Bitch!

He slid down the chute and landing perfectly on the floor. There was no noise, but it couldn't have been otherwise, for he was a master in his trade. Silent and quick, his services were much in demand in certain circles in galactic empire. It stood to reason, he thought, with unravelling of empire it was power, which would be deciding the future, and he was the key for any important player.

Even now, he was on such an assignment. It was difficult because it involved kidnapping and stealing instead of killing, but the cash was good, so he can't think of any objection. Moral consideration, of course did not play any part in this, indeed he found morality illogical and hence a mystery. He silently walked down the corridor, cameras and alarms were of course deactivated, apparently Saxenas were desperate enough to make an exception in this case, and had spent money in a departure from their character stinginess.

He walked up to the door at the end and took a quick survey, it was perfect. He looked at the name tag on the door, no surprises there. He placed his hand on the access panel, green light came up, for authorization, and door silently slid back. He entered the room, his target was on the bed. He took out the deactivator and pressed the contact.

He stared, she was beautiful. Suddenly he was hesitant, he did not know why, and would have been astonished if anyone suggested that there was anything romantic. Coming out from reverie with a start, He moved towards the data pod with direct access to ship's computer. There was a flash, he began turning around, but lost balance by the impact. There was a searing pain, he felt around, his primary electric generator was damaged, which meant he was incapable of movement.

She stood and walked deliberately. He was again struck by her beauty, a caramel skin, and a vulnerable face was offset by taut, lithe body and a arrogant demeanour. As she raised the blaster again, he realized that she was the latest prototype, the secret one.

It was love at last sight.

Father

The room was silent except for the laboured breathing of old man. He was clearly dying.
He opened his eyes and looked around grimacing as he did so.

Room was spacious, but sparsely furnished. Just a bed, on which the old man was lying, and a chair, taken by a young man of exceedingly fine feature. He had uncanny resemblance with the old man, and it was not hard to imagine that the withered form on bed was once a handsome creature. Old man surveyed the other's face, black shining hair falling over forehead, smiling brown eyes, a determined mouth, and strong jaw line. In normal times this face exuded warmth, security and comfort, but now it was stricken with misery, eyes filled with tears, mouth distorted from grief. He touched his face, smiling with effort. The young man said with emotion, "You will be all right, Sir!", he nodded, "You are right, there is nothing wrong with me, I will be fine".

After a pause, he spoke, "Please read Gita", young man nodded and left. Reading actual book was now anachronism, but then he was eccentric. The young man came back with the book and started reading. He settled back in bed, and as the mellifluous voice sang, started relaxing.
Looking back at his life, he could find no reason to complain. His breathing eased, and as he sank deeper into sleep, he was at peace.

The young man paused, he called softly, "Sir". There was no response. He remained motionless, then his eyes welled with tears, and he cried hoarsely, "Oh father, oh father".

PS. Next day, the newsaggregates ran the headline,

Mr Umesh, better know as father of robotics, for his path breaking research on "Adaptive system processing ", died at age of 92. He remained a bachelor, and in last days, Animesh(Adaptive Network for Intelligent Emotive Stimuli) latest prototype for next generation robot was his only companion.

Past Imperfect

Retcon is the device whereby (usually in comics) history of character(s) is extended or modified in order to suit present, usually a radical departure from the theme. Serious (and boring) people call it historical revisionism.

The reason I am talking about this is the recent decision of powers that be in the land of pure, to contemporize history of partition. Now no one can accuse history as it is taught in Pakistan of neutrality or objectivity, which you must admit are trivial when compared to upholding ideology of Pakistan, never mind if the result is a prejudiced generation.

However since our "brothers from across the borders" became FATWAT , there is pressure by their benefactors to reform the education system so that their young people have career options other than future foot soldiers of Jihad. Hence the need to de-emphasize Islamic nature of Pakistan, hence instead of focusing on cultural differences arising out of mutually incompatible and antagonistic religious identity as the cause for partition, the new instruction will emphasize the economic aspects behind the event.

