“The Disappearance of Darkness“, is a book full of poignant insights, both visual and literary, into a bygone technological era.

“Ecosystem services is not exactly a phrase to stir the human imagination. But over the past few years, it has managed to dazzle both diehard conservationists and bottom-line business types as the best answer to global environmental decline……..

But the rising tide of [...]]]> What’s wrong with putting a price on nature? | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

“Ecosystem services is not exactly a phrase to stir the human imagination. But over the past few years, it has managed to dazzle both diehard conservationists and bottom-line business types as the best answer to global environmental decline……..

But the rising tide of enthusiasm for PES (or payment for ecosystem services) is now also eliciting alarm and criticism. The rhetoric is at times heated, particularly in Britain, where a government plan to sell off national forests had to be abandoned in the face of fierce public opposition. ….

Sian Sullivan, a University of London anthropologist, warns….we are seeing “a major new wave of capture and enclosure of Nature by capital.”

An excellent, balanced piece from the Guardian Environment Network.

In contrast, a superficial editorial from the Hindu:

The Economics of Nature

“Does it matter that the power Britain relies on to make the country glow and hum no longer belongs to Britain? After all, the lights still shine. The phones still charge.”

An article that assesses the Thatcher legacy of [...]]]> James Meek · How We Happened to Sell Off Our Electricity · LRB 13 September 2012.

“Does it matter that the power Britain relies on to make the country glow and hum no longer belongs to Britain? After all, the lights still shine. The phones still charge.”

An article that assesses the Thatcher legacy of privatisation of the power industry almost thirty years later.

Well, it’s one for the money, Two for the show, Three to get ready, Now go, cat, go.

But don’t you step on my blue suede shoes. You can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes.

(From “Blue Suede Shoes” by Carl Perkins)

What in the World Is a Higgs Boson? – NYTimes.com.

A short piece with a slew of links to interesting background material.

Higgs boson discovery: Why scientist Stephen Wolfram feels bittersweet | Mail Online.

Some interesting pictures, including one of Peter Higgs wiping [...]]]> A somewhat belated post, but this ain’t going away anytime soon!

What in the World Is a Higgs Boson? – NYTimes.com.

A short piece with a slew of links to interesting background material.

Higgs boson discovery: Why scientist Stephen Wolfram feels bittersweet | Mail Online.

Some interesting pictures, including one of Peter Higgs wiping his eyes during the CERN seminar.

“In South Asia, hierarchical organisations, language differences, and deep social chasms disrupt the performance. For instance, artisans will only speak when asked, and will keep silent if speaking means loss of face for superiors.

It turns out that engineering education, around the [...]]]> The Hindu : Today’s Paper / OPINION : The enigma of Indian engineering

“In South Asia, hierarchical organisations, language differences, and deep social chasms disrupt the performance. For instance, artisans will only speak when asked, and will keep silent if speaking means loss of face for superiors.

It turns out that engineering education, around the world, is almost blind to the realities of practice. We found 40 other critical aspects that educators inadvertently miss or misrepresent. As a result, young engineers seem oblivious to the subtleties needed to coordinate people and their education seems to impair their ability to learn. It turns out that skills like this distinguish the few truly expert engineers.”…….

“I think the next engineering revolution will be based on understanding people. We have come quite far with rather little understanding among engineers: just a little more could lead to large improvements. A new engineering revolution could consign poverty to history, and also enable us to live within the capacity of this planet to support human civilisation. It needs to come soon.”

This story is drawn from “Kushinagar,” which appeared originally in French in XXI, no. 13, January/February/March 2011, and will appear in English in Joe Sacco’s new collectionJournalism, to be published by Metropolitan Books on June 19. As Sacco writes, explaining how he came [...]]]> Kushinagar by Joe Sacco | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books.

