on the other side??I am pretty sure your heart brimmed with patriotic pride and hatred for Pakistanis when u saw the bullet ridden soldier in the last throes of his life pushing an anti-tank mine under a Paki tank in some crappy Bollywood formula film. The sad part about the whole sequence is you and me( I absolutely loved the film when it released). For you patriotism goes hand in hand with irrational pride, hatred for your neighboring countries and also some weird idea that it is your duty as an Indian to make sure India becomes the most powerful country in the world even at the cost of other countries and their citizens. You look upon them as objects, not people. Their loss doesn't concern you as long your country's flag flies the highest. 

Back to the past

We are walking backwards into the age of darkness and chaos although the passage of time gives us the impression of moving forward. Don't believe me??Open your eyes and look around you-political dynasties reminiscent of the days of the Raj, communalism and regionalism at their peaks. I hate to look at what we have made of ourselves- meek factory produced guinea pigs whose one overpowering aim in life is self promotion and the prime mover for any action being selfishness. Most people can't seem to think beyond themselves.  

Individual freedom

I am not an anarchist,not yet. I still have faith there can exist a government whose only reason for existence is to provide for the common good, to ensure all citizens are given adequate opportunities to make a living and choose a path of their liking and interest and to express fully his/her views without fear. A government should not exist for the continuance of the government or the power structure itself . The nation is not greater than any individual living in it and nobody's rights should ever be curtailed for the continuation of the power structure or the system as it is so euphemistically referred to nowadays. The duty of a nation is not towards its territorial integrity but towards its citizens I see lots of columnists lamenting the fact that the major problem with India is that everybody seems to have an opinion on everything. I say they should rightly have an opinion and they should voice it out too but not at the cost of the next person.

The System

The President of India is no greater than I am. He/she is not the ultimate authority on what happens to me, I am. I decide what to say and what to do whenever I want to. I am all too aware of my rights as a free human and I am capable of fighting for them and this is how I choose to do it. The system called the administration of this college is of no consequence to me. It is not above me. It exists for me and not for the continuance of itself. Recently the system called the hostel section decided that it was above the right of free speech of an individual and threw out a friend of mine for speaking out his mind. On enquiring we were told that he challenged the system and hence had to be cast off and his punishment will only be revoked when the "powers that be" feel like it/ have had their powerlust satisfied, when they deem the poor guy broken enough for him never to raise another whimper of protest. 

The system decided that we should not be allowed to have the power of self determination and hence the system revoked elections in this college. The system will probably exact its revenge for dissent one way or the other. but then the choice is simple. Would I rather be meek and deny myself and stay silent or do I do what I know is right...

Am I free? Hell I am....Are you??

p.s One of those Renesa rejects...dint find it cohesive enuf...but i guess on my blog anything goes

Economics Explained-Part 2

Deflation on the other hand...is a lot more fun

p.s part of the kaun hai dumb making videos...chk out kaun hai dumb if u havnt seen it yet....

Economics Explained-Part 1

Inflation sucks...big time!!!

L337 Speak

It’s a new year of college and its round about time when most you make your new hardware buying decisions. Traditionally it’s a toss up between a desktop and a laptop with a laptop increasingly making more sense with Wi-Fi in the campus and hostels. But before you actually make your buying decision I'd like to introduce you to a new and exciting series of laptops called Nettops or Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPC). These are low power consuming, very portable devices with good battery life. And then again it is not exactly the Jesus gadget either-downsides are small screens (typically 7", 8.9" or 10") and average processor and graphics performance. But then look at this way; if all you do with your computer is browse the web, do a bit of office apps, watch movies, listen to music and play minesweeper the rest of the time how much more performance do you really need??

Desktops have clearly outlived their use. Most laptops nowadays can do all that a desktop can do at a very small premium in price unless of course you are a hardcore gamer on a budget in which case a desktop is your only choice. But for the rest of us a nettop makes a lot of sense. The whole craze started off with Asus launching their Eee-PC some time last year. Nettops existed even before in the form of the One laptop per child (OLPC) platform but it was woefully underpowered and targeted at a whole different audience to adequately capture the imagination of the mainstream market. The Eee-pc changed the rules of the game. Now you had an ultraportable that came at a throw-away price of about $400(prices have since reduced to about $300-roughly 13k Indian rupees- on some models) and which did most of the things that most people do on their PCs satisfactorily and also came with the added advantage of being light and portable with very good battery life. It was an instant hit. With that success most other major manufacturers have jumped onto the fray with increasingly better products with better value and features. Most of the initial thunder of the Eee-PCs has since been stolen and now you have everybody from a Lenovo to apna desi HCL and everyone in between peddling nettops.

