Legal World and Childhood Dreams

Farewell - Justice SK Tripathi

2011-12-17T06:11:00.000+05:30

{Text of speech of Justice Yatindra Singh in the Judges' library on 31.8.2011 on the retirement of Justice Sri Kant Tripathi.

Joined PCS (J) 22.11.1976 High Court 13.4.2009 Retired 14.12.2011 .}

नमस्ते and good evening to all of you.

Farewell is a bitter-sweet occasion: it is an occasion to share fond memories. If you wish to share or say something about Brother SK Tripathi, then you are welcome.
...
Brother Tripathi joined us in April 2009. During his short span of 2 years and 8 months, he mostly sat on criminal side. Yesterday, when Rafat Bhai requested me to conduct his farewell function, I thought appropriate to ask the criminal side lawyers as to what kind of judge was he. After all, Bar is not only judge of all Judges but perhaps their best judge. I was told,

'Justice Tripathi is intelligent, hard working, punctual, and a gentleman Judge - both in and out side the court. He treated all with same standard—without bias or favour. The best part was that there was never any controversy about him.'

The sentiments that we all long for. I wish the Bar would have the same words for me when I leave this court.

Brother Tripathi was hard working. In this short span, he decided 13416 cases on merit: with average of 5043 case a year. Our average disposal is about 2300 cases a year: his disposal is more than its double.

He not only contributed for the welfare of the High Court during his stay at the court but even before that. In May 2008, a sad incident had happened. It was due to death of an advocate in custody. A PIL was filed and he was requested to conduct the enquiry; at that time, he was District Judge Allahabad. It was his well reasoned report that not only led to quick and early disposal of the PIL but also paved a way for peaceful culmination of lawyers' agitation.

He served in the legislative department for nine years and this is evident in his working. Let me tell you something about him.

I had privilege of sitting with Brother Tripathi in division bench criminal writ jurisdiction and I never had to bother about the corrections for he was meticulous in correction. His ability to dots the i's and cross the t's is amazing. He would often tell me,

'Our orders go to different officials, courts. It is division bench order. If it contains mistakes, what will they think about the court.'

I had misconception that I know the computers and how to use well but Brother Tripathi taught me how to use them better.

In criminal writs for quashing of the FIR, the lawyers are required to mention the crime numbers, sections, and Acts against which they are seeking quashing. The lawyers do mention them but often they are in abbreviations, or are incomplete or wrong. There were mistakes in the orders as they are typed by the private secretaries, but Brother Tripathi suggested a way to improve it.

He told my private secretary to make alphabetically list of all Acts against which writs are filed and save them in a file. The names of the Acts could be copied from the file and pasted in the order.

It was easy and there never was any mistake in the order because of incorrect names of the Acts. A simple but useful way. But it has never struck me.

Brother Tripathi is intelligent; he is laborious; he is hard working: I hope his talent will not be wasted and government will utilise it in useful way.

With these words, I on behalf of judicial fraternity, wish him a very happy life.

May I request Brother Tripathi to express his feelings.

WITH A MILLION EYES, ALL BUGS WILL VANISH

2011-11-12T12:48:00.000+05:30

Open Source - Benefits And Challenges

(Summary: On the 20th year of Linux, it explains what is open source and why it should be adopted.
This is text of the talk delivered by Justice Yatindra Singh, Judge Allahabd High Court, in Computer Society of India, Ahemdabad on 13.6.2011.
Click here to download pdf format of the text.)

नमस्ते, and a very good evening to all of you.

Computer society of India consists of computer savvy. These words conjure up strange images in my mind. Geek, Nerd (someone boring and wearing old-fashioned clothes), Egghead (an old bald man, wearing thick glasses), Buff (absent-minded, forgets to wear his clothes), Hacker (Chopper). Nevertheless unlike the images that they evoke, computer savvy are intelligent, have an IQ of more than 140, a requirement to become member of MENSA and belong to top 2% of the population.

I am not member of computer society of India but am often invited to speak in their meetings. I always accept it, unless I am pressed for time. The reason is simple—a man is known by the company that he keeps, and who wouldn't like to be in the company of such a group; perhaps I may be able to bask in your reflected glory. So here I am.

Unix, is the the oldest and most stable of all operating systems. It was developed at AT&T’s Bell Labs in the late 1960s’. At that time AT&T was a regulated monopoly and it could not sell computer stuff. They made Unix freely available along with source code to the universities and the government to tinker and improve it.

