CONFUCIUS – THE MOST INFLUENTIAL CHINESE PHILOSOPHER

The Chinese teacher and philosopher Confucius was the founder of the school of philosophy known as the Ju or Confucianism, which is still very influential in China. He was born on 551 B.C.E in Tuo, China.

INFO OF HIS LIFE

Confucius is the Latinized name of K’ung Fu-tzu (Great Master K’ung). His original name was K’ung Ch’iu; he is also known as K’ung Chung-ni. The most detailed traditional account of Confucius’s life is contained in the Records of the Historian (Shih chi) by Ssu-ma Ch’ien, who lived from 145 B.C.E. to 86 B.C.E. Many modern scholars have dismissed this biography as only legend. Nevertheless, from this manuscript one can reconstruct a satisfactory outline of the philosopher’s life and influence.

According to the Records of the Historian, Confucius was a descendant of a branch of the royal house of Shang, the dynasty (a family of rulers) that ruled China prior to the Chou, and a dynasty which ruled China from around 1122 B.C.E. to 221 B.C.E. His family, the K’ung, moved to the small state of Lu, located in the modern province of Shantung in northeastern China.

It was believed that Confucius’s father divorced his first wife at an advanced age, because she had borne him only daughters and one disfigured son. He then married a fifteen-year-old girl from the Yen clan, who gave birth to Confucius. Ssu-ma Ch’ien refers to the relationship as a “wild union,” which very possibly indicates that Confucius was an illegitimate child, or a child born out of wedlock.

In the Analects, Confucius’s book of teachings, he writes that during his youth he was poor and was forced to acquire many different skills. It is clear that even though the fortunes of his family had declined, he was no commoner. Confucius unquestionably belonged to the aristocratic (ruling) class known as the shih. In the time of Confucius most shih served as court officials, scholars, and teachers. Confucius’s first occupation appears to have been as keeper of the Lu granary. Later he worked as supervisor of the fields. Both were low positions but consistent with his shih status.

CAREER AS A TEACHER

It is not known exactly when Confucius began his teaching career, but it does not appear to have been much before the age of thirty. In 518 B.C.E. he is said to have met the famous teacher Lao Tzu (sixth century B.C.E. ), who reportedly bluntly criticized Confucius for his stuffiness and arrogance. Confucius eventually returned to Lu around 515 B.C.E. For several years after his return he does not appear to have accepted a governmental position. Instead it appears he spent most of his time studying and teaching, gathering a large number of students around him. Although one can only guess about the school’s exact course work, it undoubtedly included instruction in ritual, music, history, and poetry.

Around 498 B.C.E. , Confucius decided to leave his home in Lu and embark on a long journey throughout eastern China. He was accompanied by several of his disciples (followers). They wandered throughout the eastern states of Wei, Sung, and Ch’en and at various times had their lives threatened. Confucius was almost assassinated (killed) in Sung. On another occasion he was mistaken for the adventurer Yang Hu and was arrested and held until his true identity became known.

Confucius was received with great respect by the rulers of the states he visited, and he even seems to have received occasional payments. He spent much of his time developing his ideas on the art of government, as well as continuing his teaching. He acquired a large following, and the solidification of the Confucian school probably occurred during these years. Not all of his disciples followed him on his travels. Several of them actually returned to Lu and assumed positions with the Chi clan. It may have been through their influence that in 484 B.C.E. Confucius was invited back to Lu.

FINAL YEARS

Confucius was warmly received in Lu, but there is no indication that he was given a responsible position. Little is known about his last years, although this would have been a logical time for him to work on the many texts and documents he supposedly gathered on his journey. Much of his time was devoted to teaching, and he seems to have remained more or less distant from political affairs. This was an unhappy period for Confucius. His only son died about this time; his favorite disciple, Yen Hui, died the very year of his return to Lu; and in 480 B.C.E. another disciple, Tzu-lu, was killed in battle. Confucius felt all of these losses deeply, and his sadness and frustration must have been intensified by the realization that his political ideas had found no support among the rulers of his own state. Confucius died in 479 B.C.E in Qufu, China. His disciples conducted his funeral and observed a mourning period for him.

