More on India & China

Here is another article pointing out the no contest between Chinese and Indian infrastructure. There are many who would argue that China being an authoratarian nation can move things much faster than India, a democracy. There certainly is some truth to these arguments when we are talking about fundamental policy changes, where it is extremely hard to get everybody at the same wavelength. This argument does not hold any water when we are talking about issues like building good infrastructure on which I believe there is no contention. Everybody agrees, has been agreeing since last 60 years that India needs good roads, sufficient power, good airports , good railways, but one does not see great urgency in building them. The reality is that path from intent to implementation is a very rocky one in India, marred by red-tape, corruption, lack of foresight& professionalism, apathy, the list can go on and on. Indians certainly can not blame their democratic set up for this, they have only themselves to blame.

India & China

In past couple of years, international media, especially Business Week ,has placed India's economic status at the same pedestal as China's. If you go through Business Week's recent cover story on these two emerging economies you would get the impression that India is not far behind from China. China is the new economic powerhouse of the world followed 'closely' by India goes the popular phrase from these media houses. The reason for this apparently equal treatment is that China has built its economy on non-glamorous manufacturing industries and has clearly become the factory of the world. India's reputation has been built on the more visible and glamorous high-tech(if you can call outsourcing that) industry. What is forgotten is that while China's manufacturing growth is fueled by sensible policy making by its government, India's growth in high-tech is largely the case of being at the right place at the right time and has very little to do with any sensible planning or vision from its government. This hyperbole of China and India has already led to a sense of complacency in Indian government circles witnessed by a very sluggish growth in economic reforms in past 2 years in India. If anybody thinks that India's economic status is quite close to China then he needs to do the math. Economist Shankar Acharya has provided the numbers . On every important economic parameter, India is not even close to being close to China. On same parameters, it is so shamefully far behind that the only relevant comparison could be with the most backward third world countries. True, India has made very impressive gains in past decade and a half, especially in the information technology industry. The reality, however, is that given its vast population and potential it is just not enough. India needs to do a lot lot more to get anywhere near to where China is today. It needs to build a halfway decent infrastructure, provide a quality of life fitting to humans for a vast majority of its people, remove bottlenecks for enetrpreuners, privatize the inefficient state enterprises, start a crackdown on corruption, introduce some social reforms. The to do list is long. It has those proverbial thousand miles to go before it can so much as take a nap.

Tabloid of India

Pardon the poor stale headline for this post, but I did not want to waste any fancy words or my precious little grey cells thinking of a nice headline about the junk of which I am about to write. Almost every indian with even half a brain would agree that Times Of India is probably the worst newspaper in the world which still has name of a nation in its name. Normally I would not prefer to write about the cheap sleaze show Times of India really is, but a couple of nice posts on the web convinced me that there are people out there who care about the abysmal lows ToI has hit and is "affectionately" being referred as ToI-let paper of India. Hopefully some kind of buzz can be built on the web which (hope dear hope) may be an agent of change for the ToI-let paper because seriously, name of India on a ToI-let paper burns my heart.

nice article on Indian Classical Music

A simple google search on Indian Classical Music yielded this highly readable introduction to Carnatic Music, name given to South Indian Classical Music.

Steve Jobs on death

Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, is, as we all know, a great businessman. What is less well known that he is somewhat of a philosopher as well. As a believer in Karma and ancient eastern philosophy, he certainly is the guy who practices what he preaches. His recent address at the convocation of Stanford University is a very worthwhile read. One quote from this address which I find very illuminating is about death. "Death is very likely the single best invention in life,” Mr Jobs told his young audience. “All external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.” Sums it up for me.

Masterpiece!

