The Repeater - The Wild Side - Olivia Judson

The Repeater - The Wild Side - Olivia Judson - Evolution - Opinion - New York Times Blog

There are a couple of interesting things about this discovery. The first is that the molecular basis of the change from pelvis to no pelvis does not involve a mutation to the protein-coding region of the Pitx1 gene itself. In other words, the protein made from the gene hasn't changed. What has changed is the way the gene is expressed. This is in contrast to the sorts of mutations one often reads about as being involved in evolution, which typically involve changes to the protein itself.


Rajan: I guess I never thought of evolution as change in the ability of a gene to express itself. I simplistically always thought that the genes have to get modified for an evolutionary change.

SSA and Bal Panchayats

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) has two aspects – I) It provides a wide convergent framework for implementation of Elementary Education schemes; II) It is also a programme with budget provision for strengthening vital areas to achieve universalisation of elementary education. While all investments in the elementary education sector from the State and the Central Plans will reflect as part of the SSA framework, they will all merge into the SSA programme within the next few years. As a programme, it reflects the additional resource provision for UEE.

[http://ssa.nic.in/ssaframework/ssaframe.asp]
[http://ssa.nic.in/ssaframework/FAQmain1.asp]

Rajan> : "So this is a tool which activists can use to request money from the state and local bodies for betterment of schools. Maybe the fortunate city schools which we went should also have a class which teaches us how to be activists. Be able to cut through legal jargon and be able to use tools like the SSA and the 'Right to Information Act' . It would motivate me so much more to put myself to use. I had to spend a good 15 minutes to even understand if the SSA is something that people can use. Or is it just a memo to the Babu's about procedure they need to follow. I know you are thinking that I am talking BS because I don't even have concrete plans to move back yet. I am sure I will make that happen and I hope I will be a stronger person by then."

Article on Bal Panchayats. [ http://www.indiatogether.org/2008/jan/edu-kidsedu.htm]

UN Millenium Development Goals and India

BBC says :

There are at least 350 million people in India living on less than 50 pence [$1] a day. The same number again - if not more - live on less than a pound [$2] a day.

"We can make real progress," Ms Moorehead says, "if we work with a reforming Indian government to make sure some of these terrible statistics, particularly on health and education, come down."

------------

I somehow dont buy this report completely. But thats the official view.
http://www.economywatch.com/millennium-development-goals.html

--------------

Wada Na Todo Abhiyaan (Keep your promises campaign):
http://www.wadanatodo.net/aboutus/default.asp

--------------

Media playing on the UN MDG. I saw this singing program called "Mission Ustaad" on TV in India. The judges Lara Dutta and AR Rehman come off as very smart people (low BS).

Search Youtube for these videos if you are enthu to see what its about. I like the compere too. She acted in "mouthful of sky" with Rahul Bose.

http://youtube.com/results?search_query=Mission+Ustaad+&search=Search

---------------

Hey I hadnt noticed Sarah Brown before. Looks fairly pleasing doesn't she ?

India to become trillion-dollar wealth management market by 2012- Hindustan Times

From HT : http://tinyurl.com/26mutq :
The wealth management market will have a target size of 42 million households by 2012, as against just about 13 million in 2007, noted the report -- Overview of the Wealth Management Market in India.

They target just about 10% of our population. I hope the rest of us get to benefit from this fairly widespread affluence. This fast-paced increasing affluence I am sure will bring about a whole lot social change. 4-5 years from now, will we be a very very different India ? I am sure we will, but I have no idea what these changes will be.  It sounds very exciting to me :D

Tatas, Nano, middle class honesty and the new India

A very encouraging article by Vir Sanghvi. This is something I also saw when I was in Bombay this time. Even my discussions with some of my friends pointed to this. That the Indian lower-middle class is seeing path to upward social mobility through honest means. The guys at the airport, and in the stores and doing odd jobs meet honest engineers and people fiercely nationalistic. And they see that they dont have to be dishonest to make it big. This is a big big change from the times of our parents, where if you didnt cheat you could never move to the next social rung. All said and done this is not going to stop traffic havaldars letting you slide if you pass him a picture of bapu. However I felt this good vibe this time around. I hope its real and not just me seeing things.

Excerpt:

But now India has changed. We finally have a strong and vocal middle class that prizes honesty above all else and that has contempt for the sleazy politicians and the crony capitalists of old. When we see Ratan Tata refusing to pay bribes, refusing to lick politicians' boots and refusing to bend the rules — and still taking the Tatas from strength to strength, still buying the world's best companies, and still reinventing the rules of the car industry — well then, we know that there is a better way.It's possible to be honest and principled. And still beat the rest of the world. That's the strength of the new India.

Genetic Sexual Attraction

One of the most email articles on BBC today was  Parted-at-birth twins 'married'

I was surprised by the following lines :

Pam Hodgkins, chief executive officer of the charity Adults Affected by Adoption (NORCAP) said there had been previous cases of separated siblings being attracted to each other. "We have a resistance, a very strong incest taboo where we are aware that someone is a biological relative," she said. "But when we are unaware of that relationship, we are naturally drawn to people who are quite similar to ourselves.

Basic googling gave me this on wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_sexual_attraction
Genetic sexual attraction (GSA) is sexual attraction between close relatives, such as brother and sister, who first meet as adults. ^{[citation needed ]} The effect is also seen between cousins. ^{[citation needed]}

2003 Guardian Article on this (Caution : If you feel squeamish about this don't read this. Also extremely long read)

quote: "However, Freud would have had an altogether different take on it, believing that the Oedipus complex was paramount in determining all sexual behaviour. Freud's theory, propounded in 1897, that every male infant has an overwhelming sexual desire for his mother, and every female for her father, is the cornerstone of psychoanalytic theory. He maintained that these incestuous drives were so powerful that they had to be suppressed. Our transition, between the ages of two and five, from the incestuous Oedipal phase to the post-Oedipal phase, resolves these impulses and, according to Freudian theory, is crucial to healthy human development. By the time we reach the post-Oedipal stage, the incest taboo, Freud reasoned, is indelibly imprinted on the psyche, governing future sexual behaviour.

But how persuasive is this Oedipal theory nowadays? Because Freudian ideas dominated much of the 20th century, what is less well known is that, at the turn of the 19th century, a contemporary of Freud's, the Finnish social anthropologist Edward Westermarck, put forward the opposite view, based not on the theory of natural attraction but of natural aversion. According to Westermarck, children growing up in close proximity are not sexually attracted to each other as adults. Quite the contrary: the "Westermarck effect" meant that overfamiliarity and boredom automatically caused siblings and other close relatives raised together to go out of their way to avoid sexual contact. Westermarck also reasoned that, since we find the idea of sex with our relatives so distasteful, we developed moral codes and laws to ensure that society conformed to this "norm" to avoid any social disruption, shame or discrimination."