CONFUCIUS’S TEACHINGS

Although we cannot be certain that Confucius wrote any of the works he is credited with, it is still possible to know something about the general nature of his philosophy. Shortly after his death his disciples compiled a work known as the Lun yü, commonly translated as the Analects but more accurately rendered as the Edited Conversations. This work consists of conversations between Confucius, his students, and an occasional ruler. The primary emphasis of the Lun yü is on political philosophy. Confucius taught that the primary task of the ruler was to achieve the welfare (well-being) and happiness of the people of his state. To accomplish this aim, the ruler first had to set a moral (good character) example by his own conduct. This example would in turn influence the people’s behavior.

Confucius is the first Chinese thinker to introduce concepts that became fundamental not only to Confucian philosophy but to Chinese philosophy in general. The most important of these are jen (benevolence), yi (propriety, or being proper), and li (ritual, or ceremony). Confucius believed that the chün-tzu, or “gentleman,” must set the moral example for others in society to follow. In the Lun yü jen, what has been translated as humaneness or benevolence (being kind) is a quality a chün-tzu should develop and attempt to encourage in others. Li is considered the rules and ritual that are observed in religious and nonreligious ceremonies and, as applied to the chün-tzu, composed rules of behavior. Yi represents what is right and proper in a given situation. The chün-tzu, by observing the ritual and because of his good nature, always knows what is right.

Confucius was basically a humanist and one of the greatest teachers in Chinese history. His influence on his immediate disciples was deep. His students continued to explain his theories until, in the first Han dynasty (206 B.C.E. –8 C. E.), the theories became the basis of the state ideology, the body of ideas reflecting the social needs of a culture.

JARON LANIER – THE TECH GEEK

Jaron Zepel Lanier, born on May 3, 1960. He is a computer scientist, composer, visual artist, and author.

IN THE SCIENCES

Jaron Lanier scientific interests include biometric information architectures, user interfaces, heterogeneous scientific simulations, advanced information systems for medicine, and computational approaches to the fundamentals of physics. He collaborates with a wide range of scientists in fields related to these interests. Lanier’s name is also often associated with Virtual Reality research. He either coined or popularized the term ‘Virtual Reality’ and in the early 1980s founded VPL Research, the first company to sell VR products. In the late 1980s he led the team that developed the first implementations of multi-person virtual worlds using head mounted displays, for both local and wide area networks, as well as the first “avatars”, or representations of users within such systems. While at VPL, he and his colleagues developed the first implementations of virtual reality applications in surgical simulation, vehicle interior prototyping, virtual sets for television production, and assorted other areas. He led the team that developed the first widely used software platform architecture for immersive virtual reality applications. Sun Microsystems acquired VPL’s seminal portfolio of patents related to Virtual Reality and networked 3D graphics in 1999.

From 1997 to 2001, Lanier was the Chief Scientist of Advanced Network and Services, which contained the Engineering Office of Internet2, and served as the Lead Scientist of the National Tele-immersion Initiative, a coalition of research universities studying advanced applications for Internet2. The Initiative demonstrated the first prototypes of tele-immersion in 2000 after a three-year development period. From 2001 to 2004 he was Visiting Scientist at Silicon Graphics Inc., where he developed solutions to core problems in telepresence and tele-immersion. He was Scholar at Large for Microsoft from 2006 to 2009, and Partner Architect there from 2009 forward. Lanier received an honorary doctorate from New Jersey Institute of Technology in 2006, was the recipient of CMU’s Watson award in 2001, was a finalist for the first Edge of Computation Award in 2005, and received a Lifetime Career Award from the IEEE in 2009 for contributions to Virtual Reality.

AS AN AUTHOR

Lanier is a well-known author and speaker. His book “You are not a gadget” will be released in early 2010 by Knopf in the USA and Penguin in the UK. “Jaron’s World” is his monthly column in Discover Magazine, currently on hiatus, and devoted to his own wide ranging ideas and research. He writes and speaks on numerous topics, including high-technology business, the social impact of technological practices, the philosophy of consciousness and information, Internet politics, and the future of humanism. His lecture client list has included most of the well-known high technology firms as well as many others in the energy, automotive, and financial services industries. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Discover, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Harpers Magazine, The Sciences, Wired Magazine (where he was a founding contributing editor), and Scientific American. He has edited special “future” issues of SPIN and Civilization magazines. He is one of the 100 “remarkable people” of the Global Business Network.

