NYT - Crazy Talk at the Republican Debate

Eleven presidential candidates had three prime-time hours on the national stage on Wednesday to tell the American people why they should lead the country.

Nobody forced them to be there. They were there freely, armed with the best arguments they and their policy advisers had come up with, to make their cases as seasoned politicians, business leaders and medical professionals — the Republican Party’s “A-Team,” as one of them, Mike Huckabee, said at the outset.

And that, America, is frightening. Peel back the boasting and insults, the lies and exaggerations common to any presidential campaign. What remains is a collection of assertions so untrue, so bizarre, that they form a vision as surreal as the Ronald Reagan jet looming behind the candidates’ lecterns.

It felt at times as if the speakers were no longer living in a fact-based world where actions have consequences, programs take money and money has to come from somewhere. Where basic laws — like physics and the Constitution — constrain wishes. Where Congress and the public, allies and enemies, markets and militaries don’t just do what you want them to, just because you say they will.

Start with immigration, and the idea that any president could or should engineer the mass expulsion of 11 million unauthorized immigrants. Not one candidate said that a 21st-century trail of tears, deploying railroad cars, federal troops and police dogs on a continental scale, cannot happen and would be morally obscene. Ben Carson said, “If anybody knows how to do that, that I would be willing to listen.” They accepted the need to “control our borders” with a 2,000-mile fence. Even Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, once an immigration moderate, endorsed the fence. Mr. Carson actually suggested two fences, for double security, with a road in between. Do these people have to be sent to the Rio Grande Valley to see how ludicrous a border fence — over mountains, vast deserts, remote valleys and private property — would be? And it won’t solve the problem they are railing against, which doesn’t exist anyway. Illegal immigration has fallen essentially to zero.

On foreign affairs, there was a lot of talk about not talking with bad people. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said his first act would be to tear up the Iran deal, throwing the nuclear race back to the ayatollahs and rupturing global alliances — but making a point! Carly Fiorina said: “What I would do, immediately, is begin rebuilding the Sixth Fleet, I would begin rebuilding the missile defense program in Poland, I would conduct regular, aggressive military exercises in the Baltic States. I’d probably send a few thousand more troops into Germany. Vladimir Putin would get the message.”

We get the message, and it’s scary.

Jeb Bush spun a particularly repellent fantasy. Speaking reverently of his brother the president, he said, “He kept us safe,” and invoked the carnage of 9/11. Wait, what? Did he mean George W. Bush, who was warned about the threat that Al Qaeda would attack? Who then invaded a non sequitur country, Iraq, over a nonexistent threat?

When the A-Team got around to science and health, many of them promised to help Americans by killing the program that gives millions of them medical insurance. One candidate said he felt sure that vaccines had caused an autism “epidemic.” The two doctors on the dais did not seriously challenge that persistent, dangerous myth.

Let loose by the CNN moderators, the candidates spun their visions freely. Despite an abundance of serious issues to talk about, nobody offered solutions to problems like child poverty, police and gun violence, racial segregation, educational gaps, competition in a global economy and crumbling infrastructure. On looming disasters (the changing climate) and more immediate ones (a possible government shutdown over, of all things, Planned Parenthood), the debate offered no reassurance that grown-ups were at the table, or even in the neighborhood.

But we did hear an idea to put Mother Teresa — Mother Teresa, a penniless nun — on our money. Think about that.

“We were discussing disease, we were discussing all sorts of things tonight, many of which will just be words. It will just pass on,” one candidate said, wrapping up. “I don’t want to say politicians, all talk, no action. But a lot of what we talked about is words and it will be forgotten very quickly.”

Which was the smartest thing Donald Trump has said all year, and an outcome America should dearly hope for.

This tech blogger completely missed the point of the Ahmed Mohamed story

The story of 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed, whose home made science project ended in his arrest, has absorbed the media in recent days.

Even President Obama invited Ahmed Mohamed to the White House.

Photos of his clock have been released online, and some have chosen to comment upon its appearance.

An article on ArtVoice reverse-engineered Ahmed’s clock. Fair enough, that’s interesting.

What’s less interesting, and frankly astounding, is the way the piece concludes that because the clock wasn’t strictly invented his arrest was justified.

The author writes:

Now, before I go on and get accused of attacking a 14 year old kid who’s already been through enough, let me explain my purpose. I don’t want to just dissect the clock. I want to dissect our reaction as a society to the situation.

And after reverse-engineering the clock, says:

So there you have it folks, Ahmed Mohamad did not invent, nor build a clock. He took apart an existing clock, and transplanted the guts into a pencil box, and claimed it was his own creation. It all seems really fishy to me.

If we accept the story about “inventing” an alarm clock is made up, as I think I’ve made a pretty good case for, it’s fair to wonder what other parts of the story might be made up, not reported factually by the media, or at least, exaggerated.

The author stipulates that because Ahmed Mohamed didn’t actually invent electronic timekeeping, the police were right to lead a child out of school in handcuffs.