Of course an exhaustive review of nettops is not possible within the confines of this tech page and with my limited resources but if you are really interested in picking one up I would suggest checking out the MSI Windbook and Dell Inspirion mini-9. The ones on offer by Acer and Lenovo are also great buys. Nettops make for good second computers as well. All of them come with wi-fi inbuilt(duh!!) and some of them like the Eee Pc and the Dell machine have inbuilt HSDPA which means that when 3g does become a reality you can actually put in a 3g compatible SIM inside and have truly mobile internet wherever you go. Here are a few pointers you could keep in mind if you are planning to buy a nettop

1. Most nettops come with an option of an SSD or a harddrive. SSDs generally give anywhere between 4gb and 16gb of storage and hard-drives 80-120gb of storage. But SSDs are more reliable, faster and consume less power. They also boot up faster. I recommend taking the SSD route if it’s going to be your secondary computer or the hard drive version if it’s going to be your primary computer. Alternatively you can also buy the SSD version and plugin a portable hard drive if you need more storage. Most Nettops also come with a free online storage account which is a great idea.

2. Most of these Nettops come with options on batteries. I suggest you go for the most number of cells. It will increase weight a bit but then you don’t have to fight over charging slots in the canteen. A 4-cell battery should give you about 3.5-4 hours of usage under normal conditions.

3. Windows or Linux-The only reason I choose Windows over Linux is because it runs all my games. If you are not going to be playing age of empires or NFS on this (although you can if you want to) then go for the linux version. They are custom built Linux distros with user friendliness kept in mind-much more user friendly than Windows in some cases. The Windows version is more expensive but then these are the only devices for which you can legally still get Win XP preinstalled- so if you are in the mood for some windows love go ahead.

4. Some fully loaded Nettops will cost you close to 21k which is the price of an entry level 15.4 inch laptop. But then you have to understand that both of them are different classes of machines and for different uses. The nettop is lighter, more portable, is designed to run much longer and you look a lot cooler using a slick new nettop than a 15.4” piece of crapware. Everybody has a laptop these days but a Nettop is for the truly connected netizen.

Am I using one??No...But if you ever buy one please let me know so that I can play around it with for a while and then I'll be grateful to you for life and maybe...just maybe even let you touch my iPhone when I get one.

Thy Geekdom come. Amen!!!

Renesa Editorial

“The sands of time are steeped in new beginnings.”- Salman Rushdie in Grimus

It took longer than we expected it would. And we could not do all that we hoped to do with this opening issue of Renesa but there are certainly some changes-we have come up with a new concept of having a cover story in every issue. An online forum for Renesa is also in the works and should be up and running imminently. Of late we seem to have a crunch on talent. Where are all the good writers that we used to have in abundance?? We are confident of tiding over this for this year with a little of hard work thrown in but the situation for the future does look grim.

It is not anybody’s fault though. We are seeing a paradigm shift in the junta of the college in line with the changes happening to the college itself. We are finally looking more like a technical institute than ever before so much so that some of us who have been conditioned towards the easygoing life of mass bunks, the hectic politics of college elections and frequent events for the literary inclined have been hit with a feeling of obsolescence.

There have been a lot of changes both internal and external in the college. The removal of state quotas has brought in a different class of students into the college. The much vaunted multicultural social fabric of the college has taken a dent with little or no representation from certain states but then seen in the light of meritocracy it is probably a good decision. Other good things happening to the college include a sea change in the placements. More students are opting for core companies and we are increasingly being visited by good core companies as well. We hope this trend continues leading to slowly weeding out the software companies. This is discussed in detail in our cover story for this issue.