IN MUSICAs a musician, Lanier has been active in the world of new “classical” music since the late seventies. He is a pianist and a specialist in unusual musical instruments, especially the wind and string instruments of Asia. He maintains one of the largest and most varied collections of actively played rare instruments in the world. Lanier has performed with artists as diverse as Philip Glass, Ornette Coleman, George Clinton, Sean Lennon, Vernon Reid, Terry Riley, Duncan Sheik, Pauline Oliveros, and Stanley Jordan. Lanier co-composed the soundtrack to “The Third Wave,” a documentary released in Sept. 2009 to critical acclaim after winning awards at film festivals around the world. Lanier’s work with acoustic “world” instruments can be heard on many other soundtracks as well, including a prominent role in “Three Seasons” (1999), which was the first film ever to win both the Audience and Grand Jury awards at the Sundance Film Festival.

He also writes chamber and orchestral music. Current commissions include a symphony for the Bach Festival Orchestra. Recent commissions include: “Earthquake!”, a ballet which premiered at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco in April, 2006; “Little Shimmers” for the TroMetrik ensemble, which premiered at ODC in San Francisco in April, 2006; “Daredevil” for the ArrayMusic chamber ensemble, which was premiered in Toronto in 2006; A concert length sequence of works for orchestra and virtual worlds (including “Canons for Wroclaw”, “Khaenoncerto”, “The Egg”, and others) celebrating the 1000th birthday of the city of Wroclaw, Poland, premiered in 2000; A triple concerto, “The Navigator Tree”, commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Composers Forum, premiered in 2000; and “Mirror/Storm”, a symphony commissioned by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and premiered in 1998. “Continental Harmony”, a PBS special that documented the development and premiere of “The Navigator Tree” won a CINE Golden Eagle Award. His CD “Instruments of Change” was released on Point/Polygram in 1994.

IN VISUAL ART

Lanier’s paintings and drawings have been exhibited in museums and galleries in the United States and Europe. In 2002 he co-created (with Philippe Parreno) an exhibit illustrating how aliens might perceive humans for the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris. In 1994 he directed the film “Muzork” under a commission from ARTE Television. His 1983 “Moondust” (which he programmed in 6502 assembly) is generally regarded as the first art video game, and the first interactive music publication. He has presented installations in New York City, including the “Video Feedback Waterbed” and the “Time-accelerated Painting”, which was situated in the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage. His first one man show took place in 1997 at the Danish Museum for Modern Art in Roskilde. He helped make up the gadgets and scenarios for the 2002 science fiction movie Minority Report by Steven Spielberg.CELEBRITY FLUFF

In 2005 Lanier was selected as one of the top one hundred public intellectuals in the world by readers of Prospect and Foreign Policy magazines. The Encyclopaedia Britannica (but certainly not the Wikipedia) includes him in its list of history’s 300 or so greatest inventors. The nation of Palau has issued a postage stamp in his honor. Various television documentaries have been produced about him, such as “Dreadlocks and Digital Dreamworlds” by Tech TV in 2002. The 1992 movie Lawnmower Man was in part based on him and his early laboratory- he was played by Piers Brosnan. He has appeared on national television many times, on shows such as “The News Hour,” “Nightline,” and “Charlie Rose,” and has been profiled multiple times on the front pages of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

AWARDS

• Carnegie Mellon University’s Watson award in 2001
• Finalist for the first Edge of Computation Award in 2005
• Honorary doctorate from New Jersey Institute of Technology in 2006
• IEEE Virtual Reality Career Award in 2009
• Named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in 2010 (nominated by Microsoft VP Dan Reed)

WORKS

WESTERN CLASSICAL MUSIC

• Instruments of Change (1994),[22] POINT Music/Philips/PolyGram Records
  

VIDEO GAMES

• Moondust (C64, 1983)
• Alien Garden (Atari 800, 1982)

SIGNIFICANT PAPERS

• “One Half of a Manifesto”, Edge, 11.11.00
• “Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism”, Edge, 5.30.06
• “Beware the Online Collective”, Edge, 12.25.06

BOOKS

• You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto, New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2010, ISBN 978-1846143410

