Now, a tech that recognises words like humans do

Washington: PTI





Researchers at Microsoft claimed to have developed the first technology that recognises the words in a conversation as well as humans do.A team in Microsoft Artificial Intelligence and Research created a speech recognition system that makes the same or fewer errors than professional transcriptionists. The system had a word error rate (WER) of 5.9% -the lowest ever recorded against the industry standard Switchboard speech recognition task.
The research milestone does not mean the computer recognised every word perfectly . In fact, humans do not do that, either. Instead, it means that the error rate -or the rate at which the computer misheard a word like “have“ for “is“ or “a“ for “the“ -is the same as you would expect from a person hearing the same conversation.
“We've reached human parity ,“ Xuedong Huang, the company's chief speech scientist said. The milestone means that, for the first time, a computer can recognise the words in a conversation as well as a person would. The milestone comes after decades of research in speech recognition, beginning in the early 1970s with DARPA, the US agency tasked with making technology breakthroughs. “This accomplishment is the culmination of over twenty years of effort,“ said Geoffrey Zweig, who manages the Speech and Dialog research group.
The milestone will have broad implications for consumer and business products that can be significantly augmented by speech recognition. That includes entertainment devices like the Xbox, accessibility tools such as instant speech-totext transcription and personal digital assistants such as Cortana.

Source: Times of India, 20-10-2010

Indian amongst top winners of Green Talents 2016, to be awarded at the Alumni Conference

New Delhi: The Green Talents Award held under the patronage of the German Research Minister Professor Johanna Wanka is recognizing young talented researchers for the eighth time and providing a platform to share their innovative and creative ideas which aim to answer pressing sustainability and environmental protection questions of our time. A high-ranking jury of experts selected 25 up-and-coming scientists out of 757 applications from over 104 countries. The award consists of the “Green Talents – International Forum for High Potentials in Sustainable Development” where the awardees travel through Germany for two weeks, to visit hotspots of green science and to meet the sustainability research elite. In the following year, the Green Talents have the possibility to conduct research in Germany for up to three months.

This year’s “Green Talents” can expect to interact with leading experts and some of the most renowned research institutions and companies, including the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Hamburg University of Technology, the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Siemens AG and the Southern African Service Center for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management. 

India’s ‘Smart City‘project, and other recent initiatives established to form a sustainable region involving citizens, also focuses on aspects such as environmental and other green initiatives which has been a priority since the Urban Renewal Mission Plan. 

The 25 awardees will be honoured during a festive award ceremony at the Green Talents Alumni Meeting 2016 attended by representatives of the participating institutions, their experts, jury members, politicians and other distinguished guests. Minister Professor Johanna Wanka will open the conference; Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, will hold a keynote speech on “Climate effects and vulnerability.”

Shamik Chowdhury (29), an Indian PhD student in Environmental Engineering from the National University of Singapore is also one of the Green Talents attending the awards ceremony. His specialisation area, ‘Green synthesis of Graphene Structures’, to provide innovative societal solutions for a sustainable development platform, really impressed the jury. 

The conference’s highly diversified programme offers all of its participants countless networking possibilities. During the conference Green Talents can get connected to the science community and exchange ideas with key innovators and lay the foundations for future cooperation. Such efforts are supported by the invitation to return to Germany for a fully funded research stay at an institution of the Green Talent’s choice in the year after the award.

Both conference and festive award ceremony will be held on 27 October 2016 at Kosmos, Berlin. 

Source: indiaeducationdiary, 18-10-2016

Copyright as exception

Free competition and access to knowledge have been the default legal norm for many a nation.

In a thought-provoking piece, Krishna Kumar, a former NCERT chairman, argues that the Delhi University (DU) copyright decision encourages students to merely photocopy and skirt the more laudable aim of reading full books.

Speaking from personal experience, I was educated at the National Law School, Bangalore on course packs, where readings from different authors were excerpted and presented to us. When I yearned for more, I simply went to the library and picked up the full book. That is what a course pack does, or at least is meant to do. It is not meant to extinguish one’s fire for learning, but to kindle it. If in practice, it does no such thing but simply inspires students to regurgitate, that is not the fault of course packs but of the instructional methodology and uninspiring teachers. Kumar is right to the extent that our educational ecosystem suffers from some of the worst pedagogical woes.

