Top 10 Ways to Reduce Your Work Week

1. Reduce your work hours. Give yourself a set amount of time to work each day and each week, and stick to it. ...
2. Work from home. ...
3. Have set email or RSS times. ...
4. Become focused. ...
5. Set time boxes. ...
6. Do only the big tasks with big returns. ...
7. Outsource the rest. ...
8. Reduce your commitments.

Unsmart Actions

(1) Fine by Me

Don’t Seem Grammatically Challenged

Here we have an issue with casualness that leads to improper grammar.

What you mean when you say “fine by me” is that you're okay with whatever is being asked of you. While your meaning will more than likely translate, it can make you seem grammatically challenged as well as lazy. At the very least, say “fine with me,” which does less to offend the rules of the English language.
Even that, however, can come across as disengaged or uninterested. At best, it's a weak agreement. Finding a stronger way to indicate your agreement is well worth the effort.

(2) It is not my fault

Don’t Be Defensive

Nobody likes taking the blame for anything, whether it's their fault or not.

Criticism just doesn't fall comfortably on the ear. More likely than not, unfortunately, you will be criticized or blamed at some point in your career. When that happens, knowing how to respond can bring you away from that confrontation in better standing than when you entered it.
The key, whether or not you are actually at fault, is to not shift or avoid the blame. Even if the fault does not lie entirely with you, know that your superiors are likely aware of that. Don't focus on bringing awareness to the shortcomings of others, and don't try to excuse your role in whatever went wrong.
Instead, ensure your superiors know that you understand how you are at fault and where you went wrong, and how you will correct that issue in the future. That's all it takes to earn respect out of a misstep.

(3)  X said it

Don’t Shift Blame

This problem phrase usually follows the previous one. Blame shifting is never a good idea.

In explaining that you did something a certain way because another person told you to do it that way, you demonstrate a lack of independence and critical thinking. Your instructions should always come from your direct superior, or else theirs.
If someone else is telling you to do your work a certain way, it never hurts to check with your boss to be sure that's the way they want it done. If you're ever uncertain about particular instructions, ask for clarification. Do whatever it takes to ensure you don't find yourself in a blame-shifting situation later on.

(4) Does this look OK

Don’t Sound Weak

The problem with this phrase is that it's weak.

It's fine to have questions about an assignment, and it's fine to make sure the final product is up to snuff or that you're heading in the right direction. However, it's best to avoid sounding unsure of yourself while asking the questions you need to ask.
Instead, ask something like, “Is this what you're looking for?”
It will get you the same information, but the slight tweak in wording accomplishes two things: it sounds stronger, and it makes the question about them instead of you. You're no longer questioning what you've done, and are now asking about what they want.
It's subtle, to be sure, but fine lines are often what we walk in professional situations.

(5) Any absolute like 'Always'

Don’t Lock Your Position

Absolutes, like “never” and “always,” are rarely necessary and rarely helpful.

As modifiers to describe your habits, they add nothing and instead put your reputation on the line. Perfection is a myth, and nobody “always” does something a certain way. Tell your boss you “always” perform a task in a particular manner, and you become unreliable the first time you fail to do so.
By using absolutes, you set yourself up for failure. We all need some wiggle room in all aspects of our lives, and perhaps nowhere more so than in our professional lives. Make things a bit easier on yourself by avoiding absolutes when possible.

(6) 'Really" or "Very"

Don’t Be Vague

The problem with these most common of modifiers is that they don't add anything to a description and are unspecific.

For example, if you were to describe a computer as “very fast,” you haven't offered the other party to the conversation any real information. Why is it more than just “fast”? What makes it faster than a similar computer, and how much faster is it? What’s its speed analogous to, and how does that speed translate to performance?
“Very” and “really” can't answer any of these questions, and don't provide any information on their own. A more specific description will let the person you're talking to know that you understand the subject matter.
A demonstrably deeper understanding will leave an impression on your colleagues.

(7)  "Things" or "Stuff"

Don’t Be Vague, Part Two

These next two common words carry the same basic flaw as the previous two: they're unspecific.

They're also informal and unnecessary. If you're speaking to a potential customer and that person wants to know what services your company can provide, you might be tempted to answer by stating that your company can provide “things like...” Take out the “things like” and just tell the customer what your company can do. You work there. You should know.
Be an authority in your field. Take the time to learn your industry, your company and your products. Those who can show what they know will always go farther than those who can't.

(8) I am not sure when that will be done

Don’t Be Vague, Part Three

Timelines are important in a professional setting. Everything has a deadline, and not meeting those deadlines can be deadly for your career and the welfare of your company as a whole. When you're given a task, sometimes you'll be told when it needs to be done. However, sometimes your supervisor will ask you when you can have it done by.

Don't just respond by saying you don't know. Even if you aren't sure exactly how long the task will take to complete, give your best estimation. If your self-imposed deadline is approaching and you don't believe you'll be done in time, update your supervisor and tell them why it's taking longer than expected. They'll appreciate the job being done properly, even if it takes a bit longer, and the update will make you seem responsible and reliable.

(9) That is how we have always done it

Don’t Be Inflexible

This phrase is problematic in that same way as saying someone told you to do something a certain way. It demonstrates a lack of independence and critical thinking.

The fact that a process has been in place for a period of time doesn't mean it's the best way to do something. Innovation is good, and streamlining will always welcomed by any employer.
If you think you can find a better way to get your work done, do it. If you already have, tell your boss about it. Thinking outside the box to find new solutions will impress those you work with and will move you up promotion lists.

(10) Literally

 Don’t Use Unnecessary Words

Like “very” and “really,” using “literally” as a modifier adds nothing to a description. It's an unnecessary filler word. You should be literal when speaking in a business setting, unless you're obviously using hyperbole or an analogy to make a point.

The word “literally” has become a plague on the English language; it's overused, particularly in the wrong situations. Too often, it's either used when the user is not actually being literal, or is clearly being literal anyway.
Avoiding unnecessary words in your conversations will make it more enjoyable for people to listen to you speak. You want to be heard, so avoid words that could cause listeners to disengage.

(11)Uhh

Don’t Use Filler

This is the most common filler used in conversation, but it's best to avoid using it at all costs.

We all sometimes have to think about what we're going to say before we say it, or have to take a moment to conjure up information. It's better, however, to go into professional conversations prepared. Study the information you'll need so that your recall will be as instantaneous as possible and you eliminate the need to think about your answers.
Saying “uhh” will make it seem as though you don't know what you're talking about, and it also just sounds dumb. You might know everything there is to know about whatever you're talking about; however, if you hesitate or fill in dead space with a sound like “uhh,” your listeners will start to tune out.