He went on to say, that because they are trained to suspect terrorism in schools the media's discussion of the issue of racial profiling is ridiculous.

When the teachers asked what it was, Ahmed said it was a clock. It was a clock. It didn't count down to zero, like in the 80s movies.

But, by the time it was deduced that the thing which looked an awful lot like a modified digital clock was a digital clock, this had already happened:

Not Even the People Who Write Algorithms Really Know How They Work

Sometimes there’s a little crack in the web that is just big enough to catch a glimpse of who the robots running the show think you are.
You might deduce, for example, that the tracking software that watches you browse has figured out you’re shopping for a Halloween costume. Lo and behold, ads for gorilla suits and fairy wings start popping up in the margins of every other website you visit. Or maybe you just rewatched a bunch of Twilight Zone episodes on Netflix. It makes sense that the site then recommends Black Mirror andQuantum Leap.
But much of the time, there’s no way to tell why information is filtered the way it is online. Why is one person’s status update on Facebook prioritized in your News Feed over another’s? Why does Google return a different order of search results for you than for the person sitting next to you, googling the same thing?
These are the mysteries of the algorithms that rule the web. And the weird thing is, they aren’t just inscrutable to the people clicking and scrolling around the Internet. Even the engineers who develop algorithms can’t tell you exactly how they work.

And it’s going to get more convoluted before it gets clearer. In fact, for a few reasons, it probably won't get clearer ever. First of all, there’s virtually no regulation of data-collection in the United States, meaning companies can create detailed profiles of individuals based on huge troves of personal data—without those individuals knowing what’s being collected or how that information is being used. “This is getting worse,” said Andrew Moore, the dean of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University.
Which means, Moore told me, we are “moving away from, not toward the world where you can immediately give a clear diagnosis” for what a data-fed algorithm is doing with a person’s web behaviors. I once explored the idea that we might eventually be able to subscribe to one algorithm over another on Facebook as a way to know exactly how the information filter was working. A nice thought experiment, perhaps, but one that assumes the people who write algorithms know with any level of precision or individuality how they work.
“You might be overestimating how much the content-providers understand how their own systems work,” said Moore, who is also a former vice president at Google. He didn’t want to talk about Google in particular, but he did present another hypothetical: Imagine a company showing movie recommendations.

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“You might want to say, ‘Why did you recommend this movie?’ When you're using machine-learning models, the model trains itself by using huge amounts of information from previous people,” he said. “Everything from the color of the pixels on the movie poster through to maybe the physical proximity to other people who enjoyed this movie. It’s the averaging effect of all these things.”

These things, the bits of information that a machine-learning model picks through and prioritizes, might include 2,000 data points or 100,000 of them. “One of the researchers at Carnegie Mellon,” Moore said, “just launched a new machine-learning system which can handle putting together tens of billions of little pieces of evidence.”
Which means the systems that determine what you see on the web are becoming more complex than ever. Factor in questions about how those algorithms might hurt people and the picture is murkier still. Consider, for example, Facebook's patent for technology that could trace a person’s social network—a tool that lenders could use to consider the credit ratings of a person’s Facebook friends in deciding whether to approve a loan application. “If the average credit rating of these members is at least a minimum credit score, the lender continues to process the loan application,” Facebook wrote in the patent filing. “Otherwise, the loan application is rejected.”
“That is a really difficult problem,” Moore said. "You’re asking a computer that’s obviously not that smart in the first place to predict whether this person is a risk based on what we know about them—but [you’re telling it], ‘Please exclude these features that, as a society, we think would be illegal.’ But it’s very hard or impossible for the engineers to know for sure that the computer hasn’t inadvertently used some piece of evidence which it shouldn’t.”
All this means that as algorithms become more complex, they become more dangerous. The assumptions these filters make end up having real impact on the individual level, but they’re based on oceans of data that no one person, not even the person who designed them, can ever fully interpret.

Man brilliantly trolls homophobe commenters who slammed Doritos rainbow chips

In a classic tale from the world wide web, Doritos found itself hounded by anti-gay trolls this week as it teamed up with the It Gets Better Project to launch its new rainbow crisps.

For a limited time only, people who donate $10 (£6) or more to the organisation - which aims to raise awareness around the staggering rate of suicides in the LGBT community and offer support to those in need - will receive a bag of rainbow Doritos.

Turns out some people on the internet were not happy about this. So took to the brand's Facebook page to air their opinions. Great.

That's where Facebook user Mike Melgaard came to humanity's rescue, setting up a fake help page to troll the trolls.

Here's a selection of his best efforts:

 

 

 

 

 

He later took to his own Facebook page to address why he took action.

Did it ever occur to you that this actually has very little to do with gay pride? But rather, it is to address the fact that suicide is one of the leading causes of death amongst the LGBT community for ages 15 to 24?

The 'It Gets Better' charity is where this money (all of it, mind you) is going and they just so happen to specialize in LGBT suicide prevention.

