Talk slides ...

The slides I have used in support of my talks last year, are available at the following links:


https://calpp.org/ramanraj/talks/legal_codes_2010.pdf

legal_codes_2010.pdf - 1.2 MB

https://calpp.org/ramanraj/talks/ml_ipr_cnc_uom_2010.pdf
ml_ipr_cnc_uom_2010.pdf - 497 KB

https://calpp.org/ramanraj/talks/legal_remedies_for_esi_and_pf_issues.pdf
legal_remedies_for_esi_and_pf_issues.pdf - 404 KB

The first two were under the auspices of the Department of Legal Studies, University of Madras, and the last was at DOMS, Anna University. The most significant constitutional challenge of the times is about having more open societies, where the citizens actively participate in governance. This theme is also elaborated at http://ramanraj.blogspot.com/2010/01/csx-v-sebi.html Various computer programs and codes help in achieving this, and the first talk takes a look at how legal codes have evolved historically. The other talks take a look at coding from various perspectives.

Older talks:

https://calpp.org/ramanraj/talks/calpp_ai_at_kec.pdf
calpp_ai_at_kec.pdf - 267.1 KB

https://calpp.org/ramanraj/talks/calpp_ai_sjce.pdf
calpp_ai_sjce.pdf - 472.7 KB

https://calpp.org/ramanraj/talks/calpp_nlsiu.pdf
calpp_nlsiu.pdf - 286.0 KB

https://calpp.org/ramanraj/talks/foss_licenses.pdf
foss_licenses.pdf - 274.8 KB

https://calpp.org/ramanraj/talks/tml_unicode.pdf
tml_unicode.pdf - 634.2 KB

Research papers of Dr. G.N. Ramachandran

The University of Madras [UoM] has contributed two Nobel laureates to the world: Dr. Sir C.V. Raman and Dr Subramaniam Chandrasekar. Raman's disciple Dr. G.N. Ramachandran, was invited to establish the Department of Physics at the UoM in 1950. The research work by Dr. GNR, as he was called, is most remarkable. He proposed the triple helix structure of collagen, the 'ramachandran plot' to *validate* protein structures, 3D tomography using convolution method - the basic algorithm that made CT-Scans possible, by 1970s. Thereafter, he wrote a number of papers on Syad Nyaya - may be theory - that now passes as "fuzzy logic". He died in 2001, and most obituaries lamented that the Nobel missed this master.

His most outstanding research paper would be on "Three-dimensional Reconstruction from Radiographs and Electron Micrographs: Application of Convolutions instead of Fourier Transforms" now also available at http://www.pnas.org/content/68/9/2236.full.pdf This work with A.V. Lakshminarayanan was the starting point for the development of CAT scan technique in radiography and later, magnetic resonance imaging.

He helped to lay foundations for bio-physics, and this branch of science has grown leaps and bounds ever since, in the recent decades.

The last leg of his career was devoted to writing the papers on what passes as fuzzy logic today. The links to the GNR paper on BA-2 are from http://www.ias.ac.in/jarch/currsci/51/00000685.pdf to *693.pdf He profoundly realised the role of computing in science, and he is the greatest computer scientist India has given to the world, in recent times.

We have not made optimum use of the research by this great scientist. As a first step, all the research papers published by him need to be collated and published online.

References:

[1] http://bioinfo.ernet.in/library/gnr/Gnrmain.htm
[2] http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/scientists/gnramachandran%20.htm
[3] http://www.ias.ac.in/j_archive/currsci/52/7/292-302/viewpage.html
[4] http://bioinfo.ernet.in/library/gnr/mat.html
[5] http://www.currentscience.ac.in/php/auth.php?authid=11647&author=Ramachandran,%20G.%20N.

An analysis of 5000 PDF files

To be exact, 4949 PDF files were used for the analysis.

Methodology:
To collect information about the PDF/pdf files available on my system, the following command was run:

# find / -name "*.[pP][dD][fF]" -type f -exec ./test.sh {} \;

test.sh script:

echo " " >> index.dat
echo $1 >> index.dat
pdfinfo $1 >> index.dat

index.dat so generated was parsed into a postgresql database table with columns for title, author, creator, producer, keywords, subject, bytes, pages, creation_date, mod_date, page_size, pdf_version, encrypted, optimized and tagged field values returned by pdfinfo program for each PDF file.

PDF Version:
More than 3500 files were using version 1.3 or 1.4, introduced a decade ago. The file counts for all major versions were as follows:

PDF Version (with year   File 
of its introduction):    count:
    1.0 (1993)              3
    1.1 (1994)            196
    1.2 (1996)            720
    1.3 (1999)           1622
    1.4 (2001)           1912
    1.5 (2003)            260
    1.6 (2005)            187
    1.7 (2006)             49

The PDF file format has now been published as an open standard in 2008, and Version 2.0 is in the offing. It may safely be predicted that Version 2.0, or one of the subsequent 2.* stable releases, would stabilize by 2020.
For those wondering about the three files old files on my system using version 1.0, one of them is a copy of the "Hacker's Diet", by John Walker, that can still be downloaded from: http://fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/hdpdf.zip The pdfinfo for this file is as follows:

Author:         John Walker
Creator:        LaTeX
CreationDate:   Monday, December 20, 1993 at 22:57
Tagged:         no
Pages:          338
Encrypted:      no
Page size:      342 x 476 pts
File size:      2007166 bytes
Optimized:      no
PDF version:    1.0

Pages:
The 4949 PDF files have a total page count of 2,80,777. More than half of the PDF files have just a couple of pages. File counts for those with less than 10 pages:

Number of    File
pages:       count:
        1    893
        2    473
        3    332
        4    227
        5    192
        6    167
        7    146
        8    130
        9     78

About 1/3rd of the total have less than 101 pages. The average page count was 33 for files with page count between and 10 and 100. The page range statistics:

Number of         File 
pages between:    count: 
  1-10            2722
  10-100          1579
  100-1000         632
  1000+             16

Page size:
A4 is the standard, followed by letter size. Due to the minor difference in the points scale used, no summary is given here.

