Innovation and India

Innovation is at the heart of all scientific activity. Yet in many developing countries, the investments in research and development institutions do not seem to yield any measurable results. While India has made rapid strides in the world of research and development in the last few years, but none of its innovations are world-beaters. Neither have any of their discoveries and inventions fundamentally changed how many of us live and work; or helped generate immeasurable wealth for companies, individuals and the nation.

I remember that this was one of the major concerns among the members of the nations Science and Technology Advisory Committee to Mrs Gandhi in the early seventies. As a member of this prestigious committee, we were asked to examine why despite major investments being made at the 26 national science laboratories, there had been no breakthroughs in any area over the past two decades based on their work. We found that laboratories had few financial resources, they had no linkages to industry, no capabilities for engineering and upscaling their work, no access to funds for marketing, in short no innovation infrastructure.

Arindam Bannerjee in his article makes the same points.

But the heart of all innovation is innovators. Since 1999, the editors of Technology Review, a magazine produced by MIT, have honored the young innovators from around the world whose inventions and research they find most exciting; a list of technologists and scientists, all under the age of 35. Their work--spanning medicine, computing, communications, electronics, nanotechnology, and more--is expected to change our world. Among these innovators, there are a large number of Indians. Some of these Indians have already made their mark—Sabeer Bhatia, the founder of Hotmail, was selected in 1999. There are others in this list who will no doubt make their mark in the future. The question is are there some Indian organizations, industrial houses or entreprenaurs who will seek these budding Indian innovators out and provide the financing and support to convert these to world shaking discoveries and inventions?

In any case, here is the list of Indian who have over the past decade made the innovators of the year list selected by a distinguished panel assembled by Technology Review.

1999

Sabeer Bhatia, 30. With friend and co-worker Jack Smith, Bhatia founded Hotmail, the first free Web-based e-mail service.

Shivkumar Kalyanaraman, 28 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. made important contributions to research on asynchronous transfer mode, a protocol that permits high-speed network communications.

Jagdeep Singh, 32.Stanford University. WDM requires a sophisticated switch to direct multi-spectral traffic--and that’s just what Jagdeep Singh created at his 1998 startup, Lightera Networks.

Tejal Desai, 27.University of Illinois, Chicago is rapidly becoming one of the most established researchers in the biomedical applications of nanotechnology and bio-MEMS.

Akhil Madhani, 31. Walt Disney Imaging If robots are to play a larger role in our lives, we will need to make them more dexterous and responsive. As his doctoral project, Madhani created "Black Falcon," a robot that performed surgery under the command of a surgeon at a remote location.

Samir Mitragotri, 28. Sontra Medical Samir Mitragotri envisions a day when measuring glucose levels is bloodless--and ouchless. The Bombay native invented a way to use low-frequency ultrasound to make skin super-permeable (a process known as sonophoresis), then suck out interstitial fluid with a vacuum.

Amit Goyal, 34 Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His contribution: growing thin layers of ceramic superconductors on a polycrystalline metal template, using the highly aligned metal to line up grains of the superconductors. The resulting structure of the superconductor resembles a single crystal, and the method has allowed Goyal and his co-workers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to form superconducting wires capable of very high current densities.

2002

Ramesh Hariharan, 32. Strand Genomics cofounded Strand Genomics in Bangalore, where he designs software tools to efficiently analyze the ever increasing volume of data about the makeup of genes. With colleagues from the university and from a local software firm, he started the nonprofit Simputer Trust to develop a simple, cheap (under $200), portable, battery-operated computer to bring the Internet to the developing world.

Vinay Gidwaney, 20. Control-F1 Gidwaney, chief technology officer of the 40-person company, calls his tools “better than being there.” That’s because a remote customer can continue to work on her computer while Control-F1 software is solving her support problem in the background: no need for her to step away from the computer for a human technician.

Vijay Pande, 31Stanford University.Pande is now using distributed computing to map the final folded structures of the proteins. On any given day, 35,000 PCs are providing the computing power.

Rajesh Reddy, 31.July Systems.By summer 2001 Reddy was back in Bangalore launching July Systems, to create software that integrates wireless networks and devices into a global superstructure. With the backing of investor Ashok Narasimhan, and with business lessons learned, Reddy is confident July Systems will become a significant player this summer.

Vivek Subramanian, 30.University of California, Berkeley. is an inventor’s inventor. His credits include a novel memory chip that led him to start Santa Clara, CA-based Matrix Semiconductor; a tiny, award-winning transistor; and his current project, ultracheap, flexible displays for note-taking gadgets.

2003

Shuvo Roy
Builds tiny machines that can warn of impending heart attack and monitor healing after surgery
Ram Samudrala
Wrote algorithms that can predict the functions of proteins from the sequence of a genome
Sangeeta Bhatia
Uses microchip-manufacturing tools to build artificial livers
Krishna Kumar
Improves the stability and effectiveness of protein-based drugs
Rueben Singh
Provides support services and startup money for entrepreneurs
Balaji Narasimhan
Devises time-release polymers to replace multiple vaccine injections
Ravikanth Pappu
Fights credit card forgery with glass-bead “keys”
Sanjay Parekh
Develops software that lets companies tailor services to their customers locations
Vipul Ved Prakash
Developed free and commercial software filters that fight spam
Nimmi Ramanujam
Uses light to help make diagnosing breast cancer and cervical cancer faster, more accurate and less invasive
Vic Gundotra
Sparked Microsofts change to .Net


