Sunday 22 November 2009
Two individual journeys that changed destination of millions
Our first hero's journey!
Traveling around is considered to be a great educational experience. But some times even one journey could be the turning point in your life. Here I am going to write about two such journeys in the life of two remarkable Indians that changed the course of not only their own lives but transformed the lives of millions.
Year 1893. The place,
Before our hero lost his belongings and found himself in the waiting room of a railway station, he boarded the first class compartment of a train from
What happened to Gandhi that night on Maritzburg station was a transformational experience. Gandhi was new in
Our second hero’s journey!
Year 1974. Place Nis, a border town between
It is a coincidence with the previous story but here also it was about 9.00 p.m. when our hero of this story was dropped at
Thirty five years after this life transforming long, lonely, cold journey from
Wednesday 16 September 2009
15000 hours and success in life!
Everyone wants to know the formula for success, whatever way you may define success. Latest among the several people who have tried to come up with the answer is Malcolm Gladwell, the author of the book Outliers. Gladwell is author of other popular books Blink and the Tipping Point. The title of his latest book ‘outlier’ comes from language of statistics. In simple terms outlier would mean someone outside the normal range of distribution therefore, someone who has been more successful than others. Bill Gates in getting rich, Beatles in music, Pele in football and Sachin Tendulkar in cricket are outliers in their respective fields. What makes these people so successful? Gladwell argues that most of us could be successful if we worked hard, avail the opportunities that come our way and be well networked mentally and socially. Gladwell’s thumb rule on hard work is 15,000 hours. By illustrating through lives of Bil Gates, Beatles, Steve Jobs (of Apple fame) and many others it is argued that most of these people put in roughly about 15,000 hours of hard work in their field of work be it programming, music, sports or writing to achieve the level of proficiency that sets the scene for launching into successful journey..but the argument also assumes that you have bit of luck, social skills and connections as Gladwell shows beautifully. I think 15,000 hours (read hard work) is a plausible and useful idea. It may not be sufficient but it definitely is necessary. There is no short cut to success as they say. Try it out and see the results. I think most authors, athletes, business people, communication experts or sales people or teachers and others would be receptive to this thumb rule.
Now if you were to pursue a new hobby or career or activity that you wish to excel in and you are struggling to find time for it what do you do? Let’s say you want to learn to be very good keyboard player and don’t find time to practice it. Is there a way out for you? If you have patience to read I promise to help you find secret to spare nearly double the thumb rule time of 15,000 hours assuming you are healthy and not very old.
I found this secret in one of the most curious books I have ever read. Published in 1890 the book is called Enquire Within Upon Everything, a strange title you would agree. The edition I have got is a 2003 edition printed in India while the original one was printed and published in London. The book does not have any specific author because it is collection of various entries listing good practices that people were encouraged to adopt to lead a good life in Victorian Britain. In late 19th century England industrial revolution had helped with increasing wealth of common people and there was increasing desire to find about new things and so on. But there was no TV or internet. So the book Enquire Within.. was a best seller. It has sold more than one million copies. The book contains 2,775 short pieces on topics ranging from child care to food to home economy to good business practices. There are entries like how to train parrot, how to save money (‘one way to increase your wealth is to reduce your desires’ is one the quotations although there are genuinely smart non-renouncing type tips too), how to make Indian curry powder and so on. Any way before digressig more, here is the secret to find time found in the entry titled Early Rising and in my view one way of how you can find time to become great keyboard player or whatever else you wish to do:
The difference between rising every morning at six and eight, in the course of forty years, amounts to 29,200 hours, or three years 121 days and 16 hours, which are equal to 8 hours a day for exactly 10 years. So that rising at six will be same as if 10 years of life (a weighty consideration) were added, wherein we may command eight hours for the cultivation of our minds and the despatch of business.
Let’s end by noting another entry from Enquire Within.. which contains many hints on Home Comfort but I have chosen only following three:
· Eat slowly and you will not over eat.
· Between husband and wife little attentions beget much love.
· Whatever you choose to give away, always be sure to keep your temper.
Now if you were to pursue a new hobby or career or activity that you wish to excel in and you are struggling to find time for it what do you do? Let’s say you want to learn to be very good keyboard player and don’t find time to practice it. Is there a way out for you? If you have patience to read I promise to help you find secret to spare nearly double the thumb rule time of 15,000 hours assuming you are healthy and not very old.
I found this secret in one of the most curious books I have ever read. Published in 1890 the book is called Enquire Within Upon Everything, a strange title you would agree. The edition I have got is a 2003 edition printed in India while the original one was printed and published in London. The book does not have any specific author because it is collection of various entries listing good practices that people were encouraged to adopt to lead a good life in Victorian Britain. In late 19th century England industrial revolution had helped with increasing wealth of common people and there was increasing desire to find about new things and so on. But there was no TV or internet. So the book Enquire Within.. was a best seller. It has sold more than one million copies. The book contains 2,775 short pieces on topics ranging from child care to food to home economy to good business practices. There are entries like how to train parrot, how to save money (‘one way to increase your wealth is to reduce your desires’ is one the quotations although there are genuinely smart non-renouncing type tips too), how to make Indian curry powder and so on. Any way before digressig more, here is the secret to find time found in the entry titled Early Rising and in my view one way of how you can find time to become great keyboard player or whatever else you wish to do:
The difference between rising every morning at six and eight, in the course of forty years, amounts to 29,200 hours, or three years 121 days and 16 hours, which are equal to 8 hours a day for exactly 10 years. So that rising at six will be same as if 10 years of life (a weighty consideration) were added, wherein we may command eight hours for the cultivation of our minds and the despatch of business.
Let’s end by noting another entry from Enquire Within.. which contains many hints on Home Comfort but I have chosen only following three:
· Eat slowly and you will not over eat.
· Between husband and wife little attentions beget much love.
· Whatever you choose to give away, always be sure to keep your temper.
Friday 7 August 2009
Saturday 23 May 2009
The Oldest Democracy and the Largest Democracy Face Opportunity (challenge)
So many things have been happening in past few weeks but I am going to reflect on events in two democracies. First relates the oldest (modern) mother of democracy, Britain and the second to the largest democracy in the world, India.
Westminster Parliament complex with its famous Clock Tower does not just symbolise the great city of London but also represents a source of the economic and political power that the British enjoyed for centuries till the rise of the US in late 19th century and early 20th century. Clearly the United Kingdom had lost its global economic and political leadership in the last six seven decades. However, following the disclosure of MPs’ expense claims its great democratic institution has lost much more in past two weeks. It has lost the trust that people of the UK have in their politicians and political institutions. Members of Parliament in the UK get around £64,000 per annum as salary. They are also entitled to claim expenses like allowances for second home etc. Most of the claims made by the MPs have been according to the rules set by members of parliament. But the manner and nature of the claims have invited strongest ever public outcry and disbelief from ordinary citizens. I will not describe in detail these expenses as there is already a lot published about these. However, I’ll focus on the principles violated and why that matters not only for democracy in the UK but democracy in general. First, it seems over the years a convention had evolved to claim expenses for second house expenses etc. as a compensation for low salaries that MPs get. So rather than arguing openly for increase in salaries, the rules were framed and implemented that in a way allowed MPs to claim expenses, which don’t necessarily fit the criterion set by the parliament rules, i.e., the expenses should be wholly and exclusively necessary to perform their duties as MP. Second, the MPs tried to justify their claims referring to the rules in words rather than in admitting to the violation of spirit of rules. This does not behold good for gentlemen and ladies of the British parliament. They hold public offices and should be accountable for tax payers' money.
The consequences of the expense claims political scandal is having far reaching effects on the House of Commons and political career of many politicians. The Speaker of the Commons resigned two days ago, first time in the last 300 years of British parliament! Many politicians have been forced to declare that they will not be standing for election to parliament in future. Some ministers are worried about their jobs. The government has announced that there will be an independent regulator to monitor and sanction MPs expenses in future and that there will be complete overhaul of expenses allowed.
Now, let’s turn from this remarkable political development in the UK to India where as I write the government is being formed by newly elected parliament. There are so many challenges that the largest democracy in the world faces. They arise from the facts like the size of the nation (both geographically and demographically), coalition politics, poverty, global economic recession and its impact on India, the security and so on. All this makes the Indian prime minister perhaps, the most important executive in the world. The Indian parliament owes it to the people of India to improve the institutions and offer high quality public service. Will the MPs of Indian parliament do it? We have to be optimistic and see what happens. However, what they could easily do, as they are starting a new term, follow the spirit of Freedom of Information Act and set up individual websites. They could put before their constituents an agenda for their five year term, provide a quarterly report on how they are progressing the agenda, declare the perks/expenses they claim in addition to their salary from tax payers' money and declare a time table (even though it may vary occasionally) when they will be visiting their constituency and where so that the people whom they represent can meet and talk to them. I don’t think above few things are too difficult but they are basic mechanisms for public accountability which the MPs as public servants politicians should be expected to abide by.
If the parliamentarians in the UK fail to clean up the system effectively it will be bad example for democracy everywhere. If the parliamentarians in India become more accountable and learn from others' mistake, they will add a feather to democratic political system. What a coincident that two torch bearers of democracy face historic opportunity to improve record of democracy to serve the people who choose to be governed by politicians.
Westminster Parliament complex with its famous Clock Tower does not just symbolise the great city of London but also represents a source of the economic and political power that the British enjoyed for centuries till the rise of the US in late 19th century and early 20th century. Clearly the United Kingdom had lost its global economic and political leadership in the last six seven decades. However, following the disclosure of MPs’ expense claims its great democratic institution has lost much more in past two weeks. It has lost the trust that people of the UK have in their politicians and political institutions. Members of Parliament in the UK get around £64,000 per annum as salary. They are also entitled to claim expenses like allowances for second home etc. Most of the claims made by the MPs have been according to the rules set by members of parliament. But the manner and nature of the claims have invited strongest ever public outcry and disbelief from ordinary citizens. I will not describe in detail these expenses as there is already a lot published about these. However, I’ll focus on the principles violated and why that matters not only for democracy in the UK but democracy in general. First, it seems over the years a convention had evolved to claim expenses for second house expenses etc. as a compensation for low salaries that MPs get. So rather than arguing openly for increase in salaries, the rules were framed and implemented that in a way allowed MPs to claim expenses, which don’t necessarily fit the criterion set by the parliament rules, i.e., the expenses should be wholly and exclusively necessary to perform their duties as MP. Second, the MPs tried to justify their claims referring to the rules in words rather than in admitting to the violation of spirit of rules. This does not behold good for gentlemen and ladies of the British parliament. They hold public offices and should be accountable for tax payers' money.
The consequences of the expense claims political scandal is having far reaching effects on the House of Commons and political career of many politicians. The Speaker of the Commons resigned two days ago, first time in the last 300 years of British parliament! Many politicians have been forced to declare that they will not be standing for election to parliament in future. Some ministers are worried about their jobs. The government has announced that there will be an independent regulator to monitor and sanction MPs expenses in future and that there will be complete overhaul of expenses allowed.
Now, let’s turn from this remarkable political development in the UK to India where as I write the government is being formed by newly elected parliament. There are so many challenges that the largest democracy in the world faces. They arise from the facts like the size of the nation (both geographically and demographically), coalition politics, poverty, global economic recession and its impact on India, the security and so on. All this makes the Indian prime minister perhaps, the most important executive in the world. The Indian parliament owes it to the people of India to improve the institutions and offer high quality public service. Will the MPs of Indian parliament do it? We have to be optimistic and see what happens. However, what they could easily do, as they are starting a new term, follow the spirit of Freedom of Information Act and set up individual websites. They could put before their constituents an agenda for their five year term, provide a quarterly report on how they are progressing the agenda, declare the perks/expenses they claim in addition to their salary from tax payers' money and declare a time table (even though it may vary occasionally) when they will be visiting their constituency and where so that the people whom they represent can meet and talk to them. I don’t think above few things are too difficult but they are basic mechanisms for public accountability which the MPs as public servants politicians should be expected to abide by.
If the parliamentarians in the UK fail to clean up the system effectively it will be bad example for democracy everywhere. If the parliamentarians in India become more accountable and learn from others' mistake, they will add a feather to democratic political system. What a coincident that two torch bearers of democracy face historic opportunity to improve record of democracy to serve the people who choose to be governed by politicians.