By early 1980s’, Unix became a powerful and popular operating system though there were competing versions of the same. It is said,

'It [Unix] is a clean and beautiful operating system. ...Unix ... comes with a small-is-beautiful philosophy. It has a small set of simple basic building blocks that can be combined into something that allows for infinite complexity of expression.This, by the way, is also how physics works. You try and find the fundamental rules that are supposed to be fairly simple. The complexity comes from the many incredible interactions you get from those simple rules, not from any inherent complexity of the rules themselves …It's the same thing with languages. The English language has twenty-six letters and you can build up everything from those letters. Or you have the Chinese language, in which you have one letter for every single thing you can think of. In Chinese, you start off with complexity, and you can combine complexity in limited ways.' (from Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary)

Andy Tanenbaum, a University Professor in Amsterdam wrote Minix, a Unix clone for IBM PC, as a teaching aid for Unix. There was some shortcomings in the same. Linus Torvalds, a twenty-one years old student of the University of Helsinki, Finland started writing a programme to overcome its shortcomings. It was Linus’ Unix or simply Linux. It was ultimately released under General Public Licence (GPL).

For creating the operating system, Linus posted the following post for the first time for the newsgroup: comp.os.minix on 25th August 1991:

'I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386 (486) AT cones. … I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it … I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)'

This year is the twentieth anniversary of the event and is being so observed. I am glad that this talk on open source has been organised this year. But what has the title of the talk got to do with open source? Well, you have to wait for some more time.

The talk has been divided into five parts:

Why - Open Source ;
What is it;
Its Advantages;
Overcoming―challenges and difficulties;
Business methods: earning money with it.

WHY- OPEN SOURCE

The beginning of the last century witnessed the emergence of a semi-clad Indian, referred to as 'half naked Fakir' by Winston Churchill. His philosophy was,

'Means are more important than the end: it is only with the right means that the desired end will follow.'

To the charge that 'means are after all means', he would say, ‘means are, after all, everything’. His name was Mohandas Karamchandra Gandhi – known to the World as Mahatma Gandhi, father of the Indian nation.

Gandhi's philosophy is deep rooted in law too. Lord Denning, one of the greatest judge of 20th century, in R Vs IRC Exparte Rossminster Ltd 1979 (3) All ELR 385 held,

‘But it is fundamental in our law that the means that are adopted ... should be lawful means. A good end does not justify bad means.'

So is true of our laws.

Chapter IV of our constitution is titled 'Directive Principles of State Policy'. It contains the end or the goals to be achieved. Chapter III is titled 'Fundamental Rights'. It contains the means: they are the good means. Our constitution also envisages goals to be achieved by the laws that conform with the fundamental rights—the good means.

In the World of information technology,

The end is dissemination, communication, and retrieval of information; and
The means are, how to achieve it, implement it; the kinds of software to use, the kinds of standards to adopt, the kind of formats to employ?

Is OSS good means? Before we consider it let's understand what is OSS.

WHAT IS OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE (OSS)

The software consists of two parts

Source code; and
Object code.

Computers only understand ‘machine language’ or ‘machine code’ i.e. instructions that consist of a series of 0s and 1s. In the earlier days, a computer programme used to be written directly in machine language by punching a card. The punched slot or un-punched slot indicated requisite information to the computer. However, the process was slow and tedious. Such a programme, although intelligible to the computer, was virtually unintelligible to anyone except an equally skilled programmer.

Nowadays, computer programmes are written in high level computer languages using compact English words. This can be understood by humans though not by the computers. This is known as the source code.

The languages also have a programme called compiler and with its help, source code is compiled into the language that computers can understand. This is called object code or machine code. This runs the computer or any application therein.

Protection—Object Code

There was some debate as to how the object code is protected but Article 11 of the TRIPS mandates its members to provide authors with the right to authorise or to prohibit commercial rental of at least computer programmes and cinematographic works. This has also been so provided in our laws. In our country, as well as in almost all other countries in the World, the object code is protected as a copyright.

Protection—Source code

Copyright lies in a description. Source code is a kind of description and being a description, it is a literary work within the meaning of Copyright Act. If it is published it is protected as a copyright. If it is not published then it is protected as a trade secret. Under certain conditions, it may also be protected as a patent.

