Another person, Liyaqat Ali, booked in the case was earlier declared an absconder by court…reports Asian Lite News.
Dharampal Singh, 85, has finally been acquitted for want of evidence by Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate.
It took him 35 years of a legal battle and more than 400 hearings to prove his innocence. He was booked in 1986 for allegedly making pesticide illegally in his house.
Dharampal Singh, a farmer from Haran village in Shamli district, said after his acquittal, “It feels like a huge burden has been lifted from my shoulder.”
His brother, Kunwarpal, was a co-accused but he died five years ago.
Another person, Liyaqat Ali, booked in the case was earlier declared an absconder by court.
“I have lost my reputation, money and mental peace during the long legal battle. It took long to get justice, but now I am happy that truth has prevailed. I would like to thank the honourable court for giving me relief. I have lost a lot of money and time making rounds to court for appearing in nearly 400 hearings in the case,” he told reporters.
In November 1986, Thana Bhawan police booked two brothers, Dharampal and Kunwarpal, and one Liyaqat Ali for allegedly making pesticide without licence. Police had also claimed to have recovered 26 bags of pesticide while they were being loaded into a truck.
The three were booked under various sections of IPC, including section 420, and arrested them. After spending 18 days in jail, the three were released on bail.
“Yogi used the religion ladder to climb and rise big in politics,” Pradhan maintained – and retraced the history of the Gorakhnath mutt, of which he is the head, to buttress his contention…writes Vishnu Makhijani
The “unexpected” appointment of Yogi Adityanath as the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister in 2017 was met with “outrage and disappointment in most quarters, other than the staunch right-wing groups that hailed the move to no end”, writes veteran journalist Sharat Pradhan, a close observer of state politics for over four-and-a-half decades, who terms it a “unique case of a rabble-rouser suddenly being anointed” to the post.
Approached by Penguin to write Adityanath’s biography, Pradhan found it “interesting because Yogi on the UP Chief Minister’s chair was a huge surprise for all and sundry including the larger chunk of BJP leadership here (in Lucknow)… It was a unique case of a rabble-rouser suddenly being anointed as Chief Minister – specially without any RSS background or having ever held any key position in the BJP,” Pradhan told IANS in an interview of “Yogi Adityanath – Religion, Politics and Power, The Untold Story” that has been co-authored with Atul Chandra.
Pradhan, has been associated with several media outlets, including IANS, TOI, Reuters, Sunday, Outlook, BBC, and The Wire and appears on several news channels, YouTube and OTT platforms. Atul Chandra is a former Resident Editor of Times of India, Lucknow.
The book took off barely six months after Yogi donned the mantle in March 2017 but contrary to the original plan, took a little more than three years to complete – partly due to the extensive research and travel involved and partly due to certain extraneous personal reasons. “However, in the bargain, we were able to cover and scan almost the entire span of his term as CM,” Pradhan said. It’s a term that is “flooded with ads” in print and on TV as it winds down, with assembly elections due early next year.
“Yogi used the religion ladder to climb and rise big in politics,” Pradhan maintained – and retraced the history of the Gorakhnath mutt, of which he is the head, to buttress his contention.
“The founder of the Gorakhnath mutt was perhaps the most secular sage once has seen on this soil in centuries. He set up this institution in the 11th century essentially for the benefit of the downtrodden castes whose members had no access to temples of the Brahmanical order.
“Throwing open the gates of his temple to all and sundry also brought a considerable following of Muslims, who were called ‘jogis’. They used to sing Ram bhajans and also offer ‘namaz’. Some of their descendants happen to continue the old practice but not within the walls of the mutt premises anymore. We (the authors) met two such families miles away from Gorakhpur in a village, where very reluctantly they sang Ram bhajans for us. I have a video also. But they were very worried that this could land them into trouble.
“This is how this highly secular institution has been reduced to a home of rabid Hindutva. This trend began with Mahant Digvijay Nath, who was Yogi’s guru’s guru and held the mutt from the early (19) thirties to the fifties. And Yogi took it to the hilt,” Pradhan pointed out.
Has Adiyanath succeeded where others before him have failed on the development front? Would his achievements be what they are without Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s backing? After all, this backing – personified by hoardings, posters and print advertisements carrying his image with that of Modi – is with an eye on next year’s assembly polls, where it is clear that while the BJP will return to power but with far fewer seats than it has now (308 in a 403-member house). Where will this leave Adityanath?