Anyone being "upset" over this issue is really just slowing down the collective progress for all of humanity. And you're doing it for no reason other than your personal bias.

Read his post in full here: 

Banking customer engagement: Using data analytics to build personalized relationships

Everybody wants to feel that someone is listening to their wants and needs. When it comes to customer engagement, data analytics can help banks understand consumer desires and preferences. There are patterns and details within the vast quantities of data banks are already collecting. Banking analytics can help you identify and respond to what your customers want today, and even anticipate what they'll want tomorrow.

Data analytics is a vital tool for customer retention, product or service improvement, upselling and client acquisition. It helps banking leaders and marketing teams connect with their current users and the next generation.

Transaction data define marketing opportunities

So much of what your user base has to tell you comes from how they already engage with your banking services already. By analyzing information about how your consumers access and consume content and applications, you can build marketing strategies around the devices, locations and functionalities they already prefer.

Retail banking analytics can uncover customer behavior patterns that reveal impending live events, such as retirement, shopping for a new home or a baby on the way. That's the kind of personalized information that helps retain clients, and it also creates opportunities to promote a cross-sell or upsell tied to the life event. In these instances, a customer may be primed for a fresh look at investment or banking services.

Data analytics opens windows to clients' wants and needs

You can make your customers feel cared for by leveraging data about their unique situations and preferences to create an even more personalized banking experience. It can also help you identify ways to cross-sell and upsell to certain demographics. For example, a recentFinancial Planning report showed that baby boomers are most likely to download personal finance applications. Meanwhile, Gen Xers take the lead in selecting digital wallet and wealth management applications. Data analytics brings the insights from these apps to the forefront, informing banks' new product strategies for their target audiences.

Look to social media

"While demographics and current product ownership are at the foundation of customer insight, behavioral and attitudinal insights are gaining in importance as channel selection and product use become more differentiated," writes Jim Marous in The Financial Brand. "Sentiment analysis and social-media analysis are two additional examples."

If you want to identify which customer micro-segments are well-positioned to respond to your next marketing campaign, use data analytics to highlight patterns in social media. These can include common life event discussions, seasonal behavior, consumer feedback, product discussions, requests for new services and recommendations of your company. You can also track these customers' locations, professions, activities and networks. In each of these micro-segments, when a bank creates messaging that's meaningfully aligned to users' interests and plans, established customers will notice the highly personalized attention, leading to positive social buzz. Satisfied customers spread the word.

Mine a broader vein of data

Another approach banks can take is to "acquire customer data they don't have from external sources, matching that data to records in the bank's master customer information files," observed Jerry Rackley, Demand Metric Chief Analyst and author of Marketing Analytics Roadmap: Methods, Metrics and Tools in a recent interview. One approach would be to use census data, rich with details of home ownership, employment and the average ages in a region. For example, banks can use this to reach out to customers in rental housing who might be ready to buy their first home.

Data analytics is a window into clients' wants and needs. With it, banks can make personalized outreach more compelling and effective than ever before. They can extend an invitation to become a new customer, to continue as a loyal user or to expand the spectrum of products and services in an existing portfolio. Learn more about leveraging analytics in banking to maximize customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention by signing up for a live demo of the industry-specific predictive analytics solution. 

The Difference Between American and British Humour

Ricky Gervais co-wrote, co-produced and starred in the hit BBC series The Office, which was on air for two years and adapted for a U.S. series for eight seasons. Gervais has also starred in films such as Ghost Town andThe Invention of Lying. He was named to the TIME 100 in 2010 and has won numerous awards including seven BAFTA awards, two Emmys and three Golden Globes. Contributor Photograph: Getty Images

Apart from the spelling of the word, obviously

It’s often dangerous to generalize, but under threat, I would say that Americans are more “down the line.” They don’t hide their hopes and fears. They applaud ambition and openly reward success. Brits are more comfortable with life’s losers. We embrace the underdog until it’s no longer the underdog. We like to bring authority down a peg or two. Just for the hell of it. Americans say, “have a nice day” whether they mean it or not. Brits are terrified to say this. We tell ourselves it’s because we don’t want to sound insincere but I think it might be for the opposite reason. We don’t want to celebrate anything too soon. Failure and disappointment lurk around every corner. This is due to our upbringing. Americans are brought up to believe they can be the next president of the United States. Brits are told, “It won’t happen for you.”

There’s a received wisdom in the U.K. that Americans don’t get irony. This is of course not true. But what is true is that they don’t use it all the time. It shows up in the smarter comedies but Americans don’t use it as much socially as Brits. We use it as liberally as prepositions in every day speech. We tease our friends. We use sarcasm as a shield and a weapon. We avoid sincerity until it’s absolutely necessary. We mercilessly take the piss out of people we like or dislike basically. And ourselves. This is very important. Our brashness and swagger is laden with equal portions of self-deprecation. This is our license to hand it out.

This can sometimes be perceived as nasty if the recipients aren’t used to it. It isn’t. It’s play fighting. It’s almost a sign of affection if we like you, and ego bursting if we don’t. You just have to know which one it is.

