Darker American aspirations towards Indian defense

Original report from TimesNow:

Even before US President Barack Obama touched down in the country, away from the gaze of the cameras, a script was being written - to make Indian defence subservient to Pentagon. Talk in New Delhi’s defence circles - about a deal that - if through - would give the Americans unprecedented access to Indian defence forces and the communication systems for three services. Top secret documents that would be declassified only ten years from now - in 2020. Documents that show that the US is trying to force India into an agreement that our defence establishment does not need and does not want. The contention is the communications interoperability agreement. Part of this agreement - are six clauses that if India were to agree to - would be humiliating to say the least and completely under US control.

Article 5 of inter-operability agreement says that it will be the Indian defence ministry that shall bear the cost of reconfiguring the communications systems. More interestingly - India can only buy from the US Department of Defence. The other clause is in Article 6 of the agreement which says that the US Department of Defence shall provide defence support - subject to approval - which means - whenever it wants. Article 7 of this top secret agreement points to an effective takeover of our defence communications - since the clause says that it will be American officials who would be training Indian Govt personnel and also conducting inspections of the equipment given to India. Then clause number four - which is in Article 9 of the agreement - that says it will be only US army personnel who will have the right to access and inspect the equipment and material given to India.

Article 8, then goes on to say - that the Government of India cannot use its own equipment - without the prior consent of the American Government. So without a nod from Capitol Hill - India can’t touch its own equipment. And the sixth binding cause - which no American equipment provided to India, will be subject to any cooperative development - meaning that India cannot develop further on US prototypes. These are six of the most relevant clauses in this top secret document - that show how America wants to deal with the India- on their terms - wanting to control Indian defence communications. And they have lobbied hard in order to get India to agree but still not been able to convince the defence establishment.

And it was exactly that sentiment - echoed when the Defence Secretary met with the Defence Chiefs. Not just that - even before Obama arrived - the service chiefs have made their displeasure known. It is because of the open and clear displeasure shown by the defence establishment - that the strong American lobbies are having a rethink. New Delhi extremely wary of American moves. After all - similar defence agreements with other world powers - have given India the flexibility to maintain complete control on its defence establishment. So as the US President attempts to hit the right chords, lurking in the shadows are those who are trying to force a deal - that New Delhi simply does not want.

-- TimesNow.tv

Evolution - my perspective -- "Gene Mutation caused by Mind"

Since childhood I have always been thrilled about Evolution when I first read it in one Environmental Science (EVS) text-book. Remember EVS? It is a standard text-book in Goan secondary schools. I will try to describe evolution very briefly so that we usher in the context. Evolution is defined as "the change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms through successive generations". Mutation (as in the change) in organisms is driven by two processes, 'natural selection' and 'genetic drift'. Natural selection (Darwin's theory) is synonymous to the concept of "survival of the fittest". Genetic drift is a random change in common traits in a population (and not linked to the natural selection concept). -- all definitions courtesy Wikipedia.

The way science is progressing, it is always about 'what you see is what you believe'. Basically because theories need proofs and proofs can be validated only with experiments.  I feel that evolution process has a third dimension which is distinct from the two processes described above.

When I was young I used to wonder how some fish have a false eye on the back or the tail. The obvious reason is when a predator fish strikes another fish it notices the eyes first. The survival rate is higher if it bites the tail. For that matter all animals that have eyes look in the eyes of other animals when they refer to them. Here are some photos which I picked up.

Another striking example is the Weaver Ant mimic spider.

And here's a Weaver ant (popularly called a 'Humlo' in Konkani).

These mimic spiders attack the poor ants by deceiving them. I have seen this happen at my ancestral house. The weaver ants crawl on a branch just like the one above. The mimic spider hides itself under the branch and does not show itself unless an ant is alone. When the ant is alone, it tries to deceive it into believing that its just another brother ant and then it attacks.

As you can see, these are not random genetic changes. These a very selective changes, depending on how, say, a fish perceives a predator fish may be thinking. Or how a predator spider thinks it can mimic and deceive an ant. Even the dinosaurs, each species have distinct horns. How can you have a horn  through survival of the fittest? or through random genetic changes? Does the current definition of evolution accommodate mimicry or stealthiness as shown above? NO!!!! Not yet. Now that I have stepped in! :-P I will augment the theory of evolution today!