2004

Ramesh Raskar
Built large computer display systems that seamlessly combine images from multiple projectors.
Anuj Batra
Leads one of the industrys top teams advancing ultrawideband wireless technology, which provides the high transmission speeds needed for streaming-media applications while consuming little power.
Chaitail Sengupta
Oversees the architecture of the communications chips used in advanced cellular systems now coming to market.
Vikram Sheel Kumar
Developed interactive software that motivates patients to manage chronic diseases such as diabetes and AIDS.
Mayank Bulsara
Developer of strained silicon.
Ravi Kane
Created a highly potent anthrax treatment in which each drug molecule blocks multiple toxin molecules rather than just one
Srinidhi Varadarajan
Conceived and built the worlds third-fastest supercomputer
Smruti Vidwans
Development of drugs to assist in the battle against TB.
Ananth Natarajan
Bridging the gap between research and patient care.

2005

Rajit Manohar
Taking the clocks out of computer chips
Anita Goel
Building novel pathogen detectors
Shiladitya Sengupta
Delivering drugs to cancer cells
Narashima Chari
Setting the mesh networking standard


2006

Anand Raghunathan
Making mobile secure
Prithwish Basu
His passion is finding ways to connect mobile devices, sensors, and robots directly--without the need for a base station. It's called "ad hoc" networking.
Ram K. Krishnamurthy
Cooler computers
Sumeet Singh
Faster defenses against computer viruses
Ashok Maliakal
The floppy screen

2007

Shetal Shah
Cushioning preemies
Sanjit Biswas
Cheap, easy Internet access
Tapan Parikh
Simple, powerful mobile tools for developing economies
Partha Ranganathan
Power-aware computing systems

2008

Bilal Shafi
Preventing congestive heart failure
Sundar Iyer
Making memory at Internet speed
Tanzeem Choudhury
Inferring social networks automatically

2009

Ashoke Ravi
Using software to send diverse radio signals
Vik Singh
Opening up search secrets to spur innovation
Ranjan Dash
Nanoporous carbon could help power hybrid cars
Pranav Mistry
A simple, wearable device enhances the real world with digital information
Cyrus Wadia
Identifying materials that could be unexpectedly useful in solar cells
Shwetak Patel
Simple sensors to detect residents’ activities

Remembering Teddy Kennedy

I first shook hands with Teddy Kennedy in 1962! I was then a student at MIT and Teddy had just announced that he was running for the senate seat vacated by his brother Jack. He would stand next to the exit from the subway trains and introduce himself to all saying " I am Teddy Kennedy and I am running for the senate."

A decade later, I was traveling to the US on some official work for my consulting company and I was taken to a separate room for interrogation by the customs and immigration officials at the Kennedy airport. Yes, this was 1974 and yes the profiling was a common problem for us even then. In this case, they pretty much wrecked my entire suitcase including cutting open a stuffed elephant that I was carrying for a family friend who worked with Teddy Kennedy.When I met Jerry Tinker to congratulate him on the birth of his daughter and lamented that the elephant I was bringing as a gift now lay cut and bleeding with the customs in new york, he was most concerned. Those were the days when there were reports of CIA deliberately planting drugs on unsuspecting tourists to convert them into spies! Jerry promised to ensure that this did not happen and the next day gave me a letter signed by Kennedy that I carried for the next decade in all my trips to the US.

A decade later, our daughter, Shibani was studying at American University. One summer she was fortunate enough to intern with Senator Kennedy's office, an experience she cherishes to this day.

The last few days have been full of the life and times of Teddy Kennedy. Since his death on Tuesday, he has been lionized as " greatest senator of our time" and the " lion of the senate".But the real story of his life is one of the power of redemption from self inflicted wounds-- from his expulsion from Harvard for cheating, the death of Mary Kopechne,the drinking and carousing in the late eighties.That he fell, no one doubted but that he recovered from each and every one of his falls is really the true story of his life. And the real lesson from his life? Never ever give up.

My last contact with Senator Kennedy was when our great friend, Jerry Tinker, who had by then become the chief of Kennedy's Refugee committee died prematurely.It was the first wake that I had gone to and I was touched by the fact that a number of senators were present and spoke in such glowing terms of Jerry and recalled with great humor the life and times of Jerry. Teddy Kennedy gave a rip roaring eulogy. Sadly that was the last time I shook hands with Teddy Kennedy.

The ultimate virtue

When I was growing up, the only virtue that no one questioned was kindness. It was the ultimate in the list of heavenly virtues of chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience and humility.

But there is another view of kindness that I was not aware of. In much of the west kindness was often considered to be a sign of weakness. In the age of the rampant free market and the selfish gene, compassion was seen as either narcissism or weakness. In this pragmatic and aggressively competitive culture, kindness was viewed as one of those effete virtues lacking in charisma or clout. In this society, everyone is intensely independent. People rely on themselves, not on others. They do not like having others do things for them. They do not like having to depend on anyone. Kindness runs counter to this obsessive need for self-sufficiency when others offer help.

Kindness has often been defined as helpfulness towards some one in need, not in return for anything, nor for the advantage of the helper himself, but for that of the person helped. Kindness is great if shown to one who is in great need, or who needs what is important and hard to get, or who needs it at an important and difficult crisis; or if the helper is the only, the first, or the chief person to give the help. After all kindness has been the foundation of the world’s great religions and most-enduring philosophies. Why, then, does being kind feel so dangerous? If we crave kindness with such intensity, why is it a pleasure we often deny ourselves? And why—despite our longing—are we often suspicious when we are on the receiving end of it?

