Independence

Vidya, the five year old came to the campus on Wednesday evening with her parents. It was drizzling when they were to return. Vidya was having fun while parents were arranging rain cover for the scooter ride. Interestingly, they did not look worried about what would happen if it starts raining heavily. They had to travel to a place called Subhaspally, 6-7 KM from IIT Kharagpur campus. The father works in Govt. service in Karnataka, the mother is a homemaker.

Today afternoon our family went to meet and greet Medha, the six months old in her first rice ceremony. Vidya had some issue on why all gifts from guests were meant for the sister. The whole family of Vidya and Medha - parents, uncle, aunt, grand parents were full of joy. Medha too obliged all guests and did not treat them as strangers, was comfortable in our lap too. In a lighter mood we told the parents that we may ask when we make a telephone call, "Connect to Vidya" or "Connect to Medha" whenever we have any disconnect with our own Vidya or Medha! The gathering had old pals with whom I spent my younger days of Sanga Chhadhhang, Sang baddwadhang and weekly study-circles. My daughter was caught off-guarded once in this gathering on her Math. lessons. This is when one came to us and after exchange of greetings told my daughter that he scored poorly in Math. in Class VIII and then joined the 'Free Coaching Centre' that we used to run and learnt Math. from me.

Had fun! Environment was excellent! Second daughter - but it is not an issue for the family unlike what we hear elsewhere so much so that the Prime Minister of India needs to refer to it in his Independence Day speech. "Have we seen our sex ratio? Who is creating this imbalance? Not God. I appeal to the doctors not to kill the girl child in the mother's womb. I request the parents not to kill daughters because they want a son. Don't kill daughters in the womb, it is a blot on 21st century India. I have seen families where one daughter serves parents more than five sons. (Link)"  The names Medha and Vidya show how much the parents value education themselves and for their daughters.

Some days before one student asked me to forward a letter to be given to security section where the persons named in the letter can issue key to work on weekends. What came as sweet surprise and was somewhat unusual in this letter brought by her, is that girls were in majority in the list. In last two years, girls outdid the boys in joining as research students in our lab. The trend is there in other research lab.s too and in the institute as a whole. This increase put a challenge to our infrastructure and major steps have been taken to increase the number of accommodation for girl students.

General to more specific. Got one mail from a PhD aspirant months back. She could not be shortlisted in our Dept. due to some reason at her end but was shortlisted in another Dept. She was coming for interview and wanted to talk to me. It was educative for me to know her life's struggle. Father died early. She studied hard and did well to earn free studentship that includes engineering and completed MTech. Now she wants to pursue PhD but the mother wants her to join a high paying PSU job she got from campus and get married. Her brother is still studying. She requested another six months from the mother. And if she does not get admission in a PhD program of her choice in an IIT within that time she would take up job. The determination I saw in her made me see what was in store and I encouraged that day and later through email reply. She did well in test and joined as a PhD scholar. I was not surprised when there was a 'Thank You' visit some weeks back.

Facebook brought some distant relatives closer. She is one of our very distant relative and the relationship is so hierachical and family-tree based that I am 'Grandfather' of her who is about 20 years younger to me. Once a year we used to meet in our family function of worship of goddess 'Kali - the Mother' in our ancestral place. Kali worship used to take whole night. On the sideline, I used to conduct quiz, mental Math. for all children gathered. We used to have about 250 family members gathered in one place in this annual function. And this 'granddaughter' of mine used to be very prompt in answering.

Elsewhere I have mentioned that how our family had to struggle to get settled here at the partition of India during Independence (Link). The larger family took different number of generations to come to terms where basic needs could be addressed easily. This granddaughter belonged to such a branch of the tree who are yet to come out of the worry of 'what and how'. She completed graduation and prepared for banking service examination. She did very well in exam. for Probationary Officer (P.O.) selection and there came the time when results were to be published. She was so confident that she did not join another Govt. job of lower position that she got few months back.

But appointment letter was not coming! Did she make a mistake not to accept the other job? Is it going back to the days of despair after the ray of hope that could change their lot? She used to write occasionally, worried - some from their batch got appointment letter while she had not etc. Once she wrote that it is not Postman, she is looking at appearance of God with appoinment letter in hand in the doorway. I asked her to study Vivekananda and not to give up. Used to share how we overcame challenging times.

