Obama Insulted - Brazil Vindicated

October 2nd is celebrated as Gandhi Jayanti in India, but on this day something very strange happened in Copenhagen. Here at Copenhagen on 2nd Oct, IOC has decided the venue for 31st Olympics (to be held in 2016) to be Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. But why do I say this is special. Yes indeed it is special for the people of Brazil. Hearing the results Football great Pele had tears in his eyes. But it’s not the selection but the rejection of so called “big guns” that makes it special. Here is how a newspaper has put it- “Like sweet, sultry samba music, Rio hit all the right notes. Chicago had Barack Obama. Tokyo had $4 billion in the bank. Madrid had powerful friends. But none of that mattered. Rio de Janeiro had the enchanting story — of about 400 million sports-mad people on a giant untapped and vibrant continent yearning, hoping, that the Olympics finally might come to them. And the International Olympic Committee was hooked.”
It’s the loss of Chicago or rather Barack Obama that makes it special. Chicago was the favourite- given the fact that Mr and Mrs Obama had personally come to Copenhagen to persuade IOC members and had spent two days buttering them. But this favouritism was short lived. No one ever expected a first round exit of Chicago. The nature of loss gives a strong presence of an “anti-American” attitude. Nearly half of the IOC’s 106 members are European countries. This represented a defeat of “illusionist” power of America and Obama- who was born up in Chicago.
Brazil will now hold the world’s two biggest sporting events in a space of two years – in 2014 it is hosting Football World Cup. Now among the BRIC countries, India remains the only country not to hold any Olympics ever. Let’s see if India can make it next time.

Ethics and Morality

People think that ethics and morality are same, but there is a fine difference between them. Morality is what a person thinks is right or wrong. Ethics is what a group of person perceives as right or wrong. In other way morality defines personal character while ethics defines group character. There are many kinds of ethics company ethics, national ethics, business ethics, professional ethics etc. Ethics many times corresponds to law, but it’s not always. Laws can be said to a social ethics, as anybody who lives in a society has to follow laws of that society, this is nothing but social ethics. A person when confronted with making a personal decision is expected to look into his moral principles and make decision, but when the same person has to make a decision, which complies with a group, he is supposed to make a decision which supports the group ethics to which the person is a part.

In our day to day life, we often encounter situations where ethics and morality clashes. One such situation is the case of abortion. Here many people will find aborting a child as morally wrong, but by law it’s correct and hence conforms to social ethical standards. So a person may choose to not abort a child (this is his personal choice and here he applies his moral principles), but the very same person has no right to condemn another person decision of abortion. Here he/she is expected to comply with the ethical principles (read here law) of the society of which he/she is a part. So choosing to either go or not go for abortion is moral choice, but condemning abortion of others does not comply with the social ethical standards. Other situations where ethics and morality clash are the case of homosexuality (many believe it is wrong, but it’s is legal in many countries), the case of a criminal defence lawyer (the lawyer moral code finds murder immoral, but legal ethics demands the accused be vigorously defended. Legal ethics must override moral character and allow the judicial system to let the accused get a fair trial and let prosecution prove his guilt). Some people may find their moral character clashing with their company ethics. They many a times have to make a decision which they do not like, this creates resentment among employees and may lead to employee leaving the company.

Defining and justifying the thin line difference between ethics and morality is a tough call. The world still strives to overcome this vital difference. Understanding of this real difference will lead to a more peaceful world.

Terry Fox Run 2009 @ Chennai

Terry Fox Run was recently organised in Chennai, India on 30th August, 2009. This was the first Terry Fox run in Chennai and from now on it would be held every year in Chennai. The event was organised at the YMCA ground with the help of volunteers from IIT Chennai. Though the run was open for all, mostly people were from IIT, TCS, CTS and Canadian embassy. Anu Hassan flagged the event. The money raised would be donated to the TATA Memorial Centre for fundamental research into cancer. The idea behind the event is Akash Dube, a 17-year-old student diagnosed with cancer six months ago.

