Dr. Rangaswamy Narasimhan is no more ...

Dr. Rangaswamy Narasimhan, the designer of India’s first general purpose digital computer, died in Bangalore yesterday.

He played a crucial role in institutional development - Computer Science and Technology Lab at TIFR, Computer Society of India, Computer Maintenance Corporation (CMC), and National Center for Software Technology.

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Patenting Traditional Knowledge Components

What should India do when patents are granted to traditional knowledge components? We normally listen to the lament that our documentation of our traditional knowledge is poor, and hence we are losing out in the present age of patenting anything and everything.

But Rajesh Kochchar argues,

India’s strategy on patents arising out of traditional knowledge has been flawed. It has been focusing on proving that we have documentation for our TK (Traditional Knowledge). Much of India’s own TK must necessarily be unrecorded. Even where records exist, they were meant not as a legally rigorous treatise, but as an aid to oral transmission. Digitisation of TK can only prevent granting of frivolous patents, which, even if left alone, can neither benefit the “inventor” nor harm India. Digitisation may in fact act as an aid to researchers eyeing Indian TK as a guide to focused lab work.

India’s approach towards TK should be proactive rather than defensive. Instead of acting as a documentation assistant for others, it should molecularise its own tradition in healthcare and benefit therefrom under the present patent regime. Most of TK resides in the third world countries and is largely undocumented. India should evolve a strategy that can be adopted by other countries as well. Instead of trying to convince petty U.S. officials that our TK is indeed documented, India should try to work towards evolving a world consensus on the patentability of results of lab research which uses TK as the starting point.

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Book Search Engines

Pradeep Sebastian writes about buying books - used, out-of-print, rare, first editions, etc - on the internet. The following is the list of websites mentioned in the article.

1. Alibris
2. Biblio
3. Abebooks
4. Bibliopoly
5. Bibliophile
6. Biblion
7. TomFolio
8. BookFinder (for price comparison as well)
9. AddALL (for price comparison as well)

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Pretensions

When did "passion-for-tamil" become synonymous with writing-tamil-fallaciously? I have recently seen the following words in a poster that invites people to attend some conference organized by self-professed only-tamil-correct-or-not people.

The words are ஆகத்து (aagaththu) and புத்துணற்சி (puththuNaRchi).

The first word is Tamil equivalent(?!!) for August and the second word is supposed to be புத்துணர்ச்சி which means "refreshing feelings", "new perception", etc.

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True Sense - Root - Etymon

When I was searching for an online etymology dictionary, I got this link. It is surprising to know that Anaconda can be traced (one of the branches) to a Tamil word. Do visit this page to know more about it. It was also not mentioned in this article of my friend where he wrote about few words that have travelled from Tamil to other languages.

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Chomsky's Thesis Draft

Noam Chomsky's thesis draft, "The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory" is available here. You have to register to download. The file size is quite big - full version: 436MB, zipped version: 380MB.

Link:
Noam Chomsky's website

Gian-Carlo Rota's 10 lessons

Kovailputhalvan has sent me this link to Gian-Carlo Rota's 10 lessons of an MIT Education. Thanks Kovaiputhalvan.

Few snippets from those 10 lessons:

--- Students join forces on the problem sets, and some students benefit more than others from these weekly collective efforts. The most brilliant students will invariably work out all the problems and let other students copy, and I pretend to be annoyed when I learn that this has happened. But I know that by making the effort to understand the solution of a truly difficult problem discovered by one of their peers, students learn more than they would by working out some less demanding exercise.

--- Half a century ago, the philosopher Gilbert Ryle discussed the difference between "knowing how" courses are those in mathematics, the exact sciences, engineering, playing a musical instrument, even sports. "Knowing what" courses are those in the social sciences, the creative arts, the humanities, and those aspects of a discipline that are described as having social value.

--- It is my theory that "knowing how" is revered because it can be tested.

(This knowing-how-and-knowing-what reminds me of Snow's Two Cultures!! Imprinting such "divisive" ideas on human psyche may not be good for education.)

--- The idea of genius elaborated during the Romantic Age (late 18th and 19th centuries) has done harm to education. It is demoralizing to give a young person role models of Beethoven, Einstein, and Feynman, presented as saintly figures who moved from insight to insight without a misstep. Scientific biographies often fail to give a realistic description of personality, and thereby create a false idea of scientific work.

--- Young people will correct any fantasies they have about genius. As they start doing research with their professors they learn another healthy lesson, namely, a professor may well behave like a fumbling idiot.

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Spreading Film-making to Villages

"After we screened the famous Bicycle Thieves to a group of farm labourers in a village near Thanjavur, a young boy, in response to our request for feedbacks, said the movie was never shot in the set, which is true." - says P.Thirunavukkarasu of the Tamil Nadu Documentary and Short Film Creators’ Association.

The Association teaches villagers the ABC of cinema - from cinematography to acting to editing to lighting. "We have conducted the five-day course in Tiruchi, Karur, Coimbatore, Ramanathapuram and Krishnagiri districts," he says.

But why? "Every village has a story to narrate, which is told best in visual medium. For, it helps the villagers, more comfortable with hand-held digicams than bigger gadgets, convey messages in their language and style, free of fear, inhibition, etc.," says Mr. Thirunavukkarasu.

He adds: "And, such documentation is cent per cent people’s history because they decide what, when and how to document. People tell their history and that too through a mass medium, which in this case is mass in every sense of the term."

(To read more, visit this page)

It is quite interesting to know that such courses have been conducted in villages. The association might also act as a facilitator to disseminate the works of people who attend their courses. But I could not find even the website of the association!!
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Freedom To Create

Ingmar Bergman says:

"Freedom under which we work is the basis. Nobody can come to me and say "do that"...I am my own master...These are our work. We must feel proud...The actors, the technicians, the cameraman...We all discuss.. All are involved..."

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What would he do if someone came, and said, "this movie won't make money unless you put so and so in it instead of someone else."

"I'd ask him to go very quickly out of the studio... perhaps I would go."

(From this YouTube video)

Carnatic Concerts in Chennai

For carnatic concerts' schedule in Chennai, listed for every month till January 2008, visit this page now, and then regularly to see the updates.
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