 
Page size:                File 
                          count:
595 x 842 pts (A4)        1348
612 x 792 pts (letter)    1315
595.276 x 841.89 pts (A4)  510
468 x 648 pts               92
595.28 x 841.89 pts (A4)    89
595.22 x 842 pts (A4)       44
612 x 1008 pts              31
595 x 964 pts               30

Author:
The Author field was blank in half of the PDF files. The good news is that the Author names are given even consistently across the files in the remaining half. A few example names found:

Author (File count):
Benjamin Franklin (2)
D.S.KOTHARI (1)
David Carlisle, carlisle@cs.man.ac.uk (5)
Doyle, Arthur Conan (2)
Intel Corporation (2)
Lawrence Lessig (1)
The Unicode Consortium (5)

Title:
Some good title descriptions found:

Title (File count):
ACHARYA JAGADIS CHUNDER BOSE - HIS LIFE AND WORK (1858-1937) (1)
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1)
APOLLO 8 MISSION REPORT FEB 1969 (1)
ARBITRATION LAW IN INDIA (1)
Free Culture (1)
Intel® Desktop Board D945GCLF Product Guide (1)
The Articles of Confederation (1)

Many files had numbers with "Chapter", "Form", "Annexure", "Volume" or other prefixes that do not help to identify the file. A title like "Animal Farm by George Orwell" duplicates the Author field. As an example of good style, I could cite the five PDF books authored by David Carlisle, carlisle@cs.man.ac.uk available on the system. The Author name is written consistently across the PDF files, and the titles accurately describe the content:

The afterpage package
The delarray package
The hhline package
The indentfirst package
The xr package

Subject:
In most files (4564 to be precise), this field was left blank. PDF files from http://www.feedbooks.com/ give the subject, making it easy to index thus:

 Subject (File count):
 Non-Fiction (2)
 Non-Fiction, Essay (1)
 Non-Fiction, Essay, Collections (2)
 Non-Fiction, Essay, Politics (2)
 Non-Fiction, History, Essay, Politics (1)
 Non-Fiction, Philosophy (4)
 Novels, Adventure (6)
 Novels, History, Biography (1)
 Novels, History, Romance, Adventure (1)
 Novels, History, War (1)
 Novels, Horror, Fantasy (1)
 Novels, Philosophy, Science Fiction, Politics (1)
 Short Fiction (1)
 Short Fiction, Crime/Mystery, Collections (1)
 Short Fiction, Horror (1)
 Short Fiction, Science Fiction (8)
 Short Fiction, Science Fiction, Collections (1)
 Short Fiction, Young Readers, Fantasy, Collections (3)

Keywords:
4850 files did not give any keywords. The few that give, help a lot in classifying the files. Some example keywords found listed:

[Org   ] Keywords (File count):
[nVIDIA] GeForce 6, Video Processing Technology (1)
[ilugc ] FOSS, Free, Open, BSD, Linux, Software (1)
[pakin ] attachments; annotations; PDF; LaTeX; package; automatic; files (1)
[us-con] constitution independence hall philadelphia (1)
[bnhs  ] wader, india, point calimere, india, bird, waterfowl, russia, monitoring, wetlands, india, cranes, important areas, waterbirds around the world (1)

Document Restrictions:
The vast majority of PDF files imposed no restrictions. The details:

Document restriction parameters:                File
                                                count:
no                                              4292 
yes (print:no copy:no change:no addNotes:no)     570
yes (print:yes copy:no change:no addNotes:no)     53
yes (print:yes copy:no change:no addNotes:yes)     4
yes (print:yes copy:yes change:no addNotes:no)    20
yes (print:yes copy:yes change:no addNotes:yes)    2
yes (print:yes copy:yes change:yes addNotes:yes)   8

Information relating to copyright is mostly part of the content - it should ideally form part of the file metadata too. Many of the document restrictions cease to apply after lapse of statutory period of copyright, and it would help to have particulars about the owner of the copyright, licensing terms and conditions, along with full details about the source of publication.

Optimization:
PDF files are either linear (optimized) or non-linear (not optimized). Linear files are basically optimized for the web, so that the pages can be viewed without waiting for the whole file to download as is the case with non-linear files. The statistics for optimization were:

Optimization (File count):
false (2934)
true  (2015)

Content:
Of course, pdfinfo doesn't help here - one has to read the file to judge content. 500+ files were from www.arvindguptatoys.com and 100+ were from www.gandhiserve.org - I recommend both sites for useful reading :)

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format
http://www.adobe.com

A black billed magpie's song

[Sighted at Chennai in April, 2010]

CSX v. SEBI

Universal Law Publishing Co has published the Third Edition of M.V. Pylee's "Constitutional Amendments in India", in 2010, with full text of all Acts, Statement of Objects and Reasons and legislative history. The Constitution of India has so far witnessed Ninety-Four Amendments in its 60 years of operation.

Worldwide, the most significant constitutional reform we hear about is about having more open societies, where the citizens actively participate in governance. George Soros spoke elaborately about the need for open societies, and a transcript of his lecture is at http://www.soros.org/resources/multimedia/sorosceu_20091112/capitalism_transcript The core problem is summarised by Soros in these words:

According to the modern concept of sovereignty, the natural resources of a country belong to the people of that country, but governments, which are supposed to be agents of the people, put their own interests ahead of the interests of the people whom they are supposed to represent and engage in all sorts of corrupt practices. On the opposite side, the managements of the international oil and mining companies represent the interests of the companies all too well. They used to go so far as to bribe governments in order to obtain concessions. Willing takers and givers of bribes are the root cause of the resource curse.

