How do parents react to kids raised on iPad ?

As I read author Hanna Rosin’s article – The Touch-Screen Generation – I was thinking about my US-based grandsons, aged 5 and 7, who, I noticed, loved to spend time with an iPad during their India trip for a couple of weeks. They watch basketball, run car races, play tennis, chess, and do quite a few other things I am not familiar with. 

The Atlantic magazine article discusses the phenomenon of today’s children spending more and more time with digital technology. What does it mean for their development ? Hanna Rosin, who disagrees with the American Academy of Pediatrics,  favours  the idea of children engaged with interactive digital media for their development.. She reckons a child who is adept with iPad hardly needs any teaching. The Academy of Pediatrics wouldn’t recommend children’s exposure to digital media, even though over 90 percent of American parents say their kids – even 2-year olds – are exposed to some form of electronic media at home.

The question, as Hanna phrased it,  how would you want today’s children to deal with technology ? Parents who, in their own childhood learned to  curb technology , would want their kids to keep off it. Those who realise  inevitability of increasing role of technology in daily life would rather want to see their young ones to integrate technology , making it a natural, organic part of life.

Hanna Rosin is not among those who believe free and open exposure leads to addiction. As part of parenting those bringing up young kids amid a digital clutter around their house – smart phone,  iPad, computer, interactive Tv etc -  would do well to be discriminative enough to understand when their kids engaged with iPad are concentrating intensely ; and when  iPad becomes an addiction. Incidence of iPad addiction among children is a rare phenomenon, says Hanna Roasin.

Sidharth at computer  (YouTube)

Source: OMR Resident

Internet: Can we do without it ?

God moves in mysterious ways; so does the Internet,  I would say.  I  type something here, and it shows up on someone’s desktop or iPad elsewhere, at times, baffling the recepient.
I was baffled to see a mail in my Inbox the other day,  from Air India, sending me an e-ticket to Chicago, for a flight I hadn’t booked. In fact, I have no travel plan in the coming months.

it was a mistake. And, I hope Mr Kuppuswamy, for whom the mail was meant, has got his flight ticket. Such is life  in our digitized world.  Danny Hillis,  computer researcher and scientist at MIT,  says the unfathomable dimension that the Internet has assumed in recent decades made us increasingly vulnerable to mistakes. He refers to an Internet mistake that happened in April last year, when, for a few hours a lot of the Internet traffic, including online messages between US military installations, was getting re-routed through China. China telecom said it was accidental.  And the fault was rectified as soon as they detected it.

This example highlights  how vulnerable the Internet system is to a cyber attack. Dr Hillis raises another possibility – what, if the world wide Internet were to crash. It’s a possibility that hadn’t occurred to me till I heard Dr Hillis on TED Talk. Internet has become so much a part of life, for so many, that a world without the Net would be unimaginable. In our chip-embedded world there is hardly any aspect of one’s life that remains untouched by the Internet technology. Internet today is being used in far too many different ways than what people in the 80s could have imagined. Billions of Internet users, virtually  enslaved to digital trappings, face consequences of mistakes – unintended or deliberate -  made by someone, somewhere  else, anywhere in the world.

Dr. Hills cited an instance where all aircraft to the west of Mississippi  got grounded because a single routing card in Salt Lake city had a bug in it. Nearer home, in Chennai recently, several incoming flights were diverted to Hyderabad, Bangalore and elsewhere because of a minor fire affecting a computer system at ATC tower. The wired world is getting increasingly worried about cyber mishaps. We don’t even know of the scale and scope of the impact that a cyber disaster could cause.

Danny Hillis Proposition 1 -  the Internet, as we know it, could crash,  bringing the world to a standstill.

Proposition 2 – we need a Plan B -  a clear back-up system that is independent of the Internet, made out of completely different sets of building blocks. How Dr Hillis would go about it is something I can’t understand.

What I do understand is,  that his Plan B idea sounds a note of caution to the digitally developing India. While digitizing land records, treasury payments, of pension, relief, and issue of varied documents and entitlement certificates  the govt. would do well to retain,  as a back-up, the traditional transactional mode. This would help minimize impact on the vulnerable sections in the event of a digital conk-out . Irony is, people who are not Internet users have their lives affected by an accident or cyber attack in the digitized world.