Copylefted, Free, and Gpled software

Everyone is not using Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) to hoard rights in the software. Some are using them in such a way that no one is able to hoard them. Using copyright, they are doing just the opposite. It is for this reason it is called copylefting. This happens if software license has the following conditions:

The software is royalty free and no fee is charged for the same;
The source code is disclosed;
There is freedom to modify the software; and
Anyone who redistributes the software, with or without changesis required to pass along similar freedom to others i.e. disclose the source code and permit further modification.

Copylefted software is also called free software as there is freedom to modify it. In fact the term free software was used much before the terms Copylefted or open source software were used.

It all started in 1984 when Richard Stallman, a researcher at the MIT AI Lab, started the GNU (a recursive acronym for GNU is Not Unix) project for an operating system under the umbrella organisation of Free Software Foundation (FSF). They say,

'Think of “free” as in “free speech”, not as in “free beer”'.

Richard Stallman, with the help of lawyers, drafted the GPL. It contains the conditions that copylefts a software. Most of the software under the GNU Project are under GPL.

Software, released under a GPL licence, is also known as GPLed software.

Open Source Software (OSS)

The philosophy of copylefted conveyed an anti-business message. Though, it is not so: it is merely a way of doing business. However it was necessary to change this perception.

In the late 1990's, Eric S. Raymond (known for 'fetchmail', a software for downloading emails), Bruce Perens (former project leader of the Debian distribution) and other free software enthusiasts got together in California to start a consortium – called Open Source Initiative (OSI). They also drafted ten guidelines and if the license or conditions under which the software has been released satisfies these guidlines then they called it Open Source Software (OSS).

Among the ten conditions, the three important ones are,

The software is royalty free and no fee is charged for the same;
The source code is disclosed; and
There is freedom to modify the software.

The guidelines do not contain the fourth condition of Free Software. Thus OSS is more comprehensive. All Copylefted is OSS but all OSS is not Copylefted software. The sphere of OSS is bigger than Copylefted/ free/ GLed software.

At present, sixty seven licences have been identified as satisfying these ten conditions. All the licences copyleft the software to a degree: GPL coplefts to the maximum; whereas, Berkeley software distribution (BSD) licence does it to the minimum. The rest of the licences lie in between.

Successful Mantra to Develop OSS

Raymond presented a paper titled 'The cathedral and the bazaar' at the Linux Kongress on May 27, 1997 in Würzburg, Germany with the vision of open source development. It was later published in 1999 as part of a book of the same name with answers to the sceptics.

In the book, while tracing his journey of 'fetchmail', Raymond visualises the rules for the development of open source software. He contrasts the two different software development models namely:
(i) The Cathedral model, where (in the words of Raymond) software is

'carefully crafted by individual wizards or small bands of mages working in splendid isolations, with no beta to be released before its time.'

Proprietary software is developed in this fashion. Some OSS (GNU Emacs and GCC) is also developed like this however source code is available with each software release, but code developed between releases is restricted to an exclusive group of software developers

(ii) The Bazaar model, in which the code is developed over the Internet in view of the public. In the words of Raymond,

'Linus Torvalds style of development—release early and often, delegate everything you can, be open to the the point of promiscuity … the Linux community resembles a great babbling bazaar of different agendas and approaches … who would take submissions from anyone...'

In the book he opines that the bazaar model is better as more time and energy is spent in finding out the bugs in the cathedral model; whereas, in bazaar model bugs are easily discovered or become shallow, as source code is widely available.

Raymond says,

'[T]he future of the open source belong to the people ... who leave behind the cathedral and embrace the bazaar. ...[T]he open source culture will triumph not because cooperation is morally right or software hoarding is morally wrong … but simply because closed source world cannot win an evolutionary arms race with open source communities that can put … more skilled time into a problem.'