We are constantly being told that humanity is selfish and motivated only by sexual gratification and the promise of power over others. In this conception of society - driven by competitive individualism - kindness has become the new taboo. It lives on as a hollow parody of its true self. Kindness is either the kind of selflessness achievable only by superior, saintly beings such as Nelson Mandela or Mother Teresa, or is dismissed as a form of self-interest in disguise.

But what is the thing that most scares us human beings? What is the monster hiding under the bed? The unexpected answer is kindness.

Do not think I am not grateful for your small
kindness to me.
I like small kindnesses.
In fact I actually prefer them to the more
substantial kindness, that is always eying you
like a large animal on a rug,
until your whole life reduces
to nothing but waking up morning after morning
cramped, and the bright sun shining on its tusks.

Often, kindness is perceived as a camouflaged demand, its motive perhaps hidden from the giver of favors. The giver’s unknowingness may be what most irritates the poet. Both the suspicion of kindness and the discomfort of exposure are familiar to most of us. For we are, each of us, battling back against our innate kindness, with which we are fairly bursting, at every turn. Why? Because real kindness is an exchange with essentially unpredictable consequences. It is a risk precisely because it mingles our needs and desires with the needs and desires of others, in a way that so-called self-interest never can.

In their brilliant book, “On Kindness”, the eminent psychoanalyst Adam Phillips and the historian Barbara Taylor examine the pleasures and perils of kindness. Bursting with often shocking insight, this brief book returns its readers to what Marcus Aurelius declared was mankind’s “greatest delight”: the intense satisfactions of generosity and compassion. It argues that a life lived in instinctive, sympathetic identification with others is the one we should allow ourselves to live.

As His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said, "Whether one believes in religion or not, there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness. We can be kind to others by allowing them to be kind to us and by showing deep gratitude in return.”

American myths about healthcare

The debate on health-care in the US is getting crankier and more ignorant by the day.There is little logical discussion and even senators indulge in " we have the best care in the world, everything else is socialism" kind of rhetoric that one longs for some sanity. Here is an article by T.R. Reid, a Washington Post reporter who has done his research and is willing to explode some of the nonsensical myths about medical care floating around.

" As Americans search for the cure to what ails our health-care system, we've overlooked an invaluable source of ideas and solutions: the rest of the world. All the other industrialized democracies have faced problems like ours, yet they've found ways to cover everybody -- and still spend far less than we do... To do that, we first have to dispel a few myths about health care abroad:

1. It's all socialized medicine out there.

Not so. Some countries, such as Britain, New Zealand and Cuba, do provide health care in government hospitals, with the government paying the bills. Others -- for instance, Canada and Taiwan -- rely on private-sector providers, paid for by government-run insurance. But many wealthy countries -- including Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and Switzerland -- provide universal coverage using private doctors, private hospitals and private insurance plans. In some ways, health care is less "socialized" overseas than in the United States. Almost all Americans sign up for government insurance (Medicare) at age 65. In Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, seniors stick with private insurance plans for life. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is one of the planet's purest examples of government-run health care.

2. Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices or long lines.

Generally, no. Germans can sign up for any of the nation's 200 private health insurance plans -- a broader choice than any American has. If a German doesn't like her insurance company, she can switch to another, with no increase in premium. The Swiss, too, can choose any insurance plan in the country. In France and Japan, you don't get a choice of insurance provider; you have to use the one designated for your company or your industry. But patients can go to any doctor, any hospital, any traditional healer. There are no U.S.-style limits such as "in-network" lists of doctors or "pre-authorization" for surgery. You pick any doctor, you get treatment -- and insurance has to pay. Canadians have their choice of providers. In Austria and Germany, if a doctor diagnoses a person as "stressed," medical insurance pays for weekends at a health spa.
As for those notorious waiting lists, some countries are indeed plagued by them. Canada makes patients wait weeks or months for nonemergency care, as a way to keep costs down. But studies by the Commonwealth Fund and others report that many nations -- Germany, Britain, Austria -- outperform the United States on measures such as waiting times for appointments and for elective surgeries. In Japan, waiting times are so short that most patients don't bother to make an appointment. ...

3. Foreign health-care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies.

Much less so than here. It may seem to Americans that U.S.-style free enterprise -- private-sector, for-profit health insurance -- is naturally the most cost-effective way to pay for health care. But in fact, all the other payment systems are more efficient than ours. U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world; they spend roughly 20 cents of every dollar for nonmedical costs, such as paperwork, reviewing claims and marketing. France's health insurance industry, in contrast, covers everybody and spends about 4 percent on administration. Canada's universal insurance system, run by government bureaucrats, spends 6 percent on administration. In Taiwan, a leaner version of the Canadian model has administrative costs of 1.5 percent; one year, this figure ballooned to 2 percent, and the opposition parties savaged the government for wasting money. The world champion at controlling medical costs is Japan, even though its aging population is a profligate consumer of medical care. On average, the Japanese go to the doctor 15 times a year, three times the U.S. rate. They have twice as many MRI scans and X-rays. Quality is high; life expectancy and recovery rates for major diseases are better than in the United States. And yet Japan spends about $3,400 per person annually on health care; the United States spends more than $7,000.