Once I became aware of the agency problem, I discovered it everywhere.

Communism failed because of the agency problem. Karl Marx's proposition-from everybody according to their ability and to everybody according to their needs-was a very attractive idea, but the communist rulers put their own interests ahead of the interests of the people.

The agency problem is also the bane of representative democracy: the elected representatives use their powers for their own interests to the detriment of the common interest.

The Internet, mobile phones and other electronic networks widely available today could make direct democracy possible. However, direct participation in policy and law making sans inter meddlers and representatives needs to be tried and tested, before it could be realised through constitutional changes.

The most veritable testing grounds for direct participation of people is readily available at most stock exchanges. It is no accident that the stock markets and legislative assemblies have advanced forward in parallel replacing older forms of trade and governance.

The Bombay Stock Exchange originated as "The Native Share & Stock Brokers' Association" in 1875, making it the oldest stock exchange in Asia, continuously existing for more than 135 years. It was established soon after the East India Company, was dissolved and liquidated in 1874 by passing of the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act, after the Government of India Act, 1858 closed the company rule.

The Coimbatore Stock Exchange came up very recently. CSX developed in the light of floor based trading but after electronic terminals became common place after 2000, the floors collapsed. Terminal based trading changed the future for CSX. [Ref: http://www.sebi.gov.in/courtorders/madras.html etc.] The next big development in terminal based trading might be when the brokers feel the heat and terminate.

The future of grass root democracy is nascent in the air. The success of terminal based trading should encourage terminal based voting and law making. Constitutional history could be in the making again.

Pups: Not found wanting ...

The puppy litter made their home under a staircase, that's dark most of the time. My visit to their nook woke them up. The seven snuggled together making themselves warm and comfortable. They dozed off quickly sensing no harm from me.

Annular solar eclipse over Chennai on 2010-01-15

A javascript eclipse calculator is available at http://www.chris.obyrne.com/Eclipses/calculator.html

The metrics for the partial annular eclipse for Chennai (13° 04' N, 80° 17' E. Time Zone 5:45 E) were:
Start of eclipse: 11:40:26.8
Mid eclipse: 13:45:36.1
End of partial eclipse: 15:30:10.8
Magnitude at mid eclipse: 0.89257
Ratio of size of moon/sun: 0.917

TOP500 v. Gartner (just another opinion)

Top500's 2nd list for 2009 was released on 17th of November, 2009. The Cray Jaguar beat IBM Roadrunner to the top first rank. Jaguar was upgraded to AMD x86_64 Opteron Six Core 2600 MHz (10.4 GFlops) processors for the feat. It runs the Linux kernel. Eka, a machine from India, has gradually dropped to #26 now, from its June 2007 rank of #4. The list is closely followed, and is one of the most critical analyzers of computer hardware and operating system software. The Top500 is being published twice a year since 1993 and the data accumulated over the years reveals many patterns and points to future trends as well. "An Overview of High Performance and Challenges for the Future" talk by Dr. Jack Dongarra, one of the maintainers of the Top500 list, is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTIKUxO9kf4. The interesting talk concludes with an indictment of the software development process in vogue:

• For the last decade or more, the research investment strategy has been overwhelmingly in favour of hardware
  
• This strategy needs to be rebalanced - barrier to progress are increasingly on the software side
  
• Moreover, the return on investment is more favourable to software
  
  • Hardware has a half-life measured in years while software has a half-life measured in decades
  
  
• High Performance Ecosystem out of balance
  
  • Hardware, OS, Compilers, Software, Algorithms, Applications
    
  • No Moore's Law for software, algorithms and applications
    
  
  

Current software is woefully unable to utilize the hardware developed and available. Software has failed to keep pace with hardware growth and progress.

Why is the software domain lagging behind?

The answers most probably lie in ZL v. Gartner, and more specifically in Gartner. It is not easy to believe that a single corporation could hold a tight grip over a domain as large as the software industry, but it seems to be the most important reason why the field of software has lagged behind while hardware has progressed in predictable ways.

A number of blogs list articles on how Gartner has been feeding news and opinions promoting fud about potential products. A lengthy list is available at http://boycottnovell.com/wiki/index.php/Gartner_Group Apparently, no serious challenge to the nonchalant and frivolous views of Gartner appear to have been made so far, and ZL v. Gartner might come to save the whole software industry from collapse, shame and disgust.

It is hard to dismiss the complaint made by Dr. Jack Dongarra. Dual core 64 bit machines will turn into multi core multi bit machines in future. Large scale parallelizations are suddenly feasible and economical in terms of power consumption. The disruptive and fast emerging processor technology throws serious challenges to software developers. Whole kernels and applications would have to be re-written, if the new features of the processors are to be utilized. If Gartner is continued to be taken seriously, much of the revenues would only get piped into useless products and would only ultimately leave the field barren and lagging woefully behind the gaint strides in hardware.

Ideally, software should be ready 14 months before the hardware becomes available, based on emerging trends in hardware development. But thanks to Gartner and its chums, software is always at least one decade behind hardware on a regular basis now. This ought to change, and I hope the American legal system takes ZL v. Gartner to its logical end, and saves the software industry from further doom.

The motion to dismiss ZL's plaint also raises some interesting questions with regard to the US Constitution as well. Under the VII Amendment to the US Constitution:

"In suits at common law, where the value in conrtoversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."

