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Thursday, December 24, 2009
My 1994 Prophecy is indeed Coming True!
As we look forward to the completion of a decade into the 21st century, it is interesting to look at my article titled “Paperless World” published in the August 14th 1994 edition of Deccan Chronicle Daily scanned and posted at the following URL:
http://www.pendyala.net/dcPaperLessWorld.pdf
More than 15 years of its publication, the predictions in the article have or are quite coming true. Here are a few instances to substantiate this claim:
“The magic wand called computer” has indeed become “pivotal to the world” that is now.
“Knowledge Based Systems” are again back into the research labs, with the semantic technologies that web 3.0 is likely to be built on being akin to this concept. Key advantages of semantic technologies are deduction and reasoning, which are characteristics of Knowledge Based Systems.
The “happy marriage of computer science and genetic engineering” is indeed a big thing now.
“Computers with the speed of present day (1994) supercomputer” are indeed becoming household gadgets.
“Mobile Computing” indeed brought the computer into every sphere of activity. (Reference: [1] Vishnu S. Pendyala, Simon S.Y.Shim, Web as the Ubiquitous Computer, IEEE Computer, vol. 42, no. 9, pp. 90-92, Sept. 2009, doi:10.1109/MC.2009.302).
It is indeed a “global village” now with companies and teams spreading across nations.
Money indeed exists in computers now, with paper money accounting for just 5-6% of the total money supply in developed countries and 8-10% in developing countries. It is 18-20% in India (source: http://www.livemint.com/2009/08/11223656/Plastic-money-recommended-to-b.html )
The need for physical transit has indeed vanished significantly with the amazing connectivity of the Internet. We are indeed seeing and talking to our friends using video conferencing now.
Paper is on its way to become a thing of the past, with the growing popularity of reading devices like kindle, and increasing reliance on electronics for previously paper-based activities like tax-filing or form-filling.
As the sixth sense project indicates, people are soon going to “write into computer and read from it” using “speech, vision, and touch.”
The world is indeed getting speedier and people are doing things that were requiring a year previously, now in a month, a week, a day, or even a second. I still remember the days in early 90s when recognizing a spoken letter such as “ka” used to take close to a day. Now it happens in a micro-second or less.
If necessity is the mother of invention, intuition like expressed in the attached article could as well be called the father of invention :).
Enjoy,
Vishnu Pendyala
http://www.pendyala.net/dcPaperLessWorld.pdf
More than 15 years of its publication, the predictions in the article have or are quite coming true. Here are a few instances to substantiate this claim:
“The magic wand called computer” has indeed become “pivotal to the world” that is now.
“Knowledge Based Systems” are again back into the research labs, with the semantic technologies that web 3.0 is likely to be built on being akin to this concept. Key advantages of semantic technologies are deduction and reasoning, which are characteristics of Knowledge Based Systems.
The “happy marriage of computer science and genetic engineering” is indeed a big thing now.
“Computers with the speed of present day (1994) supercomputer” are indeed becoming household gadgets.
“Mobile Computing” indeed brought the computer into every sphere of activity. (Reference: [1] Vishnu S. Pendyala, Simon S.Y.Shim, Web as the Ubiquitous Computer, IEEE Computer, vol. 42, no. 9, pp. 90-92, Sept. 2009, doi:10.1109/MC.2009.302).
It is indeed a “global village” now with companies and teams spreading across nations.
Money indeed exists in computers now, with paper money accounting for just 5-6% of the total money supply in developed countries and 8-10% in developing countries. It is 18-20% in India (source: http://www.livemint.com/2009/08/11223656/Plastic-money-recommended-to-b.html )
The need for physical transit has indeed vanished significantly with the amazing connectivity of the Internet. We are indeed seeing and talking to our friends using video conferencing now.
Paper is on its way to become a thing of the past, with the growing popularity of reading devices like kindle, and increasing reliance on electronics for previously paper-based activities like tax-filing or form-filling.
As the sixth sense project indicates, people are soon going to “write into computer and read from it” using “speech, vision, and touch.”
The world is indeed getting speedier and people are doing things that were requiring a year previously, now in a month, a week, a day, or even a second. I still remember the days in early 90s when recognizing a spoken letter such as “ka” used to take close to a day. Now it happens in a micro-second or less.
If necessity is the mother of invention, intuition like expressed in the attached article could as well be called the father of invention :).