He also proposes a law in the book:

'Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow'

And credits this to Linus and dubs it as Linus' law. This is the soul of OSS, so is the title of this talk

ADVANTAGES OF OSS

Here are its advantages; some of them played in our mind for shiting over to open source at the Allahabad High Court:

No Copyright infringement in using or modifying it: There is copyright in the OSS. In fact, OSS is copylefted by using copyright. Anyone who uses OSS contrary to the conditions governing the license, not only breaches the contract but also infringes the copyright. This has also been so held by the US Court of Appeals for the federal circuit in Robert Jcobson Vs Matthew Katzer on 13. 8 2008. However in terms of the license conditions, there is no copyright infringment in merely using or modifying it. Copyright infingement due to unauthorised use is a global issue and adopting OSS will obviate this aspect of it.
Lesser cost: OSS is royaltee free; it does not cost anything. The only cost is for services or support for the same. Utilising OSS will reduce the cost of any project. The cost reduction has an impact on the proprietary software too. In order to be competitive, their cost is being reduced.
New jobs - service sector: Due to historical reason, our English and Maths have always been a plus point. These subjects are necessary for providing services in the IT sector. In OSS money is earned by providing service. Adoptions of OSS opens new job opportunities in this sector.
Stable: Virus is nothing but a computer programme which effects any other computer programme or computer data. In OSS there can be viruses however there have been only a few. This is because its source code is disclosed. Experts say that it is safe and provides stable environment. This is also strengthened by the fact that Apache (an OSS) web servers are the most popular ones.
Customise software: Software can be modified, if source code is disclosed and there is permission to modify the same. In OSS, source code is disclosed and there is permission to modify the software. This permits everyone to participate in the software movement and also provides opportunity to everyone to customise software. Today, OSS is not only available in our national language but also in almost all regional languages; its adoption offers us opportunity to take IT movement to the grass root level.
Avoids IPR: It is possible to have IPR in the modified software created from OSS but the authors of any OSS do not claim any IPR in the OSS in anyone using and modifying it (though there are some conditions). This is clear from the fact that they permit everyone to use/ modify/ distribute it without any royalty. This not only leads to reduction in the IT cost but avoids future conflicts in the IPR area.
Different licenses: There are many licenses that are certified by OSI. This creates some difficulties but different licenses have their advantages too. They can be adopted for different business models:

(a) GPL is viral: By adopting this licence, a business model centered around programming and support services can be adopted.

(b) BSD type licenses are at the other end: they permit creation of proprietary software. The Macintosh Operating System (a proprietary software) is partly based on BSD licensed code.

The other licenses lie between these two and may be chosen by the companies/software developers according to their need.

OVERCOMING―CHALLENGES AND DIFFICULTIES

However their are difficulties and obstacles in adopting the OSS and we had to overcome them. The majority is familiar with proprietary software and is trained in it. The main challenge is,

in changing over;
getting used to the new environment; and
training the staff.

This is a vicious circle. There are difficulties in changing over and if you chosoe not to shift then you rely on proprietary software and have to pay more. Perhaps what is required is to change our perception regarding OSS and increase its awareness. We may consider the following points:

Awareness regarding OSS - from the school level: Computer education is already in the curriculum of schools and colleges. There is hardly any representation of OSS in their curriculum. Most of the topics are there from proprietary software. The operating system of computers is in proprietary software. Curriculum of schools and colleges should have compulsory courses on OSS and the computers should have operating system in OSS.
More experts: There should be long term policy of training people in open source. Scarcity of experts inhibit its use.
Utilisation of grant: The government gives grants for purchasing computers and for different projects. The government grants may be utilised for purchasing computers having OSS operating system. Apart from operating systems there are applications based on OSS: they may be used. Grants may be utilised in developing open source projects.
Linux/ OSS Compatible: The biggest challange is finding drivers for the hardware. Irrespective of the operating sytems or the applications programmes on a computer, the government, semi government organisation while purchasing computers may ensure that the hardware is Linux/OSS compatible. This will ensure that the manufacturers are making drivers available in the market. And if the need arises, the computers may be made dual boot or on Linux/ OSS.
Exclusive OSS cell: It is true that we are leading IT community in the world but many IT experts in government organisations work exclusively with proprietary software. It will be a good idea to create separate cells in government and semi government departments to develop applications exclusively in OSS.
Solution in OSS first: A policy decision may be taken to find solutions of projects first in OSS rather than the proprietary software.

BUSINESS METHODS: Earning Money with OSS

In the proprietary software, money is earned by charging royalty for the same however this is not the case for OSS. It is like science that itself does not make money but creates new avenues for earning money. OSS also allows creation of secondary business to earn money. In OSS, secondary business could be,

Charging for services: Services for maintenance can be charged.
Customising or writing additional component of the software: OSS can be customised to the customer's requirements, or addition component of existing software can be written.
Writing Hardware drivers: Hardware devices cannot be used without the appropriate software. The companies are realising potential of OSS. There is sufficient investment for writing drivers of the devices.
Providing Information: Money can be charged for information. Books, Manuals, software. More popular the open source projects are, more popular would be the need for hardware drivers.
Publishing Magazines or news services: They provide required information about open source software for a reasonable price.