This story is drawn from “Kushinagar,” which appeared originally in French in XXI, no. 13, January/February/March 2011, and will appear in English in Joe Sacco’s new collectionJournalism, to be published by Metropolitan Books on June 19. As Sacco writes, explaining how he came to draw a comic based on his travels in Kushinagar, a district in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh:

The extraordinarily successful French magazine XXI is the publishing industry’s greatest champion of comics reportage. It has regularly sent cartoonists out into the world and given them a good deal of magazine space. Editor Patrick de Saint-Exupery, a seasoned journalist himself, was open to any idea I had and supportive at every step of the way. The author Pankaj Mishra passed me along to Indian journalist Piyush Srivastava, who suggested I visit Kushinagar and who graciously agreed to be my guide. We met in Lucknow, where he is based, and drove for a day to reach the district, where many of the dalits—“untouchables”—are experiencing not just abject poverty but real hunger. After three visits to the same hamlet, Piyush and I were essentially chased out of the area by higher caste individuals who did not like us snooping around. We decided to visit other villages, but briefly, for no more than a couple hours each, to avoid the same result.

“Kairi Shepherd was an orphan living in India when a Utah woman adopted her in 1982 — a seemingly good turn of luck for the 3-month-old, which included her obtaining legal permanent resident status in the United States.

But when she was [...]]]> Utah woman faces likely deportation after losing appeal | The Salt Lake Tribune.

“Kairi Shepherd was an orphan living in India when a Utah woman adopted her in 1982 — a seemingly good turn of luck for the 3-month-old, which included her obtaining legal permanent resident status in the United States.

But when she was 8, her adoptive mother died of cancer. When she was 17, she was arrested and convicted of felony check forgery to fuel a drug habit. Now 30, she is facing likely deportation after a 10th Circuit Court ruling Tuesday that upheld the federal government’s right to remove her from the country.”

The sad tale of Kairi Shepherd, still unfolding, a hapless victim of an insensitive and increasingly brutal US immigration and penal system, first reported in 2008 in The Salt Lake Tribune. The original story is here, hosted on the site Pound Pup Legacy , devoted to the “dark side of adoption”,  which has some more information on the case.

Some coverage from the Indian media, at the Hindustan Times for instance, US: Adopted Indian faces deportation . Fortunately, it appears that the Govt. of India may intervene to help Kairi ( Govt may help Kairi Shepherd ).

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Povertyby Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson Crown, 529 pp., $30.00                                           [...]]]> What Makes Countries Rich or Poor? by Jared Diamond | The New York Review of Books.

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson 
Crown, 529 pp., $30.00                                                  

Reviewing this book, Jared Diamond returns to his theme of environmental variations as the key to answering the question posed in the title of the book. Reading the review, one is left with the impression that the viewpoint of the book is far more interesting than the views of the reviewer.

As India grapples with the Vodafone and 2G fallout, the Bilateral Investment Treaties it signed a few years ago are coming back to haunt it.

A very readable piece on a subject that is usually off the radar of even those who [...]]]> The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : Treaties that gave away the store.

As India grapples with the Vodafone and 2G fallout, the Bilateral Investment Treaties it signed a few years ago are coming back to haunt it.

A very readable piece on a subject that is usually off the radar of even those who closely follow globalization and liberalization related issues.

An interesting “Made in India” innovation, of global significance, under way?

“WHEN industrialists use enzymes to speed up chemical reactions, they generally take care to attach those enzymes to solid surfaces and run the chemicals past them. Enzymes are expensive, and not to be thrown [...]]]> Washing enzymes: Please rinse and return | The Economist.

An interesting “Made in India” innovation, of global significance, under way?

“WHEN industrialists use enzymes to speed up chemical reactions, they generally take care to attach those enzymes to solid surfaces and run the chemicals past them. Enzymes are expensive, and not to be thrown away lightly. Yet millions of householders do precisely that whenever they wash their clothes. Lots of washing powders contain enzymes, but these never get recycled. Instead, they are just flushed down the drain.

Chandra Pundir and Nidhi Chauhan, biochemists at Maharshi Dayanand university in Haryana, India, propose to do something about that. They see no reason why washing enzymes should suffer this ignominious fate and, as they report in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research, they have found there is no reason why they should.”

“Without adequate funding, in the next decade we may see the search for the laws of nature slow to a halt, not to be resumed again in our lifetimes.”

