Crime and Punishment

After 26 years of painful wait, the final verdict has been delivered this year for the Bhopal Gas Tragedy case. And what was the verdict? Only 8 convicted for a maximum of 2 years in jail, for which they were granted bail immediately. And this is for the gross negligence and greed which caused thousands on deaths, tens of thousands of injuries and birth defects. Till date, children are born in Bhopal with birth defects which can very well be attributed to the leak of leathal mythyle isocyanate gas in that cursed night of 1984.

This is a case of Justice delayed AND Justice denied.

Poinsionous mythyle isocyanate gas leaked at midnight from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal and killed thousands in their sleep. But they were perhaps the fortunate ones; thousands of others suffred months, even years of sickness; were paralysed to various extents, lost eyesights, developed cancers and waited for a slow, painful death.

While their losses were incompensateable, at least they could still have some consolence if the people responsible were brought to justice. But after long and tedious judicial process which lasted for over 25 years involving numerous trials, wittnesses and cross examinations, they were finally told that no one was practically responsible for their peril.

Their own government simply cheated them. Indian government took the case from victims' hands and claimed to represent the case in their behalf. And then went for an out of court settlement with the Union Carbide and agreed for a peanuts amount of settlement money ($470 million). With this money, Union Carbide (and their present taker Dow Jones) washed their hands off the whole episode; they were free of all criminal and civil liabilities regarding this case.

The central government investigating agency did not furnish the required proofs; the Indian government did not excersise its extradiation treaty with America to bring Union Carbide chairman to Inida to face the trial. And America did not bother to try him in its own judicial system either; who cares, if a few thousands poor Indians die thousands of miles away? That's no reason to bother an wealthy American businessman!

Of course it is a different matter if the disaster happens in American soil affecting American people. Just look what happened when the oil leaked from BP well in gulf of Mexico. BP top bosses were grilled in Senate, made to set aside a compensation pot of 2 billion dollars and had to spend billions more to seal the leak. This was the penalty for causing 11 deaths and putting a few thousands out of business for one season, endangering wild lives and making the American coast dirty.


Yes, the environmental impact of the BP oil leak is enormous, but so it was for the Bhopal gas leak. If the formar is worst environmental disaster for America then the later is that for the whole world.

I'm not advocating for the less severe penalty for BP; they deserve every bit of it and should be punished even more,if possible, for their negligence. American government did a very good job dealing with the situation....making sure that the leak is stopped as soon as possible and that everybody concerned gets compensated.

Bhopal tragedy survivors are not so lucky; their own government betrayed them and the all powerful America, including their Nobel peace prize winner president, could not care less. They are simply not interetsed in brining one of their welthy citizens to trial to provide justice to a bunch of poor, black people in another continent.

The two incidents just show that the value of human life is not same for everybody. The punishments for these two similar crimes are anything but similar or compareable. This could be against the basic rule of justice; but then life is anything but "just".

Pseudoscience

In the last couple of months, a number of articles have been published in both electronic and print media, regarding the  statictics of cyclists' death in London last year.

No, they were not blaming the London traffic, the Bendy buses or the reckless drivers; Instead they were pointing out to the fact that out of 13 cyclists died in road accidents last year, 10 were women. The articles expressed their surprise to this "disproportionately high" percentage of women cyclists involved in the fatal accidents and some also tried to find out the possible reasons behind it.

Comments poured in from the readers with hundereds of different explanations. While some took no time to dismiss women and their ability to ride cycle and promptly extended their verdict to general uselessness of women, others were very patronising; poor women,the weak and less clever things; it is not fair to compare them with the strong, bold, clever, agile men. This is only to be expected.

One clever comment even went on to explain it from the genetic evolution (his own version, of course); As men had to hunt (and women apparently stayed peacefully in comfy caves, looking after the children, preparing meals and watching cave-soaps in prehistoric telly, perhaps), they are genetically more evolved to scan the surrounding better than women. And this fantastic skill helps them to watch out for the big lorries while cycling in narrow London roads; but women get easily perished under those big wheels due to their lack of "surroundings scanning gene".

 What a beautiful piece of armchair science without any need for proper understanding of the subject or the experimental data! If born in ancient Greece, this man could give stiff competition to Aristotle, who proclaimed women have fewer teeth than men, without bothering to count.

It is truly amazing how so many people just overlooked the sample size. The first thing that should strike anybody is the fact that you can not have a statistics with just 13 data points.The accuracy of any statistical probability depends largely on the sample size; the more data points you have the more accurate is your result.The error in statistical probability is approximately √n, where n is the sample size.