4. Cost controls stifle innovation.

False. The United States is home to groundbreaking medical research, but so are other countries with much lower cost structures. Any American who's had a hip or knee replacement is standing on French innovation. Deep-brain stimulation to treat depression is a Canadian breakthrough. Many of the wonder drugs promoted endlessly on American television, including Viagra, come from British, Swiss or Japanese labs. Overseas, strict cost controls actually drive innovation. In the United States, an MRI scan of the neck region costs about $1,500. In Japan, the identical scan costs $98. Under the pressure of cost controls, Japanese researchers found ways to perform the same diagnostic technique for one-fifteenth the American price. (And Japanese labs still make a profit.)

5. Health insurance has to be cruel.

Not really. American health insurance companies routinely reject applicants with a "preexisting condition" -- precisely the people most likely to need the insurers' service. They employ armies of adjusters to deny claims. If a customer is hit by a truck and faces big medical bills, the insurer's "rescission department" digs through the records looking for grounds to cancel the policy, often while the victim is still in the hospital. The companies say they have to do this stuff to survive in a tough business. Foreign health insurance companies, in contrast, must accept all applicants, and they can't cancel as long as you pay your premiums. The plans are required to pay any claim submitted by a doctor or hospital (or health spa), usually within tight time limits. The big Swiss insurer Groupe Mutuel promises to pay all claims within five days. "Our customers love it," the group's chief executive told me. The corollary is that everyone is mandated to buy insurance, to give the plans an adequate pool of rate-payers. The key difference is that foreign health insurance plans exist only to pay people's medical bills, not to make a profit. The United States is the only developed country that lets insurance companies profit from basic health coverage.

In many ways, foreign health-care models are not really "foreign" to America, because our crazy-quilt health-care system uses elements of all of them. For Native Americans or veterans, we're Britain: The government provides health care, funding it through general taxes, and patients get no bills. For people who get insurance through their jobs, we're Germany: Premiums are split between workers and employers, and private insurance plans pay private doctors and hospitals. For people over 65, we're Canada: Everyone pays premiums for an insurance plan run by the government, and the public plan pays private doctors and hospitals according to a set fee schedule. And for the tens of millions without insurance coverage, we're Burundi or Burma: In the world's poor nations, sick people pay out of pocket for medical care; those who can't pay stay sick or die.

This fragmentation is another reason that we spend more than anybody else and still leave millions without coverage. All the other developed countries have settled on one model for health-care delivery and finance; we've blended them all into a costly, confusing bureaucratic mess. Which, in turn, punctures the most persistent myth of all: that America has "the finest health care" in the world. We don't. In terms of results, almost all advanced countries have better national health statistics than the United States does. In terms of finance, we force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. In France, the number of medical bankruptcies is zero. Britain: zero. Japan: zero. Germany: zero.

Given our remarkable medical assets -- the best-educated doctors and nurses, the most advanced hospitals, world-class research -- the United States could be, and should be, the best in the world. To get there, though, we have to be willing to learn some lessons about health-care administration from the other industrialized democracies."

Summer Reading

Summer is a time to relax and to catch up on your reading. During the past month, I read three really interesting books with completely different backgrounds. But what all three shared was a love of language and the authors’ ability to conjure up an atmosphere.

The first is a book by Pat Conroy, “ South of Broad”, one of the finest American authors, who burst into fame with his famous “The Prince of Tides.” Against the sumptuous backdrop of Charleston, South Carolina, South of Broad gathers a unique cast of sinners and saints. Leopold Bloom King, the narrator, is the son of an amiable, loving father who teaches science at the local high school. His mother, an ex-nun, is the high school principal and a well-known Joyce scholar. After Leo's older brother commits suicide at the age of thirteen, the family struggles with the shattering effects of his death, and Leo, lonely and isolated, searches for something to sustain him. Eventually, he finds his answer when he becomes part of a tightly knit group of high school seniors that includes scions of Charleston aristocracy; Appalachian orphans; a black football coach's son; and an astonishingly beautiful pair of twins, Sheba and Trevor Poe, who are evading their psychotic father. The story alternates between 1969, the glorious year Leo's coterie stormed Charleston's social, sexual and racial barricades, and 1989, when Sheba, now a movie star, enlists them to find her missing gay brother in AIDS-ravaged San Francisco. Echoing some themes from his earlier novels, Conroy fleshes out the almost impossibly dramatic details of each of the friends’ lives in this vast, intricate story, and he reveals truths about love, lust, classism, racism, religion, and what it means to be shaped by a particular place, be it Charleston, South Carolina, or anywhere else in the U.S. South of Broad is Pat Conroy at his finest; a long-awaited work from a great American writer whose passion for life and language knows no bounds and who is an engrossing story teller.

The second book is from veteran espionage novelist Littell (Vicious Circle; The Company; etc.) who trades cold war spies for interwar Russian poets in his wonderful new novel “The Stalin Epigram”. In 1934, real-life poet Osip Mandelstam struggles to get published in the totalitarian state. A battered idealist who has witnessed his share of Stalin-orchestrated horrors, Mandelstam feels writers have an abiding responsibility to be truth tellers in this wasteland of lies. Littell dramatizes the horrific events that followed after the great Russian poet Osip Mandelstam wrote a 16-line epigram that attacked the all-powerful Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. When the novel begins, Stalin's farm collectivization policies were causing mass starvation, and a reign of terror had begun in Moscow, where the slightest criticism of the dictator could bring arrest, torture and death. With regard to politics, he is a naive idealist. After he sees starvation in the Crimea firsthand, he tells his friend and fellow poet Boris Pasternak: "I am through beating about the bush, Boris. A poem needs to be written that spells out the evil of Stalin so that any dense-brained idiot can understand it." The right poem, he believes, can bring down the dictator. His epigram calls Stalin "the murderer and peasant-slayer" for whom "every killing is a treat." Once arrested, Mandelstam is terrified. Mandelstam's interrogation is chilling; there are no right answers except to confess guilt. However, to our surprise, he leaves the prison alive, because Pasternak convinces Stalin that history sides with poets, not with politicians who murder them. There is lovely writing in this novel, as befits the story of four poets, and powerful scenes. Littell not only brings the four poets to agonizing life, he does not shrink from making Stalin himself a character. This is a timeless story of courage and truth confronting the madness of absolute power. It's a brilliant work, always readable, sometimes funny and often heartbreaking. There are many books about Stalin's terror, but there cannot be many that bring its truths more vividly, painfully to life.