Long before the US Constitution and the VII Amendment, the right to trial by jury was well known and recognized:

In Holmes v. Walton (1780), New Jersy employed six man juries in cases of small amounts (six pounds) and twelve man juries in all other cases. Because the property involved had substantial value, Holmes was entitled to a trial by a jury of twlve; but the trial judge, for reasons unknown, allowed him only a six man jury. He contended that he was denied a right to trial by a twelve-member jury. The high court upheld his claim. (The case is best remembered for another reason though. The constitutionality of the State's trading-with-the-enemy Act which provided for trial by a six-man jury was not at issue, but the disaffected citizens of the locality alleged in a petition to the state assembly that the states' supreme court had held the seizure act void. The legislature supported the court, by enacting a new measure providing that in any suit exceeding six pounds, trial by jury meant a trial by a jury of twelve.

In the interesting case of Trevett v. Weeden (1786), John Weeden, a Rhode Island butcher, refused to accept paper bills rather than gold or silver for the meat sold in his market. Under a recent Rhode Island law, the penalty for such refusal was harsh: anyone accused of the cime was given only three days to prepare for trial, no jury was allowed, no appeal from conviction was allowed, and the fine was fixed steeply at 100 pounds. As Weeden's lawyer could not reasonably deny that Weeden had refused the paper scrip, he confronted the law itself. The law under which Weeden stood accused, he argued, was unconstitutional; in enacting it the legislature had overreached its legitimate powers and violated the recognized principle of trial by jury and hence the Superior Court of Rhode Island should nullify it. The judges held that the case was "not congnizable" before them and dismissed the complaint filed by Trevett. Weeden was freed and suffered no penalty despite the fact that he had openly disregarded Rhode Island's paper money law. The legislature summoned the high court judges, as if they were offenders, and demanded an explanation of their reasons for hold an act "unconstitutional", and "unprecedented" judgement that tended to "abolish the legislative authority". Judge David Howell defended judicial review and judicial independence before the legislature, and insisted that the legislature had confused the argument with the judgment. The legislature initiated a motion to remove the judges, but ultimately did not succeed in doing so.

The Ten Pound Act Cases (1787) of that era again point to the vigour with which the right to trial by jury was affirmed. The Ten Pound Act of 1785 allowed justices of peace to try minor civil cases, involving sums less than ten pounds, without juries. The state constutitional guarantee of trial by jury extended to all civil cases except those which juries customarily did not try. New Hampshire practice had previously allowed a justice of the peace to try a case without a jury if the sum amounted to less than two pounds. After the court ruled that the act conflicted with the right to trial by jury, petitions to the state legislature demanded impeachment of the judges. The house, by a 3-1 majority, voted that the act was constitutional, but the judges courageously stood by their initial decision and reaffirmed it in another case. Following the failure of a motion to impeach the judges, the house capitulated and repealed the Ten Pound Act.

Now, after the Constitution of the United States of America came into being and the VII Amendment, the right to trial by jury in cases where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, shall be preserved. In my humble opinion, the right to trial by jury was hard won, and enshrined in the Constitution by no accident. A motion to dismiss could invariably lie only if a light view of the VII Amendment is allowed to prevail.

Dr. Jack Dongarra predicted the arrival of petaflop supercomputers by about 2010, way back in 1999, on the basis of benchmarking of the top500 since 1993. His concerns regarding the serious crisis in software development is to be taken quite seriously, and the first most valuable opportunity to bring in corrections may start with ZL v. Gartner.

I am happy about ZL v. Gartner for another reason too. My interest in computers could be traced to Dr. Arvind Srinivasan, who is now CTO of ZL Technologies. He was sitting to my left in high school. Maths became fun simply because of Arvind's contagious enthusiasm for it. Solving a problem was important but doing it with speed was often more significant and that also brought in an element of race and fun into equations. Speed defines elegance. He was the fastest in our maths class. I am least surprised that ZL took Gartner to court and would not be surprised if the American legal system, as I learnt about it acts fairly, reasonably and justly either. That should pave way for a more exciting decade down 2010 when software releases are ahead of hardware in the making.

Bretts Road, Salem

Philip Mason finished his book, "The Men Who Ruled India", with these words:

"When all has been said, one simple point remains. It was put clearly by Lord Wavell in an informal speech made after he left India. The English would be remembered, he believed, not by this institution or that, but by the ideal they left behind of what a district officer should be. At the other end of the long line, Warren Hastings had expressed a similar thought. 'It is on the virtue,' he had said, 'not the ability, of their servants that the Company must rely.' And if today the Indian peasant looks to the new district officer of his own race with expectation of receiving justice and sympathy, that is the memorial of the English."¹

"Bretts Road, Salem" is one such memorial. Harry Augustus Bretts, was the collector of Salem district, between 1853 and 1862 (called Baramahal then). His achievements:

He was a great administrator who brought in sweeping reforms in land taxes.
He levied less tax for poor yielding lands under ‘Less Fertile’ classification.
It was he who abolished the sukavasi inam (free lands for living), a free distribution of lands to Brahmins and Muslims in the district and instead introduced samathuvapuram concept by making all people live in all places amicably.
Bretts was also responsible for bringing out the first government gazette.
He brought out The Salem Gazette in 1859. Historian Le Fanu called Bretts a man of impeccable character and straight forward in administration and deliverance of justice and architect of many people welfare schemes.²

The Government of Tamil Nadu would like to rename "Bretts Road" as "Central Library Road". The proposal serves no useful purpose other than erasing the memorial to Harry Augustus Bretts, who ably served Salem as its Collector. Philip Mason did not live to hear of this tragic move.³ However, the Indian Civil Service has undergone radical changes after the British left India, and the move to rename is perhaps only the last nail on the notion of virtuous service.

