The unbearable rightness of being

It looks likely that either Narendra Modi or Rahul Gandhi is going to be the next Prime Minister of India. Both are getting a lot of press coverage. Of late the English-language press is working hard to rehabilitate the first and trash the second (along with his mother, family, party, government etc) so it's quite clear who they think is going to win.

The key point is that there are going to be two distinct models on offer next year. Both have their positive and negative features. Most people I know would like to stay within their comfort zone and keep repeating one of the following statements: (i) I detest Mr Modi because he is a fascist, (ii) I can't stand the Sonia Gandhi family, and the UPA government has been a failure. A few people say both, but most will agree that one of these two sentences resonates more with them than the other.

I've long been in the category for whom (i) resonates more than (ii). In fact I don't have any negative feelings about this particular Ms Gandhi: it's clear to me that she had a popular mandate to be Prime Minister of India in 2004 and was hounded out of the post by middle-class bigots crying "Foreigner! White person! Woman! Christian!". For me that remains one of the more ugly events in the history of Indian democracy. She handled it very gracefully, and grace has continued to be her hallmark. And look at the rest of her family. They don't preen and posture in public. When they do say something it may not be brilliant or insightful but it is usually quite accurate. And they maintain their grace in the face of venomous abuse from a right-wing that despises both their liberal agenda and their good manners which make other Indian political families look even cruder than they already are.

Of course you can't run a country on grace and good manners alone. The Gandhi family and the Congress government don't come across as dynamic, a label that sticks better to Mr Modi. He is seen as pro-industry, pro-infrastructure and, as a bonus, non-corrupt. Responding to the fascist label, his supporters point out that he has not actually been found guilty of masterminding the 2002 anti-Muslim riots, and they add in the same breath that the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, conducted by Congress supporters, killed more people and the guilty were never punished. On both these points I don't disagree with them.

And yet, by his own admission Mr Modi is no liberal. His vision is a muscular and majoritarian one in which concern for the underprivileged is a convenient showpiece rather than a deeply felt principle. One doesn't have to read too far between the lines to see that in his world the poor, weak and marginalised are expected to understand their place in society and stay within its confines. He and his party would like religion to play a more powerful role in our lives and will pressurise us to cede our individual preferences to a common, majority-determined agenda. It is this composite package, rather than a single period of bloody riots, that really typifies the right-wing universe. And the pressure to surrender individuality is indeed the seed of fascism.

Is this what one wants India to become? That depends on who one is. I suspect that under right-wing governments the rich tend to benefit, while the poor tend to do worse (the poor can nevertheless be induced to vote for such governments, as both US Republicans and UK Conservatives are well aware). So it's quite likely that under Mr Modi the rich will get richer. In itself, this is no bad thing. I don't share the popular Indian middle-class view that people richer than us are evil just because they are richer than us. But how the poor will fare is important too, and far less clear. What are their relative prospects under the "dynamic" rightwingers as against the more sluggish dispensation presently in power? Among industrialists -- and the journalists who are so often their proxies -- it's taken for granted that if the government unconditionally supports the generators of wealth then everyone will be better off, and therefore Modi is the right choice. But history tells us this claim is sometimes true and sometimes false, so I would say it remains an open question. It's quite possible that in today's India the sluggish dispensation will, like the proverbial tortoise, actually get there faster for the people who need it most.

Still, I'm betting on Mr Modi to win the top position next year.

Food for the mind: the Fundamental Physics Prize ceremony

This is as close to a live blog as I've ever got: the Fundamental Physics Prize ceremony took place this evening at the International Conference Centre in Geneva, ending about 15 minutes ago with Morgan Freeman wishing us a good night. [Note: I wrote these words last night but was too sleepy, and hungry, to complete the blog...]

When I realised I would be able to attend this ceremony by astutely timing a CERN visit (which had a different motivation), the first thing that struck me was the glamour. I would wear my tuxedo, sip champagne, consume caviar and smoked salmon and mingle with colleagues and friends. In the end some of this came true, but not all. Details at the end.

For those who don't know, this prize is Russian billionaire Yuri Milner's way of "glamourising" physics. As Morgan Freeman, the charismatic anchor for the event, put it: every profession has its way of publicly recognising those who reach "the apex of their sphere": actors, business people, politicians... Scientists should receive the same type of acclaim.