Terry Fox Run
Terry Fox Run (1981- ) is an annual volunteer-led, non-competitive event held around the world to commemorate the Canadian cancer activist Terry Fox, and his Marathon of Hope, and to raise money for cancer research. The event was founded in 1981 by Isadore Sharp, who wanted to hold an annual run in Terry’s name to raise money for cancer research. In Canada it is held every year on the 2nd Sunday following Labour Day (May 1). Outside Canada, the run is organised on any day that is convenient for the organizers.
Unlike other fund raiser event across the globe, Terry Fox Run has no corporate sponsorship. This was in accordance with Terry’s wishes of not seeking any fame for his endeavour. Here organizers have no budget for expenses but have unlimited appreciation for attendees. In 2002, there were 620 events were held in 53 countries.
The Run is the single largest single-day cancer fundraiser in the world.

Marathon of Hope
Marathon of Hope refers to the cross-Canada run undertaken by Terry Fox in 1980. It is commemorated each year by Terry Fox Run across the world. The main purpose of Terry’s run was to raise money for cancer research and to increase cancer awareness. The run started from St. John’s, Newfoundland on April 12th to Victoria, BC along the Trans-Canada highway - a distance of 8000km. Unfortunately Terry had to stop the run on September 1, 1980, due to his bad health. While in hospital he got a telegram from Isadore Sharp (who had recently lost his own son to cancer) telling him that his Marathon of Hope would be continued in his honour with an annual run, and that they would not stop until Terry's dream of beating cancer was realized.
A bronze statue of Terry Fox in motion is located in a memorial park along the Trans-Canada Highway – the spot where he had to end his run.
Terry died on June 28, 1981, due to bone cancer. Though he could not complete his Marathon of Hope, he said - "Even if I don't finish, we need others to continue. It's got to keep going without me."

Future Shock - Book Review

Future Shock is a book written by Alvin Toffler. In this book he tells about how the future would be, how it is overwhelmed by change and how we should adapt to it. Today we live in a society and thus our way of thinking, style of living, how we progressed- all apart from depending on what we do depends to an extent on how our surrounding/society changes.
Gone are the days in which human growth was dependent on him (that was past) .In present and more so in future we would be more and more dependent on our society for our own growth.

In describing the future he refers to three phenomena that would impact it-
1. The Death of Permanence and The Rise of Transience
This refers to the rate at which things around us are changing. An example that illustrates this is- Humans have been on this earth for the last 50000 years. Now if we divide this into lifetime of 62 years each, we have around 800 lifetimes. Of these 800 full 650 were spent in caves. Only during the last 70 lifetimes has it been possible to communicate from one lifetime to another- this occurred due to writing invention. Only during the last 4 lifetimes it was possible to precisely measure time. Only during the last 2 we started using motors and other equipment. And now a majority of goods/services that we today use are a product of present, the 800th, lifetime. This example is enough to illustrate the rate at which things are changing around us. To add to this effect we in the 800th lifetime have developed technologies that further accelerate the rate of change (e.g. - computers and internet). Within a single lifetime, agriculture has lost its dominance as main source of growth for a nation. Services have now replaced agriculture. Economies are now tightly interlinked. It’s rightly said- “If America sneezes, India catches could.”
Companies in the past were governed in a stable society. Now the situation is different. With society changing rapidly, companies are forced to reduce their decision time. This leads to the collapse of hierarchical structure within an organization. The flow of information through a hierarchical structure takes a long time, which increases decision time. So if a lower level worker finds any major problem, he would be directly reporting to a manager rather than going through the normal structure. This has led to organization calling their employees as “associates” rather than as “subordinates” and organization calling itself as “flat organization” having a “flat structure”.
Simply stated – “Our society is moving at a very fast rate”.

2. Novelty or Newness
This refers to the new objects, new ideas, and new surroundings that we face daily. Think of a surrounding in which you were born and the present surrounding in which is new child is born. Now look for the vast changes that are present between these two cases. When you were born there were no computers, no internet, there were fewer people on this planet (it was less crowded), less pollution and less noise. A child born today has to face an ever changing society, which is bombarded with novelty. His mind sooner or later adjusts to it and it is of no surprise that children born today are said to be more intelligent than those born 20 or 30 years before.
Toffler here coins a new word- “Adhocracy” to define the new type of organization that would evolve. It means an organization with little or no structure, people here would be assembled to work for a particular task and when the task gets over then would be dissembled. People would be expected to “learn and relearn” things, as they would not know what next project they would be working on. Any new project may need newer things to learn and at this juncture for them to survive they have to relearn things.