And from the concluding paragraph: “It seems to me that what [...]]]> The Crisis of Big Science by Steven Weinberg | The New York Review of Books.

“Without adequate funding, in the next decade we may see the search for the laws of nature slow to a halt, not to be resumed again in our lifetimes.”

And from the concluding paragraph:
“It seems to me that what is really needed is not more special pleading for one or another particular public good, but for all the people who care about these things to unite in restoring higher and more progressive tax rates, especially on investment income. I am not an economist, but I talk to economists, and I gather that dollar for dollar, government spending stimulates the economy more than tax cuts. It is simply a fallacy to say that we cannot afford increased government spending. But given the anti-tax mania that seems to be gripping the public, views like these are political poison. This is the real crisis, and not just for science.”

What do prestigious scientific journals like Cell and The Lancet have to do with union-busting, cutting corporate taxes, or denial of global warming?

The publishing company that owns these journals, Reed Elsevier, has supported all of these goals through its contributions to the American Legislative Exchange Council [...]]]> Academic Journals and Corporate Interests: Reed Elsevier and ALEC | PSC CUNY.

What do prestigious scientific journals like Cell and The Lancet have to do with union-busting, cutting corporate taxes, or denial of global warming?

The publishing company that owns these journals, Reed Elsevier, has supported all of these goals through its contributions to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

[UPDATE: On April 12, Reed Elsevier announced that it had resigned from ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. It joined a growing list of corporations that are quitting ALEC in response to increased public scrutiny.]

(via Rammanohar Reddy)

“India’s eastern neighbour had a difficult birth but there were many who gallantly played midwife, including Indira Gandhi and the Indian Army. They deservedly took the top honours in recent ceremonies in Dhaka.”

The list of those who were [...]]]> The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : For friends of Bangladesh, a walk down memory lane.

“India’s eastern neighbour had a difficult birth but there were many who gallantly played midwife, including Indira Gandhi and the Indian Army. They deservedly took the top honours in recent ceremonies in Dhaka.”

The list of those who were honored, though incomplete in this news report, nevertheless makes for fascinating reading.

“It began with a frustrated blogpost by a distinguished mathematician.Tim Gowers and his colleagues had been grumbling among themselves for several years about the rising costs of academic journals…..

So, in January this year, Gowers wrote an article on his blog declaring [...]]]> Academic spring: how an angry maths blog sparked a scientific revolution | Science | The Guardian.

“It began with a frustrated blogpost by a distinguished mathematician.Tim Gowers and his colleagues had been grumbling among themselves for several years about the rising costs of academic journals…..

So, in January this year, Gowers wrote an article on his blog declaring that he would henceforth decline to submit to or review papers for any academic journal published by Elsevier, the largest publisher of scientific journals in the world.

He was not expecting what happened next. Thousands of people read the post and hundreds left supportive comments. Within a day, one of his readers had set up a website, The Cost of Knowledge, which allowed academics to register their protest against Elsevier.

The site now has almost 9,000 signatories, all of whom have committed themselves to refuse to either peer review, submit to or undertake editorial work for Elsevier journals.”

“The views, findings and recommendations of this document are the product of collective deliberation by an independent group of analysts and policy makers: Sunil Khilnani, Rajiv Kumar, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Prakash Menon, Nandan Nilekani, Srinath Raghavan, Shyam Saran, Siddharth Varadarajan. The group’s activities were administratively supported by the National Defence College and Centre [...]]]> www.cprindia.org/sites/default/files/NonAlignment 2.0_1.pdf.

“The views, findings and recommendations of this document are the product of collective deliberation by an independent group of analysts and policy makers: Sunil Khilnani, Rajiv Kumar, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Prakash Menon, Nandan Nilekani, Srinath Raghavan, Shyam Saran, Siddharth Varadarajan. The group’s activities were administratively supported by the National Defence College and Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. This document does not represent the views of either of these institutions, their faculty or their administration. Nor does it represent the views of any of the institutions with which the authors of document are affiliated. All statements of fact and expressions of opinion contained in this document are the sole responsibility of the authors.

Published 2012.

Printed in India.”