Enjoy,
Vishnu Pendyala
Monday, December 7, 2009
Caste system must be abolished: Letter to the Editor
This refers to “Caste system must be abolished: SC” at: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/national/caste-system-must-be-abolished-sc-318
Many kudos and gratitude to the Honourable Apex court for this landmark judgment. Any large group of people needs to be classified for better governance and activities, as can be seen in any large corporation and even in the government. Religion never meant this classification to be static or cast in stone, as it is now, in our so called “caste system.” This judgment comes at a very appropriate time when the society is again being misled by divisive forces. We must realize that all divisions of humanity - region, religion, caste, or gender, are all meant to unite people. None to divide.
Many kudos and gratitude to the Honourable Apex court for this landmark judgment. Any large group of people needs to be classified for better governance and activities, as can be seen in any large corporation and even in the government. Religion never meant this classification to be static or cast in stone, as it is now, in our so called “caste system.” This judgment comes at a very appropriate time when the society is again being misled by divisive forces. We must realize that all divisions of humanity - region, religion, caste, or gender, are all meant to unite people. None to divide.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Suggestions to the Indian Government on the occasion of Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas 2010
Pravasi Bharatiya Divas is going to be celebrated by the Indian government 7-9 January 2010. On this occasion, here are a few suggestions to the Indian government. I think it is high time that people started demanding the largest democracy in the world for a government that they deserve. First and foremost is to better protect the interests and properties of the NRIs / PIOs in the country. We are away from our motherland, where our old parents and other possibly vulnerable dependents still reside. The government should make it a crime for someone to harass parents and other immediate family members of overseas Persons of Indian Origin. The government should sternly deal with any illegal occupation of or damage to NRIs properties in India and adjudicate the case in say, 90 days from the date reported.
It seems to be a widely held perception with those in the government that NRIs have plenty of money to spare, so are a good catch for bribes. Corruption, particularly where the victim is an NRI must be made a cognizable, non-bailable offence, not needing government permission for prosecution. If the Anti Corruption Bureau really wants to do justice to its raison d’être, it must not limit itself to just a few corrupt officials who have fallen out of grace or to those who become pawns in the politics of the more powerful. It should target corruption in the most important functions of the governments such as law and order. As it is often said, cleaning should ideally start from home – the home department, which is also the home of the ACB. It is anybody’s information that there are several personnel in the home department itself, who have assets glaringly disproportionate to their income sources. To clean something, the cleaning system must first be clean itself!
NRIs cannot easily participate in legal and particularly criminal proceedings. There have been a number of incidences where frivolous criminal prosecutions were initiated on NRIs / PIOs, so much so that US and Canadian governments issued travel warnings in this respect. These prosecutions simply take advantage of the fact that NRIs cannot easily defend themselves as the cases take years to adjudicate and NRIs cannot afford to stay away from their careers for so long. The government must create special sections in the Indian Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code exclusively for NRI cases to punish complainants filing frivolous cases and to exempt personal appearance of NRIs, permitting them to appear through advocate even in criminal cases.
It is very important to make all sectors of the government more accountable, particularly the judiciary. One reform that the country and the legal fraternity, including the bar council can consider is to bring-in democracy into judiciary as well. Every judge and major policy changes in judiciary should go through a bi-annual mandate. Unlike the legislature, judiciary is a professional body. So, they may not like to go to the people campaigning, as the masses may not even understand what makes a good judge, let alone choosing them. There is also a danger that some shankar dada or munna bhai may get elected after getting a (law) degree, similar to what's shown in the popular movie. So, the electorate would be restricted to all the members of the bar council and judicial officers of sub-ordinate courts. That way, judiciary remains independent and becomes accountable to at least to the immediate populace they impact.
Another related aspect is the use of contempt of court act, by the Honourable courts. It is an established principle of civility that one cannot judge and award punishment for injury caused to self. That is, one cannot be a victim and a judge simultaneously for the same incident. The entire concept of judiciary seems to be based on this principle. In the case of “contempt of court,” the victim is the judiciary. So, it may not be appropriate for judiciary to adjudicate the case. The law should be changed so that on the rarest of the rare occasions when “contempt of court” cases arise, they should be referred to the Parliament or the Executive. The adjudication can still be done by professionals drawn from the legal community, but reporting to the Executive or the Parliament. This body of legal professionals which does not report to the judiciary should also be vested with the power to entertain any complaints against the judiciary. Just like a victim cannot adjudicate injury done to him, so also an accused, in this case, the judiciary, cannot adjudicate complaints against himself.