Wednesday 22 April 2009
Who is a wise person? and curious science of detecting lies
Few days ago one of the readers of this blog wrote to me that “you read lot of different and varied things”. This is true but that does not mean I could boast of being knowledgeable in many areas, on the contrary, the more you read about the various things and find that so many different aspects of physical and social phenomena are studied by scholars, the more you realise how much you don’t know. For me reading has simply ensured that I don’t lose the humility. So in all humility let me start with a story that is attributed to Socrates. Once he was asked to define wisdom. The following remarkable response that I have shared earlier with many of my students, but at the risk of repeating for some of them here, is put below. The Socratic view on wise person goes something like this:
A person who does not know and does not know that s/he does not know is ignorant
A person who does not know but thinks that s/he knows is fool
A person who does not know and knows that s/he does not know is wise
Professor Richard Wiseman (the surname is real) is the only professor of promoting Public Uderstanding of Psychology at a university in England, UK. He is Quirkologist. ‘Quirk’ means peculiar or strange and logy is a Greek suffix found in hundreds of words in English and means ‘study of’ something. For instance psych-ology is study of mind or etym-ology is study of origin of words. So quirk-ology is study of strange or quirky things. For instance, how or why people smile, study of people telling lies. Professor Wiseman has written a book entitled Quirkology: The Curious Science of Everyday Lives. I got this book as summer reading for my son but when it arrived in the post I started reading it with great interest.. One of the studies Wiseman conducted involved national survey on people telling lies. A large number of people participated in the survey that was run in collaboration with a British daily. Only 8% of the people said they had never lied meaning 92% of us tell lies at one or other time in our life. He also reports from other studies that 80% of respondents said that they had lied to get a job, 60% of the people have cheated on their partners at least once..hmm. Mercifully 4 out of 5 lies remain undetected. What will happen to the number of divorces if all cheaters on their partners were found! A quirky question for Professor Wiseman could be, to what extent is the institution of marriage dependent on our inability to detect lies.
A person who does not know and does not know that s/he does not know is ignorant
A person who does not know but thinks that s/he knows is fool
A person who does not know and knows that s/he does not know is wise
Professor Richard Wiseman (the surname is real) is the only professor of promoting Public Uderstanding of Psychology at a university in England, UK. He is Quirkologist. ‘Quirk’ means peculiar or strange and logy is a Greek suffix found in hundreds of words in English and means ‘study of’ something. For instance psych-ology is study of mind or etym-ology is study of origin of words. So quirk-ology is study of strange or quirky things. For instance, how or why people smile, study of people telling lies. Professor Wiseman has written a book entitled Quirkology: The Curious Science of Everyday Lives. I got this book as summer reading for my son but when it arrived in the post I started reading it with great interest.. One of the studies Wiseman conducted involved national survey on people telling lies. A large number of people participated in the survey that was run in collaboration with a British daily. Only 8% of the people said they had never lied meaning 92% of us tell lies at one or other time in our life. He also reports from other studies that 80% of respondents said that they had lied to get a job, 60% of the people have cheated on their partners at least once..hmm. Mercifully 4 out of 5 lies remain undetected. What will happen to the number of divorces if all cheaters on their partners were found! A quirky question for Professor Wiseman could be, to what extent is the institution of marriage dependent on our inability to detect lies.
Talking of detecting lies Prof. Wiseman reports his work on how to differentiate between an artificial and real smile. If you want to try and see if you can differentiate a real smile from an artificial one go to the link provided below. Meanwhile let me leave you with a simple philosophical statement that has puzzled quite a few wise people thus far:
When someone makes the following statement, is s/he telling truth?
‘I am telling truth that I always tell lies.’
When someone makes the following statement, is s/he telling truth?
‘I am telling truth that I always tell lies.’
Link to Prof. Wiseman’s experiments and other material on Quirkology
http://www.quirkology.com/UK/Experiment_lying.shtml
Monday 13 April 2009
Intoxication to assassination!
These days the word assassin is used for a killer, particularly if the person killed is an important person in society or major political leader. But the history of the word assassin takes us back nearly 1000 years to conflicts between middle eastern Muslims and Christians from European. As is known the Christian holy land is part of present day Israel and Palestine area. The Christians from around the world including Europeans would visit the Holy Land for purpose of pilgrimage. However, from early 11th century AD trouble started with Christians finding it difficult to visit their Holy Land. What followed was a series of confrontations between the Christians inspired by the Pope Urban II and supported by many European kings and knights leading their armies to conquer the areas from Muslims in Egypt and Palestine. It is argued that these attacks by Christians were partly religious and partly driven by search for conquests over different lands and the wealth that it would have brought. These expeditions are known as Christian Crusades that lasted for almost two hundred years. Obviously the Muslims were not sitting quiet, they fought back too. The Islamic fighters who killed the Christians in response gave the word assassin. These fighters had religious rationale to fight Christian crusaders. Many of these fighters would consume hashish before they went into fighting, mostly as secret attacks. Hashish is a cannibus drug that temporarily gives euphoric feeling and causes intoxication. The drug is illegal in most countries now. These hashish using Muslim fighters came to be known as hashishin a word that travelling through Italian and French languages has found its place in English as assassin! In 17th century it meant Muslim assassin but now it is used for any killer.
Note: I am neither an authority on religion nor on history so take the above write up as simple historical note to understand the meaning and history of the word assassin. The use of any drugs like hashish is harmful and illegal in most countries in the world today.
Sunday 5 April 2009
80-20 Principle, G-20 Summit and Your Life
103 years ago in 1906 Vilfredo Pareto made a remarkable observation that 80 per cent of land in Italy was owned by 20 per cent of the population. Little did he realise then that he had unwittingly hit upon the ratio which will be found in so many different walks of life.
The Pareto principle of the vital few causing maximum consequences is a frequently mentioned rule of thumb in economics and management classes. For example, 20 per cent of customers contributing 80 per cent of profits, 20 per cent of employees contributing to 80 per cent of profits (and losses if they happen to be in banks one may say these days!). Try thinking about your life, does 80% of your happiness depend on 20% activities you do? Just count those vital few things you do or vital few people in your life who make your life feel good. Does 80% of your income get spent on 20% of habits? Does 20% of your knowledge contribute to 80% of your productivity?
Where the Pareto principle may not apply perhaps is the number of financial institutions that caused the financial crises. Perhaps it was less than 20 per cent of banks that created more 80 per cent of bad assets that subsequently caused havoc in financial world. Anyway, let’s see if 80-20 principle can be applied to G20 summit outcomes.
A group of leaders from 20 countries and regions representing 80 per cent of global trade came together in London to fix global economic recession. The deliberations over two days and many preceding weeks resulted in a statement by G20 leaders published on Thursday. The statement runs into nine pages, 29 numbered paragraphs and contains 3,077 words. I am going to look for those vital few 20 per cent of the statements made and try to make 80 per cent of sense! Applying the principle strictly I am going to search for maximum six paragraphs that seem vital to me.
The first vital paragraph is number five which says that the global lender of last resort for countries, the International Monetary Fund, will be provided additional resources of about $1.1 trillion; reasoning being that this will provide money to various countries’ governments to spend on public projects, green technologies and so on to boost demand and create jobs in hope of reviving the economy. The Keynesian economic principles applied on a global scale! Vital issue: The evidence of public management of infrastructure in most cases is far from satisfactory.
Second vital paragraph is number 13 which identifies the failures by financial sector players, watchdogs and regulators as the primary causes of crises. Fair enough. Response is in vital paragraphs 14 and 15 which call for setting up of tougher regulatory regimes nationally and internationally. These super regulators will regulate financial sector players, watchdogs and will coordinate with other national regulators to reduce unnecessary risk taking, improve global financial system and accountability. Vital issue: Regulatory capabilities and effectiveness would need to leap frog to higher level. Regulating smart bankers will require smart regulators who are as good as bankers. But if they are as good as bankers why would they work as regulators?
Fifth vital paragraph is number 22. It declares the intention of G20 countries to protect the world from economic protectionism. No issues with this so long as the most European countries and the USA follow this.
Sixth and final vital paragraph for me is number 25 which refers back to the problem that disturbed Pareto 100 years ago. The G20 statement promises help for the poorest countries. It is recognised that problems caused by vital few have serious immediate consequences for many. Steps announced to this end are most welcome.
Finally, there are vital signs in the communiqué that address many issues addressed by the protestors on London’s streets over the two days. Pushing for greener developmental options, promoting the interests of the poorest, controlling exorbitant compensations in financial industry and improving the transparency in tax systems are all ambitious statements. Has the G20 summit promised far too much? On the face of it this appears to be the case. Let’s wait and watch till the next summit which is likely to be in 2009 itself.
The Pareto principle of the vital few causing maximum consequences is a frequently mentioned rule of thumb in economics and management classes. For example, 20 per cent of customers contributing 80 per cent of profits, 20 per cent of employees contributing to 80 per cent of profits (and losses if they happen to be in banks one may say these days!). Try thinking about your life, does 80% of your happiness depend on 20% activities you do? Just count those vital few things you do or vital few people in your life who make your life feel good. Does 80% of your income get spent on 20% of habits? Does 20% of your knowledge contribute to 80% of your productivity?
Where the Pareto principle may not apply perhaps is the number of financial institutions that caused the financial crises. Perhaps it was less than 20 per cent of banks that created more 80 per cent of bad assets that subsequently caused havoc in financial world. Anyway, let’s see if 80-20 principle can be applied to G20 summit outcomes.
A group of leaders from 20 countries and regions representing 80 per cent of global trade came together in London to fix global economic recession. The deliberations over two days and many preceding weeks resulted in a statement by G20 leaders published on Thursday. The statement runs into nine pages, 29 numbered paragraphs and contains 3,077 words. I am going to look for those vital few 20 per cent of the statements made and try to make 80 per cent of sense! Applying the principle strictly I am going to search for maximum six paragraphs that seem vital to me.
The first vital paragraph is number five which says that the global lender of last resort for countries, the International Monetary Fund, will be provided additional resources of about $1.1 trillion; reasoning being that this will provide money to various countries’ governments to spend on public projects, green technologies and so on to boost demand and create jobs in hope of reviving the economy. The Keynesian economic principles applied on a global scale! Vital issue: The evidence of public management of infrastructure in most cases is far from satisfactory.
Second vital paragraph is number 13 which identifies the failures by financial sector players, watchdogs and regulators as the primary causes of crises. Fair enough. Response is in vital paragraphs 14 and 15 which call for setting up of tougher regulatory regimes nationally and internationally. These super regulators will regulate financial sector players, watchdogs and will coordinate with other national regulators to reduce unnecessary risk taking, improve global financial system and accountability. Vital issue: Regulatory capabilities and effectiveness would need to leap frog to higher level. Regulating smart bankers will require smart regulators who are as good as bankers. But if they are as good as bankers why would they work as regulators?
Fifth vital paragraph is number 22. It declares the intention of G20 countries to protect the world from economic protectionism. No issues with this so long as the most European countries and the USA follow this.
Sixth and final vital paragraph for me is number 25 which refers back to the problem that disturbed Pareto 100 years ago. The G20 statement promises help for the poorest countries. It is recognised that problems caused by vital few have serious immediate consequences for many. Steps announced to this end are most welcome.
Finally, there are vital signs in the communiqué that address many issues addressed by the protestors on London’s streets over the two days. Pushing for greener developmental options, promoting the interests of the poorest, controlling exorbitant compensations in financial industry and improving the transparency in tax systems are all ambitious statements. Has the G20 summit promised far too much? On the face of it this appears to be the case. Let’s wait and watch till the next summit which is likely to be in 2009 itself.
Sunday 29 March 2009
Foolish ‘nice’ and Sub-prime Monarchs!
I would be very happy if you said after reading this article that it is a ‘nice’ article as it would mean a compliment. But if I wrote some article few centuries ago and you said it’s a ‘nice’ article, it would be not be compliment; it would be an insult to me! Why?
