Can CyberSpace be more humane ?

I was reading "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L friedman and this would be one of the most cherished books of my personal collection. In one the chapters, when he discusses the case of Ellsworth vs Yahoo, he brings out a beautiful point.

Excerpts from the Book:
On November 13, 2004, Lance Cpl. Justin M. Ellsworth, twenty, was killed by a roadside bomb during a foot patrol in Iraq. On December 21, 2004, the Associated Press reported that his family was demanding that Yahoo! give them the password for their deceased son's e-mail account so they could have access to all his e-mail, including notes to and from others. "I want to be able to remember him in his words. I know he thought he was doing what he needed to do. I want to have that for the future," John Ellsworth, Justin's father, told the AP. "It's the last thing I have of my son." We are moving into a world where more and more communication is in the form of bits traveling through cyberspace and stored on servers located all over the world. No government controls this cyber-realm. So the question is: Who owns your bits when you die? The AP reported that Yahoo! denied the Ellsworth family their son's password, citing the fact that Yahoo! policy calls for erasing all accounts that are inactive for ninety days and the fact that all Yahoo! users agree at sign-up that rights to a member's ID or account contents terminate upon death.

This is rather a classy example of another touching story which illustartes lucidly that we are caught in the web of "Who Owns XYZ on Cyberspace ?". As my knowledge is limited on this context, i am not sure who owns my mails/blog/accounts. Is it me because i am the user, the one who extensively uses it (or) the web company because it has own servers and networks which facilitates my communciation.

Probably the next evolution of the e-mail and internet should even consider the role of nominee as we have in "bank accounts" to show that the Cyberspace is bit more humane. It may not sound exciting to web companies, but might be more useful to the members of the deceased families who might be interested to revisit memories with their kith and kin. I hope there is a change which benefits somebody in this process.

-Lakshman

Param - Fumbled mission...

I also have few projects of my own and "Param" is one for which i have dedicated atleast last 4-5 months. 29th of May 2007 would be marked in my calendar as one of the darkest days of My life as I ended up with yet another failed attempt to scale new peaks. I was happy about "TOD" (Technical Order Decomposition) went into production and getting live the previous week with few hiccups in the morning.

The project was of massive scale which required 1800 man days and the best part of mine was to step into the Matt's (principal designer) shoes and execute it under critical conditions in the absence of Matt K. Though it would take few days for me to recover from Param, Param would be still under consideration and will be executed one day sooner/later.

~Lakshman

High time to (Re)examine...

I was just going through the Hindu this morning and came to know that one of the XII std girl has committed suicide because of the fear of low marks scored in the recent examinations. Ever since the board exams came in mid eighties (if my memory is right, it was introduced by MGR govt in 1984), there is unusual tension which percolates to even the 80 year old granny in a family where one of the kids apperaing for the board exams (to scare somebody call it "public exams").

Are we producing Ramanujams and Ramans by these exams?. The max thing which would be brought by these exams are the corner seats allocated in the AIR 13 (thats my favourite room in REC trichy) for the so called elite students who keep mugging / reading things by heart (dabba adiakrathu / mug adikarathu in layman's parlance).

I used to make fun about people (who keep mugging things as sukkumi-laguthi-ippli instead of sukku-milagu-thippili). I always like to provide instances to substantiate my reasoning. I was intellect in my own style, but never aspired to be an engineer by choice. I performed my exams and scored the same 80-85% marks in my std XII and My class Topper (in fact TV Sriram) scored 1170/1200. But finally he was working in Wipro and I was with HCL.

We might have started from different scales, but we are almost on the same boat (You can also think about your toppers, where they are now, 99% of them would be the same as you're.Skip the IITians, thats a differnt arena altogether). I don't blame the kid, if it wants the pride to stand first in all walks of life, hats off TV for that. But i didn't understand why there is undue pressure built by sponsors (parents) and media (pakkathathu mamis) like the one experienced by Indian Cricket team.

Thanks to all these "pakkathathu mamis" for their outstanding "thathu pithu comments". I went to a kalyanam sometime back, I was introduced to one of the mamis by my mother and after 2mins, the lady was scaring me with "her little knowledge of slowdown in US" and why BEs are preferred to MCAs. I was totally astonished for a moment and thought sarcastically that you can replace Sam Pitroda (Chairman,National knowledge commission) with these mamis..

(Note: The only thing which you get free of cost in india is advise from the so called "seniors" - all LIC mamas / Bank Mamas will give umpteen fundas to a guy with Pepe Jeans and he will ignore all those with "unakkum "pepe" unga appankkum "pepe")

Parents should be in a position to guide the kids regarding the education, for that to happen, a parent should first keep themselves abreast of latest happenings rather asking all his friend mamas who is experienced. This is more like a senior cricketer like sobers / hanif mohammed who played a stellar role as a player and asking them to coach present day team. I can prove it always that a good player need not be good coach (example - dave whatmore/tom moody/brad gilbert/terry jenner etc)

MY next target is media. As usual even this year we have girls scoring 85% and Boys scoring 76% (ennaya stats idhu). Are we doing enough coverage to project kids with high intellect/innovation and sponsoring kids to be creative ? If you see any channel, you would have numerous programs regarding singing and dancing stuff. I never know why there are not enough responsible actions to project talents among kids in science/sports/literary fields instead of targetting only TRPs and there by coming out with more "self-reliant independent woman who works and saves her family one after the other crises and will be sacrificing her life for the family". - kadhai mathungada !!!

