Salt Creatives

Rental Bargain from a clothes store.

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IT has been 22 years since Irving Shulman shortened the name of his discount clothing chain from Daffy Dan’s to Daffy’s in a bid to class up the brand, which was known for goofy marketing stunts like perching mannequins on the roof so passers-by would run in to warn of suicide jumpers, then hopefully stay for the bargains.

Today Daffy’s is one of the oldest operating discount chains in the Northeast. But lately it has found itself in competition with some unlikely rivals: luxury department stores like Saks and Neiman Marcus that have started advertising on Daffy’s turf, stressing low prices over fashion or luxury.

“If you walk down the street, every shop window’s got a discount sign on it now,” said Jan Jacobs, co-founder of Johannes Leonardo, Daffy’s new creative agency, which is backed by the WPP Group. Daffy’s has had a firm hold on the off-price market since it was founded 48 years ago, he said, “but because of the economy and everyone offering discounts, they are disappearing into the background.”

Looking to reclaim the discount mantle, Daffy’s is starting a quirky marketing campaign centered on a contest that will award one person the kind of value not generally associated with a clothing store: a one-year lease on a fully furnished $7,000-a-month apartment in Manhattan’s West Village neighborhood at $700 a month.

More to read on this at New York Times

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Seminar on Urban Transport Infrastructure, incl Elevated Highway

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If things go as per Government plans, Chennai will see a massive infusion of investment on a number of road building projects, broadly grouped under Circular Transport Corridor, and Elevated Expressway (Nochikuppam to Kottivakkam).

Many of us are familiar with the latter, but still do not understand where it fits within the rationale of the state Government or within the larger context of urban decongestion. Many of us also believe that the current situation with traffic snarls and bottlenecks are not desirable, and that something has to be done. But none of us are very clear about the details of these various projects, and how they come together as a larger transport/traffic plan for the city. We know urgent steps have to be taken!!

But what? Will the proposed projects address the problem at hand? Are these the best options? What are the other options? What about the long-term? Will even these roads become clogged up? What do progressive transport management principles say about the best way forward? What do the projects mean for public transport users, cyclists, car owners? Who stands to gain most? Who stands to lose?

To understand these issues, and add some real content to our basis for seeking out alternatives to schemes such as the Elevated Expressway, we're proposing to organise a half-day seminar addressing an audience of lay residents from the areas along the alignment of the Expressway. The seminar's contents will cover the transport/traffic management plans for all of Chennai, with a specific focus on the Elevated Highway. Details of the proposed seminar are below, and this is merely a proposal. The final design of the seminar will incorporate suggestions from you all.

SUGGESTED TITLE: "Chennai's Road Building Plans: A problem or a solution" or (if we want bureaucrats to participate) "Chennai's Urban Transport Projects: Understanding the costs and benefits"

SUGGESTED SCOPE OF SEMINAR CONTENT: Major transport infrastructure in all of Chennai Metropolitan Area

SUGGESTED FOCUS: Elevated Expressway; Adyar River Transport Corridor

AUDIENCE: South Chennai Residents (Nocchikuppam to Kottivakkam) -- BILINGUAL -- English with translation to Tamil

SUGGESTED DATE: 23 August, 2009 (SUNDAY)

CONTENT:
1. Chennai's Transport Schemes: Understanding the various projects, and their compliance (or lack thereof) with National Urban Transport Policy and Masterplans --- SUGGESTED SPEAKER: Mr. MG Devasahayam
2. South Chennai Schemes -- Adyar River Corridor and Elevated Expressway. SUGGESTED SPEAKERS: Srivatsan
3. Impacts of South Chennai schemes on People. SUGGESTED SPEAKER: Louis Menezes
4. Impacts of South Chennai schemes on Environment and Space. SUGGESTED SPEAKER: Leela Samson
5. Alternatives: The way forward: SUGGESTED SPEAKER: Tara Murali
6. Discussion

Total time: 3 hours
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On Randy Pausch

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"The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."
~Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch was 47 years old when he died from pancreatic cancer. He was, as the Independent of London put it, "the dying man who taught America how to live." His book, The Last Lecture, is an international best-seller and it offers many wonderful lessons about life.

Randy Pausch's "last lecture" was delivered in September 2007, at Carnegie Mellon University, where he taught computer science. The lecture began with him standing before a screen beaming down chilling CT images of tumors in his liver, under the title...The Elephant in the Room. He then said to a stunned audience, "I have about 6 months to live." He said, "I'm really in good shape, probably better shape than most of you," ... dropping to the floor to do push-ups.

He went on to say, "I'm dying and I'm having fun, and I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left." He talked about his childhood dreams and what they had taught him about life. He said, "If you live your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself...your dreams will come to you."

Randy Pausch really was a dying man who has taught America how to live.

He died on July 25, 2008, but his wisdom, his passion, and his attitude are lasting sources of inspiration for all of us.

I love stories that can engage our hearts and our souls! This is one of many that I share in Charging the Human Battery...50 Ways to Motivate Yourself. My goal with this little book is to create many "a-ha moments" that can inspire, encourage and motivate you when you need it most!

Face Time with Friends

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I nearly dozed off, as I often do on afternoons. The ride to IIT was quite a non motivating thought, particularly with my back to the bed. Then some how the thought of actually meeting those whom I have been messaging, mailing and chatting up in Face Book and Twitter a propped me on to sitting mode. In five minutes the rubber on road, pistons pumping, I was into it. Long ride, the ride from IIT to CCD seemed longer.

There they were, just two of them Kiruba and Nambirajan were there it was easy to locate, probably the vibes or the lostness of my look...then walked in Sriram then Shyam and finally came Kaushik.

We discussed the TEDx event for Chennai, good start, worked on most of the large issues with a little bit of discussion we agreed.

Whatever said and done the face to face sessions are the best they get more meaningful and potent when we already warm up with mails and messages on Gmail, FB etc...
Looking forward to the next meeting on Aug
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Subtle eye on world events

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It may be a G8, it does not mean a man needs to only focus on his job. Such eye candies can actually get his emotions charging as a bull that can be channelized on some serious issues such as global warming, entry into Iran etc etc
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Mozart and Nakka Mukka

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Training is my passion. I take pride in the fact that I do not get into the soft skills stuff, I work on the real issues, that can impact life long term. "Listening for Professional Gains' is a module in which I encourage the participants to consciously work to develop the listening skills. Is listening so difficult? Its complicated... the mechanical energy, outer ear, Cochlea, stapes, electrical energy, auditory cortex, angular gyrus, cognition......well its very complicated.

