From paper-writing to contribution to life-talks ...

I believe the most important parts of a technical paper are the Introduction and Conclusions sections. In the Introduction, the motivation for the problem has to be presented in such a way so that it looks utterly compelling - the reviewer should ask himself or herself, "how were we leading our lives without this research in the past?" This is the degree to which we need to convince people with our research - this makes a real contribution!

The conclusions section is the other end of the pole. One of the basic ingredients of good research is to be able to acknowledge one's own short-comings (note: is it not true for life as well - being able to identify our own mistakes and short-comings?). Therefore pointing out open issues in your model / framework / experiments in the Conclusions section is of utmost importance.

One of the primary reasons I took to research was because I wanted to contribute something to the world holistically. It is an endeavor which attempts to make our lives better! As I read in one of the papers today about the impact of social networks research:
"Social network analysis is useful for the development and self-optimization of the society as a whole."

The paper was published in the renowned scientific journal Nature and therein comes its wide dimensions of contributions!

Indeed, this is the kind of contribution I want my thesis to make to the world! Trust me, paper-writing comes with a lot of insights into oneself - not only the thesis topic, but life as a whole. After all, as someone once said (when I was starting off my PhD), "research is similar to being in love, a relationship, a very serious one, a relationship that needs time, effort and commitment: commitment for the lifetime..."

I guess it is true and I will make sure there is no dearth of commitment anytime; a personal trait I have always cherished in myself; commitment to whatever I am serious about. Probably not everything has worked out positively even after this, but I am truthful to myself: that I tried to the best of my efforts ... :)

And yes, if you think I am totally brain-washed about research or commitments in life, then you are right, I am :)

Blog communication -> Stock market movement

I will be posting the details soon sometime! Still alive, working on the deadline!

Philosophies, Here and There ...

Love is overrated - there is nothing as impossible to get over from, which you once loved. It bleeds. We look back and see, we want to tread back to the crossroads where love left off. But the reverse journey never ends. An echo of past memories persists. But then time heals the wound, somewhere, some manner. We just need to have the eye to rediscover our love all over again. May be in something completely different. May be an inane object. Love of work can be honest, earnest and profound. Love which lingers as long as we breathe.

Keep the minimal attachments, least expectations, but the best of social contacts - this is the unfortunate story of our current world.

Live life every moment; I live in deadlines, short goals towards something bigger, more long-termed.

The biggest war are the challenges we meet everyday. One of them is the battle between your desires and your morals. Principles that we grow up with, faith in ourselves - every sunrise lends us new horizons to prove that faith. Even in the midst of desires, where success or happiness seems so near. But the real spirit of happiness is within ourselves; a belief that we will never demean the swamp of trust we bear in us always.

Updates

There are days when everything seems to go wrong, and there are times when everything seems to fall in the very right place! Today is one of those days - the day of all the 'right' things!

I woke up comparatively early today morning; one, because I had a meeting, and secondly I wanted to do a few experiments to show in the meeting. The meeting went off good; the results I got for the upcoming deadline are good! Petty things, but these make me really happy!

Happiness appears more and more psychological to me these days - clinging to small knick-knacks of life. CIKM is very important for me; hope I am able to make a good submission!

On this happy note, I quote the following few lines:

Work like you don't need money,
Love like you've never been hurt,
And dance like no one's watching!

And also the following lyrics from the movie Khamoshi:

Aaj main oopar aasmaan neeche
Aaj main aage zamaana hai peechhe
Aaj main oopar aasmaan neeche
Aaj main aage zamaana hai peechhe
Tell me o khuda
Ab main kya karoon
Chaloon seedhi ki ulti chaloon

Conferences ...

Not a surprise or a great achievement, but the technical poster (on Modeling Information Roles for capturing Stock Market Dynamics) got accepted at the Grace Hopper Conference for Women in Computing '08. Small achievements just keep us on our toes - to realize in the long years of PhD, some sense of moving forward; a relief from monotonicity and riddance from getting lost in a swamp of mediocrity. After all, the mid-PhD years are the toughest parts of the PhD process!