(12) Can you do it my that time? No worries if you can't

Don’t Be a Pushover

We strive in our daily lives to avoid rubbing others the wrong way, and rigidity often does just that. Yet, while flexibility is nice, it's often unhelpful in a professional setting.

First of all, businesses run on deadlines. If something needs to be done by a certain time, it's a pretty big deal if the person responsible can't get it done by then. If you have to work with a partner or delegate work to coworker, let them know when their portion of the project must be completed by. It's up to them to find a way to get it done by that time.
This kind of phrase also makes you sound weak, and a bit like a pushover. Your coworkers or employees might think all they have to do to get out of doing something is say they don't have time. That will eat into your authority and the efficiency of your business.

(13) TGIF

Don’t Say What Everyone Already Knows

This fun, jokey saying, used at work, is wholly inappropriate. Everyone loves Friday, and everyone loves the weekend. There's no need to say so, particularly in the office.

You want your superiors and coworkers to think you aren't just there to earn a paycheck and then run out the door. You want them to think you want to be there, that you care about your job and that you like what you're doing.
Your work doesn't have to be your life, but it does have to be part of your life, and you should want your supervisors to think you want it to be part of your life.
Workers who don't have a demonstrable passion for what they do, or who display outward disdain for what they do, will find it remarkably hard to advance in their professional lives.

(14)  Actually

Don’t Be a Know-it-All

There will be times at work when you will be listening to a co-worker, and you'll hear them say something that you know to be incorrect. You'll want to correct them, and in most instances that's the correct course of action. Particularly at work, having the right information is critical.

At the same time, nobody likes a know-it-all. “Actually,” for some reason, is a particularly easy word to say in a patronizing or condescending tone. It's a word that leaves a bad taste in people's mouths. It makes others reluctant to interact with you, and that can only harm you at work.
There are other ways to introduce whatever information you want to convey. Phrases like, “I'd just like to add...” or “I don't mean to correct you, but...” are gentler ways to show what you know.

(15) I didn't think of that

Don’t Highlight Your Blind Spots

You aren't expected to think of everything when working on an assignment. You may try your best, but nobody is perfect. Everybody misses something or ignores a possible angle. At times, however, a supervisor may ask why you chose to complete an assignment in one way instead of another.

The truth may be that you simply didn't think of the other way to approach the assignment, and that's fine. You don't have to say that you didn't think of it, and you absolutely shouldn't. Saying that would make it seem as though you didn't think about the project at all.
Luckily, there's another truth, a much better one. Instead of admitting you didn't think of something, explain why you went about the project the way that you did, and why you believed that method would be sufficient. If your supervisor wants you to take a different route in the future, be sure to acknowledge that.

(16) Ask somebody else to do that

Don’t Defer

Unless you are absolutely unqualified, or don't have the requisite knowledge, or don't have time to complete the task you have been assigned without letting other tasks fall to the wayside, don't reject an assignment. You want to be the person you co-workers and supervisors rely on. You want to be dependable. You want to seem as though you care about your work.

If you have a very good reason for being unable complete the assignment adequately, absolutely say so. Your supervisor will appreciate that much more than a shoddy job done. However, if you can do something, then just do it.

(17)  That's not my job

Don’t Put Limits on Your Career

Every now and then, you might be asked to do something that doesn't exactly fall within your job description. However, that's no reason to turn your nose up at the task. If it's something your supervisor is asking you to do, it's likely important and it's likely something they feel comfortable trusting you with. You want to validate that trust and show that the things your supervisor finds important also matter to you.

Turning down an assignment puts a limit on your career. You'll seem less willing and less capable, and you won't earn that go-to reputation that makes one employee stand out from another. If the assignment is something you're capable of doing, then do it. You want to be reliable and flexible, and to be the person other people think of when something important needs to be done.

(18) This may not be feasible, but...

Don’t Be Negative

Never speak in negatives. If you're presenting a new idea at work, you want to make it sound as positive as possible. That will give others a positive impression of the idea right off the bat. Let your ideas speak for themselves.

Even if you aren't sure if your idea can work, simply present the idea without expressing that doubt. Let your supervisor decide if the idea can be put into action. Whether it can or can't, presenting new ideas will show that you are thinking about and engaged with your work. Presenting it without negatives attached will show confidence.

(19) No Problem

Don’t Hint at Issues

This isn't a bad one, but saying “No problem” in response to a request from a superior could give the impression that there was a chance it might have been a problem. If your boss asks you to do something, rarely should it ever be a problem. It should be something you're happy to do.

While eliminating this phrase won't make or break your career, a more positive response, like “I'd be happy to.” is simply more pleasant and will make you seem like a more positive person. Positivity is always a plus, and negativity never helps. Jump at any opportunity to be more positive.

(20)  There is nothing I can do

Don’t Tell People What You Can’t Do

Some tasks actually are impossible and some problems actually are unfixable, but that's not the point. You never want to tell people what you can't do. That will put limits on what can be expected of you. Promotions are given to those who can, not to those who can't.

If you're asked to do something you've tried and failed to do once before, work in a positive response. Offer to try again. Talk about what you can do. Discuss what is possible. Even if there are certain things you are incapable of, make sure people remember what you are capable of.

(21) Does that make sense

Don’t Project a Lack of Confidence

Confidence is the key to just about everything. The goal is to appear confident in your work, but your words can seriously hamper your pursuit of that goal. This phrase can make it seem as though you feel you aren't making sense when explaining things. That, in turn, can make it seem as though you aren't confident in your understanding of your work.

You certainly will encounter times when you need to offer further explanation, but there are positive ways to create the opportunity for that. Phrases like “What are your thoughts?” and “Do you have any questions?” allow the person you are speaking with to get any clarification they might need and to get more involved in the topic or task at hand. You avoid doubting yourself and engage your audience. That's a win-win.

(22) Cliche

Don’t Elicit Eye-Rolls By the Dozen

These phrases permeate our language and or daily conversations, but they're rarely useful. Particularly in a business setting, where clarity can impact productivity and, therefore, profits, Beating around the bush is a waste of time and energy.

Avoid clichés and just say what you're trying to say. People appreciate directness. Plus, clichés are lame. They elicit eye-rolls by the dozen. Be the person people like listening to, not the one they dread hearing from. Clichés are disengaging, and you want people engaged when you speak.
You want to be memorable, not forgotten. Upgrade your lexicon by dumping tired clichés.