The current theory of evolution accounts for 'reactive' changes, which may be true. For example, when a population is struck by a deadly disease, many die. But those who manage to survive develop the immunity for it. This information is then passed on to future generations. I think evolution can also be 'proactive' and this definition may well be predominent.


I think that the third dimension to the theory of evolution is "Gene Mutation caused by Mind"! Mimicry and stealthiness cannot be achieved unless you observe. And only the mind can process the observation. This also means that there is a direct link between the mind and the genes. Again this also means that mind is a significant player in the process of reproduction. Nowadays we find more and more cases of how a DNA combination can describe an emotion or a personality trait.


Let me go one more step further. When you are planning a baby, have a good mindset first! Indulgence in bad things will only get passed on to the generations ahead!

Indian neutrino lab to have world’s biggest magnet

India is set to start work on a 250-million-dollar underground laboratory, called the Indian Neutrino Observatory (INO), which will be built in the Bodi West Hills Reserved Forest in the state of Tamil Nadu.

INO will be made of 50,000 tonnes of magnetised iron, dwarfing the 12,500-tonne magnet in the Compact Muon Solenoid detector at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.

The iron sheets will interact with the neutrinos and spew out charged particles, whose paths will be bent by the iron's magnetic field. About 30,000 detectors sandwiched between the sheets of iron will track these charged particles, providing information about the incident neutrinos.

INO will initially study atmospheric neutrinos, which are produced when cosmic rays smash into the upper atmosphere. It will be sensitive to both neutrinos and anti-neutrinos, which interact with matter in different ways.

Neutrinos and their antimatter counterparts oscillate between three types: electron, tau and muon. INO should help physicists understand which of the three types is the lightest and which is the heaviest.

Courtesy - www.zeenews.com
http://www.zeenews.com/news663195.html

Swarg, Prithvi and Patal, manifestations of the same world?

Today, I was travelling in the bus to office and it takes 90 minutes to reach. All along the way my mind is usually empty :-) and as you know 'An empty mind is a devil's workshop'. But I do try to shoo the devil off by following a modified idiom, 'A good thought a day keeps the devil away!'.

So what is a devil? Isn't it a manifestation of bad thoughts and actions? There are so many other examples on the good side too, like Laxmi for wealth, Saraswati for education and Brahma-Vishnu-Mahesh for creation-preservation-destruction. Such representations exists in other religions as well.

In Hinduism, an evil man will go to Patal (Hell) and will be tortured. A virtuous man will go to Swarg (Heaven) and experience eternal bliss. And then what happens? Does he stay there forever? Hindus say that a man will go on reincarnating (Janm) in this world (Prithvi) until we know how to detach ourselves (the Soul) from the body (Mukti) and permanently bind to the Almighty (Paramatma). Does that means that a man will be sent back to Prithvi for another stint with incarnation? Is it like a packaged tour to Hell or Heaven, that we end up on Earth (Prithvi) again and again?


I seriously do not believe so. I think Swarg, Prithvi and Patal are manifestations of the same world. It is right that we keep on reincarnating but only on Earth (unless there is another habitable planet :-)). Whether you are sent to Hell or Heaven only means whether the birthplace on Earth is Hell or Heaven. There are two perspectives to this. Firstly, whether you perceive it as Hell or Heaven and secondly, whether the place is really rotten! But I think the former is true. Because it is finally on how you perceive it. One sibling in a family may feel it is the best place he could be, and the other sibling may sulk and curse it all the way.


If you are virtuous and kind then you will be promoted to Heaven in you next Janm. If you are vicious then you will be demoted to Hell. But all is in this very world. I mean look at it, there are plenty of places which are suitable to be either one of the extremes.

Success. Can you tell me what it is?

I can read your mind! You are asking me, why Dr. Ambedkar's statue in this blog post? Well, I feel that he is an erudite statesman and he guided our country in the direction of success.

Coming back to the topic. What is success? I feel success is more of a paradox. I work hard and I achieve something, then I am successful. Tomorrow I lose what I had achieved, so I am unsuccessful? Success is not something that you achieve when you reach a goal, but it is the path that is taken to pursue it. I think this is the right definition. This post is open-ended, so I would like to know your opinion.

Success is primarily based on three pillars, Knowledge, Wisdom and Strength. I feel intelligence is not primary because it is derived from these pillars. Knowledge and wisdom is pretty easy to understand, I mean the concept. But how do we define strength?