However, his implicit suggestion that reversing the recent copyright verdict in favour of publishers will remedy this malady suffers from a striking logical fallacy. Restricting the right to photocopy will not automatically swing students towards savouring full texts. In fact, publishers themselves are hoping for this photocopy culture to continue — the only difference is that in their commoditised world, these copies — each and every page — have to be paid for.

Publishers know all too well that students are not their market. Had it been otherwise, they would have priced the books much more affordably. In an empirical study conducted some years ago, we demonstrated that a number of legal and social science texts were prohibitively expensive. The latest editions were not often available in India. Rather publishers were content with dumping old outdated editions at lower prices in India. As for the latest editions, they had to be imported at considerable cost, often exceeding those charged in the western markets, home to many of these profiteering publishers.

Kumar bemoans the fact that publisher profits have taken a big hit and they deserved to have their coffers filled. But where is the data for this?

From a layman’s perspective, photocopying has been rampant for well over 30 years in India. This is the first such copyright suit to be brought against an Indian educational institution. Had photocopying really eaten into publisher revenues, would this industry have survived in India?

Couldn’t one argue that course packs pump up publisher revenues in the long run by popularising authors to students who may otherwise have never heard of them? Little wonder then that a great number of authors signed a joint petition — which was submitted to the court — supporting the stand of students in carving up this clear legal zone for copying without being assaulted by an overarching copyright norm. A wisdom echoed by the sensible Amartya Sen!

This law suit is not about any serious economic damage suffered by publishers. Rather, it’s an avaricious attempt to cash in on an additional revenue stream that publishers have been salivating over for years. In the meanwhile, the Indian Reprographic Rights Organisation went around warning universities of dire copyright consequences if they didn’t pay up. All of this while the law suit was being fought and DU was legitimately arguing that the copyright exception permits such copying.

But what’s the harm in permitting them this privilege, you might ask? After all, aren’t these just a few extra pennies for the photocopied pages? Wrong! These pennies will soon convert to pounds as the Canadian experience amply reveals, where licensing fees were jacked up over the years to unaffordable levels, forcing universities to walk out of their licensing arrangements.

Contrary to popular belief, this path-breaking ruling by the Delhi High Court does not provide a carte blanche for full text copying. Rather the only issue before the judge was whether the copying of excerpts from books for the purpose of creating and disseminating course packs is legal. The judge ruled that the law was clear on this point and it exempted course pack copying. If the language of the law needs change in the near future to accommodate the concerns of the publishers (that without this additional copyright tax, they will go down under), then that policy case will have to be empirically made out by publishers. Till then, as the judge rightly alludes to, educational access is the controlling norm and copyright the mere exception.

Tis’ as it should be: For free competition and access to knowledge has always been the default legal norm for many a nation, with a former US president going so far as to label intellectual property (IP) as an “embarrassment” to be suffered only for the larger “public benefit”.

Unfortunately, powerful IP lobbies have successfully reversed the burden of proof and framed a narrative to trump up IP as the controlling default norm, and any carve out (such as educational access) as an “exception”, to be be grudgingly granted only upon strict empirical validation.

Reversing the copyright verdict will not sway our students towards highly priced academic books; rather it will restrict learning even further by imposing an additional educational cess.

The writer is Honorary Research Chair Professor of IP Law at Nirma University and the founder of SpicyIP

Source: Indian Express, 19-10-2016

Personal laws and the Constitution

The Centre’s categorical stand that personal laws should be in conformity with the Constitution will be of immense assistance to the Supreme Court in determining the validity of practices such as triple talaq and polygamy. By arguing that such practices impact adversely on the right of women to a life of dignity, the Centre has raised the question whether constitutional protection given to religious practices should extend even to those that are not in compliance with fundamental rights. The distinction between practices essential or integral to a particular religion, which are protected under Article 25, a provision that seeks to preserve the freedom to practise and propagate any religion, and those that go against the concepts of equality and dignity, which are fundamental rights, is something that the court will have to carefully evaluate while adjudicating the validity of the Muslim practices under challenge. From the point of view of the fundamental rights of those affected, mostly women, there is a strong case for these practices to be invalidated. The idea that personal laws of religions should be beyond the scope of judicial review, and that they are not subject to the Constitution, is inherently abhorrent. The affidavit in which the All India Muslim Personal Law Board sought to defend triple talaq and polygamy is but an execrable summary of the patriarchal notions entrenched in conservative sections of society.