The third book, “The Battle for America”, is about the historic election of 2008 in the US which brought an African American to the presidency. This election shattered political barriers, illuminated undercurrents of race, gender, and class, and ignited an extraordinary battle among some of the most formidable political rivals ever to seek the presidency in Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain. It was an election that played out against a backdrop of wars, a shattered economy, and deep pessimism about the future. Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson followed this campaign from the candidates’ first forays into Iowa and New Hampshire to the historic night of Obama’s victory celebration. They take readers on a gripping journey through the epic battle for Iowa, Clinton’s dramatic comeback in New Hampshire, the racially tinged primary in South Carolina, the stunning endorsement of Obama by Senator Edward M. Kennedy over the Clintons’ objections. They reveal the strategic mistakes of the Clinton campaign and the story behind Obama’s breakthrough organization. They cover McCain’s struggle for survival in the Republican primaries, Sarah Palin, and the economic meltdown that ensured Obama’s victory. Post mortem books on presidential election campaigns are nothing new and there have been many of them, but 2008 was truly one of those landmark campaigns that truly warrant re-examination. Both Balz and Johnson are fantastic at bringing the highs and lows of the campaign trail back to life. Even though you know the inevitable outcomes they still keep the retelling lively and gripping. But rather than focusing solely on the candidates and what happened "The Battle for America" provides great insight into the minds of the voters and the tectonic shifts occurring in American society, for the 2008 election was as much about the changes the electorate was undergoing as the candidates who were running.

The dangers of seeking

Its a brave new world out there now. And it has its own new dangers.

Sometimes it feels as if the basic drives for food, sex, and sleep have been overridden by a new need for endless nuggets of electronic information. Using google, iphone and twitter, we are constantly atwitter with newer and newer nuggets of mostly unusable information. "We actually resemble nothing so much as those legendary lab rats that endlessly pressed a lever to give themselves a little electrical jolt to the brain" says Yoffe in this article" While we tap, tap away at our search engines, it appears we are stimulating the same system in our brains that scientists accidentally discovered more than 50 years ago when probing rat skulls. "

It's an interesting summary of research that seeks to understand the primal human hunger for information, mostly by extending our models of addiction. Why do we constantly check our email on Sunday morning, or refresh Facebook 100 times a day? What makes new facts so rewarding? For the brain, information is just another rewarding stimulus, an excitatory prompt that leads to the release of neurotransmitter. Apparently the juice that fuels the seeking system is the neurotransmitter dopamine. So good does it feel that we seek out activities, or substances, that keep this system aroused. Ever find yourself sitting down at the computer just for a second to find out what other movie you saw that actress in, only to look up and realize the search has led to an hour of Googling? Thank dopamine.

Here's Yoffe again “ Berridge has proposed that in some addictions the brain becomes sensitized to the wanting cycle of a particular reward. So addicts become obsessively driven to seek the reward, even as the reward itself becomes progressively less rewarding once obtained. "The dopamine system does not have satiety built into it," Berridge explains. "And under certain conditions it can lead us to irrational wants, excessive wants we'd be better off without." So we find ourselves letting one Google search lead to another, while often feeling the information is not vital and knowing we should stop. "As long as you sit there, the consumption renews the appetite," he explains. Actually all our electronic communication devices--e-mail, Facebook feeds, texts, Twitter--are feeding the same drive as our searches. Since we're restless, easily bored creatures, our gadgets give us in abundance qualities what the seeking/wanting system finds particularly exciting.

To me, and I suspect many readers, the quest for information can be an intensely rewarding experience. Discovering a previously elusive fact or soaking up a finely crafted argument can be as pleasurable as eating a fine meal when hungry or dousing a thirst with drink. This isn't just a fanciful analogy - a new study suggests that the same neurons that process the primitive physical rewards of food and water also signal the more abstract mental rewards of information.

Humans generally don't like being held in suspense when a big prize is on the horizon. If we get wind of a raise or a new job, we like to get advance information about what's in store. It turns out that monkeys feel the same way and like us, they find that information about a reward is rewarding in itself.

Ethan Bromberg-Martin and Okihide Hikosaka trained two thirsty rhesus monkeys to choose between two targets on a screen with a flick of their eyes; in return, they randomly received either a large drink or a small one after a few seconds. Their choice of target didn't affect which drink they received, but it did affect whether they got prior information about the size of their reward. One target brought up another symbol that told them how much water they would get, while the other brought up a random symbol. After a few days of training, the monkeys almost always looked at the target that would give them advance intel, even though it never actually affected how much water they were given. They wanted knowledge for its own sake. What's more, even though the gap between picking a target and sipping some water was very small, the monkeys still wanted to know what was in store for them mere seconds later. To them, ignorance was far from bliss.