3. Diversity
Here Toffler talks about the array of options that we have for any good in the market. The problem now is that sometimes we have enough large number of options that we can’t figure out which of them is best. This problem he refers to as “overchoice”. The goods are moving from standardization to customization.

The book moves on further to illustrate the limits of adaptability as both physical and psychological. When the man first landed on moon, there he was subjected to physical changes that were beyond his adaptive limit. So he customized the boundaries around him to suit him (read the gadgets used by astronaut). Toffler says that there are discoverable limits of amount of change that a human can absorb, and just by accelerating the change without determining its limit, we may submit masses of men to demands which they cannot tolerate. The effect is not only limited to physical dimension it affects our psyche as well. Both high and low transience are bad, for a human mind to work efficiently his mind has to face the changes within a particular limit.

The book ends with a solution for adapting to this situation. The prominent suggestion that Toffler gives is that we have to be future oriented rather than past oriented. Any decision taken should be taken considering the future not the past. If something has worked out in the past it does not mean that it would work in future as the future mostly would be different from the past. He gives importance to role that different class of people, like sociologist, futurologist, etc apart from the technocrats and politician, will have to play in taking any decision. Any technical solution which affects society, like introduction of new technology, should not be taken by technocrats or politician alone, it has to involve others like sociologist.

Toffler’s Wave

Most of us know Alvin Toffler as the author of “Future Shock”. Those who have read even one of his books would definitely be his fan. I through this post would be giving more facts about Toffler which I got through internet.

This eminent personality has changed the lives of people. His books have changed the way one thinks and perceives this world. His work has influenced presidents, prime ministers and top leaders around the world.

Here are the books that he has written -

• Future Shock (1970)
• The Eco-Spasm Report (1975)
• The Third Wave (1980)
• Previews & Premises (1983)
• The Adaptive Corporation (1985)
• Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century (1990)
• War and Anti-War (1995)
• Revolutionary Wealth (2006)

Here are the lists of people who are inspired by the Toffler Books-

• Hugo Chavez, The President of Venezuela and Kim Dae Jung, former President of South Korea (they both read Toffler while they were political prisoners )
• Bill Clinton and Al Gore , former President and Vice President of United States.
• Mikhail Gorbachev, former head of state of USSR
• Zhao Ziyang , former Prime minister of China
• Lee Kwan Yew, former Primeminister of Singapore
• L.K. Advani, India’s Political Leader
• Mexico’s Vicente Fox
• Mahathir Mohammed, Malaysia’s former leader
• Ted Turner inspired by Toffler works started CNN in 1980.
• For Steve Case, the Third Wave struck him like “a lightning bolt” and led him to his co-founding AOL.
• J.D. Power cites Toffler as its mentor.
• Toffler is ranked among the world’s top advisors to management.

Here are some of his forecasts -

• Crack of Soviet Union
• Reunification of Germany
• Rising power of the Asia Pacific region
• Shift from mass manufacturing to services and knowledge work
• The Digital Revolution
• The increasing importance of communication
• The success of cable television
• Outsourcing
• Customized production
• Nano and Bio- Technology
• Temporary Organization forms
• Corporate restructuring

- All the above forecasts were made decades before they became global headlines. And unlike the predictions made by Bejan Daruwala, these had reasoning behind them.

This explains why Toffler is ranked among the world’s top advisors to management.