Having said this he frowned, pretending to be listening on his earphones and announced: "I've just been told a sphere does not have an apex".  His wit and humour was backed by a good deal of homework. Early in the evening he told us that European politics was a mirror of physics: the anti-immigrant policy was the "exclusion principle", the fiscal policy was the "uncertainty principle" etc.

After a brief piano recital by Denis Fursaev, the nine original winners of the FPP were called on stage: Arkani-Hamed, Linde, Guth, Kontsevich, Maldacena, Seiberg, Witten, Kitaev and Sen. Ashoke seemed to be relaxed and quite enjoying himself. I took a video of Morgan Freeman announcing Ashoke's prize:

My colleague and friend Rohini Godbole and I applauded vigorously for Ashoke. Among other things, we were all in Stony Brook together during the late 1970's. (We also attended the ceremony as his guests.)

Linde made a short and fairly humorous speech on behalf of the nine laureates. Then it was time for Stephen Hawking, who showed up looking a little older than I last remember him (not surprising since 12 years have elapsed...). Here's a picture of him at the cocktail party preceding the event, in attractive company:

The Special Prize was personally given to him by Yuri Milner. Actually Milner gave it to Lucy Hawking, Stephen's daughter. In fact, like many people when they first meet SWH, Milner nervously avoided Hawking himself and ran off the stage at the first opportunity. Hawking gave a nice little speech about his scientific contributions, which are of course very impressive.

I may be mixing up the order of things, but at some point there was a brief speech by the designer - Olafur Eliasson - of the "trophy", a wiry metallic sphere the size of a football that looks like this:

For me, the most moving part of the ceremony was what followed: seven experimental physicists, all associated with CERN and the LHC: Lyn Evans, Michel Della Negra, Tejinder Virdee, Guido Tonelli, Peter Jenni, Joe Incandela and Fabiola Gianotti, came up on stage to receive a Special Prize. Unlike the original gang of nine, who didn't get to address us (other than Linde), these people all gave short acknowledgement speeches. All referred to the collective nature of the LHC, the decades of hard work, the globalised nature of the research, the people who could not be here but had made important contributions, and most of all the student and postdocs. A very beautiful tribute to what is surely among the greatest achievements in the history of science. Fabiola's talk was particularly personal and touching, she is a really great communicator. And far and away the best dressed:

This was followed by the appearance of an unimpressive human being on the screen ("live from New York") called Charlie Rose. I knew the name only vaguely but it soon became clear I hadn't missed anything. In that simpering manner of American TV hosts, he asked a question to each of the seven awardees on stage. The questions were banal and his face while receiving the answers was expressively vacuous. Here's a sample: "I've been, uh, hearing words today like "gravity" and "dark matter", so could you tell us, uh, where all this is heading?". To another person he asked "What were the challenges?" An avoidable part of the event, and a waste of time.

After this Denis Fursaev reappeared and played four piano pieces. He really is a very fine and expressive pianist and I would like to hear more of him in the future. I didn't recognise the first two pieces, but they sounded vaguely romantic and Russian or East European. The third was Grieg's "Hall of the Mountain King" and the fourth, a Duke Ellington medley in which "Take the A train" and "Caravan" were briefly recognisable.

Then it was time to move on to the New Horizons in Physics prizes: these were for young physicists who had made a significant impact on the field. The prize went to Niklas Beisert, Davide Gaiotto and Zohar Komargodski, of whom I met the last two at the cocktail party before the event and completely forgot to congratulate them. All these awards are richly deserved. The prize to Beisert was announced by Ashoke Sen, this was the only time we got to hear his voice.

Next came the Frontiers of Physics prize - awarded to Joe Polchinski, Alexander Polyakov and a jazz trio called the Topological Insulators (Kane, Molenkamp and Zhang). Polyakov looked bemused but thanked his wife for putting up with his research, which he described as a "form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder". He has long been a hero of mine: his contributions in Quantum Field Theory are nothing short of stunning (strings, instantons, monopoles, confinement... and the roots of AdS/CFT) and all this except the last one happened when he was working in difficult circumstances in the Soviet Union. In those days he would sometimes visit Scandinavian countries (because the Soviet authorities allowed that) and everyone would flock there to hear him, as I once did in 1988. In those days he also once had to give a seminar on the French side of CERN since he didn't have a Swiss visa!