The college is seeing more intakes of M.Tech and Phd students which is definitely a good sign signalling our shift from just an engineering college to a research focussed institute. We hope the new crowd takes interest in the activities of the college but they can hardly be blamed for the college this year round has been pretty dry in terms of events. No I am not referring to the technical events. We had enough and more of those and as if just to drive home the point we have an addition this year. Where did all the jams, quizzes and generally fun events go off to? The final year is the only batch which has seen a normal year of college with Kashish et all. Even the occasional couple in the college is seen hanging out in the library clearing each others doubts. Other visible changes include new equipments being brought into the new gymnasium which has been around for more than a year. The stone benches near the main gate have also been reduced to rubbles. Rumour is that it was demolished because it was not sending the right messages to the girls in the college. Other items on the list banned for sending wrong signals include the notorious morning walkers in shorts, Valentines Day celebrations, rock shows etc.

The college has lost a lot of the colour and vigour of years passed by. The college runs the risk of the first years mistaking this languid atmosphere in the college to be the norm and graduating as boring white collar engineers with perfect technical knowledge( with weird ties and megalomaniac dogs for pets called dogberts). The students’ council and the committees connected to it including the LnD and CHRD are clearly over their heydays and have mostly been rendered vestigial. The jam packed main seminar halls, a feature of most evenings in an SVNIT of yore are nowadays used only for placement purposes. The once popular music club, the DJ nights after every exam have all become distant memories. Only technical committees like Drishti seem to have a future for first years never seem to get enough of radio controlled toys. Tough anti ragging rules have meant that the Drishti committee has not yet been able to brief the first years about the KVPY and that probably means a hit on the usually rich haul of selections managed by our college every year.

Well the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel may come with this year’s student council selections. Hope for the 9 pointers we have this year to be as good as that of last year and maybe you'll get to see the GS and the CS for the first and last time on the last day of Sparsh. Everything’s good, Everything’s fine @ SVNIT

iMuse-2

An excellent Tabla concert. The audience in raptures of applause and the artist overjoyed at the praise for his performance. His emotions flow out in the form of words which apparently to his surprise and disappointment is met with loud boos. His mistake apparently was not his choice of words but the language he sought to express them in.

The Union of India when it was formed about 60 years back was born with an expiry date. Most external observers were of the opinion that a country with more than 20 different languages and seemingly a million cultures would never stand the test of time. It was Utopian-the idea of integrating so many different people into a single nation. Nevertheless India is today a nation to be reckoned with-having overcome every single threat aimed at its unity and sovereignty. But if there ever was one single reason that could be pointed out for the unexpected success of our nation, it has to be the idea of division of states by linguistic boundaries.

Language is easily the best unifying force among people reasons easily found- Language being the medium for the establishment and growth of civilization and again for cultural and scientific advancement. People who grow up reading the same literature, hearing the same songs and stories will obviously grow up with similar aspirations and outlook on life. This can probably explain why most Chinese, Bengalis and half of Kerala are followers of the Communist ideology. It is also a good explanation for the presence of regional associations in our college. Love 'em or hate 'em they are going to be a part of our college landscape for as long as we have people with Malayalam, Bengali or Punjabi as their mother-tongue. No amount of the "all of us are Indians, we should all be speaking Hindi and shun Asso-s" rhetoric is going to stop people joining Associations either. What can be done is to increase the tolerance level of people to other new cultures. A healthy respect for the language, tradition and culture of others is the need of the hour and these are possible only when you understand and respect the greatness of your own roots.

English and Hindi -for me atleast- are languages of convenience, the ones I use to communicate with people of a different mother-tongue. I take pity to the people who choose these over their mother-tongue in the delusion of imagined coolness. Know yourself before you get on to the merry-go-round of the latest iteration of what's up( wats up, wassup, ssup, wattup).I am quite happy when called a mallu, even if it was in contempt, they chose to identify me with what I speak than how I look or my social standing. They, probably in their ignorance identified me with a language , a literary tradition and intellectual worth probably much greater than his/her own. I cant figure out why some Gujaratis become uncomfortable and insecure with the tag of a gujju. The prejudices of the ignorant are not enough to drown out the richness of your culture.

The tabla concert was part of Mindbend. The maestro's over joyous heart poured out in Gujarati,the language dearest to him only to be met with loud boos and shouts of "Hindi,Hindi no gujju" from a rogue crowd of wannabe punks and first years impatient to try out their newfound freedom and advertise their hum-zyada-harami-hain status to the college. The graceful thing to do would have been to ask for an explanation from him after he had finished off in Gujarati. The artist recovering from the shock went on to speak in Hindi thereafter and the punks clapped in glee at their imagined victory. I hung my head in shame.

