Parallel Spirals

Standing on the shores of space-time…

Blog

  • Lessons Learnt running a Student Space Organisation in India

    From the Wikipedia posts last month, I have been dwelling a bit in the past. This has been for two reasons, to re-establish some connections with the space community and to make sure that I have closed all the old open loops. One of the open loops that I found was sharing what I had learnt from running a space organisation in India. This post hopes to close that loop. This is also a post that my friend Srinivas Laxman has been after me to finish and publish. This is also the result of various conversations that I have had since then. Although unnamed, I’d like to thank these people for putting several things in perspective.

    I started the Indian chapter of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) as an information-sharing, project based and activist space organisation. While it fulfilled the objectives of information sharing, the number of projects it did or the space activism it did or does can be found lacking.

    For starters, there are quite a few people who love to stop you from running a space organisation in India. There are very few who will encourage you. I got stuff like, “You already have enough on your plate getting a mechanical engineering degree from Mumbai University, why do you want to burden that trying to run a space organisation?” or jabs that was even taken to my final semester practical exams by jealous professors in front of the external examiner. It requires thick skin, personally and the ability to laugh at yourself and have the strength to push through. You also need the wisdom to learn when to stop. When your life goes or begins to go for a toss, it is usually a good time to pause and fix your life. If you still want to start and run a space organisation, do consider some of the things I share here and make your call. Please take some time out to share what you learned, in the end so that some one else can benefit from what you learned.

    When you begin a space organisation and seek people who can become members, some of the common things you will hear is what benefit they will get out of it. This is a fair question. Only thing, just the chance to discuss with a bunch of strangers your passion for space exploration and some activities is not sufficient for them to put in money, which you need to legally register the organisation in India. You do not get help unless they are close friends, who help reluctantly. You do not see people offering to share telescopes with you so that you can put a star gazing session. You see people asking for free stuff – newsletters, t-shirts, badges and what not. Mind you, this is not just for a space organisation but any non-profit that you want to start in India. Later on, even if you get people to work with on or for various activities, you will find it difficult to find people who can help you with paperwork or administration. This is stuff you need to do – given India’s non-profit laws and structure.

    In SEDS, I used the information sharing to spark in a few peers interest in various areas – rocketry, satellite building, cansats etc. These turned out to be projects that started off, worked well into the planning and design phase but got stuck in the hardware stage. This was mainly due to the lack of Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) stuff available for space in hobby shops and other stores and limited access to workshop in engineering colleges. Even with access to workshops, very few found it worth their while to actually manufacture hardware. Very few SEDS projects reached the hardware stage.

    When faced with challenges in accessing and testing hardware in India, students found it easier to just give up on the projects rather than raise questions with officials and try to open communication lines with people in India’s space agency, ISRO or the Government. Students seemed averse to the idea of activism that would enable space activities to progress beyond the design stage. For reasons that I am not able to figure out, this activism did not come even for information sharing by ISRO prior to launches, etc. For me, this led to a frustrating phase. Coupled with frustrations in my own studies, I found it easier to leave space for a while and fix my life.

    SEDS continues to function today. I have kept away from it deliberately to encourage the students of today to take a call on what they think they should work on.

  • Wikipedia: Lessons learnt from GLAM

    This is my last note from the Wikipedia-universe. In my last days there, whilst working on the Conference idea, this was a Wikipedia project that caught my interest. GLAM is an abbreviation that stands for Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums. It was an effort from Wikipedia to open and make publicly available some of the knowledge and treasures stored in these cultural institutions.

    My first brush with GLAM was when Liam Wyatt came to India to visit cultural institutions in the country. The trip made me go to the Prince of Wales Museum (now called CSMVS) for the first time since my childhood. I was shocked at the changes that I had seen. What I had imagined as I had seen it had transformed completely. While the Museum was looking for new avenues to explore, I guess this seemed a little too radical for them. While they said they would speak to us, there was not much of a response and our preoccupation with the Conference prevented something more substantial.

    We did get many from Bombay’s cultural world for a talk on the Creative Commons (CC) license. It was a good experience and I think we got to speak to a lot of people about GLAM as a concept. Whether the cultural world embraces the CC licenses and enters a techno-cultural age is something the cultural world must debate. The event helped us understand that the debate was happening and there were multiple views on the subject and some interesting side discussions on specific areas like accessibility as well.