(23) It is all good

Do not be casual

Once again, with this phrase we encounter an issue of casualness.
In the right context and said with the right tone, it can be a friendly, amiable way to show off a relaxed personality. Around your superiors in the workplace, however, it's not the best choice.
Office situations can get tense or stressful. A better way to diffuse those feelings, rather than with an overly casual phrase, is simply through body language. Poise and a confident “aura” can do more to bring a sense of calm and confidence to the office than any word. Those around you will notice if you exude cool when others might panic.

Langlands and All That

Langlands Programme (NEW)
N-Category Cafe
Zeigler
Perimeter Institute Article on Langlands

Links for Recent Quintessence Controversy and Other Things

Track Backs of a Paper

Track backs of Another Paper

Emmy Noether

Dark Energy vs String Theory 

Theory vs Experiment

Quantum Gravity 

On Flux Compactifications and Large Hierarchy

Flux Compactifications were introduced by Strominger  as well as De Wit, Smit and Hari Dass as a generalization of conventional Calabi-Yau Compactifications.

In his article Superstrings with Torsion published in Nucl. Phys. B274 (1986) 253 Strominger and on the other hand  de Wit, Smit and Hari Dass in their article Residual Supersymmetry for Compactified d=10 Supergravity introduced solutions of Killing equations where the metric included the warp factor and the torsion was non-zero.

This is simpler than it sounds.

General relativity equations give spacetime metrics as solutions.

The supergravity equations, the low energy effective theories corresponding string theories, demand at least two more field apart from the metric. These are the torsion and the dilaton. Plus there can be other bosonic fields apart from the fermionic ones.

So in case of the solutions that we are talking about the innovation is the presence of the torsion as well as the warp factor.

Because of the presence of the warp factor the metric is not a direct product of the internal and external factors when we start talking about compactifications.

Compactifications we have to talk about - after all superstrings prefer to live in ten dimensions while we are determined to live in four.

The fun part is that These new compactifications are generalizations of Calabi-Yau compactifications because these too give us supersymmetric solutions and these possess warp factors.

Of course there were no-go theorems that implied that most of these new compactifications would be equivalent to usual Calabi-Yau compactifications. Yet develoments in non-perturbative string theory and M-Theory suggested that these no-go theorems could be circumvented.

Hence were born the entities that we today call Flux compactifications.

Corresponding M-Theory and F-theory versions were found.

Then came Giddings, Kachru and Polchinski and told us that the flux compactifications can give large hierarchy of scales.

Now that is neat. I mean that is useful. we need hierarchy in physics to solve the hierarchy problem.

The de Sitter Lore

(1) Witten gave a talk at Strings 2001 in Mumbai and the write up is available at the arXiv as [hep-th/0106109] with title 'Quantum Gravity in de Sitter Space'.

(2) In the same year we have an article by Tom Banks on Cosmological Breaking of Supersymmetry, IJMPA 19(2001)910.

(3) In October 2002 there was a paper by W Fischler, T. Banks and S. Paban on 'Recurring Nightmare : Measurement Theory in de Sitter Space' [hep-th/0210160]

(4) On December 19, 2002 J.Distler has a post on 'De Sitter on My Mind' on his blog Musings.

(5) On January 30, 2003 he has another post on the same blog called 'Long Live de Sitter'.

(6) On April 8, 2003 he has yet another post called 'For One, Many'.

(7) On February 4, 2017 J. Distler had one more post on his blog called Responsibility.

QED vs String Theory

Hirosi Ooguri wrote a comment on Shamit Kachru's wall that the difference between QED and string theory is that in QED the structure constant is an adjustable parameter.

In string scenario the choice of NS and R fluxes fix the hierarchy scales.

KKLT on de Sitter Vacua in String Theory

This is a string theory paper on cosmology that has been cited by 2532 papers till date (July 5, 2018). 

It was published in the Physical Review D in 2003 and the exact citation is Phys.Rev. D68 (2003) 046005. 

The authors are Shamit Kachru, Renata Kallosh, Andrei Linde and Sandip Trivedi.

The paper appeared on the arXiv as [hep-th/0301240].

It is about construction of meta-stable string vacua using highly warped Type IIB compactifications with both NS and RR non-trivial three form fluxes. 

Then using Euclidean D-instantons or gluino condensates AdS vaqua with stable moduli can be created.

Finally addition of anti-three branes in small amount lifts the vacua to meta-stable de Sitter vacua.

Then you can live in this universe for the duration that is larger than the life time of our cosmos.

See you need permission to live in your own universe. Authors assure us that the life time of the state will always be less than the recurrence time.

Polchinski wrote in the abstract of a review talk about these issues :

String theory has few or no stable non-supersymmetric or de Sitter vacua, only metastable ones. Anti-branes are a simple source of supersymmetry breaking, as in the KKLT model, but various arguments have been given that these fail to produce the desired vacua. Proper analysis of the system requires identifying the correct effective field theories at various scales. We find that it reproduces the KKLT conclusions.

That was in 2015.

In 2001 Giddings, Kachru and Polchinsti wrote in a paper's abstract :

Warped compactifications with significant warping provide one of the few known mechanisms for naturally generating large hierarchies of physical scales. We demonstrate that this mechanism is realizable in string theory, and give examples involving orientifold compactifications of IIB string theory and F-theory compactifications on Calabi-Yau four-folds. In each case, the hierarchy of scales is fixed by a choice of RR and NS fluxes in the compact manifold. Our solutions involve compactifications of the Klebanov-Strassler gravity dual to a confining N=1 supersymmetric gauge theory,and the hierarchy reflects the small scale of chiral symmetry breaking in the dual gauge theory. 

Bundle Section and Rank

A section of a fiber bundle gives an element of the fiber over every point in . Usually it is described as a map such that is the identity on . A real-valued function on a manifold is a section of the trivial line bundle . Another common example is a vector field, which is a section of the tangent bundle.

The rank of a vector bundle is the dimension of its fiber. Equivalently, it is the maximum number of linearly independent local bundle sections in a trivialization. Naturally, the dimension here is measured in the appropriate category. For instance, a real line bundle has fibers isomorphic with , and a complex line bundle has fibers isomorphic to , but in both cases their rank is 1.
The rank of the tangent bundle of a real manifold is equal to the dimension of . The rank of a trivial bundle is equal to . There is no upper bound to the rank of a vector bundle over a fixed manifold .