A democracy will not be effective when freedom of speech is scuttled and there is no transparency in government transactions. Parliament proceedings are now widely available to the public on the internet, TV, etc and are freely debated. Judiciary should similarly make all of their judgments open to the public and allow public to freely comment on them. Thanks to the technology, the Internet is now writable. Technology allows any reader to post comments right underneath what they read on the Internet. So, judiciary can use this technology to gain confidence of the public. If the inability of the honourable judges to call for a press conference to defend criticism is the only holding factor to implement this, this restriction can be removed. In fact, we often are seeing the Honourable judges making statements to the press on various occasions. So, the justification that judges cannot call for press conferences does not seem to hold water.
A solution to many problems with government is to make the ordinary citizen more powerful than the government. After all, a government derives its power and money from the citizens. RTI is a small step towards this goal, but there is a lot more to be done. A genuine complaint from a citizen must be treated like an emergency in the government department, and dereliction of duty or misuse of power, a crime. It is high time that tax money started to get teeth!
It seems to be a widely held perception with those in the government that NRIs have plenty of money to spare, so are a good catch for bribes. Corruption, particularly where the victim is an NRI must be made a cognizable, non-bailable offence, not needing government permission for prosecution. If the Anti Corruption Bureau really wants to do justice to its raison d’être, it must not limit itself to just a few corrupt officials who have fallen out of grace or to those who become pawns in the politics of the more powerful. It should target corruption in the most important functions of the governments such as law and order. As it is often said, cleaning should ideally start from home – the home department, which is also the home of the ACB. It is anybody’s information that there are several personnel in the home department itself, who have assets glaringly disproportionate to their income sources. To clean something, the cleaning system must first be clean itself!
NRIs cannot easily participate in legal and particularly criminal proceedings. There have been a number of incidences where frivolous criminal prosecutions were initiated on NRIs / PIOs, so much so that US and Canadian governments issued travel warnings in this respect. These prosecutions simply take advantage of the fact that NRIs cannot easily defend themselves as the cases take years to adjudicate and NRIs cannot afford to stay away from their careers for so long. The government must create special sections in the Indian Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code exclusively for NRI cases to punish complainants filing frivolous cases and to exempt personal appearance of NRIs, permitting them to appear through advocate even in criminal cases.
It is very important to make all sectors of the government more accountable, particularly the judiciary. One reform that the country and the legal fraternity, including the bar council can consider is to bring-in democracy into judiciary as well. Every judge and major policy changes in judiciary should go through a bi-annual mandate. Unlike the legislature, judiciary is a professional body. So, they may not like to go to the people campaigning, as the masses may not even understand what makes a good judge, let alone choosing them. There is also a danger that some shankar dada or munna bhai may get elected after getting a (law) degree, similar to what's shown in the popular movie. So, the electorate would be restricted to all the members of the bar council and judicial officers of sub-ordinate courts. That way, judiciary remains independent and becomes accountable to at least to the immediate populace they impact.
Another related aspect is the use of contempt of court act, by the Honourable courts. It is an established principle of civility that one cannot judge and award punishment for injury caused to self. That is, one cannot be a victim and a judge simultaneously for the same incident. The entire concept of judiciary seems to be based on this principle. In the case of “contempt of court,” the victim is the judiciary. So, it may not be appropriate for judiciary to adjudicate the case. The law should be changed so that on the rarest of the rare occasions when “contempt of court” cases arise, they should be referred to the Parliament or the Executive. The adjudication can still be done by professionals drawn from the legal community, but reporting to the Executive or the Parliament. This body of legal professionals which does not report to the judiciary should also be vested with the power to entertain any complaints against the judiciary. Just like a victim cannot adjudicate injury done to him, so also an accused, in this case, the judiciary, cannot adjudicate complaints against himself.
A democracy will not be effective when freedom of speech is scuttled and there is no transparency in government transactions. Parliament proceedings are now widely available to the public on the internet, TV, etc and are freely debated. Judiciary should similarly make all of their judgments open to the public and allow public to freely comment on them. Thanks to the technology, the Internet is now writable. Technology allows any reader to post comments right underneath what they read on the Internet. So, judiciary can use this technology to gain confidence of the public. If the inability of the honourable judges to call for a press conference to defend criticism is the only holding factor to implement this, this restriction can be removed. In fact, we often are seeing the Honourable judges making statements to the press on various occasions. So, the justification that judges cannot call for press conferences does not seem to hold water.
A solution to many problems with government is to make the ordinary citizen more powerful than the government. After all, a government derives its power and money from the citizens. RTI is a small step towards this goal, but there is a lot more to be done. A genuine complaint from a citizen must be treated like an emergency in the government department, and dereliction of duty or misuse of power, a crime. It is high time that tax money started to get teeth!
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