These experiments elegantly demonstrated an essential feature of the human mind, which is how evolution bootstrapped our penchant for ideas to the same reward circuits that govern our animal appetites. In other words, the political activist on hunger strike might still be relying on his reward circuity, even though he's actually denying himself caloric treats: the cause is simply more important than food. That's what makes ideas so powerful: No matter how esoteric or ethereal or abstract they get, they are ultimately plugged back into the same system that makes us want sex and sugar. The end result is that we can crave knowledge and facts just like a thirsty monkey craves water.

And doesn't this also help explain the allure of suspenseful narratives and a good detective novel? A good story, after all, is simply the artful denial of information - Will Elizabeth marry Darcy? Will Jason Bourne survive Moscow? - so that the audience craves resolution, which arrives in the form of information. The happy ending is a universal human reward.

And you always thought being able to search google was harmless. Well, think again !!

Grow old, grow happier

In the past three weeks, cable TV in the US has been filled with irate, red faced seniors shouting insanely about health care. It is difficult to reconcile these images with the BBC report below which suggests that old people get happier as they grow older. At least the ones on cable TV show no such signs-- the only signs they show are a paranoia and a deeprooted dislike of any change that may impact their lives. It is a new version of " I got mine, Jack" and don't you mess with me. While some of it is driven by fear fanned by the right wing zealots on the radio and TV, there is clearly some degree of racism involved as well. But one would hope that age would provide some degree of perspective and some measure of maturity. One presumes most of these irate citizens are churchgoers, but I saw no sign of any charity in their actions, passions or desires. So the report from BBC comes as a welcome respite that perhaps those on the cable TV are a fringe minority and not representative of old age and the recent studies that suggest that most people get happier as they grow older are correct. Despite worries about ill health, income, changes in social status and bereavements, later life tends to be a golden age, according to psychologists. I hope so indeed

Here are some tips for a happy old age according to these studies

Innovation in Asia

Asia has strengths that promise to make it a leading center of technological innovation in the 21st century. These strengths are substantial, fundamental, and durable according to Eric Drexler, author and expert on technology strategy and emerging
nanotechnologies, and why Asia may be poised to become a world leader. At their base lie aspects of culture, on both a civilization and generational time scale. Human capital and the capacity for mobilization can build on these cultural advantages.

“Technological innovation drives innovation throughout the global economy”, he argues, “changing what we make, what we use, and what we do.” Centers of technological innovation can become centers of innovation across a broad economic spectrum for two reasons: innovation in technology is inseparable from the innovations that flow from it, and the regearing of a society for innovation of any kind has effects on law, capital, and business culture that spill across boundaries.

To become a world-class center of technological innovation, a society must have three basic elements: drive—a culture that supports change and hungers for it; human capital—the personal abilities that make world-class technology possible; and a capacity for mobilization—a society’s ability to pursue ambitious new goals. These basic elements are more fundamental than any current performance metric or economic trend, and they are durable.

Drive for change. Cultures can shift between complacency and drive on a generational time scale. Where one generation struggles from poverty to prosperity, the next often treats prosperity as a natural part of life. Where one generation upholds a rigid social architecture, the next may be scrabbling in rubble and building anew. Japan and most Western societies have been stable and prosperous throughout the adult lives of their leaders. Recent history makes much of Asia quite different. The experience of change facilitates further change. People who have gone (and are continuing to go) from villages to skyscrapers in a single generation are prepared to dream of going further.

Human capital. Cultures differ radically in their attitudes toward education. In the rising societies of Asia, education is a top priority, far above, for example, sports. The Indian government has plans to double the number of IIT’s although its spending on primary education still remains woefully low. Another issue of note is that Asian education relies on drill, which tends to dampen the critical thinking and spontaneous habits of thought that generate innovative ideas. But this has been recognized as a drawback and efforts being made to readdress it.

Mobilization capacity. Drive and human capital are applied through organization, by entrepreneurs and corporations, as well as national leaders and governments. Under its new leadership in recent times, India has been outstanding in its capacity for reform and for promoting entrepreneurship, albeit it is seen only in a few sectors of the economy. But as science and technology grow in importance, it will become increasingly important for leaders to have a good understanding of these disciplines.

Asia has the potential to be the leader in innovation and creativity in the future. But that outcome is hardly certain. Asia has much to overcome: till recently the region has adopted innovations primarily from abroad; about 45 percent of its four billion people live on less than $2 a day; the average Asian income is only 40 percent of the world average; other than Japan, successful Asian economies are newly industrialized; and many Asian governments are weakly democratic or nondemocratic. Yet adversity can foster innovation, and innovations can convert adversity into advantage. Indeed, Asia has been doing just that in a number of areas.

But there has to be far greater focus on primary education as the fundamental building block of technological change. The rote approach in the educational system has to shift to innovation and encouraging creativity. Gelb argues that there are seven critical principles that need to be followed for success in innovation and creativity based on his study of Lenonard da Vinci:

· Curiosita: An insatiably curious approach to life. Great minds have one characteristic in common: they continuously ask questions throughout their lives. Leonardo's endless quest for truth and beauty clearly demonstrates this.

· Dimonstratzione: A commitment to test knowledge through experience. Wisdom comes from experience and the principle of Dimostrazione helps you get the most out of your experience.