I guess the biggest difference between the U.S. version and the U.K. version of The Office reflected this. We had to make Michael Scott a slightly nicer guy, with a rosier outlook to life. He could still be childish, and insecure, and even a bore, but he couldn’t be too mean. The irony is of course that I think David Brent’s dark descension and eventual redemption made him all the more compelling. But I think that’s a lot more palatable in Britain for the reasons already stated. Brits almost expect doom and gloom so to start off that way but then have a happy ending is an unexpected joy. Network America has to give people a reason to like you not just a reason to watch you. In Britain we stop watching things like Big Brother when the villain is evicted. We don’t want to watch a bunch of idiots having a good time. We want them to be as miserable as us. America rewards up front, on-your-sleeve niceness. A perceived wicked streak is somewhat frowned upon.

Recently I have been accused of being a shock comic, and cruel and cynical. This is of course almost solely due to a few comments I made as host of last year’s Golden Globes. But nothing could be further from the truth.

I never actively try to offend. That’s churlish, pointless and frankly too easy. But I believe you should say what you mean. Be honest. No one should ever be offended by truth. That way you’ll never have to apologize. I hate it when a comedian says, “Sorry for what I said.” You shouldn’t say it if you didn’t mean it and you should never regret anything you meant to do. As a comedian, I think my job isn’t just to make people laugh but also make them think. As a famous comedian, I also want a strict door policy on my club. Not everyone will like what I say or find it funny. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. There are enough comedians who try to please everyone as it is. Good luck to them, but that’s not my game, I’m afraid.

I’m not one of those people who think that comedy is your conscience taking a day off. My conscience never takes a day off and I can justify everything I do. There’s no line to be drawn in comedy in the sense that there are things you should never joke about. There’s nothing that you should never joke about, but it depends what that joke is. Comedy comes from a good or a bad place. The subject of a joke isn’t necessarily the target of the joke. You can make jokes about race without any race being the butt of the joke. Racism itself can be the butt, for example. When dealing with a so-called taboo subject, the angst and discomfort of the audience is what’s under the microscope. Our own preconceptions and prejudices are often what are being challenged. I don’t like racist jokes. Not because they are offensive. I don’t like them because they’re not funny. And they’re not funny because they’re not true. They are almost always based on a falsehood somewhere along the way, which ruins the gag for me. Comedy is an intellectual pursuit. Not a platform.

As for cynicism, I don’t care for it much. I’m a romantic. From The Office, and Extras to The Invention Of Lying and Cemetery Junction, goodness and sweetness, honour and truth, love and friendship always triumph.

For me, humanity is king.

Oh and for the record I’d rather a waiter say, “Have a nice day” and not mean it, than ignore me and mean it.

Read next: 10 Rules You Need to Know to Communicate Effectively

“The Birther King”: A MAD Political Poster ! LOL !

ELECTILE DYSFUNCTION DEPT.

GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump fulfilled his daily quota of obnoxious douchery yesterday when he didn’t correct a New Hampshire town-hall attendee who said that President Obama was Muslim. The incident recalled Trump’s idiotic “birther” quest of 2011 — proving that though Trump is clearly not presidential material, he is qualified for a certain type of royalty.

From MAD #513, February 2012
Writer: Desmond Devlin
Artist: Roberto Parada

UP Police - You sir, should be very proud of yourself ! aaargh !

UP Police : @CMOfficeUP कुछ कहते हैं, तस्वीरें कुछ कहती हैं http://t.co/5Tb12laqpo @SsplkwUp @ChiefSecyUP pic.twitter.com/Y3cyme4qIM

— Anurag Tiwari (@AnuragJourno) September 19, 2015

What's with THESE dudes ?

.@tedcruz & @RickSantorum refuse to criticize @realDonaldTrump over anti-Muslim questioner http://t.co/hkRieDyOHY pic.twitter.com/j61scGEDdk

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) September 19, 2015

The 1965 War Documentary with Gen Bakshi. Full HD trailer

Free Balochistan - Ignored by the World ?

#Pakistan stop killing religious people in #Balochistan & Stop Exploiting Baloch National Wealth. BRP #Germany @hrw pic.twitter.com/9oEQdC6TkT

— Banuk Zarina Baloch (@Zarina_Baloch) September 11, 2015

Modi's Trip Cost Canadian Taxpayers $3,73,000: Report

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's three-day visit to Canada earlier this year cost Canadian taxpayers 3,73,000 dollars, including 80,000 dollars on receptions and 1,06,400 dollars on a motorcade, according to a media report.

The cost of Modi's trip to Canada from April 15, the first official visit by an Indian prime minister in more than 40 years, were provided to the Huffington Post Canada under the Access to Information Act.

