Swine Flu Article on New Scientist Magazine

http://www.newscientist.com/special/swine-flu-myths-that-could-endanger-your-life

and its not cheerful at all.

Update : My Year Off with Theoretical Physics in Canada :)

Hello Folks !

Its been ages since I last sent out an update mail, but that does not mean things have not been happening ! There have been many many months of desperate - and sometimes dangerous - hard work, much agonizing thought about the future, a satisfying amount of cricket, some heart burn some success and a few twists in the tale. Not to mention some inspirational teachers - maybe thats a tautology, anyone who's inspirational is automatically a teacher - and so many delightful friends it was an absolute privilege and pleasure to spend time with.

The upshot of it all is that after spending one year in Belgium sweating out some of the toughest coursework in Photonics along with the Belgians (even Caesar appreciated them - "Of all the Gauls, The Belgians are the bravest !") and one year in Scotland fretting about a singularly intractable and tedious masters thesis while chilling at the whey pat tavern with cheesy nachos after village cricket games, I have ended up in Canada at the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics doing (yet another) masters degree (in Theoretical Physics, obly).

Before you ask "Why ??"  and "What ????", This is my year off. Other people travel and take it easy, I got a chance to fulfill a childhood dream. I am studying general relativity at the moment and before Im done at the end of 10 months, Ill have gone through cosmology, string theory, quantum gravity and most of the rest of physics - all at someone else's expense. Its a brilliantly conceived and intense course and if you're interested, take a look at it here. 

Im enjoying myself and learning a lot. What I will do after this ? Who knows. But I want to travel a lot, and I intend to settle down back in Aurangabad pretty soon. How Im goign to do that without simply abandoning all my random and fairly esoteric pursuits, I do not know, but Ill figure something out :)

Sincerely,
Prasanna

New Blog

This is where I blog now

see you there !

CLOSED DOWN

I will no longer post anything here.
This blog has served me for a long time, and I'm rather fond of it, but the past suffocates it now, I want to start afresh and write something different.

I'll put the new URL here as soon as there is one.

Thank you for coming !

Questions for a PGDM

why are food prices rising all over the world ? how is the price of oil determined ? what justification is given for the assertion that wealth trickles down ? what do consultants do after 5 years of consultancy ? what are they good at ? why do derivatives and other financial "products" exist ? what purpose to they serve ? why are the richest and most cash rich sectors (investment banks, consultants etc etc) the ones that create no wealth ? why do people with bad credit histories provide the major portion of bank profits ? why is fractional lending allowed at all ? what controls the amount of money in the economy ? what relation does amount of money in the economy have to real income ? what is real income ? why cant we have a fixed amount of money circulating ? does that even mean anything ? what percentage of consulting income is result dependent ? what percentage of consulting income in india is from family owned businesses and what percentage from government ? why do pgdm related jobs like investment banking and consulting tend to be so elitist and opulent ? why is the guy who makes a better chulha not rewarded more than a man who talks nebulous bullshit in the current economic system ? the pharma business is the most profitable in the world, followed by food, why are these not govt controlled to ensure food, medicine pricing and availability ? who controls commodity prices and availability and how ? who regulates them (both prices and people) ? what justification is given for the assertion that there will be less corruption if the private sector controls sectors that are currently govt controlled ? in a free market, what represents a person with no money ? where did the money lent out in the sub prime crisis go ? if it is circulating in the economy, some one must have it, so why is there economic slowdown in the US because of that ? what punishment has been meted out to the rating agencies who messed up on such a large scale ? why do IIMs need to have such ridiculous fees when they require no expensive labs, no special equipment apart from good class rooms ? do corporations HAVE to increase profits for shareholders ? cant the charter mandate instead a maximization salaries of employees or minimizing acres of rainforest cut ? why should corporations have the same rights as citizens ? why is no human liable for the misdeeds of a corporation ? how foolish is that ?

as more questions occur to me I'll put them in another post. Please feel free to comment and clarify, correct, explain any of the above, or connected things.

Chitrangada is Coming Back !

.

I put the same photo again, because I find it stunning. Take a look at this article from Tehelka which gives a good account of her history and the effect she had on people, including me. The article also talks about her upcoming movies and her own reasons for leaving when she did.