70% of learning happens through listening.

I encourage the participants to cultivate a taste for Classical stuff and to demonstrate I play a Mozart piece and observe them... 1 minute of Mozart would seem like 20 - sullen faces and sad looks.... quickly I switch over to Nakka Mukka... the hustling movements begin almost immediately and the foot thumping and swaying starts.

The reason for this is... Mozart is a highly evolved and mathematically perfect piece of music that demands/involves a high amount of cognitive involvement to process complicated bits of sound. Nakka Mukka, probably bypasses the cognitive areas and activates the thalamus and the motor cortex directly. A person listening to Nakka Mukka kind of music may be an energetic sort but will be extremely reactive, possessing a high dose of animal instincts.

Mozart involves the cognitive areas. It activates various parts of the brain.

Ah!!!! Well in this case its strange that Cannes had awarded TOI two golden lions for the Nakka Mukka commercial, they really deserved it.
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Need to be wired to read newspapers

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Year 1982. I was rookie in media worked as a 'spaceseller' in Ananda Bazar Patrika. We kids were on an orientation to Calcutta (Kolkota now)... the big day came..interacting with the editors. I distinctly remember our interaction with MJ Akbar (editor of Sunday) and Aveek Kumar Sarkar (editor of ABP). I really don't remember the questions that were posited for their awesome presence quite intimidated us (they seemed to like doing it). But I remember the question I had asked, and this got me a lot of appreciation. The question was to Aveek Kumar Sarkar, "Sir, we know the income, age, education etc of the readers but you sure know their minds, what do you think do your readers want?". I was quite surprised by the answer, what surprised me was the speed in which the answer was given. Mr Sarkar replied "I dont know what they want, but I know what they need, I give it to them"

Quite arrogant but it made me very proud of the fact that I represent a paper like ABP. Its nearly 20 years gone by since I worked with that publication, but it occupies a very special place in my heart. I was just a space seller.

I joined the TOI, the sex appeal was too difficult to ignore. Mr Samir Jain, was dis empowering the editors. The famous statement made by the editor of Times of India, think its Dileep Padgonkar who claimed to be the powerful man in India after the President of the Country, sure did not go well with Mr Jain. Mr Jain probably did not understand this metaphor and lost it by solving it.

Yet I was very proud of the fact that a newspaper, had the power to inform, mold and influence the readers.

This is probably one of the reasons for choosing my name as 'Wordcreates'.

Its been uphill against the wind, for newspapers, world over but, for whatever reason, newspapers continue to hold sway.

After my stint with Times of India, after some clowning around in the advertising circus, I got into education. Called myself a 'Reading Evangelist' urging children to read and parents to create reading environments at home. I have been quite success full in getting some homes to pull out the TV and get the book shelf into the living room.

But I realize that the children are more and more being wired towards the visual medium and not for reading. You need to be wired to be a reader. Good Memory, Attention is very important, Processing and Sequencing skills are mandatory.

There is one thing for sure, these visually wired, post-lib babies will not get their news and opinions from the Newspaper, it will be from twitter, sms etc. But they will possess this enormous ability to process it and the challenge for the media particularly the newspapers to survive in the attention economy.
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Taking charge of yourself

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Triune Brain Theory – Putting Your Cortex Back In Control

The triune brain theory is a simplistic view on the brain but it will give you a solid framework to understand how your brain actually works.
The triune brain was first proposed by a neuroscientist called Dr. Paul McLean, who explained that our brain is actually broken into three distinct parts. He referred to them as:

The Reptilian Brain
The Mammalian Brain
The Primate Brain

The Reptilian Brain

The Reptilian Brain consists mainly of brain structures such as the brain stem, the medulla, the pons, cerebellum an other what are considered “primitive” structures. Its major function involves mainly reflexive and internal body functions such as breathing, circulation, digestion etc. It also handles primary instinctive and reflexive actions which serve to protect us. In terms of our understanding its motives lie in such characteristics as aggression, power, sexuality and protection. It’s number one primary goal is survival, i.e To make sure that you stay alive.

The Mammalian Brain

The Mammalian Brain, often referred to as “the limbic system”, contains lots of brain structures or “nuclei”, however most neuroscientists disagree as to which brain structures should be included into the limbic system. For the purpose of our learning we will describe the limbic system as our emotional, memory and pleasure centers of the brain. The limbic system houses brain structures such as the amygdala, the hippocampus and the ventral tegmental area (VTA). The limbic system gives rise to a lot of our feelings. These areas and others will be discussed. An understanding of the mammalian brain will be critical in our understanding of our behavior, particularly towards eating.

The Primate Brain

The Primate Brain is generally composed of the neo-cortex (also called cerebral cortex). It is because of our very large neo-cortex in comparison to other animals that makes us human. The neo-cortex allows us to do things like engage in complex social interactions and to plan for the future.
The neo-cortex also gives rise to rational thinking. For example you can probably remember a time when you really wanted to do something, but you “knew” that you shouldn’t. It was your neo-cortex telling you not to do it.

Although it is true that we have one brain, there are certain parts of our brain that have their own “motives” and this can cause extreme conflict. We all like to think that our neo-cortex is in control all the time, however it can often get “hijacked” by the other brain structures. So while your neo-cortex might be telling you not to eat that sweet , your reptilian brain is warning you to eat it because it is afraid that the cookie won’t be available to eat tomorrow or anytime soon in the future. Plus it also knows that the cookie is high in fat and sugar, which is in essence, brain food. Then your emotional brain whispers to you and expresses how delicious it will taste. All in all its a losing combination for your neo-cortex.

Fortunately our neo-cortex comes equipped with a powerful process that we call willpower. So we use our willpower to suppress the desire to gorge and overeat. Unfortunately however we have limited willpower, and eventually we break down and give in to our cravings. In order to change your brain we need to learn how to tame our reptilian brain and work with our emotional brain to put your cortex back in control. This is one of the fundamental steps in controlling the way you eat.