SPEECHES

• ‘Finding Humanity in the Interface: Capacity Atrophy or Augmentation?’ A debate between Jaron Lanier and Will Wright from the Accelerating Change 2004 conference.
• Video of Jaron Lanier speaking at a Film Festival
• Video of Jaron Lanier’s “McLuhan Ramp” Lecture
• Video of Jaron Lanier with Neal Stephenson, Neil Gershenfeld, Raymond Laflamme, and Tara Hunt, on The Agenda with Steve Paikin at the Quantum to Cosmos festival
• Video of panel discussion with Jaron Lanier, Neal Stephenson and Lee Smolin, “Seeing Science Through Fiction” at the Quantum to Cosmos festival
• Podcast of Science in the Pub panel discussion with Jaron Lanier, Hod Lipson, Wilson da Silva and Eliezer Yudkowsky: “So We’re All Gonna be Robots, Now?”
• Video of Jaron Lanier giving a talk titled: ‘Staying Human in a Tech-Driven World’ at Zócalo public square, on January 28, 2010

INTERVIEWS

• Interview with Jaron Lanier on Music
• Coding from Scratch: A Conversation with Jaron Lanier, Part 1
• The Future of Virtual Reality: A Conversation with Jaron Lanier, Part 2
• Brown, David Jay; Novick, Rebecca McClen (1995). Voices from the edge: Conversations with Jerry Garcia, Ram Dass, Annie Sprinkle, Matthew Fox, Jaron Lanier, & others. Freedom, CA: Crossing Press. ISBN 0-89594-732-3
• Interview by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Counterpoint program; Lanier strongly criticises both Wikipedia and singularitarianism
• A Conversation with Jaron Lanier

Checkout the ASCII Art and Pictures of Jaron Lanier in the below link. Extract the Files from WinRAR Archive. Please use Lucida Console font to view the art in Notepad. Before that in Notepad go to Format and Uncheck the Word Warp and then Go to Font and Reduce the Font Size to 3 to 4 pt. Use only Lucida Console Font.

http://www.4shared.com/file/d-4oDaac/Jaron_Zepel_Lanier.html

Dr.NAMPERUMALSAMY – THE VISIONARY OF THE BLINDS

Perumalsamy Namperumalsamy is an Indian ophthalmologist who specializes in diabetic retinopathy. He is also a a retina-vitreous expert. Namperumalsamy is currently the chairman of Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai. He is known for bringing assembly-line efficiency to eye surgery. In 2010, TIME magazine named Namperumalsamy one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Under the chairmanship of Namperumalsamy, Aravind Eye Hospital, received the 2010 Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, which is awarded annually to an organization that does extraordinary work to alleviate human suffering.

A postgraduate fellow of the University of Illinois, Chicago, Namperumalsamy started the India’s first Low Vision Aid Centre at the Government Rajaji Hospital in Madurai in 1971. He is currently the chairman of Aravind Eye Hospital. Namperumalsamy is a reciepient of Padma Shri Award from the Government of India.

AWARDS & HONORS

• “RUSTOM RANJI ORATION GOLD MEDAL” by Andhra State Ophthalmic Conference “CLOSED VITRECTOMY”, October 1982.
• Dr. P. SIVA REDDY ORATION GOLD MEDAL, RECENT CONCEPTS on AETIOLOGY and MANAGEMENT in EALES DISEASE All India Ophthalmological Conference Kanpur in 1986.
• Dr.JOSEPH GNANADICKAM MEMORIAL GOLD MEDAL ORATION RHEGMATOGENOUS RETINAL DETACHMENT MANAGEMENT Madras State Ophthalmic Association Conference Pondicherry 1986.
• “PARASNATH SINHA GOLD MEDAL ORATION” on PRESENT STATUSof PARS PLANA SURGERY at Bihar Ophthalmological Society and Third Eastern Zone Ophthalmological Conference, Patna 1987.
• “C.S. RESHMI AWARD” for BEST VIDEO FILM PRESENTATION at the 46th All India Ophthalmological Conference, Bombay 1988.
• PADMABHUSHAN DR.P.SIVA REDDYS ENDOWNMENT BEST TEACHER AWARD on 12th September 1998 at Hyderabad by the Andhra Pradesh Academic Sciences.
• MOST OUTSTANDING RETINAL SURGEON OF THE MILLENNIUM presented by the Executive Committee of “Eye Advance 2000”, Bombay, September 2000.
• INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATES of PROCTOR FOUNDATION – recognized by Proctor Foundation, USA.
• Award for DISTINGUISHED SERVICE TO HUMANITY – by Tamilnadu Senior Citizens & Pensioners Welfare Association II State Conference, Coimbatore, May 2002.
• DR.R.V.RAJAM ORATION AWARD – on “DIABETIC RETINOPATHY- AN EMERGING PROBLEM IN INDIA” at the 43rd Annual Conference of National Academy of Medical Sciences (India) at Jaipur, April 2004.