Baramahal then included Salem, Dharmapuri and Namakkal, and was one of the earliest districts to come under British rule in India:⁴

Alexander Read, was appointed by Lord Cornwallis, as the first head of the district in 1791. Thomas Munro was appointed one of his assistants. Salem was completely surveyed in seven years time. Munro never forgot Salem and remembered it as a model unit of administration. Bretts served decades later, building on the foundation laid by Read and Munro.

Mason's book is replete with anecdotes on administration of revenue, justice, building roads, canals, bridges, railroads and nurturing institutions.
The rule of "Audi alterem partem" was taught this way:

To a Bhil tribesman who, after a long tale of woe, begged him for justice at once, here and now, on an oppressor who had not been heard in answer, Malcom asked:
'Why do you suppose God gave me two ears?'
That would be enough; it would carry instant conviction where half an hour's explanation would have produced only a sullen bewilderment. It was an answer which ought to have been taught to every young man entering the Company's service.⁵

Even today, the role of the Collector remains much the same. He takes charge of the district. He is duty bound to remove public nuisances and maintain public order.⁶ During the British rule, more than 3000 thugs were convicted between 1831 and 1837, after Lord William Bentinck appointed Sleeman to capture and bring the thugs to justice. Thugs those days killed for gain, and it was not unusual for them to have targets of killing one thousand pilgrims and travelers. Clearing India of thugs was no easy task but the evil was tamed.⁷

"Bretts Road" stands in glorious remembrance of the difficult services of not only Henry Augusts Bretts, but scores of others like him who diligently served India. The greatest criticism against the civil service of the British era was that they were not accountable to the people. Mahatma Gandhi started the non-cooperation movement in 1919, when Indians were cooperating with the administration in every way. After Independence, the anomaly stands corrected and the rulers are held accountable to the people through elected representatives. The Collector is a pillar of strength in our democratic set up. As a native of Salem, a wish: The road to virtuous service is a hard one and "Bretts Road" ought to remain on the map of India, as a guide to every sincere traveler.

---

¹ Philip Mason, The Men Who Ruled India, Rupa & Co, 1985, p. 346
² R. Ilangovan, We want Bretts Road, The Hindu, 28th November, 2009, http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/28/stories/2009112852490300.htm accessed on 29th November, 2009.
³ Philip Mason passed away in 1999. A clip from the "Daily Telegraph (London), Obituaries, Friday, January 29, 1999" is available at
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/INDIA/1999-01/0917632468, accessed on 29th November, 2009.
⁴ Mason, op. cit., p. 86
⁵ Ibid., p. 88
⁶ AIR 2009 SC 1868, Suhelkhan Khudyarkhan & another v. Sate of Maharashtra and others also available online at http://www.ebc-india.com/practicallawyer/index2.php?option=com_content&itemid=99999999&do_pdf=1&id=13137
⁷ Mason, op. cit., p. 115

Bentley's Second Phrase

The "Bentley's Code Phrases" [ http://www.archive.org/details/bentleyscomplete00bentuoft ] first published in 1906 continued to be commonly used till the end of 1960's. That and other codes were widely used by commercial establishments - "coding" seems to have been popular then at grass root levels. If the 5 letter codes were well understood, popular and used widely, there are no reasons why the present coding done with computer languages based on 8 bit letters can't be used with the same ease by the general public. Coding languages need to start circulating widely among the public the way Bentley's Code ruled from 1906 to the 1960s.

Solar eclipse on 22nd July, 2009, over Chennai

Forth resources

"The Forth story has the making of a morality play: Persistant young programmer struggles against indifference to discover Truth and save his suffering comrades. It gets better: ...

I know Forth is the best language so far. I'm pleased at its success, especially in the ultra-conservative arena of Artificial Intelligence. I'm disturbed that people who should, don't appreciate how it embodies their own description of the ideal programming language.

But I'm still exploring without license. Forth has led to an architecture that promises a wonderful integration of software and silicon. And another new programming environment."

-Chuck Moore, developer of Forth.

I like the idea of using stacks to keep track of bits. To give an example, take the gmail inbox. There is now a feature called "archive". We could select mails and archive them - the read mails are popped out of the inbox stack and dropped in the archive stack, away from view. This way, the inbox becomes manageable. I leave only mails that need to be replied to in the inbox, and as soon as possible, send a reply, and archive it.

Obviously, we can't be staring at an empty inbox for long. We can now clear gmail from our stack, and proceed to the next task awaiting.

I stack only a dozen items or less in my head, and give priority to one item at a time, and try to clear the stack as quickly and efficiently as possible, paying utmost attention to the task at hand.

Imagine this as a way of life. A philosophy. A program. That's Forth. Its Turing complete and really close to a Turing machine. The stack is the only window to the infinite tape. Every shift/read operation is defined as a word. This way, it provides elegant integration between software and silicon - it could hardly get better than this. It looks like a high level language to humans and a low level one to machines (or vice versa, depending on how you think).

Whatever the future may hold for Forth, its a wonderful way to learn about representing information, programming and compiling for finding solutions to problems using software and hardware. It could run in just 8k of memory. Forth developed from 1950's as a complete operating system and programming language. Its basics could be learnt in a day or two. Going Forth is not exactly easy, but worth the effort!

Resources to get started with Forth:

http://www.colorforth.com/HOPL.html
http://www.forth.com/starting-forth/sf0/sf0.html
http://thinking-forth.sourceforge.net/
http://www.jwdt.com/~paysan/gforth.html
http://www.forth.org/fd/contents.html
http://www.pin1.org/forthlib/
http://www.taygeta.com/fsl/sciforth.html

Thanks to Joseph Koshy for writing about Forth language in a mail.