This post is reproduction from to go to the original post click on the link on top
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LGBT rights

From ‘perversion’ to right to life with dignity
courtesy The Hindu

Kalpana Kannabiran

The Delhi High Court judgment makes the articulation of LGBT rights a torchbearer for a more general understanding of discrimination, oppression, social exclusion and the denial of liberty, on the one hand, and the meaning of freedom and dignity, on the other.

“Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated. We must realise that our people have yet to learn it.” — B.R. Ambedkar quoted in para 79 of the Naz Foundation judgment.

The recent judgment of the Delhi High Court in the Naz Foundation versus Government of NCT of Delhi and Others is a milestone in the jurisprudence on diversity and pluralism in India. Importantly, it also inaugurates intersectional jurisprudence that examines questions of constitutionalism in relational terms that underscore inclusiveness. By this token then, it is not merely a judgment that bears significance for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender peoples (LGBT). It makes the articulation of LGBT rights a torchbearer for a more general understanding of discrimination, oppression, social exclusion and the denial of liberty, on the one hand, and the meaning of freedom and dignity, on the other.

The Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of Human Rights Law in Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity launched on March 26, 2007 were drafted by experts from 25 countries representative of all regions of the world. These principles delineate in painstaking detail the obligation of states to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of all persons regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. On December 18, 2008, the United Nations General Assembly was presented with a statement endorsed by 66 states from around the world reaffirming in substance the Yogyakarta principles. It is these international efforts along with the movement for LGBT rights within India that provided the context and arguments for the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

Drawing on Dr. Ambedkar, the court rejected the argument that homosexuality was contrary to public and popular morality in India, upholding constitutional morality instead, the diffusion of which was contingent on Dr. Ambedkar’s ideas of notional change, as evident in the lines quoted above. To quote from the judgment: “The Constitution of India recognises, protects and celebrates diversity. To stigmatise or to criminalise homosexuals only on account of their sexual orientation would be against the constitutional morality” (para 80). Linked to this is the observation of the Court on the question of the horizontal application of rights, with specific reference to Article 15(2), a barely remembered but critical part of Article 15: No citizen shall obstruct another from access to public places on grounds of caste, sex and other specified grounds (para 104). This purposive and intersectional reading of Article 15(2), hitherto restricted largely to practices of untouchability vis-À-vis Dalits, opens out an important strategy in constitutional interpretation.

Applying the U.N. Human Rights framework to an understanding of sexual orientation and gender identity, the judgment sets out three categories: (a) non-discrimination; (b) protection of private rights; and (c) the ensuring of special general human rights protection to all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Perhaps the most important issue the judgment addresses is the meaning of “sex” in Article 15(1) of the Constitution of India: “The state shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them.” Does the term “sex” in this context refer to attribute or performance? Is sex to be applied in a restricted fashion to gender or can the multiple resonances of its common usage be taken into account, so that sex is both gender (attribute) and sexual orientation (performance)? This is particularly significant because, as the judgment demonstrates through an extensive review of case law and principles from different parts of the world, gender and sexual orientation are an intrinsic and inalienable part of every human being; they are constituents of a person’s identity. In the words of Justice Sachs of South Africa, the constitution “acknowledges that people live in their bodies, their communities, their cultures, their places and their times” (Sachs J. in The National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality v. The Minister of Justice). It is this composite identity of every person that is affirmed through a nuanced reading of “sex” in Article 15(1): “We hold that sexual orientation is a ground analogous to sex and that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is not permitted by Article 15 (Para 104).”

Justice P.N. Bhagwati’s delineation of the right to dignity in Francis Coralie Mullin v. Administrator, Union Territory of Delhi and others, that “the right to life includes the right to live with human dignity and all that goes along with it, namely, the bare necessaries of life, … expressing oneself in diverse forms, freely moving about and mixing and commingling with fellow human beings,” provides the starting point for the discussion on the importance of self-respect, self-worth and privacy to human social life, recognised nationally and internationally. And privacy is particularly important in the area of sexual relationship where the thumb rule is simply that “[i]f, in expressing our sexuality, we act consensually and without harming one another, invasion of that precinct will be a breach of our privacy (Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, (413 US 49 (1973), page 63).”

The criminalisation of homosexuality, the judgment says, by condemning in perpetuity an entire class of people, forcing them to “live their lives in the shadow of harassment, exploitation, humiliation, cruel and degrading treatment at the hands of the law enforcement machinery” denies them “moral full citizenship (para 52).” Because Section 377 is aimed at criminalising private conduct of consenting adults, the court held that it comes within the meaning of discrimination, which “severely affects the rights and interests of homosexuals and deeply impairs their dignity(para 93).” It is “unfair and unreasonable and, therefore, in breach of Article 14 of the Constitution of India (para 98).”

The right to public health is another aspect of human rights that is seriously undermined through the criminalisation of same sex behaviour. There are two parts to this right, both of which lead back to the fundamental right to life under Article 21. The first is the right to be healthy. In this context, the concerns of the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) are pertinent. Fear of the law-enforcement agencies obstructs disclosure, which in turn impedes HIV/AIDS prevention programmes and increases the risk of infection in high-risk groups.

The second part of the right to health is more expansive and includes the right to control one’s health and body, the right to sexual and reproductive freedom, the right against forced medical treatment and the right to a system of health that offers equality of opportunity in attaining the highest standard of health. While several documented testimonies of LGBT persons speak of the treatment of their sexual orientation as a psychiatric/mental disorder, the judgment importantly affirms the findings worldwide that sexual orientation is an expression of human sexuality — whether homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual. “Compelling state interest,” instead of focussing on public morality, the judgment says, “demands that public health measures are strengthened by de-criminalisation of such activity, so that they can be identified and better focused upon (para 86).”

Asserting that there is no presumption of constitutionality where a colonial legislation is concerned, the judgment holds that Section 377 fails the test of “strict scrutiny” which would require proportionality between the means used and the aim pursued. And when it is a question of “matters of ‘high constitutional importance’” like the rights of LGBT persons, the courts are obliged to discharge their sovereign jurisdiction, in this case, reading Section 377 down to apply only to child sexual abuse.