In less time than it takes to read this magazine, a simple surgery can give a blind person her eyesight back.

A miracle? Absolutely. But Dr. Perumalsamy Namperumalsamy, 70, and his army of cataract fixers at India’s Aravind Eye Care Hospitals make it look easy. The surgery has been around for decades, but the chairman of Aravind Eye Hospital which was founded in 1976 with the goal of bringing assembly-line efficiency to health care, figured out how to replace cataracts safely and quickly: 3.6 million surgeries to date, a new one every 15 minutes.

Equally brilliant is the business model: the 30% of patients who can afford to pay subsidize free or low-cost care for the 70% who are poor. “All people have a right to sight,” Namperumalsamy says. As I write these words after a long day spent in the slums in India, I cannot tell you how much admiration I have for him and his team. I’ll say he is the right person to give sight for the blind.

Checkout the ASCII Art of Dr.Namperumalsamy in the below link. Please use Lucida Console font to view the art in Notepad. Before that in Notepad go to Format and Uncheck the Word Warp and then Go to Font and Reduce the Font Size to 3 to 4 pt. Use only Lucida Console Font.

http://www.4shared.com/document/anDx6aQj/DrNamperumalsamy.html

HAN HAN – CHINA’S MOST WIDELY READ BLOGGER

Han Han born 23 September 1982 is a Chinese professional rally driver, best-selling author, singer, and China’s most popular blogger indeed, possibly the most popular blogger in the world. He is also involved in music production.

Han’s first essay, Unhappy Days, was published when he was attending junior middle school. He was admitted to Shanghai’s Song Jiang No. 2 High School based on his sporting achievements. During his first year of high school (1999), Han won first prize in China’s New Concept Writing Competition with his essay, Seeing Ourselves in a Cup, on the Chinese national character. Failing seven subjects at the year-end examination, Han was retained for a year in school. This incident was reported in the media and ignited a heated debate on China’s “quality education” policy, whether holistic or specialised learning should be implemented in schools, and other educational issues. Following another seven subject failure in the senior middle school second year examinations, Han quit school.After dropping out of school, Han worked on a series of essays – One Degree Below Freezing, Press Release 2003, And I Drift, and Miscellaneous Essays. His essays were accepted into various publications. Han’s first novel, Triple Door, on life as a third-year junior school student in Shanghai, raised his prominence in China outside Shanghai. With over two million copies printed, this novel is China’s bestselling literary work in the last 20 years. Other novels – Like a Speeding Youth, Riot in Chang’an City, A Fortress, Glory Days, His Kingdom were also published during this time.Fueled by his love of racing, Han became a professional rally driver and wrote less frequently. However, he continued to blog on current affairs, with some articles attracting a large number of readers and sparking intense debates. Han’s blog has registered well over 300 million hits, the largest online following of a personal blog in China. Han is also involved in music production. His debut album, R-18 restricted to 18 and above, was released in September 2006, with all lyrics self-composed.

On 19 April 2009, Han launched his online bookstore, Han Han’s Bookstore, on the Taobao online shopping marketplace. The bookstore site stated that it would sell only Han’s original autographed books. As the number of sales transactions on Han Han’s Bookstore was unusually large, the online system erroneously classified these as false transactions and attempts at credit fraud, leading Taobao to investigate the issue.

Due to certain publishing and circulation restrictions in China, Han’s magazine, which was originally planned for publication in August 2009, remained unpublished as of 20 September 2009. Despite this, Han promised not to disappoint his readers and expressed hope that the magazine could be published sometime around October 2009. As of February 2010 the magazine has not been published reportedly because of an article that details the blacklisting of actors.

After Han turned professional as a rally driver, there were rumours that he had encountered financial difficulties. Han himself admitted that writers and race car drivers in China earned less compared to those in other professions. Furthermore, his only income source was from book royalties as he was not involved in other revenue generating activities. However, he continued to race as it gave him a sense of achievement. Winning prizes also enabled him to prove to himself that he was an all-rounded learner.