Danny Hillis:The Internet could crash. We need a Plan B

Snails crossing: Tread carefully

Padur lake viewed from my 9th floor apartment on Chennai’s  OMR

I have heard Padur residents get water supplied from a  lake in their backyard. Truckloads of water Mantri Synergy residents used to get before borewells in their complex got  activated was,  presumably,  sourced from this lake.  Oddly enough,  I didn’t, till now,  bring myself to visiting  the lake that I can view  from my high-rise.  Trip to the lake entails a walk through narrow, not so clean,  street through  Padur.    A  lakeside walk early this morning proved educative, if  thought-provoking. Winding our way through the unmade road my wife and I felt  embarrassed, on occasions,  at,  what may well be a common sight for the locals .  It was as if, with our appearance,  we intruded on the early morning  routine of some people. Their tell-tale movement  close to the lake, so early in the day,  suggest the following:
1) There is a crying need for a row of public toilets, well watered through a pipeline  from the lake,  for the benefit of those now using lakeside bushes for the purpose.
2) The water body needs to be fenced off in populated segments , making  it inaccessible to public.
3) The muddy pathway that runs along the lake is so littered with snails that there is case for a signpost, saying,  ‘Snails Crossing: Tread/Drive Carefully’.

Snails, out and about in scores, had the run of the road , in early mornings. Snails, they say, move about at night, and hibernate during the day. They detest brightness of the sun. And before the sun came up the snails seem to be ‘hurrying’ to their hideouts. Speaking of snail’s pace, they say  the fastest of the species can move 50 yards per hour.

The need for fencing off the lake can’t be overstated. Tamil Nadu water  supply undertaking has a pumping station that was put up five years back  under a community drinking water supply scheme  funded by the Asian Development Bank.  Lake-fencing, and provision of public toilets, which might not have been necessary when the drinking water scheme was launched,  in 2008,  now appears  critical to the continued  survival of the lake as a source of water for the ever growing Padur and its OMR neighbourhood.

Suggestion: Engineering students/faculty in neighbourhood  institutions such as Hindustan University  and Mohd. Sathak Engineering College can take up Padur lake improvement as a class project. The project report they come up with can become a campaign theme for OMR Greens for mobilizing public support for implementation of the lake conservation scheme.

Snails ln the lakeside road

Bullock-cart

Sourced from OMR Resident

 

‘Sadabishekam’ : Re-wedding at 80

If you are 80,  and stay married still  (to the same person) ; and if your grown up children and their kids wish it, you are entitled to Sadabishekam -   wedding celebration,  all over again,  with the pomp and  ceremony  of the real thing.
My uncle Padmanabha chittappa and Sambu sitti had the credentials , and  got re-married the other day at Pollachi, their home town, in   in the presence of over 300 invitees.  It was an occasion for a grand family re-union ; it was a happy  congregation of three generations of  the  Pollachi family.

I could sense my uncle relishing every bit of  the experience ; and my sitti complied  with the stress and strain of the rituals cheerfully, despite her poor health.  The rituals  included a ceremonial cold water shower,  when three generations of relations line up  to pour pots of  water over the Sadabishekam couple.  The water pouring ritual continued for several minutes, as  sitti-chittappa’s   relations turned up in strength to participate in the proceedings.

A sadabishekam ceremony entails  nearly all the rituals of the first-time wedding  minus the honeymoon. The first time , it was the couple’s parents  who conducted the marriage.  It is chittapa-sitti’s children, and their children who did the honours  this time around. Parents of both – sitti and chittappa -  were remembered on the occasion.  I wish I had asked chittappa how it was for him, when he married my sitti  the first time. A framed and faded wedding photo,  black & white,  hangs on the living-room wall at his Pollachi home. They had no video camera those days.  In refreshing contrast this time,  everyone with a cell phone was seen taking pictures at my chittappa-sitti’s Sadabishekam.
My  Take on the sadabishekam  is uploaded in  YouTube.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 9,600 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Dr Rebello: A crusader or crank?