It is pertinent to point out here that the Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Areas) Eunuchs Act specifically targets Eunuchs and Hijras in far more direct ways than Section 377 does. We hope that the momentum of the movement for LGBT rights will turn its full force on obsolete legislation like this as well, so that transgender communities in areas where such laws are in force begin to enjoy the fullest freedoms and life with dignity.

(Kalpana Kannabiran is a sociologist based in Secunderabad.)

MOVIDS BLOG

YOGYAKARTA PRINCIIPLES

Education and Creativity

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Sir Ken Robinson is author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative, and a leading expert on innovation and human resources. In this talk, he makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it.

Good morning. How are you? It's been great, hasn't it? I've been blown away by the whole thing. In fact, I'm leaving.

There have been three themes, haven't there, running through the conference, which are relevant to what I want to talk about.

One is the extraordinary evidence of human creativity in all of the presentations that we've had and in all of the people here. Just the variety of it and the range of it.

The second is, that it's put us in a place where we have no idea what's going to happen, in terms of the future, no idea how this may play out.

I have an interest in education -- actually, what I find is, everybody has an interest in education; don't you? I find this very interesting. If you're at a dinner party, and you say you work in education -- actually, you're not often at dinner parties, frankly, if you work in education, you're not asked. And you're never asked back, curiously. That's strange to me. But if you are, and you say to somebody, you know, they say, "What do you do," and you say you work in education, you can see the blood run from their face. They're like, "Oh my god," you know, "why me? My one night out all week." But if you ask people about their education, they pin you to the wall. Because it's one of those things that goes deep with people, am I right?, like religion, and money, and other things.

I have a big interest in education, and I think we all do, we have a huge vested interest in it, partly because it's education that's meant to take us into this future that we can't grasp.

If you think of it, children starting school this year will be retiring in 2065. Nobody has a clue, despite all the expertise that's been on parade for the past four days, what the world will look like in five years' time. And yet we're meant to be educating them for it.
So the unpredictability, I think, is extraordinary.

And the third part of this is that we've all agreed nonetheless on the really extraordinary capacity that children have, their capacities for innovation. I mean, Sirena last night was a marvel, wasn't she, just seeing what she could do. And she's exceptional, but I think she's not, so to speak, exceptional in the whole of childhood. What you have there is a person of extraordinary dedication who found a talent.

And my contention is, all kids have tremendous talents and we squander them, pretty ruthlessly.

So I want to talk about education and I want to talk about creativity. My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status. [applause] Thank you.

That was it, by the way, thank you very much. Soooo, 15 minutes left. Well, I was born ...

I heard a great story recently, I love telling it, of a little girl who was in a drawing lesson, she was 6 and she was at the back, drawing, and the teacher said this little girl hardly paid attention, and in this drawing lesson she did. The teacher was fascinated and she went over to her and she said, "What are you drawing?" and the girl said, "I'm drawing a picture of God." And the teacher said, "But nobody knows what God looks like." And the girl said, "They will in a minute."

When my son was 4 in England -- actually he was 4 everywhere, to be honest; if we're being strict about it, wherever he went, he was 4 that year -- he was in the nativity play. Do you remember the story? No, it was big, it was a big story. Mel Gibson did the sequel, you may have seen it, "Nativity II." But James got the part of Joseph, which we were thrilled about. We considered this to be one of the lead parts. We had the place crammed full of agents in T-shirts: "James Robinson IS Joseph!" He didn't have to speak, but you know the bit where the three kings come in. They come in bearing gifts, and they bring gold, frankincense and myrhh. This really happened -- we were sitting there and we think they just went out of sequence, we talked to the little boy afterward and we said, "You OK with that" and he said "Yeah, why, was that wrong?" -- they just switched, I think that was it. Anyway, the three boys came in, little 4-year-olds with tea towels on their heads, and they put these boxes down, and the first boy said, "I bring you gold." The second boy said, "I bring you myrhh." And the third boy said, "Frank sent this."

What these things have in common is that kids will take a chance. If they don't know, they'll have a go. Am I right? They're not frightened of being wrong.

Now, I don't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. If you're not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong.

And we run our companies like this, by the way, we stigmatize mistakes. And we're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make.

And the result is, we are educating people out of their creative capacities.

Picasso once said this, he said that all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. I believe this passionately, that we don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather we get educated out of it. So why is this?

I lived in Stratford-on-Avon until about five years ago, in fact we moved from Stratford to Los Angeles, so you can imagine what a seamless transition this was. Actually we lived in a place called Snitterfield, just outside Stratford, which is where Shakespeare's father was born. Were you struck by a new thought? I was. You don't think of Shakespeare having a father, do you? Do you? Because you don't think of Shakespeare being a child, do you? Shakespeare being 7? I never thought of it. I mean, he was 7 at some point; he was in somebody's English class, wasn't he? How annoying would that be? "Must try harder."

Being sent to bed by his dad, you know, to Shakespeare, "Go to bed, now," to William Shakespeare, "and put the pencil down. And stop speaking like that. It's confusing everybody."

Anyway, we moved from Stratford to Los Angeles, and I just want to say a word about the transition, actually. My son didn't want to come. I've got two kids, he's 21 now, my daughter's 16; he didn't want to come to Los Angeles. He loved it, but he had a girlfriend in England. This was the love of his life, Sarah. He'd known her for a month. Mind you, they'd had their fourth anniversary, because it's a long time when you're 16. Anyway, he was really upset on the plane, and he said, "I'll never find another girl like Sarah." And we were rather pleased about that, frankly, because she was the main reason we were leaving the country.

But something strikes you when you move to America and when you travel around the world: every education system on earth has the same heirarchy of subjects. Every one, doesn't matter where you go, you'd think it would be otherwise but it isn't. At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and the bottom are the arts. Everywhere on earth.

And in pretty much every system too, there's a hierarchy within the arts. Art and music are nomally given a higher status in schools than drama and dance. There isn't an education system on the planet that teaches dance every day to children the way we teach them mathematics. Why? Why not? I think this is rather important. I think maths is very important but so is dance. Children dance all the time if they're allowed to, we all do. We all have bodies, don't we? Did I miss a meeting?

Truthfully what happens is, as children grow up we start to educate them progressively from the waist up. And then we focus on their heads. And slightly to one side.