And then came the time. After joining as P.O. she wrote after few weeks that she wants to devote a part of her for the society and social cause and asked suggestion. The desire in her message "Ami kicchu korte chai (I want to do something)" showed the same strong determination. The attached "God has a bigger plan for me than I have for myself" is from her facebook wall.

And, may I say that I have heard the voice of  Independence?

Endnote: Vivekananda said, "Freedom is the song of the soul." To listen to the song of the soul or voice of independence, there may require a no-abandoning voice of care. One such voice was picked up on Saturday in NSS, IIT Kharagpur conducted medical camp (Link). Please listen to it. The conversation may be in Bengali, but the language of love is always understood.

Biometric

There is a reason to get interested in this article from rediff. It brings that 'I said so' smile in your face, not exactly sadistic though. It is more like getting an agreement from the community which is important for us to make development in a complementary technology space. It is useful for funding research, answering reviewers, keeping faith etc.

We work on certain area of biometric signature generation which is anything but fingerprint. We leave retina scan out of this because it is cumbersome and costly. The critic finds faults with us citing 'finger-print' based systems are a kind of full proof as finger print is 'unique'. While they accept that ours is easy to use and has much, much wider applicability, the percentage accuracy were always doubted or looked down upon vis-a-vis finger print based system. Almost all the points made in this article used to be cited by us but such reports by a lead media house help in developing a general agreement.

It is some time to have our developments available commercially but there are a lot of groups world wide pursuing that space and hope to have something in near future. Now excerpts from the Rediff article available with a video demo at http://www.rediff.com/news/report/fool-proof-uid-system-for-indians-blah/20110201.htm :

However, we wish the finger print based system developer very best so that they come up with a more robust system. Competition helps all and the solution may lie in multi modal system i.e. considering more than one mode : finger print is one and what we do, could be the other.
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In a demonstration, an electronic systems expert specialising in biometrics exposed the gaping hole in the assumption that a fingerprint is a secure way to identify individuals. It would cost less than a dollar -- Rs 30 to be exact -- to fool the system, according to J T D'souza, managing director of Sparc Systems Limited. "...all one needs is wax, a small dish and a small tube of fevicol. ...making a finger print impression without the knowledge of the person is relatively expensive. It costs Rs 250."

He used a thin layer of skin-like substance which has the impression of his wife's fingerprint on his hand and moistens it with his breath. This fooled the system.

He explained that finger prints from the individuals are stored as images, from which the coordinates of several points on the ridges and valleys of the finger are recorded. "Each attempt to record the fingerprint on the scanner may yield different images owing to the amount of pressure applied and the moisture. Moreover, ridges and valleys on the fingerprint may be altered by years of hard labour.

Authorities in South Korea, which has the most extensive use of the biometric system, noted that in Seoul, the fingerprint of each person underwent progressive deterioration over a period of 1.5 years for over 50 percent of the individuals sampled, said D'souza. 

"Even forensic science experts can't confirm 100 per cent that two fingerprints are from the same person. 

A study on the fingerprint database of the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed that a single query may throw up possible matches ranging between 5 and 50000.

"Contrary to popular belief, fingerprints are neither unique and nor does it remain the same for an individual over a period of time," said D'souza.

National Youth Day

Today is National Youth Day, birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, our hero. Excerpts of his messages to the youth are reproduced here from two sites http://abvym.org/voice.html and http://www.belurmath.org/national_youth_day.htm
Check National Youth Day - Why 12th Januray in youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ61ip63QD4
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The Voice of Swami Vivekananda

Act on the educated young men, bring them together, and organise them. Great things can be done by great sacrifices only. No selfishness, no name, no fame, yours or mine, nor my Master's even! Work, work the idea, the plan, my boys, my brave, noble, good souls – to the wheel, to the wheel put your shoulders! Stop not to look back for name, or fame, or any such nonsense. Throw self overboard and work. Remember, "The grass when made into a rope by being joined together can even chain a mad elephant." The Lord's blessings on you all! His power be in you all – as I believe it is already. "Wake up, stop not until the goal is reached", say the Vedas. Up, up, the long night is passing, the day is approaching, the wave has risen, nothing will be able to resist its tidal fury. The spirit, my boys, the spirit; the love, my children, the love; the faith, the belief; and fear not! The greatest sin is fear.