A poem from Purananuru

யானை புக்க புலம்

காய்நெல் லறுத்துக் களவங் கொளினே
மாநிறை வில்லதும் பன்னாட் காகும்
நூறுசெறு வாயினுந் தமித்துப்புக் குணினே
வாய்புகு வதனினுங் கால்பெரிது கெடுக்கும்
அறிவுடை வேந்த னெறியறிந்து கொளினே
கோடி யாத்து நாடுபெரிது நந்தும்
மெல்லியன் கிழவ னாகி வைகலும்
வரிசை யறியாக் கல்லென் கற்றமொடு
பரிவுதப வெடுக்கும் பிண்ட நச்சின்
யானை புக்க புலம்போலத்
தானு முண்ணா னுலமுங் கெடுமே.

- பிசிராந்தையார்

The field entered by an elephant

"If an elephant take mouthfuls of ripe grain cut for it,
The twentieth part of an acre will yield it food for many days;
But if it enter a hundred fertile fields, with no keeper,
Its foot will trample down much more than its mouth receives.
So if a wise king, who knows the path of right take just his due,
His land will prosper, yielding myriadfold,
But, if the king, not softened by his knowledge, take just what he desires,
Nor heed prescriptions rule, feasting with song and dance,
Amid his court and kindered, and show no love to his subjects;
Like the field that elephant entered,
His kingdom will perish, and he himself will lose his all".

-Translation by Rev. Dr. G.U. Pope

The above verse is an obituary by a friend in the memory of his master, the King. G.U. Pope comments, they were not exactly "words of love." The players there are Ko-Perum-Cholan, Pottiyar and Piciranthaiyar - the noble King and his two intimate friends, who were also poets. All the three, after death were commemorated by stones placed side by side over their urns.

Apart from the discourse on why and how anyone should use valuable resources without waste, the composition also elegantly applies the Tamil fraction 1/20 'ma' [மா] in the 2nd line.

Erdös number

Could life be expressed as a set of numbers?

The Erdös number is probably part of such an attempt! The Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdös [1913-1996] collaborated with hundreds of mathematicians during his life time - 511 to be precise, including a few Indians as well. They might have collaborated with others, and a network of collaborating mathematicians emerges. Erdös number is in honour of him. He himself is given number 0 and those who directly collaborated with him are assigned number 1. Those who never collaborated with Erdös, but had contributed papers with any of the 511 get number 2, so on and so forth. Just for fun, if you have contributed papers, you may try to trace your trail to Erdös and publish your Erdös number! Though this is a "humorous tribute" to the mathematician, it has a huge potential of bringing mathematics closer to social science improving quality of computations based on society.

A list of mathematicians with Erdös numbers 1, 2 and 3 are listed at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_by_Erd%C5%91s_number

Like the many have not joined that network, my Erdös # is infinity.

References:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s_number
[3] http://fourmilab.ch/documents/erdos_number/

Relevance of Harold Laski

Harold Laski once said, "I really don't think there is anything to say about me except that I am honest and anxious to see a decent world before I die." Time magazine wrote an obituary for Laski titled "History's Revenge", saying "[s]ome people maintain that Manchester was the only place where Harold Laski could have been born. Manchester had nursed the industrial revolution and produced the "Manchester school" of laissez-faire liberals e.g., John Bright, Jeremy Bentham, Richard Cobden. State Planner Harold Laski, the argument went, was History's revenge on the city of Manchester." Laski was professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics [LSE] and advocated Socialism. He greatly influenced a number of Indian leaders who studied in Britain, including Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of India's Constitution. "Political Science" is part of the Law Course at Madras Law College [as it was called then] and "Grammar of Politics" by Laski is prescribed for study. He continues to exert influence and probably has many answers to problems that would come in the future for those prepared to understand his thoughts. The book analyses the judicial process and according to Laski, "[w]hen we know how a nation-State dispenses justice, we know with some exactness the moral character to which it can pretend."

"The Art of the Advocate" by Richard Du Cann presents many tidbits from Laski v The Newark Advertiser Co. Ltd and Parlby.
The brief facts are that, on Saturday, 16th June, 1945, at the height of the General Election, Professor Harold Laski addressed a crowd of over five hundred people, in support of a Labour party candidate at Newark, and as he was about to leave, a journalist from the Newark Advertiser asked him why Laski "openly advocated revolution by violence". The "Newark Advertiser" reported Laski's reply as: "As for violence, he continued, if Labour could not obtain what it needed by general consent, 'We shall have to use violence even if it means revolution'." Laski sued "Newark Advertiser" along with Parly, its Editor and Managing Director, that the report was false and malicious, that, by innuendo, the report meant and was understood to mean that Laski had declared his intention to commit and to conspire with others to commit the crimes of treason, treason-felony, sedition, riot, and breach of the peace and that Laski had been thereby injured in his reputation. The defence claimed the report was fair and that the words did not mean what was alleged in the innuendo. The justification claimed on the basis of pamphlets and books, that Laski had been preaching 'revolution by violence' at Newark as he had throughout his active life. The trial is said to have lasted five days, and the jury decided in forty minutes that the report was fair and accurate. The action was dismissed with costs. They did not go on to decide whether Laski had habitually advocated violence as their decision was just that he used those words at Newark. Time magazine mentions in the above said article that, "Laski had to pay all the court costs of $52,000, including a thumping fee to the paper's lawyer, wealthy Sir Patrick Hastings."

The print media lives by generating heated controversies. Laski fed them with prime fodder.