We were told that one of these three people (counting the Insulators as one person) would be the winner of the next FPP, to be announced at the end of the ceremony. I was rooting for Polyakov. True, I had just sat through a seminar by him at CERN earlier in the day that was simultaneously incomprehensible and controversial - but so what. I've never really followed anything he's said, but his written work - particularly from the early days - is brilliant.

After this came the most boring part of the event - after Charlie Rose - namely, an appearance by an "English classical crossover soprano" called Sarah Brightman. The stage was turned into a glittering, pulsating mess and she walked on flapping her hands vaguely in slow-motion like a little bird trying in vain to fly. After an operatic piece that featured "la luna" multiple times (pictures of the moon were projected for those who had missed the point), she lost all pretence of good taste and sang three songs at earsplitting volume. One of them had a vaguely Arabic-disco sound. The lady sitting on my left had her fingers in her ears. The fourth song, "Con te partiro/Time to say goodbye", had been a hit for her and Andrea Bocelli in 1996. I knew the song well, since in 1997 I spent three months in Amsterdam with a transistor radio tuned to a station that, apparently, owned only this record and played it all day long. It was the least intolerable of her performances, particularly as she had promised to say goodbye after it. But she did not keep her promise, discovering an "urgent request" from someone she could not name that led to yet another song from her.

By now it was nearing 11 and most of us were starving. The only remaining event was the announcement of the single winner from among the three Frontiers awardees. Alan Guth came on stage and was handed an envelope containing the winner's name, Oscar style. Morgan Freeman requested him to "collapse the wave function" by opening it. Guth gamely responded that not every physicist believes in the collapse of the wave function. Some, like himself, prefer the idea of branching into parallel universes. He assured us that in one of those universes the people whose names were not in that envelope would be winners. (Sure, and in one of them Charlie Rose would be a winner too!!). For the first time that evening I held my breath. When the name of Alexander Polyakov was read out I shouted "YES!" much to the surprise of people sitting around me. I'm second to none in my admiration of Polchinski and also the Topological Insulators, but Polyakov rocks.

Now I have to review the pre-event cocktail party. I was hoping for glamour and champagne and it was there in abundance. I got to dress up:

and chatted with Sumathi Rao, Ashoke Sen, Ed Witten, Chiara Nappi and several others. In fact in terms of meeting the winners, the whole week has been great: I've already attended talks at CERN by Arkani-Hamed, Witten and Polyakov, and lunched with Joe Incandela and with Nati Seiberg and Juan Maldacena.

But back to the cocktail party: the only food of any quality was food for the mind. The snacks were terrible: bruschetta on cheap bread, mediocre cheese and olives... and leathery kababs on skewers. As the evening wore on, Rohini and I (and I suppose everyone else) became more and more hungry. But by the time we were out of there it was 11:30 PM and there isn't any food to be had in Geneva at that time. I don't know what Rohini did (she was staying at the CERN hostel) but I went back to my hotel room and this was my dinner:

I suppose going to bed hungry provided a sort of spiritual conclusion to the whole evening...

Armed and dangerous

A huge Indian oil tanker is traveling past Italy. On board it has several naval guards from Kerala, two of whom are keeping guard on deck with automatic rifles in their hands. Just off the coast they spot a tiny Italian boat and quite naturally assume it's filled with pirates. In fact it's a couple of pescatori looking for something to grill with lemon and garlic. The Keralites proceed to shoot dead these two Italian fishermen. Later, they say it was a "mistake". The Indian government and populace rallies round them, saying anyone could have made the same mistake, and that the Italians are taking it all too personally. What happened was an "unfortunate incident which everyone regrets. Our marines never wanted this to happen, but unfortunately it took place". That should be the end of that, no? Apparently not. The Italians arrest the Malayali naval guards and absurdly insist on trying them in their own courts.

Cut to South Africa. Fashion model Reeva Steenkamp is visited regularly at her home by her suitor, athlete Oscar Pistorius. Reeva lives in a gated community and keeps a gun (or several) under her bed. Pistorius often stays over at her place and shares her bed. On one such night, she awakens and hears a noise in the bathroom. Assuming this to be a burglar, she walks over and fires several shots through a locked door. Turns out it was just Pistorius who had got up to take a leak, and now the poor guy is history. Oops, she says, I'm so sorry, it was just a mistake. She never wanted this to happen, but unfortunately etc.