    Something I learned from the space world, was that not all things that you borrow can be directly used in any context. You have to understand local conditions before you adapt a concept for a geographic location. While I was more familiar with the landscape among space enthusiasts, this was not the case with the cultural scene. I had not visited a gallery, archive or museum, ever or in my memorable past. I did visit libraries but I did not engage them in the concepts of openness. I went there mostly as a customer. This made the underlying working layer of these institutions and their quirks invisible to me.

    Once these layers become visible, there are different approaches to each institution – at the level of educating the need for openness and contributing to Wikipedia, helping them enter the technical age, help them participate in techno-cultural debates, engage with various communities and ensure that the cultural institutions become vibrant institutions.

    While Wikipedians seem eager to engage with cultural institutions, sometimes they need to don the role of people opening the cultural sector. They also need to understand the mindset of the cultural institution. There are still spaces that view digitization as the death of the government agency if not reduction in manpower. The original cultural relic does not reduce in importance with its digitization, it becomes more valuable. This needs to be communicated to the cultural institutions. In addition, the importance of preserving the original cultural relic and ensuring an accessible web presence for the cultural institution cannot be stressed enough.

    With these thoughts, I am quite happy to close the doors on the Wikipedia phase of my life :) . Have a great day.

  • WikiConference India 2011 – More Personal Thoughts

    After a long time, User:AroundTheGlobe and I managed to put out the report on WikiConference India 2011. Here’s the announcement on the mailing lists.

    The making of the Report could become a report in itself. Here, I wanted to share a few things that I wanted to say but could not on the Wikipedia Report page since it is a co-authored work. Now, let me contradict myself. Some of the Report does contain accusations and events that User:AroundTheGlobe wanted to put out but I was not comfortable putting out. This made us want to fork the report in two, a private Report and a public one. Further thinking made me feel that this created a potential for a leak and could become a source of more controversy. I, therefore, pushed for a single Report. In exchange, I had to be comfortable against some of these accusations, although I was not completely confident about said accusations. I can only say that there are some undercurrents running through this Report that it could have well done without. The Report, towards the end, was also done a little hastily than I would have.

    I am not sure if it’s totally great to say what’s above along with the Report. I have been debating about it with myself. When I spoke to User:AroundTheGlobe today, he said that he wanted to say the things stated in the Report publicly. It is this conversation that makes me want to put my point of view out in the open. It is, for me, a way to close a chapter – The Wikipedian phase of my life.

    There is a concern that the Report does not provide much for the future organisers of the Conference. I would like to rebut this point to say that that is our main point. Any future Conference must necessarily come out of a request for such a Conference from the Wikimedia Community in India and then be legally led by the Chapter. Until we reach that phase, the Community will not feel ownership of the Conference and will not be able to help the Organizers with 100%. Sengupta had suggested that the Conference be run like a BarCamp, in the run up to the 2011 Conference. I do not think any other conference can be run in a more BarCamp like manner than a Wikipedia conference truly supported by the Community. As I said, we’ve provided all the guidelines we could provide.

    There has been a lot of politicking around this Conference. While it has attracted fresh blood into the Movement, as you pass through certain channels, you become aware of the politics amongst Wikipedians. Many seasoned Wikipedians have experienced this, I believe. It is not all pervasive on Wikipedia. You find it more on the mailing lists and off-list conversations. I have felt this is a bad thing but it is not yet affecting the Movement as such. People have tried to draw me towards these politics and I have fought hard to stay away. I do not know if I have succeded or failed. This is one of the reasons that I quit Wikipedia. It has affected the fun I had when I edit, thinking about some of the fellow editors words. It reduces trust, somehow.

    One of the things that deeply affected me during the Conference in 2011, was the off list conversations and the intrigue. I despised it at a fundamental level but enjoyed it since I was not involved in anything at this scale before. Some of it was forced us on by restrictions on time and some because we felt that it was the only practical way of moving ahead. In the end though, it made me really tired and made me ask myself many questions.

    In the end, things did get enough out of hand, that the only means of escape seemed to me to let Wikipedia go. There are many people who’ve expressed to me, an interest in knowing this politics deeply. I have evaded these questions telling them that I’d write about it someday. Really, I am still not sure of all the connections and anything written with half-knowledge is sometimes more dangerous than anything written with full understanding of the facts.

