Navagraha and the heliocentric theory

Most Hindu temples have a corner for the "vigrahas" representing nine heavenly “bodies”. Not only planets; they include Sun, Moon, Rahu and Ketu. The whole assembly is a model of the solar system as perceived by the builders of temples. The Sun is in the center, facing east. The others are facing different directions. This suggests that people who adopted this style of worship had accepted that the Sun was the central body. It also suggests that they recognized that each planet revolved around its own axis independently. Wikipedia offers an article on Navagraha Temples. 

Credit is given to Aristarchus of Samos for proposing a model of the solar system with planets going round the Sun, in the 3rd Century B. C.  The world seems to have largely ignored his model over many centuries. It was left to Nicolaus Copernicus to propose this model again in the 16^th century and trigger off a revolution in scientific thought. The invention of the telescope and its use by Galileo in the 17^th century to report the sighting of the moons of Jupiter and the phases of Venus settled the issue and made the Heliocentricism an accepted scientific theory.

The scientific world has not accepted any argument that Hindu astronomers had adopted the Heliocentric Theory before Copernicus. Can archeologists prove scientifically that the Navagraha corners as described above were built as parts of Indian temples earlier than the 16^th century? This would have great significance and give a lot of credit to Hindu Astronomy.

Why all this fuss about Heliocentrism? It is because Heliocentrism did a lot to upset the traditional belief that religious texts were reliable sources of information about the nature of the universe. It promoted the scientific view that “sacred literature” is no substitute for scientific findings. It was a victory for believers in reason. The extraordinary precision with which heliocentric models could predict the movement of planets and the occurrence of eclipses using simple laws of motion and gravity earned a lot of respect for the scientific method.

We have to recognize that no such revolution took place in India, irrespective of the time of adoption of the heliocentric theory there.  Belief in astrology continues to have an influence over large numbers of people. Visit Prof Shivaji Sondhi’s article at https://www.princeton.edu/~sondhi/nonphysics/writings/astrology.pdf  for a discussion on the thoughts of a former education minister of India and his efforts to provide funding for university courses in astrology. Mixing dubious beliefs with ancient knowledge that stands up to scientific investigation ruins our credibility. The baby gets thrown out with the bath water! Rejecting beliefs that fail repeated attempts at verification is as important as accepting verified knowledge.

A search indicates that at least one university in India advertises degree level courses in astrology. Visit

http://sastra.edu/distanceeducation/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=100&Itemid=256  Their website says “Astrology, the study of the stars and their influence upon human life on earth, has been in vogue since Vedic times”. 

Yes, this institution is in the University Grants Commission’s list named “Total No. of Universities in the Country as on 14.12.2015” as item 549.

TRAI is against discriminatory tariffs

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has taken a stand against discriminatory pricing for Internet services. This is a step forward towards net neutrality. Visit 

http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/WhatsNew/Documents/Regulation_Data_Service.pdf

The Internet was born with much opposition from vested interests. There was a protocol war with the Internet protocols on one side and protocols favored by the telecom monopolies of the world at that time. A lot of effort was expended to try and save the monopolies from competition from new technology-oriented companies. The victory of a set of ideas promoting competition and innovation has brought rich dividends to the large global community of Internet users.

Many arguments had been used against net neutrality in India. One of them was that if you can have first and second class on trains, why can’t you have differential pricing for Internet services? Why can’t we give better services to those who pay us more? I would like to ask a question in this context: Can a taxi service tell me that they will take me free to one hotel but will charge me 50% more than usual fare to take me to other hotels? May be the first hotel is willing to pay you more; but you are a licensed service regulated in the public interest.

The existence of discrimination in one sector is no argument for introducing discrimination in other sectors. For instance, one cannot argue that even temples discriminate against women; therefore, telecom service providers should be free to charge women more for Internet services!

