What Narendra Modi Should Fix

A few days ago I posed a question to Twitter asking people what their tipping point for supporting Modi was? To put it in a different way, if you support Modi today (and / or have for the last 5+ years), what is the one thing, that if he does it, would make you cease supporting him.

It is not a very difficult question (but it can be). If you are someone that does support someone, anyone, something, I think this is a question you should ask yourself. I often ask the same of myself, and it helps me in understanding why I prefer something or someone over the other.

When it comes to Narendra Modi, though, while I was neutral about how I feel about him governing the country pre-2014, over time I have definitely grown to be more critical about his policies, style of politics and opposing what India has and is becoming, under his governance. I think he has made grave mistakes and strayed from the path of serving the country, while further dwelling in the arrogance of power.

So with this, I wanted to share a little bit more about what I would like to see done, which would make me feel more ambivalent about him.

1. Stop systematically disseminating communal disharmony: Our Constitution enshrines and holds secularism as a founding principle. Be an embodiment of the principles encapsulated in the book you swore on. Unite the country, stop dividing it.
2. Don’t treat the economy like sandbox: Accept the mistakes incurred in the past (demonetization, implementation of GST, ba../11.data-scienceSUs, etc.) and move towards fixing them. Mistakes in economic policy do not live in their own walled environments, they have far reaching effects on just every aspect of life in the country. Enough has been said about each aspect of the economy, and there are definite mitigation steps advised by many eminent economists.
3. Put an end to systematic disinformation: One thing that is fundamental to me and my understanding of the world is data. The lack of reliable data from the government to independently verify its claims on a multitude of things, in every area, (be it GDP, jobs numbers, electrification, cleanliness efforts, etc.) is a problem. The lack thereof creates ripe ground for a vicious cycle of potential lies, that deepen the cracks in a society. This would work two-fold: 1) Leave no room for confusion, criticism or fake news, and 2) Add trust in the government.

That’s it. Not a long list, aye :)?

U.S. National Park Service

It has been just over 3 years since I have been in the USA, and in this time I have come to realize that one of my favorite things about USA is the National Park Service. I have visited more than 15 national parks in various parts of the country, hiked across most of them, and marvelled at the things I saw. I have experienced snow-clad mountains, scorching deserts, canyons that have been shaped over millions of years, hot springs sitting on volcanoes, tiny streams, glacial lakes, and rivers with lush waterfalls. No 2 parks were the same and I have never felt underwhelmed at the end of each day.

Some of the reasons I love national parks are:

• The ease and accessibility to explore some of the most untouched parts of the world, be it mountains, rivers, deserts or forests.
• The way these parks are maintained (by NPS), supported by rangers, and the facilities (roads, water filling stations, restrooms, hotels, restaurants) that are created with minimal disturbance to the surrounding areas.
• The flexibility that allows me to decide how much time I spend in the park, from hours to days, and guides that help me do the same.
• The well-designed scenic drives that help showcase some of the popular sights in the park from the convenience of a car.
• The detailed and charted maps for hikes that ensure a safe trip in the park.
• The rewards, in the form of never-seen-before landscapes that make every drop of sweat on difficult hikes worthwhile.

Onto getting my US NPS Passport stamped at every remaining NPS location .

Data + Science

‘Data never lies; people do.’

Data is an amusing artefact. It exists all around us, in many forms, and unless we know exactly how to read it, we are oblivious to it. It is no wonder that most professions are based in the ability to understand one specific type of data. We spend a quarter of our lives just learning about different types of data and figuring out which one we want to spend the rest of our lives around! What are skills if not the art of interpreting data? It is in this interpretation that lies are born from. Data doesn’t write stories, interpreters do. What comes from understanding the data is the hypotheses, observations, conclusions, drawn from the data. That is not what the data tells us; that is what the interpreter understands from the data, given their abilties.

Most of science once existed as hypotheses. These hypotheses were then proven by validating observations across different types of data points, explaining the intricacies of the data and hypothesizing exceptions. Science is beautiful because it is the truth, given a set of underlying constraints, assumptions and circumstances. The same gravity that doesn’t exist beyond our atmoshphere, is a defining trait of life on earth because we can observe, calculate and explain the data that we feel and observe, given the constraint of the earth’s gravity. All of science is rooted in data but data is not associated with a science.

Given my strong affinity to data and science both, in hindsight, it shouldn’t have been surprising that I ended up working as a data scientist :).

