Women in power
[125]
I was not a great fan of Self Help Groups (SHG) when I first heard about it. I thought the ultimate result of their borrowings without collateral just put them deeper in to debt. I was wrong. The women in these groups knew what they were doing. I came to accept the fact that they needed to spend for their child’s wedding or for other rituals. A lot of the expenditure they made seemed unproductive to me. But I learnt that everyone must hold their head up in the community they live in and therefore some of these expenses were necessary.
More than that the biggest thing to change my mind was when Rosie, my assistant in field work at Melur, Madurai, pointed out to me during a particularly noisy SHG meeting that the women were talking. I could see that and hear it very well. Then she went on to explain, that these women were talking and expressing themselves not just in the SHG meetings but also during the panchayat meetings and their voice was getting more strident as their economic power in the household increased. If our country has to regain its former greatness it will be by the strength of our women.
Shiv Viswanathan
[124]
Shiv Visvanathan is currently a Professor at Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology, Gandhinagar, Gujarat. He was a regular visitor to the Shri AMM Murugappa Chettiar Research Centre (MCRC). He was very interested in picking the brains of my guru Dr. C V Seshadri. While waiting for CVS to get free, Shiv and I would chat. I found him an exceptional thinker with an original world view. Many of things I have written about are from my engineers’ view point. Shiv always had a higher level of understanding that I sometimes could not keep up with. In the link below there is a fairly detailed piece on his thoughts, impressions on Dr. CVS and the work done at MCRC. http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/cvs-shiv.pdf
Shiv’s current areas of interest: Sociology of Science and Technology, Violence and Globalisation, Corruption, Sociology of Disasters, Culture and Communication, Futures.
Sulabh International
[123]
I admire the unstinting and dedicated work of Dr. Bideshwar Pathak. There can’t be a better example of converting your area of concern to an action oriented social enterprise.
He founded Sulabh International in 1970. Sulabh was the first organisation to prove that pay and use toilets could work in India. He and his organisation have many laurels to their credit see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bindeshwar_Pathak
This recent story on Sulabh was kind of sad and ironical at the same time. http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-11-11/news/30387149_1_countries-kabul-complexes
Nobel Prize
[122]
Is there any connection between Nobel Prize winners and the countries they are from? For instance, you would expect that they are from developed nations largely and that they have a profound and dramatic impact on the nation as well.
So a young innocent asked the other day how come the United States of America (USA) is in shambles. Why are there so many economic and other problems when they have so many Nobel Prize winners from the USA. I went and checked. The economics Nobel Prize was instituted in 1969 and since then they have awarded the prize to around 70 intellectuals. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/
At the following wiki site there is a list of winners by country - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_country
I counted around 40 winners from the USA.
40 Nobel Prize winners out of 70 come from America. The American economy is in shambles. Should we be happy that there is only one Indian who has won the Nobel Prize, namely Amartya Sen?
Efficient Shower
[121]
Since Chennai was plagued by water shortages, technologies to minimize water use were worked on at the Shri AMM Murugappa Chettiar Research Centre(MCRC). We worked towards a one litre bath. Can a technology be built that men and women (long hair included) can use to take a complete wash within one litre of water?
When you take a bath or shower the main idea is to wet the skin surface before the application of soap. In all the conventional ways this is done, the water is used very inefficiently. Stand in a shower and most of the water bounces of you. If you use a bath tub it is the most colossal waste of water. The typical mug and bucket system also is a waste us only a very small fraction wets the body and the rest falls to the ground without touching the body.
People who are bedridden are given a sponge bath. This is method uses just enough water to wet the body and after application of a suitable disinfectant (or soap) the rinsing is done again with a sponge. A wet cloth could just as well be used instead of a sponge.
At MCRC we designed and built a mist bath. We had an air compressor push compressed air through a custom built nozzle. Water was pushed through the centre of the nozzle and air from the compressor would hit it from all sides and make a fine mist. The nozzle was attaché to flexible hose and could be moved to different parts of the body. This shower was tested by men and women staff members. The men could shower in 1 litre of water comfortably and the women used about 1.5 litres.
The mist would be cooler than the surrounding air and ideal for a hot summer day in Chennai. Imagine how water consumption in the city would be reduced if everybody used just 1 litre of water for their daily bath. There is a design challenge in building this shower.
