Telegraph article titled: Charles Darwin film ‘too controversial for religious America’

How sad is that!

Last week, Johann Hari wrote an article defending free speech for everyone. You can read the article here: Why should I respect these oppressive religions?. This article was reprinted in the Indian newspaper, The Statesman. This led to riots, death threats, and the arrest of an editor who published the article!

They have been charged — in the world’s largest democracy, with a constitution supposedly guaranteeing a right to free speech — with “deliberately acting with malicious intent to outrage religious feelings”.

And this, in a secular country! Read the rest of this entry »

I just finished reading “The reluctant fundamentalist” a novel by Mohsin Hamid over the break. (I had mentioned this novel in another context here). It is a tight, powerful novel, structured as a monologue, (reminiscent of Camus’ The Fall, a fact that few reviewers seem to have noticed), describing the literal and metaphorical journey of a young Pakistani man from a successful student and businessman in America to becoming a “reluctant fundamentalist” back in his home country.

I was reading this novel even as the horrific events of the past few days played out in Mumbai (see this, this and this). In some ways the attacks on Mumbai became a lens through which to interpret the novel, making me somewhat less sympathetic to the novel than I would have been otherwise. Hamid has gone on the record indicating that the views of Changez do not reflect his own – and that Changez is a piece of fiction, a writer’s creation. Though I knew this intellectually, it was emotionally difficult for me to separate the author and the character. This was partly because Changez’s story and that of the author roughly parallel each other – though Hamid quite his high-flying job in the corporate world to become an author (not a Islamic fundamentalist) and partly because I could not but notice the connections between the western educated protagonist in the novel (Changez) and the young men (wearing jeans and designer shirts) who attacked Mumbai.
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The last few days have been very strange… dream and nightmare in one. At one level this is Thanksgiving weekend, one of my favorite holidays in the year. So we have been cooking, eating, drinking, with family and friends – the kinds of things we typically do at this time of the year. And yet, hanging like a dark cloud over everything, poisoning the very air we breathe is been the news coming out of Mumbai. The loss of innocent life, the brutality and ruthlessness of the attacks… the sheer scale of the horror just staggers the mind. This is brutality at an incomprehensible level. I cannot imagine what ideology or rhetoric can cause people to do things like this?

And there is the anger… an urge to do something, anything to prevent something like this from happening again. But even as the mind darts from one vengeance filled scenario to another, a part of me knows that there are no clear and easy solutions to this…

At the end what remains is a heaviness of the heart… yes life will go on but I can’t help thinking of all the innocent lives lost, and more importantly a certain loss of innocence, for Mumbai, for India and for each of us. What a terrible tragedy.

The recent events in Mumbai have thrown a pall over the Thanksgiving break. That said, this is a moment to celebrate friends and family. Let us spare a moment for all the innocent victims and their friends and family.

… for Mumbai, for India, and for the world!

I knew that website developers would go to great lengths to rise in Google rankings. What I didn’t know was just how far people were willing to go, till I received this email.

Note: I have deleted all the links and names, since that would be giving free publicity to the sites in question – something they are after. Read the rest of this entry »

I had written previously (here and here) about the American Psychological Association’s long connection with torture and other coercive information gathering techniques. I am still bothered by it.

Today’s NYTimes has a op-ed by Stanley Fish (titled Psychology and Torture) about this very issue.
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I guess this is the final update on the David Jiles, Ph.D. plagiarism saga. Those of you who came in late can get the complete picture by starting from David Jiles, Ph.D., Creativity Expert, Plagiarist!

The sequence continued as follows: Emailing a plagiarist | Plagiarism, note to Root-Bernstein’s and Creativity Portal | David Jiles plagiarism issue, update | Plagiarism, update II | Update III | Update IV | Update V

This has been an interesting experience – both in terms of tracking these issues down and seeing people’s responses to my blogging about it. Some quick updates: Read the rest of this entry »

Here is an email from Rita Selle-Grider, of Young Bright Minds & Inventors Academy. I have spoken about her response (which I admired, contrasting it with some of the other responses I have been getting).
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Chris from Creativity Portal dropped off a “strong” message to me on my website (see it here).
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David Jiles Ph.D.’s book is no longer available on the Lulu.com website. Another example of delete and hope the world will forget that I didn’t do my homework. See here and here for more on this issue.

Just heard back from Innovation Tools. They are changing the status of the articles by Dr. Jiles to “not visible” till, as they say, “the matter is settled.” Read the rest of this entry »

An update on the ongoing saga of David Jiles, Ph.D. For context see this.
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Here are some emails (for the record) that I have sent recently to the Root-Bernstein’s (the authors of Sparks of Genius) letting them know of how their intellectual property has been stolen by David Jiles, Ph.D. Details in my original posting: David Jiles, Ph.D., Creativity Expert, Plagiarist.

Also are copies of emails that went to websites that have posted these plagiarized works.
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I am sending the following email to David Jiles, Ph.D. whose plagiarism I have documented in this posting: David Jiles, Ph.D., Creativity Expert, Plagiarist.
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I do not know who David Jiles, Ph.D. is. I do know that he is a plagiarist, an intellectual crook and a thief of the highest order!
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