Using Instagram in 2019

8 years. That’s how long I’ve had an Instagram account. My Instagram profile is a curation, it is a reminder of everywhere I have been, some of my best photographs, akin to a portfolio. I have seen it go from a niche, Facebook acquisition, ads, it becoming a popular app, adding stories and messages. I’m not a fan of most of Instagram’s changes, so here’s a little bit about how I use Instagram these days, in 2019.

• Instagram rose to popularity with a simple photo sharing model. Traditionally, photos have been a weird beast, with everyone shooting them in different sizes and resolutions (ask Flickr or 500px). Instagram offered to level this field by forcing a square photo. Square photos, that’s it. You choose what you will crop out, but the end photo must be a square. That was the allure to me. It forced users to be creative and critical. Much like Twitter with its 140 character limit, Instagram’s square was culture-defining. Heck, Apple added a ‘square’ mode to the iOS camera app a few years after Instagram was first released, because some people exclusively shot photos to post on Instagram! So, that’s what I do on Instagram, even today: Post square photos.
• I have posted a few photos over the years that were not squares, but made such by using tools to add borders. I think that’s fine, every once in a while. What I don’t think is fine, though, is the posts that have borders on all 4 sides; it doesn’t add anything to the value of the post. Instagram posts are tiny, and by putting borders on all 4 sides, you are essentially playing your followers to force them to tap on it from your profile page.
• I do not post stories on Instagram. I will post them fairly often to Snapchat, but never on Instagram. I think stories are an abomination on Instagram. The baggage of who you are, what exists on your profile, the followers and how that mashes with your ‘personality’, forces people to spend more time on creating stories than enjoying what is in those stories. That pressure doesn’t exist on Snapchat, where a story exists to tell a simple, quick and dirty story (literally) of what you are doing. Blurry? Doesn’t matter. No caption? Better! On Instagram, it is to showoff, not to have fun.
• Instagram is not how I communicate with everyone I know; that’s Messages or WhatsApp. I refuse to follow everyone I have ever run into (I already have Facebook for that!), because seeing their posts or stories do not bring value to my life. I use Instagram to see the work of some of the best photos and read captions that will enrich the photograph by supplementing it. In fact, I regularly curate my following list and unfollow people who do not add value to my feed.
• I love the messages features on Instagram, it is a simple, great way to share posts with people, who I care about, and share something they will enjoy.
• I think the whole concept of Instagram influencers is flawed. I understand ads and sponsored content on YouTube, because it is video and no one does video like YouTube. It is not feasible to host, encode and transmit videos as easily as text or photos over the internet (yet?). But since most content is photos on Instagram, if it is your own content, it deserves to be elsewhere. We have had blogs since the advent of the internet for this exact reason: for people to own their own content! If you have content that is worthy enough that people would go where you are to see it, great, host it in a place where you own it. If not, you are not really an influencer.
• I am not a fan of the ads, but eh, whatever.

There was a time when I loved Instagram. It saddens me that I do not feel as strongly about it anymore.

The Seen and The Unseen

I have been listening to podcasts for a few years now. Most of the podcasts I listen to are (unsurprisingly) tech-related. However, slowly, my podcast feed has been growing for the last year or so, with new feeds that focus on politics, economics and current affairs. As my schedule gets more streamlined, I listen to more podcast episodes every week. It makes a lot of sense to listen to them while I’m doing chores or while I’m commuting. (If you use iOS and listen to podcasts, go, try Overcast if you don’t know about it already. It is the best podcast player out there.)

One of the podcasts that I have been most looking forward to lately, has been ‘The Seen and The Unseen’ hosted by Amit Varma. The show is set at the intersection of politics, social science and economics, in the Indian context. The guests focus on statistical evidence, facts and historical significance, and how they lend voice to their opinions. With every episode, I learn new things, understand old topics better, and am usually riveted throughout the episode.

Some noteworthy episodes that I have heard recently:

• Episode 116: India’s Lost Decade: A discussion about financial mismanagement during 2009-2019 that has left India’s economy in such a slow growth period.
• Episode 115: The Intellectual Foundations of Hindutva: A trace of the roots, growth and rise of RSS and the Hindutva ideology, from someone who once was a believer.
• Episode 119: Modi’s Lost Opportunity: One of the lesser-known (to me) spokespeople from Congress, Salman Soz, talks about the good, bad and ugly during 2014-2019. Extremely fair and unbiased. His take on dynasty politics was particularly realistic.