The simplest version of this would be to take the hand sprayer that is used to water plants, spray perfume or cleaning solution and fill with water. Washing this way, or with a sponge/cloth, takes less time compared to throwing water with a mug on to the body and conserves water as well.
The Cog
[120]
“The Cog” is the name of one of the longest advertisement films ever made for the launch of a car. This advertisement that appeared in 2003 is iconic. It does not use any Computer Graphics and is shot in real time using various parts from the Honda Accord. It cost around a million british pounds to produce and took 7 months of shooting. Though it appears as one long 2 minute shot, it was actually done as two separate shots and is stitched together somewhere during the halfway mark. It will stay in your mind and you really will enjoy it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ve4M4UsJQo. The action is akin to that of a Rube Goldberg machine and is started by a “cog”.
There is a detailed description of the history and making of this advertisement at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cog_%28advertisement%29
Limitless – opening sequence
[119]
I am a big movie fan and am always astounded by the creativity exhibited by directors and cameramen in bringing spectacle to the screen. My latest “Hey you must see this” is the opening sequence of the movie called “Limitless”. The opening starts on the top of a high rise building, runs down the side of a building, levels out on the street and has a continuous zoom through multiple streets in real time and ends up moving through a billboard at which point the Computer Graphics take over.
You can see the opening shot at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h_ILxg-Qek. There is an interview with the team that made that shot what the director called a “fractal zoom” at http://www.pcworld.com/article/223108/infinite_zoom_lens_how_the_opening_scene_of_limitless_was_created.html
The movie has many other trick shots and is well worth watching. The story of the movie revolves around a magic pill that allows you to utilize every part of your brain and memory.
Ramar Pillai
[118]
For those who have not heard of Ramar Pillai, he was the epitome of the rustic Indian who makes a breakthrough unprecedented in the annals of science. Using water herbs and some secret ingredient he claimed he could make a petrol like fuel. This was in 1996. The local government, and anybody who was anybody lauded him and he gave several demonstrations of how he made his fuel. He became internationally famous. Reports of his “discovery” even made it to TIME magazine.
The secretary of the Department of Science and Technology Dr. V Ramamurthy requested Ramar Pillai to demonstrate his method at IIT Madras campus. The faculty scrutinised all his equipment and materials. At the end of the demonstration they redid their scrutiny. Their final verdict was that it was a hoax. Ramar Pillai admitted to it as well much later http://www.expressindia.com/ie/daily/20000315/ina15002.html
I heard that he has made a comeback recently with similar claims. P T Barnum is often credited as saying “There’s a sucker born every minute” and Ramar Pillai must believe that it takes 15 years to create a nation of new suckers.
Farm equipment for small marginal farmers
[117]
After the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act came in to force, the cost of labour increased in rural areas. Large farmers had adopted machines like tractors and combined harvesters either by buying them or mostly on a rental basis. For a good analysis of the increase in mechanisation see this presentation http://www.ibef.org/download/Agricultural_Equipment_171109.pdf
The majority of our farmers are in the category of small and marginal farmers. They were dependent on low cost farm labour to keep their production costs down. In the case of small and marginal farmers, technology adoption for farm mechanization was low. Their ability to pay for equipment is low even with the many subsidies available. These farmers are now looking at mechanization as a must.
A new kind of enterprise is growing in rural areas, hiring of farm equipment for small holdings. This is successful wherever there are good roads. There is also a move to create “cooperative agricultural equipment banks”. See http://www.hindu.com/2011/06/02/stories/2011060262160300.htm
Teleconferencing
[116]
I think I did my first teleconferencing call in 2002. It was an unusual experience for me and a disturbing one. I could not put a face to many of the participants and they were spread out across the world. I was also left with the feeling that it was a waste fo time as nothing was achieved during that particular call.
Now almost ten years later I have found that teleconferencing can be very useful and extremely cost effective. This year alone we had a committee meeting with 3 members calling in, of which one person was in Canada. A second call had participants from the United States of America. In that call one participant was actually commuting. In both instances there were very good outcomes and a feeling of accomplishment. I suppose it takes time to get used to some technologies. As I grow older I want to learn fewer things and therefore may not be a good judge, but it seems to me youngsters adapt to new technology much faster than older people. There may be an underlying research question regarding the rate of technology adoption.