Source : WMW 

Witten on Entanglement Properties of QFT - 2

(1) The ideas of entanglement and quantum information theory have invaded both quantum field theory and string theory and the developments are so extensive that even a long document of 70 pages is short to mention thes relevant issues.

So Witten refers us to the following review. This itself is 60 pages long.

[1] T. Nishioka, “Entanglement Entropy: Holography and Renormalization Group,” arXiv:1801.10352.

(2) The object in his notes is to collect the mathematical ideas that are relevant at a place and not to offer a review of the topic. The ideas are not easily available at a single place and hence we have to be thankful to him.

(3) He makes contact with older ideas of axiomatic and algebraic QFT. This is a topic that is obtuse because of its complexity as well as mathematical rigor. I was amongst those who used to think that we shall not need this kind of technology in future. Apparently I was wrong.

(4) Then we come to the Reech-Schlieder Theorem. It says that adjescent regions of QFT spacetime are entangled and the entanglement is ultraviolet divergent. This is true even without quantum gravity.

This is where the rub will lie. We though that entanglement is some quirk of black hole physics. We already have inconvenient things in QFT.

(5) The entanglement is not merely a property of the states but the algebras of observables itself.

(6) Witten's article aims at explaining these issues.

(7) Tomita-Takesaki Theory is a tool that helps us in those cases when entanglement is a property of the algebra of observables itself rather than the states.

(8) T3 is applicable in so many cases that Witten decides not to record all the references but describes an example in section 2.

(9) H. Araki's work too comes into focus in this regard.

(10) Then there is this talk about peeping behind the black hole horizon.

(11) Then we start seeing those typical terms that we see only in complex analysis - like monotonicity.

(12) That ends the preview of Section 2.

Entanglement Properties of Quantum Field Theory

Entanglement is a fact of life.

You have milk, sugar and the juice of dried tea leaves entangles in your tea.

We are rarely interested in separating these entangled contents.

Indeed the process that would reverse the making of tea will not be that simple at all.

Clearly the same thing at quantum level will be even more tricky.

Advent of black holes, or rather their quantum mechanical studies, have brought the issue to the fore in a very dramatic and critical way.

People in condensed matter have been living with entanglement in the form of the density matrix for a long time.

Sometimes you do with less amount of information than can be gathered from the physical systems. That is density matrix for you. For many applications that is all that you need.

But then the question arises can we get more information? And how?

That is when we start worrying about quantum mechanics itself rather than its application in condensed matter physics.

Of course it is then natural to think that the more sophisticated form of quantum mechanics, the quantum field theory, will tell us more about these issues than the plain non-relativistic quantum mechanics.

Those who are in the game of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory also know that prodding quantum field theory for such matters will be different ball game altogether.

To compound the issue we need an approach to quantum field theory that is well known, or rather notorious, for its complexity - the axiomatic or constructive quantum field theory.

These are the issues that Edward Witten takes up in his latest posting on the arXiv on Pi day - March 14, 2018. It is called Notes on Some entanglement Properties of Quantum Field Theory. You need not rush to it immediately - it is 70 pages long.

It is preparatory and non-rigorous  document for the upcoming summer programme at the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton called Prospects in Theoretical Physics to be held in July 2018.

The original ideas are from different people like Borchers (163 pages),  Haag ( a book the Local Quantum Physics, 392 pages),  paper by Hollands and Sanders, called Entanglement Measures and Their Properties in Quantum Field Theory and finally another 161 pages long document by V.F.R. Jones called the van Neumann Algebras.

Witten's document has  seven Sections and an Appendix. After the Introduction the next Section is on the Reech-Schlieder Theorem. Witten is an excellent communicator, when he has the time to indulge in pedagogy, so even in case of daunting topics one can relax.

Section 3 is about Modular Operator and the Relative Entropy in Quantum field Theory. Section 4 is about Finite Dimensional Systems and Some Lessons.

Section 5 discusses a Fundamental Example while Section 6 is about Algebras with a Universal Divergence in the Entanglement Entropy.

The last section is about Factorized States and the Appendix about More Holomorphy.

Some Mixed Links

On Jinnah

On Kasganj

Russia Arming Taliban

Punish Pakistan Lovers

Ramachandra Guha wants Muslim to be like him 

The Monk Who Spreads Islamophobia in India

India's Public Intellectuals

 Dhruv Jaishankar in Scroll.in

Amid the hectic Indian conference season – the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in December, the Raisina Dialogue in January, and now the Jaipur Literature Festival – it is worth asking ourselves a simple question. Are we witnessing the dawn or the demise of the public intellectual?

 At one level, everyone with access to a smartphone and an active social media presence is a public intellectual today, or certainly acts like one. It has become easy to share one’s views with a large number of people on Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp or any other social media platform.

 Paradoxically, we also seem to be witnessing the global decline of public intellectualism, as politics becomes more rancorous, the media becomes more clickbait-driven, and academia retreats further into the ivory tower. Moreover, subject matter expertise has become more specialised and siloed, so that we are today less likely to have the archetypal man (or woman) of letters – a Bertrand Russell, John Maynard Keynes, Virginia Woolf, or Michel Foucault.

 On Republic Day, I posed a question to friends on Facebook: Who are the five most important public intellectuals in India today? The inspiration was an article by Tufts University professor Daniel Drezner on his Washington Post blog, which was itself inspired by a tweet. Some of the responses I received were predictable. Former public servant and writer Gopalkrishna Gandhi and the historian Romila Thapar featured prominently. Economists such as Amartya Sen, Kaushik Basu, and Bibek Debroy, who are also fluid writers on a variety of subjects, made appearances. So did conservative writers and political figures like Arun Shourie and Swapan Dasgupta. There were some curious suggestions, including the widely-ridiculed if even more widely-read popular writer Chetan Bhagat.

 Some absences were surprising. No one, for example, mentioned social theorist Ashis Nandy, who would perhaps have been foremost on people’s minds a couple of decades ago. I would also have expected influential figures such as economist Jean Drèze, environmentalist Sunita Narain, sociologist André Béteille, or Yogendra Yadav, Madhu Kishwar, or Mukul Kesavan to have made the cut for some people.