If I can manage a travel grant, I would like to go to Keystone, Colorado where the conference is, in October. I haven't been to Colorado, so I expect it to be fun!

By the way, my travel plans for Pittsburgh in June (17th to 21st) is almost finalized. It is the second time (after Chicago) I would be traveling somewhere close to mid-west. Though Pittsburgh is not one of the tourist places, but should be nice, considering the grand organization at the conference.

It is coming to seem to me more and more that it is the publications which could keep me real happy all this while! Happiness is out there; in those papers!

"In the Mood for Love" (2000)

After suggestions on numerous occasions by a friend to watch the movie In the Mood for Love, I finally watched it tonight. It is a Cantonese movie (the native language spoken in Hong Kong) and is based on a drama of romance between two people, spanning over almost six years in the 1960's.

This is my first take on an east Asian movie; but I must say it is one of the most beautifully made movies I have ever seen - a simple plot of extra-marital romance, but woven beautifully in the fabric of circumstances, external events and the pull and push between faith, love and morals. It is one of the few rare instances when a story solely based on the romance blooming between two already married people succeeds to gather the same frequency from the viewer - given the social stigma of extra-marital relationships in the society of those times.

One of the most different and interesting aspects of the movie is the way they show regularities in our lives - how monotonousness creeps in inside our lives over time, often moulding the way we look at things. I am also intrigued by the manner of silence dominating in different scenes, and still conveying to the viewer the state of mind of the characters - a rare attribute which I have seen in very few movies, some being e.g. Ray's movies like 'Pather Panchali'.

The movie provides a fresh look at romance. Interestingly, there are no romantically explicit scenes, and yet the viewer manages to feel how the love between the two characters progresses over time. The characters seem very humane, mundane and made of flesh-and-blood; they see their love blooming but are constrained by the society and the responsibilities of having been married. Love blooms till comes the time of separation - the characters living upto their moral beliefs - love which still keeps them the people they are. The movie ends at a note where the protagonist sees a blurry past, a past which he can only look back and see and never be able to feel or touch. A touch which, in the end, he buries in a hole in AngorWat, Cambodia- a secret which he thinks he should not share with the world.

The movie once again (on very rare occasions yet) has let me to think the connection between fictions and life - both have players who are humans; they have the incessant urge to be happy and still be responsible to circumstances - succumb to things which they cannot control. I feel it is really the life all of us lead sometime somewhere.

A few very incongruous facets ...

Empirical experiment:
Browsing videos on YouTube is probably the best random walk model experiment. Surprisingly I often reach the same videos over and over in a considerable short span of time - hint towards k-degrees of separation.

Consequences of Time travel:
I think life won't continue to be as interesting if we could always go back and could change the happenings. We would lose the motivation to do things to perfection, there would be no need for hard work or no existence of any aspiration. The uncertainty in life keeps us wondering about every tomorrow with a smile. Knowledge will reach stagnation - Einsteins would never die and the advent of newer and fresher minds would be unlikely since the world would never involve taking risks.

Life:
Life is a like a book; but the only difference being, we cannot go back to the previous pages to re-read and understand the situation. If you tear a page in the past, you cannot possibly come back to the present and stick it back at the current page. It just won't fit in there - because the circumstances and the people, all have moved on, save you!

Karma:
I believe life is all about how much you can give away - be it love, be it knowledge, be it service. This is the secret to being rich - love as much as you can - never look back for reciprocation. Spread your knowledge - after all, knowledge is contagious, and you can play a significant role in the knowledge-epidemic. Knowledge is the light to a better world tomorrow. Isn't life therefore about living for the people, even those whom you would probably never meet or never know? Because knowledge and love transcend physical perceptions of familiarity and mutual awareness - a few greater truths we hardly realize in our never-ending hunt for happiness. Happiness? It is right there!

Murphy's Law gets Empirical...

This is the story of my "interesting" life (read a sarcastic tone here). Yesterday was one of the most memorable days yet - though unfortunately it won't go down with any sweet memory.