The expenses included 10,448 dollars on hotel rooms, 30,000 dollars on audio visual equipment, 21,708 dollars on unspecified consultants, 73,213 dollars on public servants' travel, 14,790 dollars on health services, 3,65,654 dollars on flowers and wreaths, 1,584 dollars on gifts, 5,981 dollars on interpreters and translation and 75 dollars for a flag.

The bill did not include security costs, the report said.

The largest expense on a gathering at an arena in downtown Toronto, at which Canadian Prime Minister and Conservative Leader Stephen Harper spoke to 10,000 members of the Indo-Canadian community and Modi was feted, was however not borne by Canadian taxpayers but by private citizens and businesses.

The event at the Ricoh Coliseum cost about 600,000 dollars, National Alliance of Indo-Canadians' President Azad Kumar Kaushik told HuffPost.

The event became controversial as it gave a political boost to Progressive Conservative Party (PCP) MP Patrick Brown, who was campaigning for leadership of Ontario province.

Kaushik, however, said, "We did not look at it from an electoral perspective. Our goal was to create bonding between India and Canada."

He said by organising this mega reception for Modi, the group wanted to promote enhanced investment and business opportunities, as well as remind the Indian government that Canada is home to an important diaspora whose needs should not be ignored.

Meanwhile, Timmins James Bay MPP Gilles Bisson has demanded that Brown, who is now leader of the Progressive Conservatives, should pay taxpayers back for some of the cost of the Modi visit.

"You can't have somebody do a political activity and then have it paid by the state," Bisson said.

"It was a pretty big thing for Brown's leadership bid, to have this person show up, and say he's my boy, especially in the community that he was trying to get all kinds of memberships signed up to," he said.

Bisson said he welcomed Modi's visit to Canada but felt Brown should repay some of the travel and security costs that taxpayers bore to help him campaign.

6th Pay Commission Revisited - The IAS lobby has cornered for itself far more pay than the Union cabinet cleared !

Smash & Grab

• The Union cabinet had cleared two additional increments for IAS officers, but bureaucrats gave themselves four 
• Even the two additional increments cleared by the cabinet were meant only for a limited period. But the IAS lobby has manipulated to see that this incremental edge over others stays throughout service period. 
• The additional fiscal burden for these increments not sanctioned by the cabinet is Rs 12 crore a year 
• New notifications scripted by the babus have ensured that junior IAS officers will draw more than their seniors in other services 
• Those in other services who were drawing the same pay as their IAS counterparts will now get less

***

Who is supreme, the Union cabinet or the bureaucrat? There was never the need to raise this question. But the flurry of notifications from babus of the department of personnel and training after the Sixth Pay Commission's recommendations were approved by the cabinet on August 14 makes one wonder whether bureaucrats—IAS officers—have overriding powers. Documents accessed by Outlook show that the cabinet approved a certain pay structure, but it was subverted by the IAS lobby for salary gains.


The notification that gives IAS officers a pay advantage

At a conservative estimate, this manipulation entails an additional annual burden of Rs 12 crore on the exchequer, not taking into account the proportionate gains the IAS lobby has allowed the IFS, or foreign service. Besides, in terms of arrears, 4,000 IAS officers will end up being paid Rs 32 crore. All this is money that wasn't authorised by the cabinet in the first place. Here's how the interpretations and manipulations took place:

• On August 14, the cabinet okayed two additional increments for the IAS in the fifth year of service. This would put them ahead of other streams vis-a-vis salary till the completion of sixteen years, after which there is pay parity across all services.
• However, while interpreting the new pay band system, the IAS lobby slipped in an additional two increments in the tenth year as well.
• The bureaucrats have also ensured that the pay edge they have got over others remains till they retire. There will be no cutoff after the 16th year in service.

These machinations haven't gone down well with the other services. They have already shot off strong letters to the cabinet secretary and have also taken up the matter with senior members of the cabinet. "This malafide manipulation raises a basic question about who is supreme in the government—is it the Union cabinet or the IAS? The fact that this has been done shows that even the cabinet has no sanctity when it comes to the self-interest of a particular lobby in government," a senior police officer told Outlook.

State associations of IPS and Indian Forest Service (IFS) officers have sent in strong protests and representations, demanding not only a reversion to the original intent of the cabinet but also action against the officials responsible for "misinterpreting a cabinet decision."

In response to a fax to the Union finance ministry, an official associated with the pay commission told Outlook that the intention of the cabinet was to continue with the advantage for the IAS and IFS at three levels. "This was discussed at several meetings and has the sanction of the government," the official insisted, and pointed out that "members from the other services, including the IPS and the IFS, were present, they were fully aware of the implications, and gave their stamp of approval." However, the meetings took place on July 2, much before the issue came up before the cabinet.

Besides awarding themselves additional increments, the bureaucrats have also arbitrarily awarded themselves a higher salary structure than what was recommended through several arbitrary means. While the commission recommended Rs 9,000 as grade pay for joint secretary level officers, it has been increased straightaway to Rs 10,000.