Well few centuries ago, ‘nice’ did not mean ‘nice’ or good but it meant ‘foolish’ or ‘ignorant’! Surprised. Don’t be. Look carefully at the word ‘nice’. The word comes from Latin word nescius. Travelling through the old French nescius reached English and ended up as nice. Nescius is derived from nescre which means to be ignorant. In root of nescius is scire that means ‘to know’ and gives us so many words related to knowledge such as science, omniscient (all knowing), conscience, conscious and prescient. However, over centuries the meaning and the form of nescience has changed from foolish or ignorant to nice. But nescient is still usable adjective which means ignorant. Isn’t this a ‘nice’ story about journey of word ‘nice’? Bye the way there is also a nice town called Nice in southeast France! Let’s move from Nice to Venice and Florence in Italy the hotbed of commerce and banking in middle ages.
Venicians and Florentians contributed a lot to modern banking development. The word bank comes from banca meaning a bench on which the money lenders and exchangers sat and did the lending, borrowing and guaranteeing payments for facilitating trade. However, if a banker incurred losses and was unable to honour the agreements, he would be taken out of the business and his bank (bench) would be literally broken. Latin word rupta means broken. Combine bench+rupta and you get bankrupt that we use today to describe a business enterprise or individuals who have more to pay than what they own.
Everyone reading this, I am sure by now knows that some American and European banks collapsed in 2007-08 after their borrowers, particularly the US house-owners failed to pay their housing loan instalments. These banks went bankrupt or were taken over by the governments with tax payers’ money. In this case the cause of bankruptcy of some of the banks was poor business judgement and or greed to make quick money. But in the middle ages (roughly 5th century to 16th century AD) the biggest risk of bankruptcy for European banks came from the kings and the queens. The monarchs used to borrow very heavily from banks to finance the innumerable wars which went on. Some monarchs paid as high as 45% interest rate. However, if the monarchs could not return the loan, the bankers could not do much, they simply went bankrupt. Lending to monarchs was as big a gamble (or unavoidable risk if they were forced to lend) by those middle ages’ banks as some of the contemporary banks took by lending to poor quality borrowers in the US housing markets. Many monarchs of middle ages in Europe and the humble households of the present day US thus share a poor creditworthiness, an equality not very welcome. Sub-prime loans are not new!
Well few centuries ago, ‘nice’ did not mean ‘nice’ or good but it meant ‘foolish’ or ‘ignorant’! Surprised. Don’t be. Look carefully at the word ‘nice’. The word comes from Latin word nescius. Travelling through the old French nescius reached English and ended up as nice. Nescius is derived from nescre which means to be ignorant. In root of nescius is scire that means ‘to know’ and gives us so many words related to knowledge such as science, omniscient (all knowing), conscience, conscious and prescient. However, over centuries the meaning and the form of nescience has changed from foolish or ignorant to nice. But nescient is still usable adjective which means ignorant. Isn’t this a ‘nice’ story about journey of word ‘nice’? Bye the way there is also a nice town called Nice in southeast France! Let’s move from Nice to Venice and Florence in Italy the hotbed of commerce and banking in middle ages.
Venicians and Florentians contributed a lot to modern banking development. The word bank comes from banca meaning a bench on which the money lenders and exchangers sat and did the lending, borrowing and guaranteeing payments for facilitating trade. However, if a banker incurred losses and was unable to honour the agreements, he would be taken out of the business and his bank (bench) would be literally broken. Latin word rupta means broken. Combine bench+rupta and you get bankrupt that we use today to describe a business enterprise or individuals who have more to pay than what they own.
Everyone reading this, I am sure by now knows that some American and European banks collapsed in 2007-08 after their borrowers, particularly the US house-owners failed to pay their housing loan instalments. These banks went bankrupt or were taken over by the governments with tax payers’ money. In this case the cause of bankruptcy of some of the banks was poor business judgement and or greed to make quick money. But in the middle ages (roughly 5th century to 16th century AD) the biggest risk of bankruptcy for European banks came from the kings and the queens. The monarchs used to borrow very heavily from banks to finance the innumerable wars which went on. Some monarchs paid as high as 45% interest rate. However, if the monarchs could not return the loan, the bankers could not do much, they simply went bankrupt. Lending to monarchs was as big a gamble (or unavoidable risk if they were forced to lend) by those middle ages’ banks as some of the contemporary banks took by lending to poor quality borrowers in the US housing markets. Many monarchs of middle ages in Europe and the humble households of the present day US thus share a poor creditworthiness, an equality not very welcome. Sub-prime loans are not new!
Thursday 26 March 2009
Big Bonuses in failed banks: corporate governance failure
One of the big issues in the current banking crises in the western banks has been 'excessive bonuses' and executive compensation paid in banks that incurred huge losses and were saved by tax payers money. Read this article for more on bonus culture and corporate governance issues. More...
Monday 16 March 2009
What explains the financial crisis of 21st century?
Literally millions of words have already been written to talk about financial crisis of 2007-08 that has caused global economic recession. So one is unlikely to say something which is new on this issue now! One explanation is that savings from fast growing Asian economies and Middle Eastern savings from rising oil prices found their way into spending spree by the consumers in the developed west where, in particular, the US, these savings also fuelled housing boom. So when that unsustainable boom arising from consuming west and saving east burst we got the financial crisis. Therefore, why bother reading any more about it you may ask.
That’s perfectly valid question to ask. Here are some questions for you to check. What explains this crisis? why did highly paid and highly ‘qualified’ risk managers of some of the biggest banks in the world goof up? what is the meaning of moral hazard? and how that affects our daily life decisions? If you know the answers to these questions, please don’t read further. But if you are interested in exploring the answers to these questions with me, read on.
We begin by noting that social innovations have impact and many unintended consequences too on the society. The present financial crisis is an example of how the financial instruments that were invented to manage risks ended up creating financial risk for whole world. Let’s see how.
On the last day of 16th century, 31 December 1600, Queen Elizabeth I of England granted a charter to group of merchants from England forming a joint stock trading company called East India Company (EIC). The EIC lasted 258 years and did much more than just trading. The point is that joint stock company form of organising and managing trade got quickly replicated by Dutch and French too. Eventually, company as a form of organisation would transform the way business is done throughout the world. The limited liability public company is one of the most important social innovations of the last 4 centuries as it ensured that large scale business operations could be undertaken and that the smallest amounts of savings could used to finance those operations with the liability for the shareholder restricted to the nominal value of the equity share. Equity share in this way offers a maximum downside loss equal to the purchase price but the potential gains are unlimited if company performs well. But large number of shareholders meant that business of companies is managed by managers who may or may not be the shareholders. This results in potential conflict of interests between the shareholders (owners also called principals) and managers (agents). This agency problem can be very severe if the agents have far more knowledge about the business than the principals. And this is true in case of public limited companies. The knowledge and information advantage can create a moral hazard situation.
What is moral hazard? Moral hazard occurs when one of the two parties to a transaction behaves in a way that may potentially harm the interest of other party. This could happen when say a seller has more information about a product than a buyer has. For example, if as an insurance salesman I sell you an insurance policy which is of little real use in protecting your interests or I sell you a mortgage knowing that you may not be in position to honour the payments in time. Why will I do so? Well if my employment contract offers me incentives based on how many mortgages I sell I will do so. Moral hazard is very common in many day to day situations for example between professional advisors and their clients in medical, law or accounting and finance settings. Associated with moral hazard is the agency problem.
To deal with moral hazard and agency problems, most professions have their codes of conduct and so it is true for the managers of commercial companies, there are what is called corporate governance codes such as Combined Code in the UK and Sarbanes Oxley Act in the US which try to align the interests of principals and agents. However, the recent experience with the banking industry taking enormous levels of risks, has highlighted that the agency problem and moral hazard when they occur, can have devastating effects on not only the shareholders’ wealth but also on the wider community. Managers of banks giving housing loans to those borrowers who were not creditworthy enough were essentially taking business risks far beyond what prudential bankers would do. How does one explain this behaviour by not one odd small bank but by some of the biggest banks managed by highly qualified people? It can not be that they were unaware of the level of risks they were taking.
What would explain this behaviour is a combination of things. First is that there were incentives built into the remuneration packages of managers to maximise lending to earn higher returns by lending to high risk borrowers. But this alone was not sufficient condition. There are banking regulations and norms on capital requirements that would work as inherent check on the amount of lending that a bank could do. What helped the expansion of lending was the ability of banks to sell existing loans on their balance sheets to other investors and restart one more cycle of lending. This is a financial innovation called securitisation but it is not new and has been around for quite sometime. However, this process is not easy, before those bundles of loans can be sold to other investors, they have to be seen as worthy investments. For this, the prospective investors look at the credit ratings given by the agencies such as Standard and Poor and Moody’s. These ratings effectively are a judgement by these agencies about the soundness of those bundles of loans. In this case it turned out that many such assets with high ratings, called investment grades, later turned out to be much more risky than their ratings indicated. A further boost to the market for such mortgage based securities was provided by another financial innovation. Investors investing in securitised assets knew that there are always chances of some mortgage borrowers defaulting and therefore, the investments comprising such assets would be worthless in such situation. So companies like American International Group (AIG) would offer insurance protection against such assets becoming worth less. This is called Credit Default insurance. Thus the recipe for taking big risks by loan originating banks was complete and most banks participated in the housing finance boom in the US until it burst.
The cycle worked like this: Easy funding for banks from wholesale money markets, incentives for bank managers to lend more without due regard to creditworthiness of the borrowers, transfer the risky loans from balance sheet by selling them as bundles of loans (called asset backed assets or securitised assets) to other investors, those investors bought those because credit rating agencies gave them 'investment worthy grades' based in part on the fact that many of these loans were protected against the risk of defaults assured by insurance companies such as AIG, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The cycle went on till 2006-07 when the borrowers of home loans started defaulting.
Everyone now knows the amount of risk that these banks took and its consequences are still unfolding. However, one big consequence of this has been a breakdown of trust between borrowers and lenders. Growth of finance and banking, just like the rest of the economy depends critically on the trust between the parties. If you reflect on the process we described earlier about expansion of lending it shows that managers of banks were entrusted by their principals, shareholders to manage the banks prudently, but they put their legally allowed remuneration interests ahead of overall risk they were creating. This brings into question the effectiveness of the remuneration committees in approving such compensation packages. Credit rating agencies failed in understanding the complexity and risks of the securitised products they were rating. Insurance companies offering insurance for products that were inherently very risky also failed their principals. The net result is crisis of confidence which has lingered on as lost trust among all stakeholders. This trust was built over decades but was destroyed in few months.
What is the way forward? For a start, individual incentives and behaviour cannot be ignored in analysing the current crisis. Hence remuneration policies and accountability will need to be factored into any new policy measures that the governments may consider. There is a simple but most powerful principle in economics and it is the relation between risk and reward. The remuneration policies in the banking industry simply violated this principle. While rewards were given in the short term, risks borne were of long term nature. The accountability in future must be individualised. Private gains and private losses both should be captured in the managerial compensation deals. The rebuilding of trust is bound to be a slow process and it can not be simply achieved by more and international regulation. The present crisis has shown there were regulatory failures and they need to be understood as well. More regulation, whether of national or supra-national character, will suffer from limitations of regulatory capabilities and competence. Confidence in markets where prudent management is rewarded will be slow to build, but that would seem more appropriate response.
That’s perfectly valid question to ask. Here are some questions for you to check. What explains this crisis? why did highly paid and highly ‘qualified’ risk managers of some of the biggest banks in the world goof up? what is the meaning of moral hazard? and how that affects our daily life decisions? If you know the answers to these questions, please don’t read further. But if you are interested in exploring the answers to these questions with me, read on.
We begin by noting that social innovations have impact and many unintended consequences too on the society. The present financial crisis is an example of how the financial instruments that were invented to manage risks ended up creating financial risk for whole world. Let’s see how.