I have written earlier against the most severe form of discriminatory pricing that frightens away many potential users of the Internet. This is the business of charging a novice user several times the rate that is charged to those who pay a sizable monthly fee for a package. I am not talking about 50% or 100% higher cost for small users, but large multiples that are effectively punitive charges. It looks as the service providers are saying “How dare you small fry tread on the toes of mighty companies like ours and our big users?” Visit

The internet and education in the developing world - hopes and reality

In the article mentioned above, I have also discussed the foolishness of ignoring all other factors and expecting technology alone to solve major problems. For instance, 55% of the websites on the Internet show English as the language of their content. Indian Languages, including Hindi and Tamil, are among languages accounting for less than 0.1% of the websites each, but the bulk of the people in this country prefer to read information in their own languages, not in English. Newspaper statistics show this clearly. Challenges like this have to be understood and addressed if Internet usage in India is to become widespread among all sections of society. 

Maj Gen A. Balasubramanian passed away on January 20, 2016

Maj Gen Balasubramanian was a key player in the first four decades of computing in India. He had graduated from the College of Engineering, Guindy, Madras, in the fifties, and went on to serve in the Army Corps of Signals. He was one of the founders of the Computer Society of India (CSI) and had served as the first Hon. Secretary of the Society. That was during 1965-69. He then took over from Prof R Narasimhan, the founding President, with whom he had worked closely.  Brig Balasubramanian, as he was popularly known in CSI for over a decade, served as President CSI during 1969-72.  I will refer to him as Brigadier in the rest of this article; that is the way my memory works!  

The Government of India established the Department of Electronics (DOE) in June 1970 and the Electronics Commission in February 1971. Prof M. G. K. Menon served as the first Chairperson of the Electronics Commission. Brig Balasubramanian served the commission as an Officer on Special Duty at first and as a Director later on, playing very significant roles in the EC/DOE. Those were the days when all imports had to be tightly controlled due to a shortage of foreign exchange. Brigadier had the tough job of managing the pressures from a whole variety of computer users who came seeking Government approval for their imports. The Electronics Commission was active in creating R & D institutions in India in the electronics area, and in promoting Indian companies. National policy gave primacy to public sector companies, two notable ones in the computer area being the Electronics Corporation of India Ltd, and the Computer Maintenance Corporation of India Ltd. (later CMC Ltd).  Brigadier worked very closely with Dr Prem P. Gupta, the first Managing Director of the Computer Maintenance Corporation, particularly after Dr Gupta took over as Chairman of the Electronics Commission. They had also worked together a lot to build CSI.

Brigadier continued to be active in the CSI, handling among other things coordination with the International Federation for Information Processing, and encouraging a number of initiatives by the Society.

Brigadier was a warm and friendly person; I have never seen him tense, irritated or upset during all the time I have known him. He was diplomatic in dealing with user pressures that any regulatory department has to face. DOE had the hard task of having to play the regulatory as well as promotional roles. The regulatory role he played was not an easy one, as he had to implement government policy shaped by the economic and political situation of the country. Many of those who went to him asking for permission to import a computer did not get the computer they wanted; committees set up by the Dept. scrutinized the requests and often suggested a smaller or cheaper configuration. However, the Brigadier was always available to meet the applicants and treated them with courtesy. He was a good listener and was willing to understand and consider the views of the visitors. In the Computer society too, his mature and dignified style of leadership played a major role in getting people to work together.  

I guess it was his military life and his disciplined ways that gave it to him – he was always as fit as any officer on field duty, despite living in Delhi. He enjoyed and supported Carnatic Music, a passion his family shared with him. His daughter is a talented dancer.  

Computer Society of India has lost an officer and a gentleman. It is a loss to all of us, who have known and worked with him. 

Free information and knowledge from WWW for school students and others

There is a very interesting initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_for_Schools  that I read about today. The site says, “Wikipedia for Schools is a selection taken from the original English-language Wikipedia by the child sponsorship charity SOS Children. It was created as a checked and child-friendly teaching resource for use in schools in the developing world and beyond. Sources and authors can be found at www.wikipedia.org”. It offers 6,000 articles adding to 26 million words and 50,000 images. The current content is the 2013 version. I checked to see how detailed the articles are. The one on Galileo turned out to be 7200 words long.