The justification runs thus: an IAS officer of the director rank is equivalent to a colonel in the army or an SP in the police. The next step up the ladder makes a bureaucrat a joint secretary, equivalent to a major general or inspector general of police. However, police officers and those in the army and other defence services have to pass through one more rung—the brigadier-DIG level —before they are on par with a joint secretary. The commission's increment for DIG-level officers meant a grade pay of Rs 8,400—just Rs 100 more than an IAS director. The former protested and the grade salary was raised to Rs 8,900. This upset the joint secretaries, as their grade pay was Rs 9,000. The IAS lobby promptly raised it to Rs 10,000. 


The cabinet mandated that the IAS has an edge over other services at only 3 middle levels, with 2 additional increments. But the new notification means that IAS officers get 4 additional increments, which continue throughout their career.

The manipulation of recommended pay structures doesn't end here. In a bizarre move, the slew of new pay notifications have also ensured that junior IAS officers get more money than their seniors in other services. For instance, a junior IAS officer drawing Rs 16,300 in the old pay structure will now get a gross of Rs 40,890 under the new scheme. But officers from other services, who were his seniors and were drawing a higher pay packet of Rs 16,400, will now get Rs 39,690.

The other services have also been crying foul at the way grade pays have been fixed for them, while keeping the IAS at an advantage. In representations to the Centre, other service associations have pointed out that their increments have been proportionately much lower than that of their IAS counterparts. While increments for other ranks have been higher, for the DIG/brigadier level the ratio has been kept at a measly 0.14. This has led to IAS officers at a lower level drawing more than DIGs and brigadiers.

Similarly, an IAS officer drawing Rs 15,100 today will now get Rs 39,690. But his counterpart in the other services, drawing the same salary, will now, inexplicably, get Rs 38,500. "It is not just about money," a police officer says. "Pay structure also decides seniority, perks and powers. By ensuring the superiority of one service at the cost of all other services, you are ensuring bad governance. This will mean that other services will remain subservient to the wishes of the IAS. Is that desirable in our framework of good governance or in view of the efforts that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is making to bring about more professional delivery of governance in India?" he asks.

In the end, even as bureaucrats bestow increments and sops on themselves, can citizens expect better governance? All government employees associations have rejected a key recommendation made by the commission: to link twenty per cent of annual increment to performance. So, while the exchequer is drained at the expense of the common man, the babu has ensured that he will continue to reap benefits—even as he shortchanges the government he is supposed to serve.

GOOD TIMES MAY NOT LAST

This article came in the INDIAN EXPRESS -
GOOD TIMES  MAY NOT LAST

Dear prime minister,
This letter is a bit of history and some unsolicited advice — both suggesting how quickly good times can come to an end.

In December 1984, Rajiv Gandhi swept theLok Sabha elections. In the first phase, theCongress won an unprecedented 404 out of 514 seats; and another 10 in the Assam and Punjab Lok Sabha elections held in 1985. Such a feat had never happened in the history of Indian elections, and has not been repeated since. The nation gave a young man an incredible mandate to lead.