Blessed were those who were awake on Wednesday night to watch the dual between Agassi and Blake. If ever there was a match which lived up to its hype then this was it. The potential match up was being hyped from the day Blake overcame Nadal and fans were not disappointed in the least. The intensity and quality of play were all in evidence from Game 1 of first set. Blake came out firing and with some Federerisque forehands , returns and speed , he was up 2 sets in no time. Agassi, a true champion, was never going to let it go without a fight. The old warhorse switched gears and started playing like the Agassi of yore. His speed, agility , accurate serve and thundorous returns were all in full display in hard fought 3rd and 4th sets which were closer than the scoreline may suggest. The stage was set for an epic fifth set and what a set it was! Blake found the energy and agility of first 2 sets , broke Agassi to lead 5-3 and a chance to serve out the set. Agassi decided to go for the kill , a couple of unplayable returns later , he had a break point which he seized with both hands (no pun intended!)with a two handed backhand winner. Inevitably, the match drifted towards a tiebreaker afterwards. The tiebreaker was as hard fought as everything else before it. Blake got off to a good start again ,was up 3-0 and true to the theme of the night Agassi had to fight back again, which he duly did. At 6-5 , Agassi had a match-point which Blake saved with a thundorous forehand winner, kissing the corners of the sideline, but Agassi was not to be denied a thoroughly deserved victory. Couple of points later, Agassi was one more step closer to realising his dream of retiring with one more Grand Slam title. The bonohomie between the two warriors was evident in the way they hugged each other at the net. As Agassi rightly asserted afterwards, "Tennis was the biggest winner tonight."

Tennis- The toughest sport?

Is Tennis the toughest sport on the planet? Justin Gimelstob of Sports Illustrated certainly thinks so.

India's Employment Guarantee Scheme

Poverty is the biggest problem facing 3rd world countries like India. Like almost all governments in these countries, in India too, rhetoric & populism always triumph over practical sensible approach to poverty alleviation. Thus, true to tradition, Indian's coalition government has come up with the idea of providing guaranteed employment to the rural poor (Here is another take on this). If this smacks of long buried communist socialist ideology of yore then this is because it is. If 50 years of India's experimentation with socialist model should have taught us anything then it is that free lunches do not work. How is government going to create those millions of promised jobs out of thin air is anybody's guess. What is really going to happen is, most of the money is going to end up in the coffers of corrupt officials, and whatever is left will go as "salary" for non-existent jobs, thus hardly contributing to any meaningful sustainable employment. It is a pity that we have two of the most brilliant economists heading the government and the ideas they come up with are these socialist nonsenses. They really do not have to look far to find ideas that work. A cursory look upwards towards Beijing or Shanghai is enough to find a model which will assuredly provide much needed employment to millions. India needs to open up its economy more to let retailers and manufactures come in, bring billions of dollars into the economy & give it a much needed boost. Software and outsourcing industries can provide jobs only to high skill english speaking graduates. Inspite of all its hype, this industry provides jobs to only close to a million people out of a potential workforce of 300 million. Manufacturing and retail companies require a large number of low-skilled, low wage people to work at their factories & stores thus automatically creating jobs for low-skilled semi-literate people. If Indian government can just let free market work & get out of the way then those jobs will be accessible to millions of Indian poor. That will be a real "employment guarantee."

Einstein's Cosmos

A few months ago, I had the good fortune of laying my hands upon Brian Greene's wonderful book, Fabric of the Cosmos. The book fascinated me enough to write a review of sort on my puny little corner of the web world. It turns out that this book had really woken up a dormant physicist somewhere inside me and I have been itching to know more about this wonderful pet subject of physicists called the Universe. A name which is synonymous with physics is that of Albert Einstein, the iconoclastic genius, arguably the most influential scientist of all times. Brian Greene had spurred me enough to know more about Albert Einstein and his revolutionary theories. So, I headed to Fulton County public library to pick up whatever I could find on the Man of the Millenium according to Time magazine. Two books lay there, side by side, both remarkably similar in their outer appearance, similar cover, similar titles and almost the same number of pages. The similarity did not end there, both are written by scientists, one by Barry Parker other by Michio Kaku both physicists, and aspire to fill a gap in the vast popular literature on Einstein by focusing more on his life as a physicist rather than being run of the mill biographies. The book by Barry Parker, though self contained, is part of a trilogy on Albert Einstein and the one by Kaku is not, that probably is the only difference between the two. So reading one book was as good as reading both.