On the last day of 16th century, 31 December 1600, Queen Elizabeth I of England granted a charter to group of merchants from England forming a joint stock trading company called East India Company (EIC). The EIC lasted 258 years and did much more than just trading. The point is that joint stock company form of organising and managing trade got quickly replicated by Dutch and French too. Eventually, company as a form of organisation would transform the way business is done throughout the world. The limited liability public company is one of the most important social innovations of the last 4 centuries as it ensured that large scale business operations could be undertaken and that the smallest amounts of savings could used to finance those operations with the liability for the shareholder restricted to the nominal value of the equity share. Equity share in this way offers a maximum downside loss equal to the purchase price but the potential gains are unlimited if company performs well. But large number of shareholders meant that business of companies is managed by managers who may or may not be the shareholders. This results in potential conflict of interests between the shareholders (owners also called principals) and managers (agents). This agency problem can be very severe if the agents have far more knowledge about the business than the principals. And this is true in case of public limited companies. The knowledge and information advantage can create a moral hazard situation.
What is moral hazard? Moral hazard occurs when one of the two parties to a transaction behaves in a way that may potentially harm the interest of other party. This could happen when say a seller has more information about a product than a buyer has. For example, if as an insurance salesman I sell you an insurance policy which is of little real use in protecting your interests or I sell you a mortgage knowing that you may not be in position to honour the payments in time. Why will I do so? Well if my employment contract offers me incentives based on how many mortgages I sell I will do so. Moral hazard is very common in many day to day situations for example between professional advisors and their clients in medical, law or accounting and finance settings. Associated with moral hazard is the agency problem.
To deal with moral hazard and agency problems, most professions have their codes of conduct and so it is true for the managers of commercial companies, there are what is called corporate governance codes such as Combined Code in the UK and Sarbanes Oxley Act in the US which try to align the interests of principals and agents. However, the recent experience with the banking industry taking enormous levels of risks, has highlighted that the agency problem and moral hazard when they occur, can have devastating effects on not only the shareholders’ wealth but also on the wider community. Managers of banks giving housing loans to those borrowers who were not creditworthy enough were essentially taking business risks far beyond what prudential bankers would do. How does one explain this behaviour by not one odd small bank but by some of the biggest banks managed by highly qualified people? It can not be that they were unaware of the level of risks they were taking.
What would explain this behaviour is a combination of things. First is that there were incentives built into the remuneration packages of managers to maximise lending to earn higher returns by lending to high risk borrowers. But this alone was not sufficient condition. There are banking regulations and norms on capital requirements that would work as inherent check on the amount of lending that a bank could do. What helped the expansion of lending was the ability of banks to sell existing loans on their balance sheets to other investors and restart one more cycle of lending. This is a financial innovation called securitisation but it is not new and has been around for quite sometime. However, this process is not easy, before those bundles of loans can be sold to other investors, they have to be seen as worthy investments. For this, the prospective investors look at the credit ratings given by the agencies such as Standard and Poor and Moody’s. These ratings effectively are a judgement by these agencies about the soundness of those bundles of loans. In this case it turned out that many such assets with high ratings, called investment grades, later turned out to be much more risky than their ratings indicated. A further boost to the market for such mortgage based securities was provided by another financial innovation. Investors investing in securitised assets knew that there are always chances of some mortgage borrowers defaulting and therefore, the investments comprising such assets would be worthless in such situation. So companies like American International Group (AIG) would offer insurance protection against such assets becoming worth less. This is called Credit Default insurance. Thus the recipe for taking big risks by loan originating banks was complete and most banks participated in the housing finance boom in the US until it burst.
The cycle worked like this: Easy funding for banks from wholesale money markets, incentives for bank managers to lend more without due regard to creditworthiness of the borrowers, transfer the risky loans from balance sheet by selling them as bundles of loans (called asset backed assets or securitised assets) to other investors, those investors bought those because credit rating agencies gave them 'investment worthy grades' based in part on the fact that many of these loans were protected against the risk of defaults assured by insurance companies such as AIG, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The cycle went on till 2006-07 when the borrowers of home loans started defaulting.
Everyone now knows the amount of risk that these banks took and its consequences are still unfolding. However, one big consequence of this has been a breakdown of trust between borrowers and lenders. Growth of finance and banking, just like the rest of the economy depends critically on the trust between the parties. If you reflect on the process we described earlier about expansion of lending it shows that managers of banks were entrusted by their principals, shareholders to manage the banks prudently, but they put their legally allowed remuneration interests ahead of overall risk they were creating. This brings into question the effectiveness of the remuneration committees in approving such compensation packages. Credit rating agencies failed in understanding the complexity and risks of the securitised products they were rating. Insurance companies offering insurance for products that were inherently very risky also failed their principals. The net result is crisis of confidence which has lingered on as lost trust among all stakeholders. This trust was built over decades but was destroyed in few months.
What is the way forward? For a start, individual incentives and behaviour cannot be ignored in analysing the current crisis. Hence remuneration policies and accountability will need to be factored into any new policy measures that the governments may consider. There is a simple but most powerful principle in economics and it is the relation between risk and reward. The remuneration policies in the banking industry simply violated this principle. While rewards were given in the short term, risks borne were of long term nature. The accountability in future must be individualised. Private gains and private losses both should be captured in the managerial compensation deals. The rebuilding of trust is bound to be a slow process and it can not be simply achieved by more and international regulation. The present crisis has shown there were regulatory failures and they need to be understood as well. More regulation, whether of national or supra-national character, will suffer from limitations of regulatory capabilities and competence. Confidence in markets where prudent management is rewarded will be slow to build, but that would seem more appropriate response.
Tuesday 10 March 2009
Social innovations and their impact
The word ‘invention’ usually bring up image of science and technology in our mind. But there are social inventions, purists may disagree and say no they are innovations. Granted! There are social innovations. For example, innovation to manage things differently, concept of money, concept of a limited liability company, concept of family and so on. These social innovations have made human life more orderly and generally enhanced quality of life. It is generally true that necessity is mother of inventions/innovations. Born of necessity, innovations are legitimate children but born of greed and other motivations they could be ‘weapons of mass destruction’.
Financial Innovations:
Necessity: How to overcome difficulty of barter system in trade? Innovation: Imagine I have got 2 litres of milk from my cow and you have got 4 eggs from your stock of hen and the third person has got 10 kgs of wheat from her farm. We all need bit of each of these commodities. How to decide exchange rates? What if I don’t want eggs? Or you don’t like milk? So there was need for some common medium of exchange. After many trials and errors the social innovation: CONCEPT of MONEY arrived. This is a fantastic innovation if you think about it. It introduced a huge social change. It separated the production from the consumption. With money around I could now sell milk today and use part of money to buy eggs today and part to use buy eggs after one week. In other words it helped to conserve my wealth (ability to consume my income) over time. We see separation between production and consumption most clearly in form of pension fund. One saves during the working life to provide one’s pension after retirement. But what do you do with savings meanwhile? Give it to businesses who can invest in real business. But how?
Necessity: How to pool small savings to mobilise large sums to take up large scale business investments?
Innovation: Company form of organisation. There is more to be said about this in the next posting.
Necessary: How do you bring together small savers in touch with business promoters (funds deficit) who need funds?
Innovation: Several innovations made it possible. Intermediary players and rules/legislation made it possible. Collectively this is called financial system including bankers, brokers, stock exchanges and so on.
Necessity: What surety do small savers and depositors have about getting their money back and some return on their investments?
Innovation: Safety/surety depends on where one invests saving. Several innovations here.
A.For those who don’t want to take any risk, deposit the savings with government by buying certificates guaranteed by the government i.e., Treasury Notes or Treasury bills or bonds issued by government. (By the way government securities are considered ‘risk free’ because government has coercive powers to tax people. Takeaway that power, government securities are worse than junk bonds because government’s only real source of revenue is tax!)
B. For those who want little more return and are ready to take little more risk: There are deposit certificates offered by the banks not as safe as those offered by the central bank or the sovereign banks.
C. For those who want little more risk than savers in category B, they could buy the fixed income securities such as bonds issued by companies.
D. For those who want to take more risk than savers in category C, they could buy equity shares of companies.
Necessity: There is a farmer, growing potatoes, harvesting season is three months away. She is not sure of weather or attack of pests or demand for potatoes in three months time. All this means farmer is not sure how much she will realise per quintal of potatoes. Chances are that the price might be $ 20 for quintal or it could be $ 40 per quintal. She wants some certainty about her sale price in three months time. Now suppose there is a potato crisp producer who is in opposite situation as the farmer and wants to ascertain the cost of potatoes that he will have to pay in three months’ time. Both meet and strike a financial innovation.
Innovation: A contract between the farmer and the potato crisp producer that says that the farmer will sell potatoes at $ 25 per quintal to crisp producer in three months’ time is called Forward Contract. So one more innovation which is need based.
Necessity: Suppose the crisp producer thinks that the price of potato may be less than $ 25 in 3 months’ time in that case if he went for Forward Contract there is a risk that he would lose money as the market price will be less than $25 but he's agreed to buy potatoes at $25 per quintal. Is there a better way he could lock in a price of potato at maximum $25 or less.
Innovation: Suppose the farmer agrees to a contract whereby the crisp producer will have a right to buy potatoes at $ 25 per quintal after 3 months but not an obligation to buy. The contract further stipulates that the farmer will be obliged to sell at $25 if the crisp producer decides to buy the potatoes at $25. So this is a right to buy for potato crisp maker and an obligation for the farmer. Obviously the farmer is exposed to risk of losing money if price turns out to be more than $ 25 in three months time therefore, the farmer will expect some compensation for entering into such a contract.
That compensation in above situation is called premium and this contract is called an Option. The crisp producer buys an option from the farmer say for $ 0.5 per quintal. These contracts are also called derivatives. Why? Because the premium (value) of option $ 0.5 will vary with the underlying asset, in other words here the value of option is ‘derived’ from the value of potato. Valuation of options involves complex equations and the gentlemen who worked those equations out got Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences.
Options are not new though. They are as old as trade via sea or other dangerous routes but they appeared in a different form. When the goods moved by sea for example there was always a risk that they may be lost on the way due to piracy or accidents. Traders needed some protection against such losses. Some people who could understand the likelihood of such events occuring offered insurance contracts to the traders and this must have started very early on. But modern marine insurance contracts can be regarded as main predecessors of today's insurance industry. Insurance contract is nothing but an option for the policy holder. A car insurance policy for example provides a policy holder an option to surrender (a right to sell) a junk (after accident) car to the insurance company who are obliged to ‘buy’ the junk for agreed amount stated in the insurance policy.
We’ll stop with description of financial innovations here by just noting that the markets create new financial contracts to meet the varying needs of investors. Investors have different risk tolerance levels and return expectations. Financial markets thus innovate to meet those needs. Before we move on a note of caution: Never forget a simple and elegant rule of economics applicable to all the financial contracts: Higher rewards imply higher risks. There are no free lunches out there including this blog (you thought may be it is free because you are using your office computer and power connection! Well at least the time is yours and the confusion that you build up and the pain of trying to understand by reading what is written here are exclusively yours, that’s your cost, so no free lunch).
The above write up is 1291 words excluding the title. Now if you were reading to memorise it, it would take average 12-13 minutes or so, if your were reading to understand it would have taken about 5-6 minutes and if you have been skimming then perhaps you read it in about 3-4 minutes (how do I know this? well Wikipedia tells me the average reading rates). But trust me the rates for writing 1291 words will vary significantly. Anyway trivia apart, the above was written to make the readers familiar with some of the financial innovations as in my next blog posting I want to touch upon the role of options and derivative contracts and another important social innovation to discuss the financial and banking crisis. So this posting is a preparation for the uninitiated for the next posting which hopefully will be done during coming weekend. I’ll also mention what seems to me to be some of the biggest ever option contracts written after the banking crisis. Till that time ciao!
DISCLAIMER: NOTHING MENTIONED IN THIS POSTING OR ANYWHERE ON THIS BLOG SHOULD BE CONSIDERED PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. THE BLOGGER DOES NOT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DECISIONS BY THE READERS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES IF ANY WHATSOEVER.
Saturday 28 February 2009
Canals, First Computer Programme and Smart Garments!
Perhaps the most common topic of conversation among the British is weather (these days of course it is economic recession and banking crisis). When I moan about not having enough sunlight during long autumn-winter a good friend of mine tells that the sun is always there only if you were high enough beyond the clouds. Though he says so jokingly, it is true that if you fly well above earth you can always see sun! Altitude does make difference. This is exactly what happened few days ago when I was sitting by the wall without window, the whole one side of the 19th floor room at Hilton in Manchester was made of glass. One could see many examples of technology from industrial revolution days to 21st century. Right below the hotel I could see Manchester Metrolink station Deansgate where two-three coach electric trains were passing by quietly.
