For those who didn’t know Nouriel Roubini, I strongly recommend that you read up about him and what has shot him to fame during these troubled times. He is amongst the few economists who had foreseen this crisis in the making, a couple of year ago.

Dr. Roubini writes at RGE Monitor.  I would like to share excerpt from two of his recent articles which were also published in WSJ and FT.

Here are some interesting excerpts from article 1

First, while Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s public-private investment program (PPIP) to purchase financial firms’ assets is not particularly popular, we hope the government doesn’t give up on it. True, the program offers cheap financing and free leverage to institutional investors, which will lead to the investors overpaying for the assets. But it does promote price discovery and remove the assets from the bank’s balance sheets — necessary conditions to move forward.

And to minimize the cost to taxpayers, banks must not be allowed to cherry-pick which legacy assets to sell. All the risky loans and securities banks were never meant to hold should be on the block. With enough investors participating in the PPIP program, the prices of the assets should be competitive, and there should be no issue of fairness raised by the banks.

Second, the government should stop providing capital, loan guarantees and financing with no strings attached. Banks should understand this. When providing loans to troubled companies, they place numerous restrictions, called covenants, on what these firms can do. These covenants generally restrict the use of assets, risk-taking behavior, and future indebtedness. It would be much better if the government focused on this rather than on its headline obsession with bonuses.

For example, consider the fact that the government, while providing aid to banks, did not restrict their dividend payments. A recent academic study by Viral Acharya, Irvind Gujral and Hyun Song Shin (www.voxeu.org) notes that banks only marginally reduced dividends in the first 15 months of the crisis, paying out a staggering $400 billion in 2007 and 2008. While many banks have been reducing their dividends more recently, bank bailout money had been literally going in one door and out the other.

Consider also, the recent risk-taking by banks. The media has recently reported that Citigroup and Bank of America were buying up some of the AAA-tranches of nonprime mortgage-backed securities. Didn’t the government provide insurance on portfolios of $300 billion and $118 billion on the very same stuff for Citi and BofA this past year? These securities are at the heart of the financial crisis and the core of the PPIP. If true, this is egregious behavior — and it’s incredible that there are no restrictions against it.

Third, stress tests aside, it is highly likely that some of these large banks will be insolvent, given the various estimates of aggregate losses. The government has got to come up with a plan to deal with these institutions that does not involve a bottomless pit of taxpayer money. This means it will have the unenviable tasks of managing the systemic risk resulting from the failure of these institutions and then managing it in receivership. But it will also mean transferring risk from taxpayers to creditors. This is fair: Metaphorically speaking, these are the guys who served alcohol to the banks just before they took off down the highway.

Another set of excerpts from article 2 (on FT)

“Schumpeter’s biggest fear was that creative destruction would lead capitalism to collapse from within, because society would not be able to handle the chaos. He was right to be afraid. The response of governments worldwide to the financial crisis has been to give the structure of private profit-taking an ever-growing scaffolding of socialized risk. Trillions of dollars have been thrown at the system, just so that we can avoid the natural process of creative destruction that would take down these institutions’ creditors. Why shouldn’t the creditors bear the losses?”

“Suppose the systemic risk problem is solved. The other argument against allowing banks to fail is that after a big loss by creditors, no one would be willing to lend to banks – which would devastate credit markets. However, the creative-destructive, Schumpeterian, nature of capitalism would solve this problem. Once unsecured debt holders of insolvent banks lose, market discipline would return to the whole sector.”

Sakura in Tokyo from James T. Kirk on Vimeo.

I don’t know if this is right or wrong? I was too busy completing the picture in my mind. May be you can tell me what you think…

For the uninitiated, you might want to watch this video to see how politicians in India deliver speeches full of religious hatred to the masses in order to win votes and therefore the elections to the general and state assemblies:

With youth entering the Indian politics, I hoped that the speeches of these young politicians will focus more on development-related issues and topics that a common man can relate to. I thought that they will talk about how they plan to improve the living standard of people in the backward areas. But I guess I was wrong. This speech is very disappointing and saddening.

Maybe this whole thing about “younger people will bring fresh life to Indian polity” is incorrect. I do not see any young politician talking the real stuff, focusing on real issues. I understand that to win the vote of the masses some of the old gimmicks have to be adopted but not these ones.

Dude you want to cut their heads and do what? Push this country into civil war, fragment a society which is almost always at dew point on such matters!

Ingredients:

1. Three egg whites
2. Salt
3. Chat Masala
4. Chili Flakes
5. 1.5 tablespoons of Extra Virgin, Refined Olive Oil
6. Painstakingly acquired skill

Calories count: Roughly 140 cals

An interesting video tutorial (ignore the sponsor message) on how to make a perfect omlette:

I write this article after learning about the social costs and the dire ramifications of the Hyderabad Metro Rail Project which was awarded to the Maytas Metro Limited by the Government of Andhra Pradesh last year.