Here are some of the bright spots that his book have made-

• The Third Wave became the second bestselling book in China after the speeches of Deng Xiaoping as Deng and Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang deliberately used it to help launch the reform program that has since led to China's amazing rise. The TV version of the book that Heidi Toffler, as head of Triwave Productions, created in collaboration with Japanese and Canadian TV companies drew audiences all over China - many people bicycling ten miles to view it.
• Event today many Chinese still refer to “The Third Wave” as “the book that changed China”
• His books are considered as one of the most read books by CEOs all around the world.
• The architect of the new Singapore, former Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew, told South Korean daily Joong Ang IIbo that Powershift was a key influence on his thinking
• In 1995, on assuming the office of Speaker in the House of Representatives, Republican Newt Gingrich urged Congress to read a short list of key books. That list included works by Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, de Tocqueville - and Toffler.
• With the publication of War and Anti-War in 1993, the Toffler’s' influence spread to national security authorities in Washington and, before long, around the world. Former Defense Secretary William Cohen speaks of the Toffler's "visionary brilliasnce" and helped launch their book with a conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Since then the book has been translated and cited in military studies in many countries--including China
• “Future Shock” was turned into songs by Herbie Hancock and Curtis Mayfield, as well as a record label, a hip-hop dance group, a game called Terminator: Future Shock, a musical performed at the Edinburgh Festiva and a documentary created by Orson Welles.
• Toffler terms like "future shock" ,”prosumer” and "adhocracy" are now included in dictionaries.
• Time magazine, has described the Toffler as having "set the standard by which all subsequent would-be futurists have been measured."

Save me.... Save yourself.....Save your future

After a month of procrastination, I finally wrote my first
poem. Please down scold me if you don’t like it. I will try to write more
in the days to come.

When you came on this earth, you were few in number
But you lived in Symbiosis with me
You enjoyed the abundant resources, you enjoyed your life
Being gifted, you are the most intelligent species
So, you grew more rapidly than other less intelligent species
You started with no house, no cloth just like others
In short span you had everything.. Cloth, house, entertainment, unlike
others
But you still lived in symbiosis with me
You lived with me, you grew with me
I am your past, I am your present, I am your future
I am your nature

You lived with me, you grew with me
You used me, I didn’t say anything
You burned trees, I didn’t say anything
You inhabited other species, I didn’t say anything
You outnumbered other species for your benefits, I didn’t say anything
I tolerated you, I gave you warning, but you didn’t respond
But there are limits for toleration, I have to say
Save me.... Save yourself.....Save your future

You still have time, I must say...
You are the most intelligent and most capable
You have the power to save me and your future
You can do it
You owe your children a better future
You owe other species their right to live on his planet
You have to stop the way you live
And live the way you lived long long ago in symbiosis with other species
You have to do it
Your future, my future, your planet’s future lies in your hands
Save me.... Save yourself.....Save your future

If you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it

I recently read “Hot, Flat, and Crowded” by Thomas L Friedman. Today most of us are not aware of the ecological truth that we live in. It’s not because we don’t want to know it, but because our government doesn’t allow the market to tell it. This book brings forward the ecological truth and the future we are to face. Consider this fact- the difference in global average temp between an ice age and interglacial period like we are in now is mere 5 to 6 degree Celsius. So a small increase in temperature can lead to big changes. Earth has warmed by 0.8 degree Celsius since 1750 and the hottest years have occurred between 1995 and 2005. Any further increase may bring unmanageable problem. Many people argue that India and China have right to grow as we are undeveloped and have full right to live as we want. I do agree with it, but that should not be at the price of our future. If we continue to grow at this rate, the cumulative warning by 2100 will be 3 to 5 degree Celsius over pre-industrial condition. This rise is enough to take away everything. We need clean, cheap energy, more than before.

Who is responsible for this? Is it us. To some extent yes, but to a larger extent no. Yes, I agree that we need to save energy and use renewable energy. But how can a person use renewable energy when it is sold costlier to him than coal or oil. It is our government who is responsible for this. They make the laws, which make clean energy costlier than coal or petroleum. They don’t let the market tell the ecological truth, by giving subsidies for petrol and diesel rather than promoting clean fuel, the technology for which is available and can be easily used. It is important to change ourselves and save as much energy as we can, but it is even more important to select right leaders, who can make the right rules and tell people the ecological truth. Sadly in our country we don’t have any such leader who has environment protection (or rather our future) as his election main agenda, let alone implementing them. They are still fighting in petty caste politics.