· Sensazione: The continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to clarify experience. According to da Vinci, we can best practice Dimostrazione through our senses, particularly sight. That's why one of Leonardo's mottoes is saper vedere (knowing how to see) upon which he built his work in arts and science.

· Sfumato: A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty. An essential characteristic of da Vinci's genius is his ability to handle a sense of mystery.

· Arte/Scienza: The development of the balance between science and art, logic and imagination ("whole-brain thinking"). This is thinking with the “whole brain”.

· Corporalita: The cultivation of ambidexterity, fitness, and poise. Leonardo had amazing physical ability that complemented his genius in science and arts.

· Connessione: A recognition and appreciation for the connectedness of all things and phenomena; "systems thinking." This, in other words, is systems thinking. One main source of Leonardo's creativity is his ability to form new patterns through connections and combinations of different elements

Looking forward, this problem has been recognized by Asian governments, which have undertaken efforts to offset it. In India, a stronger move towards innovative and creative thinking is long overdue. But perhaps the magnitude of the problem may be in part an illusion given the performance of Indians working abroad.

A major stimulus lies in the fact that .8 billion people in Asia live on less than $2 a day. Although India is considered an IT powerhouse, more than one billion Indians lack Internet access. However, the self-interest of Asia's considerable commercial entities will compel them to engage vast low-income populations in serious commerce. That will require new products, approaches, and forms of employment and participation. Microcredit and innovative distribution schemes for solar panels, cell phones, and drip irrigation systems in rural communities are examples of ways to engage the traditionally unengaged.

Asia's companies know that by addressing low purchasing power, they can reach vast markets. The lure of these markets is pushing them to search for ways of achieving dramatic savings in energy and materials. Tata's affordable, fuel-efficient Nano automobile, for example, caters to low-income markets, but its impact may extend well beyond them. Admittedly, the environmental effects of the Nano remain to be seen because it will probably translate into more cars on the road and the product itself has yet to mature. However, the thinking behind the Nano and the practical experience that will result from its use could lead to innovations for global markets that increasingly must reckon with climate change.

While Asia's late industrialization implies a weakness in fundamental research, it also means that the region is less locked into old infrastructure and legacy technologies and more willing to adopt new ones. For instance, 95 percent of South Korean households have broadband Internet access, while only 60 percent of US households do.

It should also be noted that innovations often emerge from existing technologies. Electricity, for instance, was not harnessed originally to facilitate computing or wireless communication, but it led to these transformative innovations. Likewise, Filipinos and Indians are innovating in ways to transfer money through mobile phones, which were originally invented in Western countries for other purposes. Thus, when technologies—no matter where or why they were invented—are applied to diverse contexts, they provide a foundation for previously undreamed-of permutations and combinations. India has recently appointed Nandan Nilekhani as a cabinet minister to develop a universal multipurpose card which would serve as an identity card and also function as a bank to transfer money among other things.

Finally, though vast amounts of human energy and ingenuity remain dormant beneath Asia's weakly democratic or nondemocratic regimes, this is changing rapidly. Recent events in Iran—whatever their eventual outcome—demonstrates the potential for the Internet, mobile phones, and Twitter to bolster democratic pressures. As democratic forces gather steam and people become more empowered, new entrepreneurial activities and innovations will follow.

These forces of innovation are self-reinforcing, their effects cumulative, and their impact exponential. Together, they can make Asia this century's global center for innovation.

The joy of less and excess

After returning from a cruise in Alaska on one of the premier cruise ships, I got to thinking about the joys of excess—after all the week long trip really was a symphony of excess. The food was excessive, the drinks were pouring all day and night and the sites to be seen were beyond compare in their beauty and grandeur. Even before the cruise ended, talk turned inevitably to the next cruise and the next country we should visit.

According to the latest results of a study that is being carried out by clinical psychologists at York University, as many as one in five persons in Britain are thought to have an obsession with wanting more than they already have, a complex that some of them are calling "excessorexia." Due to a general increase in national wealth, images of flawless faces and perfect bodies, and the promotion of stylish homes, expensive cars and fashionable clothes as must- have accessories, an increasing number of people feel that they simply don’t come up to society’s high standards. It seems that the more you have, the more you want.

The average upwardly mobile, urban Indian too has fallen prey to this. Dil maange more is definitely the rule and not an exception. Conspicuous consumption is no longer derided and ascetic self-denial not a matter of veneration and the desirable ideal worth striving for. As a matter of fact, it is the unabashed pursuit of pleasure and perfection—be it chasing an aspirational lifestyle, resorting to accumulation of goods and commodities that are not necessities but give us immense pleasure, and travel around the world for the next thrilling site — that defines our modern lifestyle. “Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and ere die” is the unstated message.

Maslow, in his model of the hierarchy of needs, assumed that when individuals satisfied their lower needs for food, shelter etc, they would automatically move on to the satisfaction of higher needs, such as the need for community service, socialization and graduate to self-actualization. The present middle class, however, seems to defy this formulation. When the universe shrinks to ‘I, me and myself’, within this circumscribed universe, the hankering is for acquisitions and possessions that give pleasure and not joy.

But clearly there has to be more to our life than the Romans of yore, who ate excessively, threw up and then went back to eating again. Or the Epicureans whose philosophy equated pleasure with good and who lived to eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow one might die. Of the perennial traveler who wants to see one more country and one more sunrise. Just one more…It is true that no one perhaps has died of excessorexia, but it can certainly takes the life out of the living.

And then I saw the piece that Pico Iyer wrote on the joy of less which argued that happiness lies less in our circumstances than in what we make of them, in every sense.