Finally, something positive happens to Bollywood !

The Greatest Ever

An article by Rohit Brijnath, this is a moving tribute to Dhyan Chand. It was part of India Today's 100 People who shaped India series of articles. This is the link to the whole article on the India Today website. Notice how shoddily we have always treated our heroes. We are a hugely callous country. We dont deserve our heroes. We certainly deserve our politicians. If you know what this article talks about, and if it does not move or sadden you in any way, chances are, you're Indian.

They say you can judge a man's legend by the quality of myths that surround him. By that measure itself Dhyan Chand was an extraordinary man. To hear tales of his craftsmanship was to wonder whether his stick was designed by Merlin himself. They broke his stick in Holland to check if there was a magnet inside; in Japan they decided it was glue; in Germany, Adolf Hitler even wanted to buy it................

..................................................................................................................................................

........When he fell ill, liver cancer it turned out, and came to Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences, they dumped him in the general ward. A journalist's article eventually got him moved to a special room, but that public memory had to be jogged tells its own story.

In Jhansi they had a funeral, not in the ghat, but on the ground he played on. Players came, but it seemed a little too late. It made it hard to forget the first few words of his autobiography Goal: "You are doubtless aware that I am a common man." He wasn't but he died like one

But we did not

India lost 2-0 and will not be playing at the Olympics in Beijing.

I want India to win . .

against Britain tomorrow in Santiago. India has played in every men's olympic hockey tournament since 1928 (and won 8 of them) and in order to play in Beijing, India need to beat Britain tomorrow in the final of the 6 nation qualifying tournament from which only one team will play in the olympics. India lost only one league match, and that was to Britain a couple of days ago, a very rough match in which 3 players were reprimanded for bad behaviour, and India lost in in the dying moments when Rob Moore scored for Britain to give them a 3-2 win. (bringing back memories of that last minute goal we let in against Poland in Sydney (to make it 1-1), we were 1 minute 41 seconds away from our first Olympic semi final in 25 years.) That was only Britain's 10th win over India ever.

China, Korea and Pakistan, South Africa, Canada, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium and Australia have already qualified for the olympics. Belgium ? Korea ? and India is struggling ? This story goes back to the 2006 Doha Asian Games when for the first time ever India were ousted in the group stages due to a loss to China who are considered minnows in Hockey. India had won a medal in every previous edition of the Asian games, and apart from a Bronze in 1986, we won either gold or silver. That failure to qualify for the semis and win a medal at the Asian Games meant that India did not automatically qualify for the Olympics. And so here we are . . . Needing to beat Britain to get to the Olympics. and once upon a time Beating britain would have been no problem at all, Pakistan beat them 8-2 or something in the last olympic games, but they have a higher world ranking than us (they are 8th and we are 9th) and nothing can be said about the Indian Hockey team anymore. We lost the league game to them after all.

What happens to Indian Hockey if we dont qualify for the Olympics ? so much history, so much pride, and once upon a time so much glory went with the Indian team's exploits at the Olympics. The coverage in the Indian media (from what I could gauge over the internet) was desultory, and apart from one article on Indiatimes by the coach Joaquim Carvalho none of the articles went to the heart of the situation the Indian team finds itself in. There were no statistics anywhere, (I got a few numbers from a Pakistani newspaper, which sounded like it really wanted India to qualify, if only for the sake of tradition) no analysis, no recoup of the Indian team's recent results, no analysis of the system for qualification of the olympics (I had to go to the olympics website to check which teams had already qualified) nothing. The fate of Indian Hockey in the near future hangs in the balance, generations of pride and a splendid record hangs in the balance and the country refuses to notice ?

Its a shame. Shame on all those who call themselves sports fans and sports journalists in India and shame on the Indian public which obediently drinks whatever rot the BCCI dishes out and refuses to look around for itself - there is greatness and pride in all sport and very very few sporting teams in history have provided as much drama, brilliance, glory, and now tragedy as the Indian Men's Hockey Team.


If I could go back in time and choose a sport again, I'd choose to play Hockey.

Its gone too far

I, P B, hereby declare that I will not watch, read about, talk about, or in any way encourage the proliferation of any event, product, person or subject that has any connection to cricket in India.