I slept about three hours when I woke up on Friday morning; but has to rush to lab for the paper I am working on right now for the June 3 deadline (CIKM '08). I had thought of using a nice mathematical construct in my model, so was all excited to be at the lab as soon as possible. I took the bus as usual, as I have been doing all the while this semester.

By 3 pm, I was really sleepy. One of my friends at the department let me know of some free food upstairs, so ran to grab them - ice cream cake, cookies and soda. After the food, no way I was able to stay at the lab. I decided I will leave.

I took the bus back and reached Tempe Public Library where my car is usually parked. I suddenly thought I will get some Indian food from a nearby store. So started driving there.

It was a light rail inclusive road, and I had to turn left. Sleepy as I was, I did. By the moment I turned in, I saw flashing red light and the Police buzzing behind. It was a huge cop on a motor bike. Herein is the story's climax. LOL.

It was not the first time I got pulled over, so I was prepared what to do. But things were not that simple. He asked me why I made the illegal turn - obvious answer I did not notice (implicitly I was sleepy probably, but could not tell him this). This was not the end of my stupidity. He asked for my insurance, and what I realized I did not have the renewed insurance card! I told him, I have insurance, just that I don't have the card as of now. I suggested if he could look up his database using either the VIN number of my car or my license. To add salt to the already messed situation, he said he does not have access to that database.

He wrote me two tickets - one for moving violation, and the second for no proof of insurance. The first one is the first traffic offense in the past one year, so he said I could get away without getting points on my insurance by doing traffic school. And for the second, I have to go to the court within the next one month and show that I have had the insurance at that point of time - and the second ticket then goes away.

So the scene is, I have go to the court to show my insurance, and then I have to do 4.5 hours of traffic school, that costs like ~ $ 130. Very sad situation :(.

I had been a decent driver all this while - never got any tickets till this one. I always drive within speed limits and have been good at abiding rules to the best of my knowledge. Not even that sleep was a problem - I did Grand Canyon (alone drove to and fro from Tempe) on a Saturday and Las Vegas (alone drove to and fro from Tempe) the Sunday after. And nothing happened - everything was just fine, even though I was kind of tired driving some 1300 miles in two consecutive days.

But I guess sometimes life just simply follows Murphy's law - "whenever anything can go wrong, they will." I saw the empirical proof - I could have just gone home and slept and none of this would have happened!

I hate mistakes in life that I commit. And failing oneself never feels good...

Community Visualization

Your participation on Blogger might have evolved as a part of one of these communities in the diagram above. Each bubble is a community. It is based on some experiments I did.

The Moon and the Bread Analogy

Suddenly I got reminded of the following two lines from a famous Bengali poem by Sukanta Bhattacharya,

Khudhar rajjey prithibi goddomoy,
Purnimar chad jeno jholshano ruti

which means,

"Poetry, we do not need you anymore. A world devastated by hunger is too prosaic, The full moon now reminds us of toasted bread"

Life is more of prose than sweet rhythmic poetry. And each of us have some responsibility towards warding off that perception of Moon and bread. The world needs us, some way, sometime, somewhere.

******************************************

On a lighter note, today I increased my reportaire of cooking greatly. I made "aaloo paratha" meaning Indian flat bread stuffed with spiced mashed potatoes from scratch - getting the atta, kneading it into a dough, rolling and stuffing it and then baking it on a flat pan. Two tips - they go really well with sweet lemon pickle or hot and spicy potato curry. Here is a picture of what I made.

A Busy Note...

I don't like myself for not having been able to blog for such a long time! Just that things have been too busy - semester getting over and one of the most important conference's deadline nearing on June 3rd. I am trying my best to make it a good paper.

The idea of black holes / Big Bang kind of singularity based community analysis in social networks is one idea I want to expand upon as well. It sits nicely on my desire to use natural sciences concepts in my research. For that I want to target either of the two conferences, one due on July 10 and the other on August 11. Let us see how it goes. The other motivation for this work is that both these conferences are out of country - one in Syndey and another in Spain. A very big motivation to work harder - now do you see why I am not blogging enough? :P

But I am concentrating on the task at hand. Today has been another of the night-out days - but today I did it without coffee! Yeah, and I am also trying to minimize my addiction for caffeine. Tea is working out to be a good alternative - green tea or some nice Earl Grey without sugar / creamer.