 An assessment of an intellectual’s importance should not be conflated with concurrence or correspondence with one’s personal beliefs. Nor should it simply be correlated to influence or public profile. In this context, I would primarily equate importance with irreplaceability. Whose voices would be felt most by their absence? Obviously, there will be considerable disagreement even on this criterion, but these would be my humble suggestions:

1. Ramachandra Guha: Guha has written eloquently on history, politics, environmentalism, and cricket. No other writer is read as much by aspirants to the Indian civil services examination. Despite its many shortcomings, India After Gandhi still remains the go-to introduction to contemporary India. Until someone else can produce as broad and accessible a body of work, Guha would have to feature on any such list.
2. Pratap Bhanu Mehta: An institution-builder both at the Centre for Policy Research and now at Ashoka University, Mehta has become a household name from his regular newspaper columns. There is no aspect of public policy that has not been covered in his pieces in The Indian Express, and he has driven important work on public institutions. One may disagree with him on many accounts (and many on both the Right and Left certainly do), but few people today drive and shape the discourse on public affairs as much as he does.
3. Shashi Tharoor: If anyone puts the public in public intellectual in India, it is perhaps Tharoor, who writes faster than most of us read. Despite a political perch in the Lok Sabha, he finds time to pen a critique of the British Empire and a commentary on Hinduism, all while remaining a ubiquitous presence in the media, on the conference circuit, and at literary festivals. He is also an active presence on social media and commands some respect across the political aisle. His voice – and vocabulary – remain unique in India’s public sphere.
4. Ashok Malik: My inclusion in this list of Malik – who was appointed press secretary to the president of India in August – might appear the most surprising, but his is the most demonstrable case of importance by (temporary) absence. A journalist and columnist, Malik has written thoughtfully and critically on everything from the business of airlines and television, foreign policy and trade, and regionalism and high politics. Guha, Mehta and Tharoor often defy precise ideological pigeon-holing, but none could be said to be consistently conservative or Right-of-centre. The paucity of prominent Right-wing intellectuals despite having a notionally Right-wing government in power for the past four years in my mind necessitates Malik’s inclusion in such a list. He provides a lucid window into elements of politics, economics, and policy that most Indian intellectuals have long overlooked – and, unfortunately, continue to overlook.
5. Raghuram Rajan: At least one of the five should be an economist, and India has in fact produced its fair share of eminent economists (Jagdish Bhagwati, Arvind Panagariya, and Arvind Subramanian come to mind, in addition to Sen and Basu). A few years ago, Sen would have been the obvious candidate, as India’s only Nobel laureate in economics and writer of The Argumentative Indian, among other less scholarly and more popular works. However, Sen’s legacy has been tarnished somewhat of late, and based on his star power and outspokenness on a variety of issues, Rajan should probably take precedence in such a list today.

 

Lack of diversity

 A significant problem many might have with my list is that all five are elite-educated (Doon School, Oxford, St Stephens, La Martinière, and the Indian Institute of Technology) middle-aged males. Three of the five are based in New Delhi, none belong to religious minorities, and all write primarily in English. At least three of the five are ardent cricket fans. This lack of diversity is a fair criticism.

 While such potential criticism does not alter my submissions, it is only fair to highlight some of the emerging voices contributing in various ways to India’s intellectual discourse. Such a list can never do complete justice to every sector and viewpoint, but people like the prolific political theorist Madhav Khosla, the founder of the Takshashila Institution Nitin Pai, or the former banker and non-fiction writer Sanjeev Sanyal (currently principal economic advisor to the Finance Ministry) come immediately to mind.

 There are also a very large number of women now shaping intellectual trends and undercurrents, among them writer and Financial Times columnist Nilanjana Roy, economist Gita Gopinath (currently an advisor to the chief minister of Kerala), president of the Centre for Policy Research Yamini Aiyar, lawyer Menaka Guruswamy, journalist and author Snigdha Poonam, and the economist (and my Brookings India colleague) Shamika Ravi.

 We also have the phenomenon of non-Indians who comment intelligently and perceptively on several aspects of Indian public life, such as British biographer and historian Patrick French, Nepal-born political journalist Prashant Jha, and Washington-based Indian-American political analyst Milan Vaishnav. I am sure many others would come to mind upon further reflection.

 Some of these names might make it to a list of most important public intellectuals in India in some years’ time. But even a superficial list of such emerging talent shows that while younger voices and women might soon feature more prominently in Indian public discourse, minorities, multilingual writers, and serious Right-of-centre thinkers remain under-represented. This remains something to remedy.

Dhruva Jaishankar is Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at Brookings India.

No Islamophobia There

(A Facebook friend posted a status with which this post begins. The comments too are appended. In fact at the moment the full post is not pasted below but the missing part is small.. I shall comment on the episode later on.)


Muslims really need to come out of their Islamophobiaphobia! Most otherwise seemingly secular folks will suddenly pull out their scimitars at the mention of criminality among ayatollahs. Suddenly all of Islam is under threat of destruction. The brain shuts down. No one will read links to information. Clues that show respectability of information sources, like back links, will be rejected. In effect, every evidence that shows anything negative about Islam, will be rejected out... See More

171 Parijat Misra, Jahanzeb Mashhadi and 169 others

Zohra Javed : We are all enclosed in our squares ... Kisi ke liye Modi kisi ke liye Khomeini kisi aur ke liye Zakir Naik ... And many many more ... So then stay enclosed ... And quiet too ... Don't shout against Modi and co if you cannot hear against The Khomeinis and The Saddams of the world !!!
Rulers are Rulers and they are all the same ... If a religious leader can influence political atmosphere in a country he is no religious leader

Pearly Gill : Zohra Javed....you shine like star on this thread💕

Zohra Javed : Bahot shukriya Pearly Gill ji and Shamim Kunju ji

I am grateful to my mentors ... Virtual though ... Dr Asghar Ali Engineer , Dev Saheb , Dr Badri Raina , Sahir Ludhianvi , The Dalai Lama ... Their writings have showed me the way forward

Makhan Singh : have u ever read the Quran, cover to cover? ya bas awein?

Rajiv Tyagi : Cover bhi koi padhne ki cheez hai kya? Phir bhi padhi. :)

Makhan Singh : sirf cover hi padh k chhor diya. it reflects in ur posts. 😊

Rajiv Tyagi : Cover ke baad baaki jahalat bhi ho sakta hai na? :)

Makhan Singh : wo to padhne k baad hi pata chalega. how can u decide without even reading?

i thot u r a rational person, but u hav disappointed me.

Rajiv Tyagi : No rational person engaged with religion... :)

Mohamed Ameenullah : Knowing or learning is not engaging.
deliberately wants to wipe out religions having no clue of what actually it is,this is no lesser than prejudiced religious people.
Disappointing to see the people whom i've believed to be secular turning into sanghis.