I highly recommend everyone who enjoys a smart conversation on important, controversial, difficult subjects to listen to it. Even if you don’t agree to it, it will make you rethink and re-assert your opinions, with more information at your disposal.

Game of Thrones: Finale

I watched the Game of Thrones finale about 24 hours back and have had the time to gather my thoughts about it. Unpopular opinion, but I liked it.

(Of course there are spoilers ahead!)

TL;DR: It was an acceptable end to the show, but not a satisfactory one.

Here’s why:

• Daenarys’ turn into an evil overlord may have been sudden(-ish) but it has been brewing, even if it didn’t latch on to the audience. And Tyrion did a really good job at explaining it.
• Jon didn’t want to be king, he didn’t want it and he would’ve been a terrible king. He was too kind and loyal, which was his unbecoming. And if he wasn’t those, he wouldn’t be loved. He did the right thing by killing Daenarys but if he had become king then, he wouldn’t be any better than those evil rulers who would do anything for the iron throne. In fact, him returning to the Wall and further north is a perfect punishment for his crime. I am glad he didn’t end up as king.
• Bran as the king makes a lot of sense. There’s no one else who has his abilities, and can rule without emotions. He has a clear goal, a clear idea of where the world should go and has not been afraid to make tough choices to get there. It may be unsatisfying, but it is totally digestible. In fact, we saw the way he would rule in that small gathering, where he delegated everything away and stuck to his strengths.
• Tyrion has been a curious character throughout the show, and he never should’ve been king, but kingmaker? Sure. I think it is befitting that he goes on to become The Hand.
• The person who won the ‘Game of Thrones’ was Sansa Stark. It has been a fascinating journey to watch her grow from a helpless, naive lady into this strong, smart Queen. Her transition has been commendable.
• Arya, true to her character, went out and did her thing. It was mildly disappointing that she didn’t kill either Cersei or Daenarys, but it was impressive to see her mature and let go of childish obsessions.
• My favorite part of the episode was the end. GoT became what it did because of 2 huge events in the storyline that left audiences in shock (the death of Ned Stark at the end of season 1, and The Red Wedding in season 3). Both focused on the Starks. Then, it was the death and resurrection of Jon Snow. Sprinkled around the whole show were these steady advances that Arya, Sansa and Bran made in their own lives. In a way, the whole show has always surrounded the Starks. GoT started as a show in Winterfell, following the lives of the Starks. The last two seasons have been great, in that they were an intersection of those divulging paths. The last few minutes of the show, as they showed them divulging back again, only happier, more peaceful and deserving, brought a smile to my face. It was a way of the young Starks telling the audience, ‘Thank you for following our journey, we take leave now.’

Reboot

It has been just over a year since my last post here. Things have changed a lot since then. I moved to a different city thrice, I graduated from my Master’s program and started my first real job. Those are the highlights, but there are also a lot of nitty-gritty details that matter.

During all that time, a few constant thoughts have strongly been on my mind. One of them has been this space, my micro(blog). I kept wanting to write, but the struggle of what to write always existed. I did end up writing a few Twitter threads in the period, and a couple blog posts, but I am not a fan of the fact that I did not keep up here.

I hope to. I want to. Now, let’s see if I actually do.

Post script: I recently (finally) linked this blog to my Git repo’s webhook, and can now easily push updated posts to it, which would then be automatically updated to the blog without having to go through the admin interface. I also fixed someone else’s old Python library to use it as a step in a Twitter bot I created to tweet updates I make here. Mildly proud of myself :).

Next Phase of Life

The last few months have been some of the most gruelling ones I have ever encountered, personally and professionally. I was supposed to graduate next month with my Masters, but I pushed that to December because a marvellous opportunity presented in the nick of time. In about 24 hours, I will leave Indianapolis, which has been my home since I arrived in USA in August, 2016, to pursue a research internship at one of the biggest technology companies in the world. Two years ago, had someone told me I’d be pursuing a research internship today, I’d have laughed really hard at that proposition. Now, I am only incredibly happy.

But the story of how I got here is very dear to me. I planned to pursue a MS, while focusing my work on embedded systems. After all, it was the ‘safe’ thing to do. It was one subject that I took in the first semester of my Master’s that made me realize that my real interest lies in artificial intelligence and the cutting edge of computer science, not embedded systems. It was way out of my comfort zone and a terrible risk. But soon thereafter, I started working on my thesis which aims at providing better preventive healthcare to patients by using natural language processing. Concurrently, I continued working on another project with another professor that involved applying artificial intelligence to the task of a utility prediction system. Both these projects that started around January, 2018, and the work I have done since then has been the most gratifying and satisfying part of my academic life. I have learnt more than I ever knew, and yearn to learn a lot more. It led me to present my work at avenues I never knew achievable. If it hadn’t been for that one choice, one leap of faith, I wouldn’t be here today, and I wanted to take a minute to absorb it and relish it, before the next phase kicks in tomorrow.