I decided to start out with the book by Michio Kaku, Einstein's cosmos, for no other reason than that his is a name I had heard before. The book is divided into three parts, corresponding to three pictures which Einstein came up with in his quest to understad the Universe. The first picture, that of racing a light beam, inspired him to come up with Special Relativity. The second one , on the equivalence of acceleration & gravity, gave mankind General Relativity and the third one was his unfinished quest for a unified theory combining Quantum Theory with General Relativity. The book is very well written and gives a basic grasp of Einstein's ideas and true magnitude of his genius. Einstein's contribution to science , and consequently to humanity, is unfathomably deep and far reaching. His theories have opened up vistas unknown before his time and so fundamentally shaken the roots of science that modern science would have been decades , if not centuries, behind if not for him. Kaku is successful in his attempt to provide basic insights into Einstein's work and also the thought process Einstein may have gone through during the course of his discoveries.

Equally interestingly, Kaku gives a fairly detailed description of Einstein's personal and public life well enough for this book to qualify as a semi-biography. The anecdotes from Einstein's life are quite informative and entertaining. The book is full of famous quotes from Einstein who incidentally was quite a genius at making a smart quip as well. To sample some of those, when Einstein was troubled by the inherent randomness in nature implied by quantum theory, he quipped "God does not play dice." When asked to describe relativity for a lay person, he replied "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity." Writing about the importance of time, he remarked, "The only reason for time to exist is so that everything doesn't happen at once." Emphasising simplicity in the matters of science Einstein said, "Things should be as simple as possible, but not simpler." There were many many more which will need a couple of more posts if I desire to dwelve into them.

One thing which came off as something of a great surprise to me was Einstein's disdain for pure mathematics. Einstein was no slouch in mathematics but his skills apparently were a far cry from the likes of Newton, the scientist & mathematician who alone can qualify as Einstein's equal.To Einstein, abstract mathematics was "superfluous erudition", and the physical picture was the king. After his discovery of Special Relativity, a theory which came in for a lot of attention of mathematicians because of its inherent "beauty", he famously remarked "Since the mathematicians have started to tackle Special Relativity, I myself do not understand it." Einstein was the kind of genius who never thought in terms of mathematics. He always thought in terms of vivid physical pictures , mathematics to him was merely a book-keeping device invoked only when he needed to work out tedious details. It was quite a contrary to his contemporaries who got so lost in intricate mathematics and the intellectual entertainment it provided that they forgot what they were dealing with are physical objects not mathematical constructs.

Another surprising fact is regarding his Nobel Prize. Einstein had done enough work to get 4-5 nobel prizes in his lifetime and his theories are still generating nobel prizes for other scientists. Interestingly enough, Einstein did not get his Nobel for General Relativity, the work he is best known for. His Nobel came for his explanation of Photoelectric effect, a relatively minor work in his long & distinguished career. According to the book, the Nobel committee could not understand General Relativity and did not want to award a Nobel Prize in something they themselves did not understand. In his acceptance speech, Einstein completely ignored photoelectric effect, and talked about his most cherished creation General Relativity instead.

After finishing up the book, I could not help but get philosophical again. The Universe is trillions of light years vast, billions of years old and full of exotic things like stars, planets, black holes, atoms, quarks, electrons and what not. However, inspite of all its apparent complexity , there is a strange order , an order which unbelievably can be described by few mathematical expressions. Isn't it incredible that one man sitting in a quiet room on an incredibly small & insignificant planet can figure out that order underlying the Universe. Not only he can discover an order in a mind numbingly chaotic world, he can make predictions which fly on the face of common experience but are still startingly accurate. To me this is simply exhilirating.