For those who live on a different planet, the above two summaries are role-reversed versions of true stories. In one case Italian guards mistakenly shot Indian fishermen off the Kerala coast. In the other, athlete Pistorius mistakenly shot his girlfriend. I'm neither a lawyer nor a witness, so I can't comment on what really happened or how one has to proceed. But the fact that a defence like "they made a mistake"  appears to carry any credibility at all, is only because the killers - in both cases - were white males. Apparently this allows you to say "I'm heavily armed, I shoot when I feel like, and I apologise when I kill the wrong person. Get used to me, people".

I can't imagine what would have happened if the Pistorius story really happened in reverse, the way I described it above. "Dumb blonde shoots athlete boyfriend"? And how would the world react to unprovoked firing on fishermen in designer clothing by natives from the land of lungi? One can only wonder.

Yesterday the Italian killers (I call them this because they admit to having killed) have jumped bail despite a solemn assurance to the Indian Government by the Italian Ambassador that they would return to face trial. And recently the South African killer (again, he admits to being one) has been granted bail. We'll see whether he stands trial, scheduled for June. Whichever way the legalities turn out, it seems that even today all you need is the right race, the right gender and the right guns, and you can get away with murder -- or at least attract a lot of sympathy.
 

Polymath amma

Life at IISER is clearly so busy that I haven't found time to blog in over a month! Trying to start again. The occasion this time is the 11th death anniversary of my mother, last Monday. I've blogged several times about my father (here, here, here, here and here) but only once about my mother (here). That is not for any lack of interesting things to say about her, though.

Since Monday I've been recalling how many diverse subjects she knew something about, and how little she advertised the fact. Some anecdotes come to mind that are quite revealing. My mother was a graduate in the humanities and had an education degree as well. Her specialisation was history and child psychology. So I usually enlisted her help with my history lessons, and this was always forthcoming. What she didn't know about Parthians, Corinthians, Bactrians, Mauryas and Guptas wasn't worth knowing. She was also helpful with other humanities subjects like Geography and Literature. But it never struck me that her knowledge went beyond that.

Now when I was in the 4th standard (age 9) our teacher tried to explain how to carry out multiplications where one number was expressed in hours, minutes and seconds. But this teacher was not very bright and got it all wrong. With her method she would have got ordinary multiplication wrong too (she would add the "carry-over" to the digit in the next column before, rather than after, multiplying that digit - if you don't follow, just trust me that it doesn't work). I complained about it to my mother, who immediately understood and solved the problem diplomatically. She contacted another teacher in our school with a request to gently explain the fine points of multiplication to my teacher. This worked very well. Of course the problem in question was rather simple and it didn't occur to me that my mother had any great mathematical ability.

But this changed four years later. For various reasons I had switched schools abruptly and missed half a term in the process. During this term we were supposed to learn "long division" where you divide, say, an 11-digit number by a 5-digit number. I had missed the classes in which the method was explained, and one night I got panicky when attempting  a homework problem since I had no clue how to approach it. This time, unusually, my mother suggested I go to bed and think about it the next day. When I awoke, I found her sitting in the living room with sheets of paper covered with scribbles in front of her. She had actually figured out how to do long-division on her own in the early morning and was now ready to teach it to me. When I looked surprised she said something like: "didn't you know I once came first in my class in mathematics and got a special prize?". She was usually modest about her abilities but enjoyed a little victory once in a while.

The other incident that comes to mind started with a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on our door. They wanted to convince us that the end of the world was near or some such thing. Instead of turning them away (my father would have done that and flung something at them too!) she called them in and offered them tea. I was doing something else but an hour later when I peeked into the living room they were still there, and my mother was patiently telling them something. Presently they left, looking rather disappointed, and my mother revealed that she had challenged their understanding of the Bible. Beyond teaching at a college attached to the Convent of Jesus and Mary, I had no idea my mother knew or cared anything about the Bible. Again I looked surprised and again she gave me a "didn't you know" response. It turned out she had studied Scripture as an optional subject in college and was mighty confident about her detailed knowledge of Christianity.

Years later, she became the first Principal of her college who was not a nun, and not even a Catholic.

An eye for an eye

While the US is struggling with the aftermath of a gruesome massacre at Sandy Hook school in Newtown, India deals with a horrific gangrape in a Delhi bus. In both cases, the responses from right-wingers are comparable. In the US, the National Rifle Association wants more guns in response to this violence. Meanwhile right-wing bloggers have tried to argue that guns don't kill people but everything else kills people. Except for a few professional ideologues, the right-wing (anywhere in the world) doesn't have a lot of intellect on its side, as exemplified by the statement of a seriously confused US congressman (posted by my friend Ajit Sanzgiri on Facebook):

Radio host: Congressman, what is the New Testament justification for carrying guns ?
Congressman: Do unto others as you would others do unto you.