Other things in life, like cooking, sleeping still continues. But have minimized much on shopping! Rest for later!

Love and Life's Obsession

What happens when you get obsessed with something? What does it imply to start liking and loving something too much? Do you get sleepless nights? Do you drink ten cups of coffee everyday? Does it anyways touch any tip of your insanity iceberg?

The feeling has been recurring in my life. Reasons have been wide and varied, but they all had a consistent thread - the desire to achieve something, to accomplish something. And the desire sprang from a very honest love of the subject in question.

I am sure many of you have been through such phases. However, the sleeplessness and the insomnia phases somehow frequent me more often than anytime before. Obsession is to such a degree that you feel like loving it all at once! Live life all in one moment!

It has mostly been six cups of coffee a day. And a life hunting for a new way to look at a mundane thing - "how people communicate". This is precisely what defines my current love - research. The sleepless phases are more frequent, but I enjoy them to the fullest.

What do you think about love for something which would never turn a deaf ear to you? Can your love and work match? Can your obsession find a vent to a "free"er world?

Research would never move away. It is perpetual, just as the love of things in my life have been. We might overrate love and move on, but the pining inside the heart is always there. But for once with research, I hope never to crunch that pining inside the heart.

The moral of the story is, love, live life and live your untainted abstract obsessions. Who cares about reciprocity? Life has more colors than the rainbow - you just need an eye for it!

Forgiveness: One Life Ain't Enough...

The most beautiful virtue is probably the ability to forgive others. Human beings have been ruling the Earth since the past few thousand years; adorned by our ability to think, rationalize and reason. Forgiveness is a wisdom, a virtue to be better individuals.

I want to work for the people - everyone. I want to let go past grudges; life is too short to spend like that. There is a bigger picture. We are made of flesh and blood, and that's where I want to work for.

As one of the songs in Taare Zameen Par goes, we have a thousand wings and a sky to climb in front of us. One life ain't enough to fulfill all of our dreams. But one thing I want to accomplish in this life, I want to forgive everyone for whatever reason differences have had cropped up in the past. And I want to work and spend the rest of my life for everyone.

This is my pursuit of happiness in life.

Walked I aforth in quest of that happy certain,
Forever it took in the rugged terrain of dark mountain;
A mind and body - heavy with the coal of grudges,
Till it dawned that forgiveness could take it all abreast.

I now see a soul everywhere,
A life I want to lead without letting it go haywire;
I want to kindle that candle of knowledge,
A time I want to spend, a tribute to all as a token of towage.

Stress, Life and Grad School

Doing PhD is now getting nasty. Too many deadlines to meet. The ever-heightening greed to materialize all your research ideas - get them published. Coursework, none the less as well. The desire to get noticed in the research community. Keep up with the new upcoming work being done so rapidly (read literature very frequently to keep up the pace). Writing efficient code - preventing the reinvention of the wheel. The increasing complexity of the math model. Even including organizing and backing up the data properly, year after year. And the list could go on.

There are mostly no insights in this blog post; other than the self realization of how busy life has gotten already and how much more it is going to get in the next 2-3 years. I am about to be done with my coursework next semester, so that brings up the question of whether I could take the comprehensive and proposal defense in next Spring. Not sure - depends on a lot of factors. But I think I know my thesis problem - have a broad idea. Let's see how it goes.

In a way these short term deadlines, work stress and always the penchant to learn more and discover more is the most beautiful time of grad school. All this is keeping me very busy, and although right now I am stressed, but I am loving it in a way. Makes me cross over the past - focus and look forward to something else in the near future.

I met a senior researcher from Adobe Research, Boston yesterday. Rightly said by him, grad school is the best time to try and feel free to do whatever that interests you; if your advisor lets you do that, it is perfect. Else the leisure time is always there - after all, research is a passion so could be a hobby as well. It is true - I want to make use of this time of my life in the best possible manner. He was also saying, grad school is also so nice because you don't have to worry about life - getting married, having kids, their education, your professor tenure, and the list goes on.

