Isnt Test cricket like life itself

Tendulkar was speaking on Friday at the launch of a book 'Shadows across the playing field, authored by India's Minister of state for External Affiars Shashi Tharoor and former PCB Chairman and diplomat Shaharyar Khan.

"I was included in the first Test (in 1989). On the first day we fielded and I was so tired after six hours on the field that I slept after we returned to the hotel, woke up for my dinner and again went back to sleep," Tendulkar said.

"The next day we batted and Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis were charging in. The first ball I faced from Wasim was a bouncer. I expected a yorker next ball but got a bouncer again. The third ball too was a bouncer when I was again prepared for a yorker for which he was famous.

"And the fourth ball, the last of the over, too was a bouncer and I told myself, welcome to Test cricket. You plan something else and you have to do something else,"


REFERENCES

HindustantTimes News Group URL http://www.hindustantimes.com

The readers paradox

This is an extract from Mr Vinod Mehta's ( Outlook India magazine: Editor in Chief ) speech on receiving the IPI Award 2007 which the magazine won for its Navy War Room leak and Scorpene stories.

He says "I will just provide three examples of the confusion in readers minds regarding
their expectations from the media.

1. Research shows unambiguously that most readers desire to read more international news. Yet, the international pages of a paper are the least read. International news may be good for the soul but it does nothing for circulation.

2. Readers insist that the price of their morning paper does not matter. It is such a vital part of their life that they would happily pay the extra rupee for it. Yet, as Mr Rupert Murdoch and Mr Samir Jain have demonstrated, print publications are extremely price sensitive. You can bleed the opposition by cover price cuts. The phrase "invitation price" terrifies rival publishers.

3. Readers will tell you that they want a single-section, compact morning paper. They don’t want sections and supplements dropping out. Yet the opposite is true. Papers with multi-sections prosper, others suffer."

He adds "We must lead readers, not be led by them. Really great journalism must do more than merely give people what they want. There has to be room for the unexpected, for stories the public has no idea it wants until it sees them. The reader is a paradox. He frequently complains about negative news being constantly reported. But for all his clamouring for positive news, surveys show that people are more interested in negative news, sensational news, news about crime, violence and corruption. The reader, ladies and gentlemen, is not king; actually he is a nice hypocrite. "

This remind me of another speech on international news. It talks about a survey being done about headlines and newspaper stories. Speaker is Alissa Miller speaking at TED convention at Monterey California. She says local news is given coverage because its cheap. So we hardly get any international news in magazines, TV and newspapers.

REFERENCES

Outlook India Magazine "What the reader wants"
url: http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20071219&fname=vinod+mehta&sid=1&pn=1
last accessed: 22 August 2008

TEDtalks video url:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ly7Btx0Stg

last accessed: 23 August 2008

Convict Creation

Came across an interesting website. The website doesnt have a list of authors and doesn't give any reference to its inputs but it sure makes an interesting read. The website is about Australian Culture. Here are the opening lines from the website "convict creations'

Welcome to Australia! This is a peculiar country where the principles of culture appear to have been turned upside down. Australians seem blissfully unaware of the achievements of their intellectuals.... yet they will celebrate long dead horses, yobbo sportsmen, and bushrangers. They often forget the words of their national anthem..... yet it would be wrong to say they are not patriotic as a song about a suicidal sheep thief seems to instil them with a great deal of pride! If they like you, they will not give you compliments. Instead, they might call you names like bastard, drongo or dickhead, and then laugh at all the silly things you have done. If you have red hair, you might be called 'Bluey.' If you are tall, you might be called 'Shorty.' If you are quiet, you might be called 'Rowdy.'

Notes on Reductionism: Why we must embrace holism?

Reductionism has always been the problem solving technique in sciences and associated disciplines. In reality solving a problem by reduction means transforming the problem into simpler problems and constructing or deducing solution of the original problem from the solution of the new problem. For example a student is given a problem to calculate the sum of all numbers between 1 and 101 which are not divisible by 3. Working a direct solution for this will be tedious so it is solved reductively. The required sum is the difference between sum of all numbers between 3 and 99 which are divisible by 3. Both sums can be calculated as arithmetic series. Thus the original problem is subdivided into sub problems of calculating arithmetic series which is actually nothing but reductionism (Armoni, Gal-Ezer & Tirosh 2005, p. 114). On the hand the term systems approach derives its base from holism or holistic thinking. The term holism was coined by South African philosopher Jaan Christiaan Smuts. He argued (Anderson, H 2001, p. 155) that “a unity of the parts could be so close and intense as to be more than the sum of its parts.” Smut explains the philosophy behind holism and systems thinking. Systems thinking usually deals with complex systems. Now a complex system unlike a conventional single feedback system comprises of numerous subsystems and the overall behavior of the system relies on the interaction of these systems. So the system output is not as simplistic and is not merely a sum total of the constituent entities.