I don't want another person to commit suicide for all these reasons, for that matter for any reason however great the reason might be. It might be short term workaround for the person, but creates a mess for the family.To me education should make you a man to handle things more maturedly. To see a real life situations, how somebody should react to them. It has to be a life time learning process and not a 2-3 hours examination which tests a 192 page book from education board textbooks. Life is learnt a hard way by experiences / observation / desire to learn and moreover all these "pakkathathu mamas and mamis" would never will be there when u require them.

Its time to learn and think upon...

~Lakshman

Jhanvi - A step forward

It would be strange if you read and interpret the title, this is one which i have been nurturing in my neuro-barn for a while. I still remember my discussions on the lawns of bishop heber, with my friend Subramanian (Sup) and my lineage to work with few NGOs and do something worthful in my life.

But when I moved out of my academic pursuits, i had my own compulsions of making money and i am still in the process of making it as many people around me. But there is a compulsion within myself for which i don't have enough answers at this point of time to address them.

I have been in my shell (which resembles the cave in cast away island) and i keep contemplating for months (nalla velai...i didn't go to Tiruvannamalai as shri ramana...though even i had questions of who am i. i believe only sadhus and jackie chan might know an answer for this question...ha ha)

There are always many things which i have received and i feel that i have been fortunate among the lot who accepts the life what it gives. With my recent discussions with Srivats which was an eye-opener, i feel that microfinance has the potential to uplift our people from illiteracy and poverty. Thanks to Shri Mohd Yunus, nobel laurate.

When reading our sacred texts, i came across beautiful point, which emphasise that there should be personal social responsibility (psr) - just to pay 6paise/rupee to a cause. That was the motivation to start a foundation which i have named it as "Jhanvi", as i have picked the name specially in honouring couple of them who are close to me.

Though this is still inception, i have a long way to go to make it a legal entity. At this point of time, i would be managing it and contributing to it. Though the Main motive of this foundation is just to focus on children's education.

I would definitely get back to all you guys, for your inputs on how to make it better for a worthy cause.

/Lakshman

Piano moments...

I just told in one of my earlier posts that i had a passion to play Black Piano and I was cribbing that i couldn't buy one. But i was fortuntate to be invited by my friend Manju to her college and we had a great time playing piano and debating about MS Swaminathan and his vision.

Thanks to Manju for providing me an opportunity to play a Yamaha Piano (which was available on Imperial college, London).


Another one....I was playing Raja's Illam Kaathu Veesuthu and singing the same...

Her college was situated in a beautiful serene environment. We had lengthy discussions about consumerism and its environment impacts and had a nice lunch (she got me couscous ..i don't know what it is but it was cute...

(It is a moroccon dish made from semolina base - thanks to Subramanian for giving me the etymological reasons behind the dish. Sup (Thats how we call him, always has an answer to all these unknown fundas in life. I can write a separate blog with my interactions with Srirangam Gang.)

The evening went on with myself singing few songs on malayalam and imitating Mamooty and Jairam. I am not a profession guy who does mimicry but every now and then i have done in my office to fool and surprise my colleagues. I just tried to emote a scene solely from Dalapathi (Suryava pidichirukka ? - mamooty talking to shobana..) and she said it was the best, which i cannot comment on.

Had a nice day after long hectic work schedule...

~Lakshman

Dwijavanti - a tribute to melody...

“The aim and final reason of all music should be nothing but the glory of God and the refreshment of spirit.” - i often wondered this quote by JS Bach - whether he referred to our carnatic music. I was listening to Dwijavanti (the raaga) in different forms and i was fascinated finally to conclude by a famous lyric "Kanneer Thuligal Thaan Kalaigalin Vegumanam".

Though Rishivani's janyaraaga - "Kiravani" is my all-time favourite among the raagas, Dwijavanti is slowly catching up with kadhanakudhuhalam and kaapinarayani.
The best part of this raaga,it sets up the melancholy mood for the song. For few friends of mine, who cannot unerstand what a raaga is ? - It is basically a scale of notes but it has to to be sung with the proper bhava /moods to induce the listener.

I still remember, i was hooked for the first time when i listened to "Chetasri Balakrishnam" composed on Dwijavanti by our well know Madurai Mani Mama. Incidentally Dwijavanti is very much like the first cousin of Sahana (which you guys might have heard from lot of songs in cinema like Parthen Sirithen from the Veera Abhimanyu).

I was looking out for a Tyagaraja / Illayaraja song on this and incidentally hasn't composed even one (what an amazing trivia !!!), whereas our Vidyasagar and A R Rahman have composed on this after Muthusamy Dikshatar.

Hats off to ARR for coming out with a wonderful song (anbe sugama from parthala paravasam..). Another kudos to Shri Muthusamy dikshatar for converging a hindustani raag and gave it to us.

Regards,
Lakshman

(listening to hindustani equivalent of the same - Jaijawanti..played by Pt Ravishankar)