Saving us from ourselves

Today is the 60th anniversary of that fateful day when Little Boy created the biggest cataclysm known to humanity. The day when time stood still and death danced in all its naked glory. 6th August 1945 was a defining moment in the histroy of mankind as it showed that how much power man has mustered in its short stay on earth. Luckily, the last 60 years have not seen anything like those fateful days in Japan, but is it possible that we will be so lucky for next 60 as well. The major nations of the world have enough nuclear power in their arsenal to destroy the world several times over. The potential to cause utter destruction exists, more than ever, so consequently a threat exists. How far-fethched is the scenario that some day this potential may fall into the wrong hands? Can one ever be sure that this is not possible? It is certainly possible because there are enough nuclear weapons & there are enough mad men on the loose (For an extremely well-written take on this, go here). Some of those mad men have great political power & enough resources to be able to acquire those devil's toys. A positive probablity, however small, can not be ruled out that one mad man may have control over a significant amount of nuclear power one day. On a long enough time line, any event -however improbable- is going to occur. The scary part is that we donot know how long that time line is simply because we can never have a realistically accurate estimate of the threat. The only way to be sure of avoiding another Hiroshima or Nagasaki is to completely destroy all nuclear weapons & impose a worldwide moratorium on their development. Ironically though, it may take another one of those to save humanity from humans.

National Awards

One would think, and be completely reasonable in thinking so, that when a national award is given in a particular field, the recipient of the award has done something which deserves recognition on account of being of great importance to the country. For example, some works of great national importance & hence deserving of a 'national award' could be laying out your life as a soldier, making a great discovery which solves country's energy problems or spearheading a revolution which wipes out corruption in the country! Less dramatically, in the context of cinema, it would be perfectly 'reasonable' to assume that the kind of movie which may deserve a national award will have some important social, political or economic issue at its heart. However, as it turns out, 'reasonable' could mean different things to different people. Your and my idea of reasonable could be completely different from the idea of a dumb-witted lunatic or the committee deciding the national awards for that matter. So, the commitee in all its 'wisdom'(giggles) has decided to bestow the honour of national award to a movie which displays the lives of the rich & the famous in all its naked glory.To top it off, the national award for acting went to a wooden actor for playing a casanova in a rehash of a stale Hollywood movie. But, what really had me in splits was a comment from one of the esteemed jurors lauding the actor for "his sheer ease, subtlety and spontaneity in portraying a complex and demanding role." I can't help but think what if we put these esteemed jurors in other national award committees. In that case, national award for sports may go to KPS Gill for "his valuable contribution towards Indian hockey", national award for journalism may go to Times of India "for their painstaking & thorough coverage of matters of national importance like sex lives of Britney Spears & Angelina Jolie" and national award for social service may go to Dawood Ibrahim for his "relentless zeal & passion for an extremely difficult job of controling India's population by exploding as many bombs as possible." As I said 'reasonable' can mean different things to different people.

Outlook India's Sci-tech edition

It is not everyday that a popular magazine considers it worthwhile to devote an entire issue on Science & Technology, so when that happens , the event does deserve some sitting up & taking notice. OutlookIndia's effort is certainly commendable and is guaranteed to sell more copies as well in an Indian middle class society, which covetes scientific & technological achievements.

The Swiss juggernaut rolls on

Another Wimbledon, another title, another bemused opponent and plenty of happy Tennis fans all over the world. The story reads the same, as it has been for past 2 years running, what made it different this time that Roger played better than what he did at last year's Wimbledon Final (as if that was even possible!), 49 winners, 12 unforced errors, only one service break and plenty of "how did he do that!!" shots. The statistics are notorious for lying but this time they did not. Roger's astonishing game has prompted debate over his greatness, Hewitt calls him "one of the greatest", Mcnore says "the most talented person ever to pick up a Tennis racquet", Laver is honoured to "be compared with him"! Roche calls him "the most complete player of all time" and Roddick hopes "he gets bored or something" so that he may have a chance. Well, he does not seem to be yawning as yet and till then Roddick & co. will have to figure out some way to atleast make him sweat on the court. Until that happens, the juggernaut will roll on, the trophies will pile on and Roddick will have no need to buy that extra seat on his trip back home.