Just near the station is a canal which reminded me of the importance of canals during the industrial revolution in 18th century England. Canal map of Britain makes a fascinating economic map because it was through canals that much of the coal, clay and other goods were transported from one place to another. They were equivalent of highways and railways in modern economies. Many industrial towns flourished around the canal network. Much of industrialisation in late 18th century would not have been as rapid as it happened in absence of an affordable and efficient transportation system that canals provided. Major impact of the first ever private canal built in 1759 was to reduce the price of coal by 50%. Coal was the main source of energy and the factories in Manchester needed lot of coal. The builder of the first canal Duke of Bridgewater, Francis Egerton made a huge fortune from the canal idea borrowed by him from his trip to France. And as happens in free societies with free markets, there was rush of entrepreneurs to jump in canal business and by the year 1815 thousands of kilometres of canals crisscrossing British isles were constructed and in most cases investors got good returns from their investment in canal shares. But the emergence of railways driven by steam engines made canal business less profitable. Unsurprisingly there was huge rush for investment in railway company shares this time. Soon the railway network spread and competition from rail made canals economically unviable as mode of transport. But none the less it is noteworthy that in form of canals private sector provided fantastic transport infrastructure during the Industrial Revolution in England. But things change.. in 1947 the Labour government nationalised both the canals and the railways. But after 50 odd years another Labour government denationalised railways. Political ideologies change…These days canals are mostly used for leisurely activities and constitute a heritage industry.
In Manchester, UK you can not miss the historical context of the city and its association with textile industry revolution. About 300 yards from the hotel where I had gone to attend an academic conference, is Manchester Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI). I had been to this museum many years ago, but with some time during the lunch break that day I couldn’t stop myself from walking over to peep once again into the history of technology and industrial revolution. By the time I returned to the hotel the history and the future had fused into my present thinking. This is what happened.
There are many departments in the museum which I will not describe here anyone interested can look them up by clicking at the link given below. I chose to go to the textile section. This is particularly interesting for me as I grew up in Ahmedabad, India which was famously known as Manchester of India because it housed more than 100 textile mills once upon a time. Indeed I had actually studied a declining textile industry all those years ago as an MBA student. Anyway, while I was passing through various exhibitions at the museum I came across an exhibition on textile fabrics of future. A Sri Lankan, Dr Tilak Dias of Material Sciences Department of Manchester University, was explaining in a short video programme the research that he and his team have been doing on the smart fabrics which will be made from fibres embedded with various sensors and microprocessors. The purpose had been to make garments that could monitor the changing condition of body during stress and other conditions so that vital changes to heart rate, blood pressure etc. are quickly reported and preventive measures can be taken by health professionals. Already smart garments are being marketed for sports people, heart patients, army personnel and so on. Imagine a smart dress that could control your body temperature. Or dress that could change the colour as the day wears on. One dress for sunny, wintry or wet weather! These are my imaginations but after watching the video on Dr Tilak’s research I think my imagination is not unrealistic. This is how when I went to see history but returned dreaming future textiles! Next time you are changing clothes think that few generations down the line that activity might be quite different! A fusion of history and future!
As I type this on my laptop, again I am reminded sitting in the library of Manchester Business School which is on the 5th floor overlooking several other buildings of Manchester University. Altitude matters! One of those buildings I distinctly remember because it is the building which I passed by everyday knowing that in that building on 21 June 1948 first stored computer programme was run! Few months ago in 2008 the 60th Anniversary of that first programme, appropriately called Baby, was celebrated. I encourage you to visit this site and find for yourself how big and different that computer looked in 1948. Also on this site can be seen the BBC’s TV news clip announcing the event in the year 1949 as following:
"Manchester University, where anyone who urgently wishes to know whether 2 to the power of 127 minus one is a prime number or not, can be given the answer by an electronic brain in 25 minutes instead of by a human brain in six months.”
25 minutes has now probably shrunk to 25 nanoseconds, but it was a giant leap in 1948.
Just near the station is a canal which reminded me of the importance of canals during the industrial revolution in 18th century England. Canal map of Britain makes a fascinating economic map because it was through canals that much of the coal, clay and other goods were transported from one place to another. They were equivalent of highways and railways in modern economies. Many industrial towns flourished around the canal network. Much of industrialisation in late 18th century would not have been as rapid as it happened in absence of an affordable and efficient transportation system that canals provided. Major impact of the first ever private canal built in 1759 was to reduce the price of coal by 50%. Coal was the main source of energy and the factories in Manchester needed lot of coal. The builder of the first canal Duke of Bridgewater, Francis Egerton made a huge fortune from the canal idea borrowed by him from his trip to France. And as happens in free societies with free markets, there was rush of entrepreneurs to jump in canal business and by the year 1815 thousands of kilometres of canals crisscrossing British isles were constructed and in most cases investors got good returns from their investment in canal shares. But the emergence of railways driven by steam engines made canal business less profitable. Unsurprisingly there was huge rush for investment in railway company shares this time. Soon the railway network spread and competition from rail made canals economically unviable as mode of transport. But none the less it is noteworthy that in form of canals private sector provided fantastic transport infrastructure during the Industrial Revolution in England. But things change.. in 1947 the Labour government nationalised both the canals and the railways. But after 50 odd years another Labour government denationalised railways. Political ideologies change…These days canals are mostly used for leisurely activities and constitute a heritage industry.
In Manchester, UK you can not miss the historical context of the city and its association with textile industry revolution. About 300 yards from the hotel where I had gone to attend an academic conference, is Manchester Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI). I had been to this museum many years ago, but with some time during the lunch break that day I couldn’t stop myself from walking over to peep once again into the history of technology and industrial revolution. By the time I returned to the hotel the history and the future had fused into my present thinking. This is what happened.
There are many departments in the museum which I will not describe here anyone interested can look them up by clicking at the link given below. I chose to go to the textile section. This is particularly interesting for me as I grew up in Ahmedabad, India which was famously known as Manchester of India because it housed more than 100 textile mills once upon a time. Indeed I had actually studied a declining textile industry all those years ago as an MBA student. Anyway, while I was passing through various exhibitions at the museum I came across an exhibition on textile fabrics of future. A Sri Lankan, Dr Tilak Dias of Material Sciences Department of Manchester University, was explaining in a short video programme the research that he and his team have been doing on the smart fabrics which will be made from fibres embedded with various sensors and microprocessors. The purpose had been to make garments that could monitor the changing condition of body during stress and other conditions so that vital changes to heart rate, blood pressure etc. are quickly reported and preventive measures can be taken by health professionals. Already smart garments are being marketed for sports people, heart patients, army personnel and so on. Imagine a smart dress that could control your body temperature. Or dress that could change the colour as the day wears on. One dress for sunny, wintry or wet weather! These are my imaginations but after watching the video on Dr Tilak’s research I think my imagination is not unrealistic. This is how when I went to see history but returned dreaming future textiles! Next time you are changing clothes think that few generations down the line that activity might be quite different! A fusion of history and future!
As I type this on my laptop, again I am reminded sitting in the library of Manchester Business School which is on the 5th floor overlooking several other buildings of Manchester University. Altitude matters! One of those buildings I distinctly remember because it is the building which I passed by everyday knowing that in that building on 21 June 1948 first stored computer programme was run! Few months ago in 2008 the 60th Anniversary of that first programme, appropriately called Baby, was celebrated. I encourage you to visit this site and find for yourself how big and different that computer looked in 1948. Also on this site can be seen the BBC’s TV news clip announcing the event in the year 1949 as following:
"Manchester University, where anyone who urgently wishes to know whether 2 to the power of 127 minus one is a prime number or not, can be given the answer by an electronic brain in 25 minutes instead of by a human brain in six months.”
25 minutes has now probably shrunk to 25 nanoseconds, but it was a giant leap in 1948.
Some relevant links:
Manchester Museum of Science and Industry link
More about Dr. Tilak Dias and his innovations in textile
If you want to see actual news item in black and white TV of 1949 click here.
Find out about Baby, the first ever stored programme that was run go to multimedia and take an interactive tour of the Baby
Document about first ever stored programme run in 1948
Sunday 22 February 2009
Economic and eco-friendly kissing zones
Economics is science of understanding unintended consequences of decisions. Most of the time we look out for intended consequences of economic choices and fail to see unintended consequences. That’s why most of us don’t understand economics fully. It has been called ‘dismal science’ but that is because we ignore the above principle. Apply this principle to many decisions of several communist governments around the world and you get many horrible unintended economic consequences. The path to hell can be paved with noble intentions. Apply unitended consequences principle to managerial decisions of many banks in the past ten years and you have unintended consequence of global banking crisis arising from intended focus on the short term profitability. Apply this to decision to marry, hmm.. few intended consequences but unitended.. keep counting.
Gary S Becker, Chicago economist, thinks social and family issues can be understood and explained through econmic rational choice approach. He has done research and published a lot on family, divorce, investment in children and so on including A Treatise on the Family published in 1981. Prof. Becker's interests in issues 'non-economic'-divorce, marriage, altruism- were not necessarily appreciated by mainstream economists, but hey, he ended up getting The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 1992! So one could discuss a social-cultural sounding issue from an economic point of view. So let's get going and see the the unintended consequences of 'no kissing zone'.
Recently in a north western town of Warrington in England ‘No Kissing’ signs were put up near drop off zones outside the railway station to suggest to people not to stop car for long to ‘kiss long goodbyes’. The station authorities do not want to stop people from kissing but wants people to move to ‘Kissing Zone’ if they have to, for which also signs are put up. The reason is to help smooth flow of cars and taxis streaming in to drop off or pick up people. A potential solution to ease traffic near the station but it took 11 years of convincing and arguing by the Warrington Chamber of Commerce to implement. The consequences of this decision to put two little sign boards on the walls of station include at least one intended and three unintended. This is a stone which kills four birds! An intended one and the other three unintended ones! Let’s start the journey with economic logic.
Time saved is money saved, congestion means more pollution. The decision for no kissing zone was based on the argument that people spending time in cars kissing each other long goodbyes was causing congestion and wasting people’s time in the car queues. These queues can be really long in developed countries like the UK. Thus reduced congestion would save time. This is going to be intended consequence if people follow the rule. Now Warrington is not the first in this case. As reported they borrowed the idea from Deerfield, in Illinois, USA. A hospital in Norway did the same thing in 2003 when they went for four lanes near reception area and the fourth lane, which was farthest from the reception gates was designated as see you later-goodbye ‘kissing’ lane for the staff being dropped off! So the first intended bird killed. Time saved, money saved, assuming all other things are equal as they say in economics.
Second bird, unintended, reduced congestion means less pollution. This makes ‘no kissing zones’ eco-friendly. I know what some of you are thinking. People kissing in the cars in ‘kissing zones’ are unlikely to switch off their car engines so pollution will not be reduced. But at least their cars will not be obstructing other cars in the queue hence I suspect there will be net reduction in pollution.
Third bird, unintended or not, I can’t say. But it is publicity advantage for Virgin group. Advertisers and brand builders know the importance of being in the news for right reasons or wrong! Controversy or praise, whatever attracts consumer attention goes (almost in most cases). Imagine how many TV programmes will not attract attention of people if they did not court controversies! Let’s get back to third bird.
The colour red usually is associated with warmth or danger depending what you fancy reading this now. If you combine that with images of advertisers of Valentine events red also means much more than warmth. Those who are aware of Virgin brand, the colour red is quite prominent part of the brand. I’ve travelled several times on Virgin Trains in England, every thing is red about it. The train colour, the dresses of stewards and stewardesses, the train manager (it is a new name for old Train Conductor or Guard) wears red jacket and/or red tie and indeed the colour paper napkins and the paper cups that you buy coffee in. Red is there. In England train companies are private and manage stations also. All train stations managed by Virgin Trains are painted, you guessed it right…, predominantly red. Warrington Bank Quay station where ‘no kissing’ and ‘kissing’ zone signs have been kept happens to be managed by Virgin. Now look back at 'no kissing' sign above: red is un-missable.