Makhan Singh : rational persons do not believe on hearsay. they put in some effort to find out the truth themselves.

wid each reply u r proving to be an ignorant sheep, simply following the herd, not a rational person. sorry to say tht.

Makhan Singh : u can read Quran to point out its mistakes n errors but u wont do it. coz u r afraid tht ur preconceived ideas abt Islam n Quran might get shattered.

Arshad Abdul Qaiyoom : Rajiv Tyagi. As told by many out here, please do read the Quran! Whatever Makhan Singh has said is absolutely right! Even I feel the same about you. You are defining "religion" by your own notions that you are witnessing by just seeing/observing your surroundings. While that may be the case with many religions that certainly is not the case with Islam. Whatever your post against Islam I can outrightly see the points that you are missing and the ignorance that you are having thats leading you into misunderstanding. I can see this because I'm a student of the religion. I don't like to follow anything blindly! Only when you read the Quran and Prophet Muhammad's biography you'll know what I'm talking abt is the truth. Better late than never bhaii! May God guide you. You are certainly not at a loss by trying out something. But in case what you didn't try out turns out to the truth, then no one can help you. So, its more logical to try out something than leaving it untouched.

Preet K S Bedi : Et tu, Brutus? What compelled u to see logic?

Rajiv Tyagi : I don't need to strive and strain to do that, Preet... :)

Yusuf Siddiqui : And you got the opportunity;Et tu ,Mr bedi?

Preet K S Bedi : Der aaye durust aaye. Islamophobia is an interesting catch-all condition. Let's see how long the infection lasts.

Preet K S Bedi : I don't need to make an effort. The world's fastest growing community (sic!) revels in victimhood 24x7. Gives me enough and more opportunities to tear into its humbug.

Umer Khan : U reminds me the late Indira Gandhi ji .Preet K S Bedi

Preet K S Bedi : That is bad news for me. Luckily I care a rats unwashed posterior about your certification so it's OK.

Tarique Khan : As if others care about your 'esteemed' rant.

Yusuf Siddiqui : Preet K S Bedi If i may,your criticism to only one form of extremist looks fake when one wears religious extremism on his head to cheek to toe. Try Gillette 3 shaver,it works wonder,try different hairstyle,it's normal. Wish,you ain't in a rat race to wipe out other extremism to protect yours..get over wounded psyche of dhimmitude...it ain't real.

Yusuf Siddiqui : Sudarshan Udyavar I pity your miniscule intellect,ofcourse,wearing religious symbols including scull cap,tilak,choti,turban etc are meant to flaunt your faith and not fashion. Unless,it doesn't harm me or question others,it's fair but to question other one has to remove his. Simple.

Preet K S Bedi : Hahaha jaane do. When irrespective of gender u r castrated at a young age u can only think of Gillette blades! Btw Mohammed whose preaching Muslims garbaged literally the day he died, wore a headdress much like the turban. So did Abu Bakr Umar Othman and Ali. But it's OK they were Muslims. Unlike today's castrated cattle which carries Islamic names but garbages it's own.

Yusuf Siddiqui : A bit correction,not castrated but circumcised and that's custom not religion. I understand People who dwelled in Sand ,weared turban to protect themselves from Sun heat but i fail to see your reason/s ,sitting in AC rooms,driving in cool cars?

Preet K S Bedi : No no castrated. That's why the world's fastest growing community lacks the balls to even talk reform. And the three people who do all have fatwas against their name while thousands are raped and killed in the name of Allah and castrates remain silent. Castrated community. Both C's in caps.

Yusuf Siddiqui : Preet K S Bedi If my advice matters,i have suggestion,try Circumcision,you still have life..bet you won't repent.
I am all open for reforms but your start is quite poor..too rhetoric and i see your turban justification purely whataboutery. Any rational,i would hear,else we often hit each other.

Preet K S Bedi : Yes but the mullahs cut your balls. Pity u never even figured!

Yusuf Siddiqui : Ha Ha! I wonder ,why your intellectual arguments end with BALLS? It's cold storage for semens without which one can't breed . Hope,we aren't in a fight 'my balls are stronger than yours' you sounding funny!
1
Preet K S Bedi : Knowing the biology does not mean u have the balls.

Preet K S Bedi : As for breeding which is possibility only achievement the community has, if I were u I would check with the women.

Yusuf Siddiqui : My ball-logy instinct suggests,it's time to bid adieu,you have no further rational arguments left.
Wish to see you clean shaven and parted hair or jelled one..when we hit next time. 😊

Preet K S Bedi : May be the burqa and other instruments of misogyny including FGM r not as effective as u think

Yusuf Siddiqui : We can touch other subjects ,may be on some other day. You being too impatient,need solution in a single pckage...Ciao ! Ciao!

Preet K S Bedi : Really? The mass murderer Khomeini returned in 1979. 9×11 happened in 2001. Thousands have been kidnapped raped and killed since then both in internecine wars between shias and Sunnis since then. And continue to be killed. What had begun with Muslim Brotherhood has spawned into mujahidin, hizbul, al qaeda, boko, al shabaab, LeT, ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah and dozens of others, each of which have killed and continue to kill by the day. And the world is expected to wait while the ghantadhari moderate Muslim acquires some balls and demand reform? Lolol. That it doesn't embarrass u is a miracle by itself. But so is the community of castrates.

Preeti Khaneja Kalra : Preet K S Bedi sharp & on fleek!

Danish Haroon : Rajiv tyagi, please teach your own community first that there is shambhu lal, karni sena, rss, bajrang dal,hindu yuva vahini, shiv sena, what the hell is this. You really don't know about islam, you just a google fact man run by zoinist ass holes. Nxt tym read quran in our mother tongue "hindi". Of you don't have inbox me, i will send you.

Omer Ghazi : Kaise kaise chutiya log hain...

Danish Haroon : Omer Ghazi, please indinetify chutiya is it me or admin. Lol

Faisal Saeed :  He is just another sanghi in garb of atheist

Sumeet Dutt Rishi : Funny! How quickly he became a sanghi and yet I never see a squeak when he tirades against sanghi’s!! I guess this liberal islamophobia is a real thing.

Adam A Khan :  He’s a sanghi atheist lol 😂

Faisal Saeed :  Funny how hidden sanghis when exposed react....