Frankly speaking it is a misnomer that other leaders failed on the development front. And his ‘development’ has been described by his own machinery in hyperboles. I wonder if you have seen the three-page advertorial in the Time magazine. Indian papers and TV channels have been flooded with ads. The fact remains that his predecessor Akhilesh Yadav actually carried out a number of development tasks but he was weaker in spreading the word as compared to Yogi, who devoted a lot to publicity,” Pradhan said.
Adityanath, the author said, also succeeded in claiming credit for certain projects actually undertaken and completed under the previous Samajwadi Party regime. These included the 300-km Lucknow-Agra Expressway – UP’s first access control expressway built in a record time of 23 months with world class technology. “If you were to drive on that you would agree that it is definitely India’s best expressway,” Pradhan said.
The first eight-km stretch of the Lucknow Metro (UP’s first) was also completed and trial runs carried out successfully in September 2017; the work had begun in 2014. The Metro was initiated for Kanpur as well but the Union government held back its clearance that was given only after the Yogi government was installed.
“To give yet another example, an international cricket stadium was built under a PPP arrangement in Lucknow with a capacity of 50,000. The stadium was also renamed and the credit hogged by Yogi. Other innovative services like Women Helpline -1090 – Dial 100 were also initiated and implemented by Akhilesh Yadav. But Yogi chose to rechristen both. While Women Helpline was renamed as ‘Mission shakti’, Dial 100 was changed to 112 and described as Yogi’s creation. He also loves renaming mohallas and towns,” Pradhan said.
The value that Yogi could bring towards the beginning was “cleaner governance” and “improvement in the law and order situation” the author said, adding these too remained short-lived and as time went by, corruption took over and remained beyond Yogi’s control.
“Once again, a publicity blitzkrieg helped him build a somewhat half-truth perception that law and order was transformed under Yogi – even as heinous crimes like Unnao gangrape, Hathras gangrape and Lakhimpur killings went on, while the government left no stone unturned to defend the culprits. But for the intervention of the High Court and the Supreme Court, they would not have been brought to book,” Pradhan pointed out.
Conceding that Yogi too has undertaken multiple development works across the state, Pradhan said most of these are attributable to the Central government and the interest taken by Prime Minster Modi.
“Doubtlessly, many of these have been inaugurated hastily, essentially with the eye on the 2022 elections. Some of these are incomplete too.
“It is difficult to say whether BJP can repeat the 2017 performance in 2022. And there is a growing perception that if BJP returns with much fewer seats, the Modi-Shah duo could replace him in UP. Under such circumstances, Yogi could be accommodated in Delhi,” Pradhan concluded.
In the midst of this, Pradhan presents a rather startling proposition: Is Adityanath India’s next Prime Minister in the making?
“Was Adityanath appointed with Narendra Modi and Amit Shah’s concurrence or did RSS trump them to have a man of its choice in Uttar Pradesh? Yogi himself has said that the Shah-Modi combine was behind his political appointment,” Pradhan writes in the concluding chapter titled “Future Prime Minister?”
Noting that Modi had smooth sailing in the 2019 general elections, Pradhan writes in the book. “It is unlikely that the same pattern will follow in 2024. Questions could be raised within the party over his continuation in 2024 when Modi will be 74 years of age. On the other hand, Adityanath would be only 51, and with Modi himself having fixed a retirement age of 75 for BJP leaders, the monk could easily be considered among the frontrunners for the top job. Other prime ministerial hopefuls like Rajnath Singh will turn 73.”
“The only person who could upstage Yogi at the goalpost” is Amit Shah, as he is only 53 at present, Pradhan writes, adding that Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan “could form the second rung of aspirants for the PM’s post”.
You have yourself mentioned there are others waiting in the wings – Amit Shah and Nitin Gadkari, to mention just two. If at all Aditynath is to become the PM – and this seems a pretty long shot as of now – it can happen only if he succeeds Modi. How realistic are the chances for this to happen?
It is true that Yogi has no RSS background. In fact on some occasions in the past he has been critical of the RSS. He raised the Hindu Yuva Vahini as some kind of a parallel to RSS… There is a world of a difference between him and Modi. But he is trying to ape him in many ways.