In July 1985, Rajiv Gandhi signed the Punjab Accord with the Akali Dal. Independence Day 1985 saw an agreement being signed with the All-Assam Students Union (AASU). On December 28, 1985 Rajiv Gandhi delivered a brilliant speech at the Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai on the occasion of the Congress’s centenary celebration. It was as good as any of your best oration. I quote:
“We are imprisoned by narrow, domestic walls of religion, language, caste and region, blocking out the clear view of a resurgent nation… Our legislatures do not set standards for others… A convenient conscience compels individuals to meander from ideology to ideology seeking power, influence and riches. Political parties twist their tenets, enticed by opportunism… We have government servants who do not serve but oppress the poor and the helpless, police who do not uphold the law but shield the guilty, tax collectors who do not collect taxes but connive with those who cheat the state, and whole legions whose only concern is their private welfare at the cost of society. They have no work ethic, no feeling for the public cause, no involvement in the future of the nation, no comprehension of national goals, no commitment to the values of modern India…”
He called the Congress leadership “self-perpetuating cliques who thrive by invoking the slogans of caste and religion and by enmeshing the living body of the Congress in their net of avarice…” And ended with:
“We obey no discipline, no rule, follow no principle of public weal. Corruption is not only tolerated but even regarded as the
hallmark of leadership.”
It seemed that nothing could go wrong.
Yet things soured. It started with the Shah Bano case — that of an elderly divorced Muslim woman whose husband had stopped paying alimony. The Supreme Court delivered an outstanding verdict in her favour. However, Rajiv Gandhi developed cold feet because he feared losing Muslim support. His government introduced the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Bill in February 1986, which became law in May 1986. It removed Muslim personal law from the Code of Criminal Procedure and denied even destitute Muslim divorced women the right to alimony from their former husbands. Rajiv Gandhi’s days of modernity had ended.
Then came the Italian businessman, Ottavio Quattrocchi, his closeness to Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi, and how since 1981 he was winning one fertiliser plant deal after the other for his company, Snamprogetti. This was true. During 1981-87, it won orders for setting up at least 20 fertiliser plants, most of which were in the public sector, as well as for ONGC’s gas pipeline at Hazira. Quattrocchi’s powers, the rumour mill said, were not only in winning bids, but also in getting Rajiv Gandhi’s government to punish those who placed orders on others.
Then came Bofors. In March 1986, Bofors AB of Sweden won a $285 million contract to supply 410 field howitzers. Soon, Chitra Subramaniam started obtaining detailed information on bribes that Bofors paid, which started coming out in The Hindu. Suddenly, it was all about the Bofors bribe and Quattrocchi. Amounting to Rs 64 crore, it was then the largest case of graft in India’s post-1947 history and embarrassed Rajiv Gandhi to no end. Amidst the Bofors scandal, his Doon School friend, Arun Singh, quit as minister of state for defence.
And V.P. Singh was thrown out, only to create other problems.
The worst was Rajiv Gandhi’s ill-advised military involvement in Sri Lanka. Lured into it by Junius Jayewardene, the Indian Peace Keeping Force lost some 1,200 soldiers before finally pulling out in 1990.
Thus, five years after the historic mandate, the young leader lost more seats than he won. The Congress won 414 Lok Sabha seats in 1984. It won only 197 in 1989. The number of seats it lost, 217, was 20 more than it won. In India, it doesn’t take long for the worm to turn.
Prime minister, your turning point may have arrived. It has to do with our armed forces. When we are supposed to be achieving over 7 per cent growth, with benign inflation, better revenue collections and Brent crude oil prices at less than $50 per barrel, no one can afford to ignore the demand of one rank, one pension (OROP). Especially not someone who is seen to be such a nationalist as you.
Your finance minister shall tell you that it will cost a fair amount. It does. The budget for 2015-16 earmarked Rs 54,500 crore for defence pensions. Full implementation of OROP would raise this by another Rs 18,000 crore. Maybe Rs 20,000 crore. But this is not an issue of money. You cannot alienate those who have defended our country; and the families of those who died for it. Ask Arun Jaitley to cut other subsidies; prune non-plan expenditure; dramatically increase the snail’s pace of disinvestment; and bring in the GST from April 2016. But don’t delay OROP.
Think of Param Vir Chakra awardees like Joginder Singh and Shaitan Singh who died fighting the Chinese in 1962; Abdul Hamid and Ardeshir Tarapore who perished on the western front in 1965; Albert Ekka, Nirmal Jit Singh Sekhon and Arun Khetrapal who laid down their lives in 1971; Ramaswamy Parameshwaran who died in Sri Lanka in 1987; or Manoj Pandey, Yogendra Singh Yadav, Sanjay Kumar and Vikram Batra who fell defending Kargil in 1999. You cannot alienate the families of these men and of others who are ready to fight and defend their nation — people who are far braver than you or I will ever be.
You estrange the best of this land at your peril.
The writer is founder and chairperson of CERG Advisory Private Limited

WHAT TEMPERS THE STEEL OF AN INFANTRY UNIT - current debate about women in the infantry

It is artificial to constrain the debate about women in the infantry to physical capabilities. This doesn't address what holds an infantry unit together in the worst conditions humanity has to offer.

“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”  –Rudyard Kipling, The Law of the Jungle, The Jungle Book.

 The current debate about women in the infantry takes place in an artificial context, because it nearly always self-limits the discussion to physical capabilities. Within these incomplete parameters, the argument is then set, and the preamble is that physical standards and performance are measurable and what is not measurable is subjective and probably unfair.

Once physical quantifications are set as the only requirement that matters, it then stands to reason that if you can define infantry requirements in terms of, for example, a number of pull-ups, a hike with 60 to 80 pounds of extra weight, or carrying a 180-pound simulated casualty to safety, then you can assess whether females are suited to infantry units.

Honest and informed observers will acknowledge that medical science indicates that, in the physical domain, the two genders are an unequal match. Even a very fit woman is not generally the equal of a fit man. The competition is no competition in aerobic capacity, load bearing, reach, body fat percentage, and other germane measures of combat fitness. But (the informed argument proceeds), even if it is only the top 5 percent of women who can replace the bottom 5 percent of men, why not allow the 5 percent to integrate and thereby improve the combat efficiency of the unit? For example, it has been argued Ronda Rousey — the accomplished and undoubtedly tough mixed martial artist — could be an excellent addition to an infantry unit.

The falsity of this debate is found in its restriction of analysis to its physical context (as most recently demonstrated in an article published yesterday at War on the Rocks). Why is the debate limited to physical capabilities? For two reasons. First, supporters of full integration will not accept what cannot be irrefutably proven (and sometimes not even then). Second, practitioners of infantry warfare have great difficulty describing the alchemy that produces an effective infantry unit, much as it is difficult for those of faith to explain their conviction to an atheist. Try that by quantitative analysis. But allow me a poor effort to explain what tempers the steel of an infantry unit and therefore serves as the basis of its combat power.