This person did not pass any course in basic English or basic Logic.

Meanwhile, the loony right in India wants more violence in response to the rape. There are calls for capital punishment for the rapists. The parliamentarian Sushma Swaraj (never known for her rationality at the best of times) has said : "The 23-year-old girl was with a male friend and it was not too late either. It was 9:30 p.m. And if a woman is not safe even then, then it is a shame. If this girl survives, she will be a living dead. These people should be given capital punishment". This is full of subtext: had she not been with a male friend, or had it been 1 AM... somehow it would be OK??

In a truly thoughtful, and blunt, article in Mid-Day, Shilpa Phadke has exposed much of the subtext and immature thinking that goes into such raucous cries. She makes the point, so often missed, that "more stringent punishment has never meant more conviction". If you consider yourself a thinking Indian, please do read that article and reflect. When this rape case hit the news we all enjoyed shouting that the perpetrators must be hanged. But were we thinking of the future of society, or merely indulging our childish lust for revenge?

If you are unable to gain any perspective, try remembering what Gandhiji said: "An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind". And if that doesn't help, transfer your attention to the US and imagine schools of the future where every man, woman and child is carrying a gun. In that world, the type of kid with whom you had a friendly scuffle in your childhood would shoot you dead. Or the teacher would shoot you both dead. Or the security guard would shoot both of you, and the teacher, dead.

On these issues, the New Testament and Gandhiji are perfectly convergent and perfectly correct. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. If you oppose violence, don't support violence.

Bigots under the skin

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. By chance, tomorrow I am to visit  Ayutthaya, in Thailand, which is in fact named after the Indian original. There's enough to do on vacation that I normally wouldn't bother to blog. However this fateful day still resonates in my mind after twenty years. Not because I was personally impacted, or anyone I know was personally impacted. But because this is when I saw the appallingly foolish and self-destructive fascist agenda unfurl before my eyes for the first time.

As of that date it suddenly became fashionable, even in a place like TIFR, to whisper (or hint) unpleasant things about Muslims. This is particularly strange because on December 6, 1992 Muslims did nothing at all, except stare in horror at the TV set, as I did along with close friends, while a militant Hindu mob climbed all over the mosque and brought it down even as the police watched and did nothing. This was in pursuance of an agenda promoted by BJP leader L.K. Advani and his followers, according to which Lord Rama was born on the precise spot where the mosque stood, and building a Ram temple on the site (after demolishing the mosque) would somehow make India a great land again.

While withdrawing cash at the TIFR bank one suddenly started hearing strange comments exchanged between bank staff. The same was true in the canteen and I would struggle to find a place to sit where I would not be nauseated by some insinuation about Muslims. The apathetic-progressive atmosphere of academia was not immune to this infection. The day after the demolition a faculty colleague could not suppress his delight and assured me "the structure will never be rebuilt". He was right, as it turned out.

But the single most memorable comment came from a very well-known person at TIFR whom I will not name. While we were collecting used clothes and money to take to the refugees whose homes in Bombay had been plundered and who were cowering in shelters, this person stopped me in the colonnade at the point where Brahmagupta meets Bhaskara (for those who know TIFR). "I think religion is a personal matter" he started. "We should try to keep our views to ourselves". By then I had seen enough to know that this innocent-sounding statement was a prelude to something, and I was right. "Just one thing I've noticed" this gentleman continued. "Whenever there are riots, it's always Hindu women who are raped by Muslim men, never the other way around". I did not have the stomach to confront him with facts or even to continue the discussion. But today reading Bachi Karkaria's blog entry on the occasion, I was struck by her line "People I had known closely turned out to be unmitigated bigots just under their sophisticated skin". It's been exactly the same for me.

These "sophisticated bigots" did not personally bring down the mosque, nor would they ever engage in manifest politics. Their opinions surface only when they feel the atmosphere will tolerate it. Today the agenda of building a Ram temple at Ayodhya, and thereby miraculously converting India into a great country, is in shambles. This agenda has done terrible things to our social fabric but not one good thing for the nation's structure, morality or self-esteem, forget social or economic development (how could it possibly??). So at this time the bigots are hiding their views. But I don't intend to ever forget who they are, or what damage they did by conferring legitimacy on such an aberrant movement in India's history.