Editorial for Renesa

The last few weeks saw one of the best Mindbend that has been held in the college in recent history . There were loads of reasons for it not to turn out good- an extended holiday, the successful attempt at scuttling the rock show by some insecure representatives and general fatigue after a string of technical events. Yet it turned out to be a hit and how! The robotics show drew a great crowd and the workshops and lectures were excellent. The cultural nights were well organized and well received. Sparsh will have a lot to live upto but with big names like Mohit Chauhan and Gaurav Dagaonkar set to perform, it probably will be one Sparsh that'll be remembered for long.

In other news the TEQIP audit conducted recently concluded ( in line with the trend set by our representatives) that our institute deserves a high 9.2 which puts us in the league of the top 3 NITs. The college mail-ids are fully operational which is again good news although one does fervently hope that the Administrators put in a good Spam filter going by the number of “look at my pictures” mailers cluttering up the inbox. The Director has also been busying himself with sending us pictures of all the new hostels coming up but again one wishes every time that one of those pictures is the elevation of the Convocation hall that has been pending for long and is one of the more pressing needs of an institute of our stature. Its farewell season and it is time to yet again bid adieu to a wonderful batch passing through the hallowed portals of our institute. We have dedicated the whole center fold to the passing out batch. It is also time for a change of hands at Renesa and we hope the infusion of new blood will keep the spirit of Renesa burning bright and maybe even lead to a change for the better.

Inspite of all this, the year that went by will certainly not be remembered in any glowing terms. Rather it will be known as the year when the activities of the whole college was held hostage in the name of a petty scuffle, the year when meritocracy in leadership attained dubious distinction. The experiment as it is now being called is underway to find whether a committee of grade curve worshipers can actually run a college for a year without all the so called politics and its fallouts. Autocracy has found the sheepskin it was waiting for all along.

The issue here is not whether the experiment does really turn out to be successful. Maybe it will, most probably not. The issue here is whether all of this is good for the institute. Colleges have traditionally been bastions of free thought and free speech, places where rebellious young men and women cry out hoarse over every injustice,seeding grounds for the basic lessons of civil society and democracy. But when such measures as the setting up of a non representative student council are taken and attempts at censorship are made the question begs to asked? Is the college losing its spirit in its race towards technical excellence? Is there no room for personal freedoms in the pursuit of higher TEQIP ratings? Are kitsch new labs and mega hostels the only criteria for the growth of the institute?

SVNIT is an institute of young adults and one of the basic needs of every such individual is freedom- the freedom to choose what is good for him or her. A petty fight is never a reason enough for the democratic rights of a whole institution to be revoked. The decision not to trust the students to manage themselves was not necessarily the cleverest solution to the problem that was at hand. Nobody likes somebody else to make decisions for them and hence a democratic system. History has proven that autocracy has never been an ideal form of governance. All that it has ever led to is discontentment and violent revolutions.

Now is the time to decide whether we decide to label ourselves as an institute of higher learning or restrict ourselves to the rather narrow definition of a technical institute. Do we graduate as politically naive, submissive technical hands manning the back offices of first world nations or do we graduate as free thinking, creative and liberal minded citizens of the free world? Choose now, Choose wisely.

Adieu !

Kaun Hai Dumb???

Pretension..thy name is Orkut

Have you ever known real pain?-the kind that makes you want to pull all your hair off at one go? Real pain is when some guy calls you up at 2 in the night and asks you to get his net connection fixed because (of all the godforsaken reasons in the world) orkut is not loading (now you know where all the hair went).The blame, though, lies squarely on my short stint as the LAN secretary of my hostel, the travails of which I’ll describe some other time (I wish this will shed some light on the sad plight of the guy in your hostel who takes care of the LAN and you start to pay more respect to him/her)