Iqbal Ahmad : the Qur'an talks about compassion, kindness and mercy, but most of the Muslims just talk about jihad, there's nothing better and advisable than mercy and compassion, but thanks to the mulla when we talk about Muslim there is always jihad somewhere in our mind

Satyajit Dash : Proud of you

Mohinder Bir Pal Singh : Such people are better known as manipulators! They are omnipresent in all religions! It's the blind faith in sermons that drive the followers haywire! Very well described Iqbal Ahmad sir!

Iqbal Ahmad : i assure you it's the mostly uneducated between who the hardline clergy have some influence, because the poor and uneducated can not research and find out what should be ideally followed, it's the same in neighboring nations of Pakistan and Bangladesh, where the middle and upper middle are largely secular and open minded, progressive

Arun P Mathew : Yes. A mdieval belief system will have aspects which are incompatible to modern life. If anyone says they cannot be criticised, that may not be agreeable to the rest. And yes,i have read the Quran and Hadiths to know this!

Yusuf Siddiqui : Ha Ha! Seen you being stung by Iran fans,same bunch of crusaders who often claim Iran as a peaceful and Sacred Nation It was quite humourous to see them defending Khomeni's extremism who killed lakhs of gullible followers.

Abhishek Singh:  Muslim bros, many of need to adopt a rational and secular outlook. u need to understand there is nothing absolute and everything keeps on changing with time except for truth, justice etc

Zohra Javed : Love the concluding sentence ... So true really ... :-D

Nadir Aslam : Rajiv Tyagi I remember reading this a few or many years back.But don't really know whose thinking it was or whose order it was.Whether it actually happened or it was only a rumor.My God is not going to send someone to heaven only because she was a virgin :) A virgin can go to hell for wrongs committed while even a non virgin can go to heaven if she was good.

Ashok Soni : Every Religion is a Political Party!

Sandeep Das : I'm much younger to you, Tyagi Sir, currently
we should not deviate from the Dushman.. Your point is right.. but I think we could debate it later..

Shariq MB : Right, Sandeep. And the Dushman is Communalism, prejudice, and hatred, which groups and certain individuals practice. Sadly, even well-meaning folks can fall into that trap and fan prejudice inadvertently because they failed to be judicious and believe everything as the Gospel of Truth. ;) 😂

Nishith Gupta : Dushman....hahaha...what a idiotic comment

Mobin Khaja : Agree

Shafi Patel : A belief system is different from many of its adherents,marketeers and exploiters. Atheism and agnosticism are no different in this respect.

Rajiv Joshi : If one is not sure about truth in their faith, then they are angry.If the faith petmits one to reason and discard what can not be justified and evolve then one is not scared of opposite views.

Manvendra Bhangui:  Just mugging your favourite 'Fairy Tale' by heart doesn't make one a scholar. None of these Ayatollahs were scholars and especially someone who orders assassination of a real scholar like Salman Rushdie.

Ashok R. Mundhada : Or actually murders Gauri Lankesh for that matter.

Kalyani Iyengar : You are no chicken definitely, forget a hen😜😜

Tushqa Manish Chawdhry : Bicharay religious people.. They are nothing but bahut buri tarah daray hue log. Arre bhai yeh he narak hae, marnay kae baad he narak sae chutkara milay ga 🤣

Shahid Anwar : Scratch a non believer and he will show his communal fangs.

Abhishek Tyagi : So long as people see you as a 'born' Hindu commenting on the Right wing Sanghis and Hinduism in general, you are a balanced secular, liberal person. The moment you comment on any other religion, people demand that you read their scriptures better to p...See More

Sankara Pillai : What a bhaktha you are!

Md Zishan Ahmed Kaif : Don't know why people are ashamed... Of things they do... The Quran talks about compassion, mercy kindness, humanity, but at the same time it ask to take action against unlawful activities... No need to come with interpretation that suits ur kind

Sachin Parashar : Dissolve all Religions and keep the Constitution OR keep One Religion and dissolve the Constitution. They can never go parallel.

Makhan Singh : Rajiv Tyagi ji it's time for u to take a sabbatical from FB. u seem to b fatigued. tht's why making absurd arguments.
To critique an omlette one definitely doesnt need to become a hen but only needs to eat the omlette. else, he/she doesn't hav any right to critique it.

Ashik Parvez Ahmed : Don’t judge a book by its cover. An intelligent person should read the Quran without any bias or prejudice.

Rafiq Lasne : Rajiv Tyagi sir... superbly said. (Y)

Khushnood Nizami : Is it a crime to be religious

Syed Aasim : देखना है, बहुत लंबा पोस्ट है

Mohd Arslan : I wonder why you have big constitutional book?? Instruction manuals?? And i am sure most of you don’t even read terms and conditions of most things and yet they are there. GET A LIFE!! And update your android!!😂😂

Preeti Khaneja Kalra : Kudos to you for saying that Rajiv tyagi! hope u understand how needful it is for our society that liberals like u with such an expansive following, come forth & raise such points!,,Not surprised by the resistance of your Muslim friends who are taking it in a sour note though!

Pearly Gill:  .......so funny ....every time you put up a post on Islam....all your wonderful,cheery followers/friends go for your jugular.
The double standards of these people is mind blowing.

Versailles Thomas : True! call out the assholes who are fucking it up instead of just isolating yourself from it and saying that's not us..The perpetrator is doing it with his clarity of the faith that he's following...

Faisal Saeed : He is just another sanghi in garb of an atheist

Sachin S : And CIA and zionists are behind this , right ? 😂😂

T Jayaraman on CPI(M) Keeping a Distance from Congress

  
  The roots of the rise of Hindutva lie in substantial measure in the nature of Congress rule and in particular the UPA governments of 2004 to 2014.
Many commentators, in the mainstream and on social media, have been urging the Left to align with the Congress in preparation for the parliamentary elections due next year. Several of them, who have been harping on the theme for some months now, turned harshly critical when the Communist Party of India (Marxist) recently announced that it was against electoral tie-ups in any form with the Congress.

 A substantial part of such commentary emerges from sections who believe that the defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2019 is of such overriding importance that all other political considerations should be put aside. Alongside this view, such commentators also present increasingly extreme characterisations of the BJP, with any attempt to inject some sobriety or realism into such assessments being met with the charge of downplaying the danger that Hindutva represents..
Any strategy to deal with Hindutva must obviously begin from the acknowledgement of the basic point that the CPI(M) has always made – that the roots of its rise to the current state lie in substantial measure in the nature of Congress rule and in particular the UPA governments of 2004 to 2014. It was the determined pursuit of neoliberal policies by the Congress (and state governments of the non-Left variety) that had alienated the people, with little improvement in their general well-being on a mass scale – a failure that Hindutva seized, promising development.