Though neither marriage, nor kids (of course not their education as well!) or being a professor (a long term goal ideally) isn't at all on my cards as of now and this would be the same for quite a long time I guess. But sure, it does seem grad school is really the last time you get to breathe and feel independent in whatever you want to do! I wonder why it is not so apparent!

The Rift between Industry and Academia?

The gulf of difference in the research approach in the industry and the academia is markedly astounding. Recently there was this article on the Wired blog about how Google is losing grounds in advertising with the new Web 2.0 tools coming up. The article is here. It describes how, even with the rich and extensive user data as well as data about a person's online social activities (e.g. Orkut) Google has been sticking to its conventional "search" ideas to targeted advertising and therefore losing grounds monetarily.

I work on social networks broadly and my research deals tremendous impact on tomorrow's new definition of targeted advertising. So I am rather dumb-founded finding out how Google is targeting advertising in a social media simply based on analysis of the textual content. This might have several limitations:

1. On a social media, the content on a person's page could be generated by the person or by his contacts or even by people who aren't related to the person in any way. Targeted advertising focused on the person and based on the textual content would therefore fail.
2. The person might receive a lot of spam messages / scraps (note, certain people on a social network could be spam, which a conventional spam detection algorithm can't possibly find out; "splog detection" is a separate research area therefore). However the context of these spam is no way related to the user.
3. In a very natural setting of the society, people acquire roles in communication. When I go a party, I know that Jane is the girl most outgoing and likely to know loads of people - a role culling out of Jane's interactions with people. Why not target such people for targeted advertising?
4. The article apparently talks of a small company like a start-up which is exploiting this idea of Influencers in the social networking advertising domain. However, they are missing out on another interesting attribute of people in a social network - that some of us are more susceptible to certain kinds of information than others. Some of us are inherently vulnerable to the influencers.

This is the strong point of surprise and rift with the academia. We have known from simulations (ref. Duncan Watts) that flow of information in a social network depends on mining the vulnerable people as well. And through our work on MySpace (still ongoing work for a journal), we want to establish the empirical validity as well. But the interesting issue is, is the industry not aware of this powerful idea? Or they don't really care about it?

Google with its million Terrabytes of data, could actually work wonders in realizing a dream of putting social networks to very strong use beyond the commonplace "friend-of-friend" notion!

Thoughts on 'God Created Man?'

Disclaimer: This post is not written to hurt anybody's feelings about God, religion or anything else related to them whatsoever. We live in a free world, expressing ourselves within our own dogma.

In my previous post I was asked to pen my ideas and thoughts on the issue of whether God created Man. So here they go.

I keep on returning to this topic in my thoughts very often - question myself and seek answers, read extensively on the recent developments in Physics and Philosophy that might reflect on this issue even remotely. So my thoughts are really diverse in this matter. But in a one liner, I don't think God created Man.

We can think human beings to be complex molecules that generated on Earth due to evolution - we are just like any complex machine, but with some characteristic traits like the ability to think, to reproduce and reason. And we are ridiculously intelligent - any complex molecule that can reach a zenith of who created him has to be really smart!

Now comes the question of why we were created - also why are we the way we are. The question draws back to why and how the universe was created. There are contradicting arguments among physicists about it, but the most widely accepted idea is that the universe was created out of a singularity, like the Big Bang. Of course the probability of a singularity occurring and the creation of complex molecules on one of the zillions of planets does not really sound like a planned Godly creation!

There is also the theory of multiverse, a hypothetical set of multiple possible universes (including our universe) that together comprise all of reality - every dimension could be explained by a different universe governed by its own set of laws. Hence in our perceived sense of three spacial dimensions and the fourth dimension time, it is possible to think that things of life occurring on Earth could have been a planned approach and describe the way things fell in place. But the reality we might might just be an illusion and could possibly have several dimensions (unknown to us) which could explain the possible creation of universe and the subsequent origin of life. So sitting in some remote corner on Earth, the chances that the millions of physical and chemical interactions would result into some complex intelligent molecules seem rather coincidental from our limited perspective!