Orkut (as we all know) is the place where every one is cool and sexy, where everybody looks like a movie star and/or cute animals, where pretentious idiots1 add friends and scrap total bull randomly. Even I am guilty of the oh-so-unforgivable sin2 of trying to woo maidens with (what I thought was) fancy English and sexed up profiles with a list of all the rock bands that a google search on rockbands would come up with and then some more (I genuinely doubt whether there are as many rock bands as people populate their musical taste space with). Again one of the other sections to showoff ones "cooler than thou" credentials is the movie section. One of the big favorites when it comes to the movies section is SAW. I personally cant believe how people can have such a disturbing movie as a favourite...maybe the guys think it exudes machismo to have pervert movies in your favourites...even girls with all their love of barbie and mushy romantic films seems to have SAW as a favourite-beats me...barbie and the SAW puppet are two poles of the doll dimension, maybe they also think pervert movies in their favourites will make them look ubercool ( the likely-an-MCP apologizes for the likely-to-be-perceived sexist comment) There are no limits to the bull people fill up their profiles with. It’s quite surprising how orkut which is a failure3 and a damp squib of a social networking site with no real USP or niche compared to other networks is still going strong. I hope orkut meets with a painful death and the skeletons forever to be lost in the dark depths of the nether where most defunct and long dead sites lie( anyone remember altavista, aol, netscape or askjeeves??)

Social networking is soon going to be dead (and I’m going to be one of the few happy people for it).Its going to go the same way blogs went-they said everyone was going to have one, but if I was too lazy and bored to update and maintain my own then about 98% of the other people on the net were too. If you want proof- Microsoft bought a part of facebook for a sum that could easily have wiped poverty in the world twice over4. There you have it- absolute, undeniable proof that social networking is dying and we all know how smart Microsoft people are; the blue screen of death and the three button tap dance (Ctrl+Alt+Del) being the only cultural phenomena they have ever been credited with.

To my friends (and competitors in the world domination game), Google and Mark Zuckerberg. You hoped to take over the world while we were searching for profiles of cute females. Better luck next time...your experiment in mass mind control looked good for sometime-the bluff has been called and anyways with Microsoft in the picture you better move onto newer things. They have this thing with screwing up good and viable domination plans- they just take the monopoly thing a bit too far and get sued all over the place.

I will never know any pleasure greater (subject to revision...I hope sex is as good as it is made out to be) than writing an eulogy to the great farce of social networking. This is the beginning.


1. Most of them tend to be the classic losers with no real social life-the type you would generally stay away from in high school.

2. Washed myself clean though with a purge of all the random females I’d added in the short and crazy period of my life I call “the Orkut delusions”.


3. Orkut is a dead network in most parts of the world except for India and Brazil-and I’m pretty sure 90% of all Brazilian profiles are spam profiles with bots that sell Viagra and link to porno. Gotta give it to them though- Pretty bots.

4. They reportedly valued each profile at an average of $725.You definitely know they have IQs comparable to jellyfish when they value your 20 or so fake profiles at a $725 a piece.

iMuse-1

I do not belong to any caste or religion-maybe by birth but not by choice. Does it make me an atheist-perhaps but a nihilist-never. Atheism can never be equated with a lack of morals, rather atheism or agnosticism is the the product of logic and reasoning, the product of a questioning mind- a mind free of dogma and fear, free from the man made chains of sin and the deceptive (and at best romantic) ideas of salvation,heaven and hell-a mind which has learned that the world is not so much in black and white as it is in shades of grey. From here on whenever I speak of atheism I also imply agnosticism and its shoot-offs thereof even including Deism. My wish here is not to disprove the existence of God but rather to strip off and lay naked the ugly entity of so called organized religion or revealed religion, that which masquerades itself as the only way to true salvation and the resultant attainment of heaven while serving only to keep the masses in the dark about the true nature and purpose of life. Organised religion and the resultant caste system is the malignant tumour on society that threatens to spread its cancerous growth until ultimately resulting in the death of its host-civilized society, while at the same time serving the interests of a few people who stand to benefit from it.

For long the atheists have been looked down upon as outcasts and misfits in society with their radical ideas and unquestionable logic that threatened the very foundations of religion and society. But then then he would rather not be part of a society that judges him not on merit or his contributions to the world but on his caste,religion or the colour of his skin. In a world where the morality of revealed faith equals the persecution of innocents, the free thinkers choose their morals based on principles of humanity and common good. Most atheists believe in the innate goodness of human beings and have faith and in the next person's innate morality unless they have been brainwashed by religion and instilled with a false sense of moral superiority which justifies the murder of people of other faiths for their apparent blasphemy and rejection of the 'one true religion' and its God(s).In a world which judges your character by the number of times and the number of temples you visit or the amount of time you spend in a mosque or a church, a person devoid of religion and its prejudices would rather measure it by your dedication to the progress of humanity and your devotion to development of your own faculties of logic and reasoning.

