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Towards a Better World!

  Towards a Better World! I ntroduction: Suffering and Social Structures In our complex and often troubled world, millions grapple with exploitation, oppression, poverty, inequality, and illness. These pervasive issues beg the question: what fuels such imperfection in our society? Religious doctrines have long offered interpretations. Hinduism, for instance, sees suffering by individuals as a consequence of past misdeeds. Christianity attributes it to sin and disobedience towards God, while Islam views it as a test of faith. Buddhism, on the other hand, believes suffering stems from greed, hatred, and delusion, advocating meditation as a path to nirvana. These perspectives converge on a critical point: suffering is seen as a result of individual actions, with personal effort as the key to overcoming it. While there is merit in emphasizing personal responsibility, such interpretations overlook a crucial factor. This essay challenges the conventional wisdom by spotlighting th...

Sanskrit for Computers?

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One of the speakers at the 3-day seminar held in Nov 2020 at IIT Kharagpur was Prof. Amba Kulkarni of the Department of Sanskrit Studies, University of Hyderabad. Her topic was, "Sanskrit for Natural Language Processing". I have a feeling that her talk may have embarrassed many among the faculty at the IIT -- as Sanskrit is actually not suited for "Natural Language Processing"! Natural Language Processing (or NLP) is subset of computer programming -- which is about enabling computers to process and analyze natural language input. The goal is to make computers capable of "understanding" unstructured spoken commands and normal content of documents, including the contextual nuances of the language in these. A highly structured (and inflexible) language like Sanskrit is obviously unsuitable for human interaction. Which may explain why this language never gained acceptability among ordinary people. Even an illiterate person can understand nuance in human commun...

"Red Holocaust"

 Killings by the State I am consistently opposed to death penalty -- even when this is awarded by a Court of Law, consequent to a fair trial (whatever may be the crime). And yes, for this very reason, I strongly condemn the killings that did occur under the regimes of Stalin and Mao. However when people say Stalin/ Mao "killed millions", we ought not to miss out the exaggeration; and the underlying political propaganda. For example, the millions killed in Soviet famine of the 1930s; and in the famine in China during the Great Leap Forward; are routinely counted "as instances of mass killing underpinned by genocidal intent".  [ Reference: Williams, Paul (2008), Security Studies: An Introduction, Taylor & Francis, ISBN 978-0-415-42561-2 ] If the same standard is applied for the Bengal Famine of the 1943, we would need to say "Churchill killed millions"! And this was not the only famine in the British Empire... The term "red Holocaust" was coine...
Aryans And Dravidians Most scientific evidence would seem to suggest that both the Aryans and the Dravidians were migrants who arrived in  India  from  Africa  . (The "out of  Africa  theory", that is consistent with genetic evidence too).  The differences in linguistic and physical features that we get to see today, would suggest that the Aryan and Dravidian peoples  were geographically isolated from each other for a few thousand years  (prior to around 6000 years back when they came in contact  again  in the Indian sub-continent). Only a large enough period of geographical separation  could have resulted  in these differences.  It is also true that in the past around 6000 to 8000 years, the Aryan and Dravidian peoples have been in close contact. In this period, a significant amount of linguistic, cultural and genetic inter-mingling would seem to have occurred. The visible differences  that persist today ...
  Death Penalty -- Is This A SMART Strategy? The recent [14 years ago!] award of death penalty to a person convicted for involvement in a terror attack has regenerated the old debate on capital punishment. Those who favour death penalty have the following rational reasons:- a) This is a deterrent against similar crimes by others in future b) The convicted person, if not "eliminated", may one day get free, and may re-enact the crime The above hard nosed reasons are often furbished with  more emotional ones such as of  "justice to the victims", anger, revenge, patriotic fervour etc. Let us analyse the above from our own experience -- and that of others. How smart is capital punishment as a strategy to prevent future crime and terror? Years back -- when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister and when terrorism was hardly an issue in Kashmir -- India had hanged another killer, Maqbul Butt of the JKLF. The fact that we eliminated (through due process of law) a prospective ...
  Is This Evidence For Reincarnation? Let us have an open mind!   Let us seriously study --  with a very open mind  -- the  circumstances  and  known facts  about the curious news reports about the UP village boy who suddenly acquired "American accent".   Just to help us recall, I give the following links to the initial reports:-   a) The Times of India news items -  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2202364.cms   b) Debate on the subject at CNN IBN -  http://in.news.yahoo.com/070714/211/6i1bl.html     What are the incontrovertible facts regarding the case?   a) Rajesh, is a teenager from a remote village in India   b) He is today able to talk English with American accent and gestures, which is amazing, considering the unlikely conditions at his home and village.     Claims in the initial news reports that needed to be independently  validated:-   a) He has for...
What Is A "Miracle"? I would define "miracle" as a phenomenon that can be demonstrated (under controlled conditions) to in violation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. To my knowledge, all claimed "miracles" have been exposed as fake -- that is, not satisfying the above definition of the term "miracle" (when ever allowed to be investigated by experts and professional magicians) Creating ash (vibhuti) out of nothing would be a miracle -- if this can be demonstrated under controlled conditions. But storing ash in a small hidden pouch and fooling people into believing that this is created out of nothing is a good conjuring trick, but not a miracle. Original link:  http://creative.sulekha.com/what-is-a-miracle_540619_blog