This is not the first time that aspects of Muslim personal law have come up for judicial adjudication. On triple talaq, courts have adopted the view that Islam does not sanction divorce without reason or any attempt at reconciliation, and that talaq would not be valid unless some conditions are fulfilled. There are judgments that say the presence of witnesses during the pronouncement of talaq, sound reasons for the husband to seek a divorce and some proof that an attempt was made for conciliation are conditions precedent for upholding a divorce. The present petition before the Supreme Court seeks a categorical ruling that talaq-e-bidat — an irrevocable form of triple talaq that is permitted but considered undesirable in Islam — is unconstitutional. There are many who contend that instant divorce is not allowed, and that the triple talaq has to be spread over a specified time period, during which there are two opportunities to revoke it. Only the articulation of the third makes it irrevocable. It should be possible for the court to test these practices for compliance with the Constitution.

Keywords: triple talaq, polygamy, Personal laws, Constitution, All India Muslim Personal Law Board, judiciary, judicial review, Supreme Court

Source: The Hindu, 19-10-2016

Three Gifts From A Father To His Daughter

Marguerite Theophil





Often gifts come to us in ways we may not appreciate or even like.Or we realise they are gifts only through hindsight or deep reflection.There is a story from China about the handing over of the gift of wisdom ­ a gift that need not come wrapped in lengthy sermons or heavy tomes.
Once, there lived a sage. A man of very few words, he taught through stories or gestures. The day came when his beloved daughter celebrated her 20th birthday . According to the customs of her people, this marked the end of her youth and the beginning of adulthood.
The young woman received many beautiful gifts, among them an exquisitely carved casket from her father who instructed her that she should only open it when she was alone, just before she slept and after she had done her evening meditation. Preparing to go to bed, she picked up her father's gift and opening it, she found three equally beautiful smaller caskets within, with a note from the sage that invited her to open the red one first, the white one next, and the gold one last.
Opening the red one, she found a beautiful mirror with a silver frame. She looked at her reflection and her smiling, delighted face smiled back at her. Then she noticed some words carved on the handle.`The Present You' it read, and she nodded, pleased, and set it carefully aside.
Eagerly she opened the white box, and recoiled, startled. It contained a skull carved in crystal. Wondering why her father had chosen this symbol of death, she hesitantly reached out to take it out of the box and examine it, and noticed some words etched into the base: `The Future You', it read.
Still shaken, she waited a long while before reaching for the gold box. She wondered whether it contained something beautiful and pleasing like the mirror or something puzzling and distressing like the crystal skull.
Finally, overcome by curio sity, she opened it. In it was a wooden figurine of the Buddha.
Lifting it out, the burnished wood exuded a warm glow. The expression of serenity on the face calmed her. By now she knew she should look for some words, and found an inscription on the base of the statue. `The Eternal You', it read.
The daughter understood her father's precious teachings. The mirror not only reflected her physical self to her each time, over the years she would look into it; it invited her to the lesson of self-reflection. She was to regularly ask herself if she acted in accordance with the highest teachings, what the possible consequences of her decisions and actions might be, and what more she needed to learn to lead a good life.
Though she had just turned 20, the second gift was a reminder of human mortality , and she was being asked to live as if each moment could be her last, appreciating every small thing in her life.
The third gift and message was the sage's most important one to his daughter. It instructed her that the Buddha is not just someone to revere, or someone to become ­ it was what deep down she already was.
Each of us has been given the same three gifts, even if we have no mirror, skull or Buddha statue. We can examine and influence the direction of our `present' self; we can live with the awareness that each moment is precious, and with the knowledge that we are all Buddhas, only perhaps for now `densely clouded'.