Let me explain the OSS and its advantages with the help of a story from 'Panchtantra': this has common thread in all cultures. It is a story of a hare and a tortoise.

THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE

A tortoise and a hare were friends. One day, the hare and the tortoise decided to race against each other. The hare obviously took the lead; he thought of relaxing and went off to sleep. The tortoise, walking slowly but steadily, overtook the hare and won the race. The moral is,

'Slow but steady wins the race'.

In recent time, some new chapters have been added.

The hare, perturbed by the defeat, asked the tortoise to race again. This time he did not take rest and won the race easily. The moral is,

'It is better to be fast and reliable'.

But, this is not the end of the story.

After some days, the tortoise asked the hare to race once again but with a condition that the course will be chosen by him. The hare, who was confident of his victory, gave him the free hand. This time the course included a river. The hare ran up to the river and then stopped. The tortoise came and swam across the river to win the race. The moral is,

'Every one has weak and strong points – play on your strong side.'

However, the story still does not end here.

After some days, the tortoise and the hare repeated the race over the same course but the rules were changed. This time they decided run it as a team. On the ground, the hare carried the tortoise on his back and on the river, the tortoise carried the hare on his back. The result was that both of them reached the destination quickly, saved time and enjoyed the race too. The moral is,

'It is best to consolidate everyone's strong points'.

CONCLUSION

Open source,

Use the IPR to prevent the hoarding of technology;
Invite others to participate in its development;
Permit us to customise the software;
Consolidate strong points.

They are good means within Gandhi's philosophy: they are steps in the right direction.

Let me end my talk with refrence to the book ‘The new new thing: a Silicon Valley story‘, published in 1999, by Michael Lewis. It is success story of the Silicon valley told through the biography of Jim Clarke. The most quoted line from this book is,

'The definitive smell inside a Silicon Valley start-up was of curry.'

I have no reason to doubt that if we are able to harness the strength of the Open Source Software (OSS) then not only inside a Silicon Valley start-up but there will be the smell of curry in cyberspace too. And we will be able to change the second last word in the song from ‘होंगे’ to ‘हैं’.

सुनो गौर से दुनिया वालों,

बुरी नजर न हम पर डालो|

चाहे जितना जोर लगा लो,

सबसे आगे होंगे हिंदुस्तानी|

All pictures in the post are from Wikipedia

APPENDIX-1

Popular open source programmes

Apart from Linux, Apache and Android, all other programmes run on all operating system except Infra recorder. K3B is good substitute for Infra recorder in Linux.

Linux (GPL): It is an operating system.
Apache (ASL): It is the most popular HTTP (Web) server software.
Android (ASL): It is operating system for mobile phones.
Audacity (GPL): It is programme for recording audio files. It permits editing of the audio files too. One can copy, paste, or mix the audio files.
Libre Office and OpenOffice.org suite (LGPL License): It provides bundle of software that are used in an office. It is similar to MS office suite and contains similar programmes. The default format of different programmes of this suite are Open Document Format maintained by Organisation for the Advancement of Structured information Standards (OASIS). It was approved by the International Standardisation Organisation (ISO) on May 3, 2006. They can open and save files in default format of MS Office suite or Power Point Presentation as well as in any other format too. It can export any file into pdf format.
Firefox, Thunderbird, and Sunbird (all from Mozilla Foundation) (Mozilla Public License): Firefox is a web browser: Window equivalent to Internet Explorer. Thundrbird is a program for sending and receiving emails. It can perform functions of Outlook express. Mozilla Sunbird is e-manager and manages C-calender. It is similar to Microsoft outlook and can be integrated with Thunderbird or Firefox.
GIMP (GPL): It is GNU Image Manipulation Programme and is suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It is similar to photoshop.
Infra Recorder (GPL): It is programme for burning CDs and DVDs. It works in the windows only. However, K3B is a similar programme that works in Linux.
VLC Media Player and Mplayer (GPL): They are media player. They can play audio and video files of any format.
Ximian Evolution (GPL): Microsoft Outlook is an electronic manager. It manages ones email, calender, appointments etc. Ximian Evolution is also an electronic manager. It is similar to Microsoft outlook.