The other side of the debate believing in the Godly creation might resort of ideas such as the anthropic principles that constitutes a "lazy way out" of accounting for features such as the apparent fine-tuning of parameters in relation to the existence of life. However, I believe the frame of reference matters. Anthropic principle saying that everything was created with a purpose in mind - a purpose to explain the existence of life on Earth, seems to be rather conditionally biased by our identity. If we could change our frame of reference and forget for a moment that we are a part of the principle's purpose itself, we might see the degree of randomness.

However we tend to observe that many real life problems could be solves deterministically and aren't very random (chaos theory). This beats the idea of a chance and advocates the anthropic principles of existence of life. The principle says that:

• If there were a large number (possibly infinite) of different physical laws (or fundamental constants) in as many universes, some of these would have laws that were suitable for stars, planets and life to exist. The anthropic principle could then be applied to conclude that we would only consciously exist in those universes which were finely-tuned for our conscious existence. Thus, while the probability might be extremely small that there is life in most of the multiverses, this scarcity of life-supporting universes does not imply intelligent design as the only explanation of our existence. Critics of this argument point outthat the cause and the effect have been reversed by those who claim that the universe seems to be fine-tuned for our benefit. Critics cite the vast store of evolutionary evidence which shows that life is perfectly and naturally tuned to the universe it arose in. Fossil, genetic and other biological evidence abundantly supports the observation that life adapts to physics, not the other way around. **

I am not trying to place any sort of convincing idea here that God does not exist, and that obviously could not have created Man. But as the scientific arguments say, there isn't enough evidence to support the presence of a super power. But I am not demeaning the readers who think otherwise. It is a free world and everyone has the right to cherish his or her own set of beliefs. The catch being, none of the schools of thought have much clinching evidence to support their beliefs.

There is a thin line of difference between belief and truth. Who knows what the truth is! It is our beliefs for now, and as far as they take us! To quote what Wikipedia says, "The hope is sometimes expressed that once a grand unified theory of everything s achieved, it will turn out to have a unique "solution" corresponding to the observed universe."

However, it seems less likely that all the physical laws were intentionally fine-tuned for conscious life as we experience it - ruling out the possibility (as of now) of God having created Man with any conscious purpose.

** Wikipedia: Multiverse

Technology and Us

Who does not love to, or at least compulsively use technology today? Everyone of us do, in some way or the other - be it for our education, our business, or for our pleasure. But what we expect out of technology is very astounding and strikingly different. This is coupled by what we expect from technology compared to what it could possibly cater to!

You ought to find sometime to take a look at this section in Wired which apparently hosts photos as "badges of honor for human freedom fighters around the globe". If you are not clear what this means, it shows the best ten pictures depicting some gruesome fate some of us have brought to technology from time to time - ranging from hammering down laptops, burning motherboards, thwarting computer monitors or cracking Blackberries! Yes, you read all this correctly, and trust me, some of us do really engage ourselves in such activities!

The point of this blog is however, not to criticize those people - they could draw any possible fate to their technological gadgets. What I am rather trying to point out here is much profound - our life's inter-twining with technology.

Man develops technology to find a servant to cater him better. Sometimes these endeavors strives to quench our intellectual thirst, nurture our intellectual curiosity. But time immemorial has seen technologies turning into vices rather than confining themselves to human virtues or the Earth at large. It is our responsibility; blaming the technology is simply wry.

In the article people have expressed dissatisfaction at compatibility issues or issues like certain gadget getting out of vogue. However, man who, today is so much dependent on technology possibly has lost a sense to think coherently that cursing the technology is lame, everything is subject to temporal evolution. Technology is meant to make us wiser, not to cringe our logic. It is in the benefit of Nature that technology is still made the servant and we the masters. Its vices are not inherent in it, but it is us who need to be more responsible.