    Quitting Wikipedia has helped me immensely. People are no longer interested in me and leave me alone. I’ve cancelled my membership. I maintain contact with a few Wikipedians who became friends and hopefully, will remain friends. It has removed negativity, freed up time to work out in a gym and go out to movies and have more fun. More time is now free. I miss some of the things I learned because I edited something on Wikipedia, but it is a small price to pay for my mental well-being.

  • A Note on my Quitting Wikipedia

    I am in Mumbai right now. In my old seat. A seat where I have sat and taken very critical decisions of my life. Not for the past six months. More specifically for this post, not in the past two months.

    I finally posted my intention to quit Wikipedia by hanging my retired sign. I had made several threats of quitting on list and off it, perhaps enough that people still do not take me seriously when I announced my intention to quit. I think some still don’t and keep calling me trying to keep me abreast of goings on in the wikipedia world. I repeat to the person and myself, “I do not care”. I have gone beyond a point where a movement holds my sympathy. All I wanted to really put out there was on this statement on my user page.

    I am hanging on there, more to complete and submit my WCI 2011 Report. I am required to do this.

  • A post that says many things that I want to say but for which a singular title does not work

    The last time I wrote any thing on this blog was on February 5, 2012. The rest of that month and the days since have been tumultuous to say the very least. Many of my beliefs and faiths in various things and various people have been shattered. I went through a period, briefly of depression. I cannot claim that I am completely out of it, yet. Hence, the silence on this blog.

    I have been updating my tumblr in the mean time, once in a while. I purchased a new phone that I hoped will distract me and then realised that what I needed was not distraction but confrontation. The phone did help me calm down as I began to learn and appreciate a new instrument. I had named my last phone Robbie, from a tradition of naming some of the things I use a lot since my childhood days. I have named my current phone, Athira, the Indian name for the star Betelgeuse,my birth star, per Indian calendar system.

    I have started writing somewhat lengthy stuff on my tumblr which I guess means that I can take a shot at writing something here as well.

    I quit Wikipedia. I won’t be going back to that place, again.

    I trust fewer people now. I cannot live like this for long. I have started doing a few things to fill up the time generally.  I have started reading again. You can follow my reading on goodreads. I have also start putting pics up on instagram, though they get shared through tumblr.

    I have started taking swimming lessons. I had almost started doing OpenStreetMaps but left that for now. I started preparing for banking exam. Not reading much of that, now. I am spending most of my time just sleeping. I’ve started tracking my expenses now, now that they have spiralled out of control. I am not in debt yet. The depression made me eat – a LOT. That made me gain weight again. That meant more expenses, again.

    I wanted to say all of the above because it was just lying around there, like orphans, without being tethered to anything really. I started or promised to do a bunch of things since my first year of engineering. I really wanted to do them but I came in my own way. I am drawing up a list of stuff I want to do or said I would do and plan to implement them. One of the first things I had said I’d do was to learn swimming and do astronomy. I have started taking baby steps in both these fields already. I will write about both of them in separate posts on this blog perhaps in the new year, as per the Malayalam calendar.

  • Link-Bunch for Week 5

    Every week I read a lot. I get this from various sources – from other blogs, to twitter, to facebook. This is an attempt to collect the week’s posts and news stories I read and liked in one place. Will be done weekly or as often as possible.

    1. Brain Pickings Blog: A 1928 letter to Jackson Pollock from his dad. Letter writing is a lost art. I sometimes wonder what great insights we’ll miss out on tomorrow’s leaders, writers and others because these are all electronic now and I wonder how accessible they will be.

    2. George Monbiot is a journalist who writes for the Guardian newspaper. In this piece, he explores how the fast breeder reactor might be the best bet we have with current technologies. His thinking is pretty realistic and grounded. I wonder if the Indo-US nuclear deal will push India away from such technologies and go back to less mature technologies to serve corporate interests.

    3. Vidyut writing almost hours after the Supreme Court verdict cancelling 122 licenses in the 2G Scam whose verdict was delivered presenting an alternative perspective. My only concern, which I believe is still not addressed, is how this verdict will be implemented.

    4. Sonali Ranade writing about how capitalism needs to reinvent itself. An important step back and take a look post.

    5. danah boyd writing about how parents normalized teen password sharing of websites like twitter and facebook. An important read, especially for the parents.

    6. Abhijit Bannerjee argues well for the need of better and honest data collection in India in this article from the Hindustan Times.