Heart attacks, lung disease, strokes 3 worst killers in India

Subodh Varma





Together Account For One-Third Of All Deaths

Heart attacks, lung obstruction and strokes are the three top causes of death in India, accounting for over one-third of deaths. Along with diabetes and chronic kidney diseases, they make five non-communicable diseases that are part of the top ten causes of death.Communicable diseases in the top 10 include lower respiratory tract diseases like bronchitis and pneumonia, diarrhoea, TB and diseases occurring to prematurely born babies. Road injuries are the tenth most prevalent cause of death. Together, these 10 make up 60% of the 10.3 million deaths every year.
The even mix of communicable diseases and non communicable ones caused by organs failing due to age or lifestyle choices, puts India in the middle of a disease transition seen across the world.
These results are from the Global Burden of Diseases 2015, an estimation of 249 causes of death in 195 countries by an international team of researchers led by the Seattle-based Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, and published recently in Lancet. “With improvement in tre atment by antibiotics and better understanding, deaths by infectious diseases have declined while sedentary lives, longer lifespans and other lifestyle habits have pushed up the proportion of non-communicable diseases in India,“ said Dr Amit Sengupta, an expert affiliated to the Peoples' Health Movement. The persistence of three eminently treatable in fectious diseases and the lack of care in eliminating preterm baby deaths points to the still lagging healthcare system, as also lack of safe drinking water and sanitation,“ he added.
India's position in the middle of the transition from a poor, healthcare-deficient country to an advanced country is brought out starkly when compared with examples from such countries.In Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, with a per capita gross domestic product less than one-fifth of India's, eight of the top ten causes of death are communicable diseases. At the other extreme, Norway , with per capita gross domestic product over ten times that of India, has just one communicable disease -lower respiratory tract infections -among its top ten, with the other nine being non-communicable diseases.
China, which started off from conditions similar to India, has moved much further towards the advanced end of the transition. It too has only one infectious diseases among its top ten causes of death.
Both India and China have road injuries as one of the major causes of death due to large populations and a rapidly growing number of vehicles on the roads. The large number of types of vehicles (from cycles and bullock carts to fast moving cars) also contributes to high number of road injuries.
A striking feature of India's death-causing diseases profile is that all the noncommunicable diseases are increasing while all the infectious diseases are declining compared with a decade ago. Diabetes as a cause of death has grown at a chilling 35% between 2005 and 2015, chronic kidney disease by 21% and heart attacks by 17% even as communicable disease deaths have dropped by 20 to 30% while preterm baby deaths dropped by 40%.
Times View
A major part of the deaths due to infectious diseases can be eliminated if only we could provide clean drinking water and adequate sanitation to the entire population. The example of China, a country with an equally large population that was at a similar level of development not so long ago, shows the task is far from impossible. Yet, governments in India have failed to do enough to fulfil this basic human need. It is time such preventive healthcare got the attention and resources it deserves. It is quite literally a matter of life and death and millions of lives hang in the balance.

Source: Times of India, 19-102015

Nurturing creative energy

The 18-month programme of the Natya Institute of Kathak and Choreography, Bengaluru, focuses on quintessential choreography skills — concept, movement creation, music, stage and so on. An interview with director Madhu Natraj Kiran on what the institute offers.

Stroll down 17th cross Malleshwaram in Bengaluru and a sneak peak into building number 37 will give you a glimpse of sheer poetry in motion. Hands in precise, brisk movements, feet flying in rhythmic motion even as the tinkle of theghungroos are heard, bodies moving in perfect harmony — it is a Kathak session in progress at the Natya Institute of Kathak and Choreography (NIKC). Madhu Natraj Kiran, director, talks about the institute’s specially crafted 18-month diploma programme in choreography and what is different this time around.