If you have considered leaving Orkut or Facebook because you are annoyed with fake and junk profiles, and you curse the whole online social networking technology for that, whom would you blame those junk (or not-so-liked) people in the real world in the very first place?

Blame game does not make us wise; let us use our conscience to develop into more responsible and sensible individuals.

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional

I just read somewhere: Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. But ironically enough, we often spend our precious times suffering from the ordeal that pain causes us. We fail to take the pain as a part of life, we fail to realize that life is sometimes governed by circumstances over which we don't really have control, we retract from learning from the sources or causes of the pain. We suffer, till time turns into an eternal savior to relieve us.

The toughest thing in life is how to look ahead and not turn around and look back - whether golden times or dreary moments. If you can look way into your future, you will see that life can be made beautiful again. It can again be adorned with all the love, care and success that are sought after.

We cannot change the past, unfortunately. But we can define our future. Past is gone - a remnant left in the sands of time, a few grains of sand that have run through the sneaks of our hands. Just let it go. After every sunset, there is always a sunrise.

We have heard and read about it so many times at so many occasions. People, things or circumstances that cause our pain deserve forgiveness; but suffering for their inflicted pain ought not be our cup of tea tomorrow morning. Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

Life is to look forward - and I can already see, admire and breathe in its beauty.

Quote of the Day: Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

Why Religion? Why Not Science?

If you have been following the democratic presidential candidates and the programs and bills they seem to be approving, debating on or thinking to work upon, you will see most of them are things like health care, immigration problems, religion, terrorism, education etc. These are definitely the burning issues for elections in any country today, and the politicians need to have clarity in their policies towards tackling these problems; more so, because they connect directly to any commonplace person in the country - these define the basis of our existence and society today. However it is very interesting to note their inclination towards exploiting the issue of religion, often to their own benefit, than participation in a science debate! Is it because people are more sensitive to religious issues than science? Is it because people connect to religion more, and take science rather for granted, or to be something which only a handful of people take interest in?

If you would take a peek into the Wired blog to keep yourself up-to-date with the latest technological endeavors, you will notice that as reported here, the two most promising candidates for the 2008 presidential elections, Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama, refused to attend a science debate, whereas in their other debates they would directly or indirectly always pull up the issue of religion.

It is unfortunate that the politicians who are going to spearhead a nation for probably the next two tenures are turning a deaf ear to scientific issues. Scientists and environmentalists from round the globe are worried about global warming and energy crises, and a nation where power is dissipated almost next to wastage, a nation whose main backbone runs on power mostly derived from non-renewable exhaustive sources, these two issues are customary to be considered for a whole next generation's survival. The count of deadly challenging diseases are not on a dip, rather everyday reaching newer heights beyond the expertise our current technology possesses. Under such situations, America needs probably a more scientifically-conscious candidate. Despite the fact that both Obama and Clinton have their own set of skills in certain policies, and they have huge public thronging behind them, their outlook towards scientific issues are rather disappointing.

The question remains, how is America's next President going to define the fate of this country or the ones associated, about issues that are currently being pushed back so much...

Tandoori Casserole

Do try this innovative but really simple recipe! This serves three people.

Main dish:

Ingredients:
Green, yellow and red bell peppers (4 nos.)
Yellow and red onions (2 large nos.)
Large Tomatoes (3 nos.)
Freshly cut Pineapple pieces (1 / 4 th of a whole pineapple)
Salt
Red chilly powder
Garam masala
Ginger Garlic paste
Yogurt
Vegetable Oil

Method:

First of all cut all the vegetables in 1 inch x 1 inch square sizes. Now in a large bowl, mix the vegetables with salt, red chilly powder, garam masala and ginger garlic paste and leave it covered for 30 minutes. After that pour yogurt and little bit of oil on the mixture and further mix well. Cover it and leave it on your pantry for another one hour. In the meanwhile turn on the oven to 350 F. After the mixture is ready, pour it over in an oven safe casserole and turn it inside the oven. Keep checking and after 30- 45 minutes the casserole should be done!


Side(s):

This thing should go well with mashed potatoes or jeera rice.