HIstory Repeats Itself !!

Hello people,

Perhaps it is an unfortunate coincidence attached with my blogging, or its an indication of the well known fact - history repeats itself.

One year ago, i started blogging and jogging. One of my earliest posts was on Saddam Hussain's trial and hanging. Its been one year since Saddam died. An now, after one year, one more political leader, Benazir Bhutto was killed (27th Dec). And coincidentally i have started jogging again !

When Saddam was hanged, i had commented that 'the unusually rapid trial and conviction may be due to USA's fear of him rebounding back to a position of power in iraq. US didnt want that, and hence the trial'.

Now that Benazir was killed in such a brutal manner with the elections in Pakistan so close, it indeed is very thought provoking. First of all, elections in Pakistan are ..well.. cant find a proper word for it.. so lets say rare. With two of the former leaders Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto returning to Pakistan with the elections in mind, the killing seems to be a brute force way to eliminate competition. But, is it so?

These are some of my views on the possible motives behind it (Separated by OR):

1) Its a brute force way to eliminate competition, used by Mr Musharraf ?. But the killings really endanger his own public profile. Or is it going to be an opportunity for Mr Mush to postpone the elections indefinitely and declare emergency again? OR lets say by other political leaders, not only Mush. Was this a way to turn the elections into a blood feud?

2) Is there a hidden US motive behind it? Mr Mush has put Pakistan in a much better position with the US with his statesmanship. All the stuff on fighting the war against terror, the no use of nuclear arsenal strategy etc etc have him in good books with US. So does US want to use Mr Mush as its puppet and to maintain him in power, they are ready to kill the opposing leaders?

3) Is it really some terrorist organization who plans to bring anarchy in Pakistan and to gain control, like taliban did in Afganistan. There have been murder attempts at Sharif and Benazir in the recent past, but none on Mr Mush. This seems a bit against this particular view isnt it?

4) Well, couldn't resist putting this point. Is it possible that India had some motive behind it?
In the terms of Sharif and Bhutto, there was a lot of terrorist infiltration secretly supported by Pakistan. During Mush's regime, these apparently had ceased. The indo-pak relations were in a much better position. Is it possible that India was afraid of the possibility of either of Sharif / Bhutto returning to power?

If anyone has comments or any arguments with/against these views they are very much welcome to write. This is a highly interesting point to discuss (Not the unfortunate incident but the cause of it). I am sure that politics analysts all over the world (not politicians !) would be thinking about the incident.

P.S. I have written these views as a part of my own brainstorming process, they may not necessarily have any kind of validity / factual proof.

Local Vs Global Optima

Statutory warning: This blog is a scientific discussion.



In maths, there is a concept called as optima. I wont define wot it is. there are two types of optima, local and global. They mean literally that.



These concepts are used bery widely in many fields. Lets first discuss some of them before we go to the main topic of the blog.



1) Industry:

Industrialists all over the world are continuously analyzing their performance based on some criteria. The main problem in front of them is whether to achieve a local optima in each of their units, or to achieve a global optima in the whole pipeline as such. The achievement of a local optima is preferred by individual units as they have better performance to report. Whereas the big bosses see the 'big picture'.



2) Protein folding: (correct me if i m wrong)

In the process of protein folding, the protein goes through various free energy points which are local optima points. However the protein is supposed to fold in such a way that the overall free energy is the global optimum. But the protein in reality, in vivo is never at the global optimum, its at one of the local optima.

This brings us to the topic of this blog. Does life also have any such things?
For the sake of discussion, lets call optima as the 'good' state of life.

We all know that there are ups and downs in life. I think that they are like local fluctuations on a timeline. Sometimes we achieve local optimum, sometimes its a 'down' state. This takes us to the fundamental question, which is translated as: "Should one try to achieve the local optima always, or sometime sacrifice the local optima for the global optimum"

I think global optima is the choice (or traditionally its known to be the 'wise' choice). But is it?
On a timescale, global optimum would be at the end of the whole context, which translates to death here.(?)

Moreover, in striving for the global optimum, are we allowing some irreversible damage?

Well, i sorta forgot wot i was thinking (i was on the bike then). But lets discuss another situation.

I am applying to US.. investing more than a lac Rs in the process. Plus there are these other exams an all. So lets take it somewhere around 1.5lac. This is to achieve the global optimum right?.
But if the process fails somehow, the damage created by it is going to be a big blow. So in order to achieve the global optimum, i m putting the local situation in danger. Is that a wise thing to do?

let me ponder over it for some time.. meanwhile, any comments / suggestions are welcome.