Harold Laski wrote in 1925, in his "Grammar of Politics", "[e]very legal system involves, in its working, an unprofessional element, of which the jury is the most notable example", and said, "[i]t is, therefore, a matter of importance in any judicial system to confer powers of general jurisdiction only upon persons of trained competence in the law." His own trial two decades later only confirmed his theory.

Qualitative competence in the legal system is something Laski desired deeply. Babbage, Turing, Laski and many others suffered in some way or the other under the system over them. They painstakingly wrote defensively in support of welfare for the majority, but somehow they only got trampled by events in the end.

Time magazine concluded, "Jeffersonian-Marxist Harold Laski, for all his brilliance, had never made it quite clear what he considered a decent world to be." That only shows how widely "Grammar of Politics" was read. History hasn't stopped counting the days past and just started labeling its days as that of the "information era". Laski started his grammar book with the line: "No theory of the state is ever intelligible save in the context of its time." Ever increasing automation and space exploration needs set a new context for state theories. "History's Revenge" would come only when Laski is more widely understood and appreciated. Even if it never does come, it would cause no peril to the reputation of Laski.

References:
[1] "History's Revenge", Time article dated 3rd April, 1950 at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,934881,00.html
[2] "LSE-India past and present" at http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/LSEIndia/pastAndPresent.htm
[3] "A Grammar of Politics", Harold J. Laski.
[4] "The Art of the Advocate", Richard Du Cann

ㄈபோல் வளை

Avvayar's ancient Attisudi says:

"ஙபோல் வளை"

Edward Jewitt Robinson translated that as, "Consort, like letters [of 'ங' series] in array."

The explanation by Na.Mu. Venkatasamy Nattar is as follows:

ங என்னும் எழுத்தானது தான் பயனுடையதாயிருந்து பயனில்லாத ஙா முதலிய தன் வருக்க எழுத்துகளைத் தழுவிக்கொள்ளுதல் போல, நீ பயனுடையவனாயிருந்து உன் இனத்தார் பயனில்லாதவராயினும், அவரை தழுகிக்கொள்.

ஙா முதலிய பதினொரெழுத்தும் எந்தச் சொல்லிலும் வருவதில்லை. ஙகரத்தில் பொருட்டே அவற்ளையும் சுவடியில் எழுதுகிறார்கள். இனி இதற்கு ஙகர வொற்றானது அகரவுயிர் ஒன்ளையே தழுவுவது போல நீ ஒருவனையே தழுவு என மாதர்க்குக் கூறியதாகவும் பொருள் சொல்லலாம்.

Except ங [ṅa] and ங் [ṅ], none of the others in the series ஙா ஙி ஙீ ஙு ஙூ ஙெ ஙே ஙொ ஙோ ஙௌ are used in any Tamil word. Hence, consort like ங [ṅa].

The aphorism taken more literally translates to "bend like the consonant 'ங'" [ṅa]. This interpretation does not really go well with the rest of the aphorisms in the Attisudi. The Tamil script has undergone major changes every century for various reasons. During the times of Avvayar, 'ங' seems to have been written thus: ㄈ That looks more like a square bracket. The aphorism now lends itself to ethically tenable meanings like: "fortify fences like ㄈ [ṅa]", "encircle and protect like ㄈ [ṅa]".

Weavers

Sarojini Naidu wrote a poem titled "Indian Weavers":

WEAVERS, weaving at break of day,
Why do you weave a garment so gay? . . .
Blue as the wing of a halcyon wild,
We weave the robes of a new-born child.

Weavers, weaving at fall of night,
Why do you weave a garment so bright? . . .
Like the plumes of a peacock, purple and green,
We weave the marriage-veils of a queen.

Weavers, weaving solemn and still,
What do you weave in the moonlight chill? . . .
White as a feather and white as a cloud,
We weave a dead man's funeral shroud.

Weaving is an age old tradition in India. Weavers making textiles in their homes and open spaces around them used to be a common sight just decades ago. Hand looms are now falling silent. The lucky few are shifted to living cultural museums. Dakshinachitra on ECR, near Chennai, has on display two hand looms on which weavers make a few sarees every month. A few pictures of the weaving equipment:










It is surprising that some say there is "no proof" for hand loom weaving traditions in India because, while, bits of fabric from ancient Egypt and China have survived, not even a shred has been found from India so far! Want to see some real proof that hand looms have existed for long in India? The weaver's feet have a story to tell:

The feet are used to 'power' the hand loom. The space between the big toe (hallux) and the index toe is large enough to accommodate another toe. The weaver's feet have for too long been operating the foot treadle and the space taken by the rope on the treadle has left a permanent mark on their feet. The "Book of Looms" by Eric Broudy documents other distinguishing features of the weavers: they have hands so sensitive to touch, that they cannot do other hard labour. The human genetic map would have the "weaver's patch" that could distinguish traditional weavers from the rest.

Hand loom equipment were upgraded by Jacquard, a French weaver, in 1801. His loom could be controlled by punch cards. This was a huge step in automating the weaving process. In due course, it inspired Charles Babbage to come up with the Analytical Engine, using punch cards to store programs. There has been no looking back since then.

By 2009, the fully automatic looms have almost totally replaced hand looms in India. The weavers in Tamil Nadu have been forced to find other jobs not their vocation - ending up mostly as construction workers. The shrouds for them would be woven by power looms now.

