Yantrakaal

In 2006-2007, in the early years of the Web 2.0 that emerged phoenix like from the ashes of the dotcom bust of 2000, Michael Wesch, Professor of Digital Ethnography at Kansas State University produced a video called “The Machine is Us/ing Us”. Prior to the emergence of Web 2.0, the world wide web was primarily a read-only medium to publish news and information to a passive audience. Web 2.0, with its focus on user generated content and a personal network of trust, created a read-write platform that allowed individuals to feed information easily into the system or “The Machine”. In the process The Machine learnt stuff that it never knew before. Wikipedia, one of the first Web 2.0 platforms, became the biggest repository of information, if not knowledge. This in turn allowed it influence a whole generation of students, journalists and web user, and shape the way they view the world. For example, this author who has studied in a Catholic missionary school, had had a great regard for Franc...

Credit rating is a big business. Thanks to companies like CRISIL and  ICRA and the research they do into the finances of companies, bond investors get an independent view of a company’s financial status. Then they can take a call on whether they should invest or not. At a personal level, the CIBIL score is a relatively new product in India and its value is used as a benchmark by financial institutions to determine whether an individual qualifies for a personal loan and if so for what amount. In all cases, the financial credit score, whether personal or institutional, is the primary determinant for access to loans or financial credit and by extension, to goods and services that are available on credit. In India, these extensions may not be evident but in the US and other financially mature societies, the financial credit score is used to allow or deny telephone connections or even rental of residential apartments. The utility of the financial credit score is well understood and it ...

The policy of the Government to identify and support Institutes of Eminence has generated controversy because of the inclusion of the green field Jio Institute in a group that includes the IITs. Whether the inclusion of Jio is correct or not may be debated elsewhere but let us first ask whether the IITs themselves -- and similar public sector Institutes like the IIMs, IISc, IISER and others -- deserve the “eminent” tag. Within India of course, their stature and allure is beyond question but one wonders if in the land of the blind the a one-eyed man has become the king! copyright free image from https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1448079 University rankings can of course be subjective and one may argue that our institutes serve a social purpose. However that is a fig-leaf that cannot hide the grim reality that shows up in the Times Higher Education Ranking of Engineering Schools, where IIT Bombay at rank 350+ is the highest ranked Indian school. Another, reasonably well-regarded, QS ...

This year my talk at the Cypher 2018 event was on Thought controlled devices that I had also written about in Swarajya as well as in an earlier post in this blog. Here is the full presentation: In earlier editions of Cypher I had spoken about How to  use R + Hadoop to solve big data problems in Retail. - Cypher 2015 . The How and why of Cryptocurrency - Cypher 2016 Practical demonstration of Quantum Computing - Cypher 2017

The Ghost in the Machine is a 1967 book by the noted Hungarian born author, Arthur Koestler, about the mind-body problem that seeks to relate the intangible mind with a physical body. Half a century later, the rapid rise of artificial intelligence and the proliferation of autonomous robots, including cars, has intensified our focus in this area. Today, we seek technology that will help to connect the intangibility of knowledge, intent, desire with the physicality of a corresponding action seamlessly. https://www.lnttechservices.com/blog/ A cursory glance at the technology landscape shows us multiple strands of enquiry. First there is vanilla artificial intelligence (AI) that is focussed on digital phenomena like image, hand-writing and voice recognition, language translation and strategy games like chess and GO. Extending this is vanilla robotics that allow us operate complicated machine tools in a range of applications ranging from heavy manufacturing to delicate surgical proce...

Kailash and Manas Sarowar are words or rather destinations that send shivers of excitement through many who have grown up in an Indic environment. As the centre of the metaphysical universe and the abode of that innate quality of Goodness, that we identify with and as Shiv, it is the ultimate place of pilgrimage for anyone who lives and believes in the Sanatan Dharma of this land. But before one sets out for Kailash one must understand that this is no comfortable vacation of the kind that you enjoy in hill stations like Darjeeling, Almora or Simla. It is also not an adventure trek -- there are far more interesting and logistically friendly trekking opportunities in, say, Himachal, Ladakh or Garhwal. Kailash and Manas Sarowar is no vacation, no trek, but a place where you surrender your heart and soul at the altar of the Divine. There are many ways to reach Manasarowar but the most popular route is through Nepal from Kathmandu. On this route, there is no need to either...

The Belt and Road Initiative, China’s quaintly named initiative to redraw trading routes around the world may have many shortcomings but if adopted intelligently can certainly usher in a new age of economic prosperity in Eastern India. China has a huge East-West spread and its western part, the Tibet Autonomous Region, while rich in resources has no access to the sea. Russia’s Siberian treasure house, which is similarly landlocked will gradually get opened up as the Arctic polar cap melts and the Arctic ocean becomes navigable but there is no such hope for Tibet. China knows this and also knows the importance of a route to the sea, which is why it is investing so heavily into its all-weather ally, Pakistan. The Karakoram Highway, the China Pakistan Economic Corridor and the Gwadar Port are all pieces of the puzzle that China is trying to put together at great cost. But the cost is not much as in money as in the the way it is forcing a great power like China to accept the dictates of Is...