PARAMETERS FOR A VOTE

Do I feel angry at those who support any specific candidate? Do I hate or even dislike them? No. How can I ? Some have been friends or good acquaintances for long, most of them are 'otherwise' nice people and helpful, and all said and done it takes all kinds of people to make a world.

What I truly feel is a sense of amazement at how vile politicians and selfish rich men and women can con people into believing that they have the back of the common man. I have seen this in India where people placed such men and women in power discarding true selfless leaders in various state governments, and they still do falling for their divisive talk and false promises and slogans. Those states are today known mainly for institutionalized bigotry and corruption with the political class alone getting rich beyond imagination in droves.

I request all to consider only these in the upcoming November and always:

1. Shouldn't personal integrity be a prerequisite for our trust?

2. Isn't it true that our speech reflects our level of evolution, culture, and empathy?

3. Who do we want our own children to emulate and take as examples to follow?

4. Can a democracy sustain itself without giving a reasonable level of equality and representation for all? How many countries have seen themselves descend to total chaos and destruction through riots by those who are kept down by force? Is that the group of nations we want to be in?

5. Can a divided nation achieve as much as a united one?

6. Don't we sound hollow and hypocritical when we deny women equal rights and equal pay and deny even their right on their own bodies and yet preach to other nations?

7. Should not the goodness and basic humanity in us reflect in the leaders we support and choose?

THESE 50 YEARS IN THE USA

Today marks the 50th anniversary of my first entry into the US.

The greatest boon of this migration is certainly the enormous opportunities our children Priya and Prem have got that have made them highly successful professionally and in many other ways. (While talent cannot be stopped from succeeding, it would have been much harder for them in today's Tamilnadu marked by unbridled reverse discrimination and corruption.) Soundaram also could continue her studies to get a Ph.D without facing any age restrictions then prevailing in India . She has had a rewarding career, first as the head of testing and evaluation in the largest public school system of NJ and later as a faculty in education guiding 28 students' doctoral work and see many of them rise to leadership positions in the NJ public school system, one of the best in the nation. To me, the biggest benefit has been the ability to support my family both here and in India while remaining a researcher all through. It is a profession where one trades intellectual satisfaction and the hope of attaining a sliver of immortality through one's scientific contributions in exchange for losing many a monetary and other opportunity. Doing that as I did, and also in times when we were treated very much by some as intruders (our colleagues and superiors did not grow up with us or other Indians in schools and colleges as is the case for our children), it has sometimes made me wonder if the tradeoff has been personally worth it, often resulting in an answer in my mind in the negative. But in all honesty, I must say that compared to the transience of monetary gains, awards, etc., the fact that I could indeed contribute some fundamental results in probability theory (some bearing my name) and apply them to improve communication systems that everyone depends on (one piece of my work has also been life saving for vast swatches of this land) has made my life an interesting and exciting one. Being truly foreign to this nation as we were, the friendship and support of the Indian community here are what sustained us. The opportunities denied both of us at work were more than compensated by the ability to build and serve in organizations serving this community with a great sense of thankfulness for what they meant to us and also for our posterity. We take great pride in that we did not stop with just the Indian community in extending our help but could help many local ones too helping the poor and needy. Our modest way of living did allow us to do these in spite of not raking in a lot.

As we age, our concerns are two-fold: (a) Will the greater acceptance of us recent immigrants that we saw, be sustained and allow our children serve what is indeed their nation and the only one they know to their fullest capacity? Or, will it diminish and the clock reset to an undesirable level through the hateful and ugly rhetoric of the likes of Trump? (b) Will our grandchildren and successive generations understand, cherish, and pass on the high cultural heritage and family values we grew up with and got ingrained as Indians born and brought up in India? Will they understand that those enduring values are those that truly distinguish us and can indeed make a difference in many ways both personally and societally?

Well, it has all been a wonderful life overall. Once again, I thank all our friends and colleagues who have helped us over the years one way or the other seeing each other as fellow humans and not through any lens dividing us. Most importantly, I thank the J.N. Tata Foundation, the K.C. Mahindra Foundation, and Purdue University. While the former two helped me with scholarships, Purdue gave me a Fellowship. Without these, I could not have come at all. It was indeed my great honor to be named.a Distinguished Science Alumnus by Purdue, an award given to only a handful of people each year.

'Nil nisi bonum' and Biden

With most US Press and Media including its most incisive reporters and interviewers, "De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est' - "Of the dead nothing but good is to be said" - seems to apply equally to outgoing US Presidents as much as to the dead.  Biden is no exception, and his treatment now by the media is also in line with our American jingoism that our President (sorry SCOTUS, should I say monarch?) can only be good.  Biden indeed does have a number of achievements in his one term Presidency, and some will bear fruit soon in what is hopefully to be a Kamala Harris presidency. Our American press and people will mainly focus on those, leaving what happened, or happens, around the world almost out in any consideration in the evaluation of  any administration.

The unfortunate fact, however, is that the Biden-Blinken-Austin trio has acted in ways showing little regard to non-American lives (except may be of some close allies) and pursued a policy of hegemony of the 20th Century that, in a highly changed environment obtaining now, compromises the long term interest and standing of our nation for short term gains.  The callousness shown towards the genocide in Gaza and the neighboring areas, the way the Afghan retreat was handled, the continuation and feeding of the flames of the Ukraine war, and the arbitrary seizures of Russian assets will all  be judged quite differently and negatively by history than it is in today's environment where, if one may quote Cholmsky and Co, both content and consent are manufactured.  The last of these seems to have already shaken the trust in the US as a banker with dire consequences for the primacy of the US dollar.  The world can indeed breath a sigh of relief that this trio will be gone, but that relief can be validated only in the policies of the new administration to come.

America, as always, is focused mainly on internal affairs - the economy, continuing second class treatment of women who can't even own a right to their own bodies, religion, and of course pocketbook issues.   Most have probably not heard of Bangladesh or the recent allegations that an elected leader has been ousted there, and that is suspected to be our machination as a reprisal for not giving us a military base. No one asks why we repeatedly side with autocratic governments, monarchies, and dictators and let in people suspected of high handed terrorism against other democracies (eg Rana against India).  No one seems to challenge Kamala Harris on what her foreign policy would indeed appear to look like.  Is she going to continue the international policies of Biden that have tarnished the American image and credibility significantly around the world and caused serious supply chain and other problems hurting our economy?

By all means, we should pray for Trump's loss in the election since the alternative will throw the world into greater chaos.  For now, Kamala Harris' foreign policy details  remaining obscure can work to her favor where the oppositon's slogan 'America First' is bought with no examination of how it may get rolled out.  Also, given the conflicts going on, it is best if America plays with its hand not fully exposed (quite contrary to Trump's unwise comments in this area.)  But the American intelligentsia and the Press and Media do owe  us Americans to challenge the leadership and move this nation, supposedly with 'a government of the people, for the people, and by the people,' in the right direction, not only in its internal affairs but also in its external affairs.  The stakes are too high for America in the world stage, and it is high time that some fair time is allocated to foreign affairs and the like too in interviews and debates.