Whether he is a crusader against corruption or a crank would depend on what Team Anna  and our TV channels make of  Dr Leo Rebello , of  Kandivili East  Mumbai.  Must confess I hadn’t heard of him till this morning,  when I happened by in my Inbox  a chain-mail that I had neglected to delete the night before.

I notice that among other recipients of the mail , addressed to the chief election commissioner, were the President, PM, the chief justice of India, the law minister, and the cabinet secretary.
Subject matter:  voters right to reject candidates,  and recall elected representatives.  Something that is close to Anna’s heart.

I wonder if,  and when,  Team Anna  gets re-constituted  Dr Rebello would find a place in it.  After all,  he is as much a constituent  of  civil society as  Ms Kiran Bedi and Mr Arvind Kejriwal are.  I am sure Mr Anna Hazare  wouldn’t reject Dr Rebello merely because he happens to have  a mind of his own (however disagreeable) on the right-to-recall issue ;  and because, he  thinks that its enforcement would be a costly and meaningless exercise.  But as crusader against corruption Dr Rebello’s credentials appear indisputable.  He has a combat record spanning over two decades.  His turf,  like that of Anna Hazare, has been Maharashtra.

Anna, I reckon,  could use all voices that he can mobilize,  in  getting the govt. turn their hearing ear (as distinct from the deaf ear) to the plea  for enactment of a Lokpal Bill. As for  his crusade against corruption  Dr.Rebello’s  reputation is best summed up in Outlook (Oct.2, 2000) – The corrupt might Have the run of the town until they catch his eye.  It might be of particular interest for  RTI activist Kejriwal and his Public Cause Research Foundation to learn that Dr Rebello made effective use of MRTP Act to bring to book a gas distribution agent who gave LPG connection only to those who bought accessories from him.

Dr Rebello’s current concern is to counter Anna on the right-to-recall issue.  In his e-mail Dr Rebello seeks an invite  to make a power-point presentation before ECI and an all-party conference on electoral reforms.   I guess it takes much, very much,  more than a chain-mail circulated through ‘SBIcitizen’ Yahoo Group to mobilize public support for Dr Rebello’s plea.  I don’t know how photogenic he is,  but he can be given a try at a TV talk-show. With help from  Arnab,  Rahul,  Rajdeep and their likes,  Dr Rebello  too can become the flavour of drawing-room chats, as Ms Bedi and Mr Kejriwal have.

Magic of media mikes

That stack of mikes can make celebrities of otherwise ordinaries. I wonder if the faces in the photograph (The Hindu) had so many media microphones so poised at them, before their Team Anna avatar . It has helped Mr Arvind Kejriwal and Ms Kiran Bedi acquire, what could be termed, a paparazzi status.  But then it carries a flipside. You can’t keep your tax returns or travel bills from media reports and social networking sites.

Admittedly, these are trying times for these notables.  And when the media hangs on to  every word  uttered  some of us tend to speak  a bit much ,   saying things that may sound gibberish.  For instanse Mr Kejriwal would have one believe fudging travel bills by Kiran Bedi doesn’t involve corruption.  Says Team Anna spokesman, “It is a matter between Ms Bedi and those who invited her. If anyone felt wronged, they can demand the money back”
I wouldn’t have the temerity to say such a thing  even in a drawing-room chat,  let alone at a Team Anna press conference. Must say,  Mr Kejriwal says it with flourish,  even if what he says doesn’t carry conviction.  But then the likes of Mr Kejriwal,  enamored with his new-found status,  would  find a microphone held out to him only so long as Team Anna is seen as prime-time by TV channels.  Whether Mr Kejriwal and Ms Bedi keep things this way depend, in parts,  on how they conduct their personal affairs,  and what they speak for the camera.

When it comes to public exposure the law of diminishing returns sets in, if you don’t weigh your words before before they are uttered. Maybe Ms Bedi and Mr Kejriwal could consider emulating  leader Anna Hazare.  Take to self-imposed media silence for a while. I don’t suppose India Against Corruption is likely lose its voice because a couple of core members maintain media silence. After all, as  Mr Kejriwal himself put it,  ‘this is people’s movement, not the core committee’s’.