After reading this article (by Mint’s managing editor Niranjan Rajadhyaksha) and the link (an article by transport activist C. Ramachandriah) provided there, I have gained significant visibility about this whole project and why it will be bad for the people of Hyderabad.

Before proceeding any further, I would like to tell my readers that I am a Hyderabadi (Spent 20 years of my life until 2007 there) by origin and know most of Hyderabad very well. However the article also contains a map of the metro rail project for all readers.

I do not want to give a discourse on why this project is bad because it has already been done in this article in a very efficient and effective manner.

Excerpts (Download PDF):

“On the face of it, this financial model seems very attractive because the bidder has not asked for VGF and instead is paying a “huge” royalty. It was even said that Hyderabad is going to get the metro rail “for free”, at “zero cost to governments and city administrations”. The huge economic and social costs that thousands of the affected people pay, and the huge costs of land acquisition and rehabilitation, do not appear as a cost at all.”

Request fellow Hyderabadis and other enthusiasts to read this article carefully.

Those who do not have a start on this issue and would like to learn can also pick up through this article.

Yesterday I wanted to read this amazing short story by Isaac Asimov that I had read long ago during my MBA. I did not know the title of the story and only remembered that it ended with the following line: “Let there be light”. So I googled “Let there be Light + Isaac Asimov” and stumbled upon this site (Recommend reading the story if you have time, otherwise try to follow the summary I have written below).

The short story I am talking about is titled “The Last Question”. It was originally published in 1956 by Isaac Asimov. You can read more about this short story on its Wikipedia Page.

The Last Question is undoubtedly the most fascinating short story and/or piece of science fiction that I have ever read. It addresses the ultimate question and what I believe gives the very meaning to our existence. While at the moment my mind is full of philosophy about human existence etc I will avoid going tangential.

Summary of the Story

Coming back to this story, it basically starts off with a question to which no one has an answer i.e.

“Can entropy be reversed?”

This question is posed to a super computer called Multivac which is the first true super computer with its own consciousness of sorts:

“Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough”

On gaps of many millions of years this question is asked repeatedly by various people and they always get only one answer:

“INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER”

Overtime the Multivac evolves into much more complex form and starts to exist in Hyperspace and across the cosmos connecting various galaxies in a manner which is best left to the whims of sci-fi authors. (I mean please read the story to get a sense; it’s very tough for me to explain this )

However even after all those evolutions; the main computer (called AC at the last stage of the story) is unable to find an answer to the question. For trillions of years the computer continues to collect data and try to solve this problem but is unable to do so. Read this short excerpt from the story:

“Cosmic AC,” said Man, “How may entropy be reversed?”

The Cosmic AC said, “THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”

Man said, “Collect additional data.”

The Cosmic AC said, “I WILL DO SO. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESSORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TIMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT.”

“Will there come a time,” said Man, “when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?”

The Cosmic AC said, “NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES.”

Man said, “When will you have enough data to answer the question?”

“THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”

“Will you keep working on it?” asked Man.

The Cosmic AC said, “I WILL.”

Man said, “We shall wait.”

Long after all humanity is gone due to exhaustion of all energy in the universe, the Cosmic AC continues to process data to find answer to this question. It finally finds an answer and then decides to demonstrate the solution as there was no human left to give the solution to.

It says “Let there be light”

According to Christianity, “Let there be light” are the words uttered by God after which Universe came into being (or let me say what I want to say: Big bang occurred and the natural processes unfolded and formed what we know and can see today)

What intrigues me?

Firstly any association of science and religion is something that I always find very interesting to read. And when it’s done by a master like Isaac Asimov, I have to write about it

Secondly it is very intriguing to read about various sci-fi concepts that are discussed in this story. Let me explain these and my thoughts about it by quoting from the story.

“Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons.”

It instantly reminded me of two things:

1. Matrix: In this Hollywood blockbuster, most of the humans are plugged into the matrix and their bodies are actually immaterial. It is the prime program and the role of the mind in the simulated world that matters.

2.Bhagavad Gita: In Gita, Lord Krishna says that the loss of material bodies is not worthy of grief and one should not allow it to inhibit ones performance of duty. It is the soul that matters the most and the soul is eternal, indestructible and insoluble.

Well this is not to say that they borrowed from each other. I really don’t know about that. I am only trying to connect things in my mind.

“One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.”