If you have a Window based computer then do try them. They are easy to install and use: in fact easier then the other closed source programmes. Some say that they are not as good as proprietary ones. I do not wish to debate about it but they are sufficient for our needs. They are not only open but are free of cost and can be used without any guilt of copyright violation. Once you are used to them in Windows there would be no difficulty in shifting over to Linux based computer as their functionality in Linux is similar.

ATTITUDE MATTERS

2011-10-04T07:40:00.001+05:30

(Summary: Education is important; so is attitude. Nowadays, when education is overemphasised in our country, it is relevant to know what other things are important in life.
The speech delivered by Justice Yatindra Singh, Judge, Allahabad High Court on 2nd of October 2011 on the prize distribution function of the first All-India bilingual essay competition on 'Education and Nation Building' organised by Sanwal Das Sadan Lal Khanna Girls' Degree college Allahabad.

The text of the speech in the pdf format can be downloaded from here.)

नमस्ते

A very good evening to all of you.

This is the inaugural year of the national level bi-lingual essay competition to be organised by the college every year. The topic chosen for this year is 'Education and Nation Building'. So, why did I choose to speak on 'Attitude' today. Let me tell you the reason first.

About a decade ago I attended a convocation at IIT Kanpur, when my son was getting B.Tech. degree as well as an award. In the convocation, a magazine was distributed. It contained some information about the students.

IITs follow the American pattern: they rely heavily on their alumni. They also hold alumni meet every year, especially inviting students, who had passed out 25 years ago and best alumnus award is also given to the most illustrious among those, who passed out 25 years ago.

The information in the magazine contained the names of the most illustrious alumnus of different years; the highest rank of the student of that batch in the joint entrance examination of the IITs and the President's award winner of that batch. These three names were different.

The most illustrious alumnus was neither the person who had secured the highest rank in the entrance examination nor the person who had got President's award but was a third person. What is the reason for this?

The reason is the difference in the 'Attitude'. It is—if not more—then at least equally important as education in life. It is rightly said,

'Attitude, not aptitude, determines altitude.'

In early 1980's Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman wrote a book titled ‘In Search of Excellence'. It went on to become an international best seller. The book talks about lessons from best American companies. The authors pose a question as to how these companies grew the way they are and then answered:

‘A strong leader ... have had a lot to do with making the company excellent in the first place. ...

The excellent companies seem to have developed cultures that have incorporated the values and practices of the great leaders. ... the real role of the chief executive is to manage the values of the organization.' (See Endnote-2)

So is the case with nation building.

We require inspiring and strong leaders for nation building. Mahatma Gandhi, whose birthday we celebrate today, was undoubtedly one and he inspired the nation.

One great quality of Gandhi was—he practised what he preached. Perhaps, what we lacked was, better incorporation of his values in our lives: we should do it. Perhaps, we require another Gandhi to inspire us.

But what makes a person an inspirational figure; what attitude leads to success? Let me talk about some of them.

HAVE CONFIDENCE, BE OPEN, AND ACCEPT YOUR MISTAKES

There was an engineer girl, who saw an advertisement of TELCO (now TATA Motors). It advertised only men engineers need apply. She was told the reason: women might not be able to stand the heat of the hot furnaces.

The girl protested and wrote a letter to Telco. To their greatness, Telco took her in their fold despite their advertisement. She continued there till she along with her husband decided to make their own company from the money that was generated from the girl's jewellery. The company they made, went on to put India on the World map. Her name was Sudha Murthy and the company that they formed - Infosys.

You must have confidence in yourself and the contribution of Telco cannot be undermined: despite their advertisement, they were open, they realised their mistake, and accepted Sudha Murthy.

DO WHAT YOU ENJOY

The Riverside Church stands next to the Hudson river in New York. It is the tallest church of the United State as well as has the world's largest tuned carillon bell. It also received New York City Landmark status in 2000.

The façade of the church is decorated with the sculptures of leading personalities in different fields. Some of them are of scientists. There was some debate about the names of the scientists to be included there and a poll was taken from the scientists. The names varied but every list included the names of Newton and Einstein. And Einstein was the only living scientist so polled.

This poll was in 1929. Had this poll taken after 50 years then the matter would have been different. It would have included the name of Richard Feynman too: what Einstein was to the first part of the of the last century; Feynman was to the second half—both were most famous scientists of the last century and won Noble prize in Physics.