No one would have objected, if 50% of the accidents were involving women, which is 6.5 in this case. But for a sample size of 13, the error is about 3.61. Add this two together (6.5+3.6) and you get 10.1, the number factoring in the error bar. Still a tad more than the actual number of women died. So much for the "disproportionately high" number of women involved in fatal crash.

This is the precise reason why the actual statisticians do not operate with a sample size of 13 while dealing with a population size of London. The error bar here is comparable to the sample size and no one can infer anything from this; no one other than an ignorant, sexist, bigot, hell bent on believing in the male superiority.

The kind of coverage this story got in major mainstream news papers (Guardian, BBC, to name a few) only shows the deep rooted gender bias in the society; You just need to scratch the surface and the eternal male ego will be inflated eclipsing all reasons and facts.

What makes this even more appalling is the use of pseudoscience to make this chauvinistic claim look convincing.Some articles went as far as proclaiming that women cyclists in London are at "considerably greater risk". All based on their sample size of 13 and yet they have not been charged for rumor spreading and scare mongering.

I tossed a coin 3 times  the other day and I got tail in each occasion. Do I see another sensational heading?
 "Always get tail in a toss in Stockholm". Which might open a floodgate of pseudoscientific speculations... proximity to north pole, magnetic effect of earth, effects of aurora borealis & solar wind,long hours of day light, metallic composition of Swedish Krona.....the possibilities are endless.

An Unholy Matrimony

What is the opposite of "Conservative" ? "Liberal", most people would answer. I thought so too, until a few days ago. But now I am a bit confused after the formation of new coalition in Britain.

How on earth a Liberal party can form a coalition with the Conservative party? Aren't they supposed to be poles apart, as their respective names suggest?

It seems not; Nick Clegg is a happy deputy of David Cameron while "rebel" Vince Cable is working in perfect harmony with George Osborne.

It is the new politics, they say, the thing that the country needs at the moment. Then why weren't the voters told about this before the election? If the parties have indeed so much in common as they both are claiming now, then why didn't they form a pre-pole coalition? At least the voters could have made an informed decision. Isn't that the democracy is all about?

I am not at all convinced that all this is for the sake of providing a stable government; to me it is just a case of utter opportunism and sheer lust for power. And among the two, it is the Lib Dem who looks more ugly in this unholy matrimony of Con-Lib.

Conservatives at least have won most seats and were very close to securing majority in the house. So it is expected that they would try to make some deals with the other parties, which would mean a little compromise but would secure five years in the Westminister. This is exactly what they did.

But why the Lib Dems made such a political harakiri is beyond me. In the next election why would anybody vote for them? If someone actually likes Tory policies s/he will directly vote for them; while anybody with anti tory political views will have no choice but to vote for Labour; because any vote cast in favour of LibDem will be a proxy Tory vote. The cost of sharing power for five years will be too dear for Lib Dems to bear.

And I do not buy Clegg's argument that Lib Dem had no other option but to form this coalition. True, Labour have been rejected by the voters and hence siding with them would have been incorrect. Also the arithmetic was against them..... a Labour-LibDem coalition would not have the sufficient number. A multiparty coalition with Labour, LibDem, SNP, Green and some others would have been a too fragile coalition of looser.

But LibDem could have just remained neutral and let Tories form a minority government. They could have abstained from the first motion of confidence in House and then could have given policy based support to individual issues. They could have supported the bills like educational reforms, ID card abolition or banking reforms. But could oppose the Trident or Immigration bills. There is no reason why a minority government can not function like this, as long as all oppositions are not bringing a no confidence motion together against the government. But a responsible opposition should reserve this option as a last resort against any disastrous decision made by the government.

Lib Dem would have looked much more respectable in this arrangement and the voters would not have felt cheated. And by next election there could still be a party called LibDem, a sensible alternative to Tory and New Labour.

Linguistic Faux Pas

It is almost three months now that I am living in Stockholm. Though I do not pretend to know Swedish, I have stumbled upon a few Swedish words which frankly have rendered me speechless.

I did not have to dig hard to look for these words; if you stay in Sweden for a few days, you would definitely encounter them.

I am not a prude by any standard, but the frequent appearance of the words like "Bra", "Sex" or "Slut" in the Swedish subtitels of prime time news or in Disney channel in television gave me a lot of shudder  initially till I got their actual meanings in Swedish.

How can some words have so different meanings in two languages as similar as Swedish and English, is something a linguist can answer. However, here is a small list of mine which will potentially save you from the socio-linguistic faux pas in case you ever visit Sweden.

Swedish                      English                  
Slut                              End
Fart                             Speed
Bra                              Good
Sex                              Six
Puss                             Kiss
Fan                              Fuck
Kiss                              Pee
Fack                            Trade
Bad                              Bath
Glass                            Ice cream

A much needed reform

I thought of writing a blog about the much needed banking reform, so that the taxpayers in future are protected against footing astronomical bills of Great Bailout for the irresponsible and reckless business of the greedy bankers.