“Perhaps he believes that just as Modi was able to convert all his disadvantages into advantages – that includes the 2002 riots – he too would be able to use his rabid ways to push himself as the biggest Hindutva icon – and the fact that he wears the saffron also makes it easier for him to do so. But where he is unlikely to make much headway is casting himself in the Modi mould as a development man. You see all his advertisements are trying to project him as a ‘development oriented man’ that could enable him to showcase his UP model on the lines of the ‘Gujarat model.’ Besides, his arrogance is also not relished by a large chunk of BJP leaders,” Pradhan said.
So, why raise the question in the first place? “Because this had been suggested when Adityanath was made the Chief Minister, the question needed to be answered,” Pradhan added.
When Indians tried to imitate the sahibs, they turned into caricatures; when they absorbed the best that the British brought with them, the confluence was positive and productive…reports Asian Lite News.
In July 1765, Robert Clive, in a letter to Sir Francis Sykes, compared Gomorrah favourably to Calcutta, then capital of British India. He wrote: “I will pronounce Calcutta to be one of the most wicked places in the Universe.”
Drawing upon the letters, memoirs and journals of traders, travellers, bureaucrats, officials, officers and the occasional bishop, M.J. Akbar’s ‘Doolally Sahib And The Black Zamindar — Racism and Revenge in the British Raj’ (Bloomsbury) is a chronicle of racial relations between Indians and their last foreign invaders, sometimes infuriating but always compelling.
A multitude of vignettes, combined with insight and analysis, reveal the deeply ingrained conviction of ‘white superiority’ that shaped this history. How deep this conviction was is best illustrated by the fact that the British abandoned a large community of their own children because they were born of Indian mothers.
The British took pride in being outsiders, even as their exploitative revenue policy turned periodic drought and famine into horrific catastrophes, killing impoverished Indians in millions.
There were also marvellous and heart-warming exceptions in this extraordinary panorama, people who transcended racial prejudice and served as a reminder of what might have been the British made India a second home and merged with its culture instead of treating it as a fortune-hunter’s turf.
The power was indisputable – the British had lost just one out of 18 wars between 1757 and 1857. Defeated repeatedly on the battlefield, Indians found innovative and amusing ways of giving expression to their resentment in household skirmishes, social mores and economic subversion.
When Indians tried to imitate the sahibs, they turned into caricatures; when they absorbed the best that the British brought with them, the confluence was positive and productive. But for the most part, subject and ruler lived parallel lives.
M.J. Akbar is a distinguished writer and Member of Parliament representing the BJP from Madhya Pradesh. During his long career in journalism, he launched, as editor, India’s first weekly political news magazine, Sunday, in 1976, and two daily newspapers, The Telegraph in 1982 and The Asian Age in 1994. He has also been editorial director of India Today and The Sunday Guardian.
Doolally Sahib and the Black Zamindar by @mjakbar is a chronicle of racial relations between Indians and their last foreign invaders, sometimes infuriating but always compelling.
He is also the author of several internationally acclaimed books, including ‘India: The Siege Within’; ‘Nehru: The Making of India’; ‘Kashmir: Behind the Vale’; ‘The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict between Islam and Christianity’; ‘Tinderbox: The Past and Future of Pakistan’; and ‘Blood Brothers’, a novel. In addition, there have been four collections of his columns, reportage and essays.
Vikas Dhawan brings forth memories of childhood, of growing up and of the warmth of family and friendships, sketching a vibrant essence of the country when it had old-fashioned charm, Rahul Laud reports
What does India ‘feel’ like? For that matter, what does any country feel like? To enjoy a witty narration, and experience what India was like back then; to relive your memories, and cherish your own ‘India India’ feeling author Vikas Dhawan’s book India India feeling is launched.
In India India Feeling, a light-hearted exploration of India, Vikas Dhawan brings forth memories of childhood, of growing up and of the warmth of family and friendships, sketching a vibrant essence of the country when it had old-fashioned charm.
The book enables you to take part in entertaining journeys of horse-driven tongas to school, of whole families travelling on a scooter, impromptu street parties during power cuts, neighbourhood cricket matches and of kites that coloured the sky in a festival like no other.
To delve into humorous conversations with the author where the single household in a locality owning a telephone or a TV set received iconic status, where passport-size photos became king of all photographs and to take a nostalgic stroll through the street food, TV programmes and newspapers that defined growing up, Vikas narrates this life in India.
Vikas Dhawan grew up in India and has been living in England for the past two decades. He enjoys writing for leisure as well as in professional capacity, and has experience working in the education sector at the UK Civil Service and the University of Cambridge. He is a leader in the field of data and insights. He maintains his passion for writing since his teenage years and has been writing for leisure and in a professional capacity.