Hazaron Khwahishe aiseen

There have been very few Indian films , if any, which go into or even touch upon the subject of Emergency in India during late 1970s. Numerous movies have been-and continue to be made-about the pre-independence India, about 3 wars India fought after independence even about Terrorism in Punjab & Kashmir. However, the dark period of late 70s has continued to be taboo in Indian Cinema. Finally, a filmmaker has come up with a brilliant movie covering that period of India's contemporary history. Sudhir Mishra's "Hazaron Khwashishe Aiseen" is a superb movie which dwelves into Naxalite movement of 70s with the emergency making an apperance as a backdrop. The movie chronicles the lives of 3 main protagonists Siddharth, Vikram and Gita from their days in St. Stephens College in Delhi to the life changing transformations they undergo during the course of the movie. The movie is a triumph in all respects. Performances are first rate, story is fascinating & screenplay is outstanding. Even though the movie has a political movement as a backdrop, there is never a dull moment and for sheer enetertainment value too, it is pretty good. Overall, the best movie of the year from the staple of Hindi Cinema . Hope they make more such gems in future.

Fabric of the Cosmos- A fulfilling experience

Here is something I did not know before I started reading Brian Greene's 'Fabric of the Cosmos'.

(i) Time is not absolute. It is relative, your clock (even the body clock) runs depending on how fast you are moving. Thus, faster you travel slower you age! If you can tavel at the speed of light you will never age! (So you can safely throw away your Botox injections)

(ii) Time at moon moves faster than time at earth, because moon has smaller gravity. So, if you ever have a choice to live on moon, don't, you will live longer.

(iii) The actions you take "now" can effect what happened billions of years ago, light years away from earth or so it seems!

(iv) Universe at scales billions of times smaller than a centimeter, behaves in fundamentally different way to what we experience in our day to day lives. For example, particles at those small sizes(like electrons or protons) seemingly have no definite position or speed , in fact, they don't have a definite anything. The reality at those scales is subsumed in a cloud of uncertainty.

(v) Universe probably started out as a lump of matter weighing a meagre 20 pounds!! That lump of matter gave rise to billions of galaxies and billions of stars in each one of them. The universe at Big-Bang did not weigh more than Brian Greene's dog!

(vi) Gravity can create waves in the fabric of space & time. These gravitational waves can stretch or compress space around you and yourself. Thus, we may get flatten or ballooned if a strong enough gravitaional waves from a distant supernova happens to pass by. Not a great way to get in 'shape':)


Well, Thanks to Greene that era of darkness is over and finally there is light;). Now, I know all that I mentioned above and a lot more.

Brian Greene's wonderful book takes us to a journey called 'Man's understanding of the Nature'. During this journey, we encounter startling discoveries which forever changed the way we (or at least the physicists) look at the universe. All along this journey, Greene is carefully holding our hands, making sure we don't get lost trying to understand the daunting complexities of nature. He is a very kind & gentle explicator, explaining the concepts in a colloquial language with liberal use of metaphors and analogies. His enthusiasm for Physics shines through every page of the book. However, even with a guide as good as Greene, this journey is not an easy one to undertake. Some of the concepts (like Entanglement in Quantum Physics) are so counterintuitive and cause such an upheaval to our intuition towards the world that it takes a great deal of faith, provided in no small measure by staggeringly accurate experiments, to believe in those. However, it does help to know that even as great a scientist as Einstein had a lot of trouble accepting the notions of reality as envisaged in Quantum Theory (Infact, he never accepted Quantum Theory as it is ) .

There are many places in the book where one can't help but get deeply intrigued. For example, during the discussion on the Flow of Time, Greene seems to assert that time does not pass by, it just seems to! Every moment in time is frozen for ever, every moment in time exists as it is, nothing is past & nothing is future, everything just is. This smacks of the concept of Fate, a design which is already in place and all we do is just live through that design without changing it (matrix, anyone!). To me, this was deeply intriguing . It looks like believers in Fate have finally found scientific evidence for their beliefs! However, Greene is kind enough not to thrust his opinions to reader's face, and points out alternative viewpoints & more elaborate explanations at such controversial (and other) junctures.

