mahendra-verma

Individual liberty is one of the major pillars of present-day democracy.  It allows an individual to choose profession of his/her liking, have ones own belief system, voice opinion, etc. Individual freedom allowed many creative individuals to chart out their own paths, which led to tremendous creativity and innovation in modern times.   The alternative, or the old system, is indeed suffocating, at least for the creative individuals; here the system decides the role of an individual.  It is worth noting that the personal liberty over the rights the state and the church over an individual came after a lot of sacrifice; the charter of “Rights of Man” , which outlined these rights for the first time, is a beautiful document to read. Ref: ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Man_and_of_the_Citizen) An important question is whether we have Individual liberty or not in India?  I believe that the answer is mixed.  In India, the poor do not...

One of the best things modern times offers to all of us is democracy.  Everyone has right and privileges that cannot be taken away by anyone.  Also, we take collective decisions on how our surrounding be managed or governed.  Of course, in any system, some individuals or groups are chosen/elected to take executive decision. The remain section, an integral of the democratic system, plays an important part in democracy.  In true democracy, both, the executive and the commoners, shape the policies, execute the work, thus make the system function.   Yet, there seems to be a constant mistrust and friction between the two sections, the administrator and others, which is a big impediment to democracy. In this blog, I will try to discuss my view on this topic. In a typical scenario, we blame the top person (politician or top administrator) for all the ills of the system.  But, we forget that we are also decision makers in many forums: as a family member in a ...

As a teacher, the most annoying things for me are the exams. I believe one should not judge the other person. Every student or scientist is good in something. There could be gradations in aptitudes in various skills like analytic, memory, problem solving, experimental, design etc.  A written exam for several hours is simply not good enough to test various skill.  In fact, it is meaningless to test all the skills,  because typically a person has liking for one or several of these skills. The problem is that the outside world wants to know who are the better students of the class. the award-giving institutions want to know the best students.  Given all these irritating constrains, we award grades and conduct exams.  One may say that the grades are the thing, because we can get the coveted job/scholarship/awards etc. by getting very good grades.  It turns out that if you try to focus too much...

I have been visiting our ancestral village Mandhar (in Chattishgarh, near Raipur) on Diwali for the last two years after an interval of  around 30 years.  The present village is very different from what it was before.  Industry has come in the village, which has provided jobs to some youths of this village and the neighbouring villages.  It has brought pollution (plenty of carbon ash) and cash in the village.  More cash is bringing in more liquor and gambling.  More money does not necessarily mean good life. There is no desire of learning, no interest in politics or culture.  Not even desire for better schools for children, hence better life for them.  I was surprised to see that the villagers are not even interested in local politics.  People do not read newspaper.  There are too many issues like road, water, better education, health care, sewage system, etc. to fight for, but there is no talk about it. Urban population does not quit...

A university is a place of learning.  Best universities attract students and thinkers from all over the world.  These best minds bring in wisdom from all over the world and enrich these universities.   It is not surprising that the best American and European universities have an international composition.  In the past, Takshila  and Nalanda universities of India had faculty from many countries.  However, the present Indian university and research institutes have almost no international faculty and students.  We need an urgent change in our institutional system if we wish to make our institutions  one of the best in the world.  Some of the salient points in favor of this argument are Most of the Indian research institutions, specially teaching institutions like IITs and universities, woefully short of faculty.   On the other hand, many bright young scientists in the west (both foreigners and non-resident Indians) are not being abs...

Recently I read two fictional biographies of Jhansi Ki Rani (queen), Laxmi Bai.  They are by Vrindavan lal Verma and Mahasweta Devi respectively.   The story is amazing and inspiring.  She was just 22 when she died fighting. A web-based biographical account can be seen in the website http://www.copsey-family.org/~ allenc/lakshmibai/index.html Briefly, she was married to Gangadhar Rao, a king of Jhansi.   Gangadhar Rao died in 1853, when Rani was 18.  The kingdom was annexed by the British (Governer General Dulhausi).  Coincidently, in 1857, the revolt broke out, and the mutineers killed the British  soldiers and civilians.  Rani took civilian control of Jhansi after writing to the British officials.   Ironically, soon Jhansi was attacked by neighbouring kingdom Orchha. The attack was repulsed by the newly formed voluntary army of Jhansi.  This speaks greatly of ...

A symposium on HPC Applications was held in IIT Kanpur on 12-14 March 2012.  It had around 100 participants with speakers from various disciplines.   We had a panel discussion on future of HPC in India. Minutes of the Panel discussion of the Symposium on HPC Applications are given below: Panelists: Rajat Moona (CDAC, Moderator), P. B. Sunil Kumar (IITM), Amalendu Chandra (IITK), Sanjay Mittal (IITK), K. G. Ayappa (IISc), M. K. Verma (IITK) Many important points arose during the meeting by the panelists and participants.  Main points are listed below: 1. Manpower:  We do not have enough number of trained manpower for maintaining systems, writing programs, and HPC research.  The students are not sufficiently exposed to advances in computational tools.   Only formal course in this field in India is M. Tech. in "Computational Science"  offered by  IISc.  More institutes in the country should run such programs. IIT Madras is offering a ...