Sadly we are not alone; the world economy today is dependent on oil. Today oil is present with a small bunch of countries, that in future can control the world economy even more than now if we do not improve. The oil has brought huge sum of money to a small group of countries. They made this money not by any internal development but by discovering their enormous wealth. It’s like giving a person huge sum of money and he does not know how to spend it. This is disadvantageous for both them and to the world as a whole. Turning green is no more a liability, it’s now an opportunity. The country which develops clean fuel system will be the most in demand as someday oil will vanish. This country will create more jobs for its people and will be successful economically and ecologically.
Today we often hear about species going extinct. We also have protected areas like reserve forest to protect these species. But few years down the line as climate changes it makes these protected areas uninhabitable for the very creatures they were created to protect. What today we need is to create a new system, rather than solving one problem and creating another. We today have created many problems for which we don’t have any solution. We don’t know how to bring back the extinct species. We don’t know how to fix holes in the ozone layer. We don’t know how to bring back the snow in the Antarctica. We don’t know how to turn a land fertile which we turned into a desert. This is what Severn Suzuki at 1992 Earth Summit has to say- “If you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it.”

Kudos to Democracy

India just concluded its 15^th Lok Sabha Election. With the results out, who will form the government is very clear. As usual as before, it was nobody’s cup of tea to project the result, though everybody tried it. Every paper, every next door news channel had its own reservations for the results. Many of them expected Mayawati to play a leading role in formation of government. Some had even gone to the extent of predicting her to become the next Prime Minister (read Forbes- click here for details).But the results are here for all of us to see. I personally feel that the Indian Election is not easy to predict; in fact it’s impossible. The reason being the huge size of Indian democracy.

Here are some of the good things that I see out of this result-

• People have become aware of the importance of coalition free government or a lesser coalition government. After 1992 election this is the first time that India has seen a single party getting more than 200 seats. This also means that the government will run smoothly for the next 5 years. Any government which has lesser dependence on coalition will definitely perform better than when it is under the pressure of coalition government.
• This time we would not see smaller parties playing bigger role i.e. with LJP getting zero seats Ram Vilas Paswan would not be a union minister. Paswan has served as a Union Minster under five different Prime Ministers and holds a cabinet berth in all the Council of Ministers formed since 1996. During these years he has been part of national coalition (the United Front, the National Democratic Alliance and the United Progressive Alliance), which have formed the Indian Government since 1996. In fact no coalition existed without him. He got all this with just a small chunk of lok Sabha seat (in 2004 LJP got just 4 lok Sabha seats). This time he broke his own record!! . LJP is just one of those parties there are many other such parties.
• The response of people of Bihar is something which can never be left out. This time people realised the importance of development and voted the right person to power. People now had choices/reasons to vote for and they just came out and did that and the results are in front of us. Caste politics did not play a bigger role and it was replaced by development politics. With lesser crime rate and more development happening, people got the reason to vote for and brought the right person to power.

For all those non believers/partial believers of democracy, we the people of India have once again proved that Strength lies in Diversity. Hats off to democracy.

Is Tata Nano Environment friendly?

Tata recently launched the cheapest car in the world named Tata Nano. Nano was made with a novel concept that every citizen has a right to live a comfortably life. But I strongly argue with the way they have achieved their dream. Nano though is less polluting, but the scale with which it will come into the Indian market is a point of worry. Nano is priced at Rs 1 lack and at this price it makes itself affordable to huge market of bottom level of middle class. It is said that anyone who can buy a bike will think again and would wait and buy a nano. But this large number is something which is worrying me. Tata said they were concerned with the safety of Indian people travelling on bike. This problem could be easily solved by the introduction of mass transit system. Also this would have made a more ecological solution. Just think if there were say 40 nano travelling on indian road instead of a bus , how much more pollution and congestion will it cause. Tata’s say that nano is less polluting vehicle and conforms to the environment standards of India, but let’s not forget that the environment standards of India is lesser than European standard (which is what is actually required ) and with the massive production of nano it is bound to bring pollution to a next higher level. Selling of nano does not end at people who have bike, even second time car buyers will be buying it. Reva Electric Car Company’s deputy chairman Chetan Maini points out that five years ago, 22 percent of cars sold in India were a family's second vehicle; today that number is nearly 40 percent. "The highest growth is in [the] second car buyer [market]." Most people pine for status and luxury of a car all their own; these people will definitely go for nano. Also many will buy Nano just for the sake of keeping another vehicle after all it’s so cheap to fit in their pockets. With the launch of Nano, Tata’s have significantly reduced the chances of government introducing a mass transit system. Nano will introduce congestion on road and to stop that government will have to invest in public transport and raise road taxes on cars to reflect the true cost of driving.