The book ends with delightful discussions on topics which are more like Science Fiction than Science. Greene dwelves into the topics of Teleportation and Time-Travel. It is encouraging to know that theoretical physics has not ruled out time-travel, yet. So, as of know traveling to the past (traveling to the future is possible, thanks to special relativity) is still a possibility, albeit a highly unlikely one, but if you are thinking that this will give rise to mind-bending paradoxes then think again. The past you may be able to travel will exist in a universe different to what you currently reside in. So, nobody can go to the past and erase you(ala terminator) because that past will take place in a different universe. Thanks to Quantum Physics, teleportation (actually it is more like cloning) is already a reality, although at a much smaller scale. The day when we may have the capability to teleport humans or even small objects "exists"(if it does) somewhere far far into the "future".

Finishing up the book, one is sure to gasp at the wonder nature is. One also can't help but wonder at the distance we have traveled since the dawn of civilization. The distance we have traveled from the days of Copernicus , Galileo or even Newton is surely impressive. Not too long ago, people just used to look at the sky and theorized about what lies out there. Now, we have giant telescopes which can look almost at the edge of the universe. We know that we are part of a solar system which is only one of hundreds of millions in the galaxy milky way, the galaxy we are part of is one of only a billions out there, and if current theories are right, the universe itself may be part of one of only infinitely many universes out there. All this, if it were not true, would have made great science fiction. Achievements like this make me think of the most wondrous thing in the nature , the human mind. The human intellect is the biggest marvel of nature. It is surely staggering to realize what pure thought combined with passionate curiosity can achieve. Physics's monumental achievements are a great proof of that.

iTrip is cooooollll!!

I am a self-confessed Ipod junkie, just like millions others. Ipod has changed my life for the better. The idea of carrying all my music collection in my pocket and be able to play at anytime anywhere is captivating and thanks to Apple it is a cool reality. However, once all your music collection is at the palm of your hand, there is a strong urge to be able to play that music on the speakers of your choice. The headphones seem too restrictive. If you have "state of the art" music system with yourself (like I do with my Bose speakers!) you want to be able to use it. Enter Itrip, a wonderful little device which attatches on top of your Ipod and transmits a radio signal at the frequency of your choice. That radio frequency can be picked up by any radio device within 30 feet range. The most wonderful thing about the whole thing is that I have my own personal radio station , commercial-free I might add, at which I can play any song of my choosing from my vast 20 GB collection. That degree of control is thrilling to say the least. The device is ideal to play your music in a car. Unlike its bulkier, more general purpose counterparts in market, Itrip doesnot need any batteries. It draws its power from Ipod and is as light as a feather. Moreover, there are a lot more frequencies to choose from unlike some other devices (like Irock) . The only possible drawback is that of a general FM-transmitter. If you are on a long drive through the cities then you may have to change frequencies quite often, however a long drive through countryside should give no trouble at all. If you are playing it at home then there is no problem whatsoever. All in all, a great Ipod accessory.

ESPN- The Villain

ESPN has done it again. For no apparent reason , they decided not to show live the French Open semifinals. They were happy to show the recordings in the evening though. Makes me wonder whether it had something to do with the fact that the tournament was in France or it had something to do with the fact that no American could make it that far in the tournament. May be it was both, but neverthless Tennis fans were undone again by ESPN. It reminds me of the Australian Open this year when they decided not to show live the epic semifinal game between Marat Safin and Federar thus robbing Tennis fans of one of the best grand slam semifinals games ever. The reasoning at that time -as far as I could make out- was since it was a game involving two non-americans, it was not worth showing, because they did show the other semifinal between Roddick (american) and Hewitt. This strange behaviour from ESPN is baffling because even commercially it does not make sense. Tennis is a very popular game in US and a grand slam semifinal is sure to find a substantial audience, whether an american is playing or not. It is just unfathomable that ESPN can not (or may be does not want to) acquire rights to broadcast live the semifinals games of a Grand Slam event. Even the puny old National TV in India broadcasts grand slam Tennis live.