Throw the idea broadcast. Do not be proud; do not insist upon anything dogmatic; do not go against anything – ours is to put chemicals together, the Lord knows how and when the crystal will form. Above all, be not inflated with my success or yours. Great works are to be done; what is this small success in comparison with what is to come? Believe, believe, the decree has gone forth, the fiat of the Lord has gone forth – India must rise, the masses and the poor are to be made happy. Rejoice that you are the chosen instruments in His hands. The flood of spirituality has risen. I see it is rolling over the land resistless, boundless, all-absorbing. Every man to the fore, every good will be added to its forces, every hand will smooth its way, and glory be unto the Lord!

Train up a band of fiery young men. Put your fire in them and gradually increase the organisation, letting it widen and widen its circle. Do the best you can, do not wait to cross the river when the water has all run down.

Work among those young men who can devote heart and soul to this one duty – the duty of raising the masses of India. Awake them, unite them, and inspire them with this spirit of renunciation; it depends wholly on the young people of India.

Worship the Living God

If you want any good to come, just throw your ceremonials overboard and worship the Living God, the Man-god – every being that wears a human form – god in His universal as well as individual aspect. The universal aspect of God means this world, and worshipping it means serving it – this indeed is work, not indulging in ceremonials. . . . Let some of you spread like fire, and preach this worship of the universal aspect of the Godhead – a thing that was never undertaken before in our country. No quarrelling with people, we must be friends with all. . . .

Spread ideas – go from village to village, from door to door – then only there will be real work. Otherwise, lying complacently on the bed and ringing the bell now and then is a sort of disease, pure and simple. . . .

My Ideal

My name should not be made prominent; it is my ideas that I want to see realised. The disciples of all the prophets have always inextricably mixed up the ideas of the Master with the person, and at last killed the ideas for the person. The disciples of Shri Ramakrishna must guard against doing the same thing. Work for the idea, not the person.

My ideal indeed can be put into a few words and that is: to preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life.

One idea that I see clear as daylight is that misery is caused by ignorance and nothing else. Who will give the world light? Sacrifice in the past has been the Law, it will be, alas, for ages to come. The earth's bravest and best will have to sacrifice themselves for the good of many, for the welfare of all. Buddhas by the hundred are necessary with eternal love and pity.

Religions of the world have become lifeless mockeries. What the world wants is character. The world is in need of those whose life is one burning love, selfless. That love will make every word tell like thunderbolt.

Bold words and bolder deeds are what we want. Awake, awake, great ones! The world is burning with misery. Can you sleep? Let us call and call till the sleeping gods awake, till the god within answers to the call. What more is in life? What greater work?

Love makes no distinction between man and man, between an Aryan and a Mlechchha, between a Brahmana and a Pariah, nor even between a man and a woman. Love makes the whole universe as one's own home. True progress is slow but sure. Work among those young men who can devote heart and soul to this one duty – the duty of raising the masses of India. Awake them, unite them, and inspire them with this spirit of renunciation; it depends wholly on the young people of India.

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Selected Teachings of Swami Vivekananda
My ideal, indeed, can be put into a few words, and that is: to preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life.

Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man.

We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded, and by which one can stand on one's own feet.

So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every man a traitor who, having been educated at their expense, pays not the least heed to them.

Whatever you think, that you will be. If you think yourselves weak, weak you will be; if you think yourselves strong, strong you will be.

If you have faith in all the three hundred and thirty millions of your mythological gods, … and still have no faith in yourselves, there is no salvation for you. Have faith in yourselves, and stand up on that faith and be strong; that is what we need.

Strength, strength it is that we want so much in this life, for what we call sin and sorrow have all one cause, and that is our weakness. With weakness comes ignorance, and with ignorance comes misery.

The older I grow, the more everything seems to me to lie in manliness. This is my new Gospel.

Purity, patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success, and above all, love.

Religion is realization; not talk, not doctrine, nor theories, however beautiful they may be. It is being and becoming, not hearing or acknowledging; it is the whole soul becoming changed into what it believes.

Religion is the manifestation of the Divinity already in man.

Teach yourselves, teach everyone his real nature, call uon the sleeping soul and see how it awakes. Power will come, glory will come, goodness will come, purity will come, and everything that is excellent will come when this sleeping soul is roused to self-conscious activity.

They alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.

This is the gist of all worship – to be pure and to do good to others.

It is love and love alone that I preach, and I base my teaching on the great Vedantic truth of the sameness and omnipresence of the Soul of the Universe.