Mahatma Gandhi used weaving for political freedom. Thiruvalluvar, a law giver of the ancient Tamils, is believed to have been a weaver. Hailing from the weaving community, Sir P.T. Thiagaraya Chettiar created political currents in Tamil Nadu. The innovation by Jaquard led to automation of the loom, and the hardware of Babbage have now matured. Will the electronic networks that weave connections between all men mean the end of representatives and pave way for direct democracy? Time will tell - keep reading :)

References:
[1] http://www.poetry-archive.com/n/indian_weavers.html
[2] http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/jacquard.htm
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanga
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom
[5] "The Book of Looms", Eric Broudy, http://books.google.co.in/books?id=shN5_-W1RzcC&printsec=frontcover
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theagaroya_chetty

Ranjith and friends ...

Ranjith and friends take this road in Chennai, to school. We don't need computers to see what needs to be done to improve things here, but they could help us utilize resources in a better way:

Tattvartha Sutra: That which is

Umasvati's "Tattvartha Sutra" is one of the oldest philosophical works recognized by all Jaina traditions, and is much like an encyclopedia. The translation by Natmal Tatia introduces the work as having the theme of "non-violence, non-absolutism and non-possession." Self-reliance is seen as a core principle to life. The "self" is central to realising every other truth and the path to omniscience is presented. Various truths and ethics in the form of crisp verses guide the reader towards liberation.

It is fairly hard to follow the verses without aid from the notes by the translator. A few terse and pithy lines from to Sutra to encourage wider readership and appreciation of this great work.

What do souls do?

parasparopagraho jivanam
Souls render service to one another.

Soul is defined as:

upayoga laksanam
Sentience is the defining characteristic of the soul.

On variety of views:

naigama-samgraha-vyavahara-rjusutra-sabda nayah
The philosophical standpoints are: the common person's view, generic view, practical view, linear view and literal view.

On charity:

anugrahartham svasyatisargo danam
Charity consists in offering alms to the qualified person for one's own benefit.

On contemplation:

vitarkah srutam
Contemplation is pondering over the contents of the scriptures.

On India:

bharatah sadvinsa-pamcayaojanasata-vistarah sat caikonavimsatibhaga yojanasya
The continent of Bharata is 526 6/19 yojanas wide.

India was then 7695 KM wide. Today, India is 2933 KM wide, east to west.

On liberation:

tadanantaram urdhvam gacchaty a lokantat
When all karmic bondage is eliminated, the soul soars upwards to the border of cosmic space

The appendix includes notes on numbers, measurement of time, measurement of space, and other headings useful to interpret the verses. Number 2 is considered the minimum numerable as one does not lend itself to counting. Various grades of infinity are discussed as well.

The Tattvartha Sutra is based on the sermons of Lord Mahavira transmitted through his immediate disciples. The attempt to achieve omniscience and liberation through incessant thought and analysis is refreshingly enlightening even today.

The middle path

Thiruvalluvar, writing on "prohibited conduct" (கூடா ஒழுக்கம்), said:

280. மழித்தலும் நீட்டலும் வேண்டா உலகம்
பழித்தது ஒழித்து விடின்.

Rev. Dr. G.U. Pope translated that as:

What's the worth of shaven head or tresses long, If you shun what all the world condemns as wrong?

Mr. F.W. Ellis:

There is no need of a shaven crown, nor of tangled hair, if a man abstain from those deeds which the wise have condemned.

The English translations limit the verse to just the head and crown - missing the beard and the more general meaning of "shaving". Thiruvalluvar seems to prescribe the middle path with regard to hair - trimmed to taste according to the fashion of the day!

Buddhist monks and other sects have elaborate tonsuring rules and procedures. On the other extreme, Saivaite saints and others sport long tresses and beards. Both symbolise and make their school of thought apparent to the world, through hair growth. Valluvar strongly censures both practices, and declares that both extremes are unwanted when what the world condemns is given up, abandoned and/or destroyed.

Beyond just hair on the head, the verse prescribes the middle path to wealth earned through moral rectitude.

The University of Madras dictionary at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/tamil-lex/ gives the following meaning to "மழித்தல்":

1. மொட்டையடி-த்தல் moṭṭai-y-aṭi- : (page 3374)

மொட்டையடி-த்தல் moṭṭai-y-aṭi-

, v. tr. < id. +. 1. To shave the head entirely; தலை முழுதும் மழித்தல். 2. To strip completely, as a man of his wealth, as a tree of its fruits; முழு துங் கொள்ளைகொள்ளுதல். மரத்தை மொட்டை யடித்துவிட்டார்கள்.

The meaning of "நீட்டல்":

1. நீட்டல் nīṭṭal : (page 2295)

1. Stretching, lengthening; நீட்டுகை. 2. Procrastination; தாமதம். நிலைமை யறிய நீட்ட மின்றி (பெருங். மகத. 23, 51).

நீட்டல் nīṭṭal, n. < id. 1. Lengthening, extending, stretching; நீளச்செய்கை. 2. (Gram.) Poetic licence which consists in the lengthening of a short vowel into a long one; குற்றுயிரை

2. நீட்டல்மானம் nīṭṭal-māṉam : (page 2295)

280). 5. Liberality; பெருங்கொடை. (பிங்.)

The verse prohibits stripping someone of all wealth. It also abjures needless generosity. Both are needless if one maintains rectitude earning wealth. Of course, the verse assumes the reader has freedom to ponder and take correct decisions.

The saint who spoke so clearly censuring extremes, is portrayed with high tresses and a long beard. That does no justice to Thiruvalluvar - he must have sported neatly trimmed hair according to the fashion of his day!

It won't be out of place here to mention that most programmers who have made a huge difference to computing follow the middle path. To read more on them, please visit:

http://www.codethinked.com/post/2007/12/06/The-Programmer-Dress-Code.aspx
http://www.codethinked.com/post/2007/12/The-Programmer-Dress-Code---Part-Deux.aspx
http://khason.net/blog/computer-languages-and-facial-hair-%e2%80%93-take-two/