Willful Blindness

You can take a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

What about the guy who is taking the horse to water? Does he and his community react in a rational way when faced with inconvenient facts?

Willful blindness seems to be a lot more common that we would care to believe. An excellent TED talk by Margaret Heffernan -



But then, as always, there are at least two ways of looking at anything. Heffernan refers to USA's actions in Iraq and the Middle East as an act of willful blindness, but Edward Luttwak, the "Machiavelli of Maryland" seems to consider it a brilliant strategic move that would keep the Shias and Sunni's fighting with each other for the next thousand years.

Blindness too may lie in the eye of the beholder.

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LINKS:

* The Machiavelli of Maryland (9 Dec., 2015, The Guardian) -- http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/09/edward-luttwak-machiavelli-of-maryland

Roaring and Bleating

Bharat Karnad launched his new book today: "Why India is not a Great Power (yet)".

I had been looking forward to this event ever since the CPR invitation hit my inbox. I had expected thisto be another of those dour events where folks landed up late, where a flunky praised the author and his book to the skies, the author read some excerpts, everbody clapped, chatted over some coffee and dispersed.

As expected, the event started 30 mts late, but everything else was refreshingly different. The author made some opening remarks, positioning himself as a military "hawk" and then went on to paint a dismal picture of India as a world-power-wannabe. An aspirant unable to muster the will, either to have a global vision, or to implement it. A lion in that bleeted like sheep, and acted like one.

Karnad's views on the subject are well known. Interestingly, while all the panelists agreed that it was a great piece of work, not one of the agreed with his conclusions. And the best part of it was that Karad had personally invited experts who had a diametrically  opposite world view.

Jairam Ramesh, a Congress-man and former minister in the UPA government, felt that Karnad had erred in equating military might with being a global power; Shiv Shankar Menon presented elegant and coherent agruments on why all the policy recommendations of the book were signs of a declining power, not a rising one; Adm. Raja Menon read out a note from which it was difficult to separate exerpts from his own views, and Maj.Gen Narasimhan thought that Karnad's conclusions were flawed because they were based on a limited interaction with those who knew better.

All through the wit, sarcasm and sage advise, the experts agreed on one point: There is not much  internal coherence within Government of India - each ministry and department has its own ideas on what constitutes "national interest", with many of them working at cross-purposes.

Like the 'Blind Men of Hindoostan', they all hold on to their own views and miss the elephant in the room.

Some interesting takeaways:

• Nehru, despite all proclamations on non-alignment gave the first go-ahead for the nuclear weapons program. This was part of a vision which withered away after 1964
• 23% of Indan Army budget goes towards maintaining armoured corpes. Two mountain divisions can be maintained for the cost of one armoured division;
• Despite all its war-games, the IAF was completely unprepared for Kargil. It had never envisaged a was on the Himalayan frontier. Even today, the focus remains on 'short, decisive' wars along the Western border, despite rising alarms about the Tibet border.
• Our military brass seeks approval from a Western audience, not its domestic stakeholders. It took an MIT case-study and GE's initiatives, for to realize the value of "frugal innovation";
• Everybody realises the need for a strong private sector reducing our dependence on imports but there is not sufficient motivation (read "trust"), to see this through.

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LINKS:

- OUP Book - http://www.oup.co.in/product/academic-general/politics/international-relations/207/why-india-is-not-great-power-yet/9780199459223

WiFi Internet Connectivity

We just graduated from a dongle to a wifi router.

I must thank BSNL, MTS, Reliance and Tata Docomo for forcing us to take this quantum leap. All four of them have been providing such pathetic internet connectivity in Noida that we never really experienced a broadband internet connection at home, until today.

BSNL had everything going for it. It was the first one to lay down optic cables and hubs in the neighborhood and it was offering the most competitive rates too. Unfortunately they also had a bunch of linemen moulded in the licence-permit Raj. Since they just could not kick the habit of demanding  "baksheesh"from customers, they always ensured that the last-mile connectivity was primed to fail, as frequently as possible.

The telecom corporates fared no better. The slick ad campaigns from Reliance, MTS and Tata Docomo offered high-speed internet of "up to 21 Mbps". In reality this meant that the speeds could be anywhere between 0 Kbps and 450 Kbps, well within their promised range!

Our new service provider, a franchisee for Triple Play, simply promises a download speed and then delivers it. We now have a plan for 4Mbps speed till 25GB for Rs. 800/month. Speedtest has consistently confirmed that - at least so far - they have exceeded promises.

Unlike last time with BSNL, we have picked a wireless router on our own from the online market. A Netgear N150 (JNR1010v2) marked with an MRP of Rs. 1600 was available in Atta Market for Rs. 1200. The same thing is on Snapdeal for Rs. 784!

How on earth do they figure a pricing strategy in a market like this?


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An attempt to make sense of the technical hocus-pocus:

Q. What is the radio frequency used by wifi routers?
A. Usually 2.4 GHz. for a maximum link speed of 150 Mbps. It is interesting to note that 'larger channel widths do not result in higher range, just faster speeds at close range'. So it is just as well that I did not buy a dual antenna N300 model for double the price!
Netgear's classification - details here.

Q. What is an "External 5dBi antenna"?
A. dBi stands for 'decibels relative to isotropic'. It represents  the direction and efficiency (Antenna Gain) with which a transmitter sends signals across distances. More here.

Q. The router conforms to four sets of international standards: Safety, EMC, Radio Spectrum and RoHS. What are these?
A. EMC = Electromagnetic Compatibility (European Standard - EN and International Electrotechnical Commission or IEC);
RoHS = Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive  - also known as the "lead-free directive" it restricts the use of six substances in manufacturing.

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* http://www.explainthatstuff.com/wirelessinternet.html

India & Japan: Looking into Hazy Skies

Tomorrow, for the first time, a Japanese premier would be the chief guest at India's Republic Day parade.

Behind all the symbolism is the bland fact that both sides are living in hope. India hopes that Japan would find some spine and emerge from the shadows of being a US client-state, and Japan hopes that Indians will stop jabbering about "civilizational linkages" and get real about building linkages in trade, commerce and defense.

In today's Indian Express, PD Samanta has come up with some interesting examples. First, the much touted long-term 2012 agreement to supply 4000 tonnes of rare-earths per year to supply rare earths to Japan seems to have fizzled out.  Thanks to a temporary dip in international prices, Japanese firms are trying to drive a hard bargain on long term contracts, and this has turned off DAE.

US1a (pic from MOD, Japan site)

The second  is Japan's offer to sell US2 amphibious aircraft to India. A Joint Working Group is "exploring modalities for the cooperation". In other words this is still in the realm of academic debates, and with the latest crop of corruption scandals in defense purchases, we can rest assured that it will be years before the bureaucrats on both sides decide on anything.

Tomorrow morning, while Mr. Abe peers through a smoggy morning at Russian, US and French-made military aircraft flying across the skies, he might be wondering if Japan too can get a slice of the market. Or maybe he will continue giving us lectures on nuclear abstinence and business etiquette until the next elections.

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LINKS & REFERENCES

PD Samanta (Indian Express, 25Jan14)-- ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/arrested-development/

US2 - STOL Aircraft - http://www.shinmaywa.co.jp/english/news/pdf/09-02-19.pdf
- http://www.shinmaywa.co.jp/english/products/us2_capability.html

JWG for US2(ET, May'13) -- http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-05-29/news/39602101_1_india-and-japan-japanese-counterpart-shinzo-abe-aircraft

http://thediplomat.com/2013/10/the-benefits-for-india-of-a-us-2-deal-with-japan/