‘’Music and rhythm are an important part of his life, ‘’he says. He enjoys percussion and singing, and admires Sufi and other poetry, folk music and classic Bollywood songs. He has a soft spot for antiques, clocks and steam trains. He can be found indulging in reading, playing tennis, cooking and walking.
She also noted that “as the climate heats up, it is likely that swathes of land will be submerged, water-related extremes will re-shape industry and famine will revisit the country.” (The first signs of this, in fact, are already visible.)…writes Vishnu Makhijani.
Mridula Ramesh, a leading clean-tech angel investor with a portfolio of over 15 startups and who is involved in multiple initiatives to build climate entrepreneurship, ran out of water at her Madurai home in 2013.
In trying to find out why that happened and what could be done about it, her first book, “The Climate Solution” and entry into the world of climate happened — only to realise that people speaking about climate change speak almost exclusively of carbon, while the climate itself speaks in the language of water.
“For India, arguably one of the most vulnerable countries to the changing climate, water needs its share of the conversation,” and her new book, “Watershed” (Hachette India), “is an effort to correct that imbalance” because “we have crossed certain climate thresholds, and need to address water to lessen the pain that Indians are feeling in this changed climate”, Mridula told.
More worrisome, the changing climate and water cycle “is highlighting inequalities — such as those between rich and poor within a given city and between the developed and developing world. Storms, flooding and drought affect the poor more than the rich,” she added.
Moreover, looking at this through a climate justice angle, “we find that adaptation (a large part of which is managing water) is getting a far less conversation-share and lower share of financing than mitigation, even though developing countries have contributed far less to the cumulative GHG emissions that have caused this global warming. This lower priority only serves to increase existing inequalities,” Mridula explained.
She also noted that “as the climate heats up, it is likely that swathes of land will be submerged, water-related extremes will re-shape industry and famine will revisit the country.” (The first signs of this, in fact, are already visible.)
“Sea-level rise and stronger storms and stronger storm surges will result in parts of the country being underwater for at least some time each year in the future. Many industries came up in the belief that water is endless and cheap — climate change is challenging both of those beliefs. For example, sectors like thermal power plants in dry regions may find the going far less profitable, and may need to relocate or shutdown.
“On famine, we have gone from a nation of 220 million eating largely millets to a nation of 1.3 billion eating rice and wheat. The price for this transformation has been paid largely from the groundwater reserved of the dry northwest. In 2019, a state committee had opined that Punjab may run out of groundwater in 20-25 years. What will happen if an El Nino hits after that? That’s what the plausible fictional scenario in Chapter 24 tries to portray � what can happen if all these come to pass in the near future,” Mridula cautioned.
To this end, the book provides a five-point checklist of action:
Acknowledge water — don’t take it for granted and see how India’s water is special. Acknowledge that we are the best keepers of our water resilience. Act with data and act now — begin by preparing a water balance sheet — where is it coming from and where is it going. Version 1.0 of this may not be perfect, but try every day to go a little further. The same holds true for a person, a community, a factory, a city, a state or a country.
Protect the forces that soothe India’s volatile and variable waters — this includes forests, tanks and sewage treatment. In doing so, keep in mind the importance of cash flow — something may be very valuable and provide a great water-smoothening service, but if it does not generate cash flow, it becomes vulnerable in our economic world.
Customers should recognise that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Ask your favourite brands to be conscious of their carbon/waste/water footprint, and ensure their entire supply chain is fairly compensated for respecting the environment.
Let us recognise the power of decentralised policy — water pricing at the level of a city, mandating distributed farmgate storage in a district or sensitising bulk generators of waste/sewage, tank tourism — can generate a wave of innovation that can bring the jobs India needs while building climate resilience.
We really are close to the abyss, and yet, most of our voters appear not to vote on managing our shared resources. This needs to change if we want meaningful policy action.
Considerable research has gone into the book, with the studies conducted by the Madurai-based Sundaram Climate Institute forming one of its core pillars.
“We have spoken to over 2,000 households on their waste and water realities apart from studying the communities and impact of 100 tanks. Then there was the historical research — many of which involved interviews, site visits and perusal of primary sources such as letters or writings of colonial officials. Then there was the peer-reviewed literature from archaeologists, geologists, chemists, hydrologists, climatologists, medical doctors, and historians,” Mridula elaborated.
