Viswanathan K's Thoughts

As a kid, I struggled a lot with the assignment of gender to non-living things in Hindi. Neither of the other languages I knew (Tamil and English) have that concept, and it always felt weird why किताब (book) should have any gender. Even worse, there didn’t seem to be any logic to the assignment of gender.   English is an outlier in not assigning genders, says Guy Deutscher in Through the Language Glass . Most European languages (French, German) assign genders. On the other hand, several languages don’t even have words for ‘he’ and ‘she’! Like Turkish, Finnish, Hungarian, Indonesian, Vietnamese. Worst of all (confirming my childhood grouse on Hindi), most languages that assign genders to non-living objects don’t follow any pattern.   If a language loses gender words (he/she/it), well, it depends on which word(s) was lost. Spanish, French and Italian lost the “it” word (for non-living things) and so everything had to be male or female. Losing a gender word added to ...

What are the dangers if a single party dominates the political landscape for too long? Like the Congress did or the BJP is doing? Raghu S Jaitley analyzes .   One , he says, such extended dominance can change the “psychology of the electorate itself”! He elaborates: “Consider a voter born in 1992. That person would have been too young (under 18) to vote in the 2009 general election, the last election won by the Congress-led UPA. By 2029, that voter will be 37 years old. For their entire adult political life, for anyone below the age of 37 in 2028, the BJP would have occupied the political mindspace with continued narrative dominance. To such voters, the opposition begins appearing abnormal rather than an alternative.” It reminded me of the question as to how Rome, the Republic was transformed into an emperor-based system. The answer was that Julius Caeser’s successor, Augustus Caeser won the battle for succession fairly young and thus ruled for several decades. By the time ...

Like many companies, Meta (formerly known as Facebook) decided to use AI as its customer support chatbot (instead of humans). It resulted in a ridiculously easy way to hack Instagram accounts (Meta/Facebook owns Instagram).   So easy that even a layman can understand it (and be shocked). Hackers who wanted to hack anyone’s Insta account would initiate a chat with the AI support bot and ask for the email ID associated with the account be updated. The AI would do it, no questions asked! Then the hacker would initiate a password reset request on the target account. An OTP-like verification code would be sent to the associated email ID (But remember, this is now the mail ID that the hacker had changed via the chat bot). He’d enter the verification code, and bingo! Password reset and the Insta account had been hacked. “The attack did not rely on sophisticated malware, zero-day exploits or technical vulnerabilities in Instagram itself. Instead, attackers manipulated the AI system t...

How does the same party keep winning elections for abnormally long periods? Like the Left and Mamata (until this time) in Bengal? Like the BJP winning elections across the country for almost 15 years (except the last national election)? Like how the Congress used to win from independence onwards?   This is the question Raghu S Jaitley analyses and it makes for interesting reading. One would imagine that a party should not win continuously for long periods: “Economic underperformance naturally produces anti-incumbency, unemployment translates into anger, inflation gets punished, and that, over time, voters simply get tired.” What then explains all the “aberrations” listed in the first para? Why didn’t “anti-incumbency… mechanically restore equilibrium”?   Jaitley only focusses on the Congress and BJP because, at their prime, they were (are?) winning continuously both at the national level and at multiple state levels, and therefore they are relevant to all Indian...

There are two types of systems used in languages to give directions, writes Guy Deutscher in Through the Language Glass . First , the one most of us know ( egocentric ), i.e., directions wrt the individual. Turn left . Half a kilometer ahead . All directions are from the perspective of the individual. It is easy to understand why this is so popular – you don’t need a map or a compass, it feels so intuitive.   Except that, ( second ) many languages specify directions in geocentric terms. In those languages, directions are specified as north, south, east, and west, not left or right! Which languages are these? Many native languages of Australia, South East Asia, Mexico, Nepal and Madagascar. “We have simply mistaken the familiar for the natural.”   The obvious feeling would be that geocentric terms can only work for groups that stay in small areas all their life. When they tested this hypothesis by driving some natives far from their native areas, places they had ne...

The Dubai series of blogs was based on (and written) before the Iran war. Given how small the UAE is, how it has never shown signs of religious fanatism, how cosmopolitan Dubai and Abu Dhabi are, how integrated Dubai is as an airport hub and tourist destination, I was curious why Iran targets the UAE so much more compared to the other Gulf countries during the war.   Well, there are multiple reasons. One , UAE (like so many other Gulf countries) hosts American military and air force bases. Iran attacked those to increase the cost to the US and for the PR value of destroying American bases. But that should apply for all other Gulf countries as well, so it doesn’t explain why Iran targets UAE so much more. Which brings us to Two . UAE is very close (100 km), comfortably within Iran’s short-range missiles and drones, making it a cheaper option to hit. Three , the fact that Dubai (and Abu Dhabi) are global financial hubs means the splatter is felt world over. Four , the UAE had bu...