Again it obviously reminds me of Matrix where the human bodies are fused with a main computer that simulates the virtual world for the human minds while drawing power from their bodies –  An interesting ’symbiotic relationship’ which is certainly beneficial for both the parties. Machines get access to a virtually unlimited source of power while Humans are saved from their own self-destructive nature and get to survive as a race. As machines are a creation of humans they ensure (on behalf of humans) that the process of unraveling all the mysteries of universe goes on in a reasonable and unhindered manner while Humans (who are incapable carrying out the above mentioned process in an unhindered manner due to their self-destructive nature) continue to contribute to the same albeit in a tacit manner (assuming that the consciousness of the main computer is not derived from and/or is not the sum total of consciousness of all the human minds connected to it)

During the discourse of Bhagavat Gita to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra , Lord Krishna displays his original form which Hindus normally refer to as the ‘Virat Roop’. In the Virat Roop, the lord shows that he is responsible for everything that we see around us. He is responsible for the life, death, calamity, success, happiness, grief etc. Two cool points arise out of this:

1. Matrix’s main computer does the same kind of simulation that god claims to do for us in his discourse in Bhagavad Gita.

2. In Isaac Asimov’s short story, there is not much clarity about how the main computer (referred to as the AC) utilizes the minds connected to it but what is certainly clear that humans consciously submit their minds to the AC and that the minds are living in a virtual/simulated world where they are capable of interacting with any other mind irrespective of the physical distances between them. In addition, the AC somehow derived its consciousness from the collective consciousness of the minds attached to it. Consider the excerpts (below) from the story based on which I have made the above-mentioned conclusions:

“Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted one into the other, indistinguishable.”

“Zee Prime’s thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy. He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose body might be waiting on a galaxy a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Zee Prime’s own. It didn’t matter.”

I might make additions to this post if I have any more thoughts and free time like I had today (I thought out and wrote the whole thing in office coz there is no other work )

While capable of complex chronograph functions, this watch is amazingly simple to use on a daily basis.

The hour and chronograph functions are displayed by the central hands (hour, minute and second). With no fewer than 230 mechanical components and five bi-directional micro-engines, the watch has the following functions:

• Intuitive chronograph legibility with tenth-of-a-second precision.
• Measurement of simple and intermediary time and two elapsed times.
• Retrograde date with a perpetual calendar to 2099.
• Countdown scale for regattas, configurable as desired from -10 to -1 minute.
• Anti-clockwise movement of central hands in “REGATTA” mode, then clockwise once the countdown is over, as the Chronograph is triggered automatically.

Some of the other features of the watch as reported on this watch’s product page on Tag Heuer website:

• Dial: Sophisticated and sporty. Luminescent markers for improved legibility in darkness. Monochrome TAG Heuer logo. “AQUARACER -- Calibre S -- 300 meters” inscription.
• Hands: Set with diamonds with polished facets and coated with a luminescent material for improved legibility in darkness.
• Case: Stamped in a block of solid steel with a diameter of 41 mm.
• Crystal: Scratch-resistant sapphire crystal.
• Bezel: Fixed aluminum bezel with countdown scale (from -10 to -1 minute) for regattas.
• Case back: Screw-down case back assuring water-resistance up to 300 meters. Diving bell decoration stamped on case back.
• Bracelet: Triple-row bracelet in satin-finish, polished steel. Double security clasp with folding blade and extension system allowing for the piece to be worn over a diving suit.

If you are ever experienced the problem of seconds hand misalignment (which may occur due to shocks), the head over to this tutorial on a friend’s blog.

Also watch a Youtube video of this watch in action (describing the easy to use chronograph features):

Which book should I pickup to start reading Issac Asimov’s science fiction series, such that I extract the maximum benefit from the whole reading exercise?

According to Asimov’s note in the book Prelude to Foundation (a prequel to the original foundation trilogy), the entire foundation series comprises of fourteen volumes and a total of about 1,450,000 words! Therefore science fictions fans who are yet to read this series would want to be very sure of the reading order before they get down to business.

I have decided to share the reading order with my readers as one may end up spending some time browsing the next to compile this order of books. Here it goes:

As you can see that I have divided the chronological list into various series to which the books belong. So you start with The complete Robot from the Robot Series and end with Foundation and Earth in the Foundation series.

I also recommend that you check out the timeline for Issac Asimov’s Robots and Foundation series universe. It will give you a good overview of how the entire plot will unfold.

Sources used in compiling this post:

1. Cold Science Fiction
2.  Wikipedia – Robot Series
3. Wikipedia – Foundation Series
4. Wikipedia – Empire Series

From the last four day I have been following the incidents related to the Mumbai terrorist attacks on all kinds of media and news sources (such as TV, Twitter, Blogs, Live video streams, Foreign News channels, Foreign and India print media, security sites and even terrorist websites!). I sat in front of the television with my laptop and followed the incident on twitter (#mumbai), websites and TV channels simultaneously. I have reviewed every statement and incident in great detail (while ignoring my personal and professional responsibilities).