Started in 1964, NIKC was established by Padma Vibhushan Kamala Chattopadhyay under the aegis of Bharatiya Natya Sangh, the Indian Centre of International Theatres Institutions Trust, UNESCO. The intent behind setting up the institute was to impart methodical training in the art of choreography. A little over two decades later, in 1987, NIKC was set up in Bengaluru at the request of then Chief Minister, Ramakrishna Hegde, and was moulded by an array of veteran artists. Its format was designed by Dr. Maya Rao who played an instrumental role in popularising Kathak in Karnataka. Excerpts from the interview...

Why a course in choreography? What kind of a response has the NIKC elicited over the years?

NIKC is a 52-year-old institution birthed by choreographer and Guru Dr Maya Rao and the illustrious leader Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay. Our alumni and graduates are spread across the world and many are renowned choreographers, performers, writers and educators. They have also created path-breaking projects in the fields of therapy, healing, management and the public sector through the medium of dance.

The institute offers a bachelor’s degree in choreography. Why was there a sudden need to introduce a diploma in the field?

The decision is not sudden at all. We were waiting to see our final-year batch through before announcing this new course. However, in keeping with the dictates of a society that feels degrees are imperative, we affiliated ourselves with the Bangalore University for two decades. A comprehensive course like ours needs creative freedom and global access.

The course has been redesigned after 20 years. What is different about it now?

Dr. Maya Rao brought this course to India in the mid-1960s with a vision to create systematic training in dance for today’s dancers. I have worked with her closely to continually update the course in keeping with the changing movement, academic and pedagogic needs of the times. So, the course has evolved and has been fashioned on the lines of international liberal arts programmes with subjects and courses created within credit systems. It is not confined to conventional assessment modules. Through seminars, field work, interactions with experts, research and documentation projects combined with classroom productions which they create, students are given multiple opportunities to showcase their creative spirit.

What sets this course apart from others of its kind?

We stand out as the only course which focuses on choreography. Most others are dance or movement-based arts. Here, we take in students from varying dance vocabularies — such as Manipuri or contemporary dance — and provide them with the quintessential tools of choreography — from concept, movement creation, music, stage, costume design to the final production. The tools for being a choreographer are given to the student through three semesters where they internalise movement vocabularies to have a thinking body, study theory taught by experts from the art world, inculcate the habit of research, and eventually, create their own work.

Kathak, Indian martial arts, Indian contemporary dance, Karanas, dance therapy, the art of choreography, mime, along with theory subjects such as the world history of movement, Indian aesthetics, art history, overview of dance treatises such as the Natya Shastra, Abhinaya Darpanaalong, with production essentials such as stage design, lighting, costume design, music composition, and more, are taught in an environment of learning and sharing.

In every semester, students are given opportunities to create and stage their choreographies in genres ranging from mythology, history, Sanskrit and contemporary ballets and productions. This is another unique aspect of our course which is not merely instructional but focus on nurturing dancers’ creative energies instead.

What kind of myths can be debunked about the Kathak scene down south where Bharatanatyam dominates?

Well, Bharatanatyam no longer dominates in Bengaluru! Mayaji was the first to bring Kathak to Karnataka three decades ago while Protima Bedi brought Odissi and Kuchipudi. Now, we have almost eight classical forms here. NIKC created the syllabus and textbooks for Kathak dancers to take the junior, senior and Vidwat exams in Karnataka. Almost every area in Bengaluru now has a Kathak school, courtesy our branches and graduates setting up academies.

Choreography takes place behind-the–scenes. Has there been an increase in people opting for a career in it?

Choreography is very much a live art which is at the forefront. Today, people confuse choreography with film choreography alone or associate it with the fashion ramp. A choreographer need not be a brilliant dancer but must have definitely learnt dance for about a decade to be able to choreograph professionally.

What qualifications are necessary to pursue a course in choreography?

Applicants need to have been trained in any classical or contemporary dance form for at least six years. We have a unique age bar — from 18 to 55 years. We first screen applicants and then have an aptitude test which determines the acumen and interest of the prospective student. Additional knowledge of music, visual arts and philosophy is also a huge plus point.

Keywords: Madhu Natraj Kiran, Dr. Maya Rao, Natya Institute of Kathak and Choreography (NIKC), Bengaluru, 18-month diploma programme

Source: The Hindu, 15-10-2016