In addition publishers of romantic novels Mills and Boon have launched a poster campaign using Virgin’s name. One can understand the Mills and Boon’s anguish at discouraging ‘no kissing zone’ sign from their perspective, but like most of us, they have failed to notice the other sign, the ‘kissing zone’ side of the coin. Had they seen this unintended opportunity, they would perhaps be launching supporting campaign rather than opposing the decision. But whatever the campaign, Virgin gets publicity through Mills and Boon!
Recently in a north western town of Warrington in England ‘No Kissing’ signs were put up near drop off zones outside the railway station to suggest to people not to stop car for long to ‘kiss long goodbyes’. The station authorities do not want to stop people from kissing but wants people to move to ‘Kissing Zone’ if they have to, for which also signs are put up. The reason is to help smooth flow of cars and taxis streaming in to drop off or pick up people. A potential solution to ease traffic near the station but it took 11 years of convincing and arguing by the Warrington Chamber of Commerce to implement. The consequences of this decision to put two little sign boards on the walls of station include at least one intended and three unintended. This is a stone which kills four birds! An intended one and the other three unintended ones! Let’s start the journey with economic logic.
Time saved is money saved, congestion means more pollution. The decision for no kissing zone was based on the argument that people spending time in cars kissing each other long goodbyes was causing congestion and wasting people’s time in the car queues. These queues can be really long in developed countries like the UK. Thus reduced congestion would save time. This is going to be intended consequence if people follow the rule. Now Warrington is not the first in this case. As reported they borrowed the idea from Deerfield, in Illinois, USA. A hospital in Norway did the same thing in 2003 when they went for four lanes near reception area and the fourth lane, which was farthest from the reception gates was designated as see you later-goodbye ‘kissing’ lane for the staff being dropped off! So the first intended bird killed. Time saved, money saved, assuming all other things are equal as they say in economics.
Second bird, unintended, reduced congestion means less pollution. This makes ‘no kissing zones’ eco-friendly. I know what some of you are thinking. People kissing in the cars in ‘kissing zones’ are unlikely to switch off their car engines so pollution will not be reduced. But at least their cars will not be obstructing other cars in the queue hence I suspect there will be net reduction in pollution.
Third bird, unintended or not, I can’t say. But it is publicity advantage for Virgin group. Advertisers and brand builders know the importance of being in the news for right reasons or wrong! Controversy or praise, whatever attracts consumer attention goes (almost in most cases). Imagine how many TV programmes will not attract attention of people if they did not court controversies! Let’s get back to third bird.
The colour red usually is associated with warmth or danger depending what you fancy reading this now. If you combine that with images of advertisers of Valentine events red also means much more than warmth. Those who are aware of Virgin brand, the colour red is quite prominent part of the brand. I’ve travelled several times on Virgin Trains in England, every thing is red about it. The train colour, the dresses of stewards and stewardesses, the train manager (it is a new name for old Train Conductor or Guard) wears red jacket and/or red tie and indeed the colour paper napkins and the paper cups that you buy coffee in. Red is there. In England train companies are private and manage stations also. All train stations managed by Virgin Trains are painted, you guessed it right…, predominantly red. Warrington Bank Quay station where ‘no kissing’ and ‘kissing’ zone signs have been kept happens to be managed by Virgin. Now look back at 'no kissing' sign above: red is un-missable.
In addition publishers of romantic novels Mills and Boon have launched a poster campaign using Virgin’s name. One can understand the Mills and Boon’s anguish at discouraging ‘no kissing zone’ sign from their perspective, but like most of us, they have failed to notice the other sign, the ‘kissing zone’ side of the coin. Had they seen this unintended opportunity, they would perhaps be launching supporting campaign rather than opposing the decision. But whatever the campaign, Virgin gets publicity through Mills and Boon!
The fourth bird, the unintended consequence number three, is right here! I am writing about it to explain economics and you are reading about this. Millions have read and heard about the decision already through several media.
Let me conclude by saying that on one of the BBC’s blogs a caption competition was launched about the image of no kissing zone sign. It received more than 400 responses. Here are few funny ones but with serious message too:
Station pays lip service to public freedom by some one called SundayParkGeorge.
Walls may have ears, but lips are right out. By someone called OGNash.
WARNING: Kissing causes large lumps to appear all over your head. Wear a HAT. By someone called Pedro_fusball
Fun apart, the last one is good caution too as one woman in Italy had to be taken to hospital with swollen lips after a kiss by her husband because she was allergic to some chemicals used in the medicine her husband had taken half an hour before they had their expression of love for each other! Human body can be mega sensitive to things such as even peanut butter smell!
Friday 13 February 2009
Three reasons to learn your language
If Hindi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Russian, German, Arabic, English indeed whatever is your mother tongue, mother language or home language, please read on. I put before you three reasons for speaking and learning your own language that you should consider before forming any quick judgement based on the title only. Through out the following I’ll be using condition of Sindhi language in India as an illustration but I am sure in most places you could replace that with name of your language and the arguments will still make sense. But before I do that I call for your patience to read about some events that took place 57 years ago in what was at that time East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
February 21st is a special day, not because it is exactly one week after Valentine day, but because it is celebrated as International Mother Language Day (IMLD)! If you knew great! if not, you know it now. Why would United Nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation (UNESCO) deem it appropriate at turn of the second millennium AD to declare a day to celebrate importance and recognition of mother language? Bit of search and lot of curiosity led me to finding a gripping story of struggle and sacrifice to sustain one’s mother tongue. The events leading to IMLD were intimately related to a major unfortunate event of 20th century, namely partition of India.
Division of India was a hurriedly carried out exercise. The demarcation of lines between India and the new nation of Pakistan was such that Pakistan was born on two sides, eastern and western, of India! Pakistan on east of India was East Pakistan carved out of Bengal and on north western side it comprised large parts Punjab, North West Frontier and so on. While the Pakistani people in East Pakistan shared the religion, Islam, with majority of Pakistanis on western side, they did not share the same language. East Pakistani (now Bangladeshis) have had a rich tradition of literature and a great language just as the people speaking Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Pushto and other languages in Pakistan on its western side have had. Soon after the independence Pakistan government decided to have Urdu as the only official language for Pakistan. Bengali speaking people in East Pakistan started resistance to this decision and launched agitations. On 21st February 1952 the Bengali Language Movement in East Pakistan led to unrest in Dhaka and in police firing many students lost their life fighting for recognition of Bengali as one of the official languages of Pakistan. Subsequently in 1956 Bengali was recognised as one of the official languages in Pakistan. A beautiful monument, Shaheed Minar, commemorating the student sacrifices for their mother tongue was built very soon and is still located on the campus of Dhaka university. Till today 21st February is celebrated as Bengali Language Movement day in Bangladesh and is a public holiday in Bangladesh. In 1999 the United Nations, based on proposals from Bangladesh and some other language lovers declared 21st February as International Mother Language Day. So hopefully after reading this story you are ready to read further few other reasons that I put before you to consider why one must learn and speak one’s mother language.
First reason: Is functional utility only purpose of language promotion?
I frequently get asked this question while talking to young Sindhis in urban India or abroad. What is the use of learning Sindhi language? It is of no use in business and profession, it does not help in education as English dominates school and higher education therefore, there is no need to learn Sindhi. Let’s deal with this functional (utilitarian) argument for not learning which also leads to my first reason for learning Sindhi. Clearly it is possible that your mother language may not be one of the main international languages such as English, French, Spanish and other internationally dominant in the world of commerce and professions and neither might it be medium of instruction at higher education level. If it is so, what is the point in learning it. I will call this ‘functional' utility argument. Many world languages be it several regional languages in India, China, wherever, face this challenge, although some more severally such as Sindhi in India than others.
But now let’s extend this functional utility argument to other walks of life. Let’s take architecture. What is the functional utility of having great architecture in the present times? Imagine someone could argue that Taj Mahal in Agra or Egyptian Pyramids or Stonehenge in Scotland or Eiffel Tower in Paris have no functional utility and hence suggest that they be demolished to construct houses or offices on those spots. Most sane people will disagree with such an argument and put forward the case for preserving ancient architecture as these represent some of the finest achievements of human endeavours (and also pains in many cases, which is not justifiable I must say). That’s why so many of these places are declared as World Heritage sites. There are many other arts and crafts which may not have so called ‘functional’ value in our day to day living but we would still support the idea of preserving them. Actually many of such arts might have served some purpose at some place at some time.
So what’s different when we consider a language? Is it because it is intangible compared to a physical structure? As a matter of fact evolution of a full fledged language is far more complex, intelligent process than construction of a monument is. The refinement and development in linguistic feature such as vocabulary, cultural nuances of language use, grammar spans many generations. Yes language is intangible and but is not ‘invisible’ one can read, write, hear and speak it which involves three senses rather than just eyes. A particular language may not possess the same functional utility in time and space but its importance is high if not more than say that of ancient architecture heritage sites as preserver of the human accomplishments. Language enabled transmission and storage of knowledge that facilitated the growth of civilisations.
Actually if functional argument were extended to extreme, one could argue for benefits of having only language world wide. But this is a dangerous idea. This is why. Human progress requires diversity in thinking. Different people, different societies, different cultures when co-exist in peaceful manner produce far more and solve more problems than uniform cultures, homogenous views would do. There are plenty of examples in human history to show what such one track thinking can do in any walk of life be it politics, economics, religion, science or culture. Different languages represent different cultures, different dialogues, different interpretations and different systems of knowledge. Hence languages are precious for the progress of human civilisation. I am sure many languages would meet this criterion and therefore, using narrow ‘functional’ view on language with reference to career and commercial relevance does not seem a rational choice for intelligent people. That’s my first reason why one should learn one’s language even though it may not have in current socio-economic conditions so called ‘functional’ value.
Second reason: Language enriches human living
My second reason for learning one’s language is to get a flavour of its richness. Languages are not just medium of communication but they embody human experience and create human experience. The words have impact on how we feel as anyone who has been verbal abused or verbally praised would know. This short article is not suitable for describing its richness but having read some of the great poems and, knowing the versatile and the rich repertoire of words in Sindhi language I can only say its richness can be tasted only when we speak or read it.
I am sure most languages have same level of richness and there are quite a few languages in the world. Let me try to tickle your imagination with few facts. There are nearly 7000 languages in the world with known speakers of which 428 are spoken in India, 18 in the UK and 72 in Pakistan. 516 of the total known languages are endangered. Sindhi is spoken by more than 50 million people[1] which makes it 22nd ranked most popular language in the world according to estimates by Ethnologue[2]. You may like to check where your language stands before it becomes endangered!
According to Nancy Dorian there are three symptoms of death of language: fewer speakers, fewer domains of use, and structural simplification.[3] For example, while there are many speakers of Sindhi, its domains of usage have shrunk seriously because of non-Sindhi medium of education and migration of (mostly Hindu) Sindhis from Sindh and getting dispersed all over India and rest of the globe. An important domain of the use of language is home and the other being social-cultural domain. Sindhi like many other languages is also facing the challenge of so called of modernity where western culture and western languages, particularly that posed by English in India. It does not befit the intelligence of Sindhis to deprive themselves and their future generations of the privilege of knowing one more language. It is also not responsible of them to run the risk of Sindhi becoming gradually an endangered language. This also applies to other linguistic communities in the world.
Third reason: Mother language helps your development too!
My third reason for learning one’s language is based on the argument the evidence that learning one’s mother tongue along with other languages has several advantages. Here are some listed by Jim Cummins of University of Toronto:[4]
Bilingualism has positive effects on children's linguistic and educational development: More than 150 research studies conducted during the past 35 years strongly support what Goethe, the German philosopher, once said: The person who knows only one language does not truly know that language. The research suggests that bilingual children may also develop more flexibility in their thinking as a result of processing information through two different languages.
The level of development of children's mother tongue is a strong predictor of their second language development: When parents and other caregivers (e.g. grandparents) are able to spend time with their children and tell stories or discuss issues with them in a way that develops their mother tongue vocabulary and concepts, children come to school well-prepared to learn the school language and succeed educationally.
Children's cultural and linguistic experience in the home is the foundation of their future learning and we must build on that foundation rather than undermine it. (Source: Cummins[5])
So the third argument is that knowing one’s language along with other languages is not going to be a disadvantage for you or your children. On the contrary it seems ‘profitable’, if I may use the term bit lightly knowing very well the enterprising spirit of Sindhis who are known to weigh the costs and benefits or everything!