The public understands that individuals who have engaged in brutal combat seldom want to talk about their experiences, and it is broadly thought that this is because of the horrors evoked by these memories. More generally, though, this reticence is due to an inability for one side to convey, and the other to understand, not only horrors, but the context of the fight.   Saying that “It was hot” is a futile way to describe the 23rd consecutive day of temperatures over 100 degrees and flesh-soaking humidity, but the description does an even poorer job of conveying the exacerbating details — the burden of 30 to 80 pounds of personal equipment, mind-bending physical exertion, energy-sapping adrenaline highs, or the fact that the threadbare clothes you wore were unchanged for over three weeks and may have been “scented” by everything from food, to blood, dysentery, and whatever was in the dirt that constituted your bed. And don’t forget insects of legendary proportion and number. More importantly, a story thus told cannot explain that the fellow soldier or Marine who you tried desperately to put back together was the same one who shared the duties of clearing the urinals, the pleasures of a several nights of hilarious debauchery, and multiple near-death experiences — a comrade in arms who has heard more about your personal thoughts than your most intimate friends or family. So veterans of the true horrors of combat don’t talk about it. Please understand, then, that it is equally difficult to describe the ingredients of an efficient ground fighting machine, because the ingredients are intangible, decidedly not quantitative, and proudly subjective.

An infantryman’s lot is to endure what we think is unendurable, to participate in the inhumane, and to thrive in misery. Normal humans do not deliberately expose themselves to confront a machine gun that is firing at them over 10 rounds a second. “Smart” humans do not run toward the sound of gunfire. Logic does not tell you to lay down your life in the hope that you can recover an already dead comrade. And normal organizations do not strive, as their first priority, to evoke fear. For you see, the characteristics that produce uncommon valor as a common virtue are not physical at all, but are derived from the mysterious chemistry that forms in an infantry unit that revels in the most crude and profane existence so that they may be more effective killers than their foe. Members of such units deliberately reduce the individual and collective level of humanity and avoid all distractions so that its actions are fundamental, instinctive, and coldly efficient. Polite company, private hygiene, and weakness all step aside. These are the men who can confront the Islamic State, North Korean automatons, or Putin’s Spetsnaz and win every time. Believe me, you will need them, and we don’t get to choose when that will be.

In this direct ground combat environment, you do not fight for an ideal, a just cause, America, or Mom and apple pie. You endure the inhumanity and sacrifices of direct ground combat because, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” This selflessness is derived from bonding, and bonding from shared events and the unquestioning subordination of self for the good of the team. But what destroys this alchemy — and, therefore, combat effectiveness — are pettiness, rumor-mongering, suspicion, and jealousy. And when fighting spirit is lessoned, death is the outcome.   So “fairness” is an obscenity. Fairness is about individuals. It’s selfish. And selfishness can kill.

Nineteen-year-old males everywhere are from Mars. They, and their early twenty-something brethren, are overloaded with testosterone, supremely confident about their invincibility, and prone to illogical antics. This sometimes produces intemperate behavior in everyday America, but the same traits are, by the way, nearly ideal for direct ground combat.  The same youthful ingredients produce unacceptable behavior in the pristine and low pressure environments of boarding schools, academic institutions, and cubicle farms. Truth be told, in later stages of life these traits also lead to humiliating interactions on Capitol Hill or in the White House. Why, then, do we suppose that sexual dynamics — or mere perceptions thereof — among the most libido laden age cohort in humans, in the basest of environs, will not degrade the nearly spiritual glue that enables the infantry to achieve the illogical and endure the unendurable?

Two women just graduated from the Army’s very, very difficult Ranger School. The surprise of that is that it surprised anyone. There unquestionably are women who can pass any physical challenge the military may require. We should celebrate those who succeed and encourage others. They are worthy role models, and certainly not just to women. But the issue we’re now debating has to include a recognition of cohesion and the cost of sexual dynamics in a bare-knuckled brawl, amidst primeival mayhem, in which we expect the collective entity to persevere because it has a greater will and fighting spirit, and not because it is bigger, faster, or more agile. The championship team in virtually any professional sport may only coincidentally be the most physically talented, but it most assuredly will be the most cohesive. Why not appreciate the same ingredients in infantry units?

Finally, you may bet your future earnings that the current effort to integrate the infantry will not cease with a few extraordinary females, but will eventually accommodate a social engineering goal by changing standards. Think I am wrong? It’s already happening. Read the words and understand the goals of the current Secretary of the Navy (an arsonist in the fire department) and theSecretary of the Air Force, and examine what we now call “the Dempsey Rule.”

If I’m wrong, the cost may be denied opportunity to strong and impressive young women. If you’re wrong, our national security is shaken and there is a butcher’s bill to pay. Make your choice. The line forms on the left.

Lieutenant General Gregory Newbold (U.S. Marine Corps, ret.) is a former infantryman, having commanded units from the platoon through the 1st Marine Division. His last assignment was as Director of Operations, the Joint Staff.