Happiness is not the absence of problems

The full quote from which I've taken the title of this posting is "Happiness is not the absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them", attributed to Charles Louis de Montesquieu. Hopefully its relevance will emerge below.

It's nearly a month since I moved to the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) here in Pune. Changing jobs and cities at the age of 56 is not totally trivial, in particular much of the effort (unpacking boxes and figuring out what to do with the contents) proved rather exhausting and left me with a dust allergy and consequent sore throat. Now that this phase is over I'm able to ask how I feel about the move. The answer in one word is: happy! I like IISER and I like Pune.

To briefly sum up the latter: the roads are good, the traffic where I live is far lighter than that in the area of Bombay where I used to live, my new apartment has a spectacular view of hills and little else, and the mutton in this town is particularly tasty. As for the weather, a winter made up of mild sunny days and cool nights (13-15 degrees C) makes for an idyllic existence and a sound sleep at night. I am now a concrete example of the well-known aphorism that "the climate of Bombay is such that its inhabitants have to live elsewhere"!

To be sure there are negatives about Pune and I'm sure I will discover more. For the moment I'd highlight the conspicuous `discouraging notices' one sees everywhere: "no couples allowed" (on a park bench), "no bachelors, no alcohol, vegetarian only" (pasted all over a modern block of luxury apartments) and "please don't ask for directions" (at the vegetable market). But I think people here are nicer and more liberal than they would like to pretend to be.

Back to IISER. It's a relatively young institution (currently in its 7th year) in a growth phase. And I can readily identify what I like about it: there is a very concrete and widespread understanding that we have a mission to build a high-quality science university and that we cannot fail. The philosophy is essentially forward-looking and almost everything I hear is based on a win-win ideal. This ideal appears to trickle down from the very top but also has strong roots and therefore diffuses upwards from the base as well, causing an even distribution across all levels. Long may it last.

Of course it would be naive and foolish (I confess to being both on occasion) to pretend that IISER is not going to have problems. In fact one already hears of a few. But I don't worry too much because IISER appears to be a healthy institution, which means we can try our best to deal with the problems.

I've thought a fair amount about the health of institutions (and even blogged about this matter here and here) and come out with the following universal - though maybe over-simplified - observation. In any organisation, there is a goal to be achieved and this goal necessarily brings with it a lot of "external" problems. But these problems do not normally cause unhappiness. Indeed, scientific research itself is nothing but the attempt to solve external problems ("what's going on in the mind of Nature?"). But even less lofty problems ("what is the best design for a new campus?", "will the students like the cafeteria food?" etc) are inevitable and tend to at worst cause some irritation rather than any genuine despondency.

But there is a second category of problems which I will call, for lack of a better word, "unnecessary" problems. These are caused by human beings who are either immature or incompetent or crooked or corrupt or perverse or plain stupid, who have somehow got themselves into powerful positions and are creating difficulties for others. In such an institution, not only does one still have to solve the external problems, but the very attempt to solve them is stifled by human-created internal roadblocks. The frustration caused by this second-order type of problem is potentially infinite, precisely because it is so "unnecessary". In an institution where the leaders are problem-creators rather than problem-solvers, the question is no longer "what's going on in the mind of Nature?" but rather, "what's going on in the mind of the Dean?" (or Director, or Registrar, or whoever). As Montesquieu would astutely point out, this situation pretty much blocks one's ability to deal with the genuine problems and leads to gross unhappiness.

Note that corruption (financial or academic) is not necessarily the motivation of these problem-creators, as I've discussed previously here. The other adjectives I've used above all correspond to different people I've encountered in positions of power for which they were entirely unsuitable.

So if I have to sum up what is healthy about IISER, it's the fact that everyone I've met here seems to be actively trying to solve problems. There don't seem to be problem-creating officials around every corner so the problems here end up being of the genuine, "external", kind. It's not always easy to solve these external problems, but at least in this ecosystem one can give them one's best.

My wish for IISER Pune is that it should forever remain an exciting battleground to deal with the real problems, those associated with doing high-level research and teaching and administration anywhere in the world. May it never stoop low enough to create its own unnecessary problems.

This is also my wish for all other institutions.