In the corporate world, there would always be some higher position that you could attain, which meant that, like Zeno’s arrow, you are guaranteed never to arrive and always to remain dissatisfied. If you’re the kind of person who prefers freedom to security, who feels more comfortable in a small room than a large one and who finds that happiness comes from matching your wants to your needs, then running to stand still isn’t where your joy lies.

“Though I knew that poverty certainly didn’t buy happiness, I wasn’t convinced that money did either… But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn’t want or need, not all I did.”

It seems quite useful to take a clear, hard look at what really leads to peace of mind or happiness. It reminded me of a friend who toured a different country every year and took many atlas worth of photographs and continued to be itching to visit another one after he had barely returned from one. Quite different was another friend, who withdrew from his very successful career and took early retirement, to live a life of simplicity and contemplation, visiting various hermitages and mountain retreats in his spiritual quest.

Does happiness lie in incessant motion or does it lie in a retreat from all emotion? Is it to be found in having an excess of everything- food, drinks, sex, travel—or is it to be found in a retreat to an ashram with complete denial and concentration on the life of the spirit? What should one pursue- the path of yoga or of pleasure?

Perhaps happiness, like peace or passion, comes most when it isn’t pursued.

Terror in Bombay-- a video record

The untold story of 2008's terrorist attack on the Indian city of Mumbai. The story is told in the words of its victims and the gunmen.

Produced and directed by award-winning filmmaker Dan Reed, Terror in Mumbai tells the story of what happened when 10 Muslim gunmen held one of the world's busiest cities hostage; killing and wounding hundreds of people while holding India's crack security forces at bay.

Featuring footage of the attacks and interviews with senior police officers and hostages, including the testimony from Kasab - the sole surviving gunman, Dispatches reveals what happened, hour by hour, from the perspective of the security forces, the terrorists, their masterminds and the victims.

It is good to record these events for posterity and for those who would deny their existence.

An Alaska cruise

We just returned from a cruise in Alaska. It is clear from the cruise that American organization and management skills are still alive and kicking. And so is their ability to convert a leisure cruise into a money making industry.

First the organizational part- we reached the pier at Seattle port at noon along with some 2800 other vacationers. Thus began the process of checking in, passport verification, baggage handling and delivery, credit card payments etc. To our amazement, the entire process was completed within four hours and we set sail sharp at 4 pm. The crew had managed to process about 15 passengers a minute – yes a minute. And remember these were not disciplined army recruits but a mix of bawling youngster, elders in wheelchairs and the in betweens ready to party and not particularly keen on any type of order. Even when we went on shore cruises- to see the whales and salmon, totem poles and lumberjacks, and cities with a population less than a third of that of the cruise ship, there was a disciplined organization and rarely did the ship leave behind a dawdling passenger.

And this superb organization continued on board. It really operated like a five star hotel but with 2800 guests who all checked in at the same time and would leave at the same time. In between they needed to be fed, clothed and entertained.

Every day required managing a food intake for all the guests of almost 15 tons. There were cooks and butchers, chefs and pastry chefs with a total cooking staff of almost 140. They served 1300 kgs of fish and 2000 kgs of meat but balanced it with 300 kg of salad and 1500 kg of fresh fruits daily. While they offered 1000 kg of potatoes, they also provided twice that in terms of vegetables. Lest you think that the food was well balanced at all times, there was 90 gallons of ice cream served daily along with more than 6000 pastries and cakes. I calculated that if all the food was eaten, each of the vacationer took in about ten pounds daily!

Hard times had obviously hit the leisure industry as well. But they had reacted skillfully to survive in the recessionary times. Marketing had focused on seniors and the honeymooners, rates had been slashed to attract the first time vacationers attracted by the low price offers. Of course little did they realize that once on board, temptations for spending were just going to be too great including turns at the casino. While the ship provided free food at all times, all beverages were to be paid for separately- including water On average thus, each vacationer probably ended up spending almost as much on food and drinks on board as he did for the ticket itself!

The cruise management on the other hand had cut down costs as well in clever ways. Almost all the staff were on short term contract of 6-9 months. Almost all were from developing countries and almost all were young. There were no major stars for entertainment- this was provided by tapping the talent pool of the crew itself. But by providing almost one cruise staff per 3 vacationer, they were able to provide a personalized service that compensated for the inexperienced staff.

Of course, one thing I did not realize while planning the cruise was the long distances on the ship itself. To get to anywhere from your cabin required a hike of furlong or more and since the dining room and the entertainment centers were placed at either ends of the ship, you needed to be ready for long treks everyday or have a daughter around- as I did- to push your wheelchair. Another interesting facet was the care these cruise ships took to cater for the disabled- and there were a large number of wheelchair bound vacationer. All of them were given priority and there was always a crew member ready to assist.

The leisure industry- particularly the vacation cruise industry is still a multi billion dollar industry. With a fleet of 151 vessels and a combined capacity of a quarter million berths,the North American cruise industry generated $35.7 billion in gross U.S. economic output in 2006, including $17.6 billion in direct spending. The industry supported 348,000 American jobs last year, accounting for $14.7 billion in wages. And it is projected that 13.5 million passengers will sail with its member lines in 2009, a 2.3 percent increase from the estimated 13.2 million last year, with almost 20-25 percent of the passengers coming from abroad.

All in all it was a relaxing experience, particularly if you did not take all those shore cruises.

And best of all—I lost three pounds!