If you were to visit education as an alien and say what's it for, public education, I think you'd have to conclude, if you look at the output, who really succeeds by this, who does everything they should, who gets all the brownie points, who are the winners, I think you'd have to conclude the whole purpose of public education throughout the world is to produce university professors. Isn't it. They're the people who come out the top. And I used to be one, so there. And I like university professors, but you know, we shouldn't hold them up as the high-water mark of all human achievement. They're just a form of life, another form of life. but they're rather curious and I say this out of affection for them, there's something curious about them, not all of them but typically, they live in their heads, they live up there, and slightly to one side. They're disembodied. They look upon their bodies as a form of transport for their heads, don't they? It's a way of getting their head to meetings.

If you want real evidence of out-of-body experiences, by the way, get yourself along to a residential conference of senior academics, and pop into the discotheque on the final night, and there you will see it, grown men and women writhing uncontrollably, off the beat, waiting until it ends so they can go home and write a paper about it.

Now our education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability. And there's a reason. The whole system was invented round the world there were no public systems of education really before the 19th century. They all came into being to meet the needs of industrialism.

So the hierarchy is rooted on two ideas: Number one, that the most useful subjects for work are at the top. So you were probably steered benignly away from things at school when you were a kid, things you liked, on the grounds that you would never get a job doing that. Is that right? Don't do music, you're not going to be a musician; don't do art, you're not going to be an artist. Benign advice -- now, profoundly mistaken. The whole world is engulfed in a revolution.

And the second is, academic ability, which has really come to dominate our view of intelligence because the universities designed the system in their image. If you think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance. And the consequence is that many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they're not, because the thing they were good at at school wasn't valued, or was actually stigmatized. And I think we can't afford to go on that way.

In the next 30 years. according to Unesco, more people worldwide will be graduating through education than since the beginning of history. [12:27] More people, and it's the combination of all the things we've talked about -- technology and its transformation effect on work, and demography and the huge explosion in population.

Suddenly degrees aren't worth anything. Isn't that true? When I was a student, if you had a degree, you had a job. If you didn't have a job it's because you didn't want one. And I didn't want one, frankly.

But now kids with degrees are often heading home to carry on playing video games, because you need an MA where the previous job required a BA, and now you need a PhD for the other. It's a process of academic inflation. And it indicates the whole structure of education is shifting beneath our feet. We need to radically rethink our view of intelligence.

We know three things about intelligence: One, it's diverse, we think about the world in all the ways we experience it. We think visually, we think in sound, we think kinesthetically. We think in abstract terms, we think in movement. Secondly, intelligence is dynamic. If you look at the interactions of a human brain, as we heard yesterday from a number of presentations, intelligence is wonderfully interactive. The brain isn't divided into compartments. In fact, creativity, which I define as the process of having original ideas that have value, more often than not comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things. The brain is intentionally -- by the way, there's a shaft of nerves that joins the two halves of the brain called the corpus collosum, and it's thicker in women. Following on from Helen yesterday, I think this is probably why women are better at multitasking, because you are, aren't you, there's a raft of research, but I know it from my personal life.

If my wife is cooking a meal at home, which is not often, thankfully, but you know, she's doing (oh, she's good at some things) but if she's cooking, you know, she's dealing with people on the phone, she's talking to the kids, she's painting the ceiling, she's doing open-heart surgery over here; if I'm cooking, the door is shut, the kids are out, the phone's on the hook, if she comes in I get annoyed, I say "Terry, please, I'm trying to fry an egg in here, give me a break." (You know that old philosophical thing, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, did it happen, remember that old chestnut, I saw a great T-shirt recently that said, "If a man speaks his mind in a forest, and no woman hears him, is he still wrong?")

And the third thing about intelligence is, it's distinct. I'm doing a new book at the moment called Epiphany which is based on a series of interviews with people about how they discovered their talent. I'm fascinated by how people got to be there. It's really prompted by a conversation I had with a wonderful woman who maybe most people have never heard of, she's called Gillian Lynne, have you heard of her? Some have. She's a choreographer and everybody knows her work. She did Cats, and Phantom of the Opera, she's wonderful. I used to be on the board of the Royal Ballet, in England, as you can see, and Gillian and I had lunch one day and I said Gillian, how'd you get to be a dancer? And she said it was interesting, when she was at school, she was really hopeless. And the school, in the 30s, wrote her parents and said, "We think Gillian has a learning disorder." She couldn't concentrate, she was fidgeting. I think now they'd say she had ADHD. Wouldn't you? But this was the 1930s and ADHD hadn't been invented at this point. It wasn't an available condition. People weren't aware they could have that.

Anyway she went to see this specialist, in this oak-paneled room, and she was there with her mother and she was led and sat on a chair at the end, and she sat on her hands for 20 minutes while this doctor talked to her mother about all the problems Gillian was having at school. And at the end of it -- because she was disturbing people, her homework was always late, and so on, little kid of 8 -- in the end, the doctor went and sat next to Gillian and said, "Gillian I've listened to all these things that your mother's told me, and I need to speak to her privately." He said, "Wait here, we'll be back, we won't be very long," and they went and left her.

But as they went out the room, he turned on the radio that was sitting on his desk, and when they got out the room, he said to her mother, "Just stand and watch her." And the minute they left the room, she said, she was on her feet, moving to the music. And they watched for a few minutes and he turned to her mother and said, "Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn't sick; she's a dancer. Take her to a dance school."

I said, "What happened?"

She said, "She did. I can't tell you how wonderful it was. We walked in this room and it was full of people like me, people who couldn't sit still. People who had to move to think." Who had to move to think. They did ballet, they did tap, they did jazz, they did modern, they did contemporary. She was eventually auditioned for the Royal Ballet School, she became a soloist, she had a wonderful career at the Royal Ballet, she eventually graduated from the Royal Ballet School and founded her own company, the Gillian Lynne Dance Company, and met Andrew Lloyd Weber.

She's been responsible for some of the most successful musical theater productions in history, she's given pleasure to millions, and she's a multimillionaire.

Somebody else might have put her on medication and told her to calm down.

Now, I think -- [applause] What I think it comes to is this: Al Gore spoke the other night about ecology and the revolution that was triggered by Rachel Carson. I believe our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology, one in which we start to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity. Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip-mine the earth, for a particular commodity, and for the future, it won't serve us.