But then this speech of Barak Obama has saved me the trouble; he said the exact things I wanted to say and unsurprisingly in a much better way.

So, I decided to include the speech instead. Hopefully leaders in other countries follow him, too. Because as brilliant as he me may be, Obama can not save the non-Americans like me through his reform bills.

To Fly or Not to Fly

After a week of near closure of all European air space for last 5 days, planes have started flying again in the European sky. It still not normal service, but they will get there soon.

And what made this transition from near total closure to near full opening of air space ? Did the volcano in Iceland suddenly ceased all its recent activities and went back snoozing again? Or did the ash went flying into some other direction due o a change in wind and weather? Or did they confirm that the volcanic ash would not damage the plane engine?

The answer is none of these. It has been opened because the airlines were making huge losses. They estimated it to be close to $1 billion already. And apparently the passenger safety is of much less value (how much exactly in US dollars, according the airline bosses?).

It is the general problem in today's world; everything is a business decision. Anything that does not appear on the balance sheet of big companies is just not important.

True, the prolonged air space closure poses big problem world wide and has to be addressed. And the air space should be opened immediately if it is safe to fly. But only if it IS safe to fly, and not just because some companies are loosing some (or may be a few million) money.

So it is the call for flight engineers, pilots, meteorologists and scientists with the knowledge of volcanic ash properties. But somehow they have been left out in the process. Once again, the decisions have been taken by the Mighty Managers, instead.

There have been talks of some "test flights" being flown by a few airlines. But which route did these test flights follow? in what altitude? For how long did they fly? No one knows the answers to these questions. In short it is not clear if these tests are actually of any value. Neither the testing criteria nor the findings have been assessed by the experts.

Every effort should be made to open the airspace, but only after assessing the situation in a proper, scientific way. Passenger safety should be of paramount importance, no matter how many gazillion dollar are being lost by the airlines.

Call me old fashioned, but I think even a single human life is worth much more than that.

The Missionary Zeal

Whatever you say against the atheists, you must admit that they do not hound you in every possible space and time with a missionary zeal to covert you or save you.

True, from Bertrand Russell to Richard Dawkins, atheists have tried to defend their case in numerous books and debates (which I think is a waste of their talent as atheism should come naturally to every adult with average intellect and basic education); but at least you can choose not to read or listen to them. Atheists do not ring your doorbell uninvited on Sunday mornings and attempts to make you a member of their club in spite of your clear lack of interest in it.

But the believers do not give you any option.

I realised this once more yesterday morning near the Karlberg tunnelbana station. I was on my way to Bus no. 72 through morning rush when I saw a couple of ladies distributing some Swedish leaflets, which I thought to be the adverts of some new hair cutting salon or fashion boutique or upcoming restaurants, i.e., the usual staff. As I went past them they asked me to take one. I smiled and politely said this will be of no use as I do not know Swedish. They seemed to be profoundly apologetic at this and said unfortunately they do not have anything in English. I thought that’s that.

But a few minutes later, as I was waiting at the bus stop, one of them came running with a leaflet in her hand; “here is an English one” she said panting. As I started mumbling something like  “oh, you shouldn’t have to do this..”, my eyes fell on the English heading; True Path to Heaven.

For God’s sake, not again! Shouted my inner self where my outer self still managed to retain at least 15% of my charming smile (it is so difficult to actually shout back when the opposition is divinely polite and smiling).

I had been regularly hounded in London by people with a bible and few copies of printed material in hand and a divine desire to save me. And somehow it never goes into their peanut sized, thoroughly washed brain that I am not actually interested in being saved. So they came again and again, with an iron determination to spoil my Sunday mornings, my evening walks, my shopping trips. The problem is I am generally a polite person and cannot say “**** off” to a very polite and smiling person just because they are galactically stupid. I accepted them as just another London nuisance like weekend engineering works in tubes and absurd speed humps on roads.

But I thought myself to be safe now , so far north up here in Stockholm. I presumed that the people in Scandinavia are in general not so frightfully devout. Besides, the whole country was buried under meters of snow till recently. And I thought the Gods in this region are Thor and Odin, who may throw a  hammer at you if displeased, but at least do not let loose a battalion of preachers, blabbering complete gibberish, on poor unsuspecting souls like me.

But clearly I was wrong; the true missionary zeal of saving some soul from the burning hell and helping them to secure a birth in heaven knows no geographical boundary. It might have been a little dormant in -25 degrees, but has sprouted again along with the crocus as soon as the spring came.