Strength may be Will Power (grit) and Execution Power (power to get things done). Every person has strong traits and weak traits in his personality. Strong traits are easy to handle because there is immense strength associated with it. You may be the best in that field. I am not only talking about career, but also other simple aspects like housekeeping, emotions, practicality, sex (?), fatherhood, motherhood, unclehood, bachelorhood, old-man-hood (? Well I am sure you guessed it right!) and so on.

My curiosity is towards how to derive strength from the weaker traits in a personality. For example, there are somethings which your inner self desperately wants you to do, but your conscious mind knows that it is wrong and always tells you not to do it. In such situations, the inner self mostly wins.  The few times when your conscious mind has won is always because you derived the strength from some source. I would like to know what are the sources that you derive your strength from? Yesterday, my late beloved granny came in my dreams and whispered something. Today, I gained super-strength from that! There are other cases where I take advice from my beloved ones and so on.

Is it possible to have full control upon oneself?

University of Manchester scientists win the Nobel Prize for Physics

Coup for UK Physics, as two University of Manchester scientists are awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for their discovery of graphene.

Professor Andre Geim and Professor Konstantin Novoselov have been awarded the highest accolade in the scientific world for their pioneering work with the world’s thinnest material, graphene.

This represents a landmark achievement for Physics in the UK, as it is the first time an academic or academics have received the Nobel Prize for Physics while on the staff of a UK university since 1979.Graphene, with the potential to revolutionize the electronics industry, was discovered by Professors Geim and Novoselov at the University in 2004. It has rapidly become one of the hottest topics in materials science and solid-state physics.

Professor Novoselov, 36, known as Kostya, first worked with Professor Geim, 51, as a PhD-student in the Netherlands. Andre Geim joined the University of Manchester in 2001, Kostya Novoselov followed Geim to Manchester in 2004. Both of them originally studied and began their careers as physicists in Russia.
The award of the Nobel Prize means there are currently four Nobel Laureates at The University of Manchester.

(This is a an email received by all alumni of the university.) 

Laser War - War paradigm of the future

Let me be the first to say this; laser weapons are going to be the next paradigm of war strategies. Maybe people will remember me after say 15 years, that I had claimed this. He He!

Today, nuclear weapons and their delivery systems like fighter aircrafts, submarines and ballistic missiles are the mainstay of all the nuclear weapon states in the world. The nuclear command in these countries is predominantly involved in modernizing these delivery systems.

Simultaneously, a few countries including India have started investing heavily in R&D of laser weapons and their delivery systems. These are called Directed Energy Weapons (DEW). For example, the US is developing an air borne laser delivery system called the YAL-1A (shown in pic - courtesy Wikipedia)

This delivery platform is a Boeing airliner modified to fit a laser device which can generate a laser beam having 1MWatt of power. If it is focused on an enemy aircraft, it can fry it in mid-air at the speed of light. India has also started a lot of projects in this area, both civilian and military oriented. The civilian projects involve 'laser dazzlers' which have applications in health care, transport etc. The military applications involve diffusing Improvised Explosive Devices (IED), causing temporary blindness to neutralize a person, etc. The strategic application is to create a blanket cover over India to protect it from hostile projectiles and enemy aircrafts using high power lasers. Currently India has developed a gas dynamic laser systems which can generate a laser having a power of 100 KWatt. The gas dynamic technology is old and is not portable. The next step is to create solid state lasers which are very portable and can be fitted on various platforms. This is projected to be achieved by 2020.

My claim is that when such technology matures, then it will render all current nuclear weapons and the delivery systems worthless. Because the lasers can just burn it off in a second! A very important requirement is to have very accurate and effective radars which can locate and track the enemy projectiles at runtime and activate offensive laser weapon systems which can neutralize it. Ground based, ship based and air borne radar systems have a limited capability to locate and track such projectiles because of limited range and accuracy.

The most ideal way is to have radars and laser weapon systems deployed in space, mounted on satellites. This opens a completely new and scary ideology called 'space weaponisation'. The name is quite intuitive. Currently, space is only used for civilian and reconnaissance purposes and fortunately the world has followed this policy. Any weaponisation of space is disastrous but i feel it is inevitable in the future. Just imagine, the Chinese can burn me off when I step out of the house, by firing a laser from space!!

If this is what is going to happen by the year 2020 itself, then why are we buying all these aircrafts, ships, submarines which are not immune to laser attacks? We should start preparing for laser defenses as well as offenses simultaneously.