We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we're educating our children. There was a wonderful quote by Jonas Salk, who said, "If all the insects were to disappear from the earth, within 50 years all life on earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish." And he's right.

What TED celebrates is the gift of the human imagination. We have to be careful now that we use this gift wisely, and that we avert some of the scenarios that we've talked about. And the only way we'll do it is by seeing our creative capacities for the richness they are, and seeing our children for the hope that they are. And our task is to educate their whole being, so they can face this future -- by the way, we may not see this future, but they will. And our job is to help them make something of it. Thank you very much.
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Education systematically stifles creativity and makes you employable

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That was what I posited in the Minekey. And here is an interesting response, obviously from a teacher.

Well, that necessary!! You can't have 30 3rd graders doing their own thing all the time! It would be chaos! But, having taught for four years, the teachers give them lots of opportunity to express themselves individually in different ways, in the classroom, and in art class and music. But, when it's time for math, and ya gotta open the book to page 92, well, you're right. No room for creativity there! Time to take the spelling test...creativity will get you no where!

I have worked with children, a variety of them in a class room, the seniors and the juniors, the quite and the loud. I decided I will not impose myself or any rule on to them, much to the anguish of the school adminstrator. The result was noise, chaos and disorder. This activity was very taxing for me, I could hardly handle 3 hours of such session and then I had retire to rest. The children sucked all the energy out and they became more energetic in the process.

I believe, rules are given to bring in order, to make sure the instructor or the teacher is not stressed beyond a point. Its not for the benefit of the children.

My response to the teacher is given below.

Thanks for responding. But each of us doing our own thing does not lead to chaos but to order. That's the way nature works. If it was so, a splendid resource like Wikipedia would be a circus but its not. The chaotic individual behaviors often phase lock into something beautiful. Its the regimented similar minds that are rigid and dangerous.

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July is the Month of Renaissance Music - for me

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I have decided to appreciate, listen and learn about Renaissance music this month. Now the beauty about music of the past is that it can give you an experience within and can literally take you back to the past. And this travel to the past should be extremely good for the cognitive process apart from the sheer pleasure.

The Music of the past can also give you the balance, that is very important for those who live in a time when the music is high pitched and high energy.

So listening to some Lute, Viol, Crumhorn, Rackett, Sackbut (Early trombone, Trumpet (Valveless) should be a great experience.

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Truth is absolute

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Watch this video. A red balloon that a lady holds is seen as green, blue, black.. and some even say there is no balloon... some think they should pick what colour they want to give to the balloon.. and the funny thing about truth is its true weather you believe it or not. Watch this interesting video. Link to Red Baloon video
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Caritas in Veritate

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Caritas in Veritate encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI, the Pope, will be advocating for morality to be the basis of solving our economic crisis. Here is a quote:

Without truth, without trust and love for what is truthful, there is no conscience or social responsibility, and the social action falls under the control of private interests or logics of power, with the destructive effect on society, even more on a society on the way to globalization, in difficult moments like the current ones.

Corriere della Sera also says that the encyclical will address a number of global issues, including world hunger. The Italian paper pulls a few other claimed quotes from the Pope’s encyclical: Charity in truth requires an urgent reform to confront courageously and without hesitation the great problems of injustice in the development of the nations; Food and water are universal rights; [and] the development of all nations depends above all in recognizing that we are one single family.

Despite all of the rumors, predictions, and claims to know what the Pope’s encyclical actually says, we are going to have to wait until to release to finally hear the Pope’s words.
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150 years in Prison for Madoff

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Madoff's corruption and crimes ruined the livelihoods of thousands of businesspeople, charity workers, and families that trusted his sterling reputation to protect everything that they had worked to earn. Closer home, I remember the sad plight of many people, particularly retirees, who had lost their life savings in Mercantile Credit Corporation, Royapettah Benefit Fund etc. (Including my Dad)

I used to wonder, how responsible businessmen can sit across and plan to take away the money of some middle and lower middle class people and squander it. I had this opportunity to deal with this man called (pls note I did not use Gentleman) Natesan popularly known as Anubhav Natesan, who presided over a company known as Anubhav Foundations/ Plantations.

Well, Natesan was an ambitious man, who worked hard and should we say diligently. He knew exactly what the people wanted and just gave that in many forms. He promised high returns, obscenely high sometimes, advertised it and made it sound very simple and practical. Almost everyone participated in these schemes to some extent or the other. The ones with a 'high risk profile' (also called greed) dumped everything. Natesan had a great lifestyle and his trusted people enjoyed it too.

Natesan betrayed his financial responsibilities to others.


On a global level financial scandals at Enron and WorldCom shake the public’s trust in corporations. Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford was arrested by the FBI on charges that he used a bank in Antigua to mask his $8 billion fraud, stealing from his investors


There is no way to excuse these crimes. As the Pope noted, the only way to truly bring about a better world is through interior conversion and taking full responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions. No system of laws and no amount of external regulation can fully force people to live up to their responsibilities.

Judge Danny Chin put it, “Mr. Madoff’s crimes were extraordinarily evil.” Evil obeys no laws. It is a corruption of the heart. Falsehood will lie its way out of every law. No matter how strong we make our regulations on the activities of financial managers and corporate executives, there is only one way to guarantee that the truth will hold sway.

As Pope Benedict put it, “Love is the test of truth. Ever more we must be measured by this criterion, that truth becomes love and that love makes us truthful.” Only through a commitment to the morality of love can we break the power of sin in our human hearts.
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School Kills creativity

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Awesome presentation by Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

LINK
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Make mathematics meaningful

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Arthur Benjamin,a professor of math at Harvey Mudd College, talks in TED, he offers a bold proposal on how to make math education relevant in the digital age.

According to him Mathematics has a foundation of Arithmetic, Algebra building up to the top of pyramid, which is calculus. According to him, this is a wrong summit of the pyramid.

The right summit should be probability & statistics.

Laws of nature are written in the language of calculus, and its a great product of the human mind. Very few people use calculus in a conscious meaningful way in their day to day life.

Statistics can be used on a day to day life - its risk, reward, randomness its understanding. Its fun. Statistics and Probability is the mathematics of game, gambling, its analyzing trends, predicting the future.