Professor Yaneer Bar-Yam President of the New England Complex Systems Institute (Bar Yam, Y 2000) defines reductionism as “an approach to building description of systems out of the description of the subsystems that a system is composed of and ignoring the relationships between them.” That means any reduction thinking is bound to overlook certain aspects of engineering system. Systems approach on the other hand is the tendency to look at an object as a whole. During the mid 19th century the British philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that the properties of molecule could not be derived from the properties of the constituent elements. He (Anderson, H 2001, p. 153) postulates “…. the chemical combination of two substances produces, as is well known, a third substance with properties different from those of either of the two substances separately or of both of them taken together. Not a trace of the properties of hydrogen or of oxygen is observable in those of their compound, water.” Stuart Mill speaks of what later came to be known as emergence.

In systems thinking the problem is analyzed by its face value. That is if there is patient suffering from difficulty in breathing then instead of checking his/her respiratory organs we check for his ability to inhale and exhale. In this way all the causative agents will be taken into account. Reductionist might advance into inspecting internal organs while the problem might lie in some allergic substance in the environment or it can be a common case of influenza. Therefore the system approach has a broad spectrum which might help anticipate emergent behavior or at least take every precaution against any undesired emerging behavior.

One of the most peculiar attribute of scientific reductionism is the way in which it proceeds to diagnose a problem. A reductionist would go about gathering data using a response or feedback from source. So in scientific reduction a stimuli-response is used for data collection in research. A similar set of rules are applied to every source to extract a response which reduces the time to extract data if the number of observations are large. The problem with reductionist approach (Verschuren, P 2001, p. 391) is that there is a tendency to “prestructure”. That means for every problem a system encounters a standardized and structured methodology is adopted. On the other hand a systems approach would be to look at collective characteristics. System thinker would look at culture, team spirit, and ethics especially in behavioral sciences. Similarly in engineering problem a systems thinker will look for aggregated characteristics like engine throughput, intake, output power rather than efficiency, input voltage and engine-shaft torque. The guiding force behind system thinking is holism. In contrast, reductionism is a pursuit to identify sub problems to the central problem and finding solutions to these sub problems.

A systems approach encourages inferences from previously encountered problems. A systems approach is to draw parallels between problem and the reductionist has the proclivity to proceed serially (Verschuren, P 2001, p. 392). The iterative-parallel way has an inverse relation between the research and the theory (Creswell, J 1994) . Systems approach complement, adds and challenges the existing theory. On the other hand scientific reductionism forms a basis for formulating the research. However in a systems approach the iterative and parallel thinking gives rise to theory and in turn gives rise to generation and analysis of new research material.

There are several reasons why reductionism has been successful in science and engineering. Quantification and quest for precision is one reason (Verschuren, P 2001, p. 399). Since all the physical forces are quantified engineers require measurable parameters and want that the underlying entities add to a sum total. The insistence quantification is the belief of objectivity of figures and it is a common refrain “figures can’t be wrong”. A lot of trust is attached to raw data, facts and figures. For instance, ( Verschuren, P 2001, p. 400 )consider a researcher formulating a hypothesis that there are two groups the members within group 1 interact significantly more than those of group 2. Every day interactions are observed for each group and the number of interaction per day are recorded. This is done repeated and data is recorded for a period. Now a collected data of these interactions among individuals will be more convincing than an overall impression of a researcher who would observe the whole group entities such as trust, friendship and compatibility.

In spite of such widespread success of scientific reductionism systems approach is now being preferred in sciences and in solving practical problems as well (Ackoff, 1974; Esterby-Smith et al., 1991) because the modern problems are more complex and dynamic for any reduction to be possible. Dividing and giving each quantity a unit and variable might not be feasible. It can be tedious, expensive and might not give a clear picture. The wisdom of scientific reduction might not be true. A good example is the performance of a football team. There are teams consisting of excellent athletes and players having high number of championship goals yet they are ranked low because they lose crucial matches. In general the quantity of goals individual footballer has scored is not a definitive indicator of the character of the team.

