Disparate Thoughts

There is much dismay in the world that educated Doctors - people who chose to save lives, are suspected to be part of a terrorist network. But the dismay is unwarranted. Islam preaches the concept of Umma - universal brotherhood without any regard to national or linguistic boundaries with allegiance first and foremost to the religion. Combine this with indoctrination in Madarassas; absence of dialogue, dissent in the Islamic; and a completely inactive moderate Islamists…. - All these result in a closed society that is completely obtuse to any alternate and dissenting views with people becoming narrow minded, wallowing in insecurity that the liberal world will threaten and eventually gobble up Islam. No wonder that this drives even seemingly (I say seemingly because having a medical degree doesn’t automatically make you educated) educated doctors to do insane, insidious things.

The world, especially the muslim world and more specifically the moderates in the muslim world will do well to speak up, disagree, challenge and defeat the crazies in the Islamic world.

Sam Harris’ book will be a good start: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (2004, 2005) ISBN 0-393-03515-8

P and I finally had our I-485 petitions approved - roughly 5 yrs and 2 months after we started the process. Three or more years ago this would have been an euphoric moment but now we were just relieved to have gotten out of this uncertain and bureaucratic process unscathed.

Whenever I visit Chennai, I worry a lot about the city’s unbridled growth and its slow deterioration into unsustainability. Not to be mistaken, it feels great to see the positive change in lifestyle of this cities citizens - more discretionary income to spend on life’s luxuries and to generally have a good time. In the midst of all this growth and “development” the cities roads and the travel on these roads are utterly horrendous. It is not just a question of the number of vehicles on the road but also that of the type of vehicles too - bicycles, bullock-carts to crass American style SUVs. The challenge is going to be around accommodating all these customers for the roads while simultaneously ensuring comfortable and quick access to various parts of the city and its suburbs.

For a long time, there was no robust debate or long-term vision for what this city wants to be and how it plans to get there. Recently, the Chennai Metropolitan Authority published a draft master plan to make the city sustainable and manageable. The report looks as far as out as 2026 and discusses what the city would look like and need by 2026. Some of the numbers are staggering. The current population of Chennai city and its suburban areas (referred to as Chennai Metropolitan Area or CMA) is 70 lakhs (7 million). This is expected to balloon to 121 lakhs by 2026. It also throws in various other staggeringly impressive numbers. The various aspects of day-day life this population growth will impact are called out - roads, drinking water, sanitary facilities, telecommunication, flood and other disaster management, educational institutions and health care facilities.
However, the abridged version of the master plan fails to present an executable plan to meet not only the future needs but also to fix the current woeful state of the city - damaged, polluted and crowded roads, lack of sanitary facilities, garbage removal and other civic amenities to name a few. More surprisingly, there seems to be no dialogue between the city and its population.

Its uncharacterstic of me to visit India during May and June. The last time I did this was in 2002 when P and I headed homewards to get hitched. And this time over, it is another wedding that beckoned us back home - a cousin of mine, practically my brother is tying the knot.

It seems weird and feels guilty that summertime in the city that I grew up in for 20+ years can be inhospitable. For some reason, it feels more hot, more humid, more dusty and definitely more congested. I know that the much pleasant upper midwest US’ weather has spoiled me (dont ask me about the winter - thats another story). Still, when I grew up in Chennai there were no Airconditioners; cycling or travelling by the crowded public trains and buses were the norm. Nevertheless, there were no complaints, no fuss and life just went on. On the contrary, there was a lot of thrill in riding the bicycle around, footboarding in the EMUs and PTC buses. The only treat was an occassional visit to Milky way - not only enjoy its delicious ice-creams but also to cast a furtive glance at the cute girls of Ethiraj college. Landmark and Higginbothams were always there to provide hours of reading material to be read both in the store and ofcourse to purchase the books.

I know my current thought process will lead me to wonder why the super manageable Madras become a monster of unbridled growth. However, I am not going to do that. I am just wistful for the old quiet city that I grew up in.

Grigory (Grigori or Grisha) Perelman belongs to that rare breed of scientists - those who live just for science, solving problems, advancing its cause without wanting to get caught in petty politics or be constrained by adulation and letting one’s quest for science and knowledge be encumbered by these extraneous and inconsequential things.
The recent edition of New Yorker had an excellent article about Perelman. Many articles have been written about his solution to Thurston’s geometrization concjecture, which is a generalized form of Poincare Conjecture. What makes this article special is that it compares and contrasts Perelman’s effort at solving the Poincare with that of Shing-Tung Yau’s. Dr. Yau is also a very accomplished mathematician and has made important contributions in Physics and Science. He also won the Field’s medal which is considered the equivalent of a Nobel Prize for Mathermatics. Dr. Yau’s attempts to downplay Dr. Perelman’s efforts seem petty, mean and driven by other motivations extraneous to Science.

Grisha Perelman on the other hand refused the Fields medal saying that solving the problem was enough recognition. I am not sure whether it is maturity or dedication to science at its purest form or some other inexplicable noble motivation but Dr. Perelman’s refusal seems to have made him more special than solving the Poincare did.

It was classic Silvio - trying to sound larger than life, trying to be pompous, powerful and ultimately being an Idiot.

Move on Silvio.

Notwithstanding the slim 0.1% margin of Romano Prodi’s centre left party over Mr. Berlusconi’s centre right party, the election does seem free and fair. This 0.1% margin is supposed to give Mr. Prodi 384 seats in the lower house of the Italian parliament Vs. the 281 seats to be given to Mr. Berlusconi. The upper house was won by Mr. Prodi by a 2 seat margin.

This elections seems more a Berlusconi defeat than a Prodi victory, given the lack-lustre campaign by the latter and the narrow result. Notwithstanding this, a slim majority is still a majority and it is time for Berlusconi to shut-up and move on. One statement by Berlusconi particularly caught my attention. After protesting that the elections were not fair, he suggested a grand coalition between the Right and the Left much like Germany. This, after insinuating that voting for Mr. Prodi is tantamount to voting for the communists. Sigh!

It is ridiculous that Mr. Berlusconi calls the election unfair when he apparently out-advertised Mr. Prodi 10 to 1, thanks to his private TV stations and through his influence of the state controlled TV stations.

It is not clear how effective Prodi would be but he cant be much worse than he un-elected Mr. Villepin of France. No, I don’t oppose his CPE strategy. I just feel that it was poorly executed