Viswanathan K's Thoughts

As the election results started rolling in on Friday, it was amusing to see the news channels provide “reasons” for the wins and losses, close margins and landslides. Why did Jayalalithaa win? 2G scam and corruption. Really? Since when did Jayalalithaa become the poster girl for the opposite of corruption? Or why did Mamata win? General misrule by the Left. Really? It took 20 years and multiple elections after liberalization to figure out that the Leftist approach was taking Bengal nowhere? Of course, this kind of insane reason providing doesn’t stop at the elections. We hear similar rubbish about why the Sensex fell or rose (the Euro crisis; the signs of an American recovery; RBI’s interest rate hikes). Isn’t it more likely that the market fluctuates because investors aren’t rational? With rational investors, we’d never have stock market bubbles and crashes, would we? Even religions/philosophies insist on providing a reason: why do some people suffer? Why did so many die during the ts...

The Osama killing is very curious. I find two aspects of it that seem irreconcilable no matter what theory is advocated: 1) Osama being found so deep in Pakistan, so close to Islamabad, so close to an army town. 2) The “Why didn’t the dog bark?” question: since Pakistan was harbouring Osama, why didn’t they try and protect him? Or at least, to shoot down the Americans once the firefight started? No matter which theory you consider, they can’t seem to explain both of the above facts. Consider these theories: a) Pakistan sold Osama out: If they did that, surely they would have been smart enough to make sure Osama was found on the border. Which violates #1 above. b) Pakistan had no idea that the Americans were coming in: Even if the Americans entered undetected (either due to massive incompetence of the Pakistani army and/or stealth technology that evaded the radars), wouldn’t Pakistan have sent soldiers once the firefight had started in Abbottabad to see what was going on? After all, the...

“The more refined and intellectual our needs become, the less they are capable of satiety.” Is that the reason why most religions advocate belief over proof and intellect? I mean, is their reasoning (I guess they don’t like that word, “reason” either because it is an output of some thought process) that if the needs of the intellect are insatiable, then surely pursuing them can never lead to a feeling of fulfilment? Or at least, that’s the attitude most religions seem to take. I think Arthur Schopenhauer noticed the same thing when he wrote, “All religions promise a reward ... for excellences of the will or heart, but none for excellences of the head or understanding.” But is the alternative that religions propose (abandon the intellect) a fulfilling option either? Can one truly feel happiness if one has to suppress a natural tendency: to think, to question, to analyze?

The development of probability theory has interesting origins: it’s all connected to gambling! Born in 1445, Luca Paccioli, a Franciscan monk, posed the problem that came to be called the puzzle of the points: A and B are playing a game of balla. The first person to win 6 rounds wins. But the game has to be stopped when A had won 5 rounds and B has won 3 rounds. How should the money be divided in such an uncompleted game? Finding a way to solve this problem had implications far beyond gambling. After all, this question involves factoring what may happen in the future. To put it differently, what are the chances that B catches up and overtakes A if the game continued? Gamblers were always interested in this kind of question: which numbers show up more often in a throw of the dice? What are the odds of a particular number showing up when two dice are involved instead of one? Like all smart people, the gamblers didn’t just do such analysis themselves. They even tried asking mathematicians...

I always felt that Superman was the most “unreal” of the superheroes. Ok, all of them are unreal when it comes to their powers, but Superman was the one good guy who was also perceived as a good guy. Contrast that with the other superheroes: Batman was notoriously dark and brooding; Spiderman always got bad press (which is kind of ironic given that Peter Parker is a journalist!). Well, all that just changed: Superman renounced his US citizenship! Apparently, our superhero was supporting some protestors in Iran and was accused of being a stooge for the American government. So he felt the best way to refute the charge was to, well, drop his nationality. Apparently, even Superman’s physical powers are not enough in the age of tweets, Wikileaks and slander! Who needs Kryptonite anymore to take on Superman? That’s so amusing at so many levels! Note how he has problems with Iran but not with Saudi Arabia or Bahrain? Now isn’t that the same policy the US government has? Me thinks Superman doe...

After the Right to Education, the government has a National Food Security Bill in the pipeline: simply put, it would make food a legal right of every citizen. I don’t have issues with the motive of it. Well, ok, let me add the qualifier: overall, I don’t have an issue with it…since it undoubtedly has a vote-gathering component to it as well. But let’s set that aside for a moment. But first, the government should find a way to identify who is a citizen. In a country where “citizens” are imported from neighbouring countries to cast votes, why should my taxes be used to put food in some illegal Bangaladeshi immigrant’s mouth? Next, do we have a food distribution system that can deliver? Does the government plan to fix the leaky godowns and clamp down on the hoarders and middlemen who siphon off the food today? "To use such a leaky bucket to carry a subsidy would mean the fiscal burden would be huge," says Kaushik Basu, chief economic advisor to the Ministry of Finance. I agree w...

When I heard that Rana, who is going to be tried in the US for his role in 26/11, tried to use the “I did something at the behest of a government or its official authority” defense, I was surprised that there is even such a provision in American law. And here I thought that this kind of “I was just following orders” defense was thrown out ever since the Nuremberg trials of the Nazis! But since the law exists, does it mean anyone caught spying in the US can walk free because he worked for the Chinese or Russian government?! Talking of Nazis, guess where one of the IC-814 hijacking masterminds was recently arrested? In Chile. A South American country. The same continent where many Nazis “vanished” after World War II. And once you think of Nazis, the next thought is inevitably about Israel. The Israelis went into South America and kidnapped a top Nazi. Sadly, our government will only make never-going-to-be-fulfilled requests for extradition in a similar situation…