There were extensive interviews and conversations with a varied spectrum of people, from India’s ‘Water Man’ Rajendra Singh, to the many startups trying to build water resilience, to scientists, business people, activists, bureaucrats and politicians. And finally the investment process in startups.
How does India compare with the rest of the world � with the US, Africa, and Europe?
“In terms of climate and water vulnerabilities, India ranks high — very high — because of its population, its relative financial position, the large share of rainfed farms in agriculture and its long coastline. Also important to note is that the Indian Ocean has warmed faster than the other oceans in the world, leading to more powerful storms,” Mridula said.
Speaking about her experience with her net-zero-waste home and how this can be replicated at the micro and macro levels, she said: “Before we did anything we collected data, what we wasted, who, why, how. Over time, patterns emerged and we began seeing what the biggest areas of waste were — so we brought the amount of ‘generated waste’ down.”
“Second, we began to see how much of the ‘waste’ we could reuse — that is re-imagination, how to see ‘waste’ as a ‘resource’ — that was the killer step. We make compost and biogas, which keeps the garden healthy and the costs down. We also bring in waste from outside — flower waste and cow dung — to help with the compost and biogas.
“We have had our successes and failures, but what has kept us going is the focus on data, and emphasis on making any action as easy to follow as possible,” Mriduala concluded.
“I thought of giving readers facts and evidence. This is not only the story about me. It is about kids and adults who died, and about families who are waiting for justice.”…reports Asian Lite News.
Kafeel Khan, the doctor embroiled in the August 2017 Gorakhpur hospital incident controversy, has written a book on the subject.
Titled, “The Gorakhpur Hospital Tragedy, A Doctor’s Memoir of a Deadly Medical Crisis”, the memoir presents Khan’s version of the incident and subsequent developments that have kept him on the firing line ever since.
“My book is an honest, heartfelt account of the terrible events of 10 Aug 2017 and after. I dedicate it to all the parents who lost their children in the tragedy. This book is dedicated to those 63 children and 18 adults,” says Khan.
“I thought of giving readers facts and evidence. This is not only the story about me. It is about kids and adults who died, and about families who are waiting for justice.”
Received Dr Kafeel Khan's book on the Gorakhpur Hospital tragedy. He saved 100s of Children. He has been dismissed by the Yogi Govt despite stay on his suspension by the HC. Prior to that,was arrested 4 times by Yogi govt&kept in jail for 500 days,only to cover up Yogi's misdeeds pic.twitter.com/dhYPNswLK3
The book, claims Khan, has stories that expose the system’s failures and exposes “real culprits”.
The Gorakhpur hospital tragedy took place on August 7, 2017 when oxygen disruption eld to the death of 63 children.
Khan relates the “gut-wrenching turmoil that followed – a suspension without end, an eight-month-long incarceration and a relentless fight for justice in the face of extreme apathy and persecution”.
When asked if the book is timed keeping in mind the Uttar Pradesh elections, Khan said that he has been writing the book for a long time.
“The most important point the book talks about is the broken health system. The system collapsed. It also talks about doctors’ struggle. The poor and the marginalised community depend on public hospitals. I have talked about the public health system.”
It was a privilege this evening to receive a copy of The Gorakhpur Hospital Tragedy from @drkafeelkhan. The dedicated paediatrician and fighter for justice visited our central office in Delhi to gift me a copy of his book. Wish him every success in his public health campaign. pic.twitter.com/6thSFTYoul
Padmashree Srinivas Udgata was awarded with Kalinga Literary Award and Arun Kamal was awarded with Kalinga Literary International award…reports Asian Lite News.
Sudha Murthy, wife of Infosys founder Narayana Murthy, business journalist Tamal Bandopadhyay and Bollywood actress Divya Dutta were among others who received awards for their books on the inaugural day of Kalinga Literary Festival (KLF) 2021 in the temple city of Bhubaneswar.
For non-fiction category, IANS CEO and Editor-in-Chief, Sandeep Bamzai’s book “Princestan: How Nehru, Patel and Mountbatten Made India” was selected as Book of the Year.
Odisha Tourism Minister Jyoti Prakash Panigrahi inaugurated the festival. Nepal’s Charge d’affaires Ram Prasad Subedi, Padma Vibhushan Sitakanta Mohapatra, Padma Bhusan Ramakanta Rath graced the inaugural ceremony.