World has changed from Analog to Digital and math curriculum must change from Analog to digital too. From classical continuous mathematics to modern discreet mathematics. Mathematics of uncertainity, randomness of data.

Check out his short presentation at TED link
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Shopping for a church

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Well... been far from a Churched type for long. But I have been trying to keep in touch with the concept of church by reading and this one by svigeland was interesting.

We are seeped in a culture were preference rules.... the facilities, the music, the architecture, the preacher, the parking lot.

Its me centered. Michael J. Svigel deals about God’s essential marks and works for an authentic and healthy church. Read on
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Music that can keep you still

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The wonderful thing about the music of Renaissance it that it captures that era. The period was the flowering of thought, in intellectual, social and political but most important buzz was in art and music. We need to understand that from the perspective Renaissance being the bridge between the Middle Ages and the Modern era.

There was change in the air. The music captures the stillness and the tranquility, the expectation and the thrill of the times.

Its important for every individual to spend time on renaissance and classical music to get that same stillness in oneself


Listen to this Praetorius Courante a small sample piece... wahh its pristine . Link
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Playing Poker - Jesus Style????

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My friend Joseph Thomas has written a wonderful article titled "WHY JESUS IS MY HERO & WOULD HAVE BEEN, EVEN IF HAD I NOT BEEN A CHRISTIAN?" check his blog

Jesus says that he had the power to summon a legion of angels. Whether it was a bluff or not depends on the call. In a game of poker if one is holding a royal flush and the other is holding a Straight flush in the same suit, and if the guy holding a royal flush DECLARES that he has a Royal flush and the other guy has no Ace or King to the suit and the community cards has the Queen , Jack and Ten of the suit declared by the Royal Flush holder on the board and if the other guy has the 9 and 8 of the same suit as pocket cards: HE HAS AN OPTION TO CALL, RAISE or FOLD. Assuming that the Royal flush claimant was Jesus in the flesh, and the Straight flush holder was Joseph Caiaphas, Caiaphas wanted JESUS to CALL and NOT TO RAISE. Jesus RAISED THE SPIRITUAL BAR. He threw away the Mosaic laws of retribution and brought in COMPASSION and SACRIFICE.

Caiaphas did not have the money to match JESUS’ bid. A spiritual bid, way beyond Caiaphas’ means. Caiphas pulled out his revolver and shot HIM dead.

Whom do i support? The killer who did not WANT TO play the game, HE DID NOT HAVE THE ACE AND KING HIMSELF BUT WAS NOT SURE IF JESUS HELD IT AT ALL!

Tidily written piece I must say

Public Transport and energy savings

Source: Transportation Crisis in Chennai - K P subramanian The Hindu 28th June '09 page 16 (Op-Ed)
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Car and two-wheeler consume 5 & 2.6 times more energy than a bus

The carbon monoxide load in Chennai ranged between 1908 to 4198 mg/m3 (permissable level 200mgm3

The emission load of the pollutant SPM (Suspended Particulate Matter) ranged between 264 to 451 mg/m3 (permissible level 200)

Average noise pollution levels in residential areas across the city is 70 db (permissible 55db)

Average of 620 persons die on City Roads annually in accidents
Fatality rate 35/10,000 vehicles
40% accidents involve pedestrians
10% cyclists

Transports and projects focus on supply side management not on Demand management
Demand management through higher taxation on road usage and parking
In Singapore owning a care is tough. Hefty trainers fee and license test has two theory exams

Before Buying a Car

1. Show documentary evidence of parking space
2. Prove maintenance capability
3. Impose fine on commuters without the using capacity
4. Road pricing is a technique that requires a special license to enter certain designated areas during peak hours
4. Parking fee must represent the value of land
5. Bus priority techniques likek 'priority at signals'
6. Inter modal connectivity MRTS, Railways and MTC

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Transportation Crisis in Chennai - K P subramanian

The Hindu 28th June '09 page 16 (Op-Ed)
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The volume capacity ratio is many roads during peak hours is more than one.
Increase in road space accounts only to 3-4% of the total area
while about 425 vehicles are added every day

The vehicle population now is 32 lakhs it was 8 lakhs 12 years ago
Car and two wheeler ownership in Chennai per 1000 kpop is 454 & 181 respectively. In Mumbai its 24 & 30.

Two wheelers and cars occupy more than 90 and 60 times the road space than buses for the same travel demand

The per capita trip rate per day in Chennai is 1.30 while that in Delhi and Mumai are 1.05 & 1.15 .

The average trip length in chennai was 11.25 km while Delhi and Mumbai has been 10.2 & 11.4. (pop of chennai is around half of Delhi and Mumbai)

Share of trips in public transport is 25% (52% in 1972) in Delhi 48% and Mumbai 54%.
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Renaissance Music - Website

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You need to check out, laNiche music - PARLA son, this website for some wonderful music

Via Artis Konsort link



(my twitter friend)
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When I let go of the apple
of my own life
I twinkle as the Apple of His eye
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MJ - death & the buzz

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I have read and heard many good things about MJ, but the honest one was from Prof Richard Oliver Collin (my good friend), a authority in Terrorism and I had this privilege of organizing some lectures titled 'Mind of a Terrorist' in Chennai and New Delhi.
This was his comment in Facebook on MJ.

"Perplexed at global reaction to the death of Michael Jackson. The Glastonbury Festival is on here in England and every musical group begins with a salute to Michael Jackson. People I know and respect are upset about his passing. The papers are putting out special supplements. I never could see him as even interesting as an artist, and I found his obvious psychiatric impairment embarrassing. Was he weird or am I?"

In my lowest and the lost days of my youth I could never relate to Michael Jackson, I really do not know why. Probably my passion is in Renaissance and Classical music that I had to force myself to relate to contemporary stuff. (which I enjoy genuinely)

Let me try to explain why I did not like Michael Jackson and his types. His screechy high pitch tone may make a person energetic but can disturb the balance. And the kind of sound engineering those days were not able to handle it, probably. And here I was with too many tectonic shifts happening in my life and the last thing I craved for was raw energy (had enough of them).

Then his dancing. As much as I marveled at the moonwalk and the dancing, I always wished I could see it without the music..Overall he fell way below my expectations.