    7. Krishnadas Rajagopal reports in The Indian Express on the Supreme Court questioning the Army invoking the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) to protect its officers from charges such as rape and murder. An important perspective on the continuing public debate on AFSPA.

    8. Since I’m in the ship building industry, I just read this item in passing. Ship freight rates have now become zero. You can now hire a ship, apparently, by just paying for the fuel charges!

    9. Nuiman writes in countercurrents.org on the problems faced by the Malayalam publication Free Press. This is a dated article from 2005 but worth a read.

    10. Jonathan Shainin writes in bookforum.com reviewing Katherine Boo’s book, “Behind the Beautiful Forevers”. I yearn to read book reviews like this and aspire to write like this. Working on it :) .

    11. Emily Lakdawalla writes on The Planetary Society blog providing an awesome example on the keen sense of observation and what we can learn from it. It also is a push for naked eye astronomy that I have been slacking on. Worth a read, especially if you’re a parent.

    12. Strategic analyst B Raman writes on the impact of the Supreme Court verdict in the 2G scam on the up and coming UP elections.

    13. Stephen Clark reports for Spaceflight Now on the SpaceX successfully testing its launch abort system, an important step towards man rating the SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, which the US hopes to send astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

    14. A controversial film made by film maker Sanjay Kak called Jashn-e-Azadi was to be screened at a festival on Kashmir at the Symbiosis International University, Pune. The programme was cancelled because of pressure from the right-wing group, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and Pune Police. A student, Akshath Jitendranath, writes about dissent and its value in society and specially in the campus.

    15. Farah Rahman writes in The Mint about how Indian children are not encouraged to tinker.

  • Antrix-Devas Agreement – ISRO Responds

    Today morning, I found a link to another Indian Express story on the Antrix-Devas agreement on Twitter via @sonaliranade. After reading the report, I immediately browsed the ISRO website to find that it had tabled the High Power Committee Report on the Antrix-Devas Agreement. I shared this on twitter and got a few packets of biscuits while sitting down to read the Report, the conclusions and recommendations of the High Level Team and a note from ISRO on the same that puts both these documents in context. I just finished reading the Report now.

    My first set of immediate reaction is I still think the Chairman, ISRO, Radhakrishnan must have issued a statement to the press to publicise the efforts he was taking. I still think people of the stature of Madhavan Nair should have been handled more appropriately when action was to be taken against him and others. I also must apologise because I misconstrued Radhakrishnan’s silence as a sign of Madhavan Nair’s allegations against him were true in regard to not giving him ample opportunity to speak. Radhakrishnan has still not responded on Madhavan Nair’s charge that he was out to get him. I think Madhavan Nair must also apologise publicly for his outburst in the media making false claims based on press reports.

    The Report of the High Power Review Committee is a very instructive read on what they sought out to achieve through Antrix Corporation and India’s Satellite Communication Policy. I still think ISRO has not been able to move more nimbly through its ever expanding mandate. It is a period of change but it is also a period of stagnation with hardly any launches but perhaps with internal technological developments. ISRO has not been very enthusiastic on communicating these. The note responds to some of the accusations made by the former ISRO Chairman.

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  • An Obituary of a Tea Shop

    The management moved recently to remove all the tea shops in the ship yard where I work. The grapevine and the only reason known for the removal was to reduce the time wasted by engineers in the tea shop. This post is an obituary of one of the tea shops that was shut down.

    This happened two weeks ago. The tea shop that I used to frequent almost daily at 10.30 am was shut down. The grapevine spoke that the management had cleared all tea shops from the yard. This was a move, apparently, to reduce the time the engineers wasted here. I speak about the shop – a tin and plywood shack really – that was run by three ladies. The relationship among them was unknown. Their real names are also unknown. One lady was definitely old and the other two were definitely young – perhaps in their twenties.

    The central location of the shack meant that it attracted quite a large customer base – contractors, workers and engineers. The shop, in addition to tea also served up samosas, various farsan items, choclates, biscuits, cigarettes and tobbaco.

    The shack was a meeting place for engineers from different departments. It was also a meeting place where people at various levels – from workers to engineers and even managers spoke with each other. Enquiring about work – but also about people’s backgrounds. About their families and co-workers and their well being. Here, tea was bought, farsan was had. Many things that cannot be negotiated over email or in official settings were sorted out here. Co-workers and juniors confronted other co-workers and seniors on various things that concerned them – openly. The shack thus served a social function.