 Further, given the hold that Hindutva has obtained on Indian society as a whole, across various spheres of national life, mere electoral defeat is hardly the key to halting its advance. Without mass mobilisation on issues that affect the people and without winning a substantial section of the people away from Hindutva ideology, through mass movements for secular and democratic advance, banking on electoral arithmetic alone is likely to be of little use and indeed diversionary. Such mobilisation cannot have unity with the Congress party as its basis, when the alienation of the people at large from it has formed part of the very basis of the rise of Hindutva.

 Events of the last two years lend substantial weight to this understanding – one has only to recall the collapse of the Nitish Kumar-led mahagatbandhan experiment that was much touted at the time of its victory (and the Left excoriated for its non-participation in this alliance) and the failure of the Akhilesh Yadav-Rahul Gandhi led combine in the Uttar Pradesh elections, returning the BJP to power in a virulent avatar in a state where it had not succeeded for almost 15 years. In retrospect, it is clear that even the defeat that Hindutva forces suffered in the 2004 elections was merely a temporary setback, from which they emerged to victory, considerably strengthened, in 2014, led by none other than Narendra Modi, the figure who represented the nadir of the earlier spell of Hindutva rule.,


  On the other hand, from the large-scale mobilisations of farmers in the agitations of Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and the workers’ rally in Delhi, to the prompt condemnation by incensed scientists against the obscurantist remarks of the minister of state for education on teaching evolution, from the mobilisation at Una to the protests at Bhima Koregaon and their aftermath, and the long-drawn student agitations in a number of leading universities – all of these speak to the scope for mobilisation against Hindutva. To convert the energies and advances of such movements into lasting political capital is undoubtedly the challenge.
But why does the enthusiasm for Left-Congress unity override this logic even among some on the Left and in sections otherwise well-disposed to the CPI(M)? Ever since independence, it has been a persistent illusion among a section of progressive opinion that the Congress is in fact a viable vehicle for the project of secular and democratic nation-building. Since the Congress has been the dominant political formation for the better part of post-independence India, even after the communal danger became significant, it is tempting to attribute all forward movement in any sphere of national life to the leadership of the Congress.
Unfortunately what this one-sided view misses is the responsibility of the Congress for all that has not been achieved, and that the Congress had presided over the pursuit of a path of development that had fundamental contradictions, leading to the all-round crisis that began enveloping the Indian state at the beginning of the 1990s.

 

 

 Even after the sharp, rightward shift in economic policy, the illusion has persisted that if not the Congress, other parliamentary coalitions could be the vehicle for a radical movement forward, with the Congress, even if reluctantly, being somehow forced to join. This has been further sustained by the fact that the two responses of the Indian state to the crises of the 1990s, economic reform on the one hand and the push to abandon the secular ideal on the other, have been led by two different parties, the Congress and the BJP respectively.
In reality, this has not stopped the latter from embracing economic reform when in power (however critical they may have been in opposition) and the former from discreetly avoiding head-on engagement with the anti-secular agenda. Both of course have come together in lining up to become a camp follower of the US in foreign policy.

  Unfortunately though, if in an earlier era a section of progressive opinion was seduced by the slogan of Congress socialism, it is now seduced by the slogan of Congress secularism, ignoring the reality that it is the whole gamut of Congress policies that have paved the way for the rise of Hindutva. The dithering and inaction of the P.V. Narasimha Rao government on the eve of the Babri Masjid demolition and the UPA’s refusal in 2004 to heed Harkishen Singh Surjeet’s (then CPI(M) general secretary) call to “detoxify” the government of RSS influence are two outstanding examples of the compromising stance of the Congress on secularism.

 The record of the CPI(M) shows that it chose, since its formation, a completely different course. In an earlier era, in the 1960s and 70s, it stood out in its refusal to tail the Congress, holding it responsible, as the key representative of India’s ruling elite, for the condition of the masses. It led a rising wave of resistance and opposition to Congress rule across the country wherever its strength allowed, leveraging in some areas the effect of other currents of opposition, even while being critical of their shortcomings.

Within ten years, with the Emergency, the correctness of its assessment was amply demonstrated. The party emerging in the post-Emergency era with substantial gains in its strength and mass following, in striking contrast to the diminution of the strength of the Communist Party of India. In the subsequent years, one of the testing periods was that of the V.P. Singh-led National Front government, to which the CPI(M) provided outside support, with the BJP providing another supportive crutch to him.


Critics of the party’s current position would do well to go back to its public, and frankly self-critical, analysis of its political tactics over the last 25 years adopted at its Visakhapatnam congress. This analysis highlighted the fact that the pursuit of electoral alliances, however fruitful in the short term, had led to distraction from the key issue of building the independent strength of the Left and democratic movement, without whose significant presence no stable political shift away from Hindutva could be consolidated.

  The CPI(M)’s latest decision has followed this understanding, even if, as is well known, there have been strains earlier in implementing this line in the Bengal assembly elections. Critics would do well to give credit to the fact that the CPI(M)’s view arises from a well-argued and well-debated understanding, with an objective view of ground realities and not falling for illusions of grandeur. It certainly is not the product of mere inner-party factionalism or the product of seeking some opportunistic, short-term gains as innuendos in the media have made out.

 There can be no short-cut to fighting Hindutva. We are in for the long-haul and it will be a grim fight indeed. But panic-stricken and hasty assessments and the search for quickfire solutions through hasty electoral alliances have not worked for the last 25 years. They are unlikely to do so in the future too.


T. Jayaraman teaches and undertakes research in climate change, sustainable development and science policy at TISS.. The views expressed here are personal.

Source : The Wire

Riemann-Roch Theorem Redux

Riemann-Roch theorem is a mathematical assertion. It occurs in different branches suited to the occasion. Originally it is in complex analysis. There is a version for the surfaces. The version for algebraic varieties was given by Hirzebruch. The algebraic geometry version was given by Grothendiek. The version for higher genus is by Faltings. The investigations in Algebraic topology are associated with the names of Atiyah, Singer and Patodi. In Physics investigations by Edward Witten have very fundamental implications.

In this note we would like to demystify some of the aura associated with this fundamental and deep result in a plain language to the extent possible with our capabilities. We shall take up the topic from the point of view of the above mentioned different contexts and go through them.

(Developing article)