His high energy sounds, balanced by his 'graceful' smooth movements provided a mix that a generation got captured by its total contradiction.

With that as peg point I cannot judge why the world liked MJ, I have some good, cultured, music loving friends who have lot of good things to say... like David Appaswamy in his blog or even Arul Baliah.

Well the pity of course is Farrah Fawcett & Anna Nicole were ignored as Wendell E. Lambert replies in Richard Facebook posting.

"He is weird. People just eat weird/crazy up with a spoon! Look at Anna Nicole. And poor Farrah Fawcett had the bad luck of dying on the same day as this man! Seems like all anyone can talk about is Michael Jackson! What about poor Farrah Fawcett? She put her whole struggle out there for the World to see! People are fools!"

Harsh words from her... but I will go with it..

Now there was one Neera Desai, affectionately called ‘Neeraben’ was a person who did her bit to uplift the downtrodden and underprivileged. She was a pioneer of women’s studies in India. She had set up the country’s first research centre for women’s studies at SNDT Women’s University and wrote several books on women’s issues. She was especially concerned about dalit and tribal women.

On the same day that the king of pop died, an 84 year old woman died quietly of cancer in a corner of Mumbai. read more

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Renaissance Music Church Music

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The style of renaissance church music is described as choral polyphony (polyphonic, counterpoint, contrapuntal), meaning more than one part. Homophonic means moving in chords. Monophonic means one melody line. Choral polyphony was intended to be sung a cappella (without instruments). The main forms were the mass and the motet. They had four parts, based on modes, but composers gradually added more accidentals.

One of the most noticeable differences between Medieval and Renaissance styles, is that of musical texture. Whereas a Medieval composer tended to contrast the separate strands of his music, a Renaissance composer aimed to blend them together. Instead of building up the texture layer by layer, he worked gradually through the piece, attending to all parts shnultaneously. The key device used to weave this kind of texture is called imitation. Composers were becoming more interested and aware of harmony (how notes fit against each other).
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Link to the source rpfuller

Some Twitter Tools

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Twitition - for petitions

Twitterkeys link

Twitter applications Hot one link

Mad Twitter link

Twitter watchdog link
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India and China (Jallianwala Bagh & Tiananmen Square)

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Give below are excerpts from Mr Gurcharan Das' blog link on why the future belongs to India

Democracy comes easily to us because India has historically 'accumulated' its diverse groups who retain their distinctiveness while identifying themselves as Indian. China has 'assimilated' its people into a common, homogeneous Confucian society. China is a melting pot in which differences disappear while India is a salad bowl in which the constituents retain their identity.

China has always been governed by a hierarchical, centralized state-a tradition that has carried into the present era of reform communism. China resembles a business corporation today. Each mayor and party secretary has objectives relating to investment, output and growth, which are aligned to national goals. Those who exceed their goals rise quickly. The main problem in running a country as a business is that many people get left out.

India, on the other hand, can only manage itself by accommodating vocal and varied interest groups in its salad bowl. This leads to a million negotiations daily and we call this system 'democracy'. It slows us down--we take five years to build a highway versus one in China. Those who are disgruntled go to court. But our politicians are forced to worry about abuses of human rights, whereas my search on Google on 'human rights abuses in China' yielded 47.8 million entries in 13 seconds! Democracies have a safety valve-it allows the disgruntled to let off steam before slowly co-opting them.

This brings us to the discussion on the power of weak humanism. Now read this and you will know why China is treading a dangerous path. Read the what Xavier Le Pichon (Collège de France, Aix-en-Provence) Ecce Homo To welcome the suffering is the sign of our humanity

The same thing is true for all systems that need to evolve. Contrarily to what is often assumed, the weak and imperfect parts are often those that allow the evolution to occur without any revolution. This is true for the evolution of life, which is in great part based on the occurrence of coding errors during the duplication of the genetic information. One can ask whether it is not also true of our societies. We tend to dissociate the individuals who are well adapted to our social life from those that have difficulties to follow the pace that is imposed on them by our life style. Yet a society that separates the producers from the others considered as dead weight, even as marginal or excluded individuals, is a hard society, characterized by conflicts and often by complete rejection of minorities. It is sad and pessimistic. On the contrary a society where all are well integrated has a much more adaptable structure, with a different, easier and more conciliatory mode of life. It is often happier and more optimistic.
One probably needs to go farther. A society, which is composed exclusively of uniform individuals, without any heterogeneity, is a more rigid, harder society. I have experienced such communities when living on oceanographic vessels, which I have done for a good part of my life. Most of the time, we only had young and middle aged men on board: the crew then formed a community, which was rather rough. The presence of a single woman oceanographer was often sufficient to completely change the atmosphere.

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Grey Markets resurface

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In a sure indication of the bullishness in the Indian stock markets, the grey market for IPOs has resurfaced in Ahmedabad after a gap of almost 18 months.

Ahmedabads grey market for IPOs is considered as a bench-mark for new IPO listings.

After a dry spell of almost one and half years, the momentum has come back with punters resuming their betting on IPO of Mahindra Holidays and Resorts India Limited , the first company to test the waters after the meltdown started early last year. Punters are trading the Mahindra Holidays shares at a premium of Rs 52 over and above the official issue prise. The companys IPO, which opened on Tuesday, has fixed the price band of Rs 275 to Rs 325 for per equity share.

Apart from premium, punters are buying IPO applications, each with bids for share worth Rs 1 lakh, for anywhere between Rs 1800 and Rs 2,000. Once the investor gets the allotment, they have to sell them on the day of listing at the price committed to the punters. It is not only market-savvy investors from Gujarat, but merchant bankers and lead managers to IPOs from Mumbai, Delhi and elsewhere who consider Ahmedabads grey markets premium rate as main determining factor for IPO listing.

Even as most investors have kept their fingers crossed over the Mahindra IPO, the trading momentum in the grey markets is gradually picking up, said a grey market operator.

Sources said that investors participation in the grey market is expected to increase as the companies have started queuing up for tapping the primary markets for raising funds.
Around 18 companies are believed to have shown interest to enter the capital markets after the return of UPA government at the Centre. Some bigticket IPOs include Adani Power, National Hydrolic Power Corporation, Oil India and Pipavav Shipyards.

TIMES OF INDIA STORY Link
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