The way the collection is organized and interlinked, it is easy to find something of interest by clicking on two relevant letters of the alphabet in the beginning of a relevant word (like Ga for Galileo). Visit http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/index/alpha.htm

The collection is online, but you can easily make it available offline. The downloaded collection can comfortably fit into a tablet, which can also run a web server. Students can use tablets, laptops, PCs or cell phones to connect to the server tablet via WiFi. The cost per student would be very small, if we assume that they have some access device like a cell phone. The schools may provide this  service at no cost. 

An audible version would be of great value to the visually impaired, and those for whom English is only a second language. Spoken content in English on topics of their choice would go a long way to make them comfortable with spoken English. I would prefer recordings made by selected volunteers to text-to-speech systems. Subtitling in languages would help specific language communities.  Software to deliver the audio output with subtitles in selected languages would surely be worth developing.  There is a great opportunity for volunteer groups in universities to do work in this area.

Audio versions, with or without sub-titling could in principle be hosted on the Internet as well.

Finally, while articles in “Wikipedia for Schools” have been selected to be suitable for use by school students, anyone can use them and benefit. I did read a couple of articles from the collection this afternoon, and am none the worse for having done that! This opens up the possibility that public libraries, big and small, can make this collection available to their readers who bring in some access device.  

Users should examine the terms on which content is downloaded, and respect in letter & spirit the values of the Wikipedia community that has created the primary asset.

 x x x x x x 

Reducing Global Warming: India should take a noticeable step

The Paris accord is here, for what it is worth. However, it is when leading nations of the world take noticeable steps forward that something significant will take place. We live in a world re-enacting the tragedy of the commons repeatedly. Everyone takes from the world what he wants; together we all make the world a poorer place every year.

Countries aspiring to be in the front rank of nations have to show leadership by intelligent and timely action. We have seen the power of a thought – Swachh Bharat. Cleaning up India is not a one-day or even a one-decade job, but we have taken a step forward by declaring our intention and doing what is readily possible.

It appears logical that India should now discuss a few measures it can take to reduce global warming, weighing their costs and benefits; then the country should take some of these steps, making a visible change. Let me offer a few suggestions:

Painting roofs white is worth considering. This can be made mandatory for buildings with air-conditioned areas in excess of 200 Sq. Meters. Tax exemptions should be given for affordable paints demonstrated to increase reflection of heat and to give a degree of protection against rainwater. People living in houses with tiled roofs should be encouraged to paint their roofs with such paints. White roofs increase the loss of heat by radiation to space on clear days. More significantly, they reduce heating of the building by Sunlight. Tthis could lower costs in buildings spending money on air-conditioning.  

National Awards should be given to architects and owners of new buildings minimizing energy requirements, and otherwise slowing down global warming.

Supporting switch to electrical vehicles and hybrid vehicles Greater incentives should be given to R & D in battery technology relevant to transportation and to R & D in solar/wind energy.

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Search vs Hunt in Websites

I wasted forty minutes at a bank’s website last week. I needed to recharge a prepaid card. At login, there is a choice between the savings account login and prepaid card login. Which way do I go? The bank’s approach is to let the customer find out by trial and error. I tried the prepaid card login and discovered I could not do a recharge there. I found out the customer care number and called them. The support “executive” had no clue either. He told me that at login I should choose the prepaid card option. I told him that is exactly what I had tried, without any use. He told me to hold on and went off to get an answer. This business of consulting someone else took place three times and I had to hold on each time.

The first time he came back with borrowed wisdom, he asked me to log into my savings bank account. I did, and then had a question. Which tab do I select? He suggested that I go to “funds transfer” – a good guess, as I could perhaps transfer some money to my prepaid card as I transfer money to any other card. However, that did not work, so he went off to consult his colleague again. “There is a tab named Cards”, he said, “Click on that!” After bumbling around like this for quite some time, we finally discovered how to recharge the stupid card. He had been kind enough to stay on the line, suffering through all this with me. For the bank, this was not wasted employee time – it was probably free training provided by the customer!

