Meltdown

Irrespective of where one is located, the bubble of normalcy does not last hours. We had a difficult weekend with war clouds looming over south Asia. Belying predictions, forecasts and expectations wars has reared their head in many parts of the globe, not only in South Asia. Sleep, calm and normalcy has been severely affected and many have been forced to look up in at the sky. 'Look at the heavens, and see; and behold the clouds, which are higher than you' and wonder and ponder about what lies ahead? I have been waking up early in the morning for a month or so to see Venus, Mercury and Mars. They are visible with the naked, unaided eye for a month or so in this part of the world. Hazy sky, no stars, Venus visible     Skies over large cities in north India are hazy and thick with pollutants and on clear nights one can see only a handful of stars. Human Light objects which dot the cities  lead to a scattering effect hindering human vision towards the sky. Venus, ...

San tzu's Art of war is old and ancient and the book informs and structures conversation about war and strategy right upto the contemporary moment. Strategic thought and thinking in India as well is ancient. Historical period and authorship issues beset Arthashastra, Mandala theory though shines forth. The circles that surround Vijigeshu works as a bedrock for most of the conventional modern International relations theory. Modern Indian strategic thought, doctrines and capabilities are modeled on western statecraft. IF there is any distinctive aspect it lies in how strategic priorities are factored. Among experts and professionals military first, political second and economic a distant third encapsulates Indian strategic thought. In reality the political goals are prioritized over the military. War as a theater was inaugurated in the early 1990' in the unipolar world led by USA. The disintegration of the USSR and the collapse of the Berlin wall precipitated and opened a space w...

Obviously at one level the prompt is an argument and nothing more. Many readers would not see beyond it. This prompt is also in line with the trend of tailoring discussions and conversation toward 'fixed' outcomes -- I won, you lost. In terms of novelty and imagination, the prompt pleased this author. If the author did not acknowledge his own immediate gratification, it would be dishonest. But it is a bit more. Much more is revealed by this experiment and test. Yes, an experiment and test. AI chat-bots have reasoning abilities and are portrayed as competent to perform complex tasks. In order to test AI chat-bot abilities to respond and reason, three of them were given roughly similar prompts-- Microsoft's Co-pilot, Open AI's GPT-4o, and Google's Gemini. According to numerous independent evaluations, they are the best of the lot. I intend to prompt Anthropic also, but you can do that as well. Here is the prompt : Proposition: Human activity has accelerated and contri...

A 90-day tariff pause that does not apply to China has been announced. This pause acting as a window is to reorganise and redeploy America's global/international financial  operations and reallocate resources? An operation that also avoids and excludes China, possible or desirable? This post will zoom out to the processes and dynamics that create the overall(big?) picture rather than focusing on how tariffs affect particular industries, sectors, or geographical areas. Global trade flows and national deficits are significant indicators and crucial measures to gauge, track and evaluate our movement in this direction. These metrics and indicators demonstrate how, over many years, domestic growth, regional cooperation, and globalization became intertwined. It is and has been a complicated process based on centuries of integration, treaties, trade routes, and established networks. The idea and goal was to lead to a more inter-dependent, prosperous, secure and peaceful order. Simultaneo...

The word artificial contains art, in fact it begins with art. And these days it is preceding the word intelligence. Is this a signal to a new world and order, the priority of artificial before intelligence? The virtual world has extended its reach inside the real world and now AI has arrived. It is the BUZZ not a buzzword, a node emanating a series of ripples and a source of it. And I am left to wander more and figure less what the deal is? All the signs say it is BIG. So, I begin by asking and exploring. What if, my queries and doubts appear inane, mundane or refuse to take audible and verbal forms. Can AI help? Artificial science or it is an art? An engineering marvel or closer to craftsmanship associated with art. What is clear is that for the time being, the future and AI have been interwoven and tied together. Artificial intelligence will throw the gates of ‘free intelligence’ open in future, while you will be billed for word, excel and Onenote. And Open AI will seamlessly integra...