Reductionism at times can give a reduced picture of a problem and would rather ignore any emergent property. Another example, between physical between physical and social reality is the aesthetic quality of an object (Verschuren, P 2001, p. 401). For instance, a single object all by itself may not be of any aesthetic value. But the combination of objects may constitute an exceptional aesthetic appeal. This phenomenon is too abstract to define and scientific reductionism has no answer to it.

Scientific reductionism suffers from observational bias and the observation is tunneled in a sense that an object is perceived to be isolated from its physical and social surroundings. The problem can be looked upon after being isolated from the whole which it belongs. Focusing on rudimentary parts of the object/problem in reductionism one can forget its functionality, interconnectedness and context dependency (Verschuren, P 2001, p. 401).

A system approach utilizes analogous thinking and inductive reasoning (Verschuren, P 2001, p. 397). Analogous thinking is based on perception of similarity and inductive reasoning deals with reasoning that moves away from specificity to generality. Given below is a table that compares reductionist versus systems approach. The difference in perception is given with respect to object, observation and strategy (Verschuren, P 2001, p. 398).

The development in science and technology after the industrial revolution has been fast and unrestrained. The research domains have expanded and the mechanism of breaking down the problem via scientific reduction has become redundant. To counter the modern problems certain existing theories and beliefs must be changed (Wulun, J 2007,p. 395).

• 
  
  
  All things cannot be decomposed or reduced to its elements and elements cannot be replaced always.



• 
  
  
  All the elements never always add up to the original entire body. The whole is not always equivalent but larger or smaller than the sum of its part.



• 
  
  
  The whole can not always be understood by being dividing it into or reducing it into its parts and understanding those parts (Wulun, J 2007,p. 397).

In my view it is not constructive to discuss what is better reductionism or systems approach. It is concerned with the nature of the problem, interests and priorities of the stakeholder. Newtonian sciences have led to the development of ‘constitutive theory’ (Wulun, J 2007, p. 399). According to constitutive pattern of thinking, development and change are caused by division and combination of unchangeable constitutive elements, which are made of even smaller elements. The current sciences base themselves heavily on Newtonian physics and its philosophy. Albert Einstein contribution to the quantum physics gave the sciences a new breath of life. Biology, behavioral science and especially systems sciences realized that the natural world and human society are inseparable, interacted whole. To understand the whole system thinking is required.


REFERENCES

Ackoff, R. L 1974, ‘Redesigning the Future; a Systems Approach to Societal Problems, New York, London, Sydney, Toronto; john Wiley and Sons

Andersen, H 2001, ‘The history of reductionism versus holistic approaches to scientific research’, Endeavour, vol. 25(4), pp. 153-156

Armoni, M, Gal-Ezer, J & Tirosh, D 2005, ‘Solving Problems Reductively’, J. Educational Computing Research, vol. 32(2), pp. 113-129.

Bar Yam, Y 2000, Reductionism, Concepts in Complex Systems, viewed 6 May 2008,
<>.

Creswell, J. W 1994, Research Design: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage.

Verschuren, P 2001, ‘Holism versus Reductionism in Modern Social Science Research’, Quality and Quantity, vol35, pp. 389-405.

Wulun, J 2007, ‘Understanding Complexity, Challenging Traditional Ways of Thinking’, Systems Research and Behavioral Sciences, Sys. Res 24, pp. 393-402.

Sporting Down Under

Last month was wasted watching movies, sleeping late and partly due to daily drudgery I was exposed too. The first month of this calendar year was celebrated at friend’s place and goofing around the city streets. One of the highlights of my exile down-under was a chance to meet the Indian cricket team for Border-Gavaskar Trophy. This will be the last Australian tour for Sachin, Kumble, Dravid and Dada. The test matches will see huge attendance of Indian immigrants. Everyone will go to see even if someone abjures test cricket. Only thing I hate about test cricket is slow over rate, Dravid’s batting and standing in the sun.