An unconvincing document, that begins with (mis)representing Indian foreign policy, both pre- and post-Pokhran II as a continuum based on the  pursuit of “strategic autonomy”, and  bolstered by a one-sided, uncritical view of the global economic order today and the policies of the economic reform era, seeks to define India’s foreign and strategic policy future on that basis..

Some of language in the report (and no doubt the composition of the group of authors too) are likely to confuse the unwary as in

Non-Alignment 2.0 need of the hour

The authors themselves though are clear enough about what they mean,

Shyam Saran: An India allying with none

and the message is understood clearly enough by other experts too,

Nonalignment 2.0: A Foreign and Strategic Policy for India in the Twenty First Century
Ashley J. Tellis, Sadanand Dhume, Richard Fontaine, Teresita Schaffer

The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon’s Last Uncontacted Tribesby Scott Wallace Crown, 494 pp., $26.00 

“On a more philosophical level, do we want to keep people in a “cultural museum,” a time warp as it were? Putting aside the practical questions of [...]]]> Out of Contact by John Terborgh | The New York Review of Books.

The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon’s Last Uncontacted Tribes
by Scott Wallace 
Crown, 494 pp., $26.00 

“On a more philosophical level, do we want to keep people in a “cultural museum,” a time warp as it were? Putting aside the practical questions of how this would be accomplished, is it morally the right thing to do? This is a question of values and some of my anthropologist colleagues would say yes. But the morality of this question has to be considered in the light of our own cultural origins. Once upon a time, the ancestors of each and every one of us lived in a premodern culture. Those cultural origins have now been completely erased from our collective memory. Do any of us regret the loss of this memory? Would any of us prefer to return to our ancestral condition, rather than to live in the modern world? Few, if any, would say yes. To live in isolation is to live a short, hard life in the absence of modern medicine and in complete ignorance of history, geography, science, and art.”

(via Mario D’Souza)

The shutdown of library.nu is creating a virtual showdown between would-be learners and the publishing industry.

“To the publishing industry, this event was a victory in the campaign to bring the unruly internet under some much-needed discipline. To many other people – namely the [...]]]> The disappearing virtual library – Opinion – Al Jazeera English.

The shutdown of library.nu is creating a virtual showdown between would-be learners and the publishing industry.

“To the publishing industry, this event was a victory in the campaign to bring the unruly internet under some much-needed discipline. To many other people – namely the users of the site – it was met with anger, sadness and fatalism. But who were these sad criminals, these barbarians at the gates ready to bring our information economy to its knees? 

They are students and scholars, from every corner of the planet.”

“The world, it should not come as a surprise, is filled with people who want desperately to learn. This is what our world should be filled with. This is what scholars work hard to create: a world of reading, learning, thinking and scholarship. The users of library.nu were would-be scholars: those in the outer atmosphere of learning who wanted to know, argue, dispute, experiment and write just as those in the universities do.”

(via Mario D’Souza)

Review of Aman Sethi’s ” A Free Man”, published by Random House India.

“Aman Sethi’s book lays bare the poverty, exploitation and the persistent insecurity of ‘informality’ of the lives of workers.”

A fairly long extract from the book is [...]]]> The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : ‘A free man’(s) freedom is not completely empty’.

Review of Aman Sethi’s ” A Free Man”, published by Random House India.

“Aman Sethi’s book lays bare the poverty, exploitation and the persistent insecurity of ‘informality’ of the lives of workers.”

A fairly long extract from the book is available at  http://www.caravanmagazine.in/Story/970/A-Free-Man.html

On new developments in an ongoing saga of judicial overreach:

“In recent times the Supreme Court of India, with a series of remarkable decisions, has earned our admiration, respect and gratitude. Alas, it has now come out with an extraordinary order on the Inter-Linking of Rivers [...]]]> The Hindu : With all due respect, My Lords.

On new developments in an ongoing saga of judicial overreach:

“In recent times the Supreme Court of India, with a series of remarkable decisions, has earned our admiration, respect and gratitude. Alas, it has now come out with an extraordinary order on the Inter-Linking of Rivers (ILR) Project, which has caused consternation and dismay to many of us.”