    The shack also addressed a problem. Our canteen is infrequently open and poorly stocked. The shack provided a solution by offering the aforementioned items at any hour of the working day. The quality of tea was also much better. Many people suggested, in conversations, suggested that the canteen staff be sent as trainees to the tea shack.

    I guess at some place in our minds, we knew that the shop would close down. The shop occupied a space where construction of the yard was progressing. It had to be removed for the construction to continue. It was also possibly not following many rules that such an establishment would have had to follow in a town or a city. However, this brief association with the shack proved to be a space where I met with many of my colleagues and my seniors – where we shared a cup of good tea and some idle chatter. Now, with the shop gone, we miss both. The day seems somehow incomplete and the people somewhat restless.

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  • Why join a Political Party?

    For the past few days, I have been reading up on the various circumstances for joining a political party if not to participate in the political process. This might seem contradictory. The thought arose while reading the news where continuous reference was made to Party workers. Who were these party workers? How did they become workers of a party? These are people who believe in the ideology of a political party but not with the intention of running for office of an elected representative. Right now most party workers seem to not have a venue to express their own thoughts anywhere.

    The opinions of the party workers never seem to come through in any political party that is of any considerable influence. If you read party organs, they’re filled with the opinions of party leaders, who get space anyway to discuss and deliberate in the media. The main aim of the party organ should be to enable the party workers to pen down their thoughts. Then to it must not be for hero worship – which is in a sense slavery of one’s thoughts to a person. It is worse than even believing that God shall be our saviour.

    The image of the party worker as a hooligan and nothing more than a stooge who listens to the diktats of the Party or Shaka chiefs must change. The role of the party organ must change from a place to worship the Party leaders to a place where party workers can offer contrarian well-thought of views and opinions backed by data. It must also change to a venue for party leaders to communicate decisions to party workers. India will become an even more vibrant democracy with the rise of “internal party democracy”.

    Getting back to the question, Why join a political party. The only useful answer that I got was from the League of Women Voters of California website, which says thus:

    If you join a political party you can elect members to the partycentral committee which governs the party. You can help to select theparty’s candidates and you can work to elect members of the party to politicaloffices. You are not required to work for the party, to contribute moneyto the party or to vote for the party’s candidates.

    There is no document/article/journal entry written on this context written by an Indian clarifying the reasons one should consider joining any political parties. All political parties in India, excluding the Congress have prominent links on their main pages providing a venue to become a member of their party. The other parties do not explain their ideologies or reasons why you must join them – a feature practiced by business houses and non-profit societies. The Congress is even better since it does not have a way to join them. There is the Indian Youth Congress but there seem to be some sort of election to take membership in the same. There is no clarity at any rate.

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  • ISRO-Devas deal: Ex-ISRO chief banned from future government office

    The Indian Express carried an exclusive report today morning stating that former ISRO Chairman, Madhavan Nair; former Scientific Secretary, A Bhaskarnarayana; former Managing Director, Antrix Corporation, K R Sridharmurthi and former ISRO Satellite Center chief, K N Shankara have been penalised in connection to their role in the ISRO-Devas deal. The order signed by the Director, Department of Space states that the accused would not be able to hold any future office in the Governments of India, her states or Union territories. Further, the order also asks the accused to remit any office that they may currently hold.

    The media seems to be more taken in by the implications to Madhavan Nair than the other three accused. It seems rather too early to make a comment on this story. A reaction (NDTV) is coming in from Madhavan Nair as I write this out and I am trying to follow the news given the lack of a television set, the best I can.  He also raises many points in this news story (Real Time News).

    The ISRO-Devas matter is sub-judice and comment is not allowed on that matter. However, the way in which the Government has acted is rather on shaky ground. Given the stature of people it has acted against, I would have thought the Government would have taken more care to present a solid case. We’re still waiting for a clear statement from the Government on this issue.

    Update – 11:55 AM A glance through the archives on Google News led me to this news item from the Deccan Chronicle. This seems to have been before an “order” came out and seems like Madhavan Nair protested well before the order was made in the way the enquiry was conducted. In light of this article, the Indian Express article is not breaking news or an exclusive, just an update on the situation.

    Update – 12:20 AM The former ISRO Chairman has now hit out at the present ISRO Chairman.

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