Kiran (TA) Bedi

She has had many middle names -  Kiran ‘Crane’ Bedi,  Kiran (‘Tihar’) Bedi;  and now Kiran ( ‘TA’) Bedi   (of  Team Anna). Some people say the  ‘TA’  refers to Kiran (‘travel allowance’) Bedi.  That is rather uncharitable because,  I believe,  Ms Bedi is  guilty of  what lots of others do as a matter of routine -  fudging expense accounts.  Babus manipulate  leave travel claims;  bureaucrats,  medical reps., and  journalists, fudge tour bills.

A confession here may be in order.  During my Times of India years (1980-90s) I have,  on occasions,  billed the office First-class rail fare and travelled in 3rd sleeper.  I was not entitled to airfare those days.  And I have claimed a  reporter’s daily entitlement (Rs.750), even on travels in a media group at the expense of organisers. This was standard operating procedure with many media persons in my days.  And accounts dept. passed our bills,  with no questions asked.  ‘Don’t-ask, don’t-tell’ was how we kept our affairs under the lid.

A former management consultant,  David Craig,  in his whistle-blower of a book – Rip-Off - speaks of his industry’s  seven deadly scams, of which the first one pertains to the deal  a business consultancy does with travel agents/airline to secure  travel rebate on business tours that  are paid for by clients. The consultancy invoices the clients for full travel/hotel costs. The resultant windfall goes to the bosses.

Ms Bedi,  invited to a speaking engagement in Mumbai,  billed her host ‘executive’ class airfare from Delhi. She,  however,  flew ‘economy’class,  from Pune.  Ms Bedi’s host – the Aviation Industry Employees Guild – paid Rs.31,578  by way of return fare from Delhi by Indian Airlines.   As a gallentry award winner Ms Bedi is entitled to concessional fare in Indian Airlines.

A multitude of white-collar folks merrily fudge expense accounts , with no one thinking any less of them. But then Ms Bedi,  as a person in public life,  can’t afford violation of the 11th Commandment -  ‘Thou shall not be found out’.  A flag-waving anti-corruption activist , Ms Bedi gets invited to TV talk shows every other day as spokesperson for Team Anna.  Wonder  if TV channels pay talk-heads fee for appearances.

Getting caught fudging travel bills was bad enough. What is worse,  Ms Bedi on TV sought to justify it,  saying the savings she made went to a trust account -  that of India Vision Foundation (IVF),  of which Ms. Bedi is a founder.  ‘Since when did saving become a crime ?’, said she, in an SMS exchange with The Hindu.  Far from admitting her guilt , over-charging her host,  she faulted them for lacking  in grace – ‘I did a favour by going to them (for) free,  not charging even speaker’s fee’.  Her host – The Aviation Industry Employees Guild – had invited Ms Bedi to be chief guest for an International Women’s Day function in Mumbai,  in March 2009.  This was the event  for which Ms Bedi said she didn’t charge a speaker’s fee.  I didn’t realize Ms Bedi expects payment for public appearances to promote a cause.

Curry-leaf plant on sale, for $59.99

Meera,our daughter-in-law, brought home from the grocery shop Singum Puli the other day. Movie cassettes are handed out to customers whose purchases exceed $20 at desi stores in California. And we have, at our son’s place in San Ramon CA quite a collection -  Payanam, Eeram, Endiran, Peepli Live, Paa, Break Ke Baad,and wake Up Sid.

My wife and I, now on a US visit, plan to take back to Chennai a bunch of these CDs to be able to organize community film viewings on weekends at our clubhouse in Mantri Synergy apartments complex on OMR.

Desi stores in the US come up with such ways to retain customer base and promote sales. What’s more, they have, in recent years, added to the range of items on offer, including southie snacks – murukku, thattai, and banana chips – home-made ‘avakka’ pickle, You find rasam/sambar powder, Lahori chicken masala mix; masala bread from the Passage to India bakery.

Items needed for a religious ritual are also available. My wife shopped for Varalakshmi puja this Friday at India Plaza, Dublin CA. On the eve of Raksha Bandhan you can pick up  a rakhi for 49 cents.