Many people argue that every people on this earth have an equal right to live a comfortable life. On the basis of this argument people argue that government should not stop people from buying cheap cars. I do agree on this argument, but living a comfortable life does not mean buying cars that could pollute your environment and keep your future in danger. Nano is basically a solution of present and not of future. When government can stop the sale of toxic plastic goods from China, why can’t it stop the sale of Nano? Consider a case where a group of people lived together and they had only a mango tree from which they can eat fruit and sustain themselves. At the current rate of their consumption they can sustain themselves with the mangoes from the tree. Now there are some people in the group who waste a lot of mangoes while eating, here I am calling it as a luxurious way of living. Now the leader of the group cannot allow other members of the group to live luxuriously as the output from the mango tree is just sufficient to support them. A prudent decision here would be to stop the people from living a luxurious live rather than allowing other people to live luxuriously. The leader should always have an aim of increasing the number of mangoes in the tree so they can sustain themselves a longer period of time. Our current environment condition is also similar to this. We live in a just balanced environmental condition where we are allowed to put only a certain fixed number of carbon footprints in the nature. If we increase our carbon footprints we invariably are putting our future in danger. Many people are not aware of this point. If we allow people to live luxurious life, we normally do this by increasing our carbon footprints. This brings me back to my main point- “Tata’s have not achieved their dream in the correct way”. Their dream –“to give every person a safe, cheap mode of transport”. They are trying to achieve their dream by selling world’s cheapest car, but here is the pinch, the car is a petrol car and could easily increase the carbon footprints and thus put our future in dark waters. I salute the efforts of Tata to produce the world’s cheapest car. This is a triumph of homegrown engineering and proved the Tata’s ability to produce economic solutions. But it is important to understand that this effort is not enough as it is not ecologically feasible considering the future. I would have been happy had Tata launched an electric version of Nano at this price. The electric version of Nano, E-Nano, is being built in cooperation with the Norwegian electric car specialist firm Miljoebil Grenland. But if by the time E-Nano is launched in the market at the price of Nano, the Nano has captured the market then it could mean a disaster for all of us. I only hope E-Nano is launched at the earliest. Tata Motors has signed an agreement with MDI of France for application in India of MDI’s path-breaking technology for engines powered by air. They are capable of doing it, they just need to put another extra effort and they should not be satisfied by the success of Nano. Since the success of Nano may mean the failure of human society to produce ecological solution. Success of E-Nano is what we need and this should be the aim of any prudent leader.

Societies operate by law and not by morality

Many people believe that societies operate only on morality. But it’s not true, they operate on Law. “Societies think they operate by something called morality but they don’t. They operate by something called law......And not by our laws. No. By the laws of the time.” says a law professor played by Bruno Ganz in The Reader. He further says “The question is never was it wrong but was it legal?” Whatever action a human being does, it’s accessed in only two parameters legal and illegal. There simply does not exist any third parameter. What one considers as morally correct may be morally wrong for another person. Like killing of any person or doing any social crime is considered as morally incorrect, but terrorist may consider it as morally correct. Perjury may seem as morally correct for a convict, but for others it’s not so. Morality depends on person to person, Law does not. Law acts as common principles on which society is governed. Also, laws made in 18^th century are not applicable in 21^st century. A growing fast society cannot run on laws made for society of past. Laws keep on changing. These laws are updated whenever society feels changes are required. So, laws govern societies and societies make laws. These laws are not made by a single person; these are made by a group of person and act as a neutral platform for everyone.

Laws guide individual towards certain ways of things which are right and away from certain ways which are wrong, this helps to bind individuals in a society. Laws supplement morality in unifying individuals and society along a particular scheme of right and wrong. This scheme of right and wrong is morality. But the content of morality can be anything. Laws may support say Christian morality or they can be flexible enough to allow killing of human being (during war or execution) at sometime and decry it at other times. The content of morality depends upon the country, period of civilization, etc. But whatever be the content of morality, it’s the laws which help to bind individual in a society towards a scheme of right and wrong principles.

Laws and moral principle go hand in hand. Moral principle alone cannot work, it’s the common laws which governs society and binds people to society.