Thoughts From India

Games on Demand

Airtel has launched a new <a href="http://202.46.201.184/airtel/index.jsp">Games on Demand</a> service. The wonderful thing about this is that, it is quite affordable (Rs.199) and gives you legal access to quite a lot of games.

You use Airtel Broadband to download the install the games, as if from a CD and you are ready to go. Just had a quick look at the games and they seem to be quite good. A few of my favorites like AOE and Rise of Nations are there, though not the latest version.

Still this is a good beginning and I think will hopefully get more people to use legal versions of these games.

The only caveat is that this is currently available only for airtel broadband customers. So if you are using a competing broadband service, then you are out of luck.

Is teaching only FOS good?

Kerala, one of the neighboring states has just decided that it would move completely to Linux and Free software at all of its schools, according to a article in FT.

It is being hailed as a big win for the FOS movement and a blow to Microsoft. I can see advantages to the following groups:

1. Government - Saves a lot of cost, licensing software for the schools. I know that Microsoft offers huge discounts under its academic programs, but still there would be some money involved, which should logically go away. I don't know if all machines will switch to Linux, but I suspect there would be pirated copies of Windows now running, so that people can use Office..:)

2. The Hardware Vendors - It clearly states in the article that HW vendors get a better margin, selling Linux based hardware, as they do not have licensing cost.

Linux PC dealers are upbeat. “Offers of pre-loaded Linux operating system could fetch good hardware sales margins,” says PK Harikrishnan, president, Kerala Computer Manufacturers’ and Dealers’ Association. There are other reasons as well. A sting operation by Microsoft in October 2005 had not endeared the proprietary software to PC and peripherals dealers

But what about the students?? Currently if you see the software development industry a majority of the new development is evenly split between .NET and Java. Most of the Java development is usually done on Windows, though the target OS may be something else. So the students in Kerala schools are deprived of working on a platform that is used in more than 80% of the desktops.

At the student level, it is imperative to work with all major platforms so as to understand them and be more employable when you move out of college. They should learn Windows, Linux and even one of the major UNIX platforms if available, to get to understand how software work. It is not the time to decide on taking a stand on which is the best platform to work on, rather to understand every platform.

This decision of the Kerala government ignores the students' need of exposure to multiple platforms completely.

Education and Democracy

Usually when people talk about the ills of Indian democracy they usually always talk about how the lack of education has made Indian politicians corrupt and not responsible for their actions. Though I accept that the Indian political system is corrupt and is the single most important reason for the slow growth in the last 50 years, an article I read a few days back also makes me think if it is only the illiteracy to blame?

A recent survey in the US (one of the so called developed nations) came up with the astonishing results that more than 50% of the Americans now believe that Iraq had WMD and that it was part of the plot of 9/11. Surprisingly this was not the case a year or so ago and this was cited in the article as proof of the success of the current governments handling of media and how it is able to convince people that its going to war with Iraq was a correct decision.

So it actually does not make any difference if you are educated or not, if people are always gullible politicians will always take advantage of it. :(