I have come to the conclusion that everything that could go wrong with our (India’s) handling of this disaster has gone wrong. We were caught napping.

Terrorists came to OUR land, shed OUR (and our guests’) blood

They made a mockery of our system as they hijacked a government vehicle and roamed about in the city spraying bullets from it.

They smiled at us before shooting us from a point blank range.

They have come to our land and ravaged us repeatedly and we have been unable to act!

On the contrary, they were completely successful in all that they wished to accomplish. This is our failure, not victory. We are ashamed and now unable to hold our head high in the international community. This failure is devastating. It has hurt our pride. Israel has called our handling of this event as slow and confused response. We gave them the opportunity to say this and we had nothing concrete to defend ourselves. (In a world where globalization and free trade has been rapidly expanding, it is the supreme responsibility of every country to protect its people, businesses, and guests. A failure is absolutely unacceptable)

History is a testament to the fact that we have always failed to protect ourselves from foreign attacks. Babur, Mahamud of Ghazni, Ahmed Shah Abdali, Nadir Shah and the East India Company: They all came and bled us white (with exception of Babur who chose to settle down and make our country his own, however it is believed that Mughal era was a period of intellectual darkness for India).

I believe that our police system is incapable of protecting us. While our army is capable, their potency is severely marred by our political system.

Considering all this I have concluded that we as a country have become incapable of protecting ourselves. Whatever has transpired so far makes me feel insecure.

I feel alone and insecure on my soil and in my house.

I am considering buying a gun, a bullet proof jacket/helmet and join a military training course. I will wear the jacket every time I go to a public place so that I have some chance of surviving such an attack. I’d rather fight the terrorists than die helplessly at their gun point. I have spent considerable time and effort in becoming whatever little I am. My parents have spent loads of time, money and sacrificed in supporting me to become someone. My life is important to me. I believe that I can make a difference somewhere and I therefore refuse to die cheaply at the hands of some gun totting, brainless and fucked-up zealot.

I am sure this thought may be going through the minds of many Indians. We have collectively lost faith in our political system and they are repeatedly reaffirming our beliefs with their immature actions during this crisis situation. Here is what I am talking about:

• Maharashtra’s Chief Minister goes on a disaster site tour (read picnic) with a movie director and his son (a movie actor).

For Christ’s sake show some seriousness man. Why do need to have a movie director and an actor by your side during such a tour?? Is this a joke?? Don’t you even care about what the media and the people will think about you?

• BJP Senior Leader and PM candidate for next central elections decides to skip an all party meet convened to discuss this critical security issue at hand. Reason?

He thinks that campaigning for a state assembly election in Rajasthan is more important that trying to work together to device a new fool-proof security set-up for our country.

• State Home Minister of Maharashtra called the Terror Attacks on Mumbai as a minor and casual/common incident in a big city like Mumbai. (He actually said exactly that!!)

Jeez!! Was this guy drunk or something? Some one please remove him immediately!!!

• A ruling party spokesperson on Karan Thapar’s show (War of Words) is asked a direct question about this failure and he shamelessly tries to evade it.

He knows that Mr. Thapar can grill him on the issue and he therefore just evades the questions altogether. Isn’t he answerable to the nation?

• On Headlines Today (an Indian News Channel), the anchor asks a ruling party spokesperson a direct question which is as follows:

Why did the NSG commandos take 9 hours to reach Mumbai from Delhi, when they are capable of reaching any location in India within 2 hours?

To this the minister says that the info is incorrect. At best the NSG commandos could have reached the site within 7 hours i.e. “just” two hours earlier…

This guy calls two valuable hours, “just two hours”. Can you imagine the number of lives that could be saved had the NSG reached even an hour earlier? He is bargaining on a matter of national security right in front of the nation and on a live show!!! This is akin to saying, “hey we are not naked; we still have the undees on…”

Shocked at such a remark by the minister, the anchor rightfully blasts the minister and his audio channel is muted, virtually removing him from the discussion(perhaps to allow others to speak).

• The outgoing home minister says that he decided to quit (read sacrifice his post) so that other officials need not have to face the heat/axe on this debacle.

OMG!! This guy is a saint and he needs to be decorated for this “sacrifice”. Sarcasms apart, I think he is one of the most incapable home ministers our country has ever seen. His remarks on the television regarding every terrorist incident the country has faced (in the recent past) have been very casual and many say that he was not even perceived to be taking any steps to improve the security situation in the country.

We the citizens of the largest democracy in the world are totally frustrated by our politicians. It is not that we do not have the intelligentsia to run our country; it is about this cancerous system called the Indian politics that has frustrated us beyond any measure.