Feynman, after finishing his graduation from MIT, moved on to Princeton for PhD and then to nuclear laboratory at Los Almos for developing atom bomb during the Second World War. He was in love with a girl from his school days -Arline. They had decided to marry after he got a stable job. Alas, he was still doing his Ph.D, when Arline fell ill.

Arline had TB, a fatal disease those days. She had only few years to live. They could only have a limited physical relationship. Feynman could not even kiss for fear of contracting the disease. He came under enormous pressure from his family and friends not to marry her. Yet, he decided to go ahead with the marriage. She died when he was still at Los Almos

After the war, he had some offers but went to Cornell. The reason was simple. It was where Bethe worked. They had got along well at Los Almos.

One day in Cornell's Cafeteria, one of the students was fooling around. He threw a plate into the air, spinning it like a Frisbee; it wobbled too. The white plate had red medallion of Cornell on it. It made a strange scene The medallion went round at a different rate because of the wobble. Intrigued by the correlation between spinning and wobbling, Feynman went out to calculate the relationship between the two.

The answer was simple; the relationship was 2:1 but the calculation was complex. It took a lot of Feynman's time. His friends and colleagues asked him why was he wasting time on this worthless problem. He said,

'I am doing it for fun. It has no importance.'

But Feynman was wrong.

Feynman was stuck with the problem of the spinning of electrons. He remembered about the mathematics and the equation with which he had dabbled while calculating the relationship between spin and wobble of the plate. He started looking into his problem with his old insight. This contributed to his theory, which won him the Nobel Prize.

The best thing in life is to make your hobby, your profession. If this cannot be done then make your profession as enjoyable as your hobby.

DIFFERENCE LIES IN THINKING

Akio Morita and Ibuka were co-founders of 'Sony' that changed the image of 'Made in Japan': from notation of 'cheep imitation' to one associated with the 'World quality'.

One day, Morita saw Ibuka with a portable stereo tape recorder and a pair of head phones. When he asked Ibuka as to why he was doing it, he answered that he liked to listen to the music but didn't want to disturb anyone else, but also remarked that it was difficult as the music system was too big.

Morita thought of his children, who would rush to their rooms to listen to music as soon as they entered home. He had also seen many Japanese carrying heavy music players on their shoulders. He started playing with the idea of making small music system that could be carried anywhere.

The Sony used to market a small cassette tape recorder called pressman. Morita called his engineers and asked them to strip out the recording circuit as well as the speakers from it and asked them to make a very light headphone to listen to the music. No one thought it to be a good idea. His engineers, sales men were pessimistic: who will buy, if it does not have recording capability?

The project was only undertaken when Morita took personal responsibility for it. This is how the walkman came to the market in 1979. It went on to become most successful selling item of all times. Sony sold more than 220 million (22 crores) different models of walkman till 2010 when its production ended giving way to new generations of walkman in shape of iPods and mobile phones.

HAVE FAITH IN YOURSELF

In 1913 Godfrey Harold Hardy was 36 years of age and was an established mathematician. He belonged to the field of pure mathematics. He was already a Fellow of the Royal Society and was with the Cambridge University. His name appeared not only in every Mathematical Journal of that time but also in the journal of Medicine. He had propounded Hardy-Weinberg law, which states,

‘Dominant traits will not take over and recessive traits will not die out.'

Hardy's future was secure and life fixed. Then it all changed by a letter from India, by an unknown person named Srinivas Ramanujan. The letter was as follows:

‘Sir,
I beg to introduce myself as a clerk in the Accounts Department... on a salary of £ 20 per annum... I have no University education... I have not trodden through the conventional regular course... but I am striking out a new path myself. I have made special investigation... and the results... are termed as startling by local mathematicians.’

And then Ramanujan had rattled off some of his results. Hardy had never seen anything of this kind. He was excited (see Endnote-3). It is then as Hardy would say later,

‘The romantic incident of my life began'.

Hardy was once asked what was his greatest discovery. His answer was—Ramanujan. But he also added,

‘I did not invent him [Ramanujam]. Like other great men, he invented himself.’

‘A mathematician's apology’ is a classic. It was written at the end of Hardy's life. He offered explanation for irrelevance of pure mathematicians to a common man's need. In the book, he consoled himself.

‘I have done one thing... (that pompous people) have never done... (It) is to have collaborated with... Ramanujan on something like equal terms.’