Let’s conclude now. The aim of this write up has been to reason with the readers that it is worth and necessary to speak and learn one’s mother tongue illustrating with Sindhi language as I happen to be Sindhi and know that this language is struggling to survive in India as written and read language. It is argued that functional utility of a language should not be only criterion in accepting or rejecting one’s mother language. There is clearly a very rich body of literature, rich Sindhi culture embedded in Sindhi language which is part of finest traditions and human achievements for which, those who know the language, have responsibility to pass on to future generations. And finally it's argued that there is scientific evidence that bilingualism helps children do well in education also. I hope you are persuaded enough to make a start, even if it is small start tomorrow morning on breakfast table having cereal with milk. Here is the richness for you. There is a word ‘Shree’ Sindhi/Hindi/Sanskrit (after all they are sister languages!). The word Shree means good and also means goddess of prosperity and agriculture. Latin Ceres comes from ‘Shree’[6] and Ceres in Latin means goddess of agriculture and food which is the root of word cornflakes Cereal that you enjoy in the morning. Although Shree looks very plausible derivation of could not verify this from Oxford Dictionary of Etymology. By the way UNESCO had declared 2008 as year of International Languages!
Notes:
[1]According Encarta, reported on Wikipedia, there were 54.3 million speakers of Sindhi in 2006. But I am not really sure about this number. It appears to be very large to me. Ethnologue website suggest that number of Sindhi speakers is 21.3 million. DK
[2] http://www.ethnologue.com/ is part of an international organisation that studies trends in languages.
[3] Dorian, Nancy C. 1980. Language shift in community and individual: The phenomenon of the laggard semi-speaker. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 25.85-94.
[4] For full article refer to http://www.iteachilearn.com/cummins/mother.htm
[5] From above quotation, accessed on 14th October 2008.
[6] Source: Bherumal M. Advani (1944, 2008) Qadeem Sindh, National Council for Promotion of Sindhi Language, New Delhi.
February 21st is a special day, not because it is exactly one week after Valentine day, but because it is celebrated as International Mother Language Day (IMLD)! If you knew great! if not, you know it now. Why would United Nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation (UNESCO) deem it appropriate at turn of the second millennium AD to declare a day to celebrate importance and recognition of mother language? Bit of search and lot of curiosity led me to finding a gripping story of struggle and sacrifice to sustain one’s mother tongue. The events leading to IMLD were intimately related to a major unfortunate event of 20th century, namely partition of India.
Division of India was a hurriedly carried out exercise. The demarcation of lines between India and the new nation of Pakistan was such that Pakistan was born on two sides, eastern and western, of India! Pakistan on east of India was East Pakistan carved out of Bengal and on north western side it comprised large parts Punjab, North West Frontier and so on. While the Pakistani people in East Pakistan shared the religion, Islam, with majority of Pakistanis on western side, they did not share the same language. East Pakistani (now Bangladeshis) have had a rich tradition of literature and a great language just as the people speaking Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Pushto and other languages in Pakistan on its western side have had. Soon after the independence Pakistan government decided to have Urdu as the only official language for Pakistan. Bengali speaking people in East Pakistan started resistance to this decision and launched agitations. On 21st February 1952 the Bengali Language Movement in East Pakistan led to unrest in Dhaka and in police firing many students lost their life fighting for recognition of Bengali as one of the official languages of Pakistan. Subsequently in 1956 Bengali was recognised as one of the official languages in Pakistan. A beautiful monument, Shaheed Minar, commemorating the student sacrifices for their mother tongue was built very soon and is still located on the campus of Dhaka university. Till today 21st February is celebrated as Bengali Language Movement day in Bangladesh and is a public holiday in Bangladesh. In 1999 the United Nations, based on proposals from Bangladesh and some other language lovers declared 21st February as International Mother Language Day. So hopefully after reading this story you are ready to read further few other reasons that I put before you to consider why one must learn and speak one’s mother language.
First reason: Is functional utility only purpose of language promotion?
I frequently get asked this question while talking to young Sindhis in urban India or abroad. What is the use of learning Sindhi language? It is of no use in business and profession, it does not help in education as English dominates school and higher education therefore, there is no need to learn Sindhi. Let’s deal with this functional (utilitarian) argument for not learning which also leads to my first reason for learning Sindhi. Clearly it is possible that your mother language may not be one of the main international languages such as English, French, Spanish and other internationally dominant in the world of commerce and professions and neither might it be medium of instruction at higher education level. If it is so, what is the point in learning it. I will call this ‘functional' utility argument. Many world languages be it several regional languages in India, China, wherever, face this challenge, although some more severally such as Sindhi in India than others.
But now let’s extend this functional utility argument to other walks of life. Let’s take architecture. What is the functional utility of having great architecture in the present times? Imagine someone could argue that Taj Mahal in Agra or Egyptian Pyramids or Stonehenge in Scotland or Eiffel Tower in Paris have no functional utility and hence suggest that they be demolished to construct houses or offices on those spots. Most sane people will disagree with such an argument and put forward the case for preserving ancient architecture as these represent some of the finest achievements of human endeavours (and also pains in many cases, which is not justifiable I must say). That’s why so many of these places are declared as World Heritage sites. There are many other arts and crafts which may not have so called ‘functional’ value in our day to day living but we would still support the idea of preserving them. Actually many of such arts might have served some purpose at some place at some time.
So what’s different when we consider a language? Is it because it is intangible compared to a physical structure? As a matter of fact evolution of a full fledged language is far more complex, intelligent process than construction of a monument is. The refinement and development in linguistic feature such as vocabulary, cultural nuances of language use, grammar spans many generations. Yes language is intangible and but is not ‘invisible’ one can read, write, hear and speak it which involves three senses rather than just eyes. A particular language may not possess the same functional utility in time and space but its importance is high if not more than say that of ancient architecture heritage sites as preserver of the human accomplishments. Language enabled transmission and storage of knowledge that facilitated the growth of civilisations.
Actually if functional argument were extended to extreme, one could argue for benefits of having only language world wide. But this is a dangerous idea. This is why. Human progress requires diversity in thinking. Different people, different societies, different cultures when co-exist in peaceful manner produce far more and solve more problems than uniform cultures, homogenous views would do. There are plenty of examples in human history to show what such one track thinking can do in any walk of life be it politics, economics, religion, science or culture. Different languages represent different cultures, different dialogues, different interpretations and different systems of knowledge. Hence languages are precious for the progress of human civilisation. I am sure many languages would meet this criterion and therefore, using narrow ‘functional’ view on language with reference to career and commercial relevance does not seem a rational choice for intelligent people. That’s my first reason why one should learn one’s language even though it may not have in current socio-economic conditions so called ‘functional’ value.
Second reason: Language enriches human living
My second reason for learning one’s language is to get a flavour of its richness. Languages are not just medium of communication but they embody human experience and create human experience. The words have impact on how we feel as anyone who has been verbal abused or verbally praised would know. This short article is not suitable for describing its richness but having read some of the great poems and, knowing the versatile and the rich repertoire of words in Sindhi language I can only say its richness can be tasted only when we speak or read it.
I am sure most languages have same level of richness and there are quite a few languages in the world. Let me try to tickle your imagination with few facts. There are nearly 7000 languages in the world with known speakers of which 428 are spoken in India, 18 in the UK and 72 in Pakistan. 516 of the total known languages are endangered. Sindhi is spoken by more than 50 million people[1] which makes it 22nd ranked most popular language in the world according to estimates by Ethnologue[2]. You may like to check where your language stands before it becomes endangered!
According to Nancy Dorian there are three symptoms of death of language: fewer speakers, fewer domains of use, and structural simplification.[3] For example, while there are many speakers of Sindhi, its domains of usage have shrunk seriously because of non-Sindhi medium of education and migration of (mostly Hindu) Sindhis from Sindh and getting dispersed all over India and rest of the globe. An important domain of the use of language is home and the other being social-cultural domain. Sindhi like many other languages is also facing the challenge of so called of modernity where western culture and western languages, particularly that posed by English in India. It does not befit the intelligence of Sindhis to deprive themselves and their future generations of the privilege of knowing one more language. It is also not responsible of them to run the risk of Sindhi becoming gradually an endangered language. This also applies to other linguistic communities in the world.
Third reason: Mother language helps your development too!
My third reason for learning one’s language is based on the argument the evidence that learning one’s mother tongue along with other languages has several advantages. Here are some listed by Jim Cummins of University of Toronto:[4]
Bilingualism has positive effects on children's linguistic and educational development: More than 150 research studies conducted during the past 35 years strongly support what Goethe, the German philosopher, once said: The person who knows only one language does not truly know that language. The research suggests that bilingual children may also develop more flexibility in their thinking as a result of processing information through two different languages.
The level of development of children's mother tongue is a strong predictor of their second language development: When parents and other caregivers (e.g. grandparents) are able to spend time with their children and tell stories or discuss issues with them in a way that develops their mother tongue vocabulary and concepts, children come to school well-prepared to learn the school language and succeed educationally.
Children's cultural and linguistic experience in the home is the foundation of their future learning and we must build on that foundation rather than undermine it. (Source: Cummins[5])
So the third argument is that knowing one’s language along with other languages is not going to be a disadvantage for you or your children. On the contrary it seems ‘profitable’, if I may use the term bit lightly knowing very well the enterprising spirit of Sindhis who are known to weigh the costs and benefits or everything!
Let’s conclude now. The aim of this write up has been to reason with the readers that it is worth and necessary to speak and learn one’s mother tongue illustrating with Sindhi language as I happen to be Sindhi and know that this language is struggling to survive in India as written and read language. It is argued that functional utility of a language should not be only criterion in accepting or rejecting one’s mother language. There is clearly a very rich body of literature, rich Sindhi culture embedded in Sindhi language which is part of finest traditions and human achievements for which, those who know the language, have responsibility to pass on to future generations. And finally it's argued that there is scientific evidence that bilingualism helps children do well in education also. I hope you are persuaded enough to make a start, even if it is small start tomorrow morning on breakfast table having cereal with milk. Here is the richness for you. There is a word ‘Shree’ Sindhi/Hindi/Sanskrit (after all they are sister languages!). The word Shree means good and also means goddess of prosperity and agriculture. Latin Ceres comes from ‘Shree’[6] and Ceres in Latin means goddess of agriculture and food which is the root of word cornflakes Cereal that you enjoy in the morning. Although Shree looks very plausible derivation of could not verify this from Oxford Dictionary of Etymology. By the way UNESCO had declared 2008 as year of International Languages!
Notes:
[1]According Encarta, reported on Wikipedia, there were 54.3 million speakers of Sindhi in 2006. But I am not really sure about this number. It appears to be very large to me. Ethnologue website suggest that number of Sindhi speakers is 21.3 million. DK
[2] http://www.ethnologue.com/ is part of an international organisation that studies trends in languages.
[3] Dorian, Nancy C. 1980. Language shift in community and individual: The phenomenon of the laggard semi-speaker. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 25.85-94.
[4] For full article refer to http://www.iteachilearn.com/cummins/mother.htm
[5] From above quotation, accessed on 14th October 2008.
[6] Source: Bherumal M. Advani (1944, 2008) Qadeem Sindh, National Council for Promotion of Sindhi Language, New Delhi.
Friday 6 February 2009
Why do I like the word algebra?
Some hate it, some love it and some just do it because they have to as part of studies or jobs. I am talking about mathematics and in particular algebra. I am not great at algebra but I like the word algebra a lot. It is a mathematical term as we all know but actually if you dig deeper into it you find it brings together two cultures from Asia and one from Europe. The period between 7-8 century AD to about 16th century AD is sometimes called period of Islamic scientific revolution as many Islamic scholars in middle east were discovering new things in science and technology during this period. One of these scholars was Muhammad Ibn al-Khwarizmi who was Persian scholar working on mathematics, astronomy and geography. He lived during 780 to 850 AD and wrote books on geography, astronomy and various branches of maths.