“In the present order, the Supreme Court explicitly directs the Executive Government to implement the project and to set up a Special Committee to carry out that implementation; it lays down that the committee’s decisions shall take precedence over all administrative bodies created under the orders of this court or otherwise; it (graciously) authorises the Cabinet to take all final and appropriate decisions, and lays down a time-limit of 30 days for such decision-making (though it has the saving grace to say “preferably”); and it grants “liberty to the learned Amicus Curiae to file contempt petition in this court, in the event of default or non-compliance of the directions contained in this order”.”

From the London Review of Books blurb:

In May last year, Pooja Bhatia met Jean-Bertrand Aristide at his house in the suburbs of Port-au-Prince. His study was dominated by a large electroencephalogram machine that he was using to analyse his brain waves. He didn’t want to [...]]]> Pooja Bhatia · Diary: Aristide’s Brain · LRB 8 March 2012.

From the London Review of Books blurb:

In May last year, Pooja Bhatia met Jean-Bertrand Aristide at his house in the suburbs of Port-au-Prince. His study was dominated by a large electroencephalogram machine that he was using to analyse his brain waves. He didn’t want to talk about politics, or the recent earthquake – he hadn’t been out to see the damage it had done. Instead he told Bhatia that he’d started playing the flute: the ‘linearity’ of its music made it more suited to his research. ‘The image of Aristide,’ Bhatia writes, ‘the pivotal figure of modern Haitian politics and once the standard-bearer for democracy, sitting in front of his EEG machine, electrodes on his head, playing the flute, made me uncomfortable.’

From sociologist Eric Klinenberg:

“We Americans like to imagine ourselves as rugged individualists, but we haven’t truly struck out on our own until the past couple of decades. More than half of all adults—100 million or so—are currently single; about 1 in 7, or around 31 [...]]]> The Myth of the Lonely American | Mother Jones.

From sociologist Eric Klinenberg:

“We Americans like to imagine ourselves as rugged individualists, but we haven’t truly struck out on our own until the past couple of decades. More than half of all adults—100 million or so—are currently single; about 1 in 7, or around 31 million, are living alone. In Manhattan and Washington, DC, single people make up half of all households. Nationwide, single people now outnumber nuclear families.”

“First they were stripped of their utensils, furniture, mobile phones, television sets, ration cards and heirloom gold jewellery. Then, some of them drank pesticide. One woman threw herself into a pond. Another jumped into a well with her children.

Sometimes, the [...]]]> The Hindu : News / National : Small loans add up to lethal debts.

“First they were stripped of their utensils, furniture, mobile phones, television sets, ration cards and heirloom gold jewellery. Then, some of them drank pesticide. One woman threw herself into a pond. Another jumped into a well with her children.

Sometimes, the debt collectors watched nearby.”

Zhang Jun, a Chinese dancer who brought Bharatanatyam and Kathak to Mao’s China in the 1950s and inspired thousands to follow her passion for classical Indian culture over a celebrated, five decade-long teaching career, passed away following a long battle [...]]]> The Hindu : Arts / Dance : Dancer who brought Bharatanatyam to Mao’s China dies.

Zhang Jun, a Chinese dancer who brought Bharatanatyam and Kathak to Mao’s China in the 1950s and inspired thousands to follow her passion for classical Indian culture over a celebrated, five decade-long teaching career, passed away following a long battle with cancer. She was 79…

“She was a bridge between two people, and she thought it was her life’s mission to bring the two countries closer through her teaching,” Han Xiao Xia, her only son, told The Hindu in an interview.

Her funeral was held in Beijing on January 8. Zhang had asked to be cremated with an anklet wrapped around her leg.

“The overall sense in western reports is that things are spinning out of control in China, that the center can’t hold and the Communist Party can’t manage…….And yet to a degree this analysis doesn’t add up.”

The gap between rich and poor in OECD countries has reached its highest level for over over 30 years, and governments must act quickly to tackle inequality, according to a new OECD report.

“Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising” finds that the [...]]]> Society: Governments must tackle record gap between rich and poor, says OECD.