Ramanujan was original. He proved many theorems that were already proved but in his own way as he never read them formally; he in fact rediscovered them.

Ramanujan was intuitive. Many of his theorem were not proved and Hardy later said that he spent rest of his life proving or disproving them.

In England, Ramanujan fell ill and was admitted in a hospital. Hardy would visit him on weekends. On one of his visits, Hardy noticed the Taxi number; it was 1729. On reaching the hospital he wondered if it was a dull number and being multiple of thirteen (13x133) could be a bad omen. Ramanujam's pat reply was,

'No, it is a very interesting number. It is the smallest number, which can be expressed as the sum of two cubes in two different ways. 1729 is equal to 123 +13 and 103+93.'

Ramanujan was confident. He came from an ordinary background; he had not studied Mathematics in the conventional way, yet was confident of his work. It is for this, that he wrote,

'I am striking a new path for myself.'

Have faith in yourself.

I hope this will not be just an essay competition but will inspire you to be good citizens and help in building India so that we may change the second last word of the song - from होंगे to हैं

'सुनो गौर से दुनिया वालो,
बुरी नज़र न हम पर डालो।
चाहे जितना जोर लगालो,
सबसे आगे होंगे हिन्दुस्तानी।'

Endnote-1: The incidents regarding Feynman, Akio Morita, and Ramnujan are from the following books. These books are good and are worth reading.

Surely you’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman and Ralph Leighton; Richard Feynman;
Richard Feynman: A life in Science by John Gribbin and Mary Gribbin; published by Penguin Books;
Made in Japan: An Autobiography of Morita;
The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan by Robert Kanige.

There is also a movie titled ‘Infinity’ (directed by Matthew Brodevick) based on the earlier part of Feynmann's life upto Arline's death. There is also another book titled 'The Indian Clerk' written by David Leavitt. It is about Hardy-Ramanujan Collaboration. It is very interesting but part of it is fiction.

Endnote-2: McDonalds and IBM are two of the American companies mentioned in the book 'In Search of Excellence'. McDonalds was said to have developed culture incorporating the values and practices of serving 'quality product and cleanliness'; whereas IBM was said to have incorporated 'service and reliability'.

Endnote-3: A prime number is a number larger than one that can only be divided by one or itself without leaving any remainder i.e. 2, 3, 5, 7, 11 ... A number that can be so divided by other numbers are known as composite numbers. Prime numbers do not have factors: they are as simple as numbers get. Mathematicians are obsessed with Prime numbers as they are the foundation of all other numbers.

Around 300 BC, Euclid proved that there are infinitely number of prime numbers. There is no known useful formula that yields all of the prime numbers and no composites. No one knows when and where will they occur. If you find one prime number, there is no way to tell where the next one will occur without checking all the numbers as you go.

One possible way is to find out how the prime numbers are distributed is to find how many prime numbers are there less than a given number. This was proposed by Bernhard Riemann in 1858: he proposed a formula (Riemann hypothesis) that would calculate how many primes are there below any given number. It is a kind of a refined statement concerning the distribution of prime numbers. The solution of his hypothesis might end the unpredictability of the prime numbers.

International Congress of Mathematicians is held once in every four year. In 1900, ICM was held in Paris. David Hilbert posed 23 problems for mathematicians to solve. Riemann hypothesis was at number 8 of these questions. Some of them have been resolved, some are partly resolved and some are unresolved. Riemann hypothesis is still unresolved. The Clay Mathematics Institute has offered $1 million award for its successful solution.

In the letter to Hardy, among other things, Ramanujan also referred to a book by Hardy titled 'Orders of Infinity', where Hardy had mentioned that no definite expression has been found for the numbers of prime number less than any given number and said that he (Ramanujan) had found an expression which very nearly approximates to the real result, the error being negligible. Then he had mentioned what he had done in this regard.

This excited Hardy for he thought that Ramanujan could resolve Riemann hypothesis.

Endnote-4: The photographs of Sudha Murthy, Richard Feynman, and Srinivas Ramanujan are from Wikipedia.

Seat of the Trust [Webshots]

2006-03-27T18:23:35-08:00

Seat of the Trust

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Namir Khan Memorial TT Tournament-1 [Webshots]

2005-11-04T05:14:25-08:00

This album contains photographs of the first Namir Khan memorial TableTennis Tournament organised by Krishna Virendra Trust.

by kvtrust
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