This raises the question of the point and click model to tell a system what you want. It is very convenient, like a menu in some countries with photographs to guide the tourist who does not share a language with the staff. You find an item you recognize and point it out to the waiter; you get survive another day! This point and click model does not work when you have go through a hierarchical maze of tabs, making selection after selection without any clue till you get to see what you are looking for. In that situation, the “selection by search string” model works far better. For instance, Windows 10 has a slot at the bottom of the desktop labelled “Search the web and Windows”. If you type in “Hide rows in Excel sheet” and it takes you to your search engine, which gets you the answer – it may come from Microsoft websites or from someone else’s. You get a set of possible answers and can examine and select one. A great feature of this is that you are not restricted to a single word to say what you are looking for; many “help systems” force you to work under this restriction. It is like working with one hand strapped to the chair’s armrest! With a multi-word search string, you usually get the answer you are looking for in one shot.

How can a website, say a bank’s website, provide for access through a search string? Can the website let me click “Help” and type any of the search strings I list below as examples?

         Recharge prepaid card
         Register a new beneficiary for interbank funds transfer
         Form for requesting closure of account
         List of bank holidays in Delhi

I do not deny that the graphical user interface (GUI) involving icons, and point and click was a great invention; so is access to a webpage through the use of a multi-word search string. Like a screwdriver and a hammer, they are complementary. One does not replace the other.

HCI: Comment No. 4

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Railways and the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

There has been considerable concern in India about the fact that train toilets spread solid waste and urine on railway lines all over India, creating a health hazard. News reports indicate that in 2015, we are just beginning the effort to reduce this menace, installing new types of toilets on selected trains. At this rate, it would take many years to reduce public health risks caused by rainwater carrying contaminating material to village wells and ponds, spreading a variety of diseases. No estimates seem to have been made of the number of deaths caused per year due to this. Medical colleges should carry out fieldwork and research about water-borne diseases spread by this contamination of drinking water.

Sushmi Dey writing in the Times of India, Nov 13, 2014
( India loses most kids to diarrhoea, pneumonia: Study )
reports that “India tops the global list with 318 deaths per 1,000 children under five years of age due to pneumonia and diarrhoea“.

Diarrhoea is the third most common cause of death in under-five children, responsible for 13% deaths in this age group, killing an estimated 300,000 children in India each year, according to
Causes of neonatal and child mortality in India: nationally representative mortality survey

Undoubtedly, there has been a reduction in under-five deaths during the last decade, but reports indicate that India will miss the millennial goal in this regard. Visit Business Standard, March 7, 2015:
Millenium Development Goals: India's progress so far

It is surely worth examining the causes of diarrhea deaths among Indian children. It would be very surprising if poor quality of drinking water is not a significant factor involved.

Science colleges, particularly those in rural areas, should acquire capabilities to test the quality of drinking water used in their neighbourhoods. It would be tragic if a degree in chemistry and biology does not equip a student to test if water is fit enough to drink! We must train students to carry out these tests, and then encourage and support them in doing relevant fieldwork to utilize their training for the benefit of people in the area. An interesting paper shows the results of testing drinking water in colleges in Kolhapur:

http://www.ijser.org/researchpaper%5CEvaluation-of-Water-Quality-Indices-for-the-Drinking-water-of-Engineering-Colleges-in-Kolhapur-city.pdf

We should compliment the researchers at an engineering college who carried out this research. 

The big risks are in bacterial and viral contamination of water sources. Chemical testing alone will not be sufficient. The following website provides some relevant information for those interested in testing water from this point of view. 

http://www.water-research.net/index.php/water-testing/bacteria-testing/coliform-bacteriaA web-search shows a number of vendors who sell water-quality-testing kits.

Railways have their own responsibility in this regard. They cannot magically transform all train toilets to safe toilets. However, they can consider interim measures to ameliorate the problem. They could use small bogies attached to trains to carry a few hundred litres of a solution to spray the space between rails whenever the train is traveling above a set speed. This will avoid spraying too close to railway stations. Experts would have to select cost-effective solutions for the purpose. There are many options to select from, to kill germs and parasites in solid waste before rainwater carries them into village water sources.

A significant initiative by railways in this direction would be a major contribution to the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.