I start interning on Monday, and I can’t wait for the work phase of my life to begin. It is a big step forward for someone who has spent the last 22 (!) years of his life studying and preparing for this very moment. As of right now, I feel humbled, excited and nervous, all at the same time…

India & Politics

Indian politics is one of the most complicated and divided in the world, and it is amplified by the diversity of the country. I came across this forum discussion about why self-driving cars remain and will probably remain a dream in India for the foreseeable future, while the developed world inches towards policies and laws governing such vehicles. Much of the blame with a lot of India’s problems starts with the polity, but fairly trickle down to the people who put them in power.

“We get the politicians we deserve,” they say and I concur. Indian politicians have been obsessed with power and ruling, not working. And despite that, Indians have elected the same politicians. The fault does lie in our electoral thought process and the choices we make. Despite being a democracy, more often than not, Indians choose their local representatives based on their affiliations with a national outfit. This choice that does not account for representative’s local performance or policies is detrimental as it voids the importance of local issues. The PM will not fix the potholes in your lane; your local corporator, MLA, MP will. A politician who wants to work towards the progress of the constituency will also want to work with superiors at the city, state, country level and lead to progress of the country. But a representative who only wants to accumulate power will try to stay in power for the next 5 years by hook or crook.

A democratic entity functions successfully only when it works as a ground-up, and not top-down. There are some fundamental problems with the country and the only way to fix it is accountability. Our politicians need to be held accountable for every promise they make, every word they say and every policy they advocate for.

Ground realities change governments, not extravagant unfulfilled promises. Or so I hope.

P.S.: I wrote a similar, longer post when the 2014 Lok Sabha elections were approaching: The Dance Of Democracy.

AAAI 2018

Over the last few days, I attended AAAI 2018, which is among the premier conferences on AI conducted in the whole year. I feel honored that I got a chance to present my research project under the ‘Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence’ (IAAI-18) track, and attend the whole conference. Having attended two much smaller and more specialized IEEE conferences in the last 6 months, the sheer scale and expert knowledge of AAAI has been an overwhelming experience.

Here are some quick observations:

• AI research is just beginning to scrape the surface. There is so much more that is possible, so much more to do and so many more things to accomplish.
• It seems pretty evident that AI is distinguishing itself as its own science field, away from computer science. Most of presentations I saw did not talk about the computational aspect, because the large time, data, capacity and computational abilities required are assumed. But so is research for most other sciences like physics, biology, chemistry, etc. AI has its fundamentals in computer science, but it is carving its own place.
• Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Reinforcement Learning, Computer Vision, etc. have started to branch out as distinct fields. Working in one of them does not mean you are good enough to work in any or all of them. Domain specific knowledge is valuable.
• The importance of research is extremely well understood by American and Chinese companies. I did see representation from a few other Asian and European companies as well, but what was noteworthy for me was the lack of any Indian company presenting significant research work in AI.
• Indian companies may be absent, but a lot of AI research at various institutions and universities is conducted (and presented) by Indians. I think this also exemplifies the limitations with our academic structure and the desperate need for its overhaul. Except a few professors from IITs, most of the Indians at the conference did not reside / conduct research in India.
• Research is a significant division of every Chinese technology company like Didi, Tencent, Alibaba, JD, Baidu, etc. Even after spending a couple of days in China last October, I was really surprised at the scale of the work these companies do. (Didi powers more than 20 million rides everyday!)
• Most companies are just beginning to explore and deploy the first sets of AI applications, and are already impressed. Others that have been in the area for quite a while are marching ahead at great speeds. But AI is more than just a buzzword, and it needs to be deployed with care.

I am glad I switched my research area within the first semester of starting my Master’s program. It is an exciting time to be living in, and especially so if you work in AI!

P.S.: In case you are wondering, I presented a water demand prediction model that I developed as a class project in Spring 2017, and improved during Summer 2017 at IAAI-18. While this project was in applied AI, my primary research area is applied natural language processing in the healthcare domain. Feel free to write to me if you want to know more!