What we couldn’t get from the desi store (or my wife forgot to ask) was kolum powder used for rangoli. Our grandsons got chalks from their playroom to work on rangoli on our door front.

A surprise item we found on sale at this US desi store were curry leaf saplings. What shocked me, however, was the price -  $59.99. Dublin has a sizable desi population and office-goers drop in at India Plaza to take home oven-hot samosa and vazhakka bajji on their way back fro office. A chaat stand comes up at the store on weekends.

Fukushima Syndrome

As they waged a grim battle to contain radioactive fallout from the world’s worst nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi, Japan, we had Prem Ballab  Maithani, director, Atomic Minerals Directorate (AMD),  holding forth at a seminar in Mysore. He said nuclear power was the only viable energy option for us, and that our nuclear plants were  ‘very safe’.

Far from being reassured I felt irritated. Agreed,  Mr Maithani was merely responding to questions from the media. Arguably,  he said it all  in good faith,  wanting to assure us we had little cause for concern over nuclear safety.  But then Mr Maithani of atomic minerals directorate  isn’t quite the person with the right credentials to talk about safety of our nuclear plants,  not at this time. My issue with Mr Maithani is his tactless timing.

Those of us exposed to TV visuals of Japan’s nuclear disaster are afflicted with,  what I would term,  the ‘Fukushima Syndrome’.  At times such as this  off-the-cuff safety assurances,  even if it were to came from the top guy in our atomic energy establishment,  sound somewhat hollow. You expect them to be modest in their claims, to speak in tentative terms, and talk of introspection,  review and reassessment of safety norms.

Take President Obama. He has said the Fukushima Daiichi crisis has convinced him to order the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to do a comprehensive review of the safety of nuclear plants in the United States. The California Public Utilities Commission has postponed an April hearing to consider extending the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant’s life by 20 years because of the unfolding disaster in northeastern Japan. In Germany Chancellor Markel said the country’s 17 nuclear power plants would be placed under strict new safety reviews – “we will suspend the extension of the lifespan of  Germany’s nuclear power plants …this is a moratorium,  it will last for three months.”

The US and Germany,  with relatively advanced  safety mechanism in place at their plants,  are talking of  a review and reassessment. Fukushima has stirred  public conscience the world over.  I heard on TV an EU leader talking of a nuclear-free Europe – ‘we  must think of ways to move forward without nuclear power’.  Such extreme stance on future of nuclear  power may well get watered down when they come down to talks,  dialogue and discussions. But the bottom line would be an agreement, after due deliberation,  to raise the bar on safety standards of nuclear plants the  world over.

That Fukushima designers hadn’t planned for tsunami;  and that the triple onslaught – quake,  tsunami and reactor explosion – was a one-off occurence is unlikely to restore fully public confidence in the  safety of other nuclear plants elsewhere in the world. Fukushima has become a much dreaded F-word  in nations half a world away from Japan.  Reporting from  Tokyo I heard a CNN anchor say that in the minds of people there fear of radiation has overshadowed the misery and dislocation they endure in the wake of the quake,  tsunami and continuing after-shocks.

Nuclear radiation is more dreaded,  presumably,  because you don’t see it coming;  its effect lasts a life time,  and it cuts across nations in its sweep. They say radioactive isotopes such as cesium 137 in high doses can cause acute radiation sickness. Lower doses can alter cellular function, leading to an increased risk of cancer. Cesium 137 can enter the body through many foods, including milk. The thyroid gland is extremely sensitive to iodine 131 — another of the deadly byproducts of nuclear fuel.  It can cause thyroid cancer.  My source for such info.  is The New York Times.

If such is the damage a nuclear leak can cause,  people can’t be faulted if they don’t  trust  official claims and pat assurances, about relatively risk-free nuclear energy. Fukushima is a  mind-changer –  it has turned the likes of me who were fence-sitters, with no firm opinion one way or another, into nuclear skeptics.  And pre-Fukushima  skeptics may now  swell the ranks of anti-nuclear activists.

Appeared as a column in The Viewspaper