Girl child

Women stand in a doorway of a home in the village of Magrihawa in the Shravasti district of Uttar Pradesh. (Christie Johnston for the International Herald Tribune)

[Article]
A lot of us Indians have experienced gender bias personally or know families where this bias was prevalent. We also know that when the families are either able to pay dowry or when the system of dowry is weakened, the girl-child is treated better albeit not at par with the male child. So even with the elimination of the dowry system the bias will still exist in a toned down form. In the new economy (which is just affecting cities)  the girl child can be as effective a bread-winner as a boy. However the culture in India is that the girl is to leave the family and join the boy's family. After the boy is married parents will still hold onto their male child. The girl child is however considered out of bounds by many. My impression is that this feeling is not restricted to small shanty towns and is shared by most of the urban population (more strongly by the migrant work force).

So if you were a  leader of a small rural village like this in UP what would you do ?
a) Enforce the anti-dowry laws.
b) Incentivize the female child (free education and some form of relief to the families). I know people who still don't care if the education is free for the girls. They'd much rather pay for the sun going to some fancy school than send their kids to school. People also think the girl could be over-qualified to marry the uneducated men in the community.
c) Women are still the weaker sex in these settings and are considered of lesser value. I dont know how to make their value more apparent.
d) Work with NGOs to promote birth control
e) Incentivize co-operative, grameen bank loans, Small-Scale-Industries with women leaders. Once they find the inner power they can be more aware of their human rights and feel more dignified.


Can you think of any more ?

Golden Compass

The Atlantic Monthly reveals the truth
Pullman's books have sold 15 million copies worldwide, although it's difficult to imagine adolescent novels any more openly subversive. The series, known collectively as His Dark Materials, centers on Lyra Belacqua, a preteen orphan who's pursued by a murderous institution known as "the Magisterium." Or to use the more familiar name, "the Holy Church." In its quest to eradicate sin, the Church sanctions experiments involving the kidnap and torture of hundreds of children—experiments that separate body from soul and leave the children to stumble around zombie-like, and then die.

The bbc artlcle doesnt even mention religion : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7116864.stm

Mira Nair on the Indian system

Mira Nair on NPR last night. She said that it was here in Harvard that she realized that she wanted to be a film maker. In India she had done acting but then the system always told her that she had to take the winding road through dominance hierarchies to reach anywwhere in life. Its in the US that she felt that people felt as if they could do anything anytime anywhere. People dont have to wait their turn. I wonder if this is still true. It was partially true 7 years back when I was in school. Ofcourse India is now brimming with the entrepreneurs and lots of talk of startups. So I assume things have definitely changed for the better. But I wonder if the new economic boost is all that we needed to make this change happen.

What if it had been our "culture" ? We are taught to  always kowtow to the older person even if the person has no other credentials other than having been born before you. We are taught not to question the teacher. The teacher is holy, knows everything and cannot be doubted. The teacher can never say "I don't know, lets find out together". So by having more wealth can we liberate ourselves from this chakravyuh ? I have seen more examples to the contrary. But then I am talking of examples in the time warped west. The sons of the soil hopefully are really finding more freedom.
There is definitely a sense of freedom amongst the teens with the call-center phenomenon. It'll be very interesting to find if this will also impact the so called "cream" who might make the choice to stay back in the country. They would be slogging their behinds off preparing for exams and might be touched only tangentially by this phenomenon. However they are the ones who are to lead us down the path of innovation. Are they not the ones to produce the next Gates and Jobs?

Sunday School for Atheists - TIME

An estimated 14% of Americans profess to have no religion, and among 18-to-25-year-olds, the proportion rises to 20%, according to the Institute for Humanist Studies. The lives of these young people would be much easier, adult nonbelievers say, if they learned at an early age how to respond to the God-fearing majority in the U.S. "It's important for kids not to look weird," says Peter Bishop, who leads the preteen class at the Humanist center in Palo Alto. Others say the weekly instruction supports their position that it's O.K . to not believe in God and gives them a place to reinforce the morals and values they want their children to have. [article]


My thoughts : "I wish such things were offered as alternatives to religion. Why hasn't it happened so far ?
Educated people have the means to see that there is a way to seek meaning in life other than blind faith in something that someone crazy might have scribbled in an unconscious state at some point in time. But still this ability is greatly undermined by lack of exposure to intelligent thoughts and ideas when they grow up. What remains with them is what their parents taught them day in and day out about "going to the temple" and listening to the "religious overlords". They then take an easy route and try to explain the world based on crazy religious theories. They try to use little knowledge of science to try and explain religion in a logical way. Such organized efforts will offer educated people a way to question their insipidity at-least by the time their kids grew up."

movie: Before sunset

http://wip.warnerbros.com/beforesunset/

After a long long time I saw a special movie. This movie is superbly made. Its a sequel to "Before Sunrise" by the same people. Richard Linklater is the maker of the movie.
The whole movie is a conversation between Jesse and Celina and what has happened in their lives since they met 9 years back for a day. The opening scene where they walk up to the cafe has such beautiful conversation and acting.  They real bring the tension and apprehension of 2 people meeting after a long long time. Why cant more people make simple movies like these.
I liked the Paris they have shown, I like the free spirit of the lady, I like the conversation of how life isn't easy and how they have a general conversation about worldly matters. I like the way the guy is trying to get the lady into bed and is so nervous about expressing it. I like the way they conduct their conversation in such a casual manner, its just as if 2 fast friends would (well thats that part thats not completely believable).

Biomimicry Institute - Case Studies

Termite-Inspired Air Conditioning

Architect Mick Pearce collaborated with engineers at Arup Associates to build a mid-rise building in Harare, Zimbabwe that has no air-conditioning, yet stays cool thanks to a termite-inspired ventilation system. The Eastgate building is modeled on the self-cooling mounds of Macrotermes michaelseni, termites that maintain the temperature inside their nest to within one degree of 31 °C, day and night, - while the external temperature varies between 3 °C and 42 °C. Eastgate uses only 10 percent of the energy of a conventional building its size, saved 3.5 million in air conditioning costs in the first five years, and has rents that are 20% lower than a newer building next door.

The TERMES project, organized by Rupert Soar of Loughborough University, is digitally scanning termite mounds to map the three dimensional architecture in a level of detail never achieved before. This computer model will help scientists understand exactly how the tunnels and air conduits manage to exchange gases, maintain temperature, and regulate humidities. The designs may provide a blueprint for self-regulating human buildings.

Stupid brain !!

I think the associativity is tiring me. I don't know if this statement makes any sense. But I blame this structure for me drifting all the time and not always in pleasant directions.

:)