This is disingenuous to say the least, movement for separate Islamic nation constituted of Muslims from different economic backgrounds, an urge to retain distinct and disjointed identity being the only common bond.

But that really is not the point, rather what we should realize is that the partition was essentially based on flawed premise, that intellectuals and even the common public is disillusioned by the unraveling of the nation which was supposed to be "the other" of India, Since accepting the original error will be denial of the Pakistan itself, hence the constant need to reinvent history, which ranges from clever distortion to simply absurd, or to imagine past grievances.

Seen in this way, the tragedy of Pakistan is also the story of one billion Muslims.

It is a massacre

South Africa all out for 84

Yes, I know I have said that watching or playing cricket is treason, sue me.

Terrorism by state

Ex-top cop to hang for custodial deaths

A Delhi court on Friday awarded death penalty to a former assistant commissioner of police for torturing two persons to death in judicial custody nineteen years ago.Terming the offence as "rarest of rare", Additional Sessions Judge Rajinder Kumar ordered that accused Rishi Prakash Tyagi be hanged till death.[rediff]

Terrorism, sponsored by our not so friendly neighbourhood, poses a threat to security and sovereignty of citizens and nations. But there is other side of the story too, the state and its functionaries entrusted with protection of life and dignity of citizen itself abusing the power thus vested to terrorize citizens themselves. Police brutality is just not a figment of imagination of some professional agitator. It is a vicious circle with police, politicians, judiciary and people with influence all playing part.

As important as countering menace of outside terrorism, is to tackle our dysfunctional law enforcement.

Friday Non Sense

1. Who the hell is Jivha ? Was he half as good as me? And considering how good I am, why am I not popular ? Why do people don't comment on this blog ? Why do they hate me ? Because I am different, is that why ?

2. I have come to conclusion that the real evil is liberal education. Without this Shivam would have been a normal human being, instead of being a retarded, hate filled nutborg, and Amit Varma would make sense.

3. I don't understand why Richard Dawkins is so popular? I mean he is a polemicist, that too third rate! I thought Atheists had better taste.

The eminent dilemma

(Related posts by Rohit, Sabnis, Amit Varma)

Singur is latest in series of controversies concerned with government takeover of land for industrial development. The principle behind this action is knows as eminent domain.

As mentioned in the posts linked above, the case against this principle because it violates right to property. This is a valid argument. In theory, free markets work best when players act according to their own judgement, supposing any such judgement follow rational self interest and bounded by required legal enforcement. Any intervention will cause distortions, which more often than not will have sub optimal results. Therefore theoretically eminent domain should be eschewed.

I do not however totally agree with the premise of the above posts (that restoration of right of property is the "complete" solution*), because in my opinion this is where reality deviates from theory.

As this article indicates, the first problem is co ordination between a large number of sellers. In India the land holding is in general small, and this means that any private player who wishes to buy a considerable tract of land has to deal with a large number of sellers simultaneously. Thus co-ordinating the sale is a critical issue for completion of transaction.

The second problem is that since for any transaction to be completed requires a large number of small transactions, in effect the over all transaction is held hostage to successful completion of every transactions. This implies that theoretically** any seller acting purely on self interest can demand very steep price, this probability increases if non rational factors (such as emotional attachment) are also at play. Coupled with lack of co-ordination, this situation makes completion of transaction very difficult.

I can think of a tentative solution. While a person may have exclusive right to his property, he doesn't have any corresponding right on utilities, such as electricity, road.

In general organization and improvement of farm land is heavily dependant on extensive use of utilities.

Hence control of utilities can be transferred to community, and its use its decided on basis on simple majority. This will act as a deterrent again problem described in previous paragraph, while maintaining the right of property.

* I paraphrase but that was what I gleaned.

** Theoretically is the key word, I don't have enough data to test the hypothesis.

PS My earlier post

PPS I am engineer, not economist, so if you think that what I have written is rubbish, please don't hate me. Just assume this is "love neighbourhood ignoramus" week.