KLF has emerged as one of the leading literary platforms in India, attracting both experienced and young litterateurs. Bigger than ever before, the eighth edition of the festival will bring nationally and internationally acclaimed names on one platform to discuss, debate and explore commonalities in the diverse voices in literature, said Rashmi Ranjan Parida, the founder-director of the festival.
A total of 30 awards were given away to eminent authors and translators of repute by the organisers of the KLF on its eighth edition held here.
Former West Bengal Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi was selected for his book on Mahatma Gandhi. Rashid Kidwai’s book “Bharat Ke Pradhan Mantri” was selected for autobiography category.
The three-day extravaganza of literature, art, culture and conversation will feature poetry sessions, panel discussions and talk shows and many more in about 50 sessions.
Encouraging readers to concurrently focus on the need to live mindfully, this book also highlights key learnings from the pandemic…reports Asian Lite News.
Most of us have experienced loneliness in some form or the other and more so during the Covid lockdowns. As people navigate their way towards growth and success, they find themselves ‘busy’ and others around them ‘unavailable’.
This urban existence with its multidimensional challenges has led to an upsurge in experiencing loneliness and taking stock of the issue remains crucial.
To this extent, “Alone In The crowd: Overcoming Loneliness of Urban Living” (Rupa) by mental health Experts Dr Samir Parikh and Kamna Chhibber go beyond highlighting the existence of the problem to enlisting ways in the midst of the current pandemic, can be tackled.
Encouraging readers to concurrently focus on the need to live mindfully, this book also highlights key learnings from the pandemic.
“We recognize that there is a growing disconnect that many people experience within their families, communities and workplaces. This has a strong negative impact on their sense of well-being and can be a precursor towards the development of mental health related problems,” Parikh, Director, Department of Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences, Fortis Healthcare, said.
“As a result, it is critically important that we emphasize the development of approaches to combat this state of loneliness,” he added.
“The book has been written to help develop a comprehensive understanding of where loneliness can stem from and the ways in which people can engage in caring for themselves, while focusing on living more mindfully in the urban spaces they occupy,” Chhibber, Head, Department of Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences, Fortis Healthcare, said.
“Research suggests that loneliness in the longer run can affect the mental health of people. It’s time that people and societies come forward to discuss about the much-ignored issue, which has engulfed the society be it children, adolescents, adults and the old generation. A multi-stakeholder approach needs to be adopted to reduce the growing burden of mental health which stems from loneliness and other related issues,” she added.
Releasing the book Dr Ashutosh Raghuvanshi, CEO & MD, Fortis Healthcare said: “In today’s time, particularly given the context of the pandemic, we recognise the huge detrimental impact that loneliness can have upon people by impacting their mental health. It is critical that people, individuals and communities, take active steps and measures to understand and assess this growing problem and go beyond simply acknowledging it in the direction of inculcating proactive measures to tackle it effectively.”
All the more so as the book seeks to explain AI and provide readers with both the questions we must face in coming years and the tools to begin answering them…writes Vishnu Makhijani
Artificial Intelligence already transcends human perception through chronological compression or ‘time travel’ and it’s time to define both our partnership with the new frontier and the reality that will result, says a path-breaking book by three leading thinkers that offers an essential roadmap to our present and our future – an era unlike any that has come before.
“Enabled by algorithms and computing power, it analyses and learns through processes that would take human minds decades or even centuries to complete. In other respects, time and computing power alone do not describe what (it) does,” Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt and Daniel Huttenlocher write in “The Age of AI And Our Human Future” (John Murray/Hachette).
“Are human minds and AI approaching the same reality from different standpoints, with complementary strengths? Or do we perceive two different, partially overlapping realities: one that humans can elaborate through reason and another that AI can elaborate through algorithms? If this is the case, then AI perceives things that we do not and cannot – not merely because we do not have the time to reason our way to them, but also because they exist in a realm that our minds cannot conceptualise,” the authors write.
The human quest to know the world fully will be transformed, they contend, “with the haunting recognition that to achieve certain knowledge that we need to entrust AI to acquire it for us and to report back. In either case, as AI pursues progressively fuller and broader objectives, it will increasingly appear to humans as a fellow ‘being’ experiencing and knowing the world – a combination of tool, pet, and mind”.
“This puzzle will only deepen as researchers near or attain AGI – Artificial General Intelligence that will not be limited to learning and executing specific tasks; rather, by definition, AGI will be able to learn and execute a broad range of tasks, much like those humans perform,” the book says.
