Sunday Posts

A western power finds itself in a ‘situation’. Their forces and administrators are running a country which is increasingly rebellious, and the rule, unpopular. The rulers' first response was to resort to the ancient rule of the Roman empire – divide and rule – and set the communities against one another. It did work for some time, too. But then it stopped working! Rather, there is now the added hassle of keeping peace within communities to have things going. Costs of occupation now outweighs the benefits. Everyday, the poor, dangerous country looks less and less appetising to its civilised administrators. Besides, there is a resource crunch too. The ruling country has been involved in too many wars - not many fine young men of the 'expendable' variety are available to man the front lines. It is becoming difficult to use the natives, and the local army is increasingly against the occupation. The public opinion at home is also turning nasty. First, the belligerent leader...

There was a trial in Baghdad, And a President was on the dock, He shouted, we are for humanity, While body counts sored, and vultures flocked! But he must shout, for the TV, Though he knew his time is past, He fought an unjust war, and must get punished, While newsreaders chattered, the dice was cast. We knew the outcome, still we waited, For justice to take its course, as they say, Our senses held in balance, and our values, at ransom, Till the president’s judgement day.

While Faith, rather like Love, must involve factual knowledge, it is not reducible to it. Terry Eagleton – Reviewing Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion Read the full review at http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/eagl01_.html

A must-read review of the latest book from Francis Fukuyama http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n19/holm01_.html

Reflection time, yet again! I suspect I suffer from these periodic depressions because I see time is running out for me, and I am getting older, without achieving much with my life. Don’t get me wrong – it is not about money – I don’t feel insecure in the least, but this is more about ‘what’s the point’ feeling, a soul-search on why I am doing what I am doing, perhaps very typical, mid-career blue. In any case, today, when I was midst of one bout of depression, and coincidentally was blessed with a longish and solitary train journey, I started thinking about my grandfather. If I rate people who have influenced my life, he will come up on the top. And, today, I was thinking about the lessons I should have learnt from him, but never did – at least till today’s train journey. Lesson 1: Work’s worth He had a long life, but he never retired. He was never employed, either. Starting up at an early age in a business set up by his father, he attended office till he was 85 and got paralysed afte...

This year’s British Association of Advancement of Science’s annual conference in Norwich is an unlikely event of interest for marketing man, but a significant new prototype was being presented. Known as George, this is a conversational Artificial Intelligence [AI] system, designed for a contact centre environment, which can handle customer calls and log responses. What is new about this system, reported, is that this one can track emotions, slangs and jokes. It can monitor the caller’s mood from the tone of voice and the use of words, and effectively escalate the call to a more specialised human agent in case it is not able to answer the query or the caller is getting annoyed. The system is designed to be adaptive too – learning from every call it could not handle, which it monitors and prepares itself with a response for next occasion. The benefits of such systems are rather obvious. These systems, if effective, can effectively handle the first level customer interaction and can handl...

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

I have been watching and talking a lot about the music industry recently. My interest is more business than musical – I see exciting news about the industry hitting the press everyday. I know this has now reached a Point of Inflection, a time when all the established rules of the industry change, and to survive all players must change the way they do business. Incidentally, it is also ‘all change’ in another industry – Advertising! Advertising is dying, say experts. Maurice Saatchi gave this speech bemoaning the death of his old friend, advertising. Al Ries’ latest book is titled ‘The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR’. The industry is abuzz with debate, discussing quick fixes, back-to-basics solutions, and new age ideas. At the first glance, again, it appears to be a technology-driven destruction. Yes, it certainly is – the media overload has diminished the return on advertising spend, and direct to heart ways of reaching an individual through search advertising has started deliv...

I saw a news item on Rediff.com that the Indian Commerce Ministry has recently recommended allowing 100% FDI in education. http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/sep/14spec.htm Already a Danish company has come forward with the proposal of building 200 playschools across the country. Also, there are proposals from MIT, Georgia Tech and other American universities for building Greenfield campuses in India. Sadly, the left parties and the HRD Ministry is opposing the proposal. Here is what I posted as a reaction : I am disappointed to see this news. I have a strong feeling that Arjun Singh is the wrong man, and he needs to be moved. He has a mindset of the last century, and is completely out of sync with the modern world. He is anti-meritocratic, as his penchant for various kinds of controls and reservations show, and the education system he wants to build will be only good in producing babus [in line with the good old specifications of the British Raj]. The FDI in education will be needed to l...

While the British Press and British Public are busying themselves at this time with the departure of Tony Blair, a debate is already raging about the legacy he is going to leave behind. Not many men, even Prime Ministers or leaders of countries, can claim the position to leave a legacy. But, despite many shortcomings that he may have had, Tony Blair is one of those rare individuals who indeed can make the claim, having led Britain and the modern world to a ‘point of inflection’ in its history. Also, it must be mentioned, legacies can not be judged at such a close range, except speculatively, as they are, by definition, meant for the posterity, and manifest themselves over a number of years. However, such speculations, at times, are worth indulging in, as in case of Mr. Blair’s, because this may impact our individual lives and the way we choose to live them in future. Also, to be fair, it must be stated that judging a legacy is not judging a man, as legacies are seen in the context of t...