Being a cricket-summer tickets were booked/bought well in advance. I wish this enthusiasm could extend to things beyond frivolities like cricket. The first test was scheduled for 24January and the practice session were held at the oval nets on 22-23th. Practice session gives plenty of photo opportunity. The Indian cricketers in Australia are roaming feral animals with largely no security from the mob. People clamoured to get snaps of their favourite cricketer which also meant a lot of updated Orkut albums over the weekend.

The touring teams itenary was limited to hotels, selected restraunts and pubs. There was no fan fare surrounding the Australian cricket team. Andrew Symonds-homo-erectus was spotted alone on Hindley Street in the city by our dear friend. The specie was sporting a chilled look fashionable Ts , shorts and rubber thongs. How bourgeois, care-free and no one to bother even on the city streets. But around the nets in Oval there were over a hundred crazed Indian fans dying to get a snap with Tendlya, Dada or Kumble-Pathan. This behavior could have been a puzzling glimpse for the local aussie. That is normal for the Australian cricket team because this form of sport has limited following in the country. Indians are raving mad about cricket. Cricket
enjoy high priority in media coverage and the Board of Cricket Council India is a wealthy body.

Australians embraces all sports even kayaking is at par with cricket. Women’ s hockey final can has higher viewership than friday night movie. Adelaide hosts sporting events like the Clipsal V8 racing, Melbourne Cup Horse race and the Cycling tour Down under. Cycling is huge in Australia which I find very strange. Men in tights speeding on rail-thin steel pipes never got my adrenaline going. Perhaps that’s makes me another ignorant Indian. Ignorant about sports, another pot-bellied brown folk, another bureaucrat whose notion of sport and recreation lies largely in realms of bat & ball.

We have this inability to become a ‘sports-conscious nation’ even after 60 years of independence. And India missed the chance in 1982 Asian Games and, with no vision, India is set to repeat the mistake in 2010 in my backyard when Delhi hosts the Commonwealth Games.

And yes I have always been a part of the dejected billion-plus-Indians-and-yet-no-Olympic-gold-medal crib brigade. I am living down under all these convincing figures make me envy the aussie sporting success. At the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, Australia won 27 medals and in 1996 in Atlanta it was 41. In 1999, the year before the Sydney Olympics, Australia had another outstanding year in international sport, winning 25 individual world championships and 15 world team championships, with most of these victories not even in the Olympic sports. In 2000 Olympics were held in Sydney and there Aussies bagged 58 medals with 16 gold which is good for a country with miniscule population. Australians have healthy-wholesome succesful image of their country.

For the sake of being appropriate

It took three years to admit the failure of a jingoistic campaign with the worst slogan ever.

SHIMLA: The BJP on Monday admitted that its "India Shining" slogan used in the run up to 2004 Lok Sabha elections was a "mistake". "India Shining slogan was a mistake. The better slogan would have been India Rising", Advani, who was Deputy Prime Minister during NDA rule when the slogan was coined, told reporters here. The BJP and the NDA government led by the party had undertaken an aggressive "India Shining" campaign before the last Lok Sabha polls before being voted out of power.

REFERENCE

1. Times of India [Online] 17 Dec2007

URL:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India_Shining_slogan_was_a_mistake_Advani/articleshow/2629479

फेहरिस्त

I have written the lyrics of the song "Wishlist" by Pearl Jam in Hindi.

फेहरिस्त

ऐ काश मैं बारूद होता, पल के लिए फट जाता
ऐ काश मैं बिछड़ा होता, शायाद अपनाया जाता
ऐ काश मैं गहना होता जो संभाला जाता
वह च्रिस्त्मस का पेड़, मैं उसका तारा होता जो उसपर चदता
ऐ काश मैं सबूत, और उसका आधार
वह पचास लाख उठते हाथ और मैं उनका आकाश

ऐ काश मैं कश्ती होता जिसका कोई किनारा होता
ऐ काश मैं अपने भविष्य की किस्मत होता
ऐ काश मैं एक ख़त, और सभी शुभ संदेश आते
ऐ काश मैं चाँद, और नेहार पर चमकती रौशनी

ऐ काश मैं पाताल का वासी और सूरज के पीछे रहता
ऐ काश मैं वह सौगात, घर में संजोयी जाती
ऐ काश मैं वह रास्ता होता जिसका कोई राही बनता
ऐ काश मैं भरोसा होता जो कभी नही टूटता

ऐ काश मैं संगीत और सब लोग मुझे सुन सकते
ऐ काश , ऐ काश , ऐ काश