Pheonix Suns - Loved it while it lasted

So finally the juggernaut called Phoenix Suns has come to a crashing halt. Phoenix Suns were like a 'breath of fresh air' (cliche alert) in this era of diffensive basketball. They were great fun to watch and played basketball like it is meant to be played, great athletic game full of spectacular dunks, layups and terrific shooting. It worked wonderfully well as Suns managed to win 62 games in the regular season & reached the conference finals. However, their flamboyance could not come to terms with the playoff experience of San Antonio and the awesome talents they possess. My friend Neeraj had pointed out to me that even though Spurs are primarily a defensive basketball team, they can play offensive game as well as any, however, Suns do not have the defense to challenge the likes of Duncan and Ginobili. Spurs proved that beyond any doubt in the first two games as they beat Suns in their own game and that too in their backyard by playing a full throttle fast-paced basketball. Suns did score their customary 100+ points, but Spurs proved more than a match. In game 3, Spurs were back to what they have been doing all along, great defense combined with a measured offense to hold Suns below 100 points for the first time in the playoffs & go up 3-0. Suns did really well in Game 4 to snatch a come from behind victory, but everybody knew that the series was as good as over . Spurs came back to Phoenix and completed the formalities by giving another all round display of basketball. Spurs look really good right now and my money is on them to win the championship for the third time in 7 years.

Even though Suns lost they do take a lot of positives from these season. Getting Steve Nash from Dallas proved a masterstroke as not only he was the MVP for the year but also took his game a couple of notches up(as if that was possible) to give one of the best performances by a point-guard in playoffs. Their draft- pick Amare Stoudemire is finally coming on his own, as he averaged 30+ points in playoffs and gave one spectacular performance after another. The wonderful combination of Stoudemire and Nash ensured one of the greatest turnarounds in NBA history. Phoenix Suns went from 29 victories in 2004 to 62 victories in 2005. Suns are sure going to be a force to reckon with for next few years.

French Open- Federar Vs Nadal

This one promises to be one of the best games of 2005. Ever since the draw for French Open came out, fans have been salivating over the delicious potential match up between the current number one and the spanish sensation. The last time the two met, at Nasdaq-100 open in Florida, they produced a crackling game of tennis full of flamboyance and elegance. Federar did win the contest but not before sweating it out in sweltering Miami Heat. The upcoming game in Paris promises to be no different only that the stakes are higher this time around. Federar, the world no. 1 by about 100 miles, and Nadal, the most sensational young player in the ATP circuit are players of almost equal calibre & style but contrasting personalities. Federar is the epitome of calm concentration and Nadal is all about letting himself all out in the heat of the battle. Federar, because of his experience and calm head, certainly has more than an edge, however it should be remembered that Nadal is the only player to have come close to beating Federar after the Australian Open. Tradesports has given Federar 60% probability of winning which to me is underestimating Federar's chances, however Nadal has been nothing short of spectacular on clay this year with a 21 game winning streak so far, so even if Federar's chances are being underestimated it probably is not by much. All in all, it is going to be a mouth watering clash between these two supremely gifted players. I just can't wait for Thursday.

Buzztracker

Came across this interesting site buzztracker by following a link from this one. What this site does is gives a snapshot of places in the news today. The way it is done here is using the indexing approach followed in the Google search engine. The site assigns a weight to different locations, depending on how many newspapers referred to that location in their daily news. Higher the number of newspapers referring to the location, more the weight assigned (in this case a %) and bigger the red circle over that location in the global map. Different locations are linked by a line, this link depends on the number of times the news stories cross reference two locations. Higher the number of cross references, darker the line linking two locations. The idea is to capture places in the news and emphasise the effect of happenings in one place with the other. Overall, an interesting effort.