The gap between rich and poor in OECD countries has reached its highest level for over over 30 years, and governments must act quickly to tackle inequality, according to a new OECD report.

“Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising” finds that the average income of the richest 10% is now about nine times that of the poorest 10 %  across the OECD. The income gap has risen even in traditionally egalitarian countries, such as Germany, Denmark and Sweden, from 5 to 1 in the 1980s to 6 to 1 today. The gap is 10 to 1 in Italy, Japan, Korea and the United Kingdom, and higher still, at 14 to 1 in Israel, Turkey and the United States.

Fascinating  interview with veteran Japanese investigative journalist, Satoshi Kamata, who was a labour union organiser before taking to writing, and whose investigations covered everything from working undercover in Toyota to study its labour practices (“Japan in the Passing Lane”, 1982) to reporting on conditions in Japan’s [...]]]> Rebel spirit writ large | The Japan Times Online.

Fascinating  interview with veteran Japanese investigative journalist, Satoshi Kamata, who was a labour union organiser before taking to writing, and whose investigations covered everything from working undercover in Toyota to study its labour practices (“Japan in the Passing Lane”, 1982) to reporting on conditions in Japan’s nuclear power plants. The interview itself takes place in the background of  Japan’s largest  rally against nuclear power, held post-Fukushima, which Satoshi Kamata helped organise.

From the interview:

One of your books is titled “Hankotsu no Janarisuto” (“Journalists of a Rebel Spirit”). Why did you choose that title?

I believe that unless journalists have a rebel spirit, they are not journalists. Under whatever political system, journalists should aim to change the society to create a better world. They must criticize what needs to be criticized.

So the title of my book is really rather pointed, because the number of such journalists is declining, but since Japan’s modern era began with the Meiji Restoration in 1868 there have always been some journalists with a rebel spirit and I wrote about them.

The conclusion:

The NTC occupies centre stage in Libya, but since February every key decision has been made in the Western capitals in consultation with the other, especially Arab, members of the ‘contact group’ meeting in London or Paris or Doha. [...]]]> Hugh Roberts · Who said Gaddafi had to go? · LRB 17 November 2011.

The conclusion:

The NTC occupies centre stage in Libya, but since February every key decision has been made in the Western capitals in consultation with the other, especially Arab, members of the ‘contact group’ meeting in London or Paris or Doha. It is unlikely that the structure of power and the system of decision-making which have guided the ‘revolution’ since March are going to change radically. And so unless something happens to upset the calculations that have brought Nato and the NTC this far, what will probably emerge is a system of dual power in some ways analogous to that of the Jamahiriyya itself, and similarly inimical to democratic accountability. That is, a system of formal decision-making about secondary matters acting as a façade for a separate and independent, because offshore, system of decision-making about everything that really counts (oil, gas, water, finance, trade, security, geopolitics) behind the scenes. Libya’s formal government will be a junior partner of the new Libya’s Western sponsors. This will be more of a return to the old ways of the monarchy than to those of the Jamahiriyya.

“After three years of drought thousands of colourful tents made with sticks and branches wrapped in plastic sheets and bits of cloth have sprung up among Mogadishu’s destroyed buildings. Over the summer and early autumn tens of thousands of starving Somalis entered the city. [...]]]> Ghaith Abdul-Ahad · Diary: In Somalia · LRB 3 November 2011.

“After three years of drought thousands of colourful tents made with sticks and branches wrapped in plastic sheets and bits of cloth have sprung up among Mogadishu’s destroyed buildings. Over the summer and early autumn tens of thousands of starving Somalis entered the city. Now the refugees fill the shells of long-defunct ministries, gather in the shade of the roofless cathedral and stand under the parliament building like worshippers seeking a miracle. They appear in the streets in tattered clothing, holding bundles on their oversized heads, carrying yellow jerrycans and babies on their backs.”

A gripping account of the ongoing tragedy in Mogadishu, the Somali capital.

“Bayes’ theorem is a mathematical equation used in court cases to analyse statistical evidence. But a judge has ruled it can no longer be used. Will it result in more miscarriages of justice?”