“Developing AGI will require immense computing power, likely resulting in their being created by only a few well-funded organisations. Like current AI, though AGI may be readily distributable, given its capacities, its applications will need to be restricted,” the authors caution.
Limitations could be imposed by only allowing approved organisations to operate it. Then, the questions will become: who controls AGI? Who grants access to it? Is democracy possible in a world in which a few “genius” machines are operated by a small number of organisations? What, under these circumstances, does partnership with AI look like, the authors ask.
If the advent of AGI occurs, it will be a signal, intellectual, scientific and strategic achievement. “But it does not have to occur for AI to herald a revolution in human affairs,” the authors note.
Noting that AI’s dynamism and capacity for emergent – or unexpected – actions and solutions distinguish it from prior technologies, the authors write: “Unregulated and unnoticed, AI could diverge from our expectations and, consequently, or intentions. The decisions to confine, partner with, or defer it will not be made by humans alone. In some cases, it will be dictated by AI itself; in others, by auxiliary forces.”
“Humanity may engage in a race to the bottom. As AI automates, processes, permits humans to probe vast bodies of data, organises and reorganises the physical and social worlds, advantages may go to those who move first. Competition could compel deployment of AGI without adequate time to assess the risks – or in disregard of them,” the authors state, adding: “An AI ethic is essential.”
All the more so as the book seeks to explain AI and provide readers with both the questions we must face in coming years and the tools to begin answering them. The questions include:
What do AI-enabled innovations in health, biology, space, and quantum physics look like?
What do AI-enabled “best friends” look like, especially to children?
What does AI-enabled war look like?
Does AI perceive aspects of reality humans do not?
When AI participates in assessing and shaping human action, how will humans change?
What then, will it mean to be human?
This makes it imperative for each major technologically advanced country to understand that it is on the threshold of a strategic transformation “as consequential as the advent of nuclear weapons – but with effects that will be more diverse, diffuse and unpredictable”, the book says.
Therefore, “each society that is advancing the frontiers of AI should aim to convene a body at a national level to consider the defence and security aspects of AI and bridge the perspectives of the varied sectors that will shape AI’s creation and deployment”.
This body “should be entrusted with two functions: to ensure competitiveness with the rest of the world and, concurrently, to coordinate research on how to prevent or at least limit unwanted escalation or crisis. On this basis, some form of negotiation with allies and adversaries will be essential”, the authors maintain.
At the bottom line, human intelligence and artificial intelligence are meeting, being applied to pursuits on national, continental, and even global scales.
“Understanding this transition, and developing a guiding ethic from it will require commitment and insight from many elements of society: scientists and strategists, statesmen and philosophers, clerics and CEOs. This commitment must be made within nations and among them. Now is the time to define both our partnership with artificial intelligence and the reality that will result,” the authors conclude.
The actor’s book ‘My Experiments with Silence’ that hit the stands on November 27…reports Asian Lite News.
Actor Samir Soni, who has turned an author with his ‘My Experiments with Silence’, which stems from diary entries, gives a glimpse of what goes in the mind of an introvert like him, in a world that is inherently outgoing given the social nature of human beings, and how he made his way through it.
The actor’s book ‘My Experiments with Silence’ hit the stands on November 27.
In case you missed it, we spoke with actor and director Samir Soni (@samirsoni123) about his new book My Experiments with Silence (@ombooksdelhi)
Talking about the book, Samir said: “These diary entries are an introvert’s entries of how I look at the world, how I have gotten my way through showbiz despite being someone who is not very outgoing. I have put together my heart in this book. At a time where people seek validation, I chose to turn to my safe place, my diary, and that’s how I discovered my real self”.
Explaining how being an introvert had its share of disadvantages and benefits.
He added: “I haven’t been someone who is socially very active and that might have been a disadvantage on most instances, but as an actor, it was an advantage for me because it enabled me to connect with my character better”.
Through his diary, the actor provides an insight on how healing is never a linear process and hopes that the book will help the readers with answers to the questions that have long agitated the human mind.
Speaking about one instance where his diary bailed him out of the troubled waters of uneasy days, he concluded: “When I received my first award and my name was announced, it was rock silence, there was no one clapping for me but my diary helped me get through such days. I have put myself out there despite such lows, but in the end, I am also thankful for my highs, and my diary has truly helped me through all of it.”