One major challenge that hinders the progress of humanity is a society filled with hypocrisy which refuses to or rather is afraid of taking off its blindfold. It is not the fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom but rather the elimination of fear that puts you on the illuminated path. If the world has to progress, society and ultimately all of humanity has to understand that we are here not for the service of any higher being but to be of service to each other and to ultimately ensure the survival of the species and of the environment that supports us.

Religion is the opiate of the masses - the corruption of their minds, the high that they seek in the bliss of ignorance and hallucinations of supernaturalism and magic fuelled by epics and gospels. It is the mad rush to worship god-men and idols that drink milk- the blood spilled in the name of holy land and unfathomable foolishness that justifies Ayodhya and Godhra, Israel and Palestine, 9/11 and Iraq , the "truth” that lies, the undying faith that will be the undoing of the human race.

Isn't it time you stepped out of naïveté and ignorance to that which you know cannot lie to you- your own logic and reasoning? What is it that propels you to debunk cold scientific facts and evidence in favour of Creationism to explain the complexities of nature? Why do you subject yourself to naïve Fideism and willingly fool yourself? Is the high of religion worth it or are you afraid to think?

Perfection

Well lets see...How many people have ever wanted to live in a perfect world,a world where there is no sadness,where there is no poverty and nobody ever even gets a chance to take a sneeze(yeah even a sneeze is a luxury) that is a lot of raised hands.For a start lets take the most perfect of superheroes-Superman really isn't perfect.The Man of Steel doesn't have a single flaw of character or superpower,invincible,indestructible;but of course all of his perfection arises from his weakness-a contradiction??Superman fans might know that his single weakness is kryptonite,the rock from his home planet which robs him of all his extraordinary powers.If it is Superman's origins in a distant planet that is the cause for him being perfect then it is also his weakness.If he has a weakness then he is not perfect is he??Not really.It is his weakness that makes him complete.Nobody wants to see a superhero who can bully any and all of his enemies into submission that would be plain boring .Then his weakness becometh his claim to the post of the most perfect of all superheroes.We see that every superhero of ours have their own weaknesses-Spiderman has weakness of character;Batman has no superpowers.He is perfectly mortal.Then that is his weakness but also his usp-he is a normal guy like u or me just that he found enough time to make billions, gain all and every form of knowledge, make a car with jet engines, find an underground cave, learn acrobatics and fight like a guy rite out of a B- grade Chinese martial arts flick with visual sound effects(all the whams and bams) and still look handsome and worst of all get all the girls to pine for him.Wat more could a guy want??(Im the perfect comic book junkie)If we go down history too we see that nothing is perfect.The Titanic sank;Utopia the perfect piece of real estate isn't worth a dime-well because its too perfect even to exist.So if perfection is such an imperfect thing then why do we even have a word called perfect???Maybe it is because we r all perfect in our own ways,maybe it is a mix of our own strengths and weaknesses that makes us all perfect.Same reason why I'm the perfect me-there can be no perfect-er or perfect-est me because I'm the unique irreplaceable, unreproducible perfect specimen of myself.Perfect should be out of the dictionary.It is at best a useless word.There can be the perfectness of imperfection,the imperfectness of perfection and the imperfectness of imperfection but never the perfectness of perfection.Everybody and everything is perfect.Come to think of it,if it was such a perfect world then nobody would get sick-no sickness-no sick leaves??100% attendance??No wait-i would rather get a cold and sneeze my head off rather than live in a perfectly boring world.I'll choose the perfectly imperfect world any day!!!and I know perfectly well what you are going to choose too.(The chances of u choosing for a perfect world are also included in my perfect guess because a perfect guess is anyway an imperfect thing-circular logic is so cool!!)

The conditions under which any one understands me, and necessarily understands me--I know them only too well. Even to endure my seriousness, my passion, he must carry intellectual integrity to the verge of hardness. He must be accustomed to living on mountain tops--and to looking upon the wretched gabble of politics and nationalism as beneath him. He must have become indifferent; he must never ask of the truth whether it brings profit to him or a fatality to him... He must have an inclination, born of strength, for questions that no one has the courage for; the courage for the forbidden; predestination for the labyrinth. The experience of seven solitudes. New ears for new music. New eyes for what is most distant. A new conscience for truths that have hitherto remained unheard. And the will to economize in the grand manner--to hold together his strength, his enthusiasm...Reverence for self; love of self; absolute freedom of self.....

Fredrick Nietzsche