He was perhaps the first one to put forward idea of systematic procedures to solve the mathematical problems such as quadratic equations. He wrote a book called Al-Kitāb al-mukhtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-jabr wa-l-muqābala (The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing”). Now those who understand Urdu or Hindi would recognize the words in the title. Kitab = book, mukhtasar = short , hisab = calculation, jabr = force (multiplication) and muqabala = balance. This is where the word al-gebra comes from. Its journey to present day English was routed through Latin like for most of Arabic or Sanskrit origin words found in English. The above book was translated in 1145 AD in Latin as Liber algebrae et almucabala. In this title notice the al-jabr changing to algebrae and from there to algebra seems a short journey of dropping ‘e’ from the Latin term algebrae. Actually it was through translation of this book that notions of zero and decimal places were introduced to Europeans who at that time were using Roman numerals I, V, X,L, D,C M,V. Imagine solving 369 x 24 using Roman number (CCCLXIX x XXIV)! Al-Khwarizmi himself got the concept of zero from his studies of Indian mathematics. When he wrote his books on mathematics and astronomy great deal of scientific development was going in India also. One of his books Kitāb al-Jamʿ wa-l-tafrīq bi-ḥisāb al-Hind (The Book of Addition and Subtraction According to the Hindu Calculation) shows his awareness and understanding of the Indian mathematical knowledge which was quite advanced by 7th century AD. During those years there was extensive exchange of knowledge and scientific literature between scholars from India, China and Middle-east. Much of the knowledge about advancements in sciences in India reached European scholars through Arabic translations and interpretations by the Arab scholars.
Al-Khwarizmi’s name has provided an English word changing first into Algoritimi in Latin before getting the shape as we now know algorithm. Yes, that algorithm which today means systematic breaking down of a problem or a situation in step wise manner and then trying to solve it. A technique used by most of us from high school children for solving mathematical problems to computer programmers to military strategist to management experts. Most visible form of algorithm is flow chart or pathway analysis. All courtesy 8th century great scientist Al-Khwarizmi whose approach to problem diagnosis and solution remains pervasive in different forms of algorithm.
Let me get back to algebra! Now let’s go eastward for interpretation of al-jabr. The term jabra is used till today in Urdu and Hindi as meaning force as root in different words. Jabardasti (or zabardasti) meaning forcefully, majboor (helpless or slave i.e, without any force or power and also there at least two Hindi movies by the name majboor), in Gujarati I have heard jabro (one who is powerful or someone like bully) and of course there is a saying in Hindi aadat se majboor (helpless due to habit or habits die hard!).
So there we have fascinating word ‘algebra’, do you still hate it?
He was perhaps the first one to put forward idea of systematic procedures to solve the mathematical problems such as quadratic equations. He wrote a book called Al-Kitāb al-mukhtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-jabr wa-l-muqābala (The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing”). Now those who understand Urdu or Hindi would recognize the words in the title. Kitab = book, mukhtasar = short , hisab = calculation, jabr = force (multiplication) and muqabala = balance. This is where the word al-gebra comes from. Its journey to present day English was routed through Latin like for most of Arabic or Sanskrit origin words found in English. The above book was translated in 1145 AD in Latin as Liber algebrae et almucabala. In this title notice the al-jabr changing to algebrae and from there to algebra seems a short journey of dropping ‘e’ from the Latin term algebrae. Actually it was through translation of this book that notions of zero and decimal places were introduced to Europeans who at that time were using Roman numerals I, V, X,L, D,C M,V. Imagine solving 369 x 24 using Roman number (CCCLXIX x XXIV)! Al-Khwarizmi himself got the concept of zero from his studies of Indian mathematics. When he wrote his books on mathematics and astronomy great deal of scientific development was going in India also. One of his books Kitāb al-Jamʿ wa-l-tafrīq bi-ḥisāb al-Hind (The Book of Addition and Subtraction According to the Hindu Calculation) shows his awareness and understanding of the Indian mathematical knowledge which was quite advanced by 7th century AD. During those years there was extensive exchange of knowledge and scientific literature between scholars from India, China and Middle-east. Much of the knowledge about advancements in sciences in India reached European scholars through Arabic translations and interpretations by the Arab scholars.
Al-Khwarizmi’s name has provided an English word changing first into Algoritimi in Latin before getting the shape as we now know algorithm. Yes, that algorithm which today means systematic breaking down of a problem or a situation in step wise manner and then trying to solve it. A technique used by most of us from high school children for solving mathematical problems to computer programmers to military strategist to management experts. Most visible form of algorithm is flow chart or pathway analysis. All courtesy 8th century great scientist Al-Khwarizmi whose approach to problem diagnosis and solution remains pervasive in different forms of algorithm.
Let me get back to algebra! Now let’s go eastward for interpretation of al-jabr. The term jabra is used till today in Urdu and Hindi as meaning force as root in different words. Jabardasti (or zabardasti) meaning forcefully, majboor (helpless or slave i.e, without any force or power and also there at least two Hindi movies by the name majboor), in Gujarati I have heard jabro (one who is powerful or someone like bully) and of course there is a saying in Hindi aadat se majboor (helpless due to habit or habits die hard!).
So there we have fascinating word ‘algebra’, do you still hate it?
Words and life- Juggernaut 2
If curious among you have already read etymology (etymology means study of origin of words) of juggernaut, excellent! If not here we go.
As already said in earlier posting, the word juggernaut is derived from Jagannath. Every year in month of Ashad Indian lunar month (sometime in June-July months) a huge religious procession is taken out with statues of Lord Krishna, his brother Balaram and their sister Subhadra placed in the huge chariots nearly 14 meters tall. The journey from Jagannath temple through the city of Puri moves very slowly as hundreds of thousands of devotees of Lord Jagannath congregate to worship and touch the chariots. In some earlier dictionaries on mythologies it was said that worshippers threw themselves in front of chariots to be sacrificed and thereby creating the image of unstoppable crushing. But I think it was and is an exaggeration perhaps based on the accidents and loss of life that may occur when so many people get together (if you have forgotten remember in September 2008 more than 150 people died in a stampede at a temple in Jodhpur, Rajasthan). One of the violent computer games is called juggernaut!
As already said in earlier posting, the word juggernaut is derived from Jagannath. Every year in month of Ashad Indian lunar month (sometime in June-July months) a huge religious procession is taken out with statues of Lord Krishna, his brother Balaram and their sister Subhadra placed in the huge chariots nearly 14 meters tall. The journey from Jagannath temple through the city of Puri moves very slowly as hundreds of thousands of devotees of Lord Jagannath congregate to worship and touch the chariots. In some earlier dictionaries on mythologies it was said that worshippers threw themselves in front of chariots to be sacrificed and thereby creating the image of unstoppable crushing. But I think it was and is an exaggeration perhaps based on the accidents and loss of life that may occur when so many people get together (if you have forgotten remember in September 2008 more than 150 people died in a stampede at a temple in Jodhpur, Rajasthan). One of the violent computer games is called juggernaut!
Words and life- Juggernaut 1
I have always liked to explore words and their meanings. When I was in standard 7 or 8 I bought my first dictionary, it was English to Sindhi. Yes, I did my school education in Sindhi medium which has meant that I can read and write in Arabic script too. Perhaps you may know that Sindhi language has 52 alphabets. Sindhi Language is quite close to Sanskrit and Ancient Sanskrit. I will talk about Sindhi language some other time but now let me turn back to words.
Juggernaut is a word in English which means a powerful force that is unstoppable. It could be said that in business a particular company, say Microsoft in software or Google in internet business are like juggernauts. But do you know what this English word's orgin is? Well it is derived from the name of Lord Krishna, yes, one of the many names of Lord Krishna is Jagannath. Lord Jagannath of Puri city in eastern state of Orissa is famous among Hindus and Jagannath Yatra (a religious procession) is an spectacular occassion and juggernaut is related to this procession. In the next posting more will be explained about how the word Jagannath term travelled from eastern India to modern day English in the following posting. Till that time happy reading whatever else you are reading. Check this out in a week's time.
Thanks.
Juggernaut is a word in English which means a powerful force that is unstoppable. It could be said that in business a particular company, say Microsoft in software or Google in internet business are like juggernauts. But do you know what this English word's orgin is? Well it is derived from the name of Lord Krishna, yes, one of the many names of Lord Krishna is Jagannath. Lord Jagannath of Puri city in eastern state of Orissa is famous among Hindus and Jagannath Yatra (a religious procession) is an spectacular occassion and juggernaut is related to this procession. In the next posting more will be explained about how the word Jagannath term travelled from eastern India to modern day English in the following posting. Till that time happy reading whatever else you are reading. Check this out in a week's time.
Thanks.
Thursday 5 February 2009
शब्द और ज़िन्दगी - जगन्नाथ २
अगर आप में से जो ज्यादह उत्सक juggernaut शब्द की 'उत्पति' खोजते हुए पड़ चुके हैं तो बहुत बधाई, अगर नहीं तो चलो अब पड़ते हैं!
भारत के पूर्वी प्रान्त उड़ीसा के पुरी शहर में हर साल आषढ माह में भगवान् जगन्नाथ की रथ यात्रा निकलती है। इस यात्रा में भगवान् जगन्नाथ एवं उनके भाई बलराम और बहन सुबधरा के रथ संवारे जाते हैं और एक यात्रा निकलती है। ये रथ बहुत विशाल होते हैं जिनकी ऊंचाई १४ मीटर तक होती है। कई साल पहले तो एसा भी प्रचलित हुआ के जगन्नाथ की यात्रा में लोग जान बूज कर आत्म हत्या करने होते रथ के नीचे गिरते थे। लेकिन मेरा यह मानना है के ये सिर्फ़ बढावा है। हकीकत यह है की भारत और विदेश से लाखो श्रदालु और पर्यटक इस यात्रा में शामिल होने के लिए पुरी पहुँचते है। जब इतनी बड़ी मात्रा में लोग एकत्रित होंगे तो स्वाभाविक है के भीड़भाड़ में कभीकभार लोगों को गंभीर चोटें भी लग सकती। अगर व्यवस्था अच्छी नहीं हो तो इस की सम्भावना बढ़ जाती है जैसा के सेप्टेम्बर २००८ में जोधपुर शहर में एक मन्दिर में किसी त्यौहार पर एक दुर्घटना में १५० से अधिक लोगों की जान गई। शायद इसी प्रकार के कभी किसी श्रदालु को चोट लगते देखकर पुरी की विशाल यात्रा को एक ज़बरदस्त न रुकने वाले बल का चिह्न बनाते हुए अंग्रेज़ी में juggernaut शब्द की परिभाषा ऐसी हो गई।
भारत के पूर्वी प्रान्त उड़ीसा के पुरी शहर में हर साल आषढ माह में भगवान् जगन्नाथ की रथ यात्रा निकलती है। इस यात्रा में भगवान् जगन्नाथ एवं उनके भाई बलराम और बहन सुबधरा के रथ संवारे जाते हैं और एक यात्रा निकलती है। ये रथ बहुत विशाल होते हैं जिनकी ऊंचाई १४ मीटर तक होती है। कई साल पहले तो एसा भी प्रचलित हुआ के जगन्नाथ की यात्रा में लोग जान बूज कर आत्म हत्या करने होते रथ के नीचे गिरते थे। लेकिन मेरा यह मानना है के ये सिर्फ़ बढावा है। हकीकत यह है की भारत और विदेश से लाखो श्रदालु और पर्यटक इस यात्रा में शामिल होने के लिए पुरी पहुँचते है। जब इतनी बड़ी मात्रा में लोग एकत्रित होंगे तो स्वाभाविक है के भीड़भाड़ में कभीकभार लोगों को गंभीर चोटें भी लग सकती। अगर व्यवस्था अच्छी नहीं हो तो इस की सम्भावना बढ़ जाती है जैसा के सेप्टेम्बर २००८ में जोधपुर शहर में एक मन्दिर में किसी त्यौहार पर एक दुर्घटना में १५० से अधिक लोगों की जान गई। शायद इसी प्रकार के कभी किसी श्रदालु को चोट लगते देखकर पुरी की विशाल यात्रा को एक ज़बरदस्त न रुकने वाले बल का चिह्न बनाते हुए अंग्रेज़ी में juggernaut शब्द की परिभाषा ऐसी हो गई।
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