The following highlights some of Han’s achievements in his racing career:

• 2003: Raced for Beijing Extreme Speed Racing Team in the China Rally. Achieved 6th in the Shanghai race, 8th in the Changchun race and 6th in the Beijing race, all in the Group N category.
• 2004: Group N 7th position for the Shanghai race, 4th position for the all-China race. 2004 June: Joined Yunnan Red River Racing Team.
• 2004: Took 1st position in the Formula BMW Asia Qualifying Race. Received scholarship money of USD 50,000.
• Entered the annual Formula BMW race, achieved 7th in the Bahrain race and 1st in the Rookie Cup.
• 8th in the Malaysia Race, 2nd in the Rookie Cup.
• 7th in the Shanghai race, 2nd in the Rookie Cup.
• 6th in the Japan race, 1st in the Rookie Cup.
• 2005: Joined Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Racing Team.
• 2005: Participated in the China Rally 1.6L Category. Achieved 4th in the Shanghai race, 4th in the Guizhou race, 4th in the Liupanshui race, and 4th in the Kunming race.
• 2005: Participated in the China Circuit Championship Production Car 1600cc Category. Took 1st position in the Zhuhai race, 2nd position in the Shanghai race, 3rd position in the Beijing race and 1st position in the Shaoguan race. Won overall 2nd prize for 2005.
• 2006: Raced for Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Racing Team. Won 3rd prize in the Shanghai race of the China Circuit Championship 1600cc Category, and 2nd prize in the China Rally.
• 2007: Raced for Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Racing Team, obtained 1st prize in the China Circuit Championship 1600cc Category.

In September 2009, Han travelled to Australia to participate in the World Rally Championship (WRC). Following this, he wrote a blog post entitled Report on supervision and guidance work in preparation for the WRC in Australia, using irony to express dissatisfaction with China’s standards of race management, economic conditions, political consciousness of the population, etc. in comparison with Australia.

Checkout the ASCII Art of Han Han in the below link. Please use Lucida Console font to view the art in Notepad. Before that in Notepad go to Format and Uncheck the Word Warp and then Go to Font and Reduce the Font Size to 3 to 4 pt. Use only Lucida Console Font.

http://www.4shared.com/document/P8L7sFZV/Han_Han.html

AMARTYA SEN – THE INDIAN ECONOMIST

Amartya Kumar Sen, born on 3rd November 1933, is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory and for his interest in the problems of society’s poorest members. Sen was best known for his work on the causes of famine, which led to the development of practical solutions for preventing or limiting the effects of real or perceived shortages of food.Sen was educated at Presidency College in Calcutta (now Kolkata). He went on to study at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he received a B.A. (1955), an M.A. (1959), and a Ph.D. (1959). He taught economics at a number of universities in India and England, including the Universities of Jadavpur (1956–58) and Delhi (1963–71), the London School of Economics, the University of London (1971–77), and the University of Oxford (1977–88), before moving to Harvard University (1988–98), where he was professor of economics and philosophy. In 1998 he was appointed master of Trinity College, Cambridge—a position he held until 2004, when he returned to Harvard as Lamont University Professor.

Welfare economics seeks to evaluate economic policies in terms of their effects on the well-being of the community. Sen, who devoted his career to such issues, was called the “conscience of his profession.” His influential monograph Collective Choice and Social Welfare (1970)—which addressed problems such as individual rights, majority rule, and the availability of information about individual conditions—inspired researchers to turn their attention to issues of basic welfare. Sen devised methods of measuring poverty that yielded useful information for improving economic conditions for the poor. For instance, his theoretical work on inequality provided an explanation for why there are fewer women than men in some poor countries in spite of the fact that more women than men are born and infant mortality is higher among males. Sen claimed that this skewed ratio results from the better health treatment and childhood opportunities afforded boys in those countries.

Sen’s interest in famine stemmed from personal experience. As a nine-year-old boy, he witnessed the Bengal famine of 1943, in which three million people perished. This staggering loss of life was unnecessary, Sen later concluded. He believed that there was an adequate food supply in India at the time but that its distribution was hindered because particular groups of people in this case rural laborers lost their jobs and therefore their ability to purchase the
food. In his book Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (1981), Sen revealed that in many cases of famine, food supplies were not significantly reduced. Instead, a number of social and economic factors such as declining wages, unemployment, rising food prices, and poor food-distribution systems led to starvation among certain groups in society.

Sen’s first wife was Nabaneeta Dev Sen, an Indian writer and scholar, with whom he had two children: Antara, a journalist and publisher, and Nandana, a Bollywood actress. Their marriage broke up shortly after they moved to London in 1971. In 1973, he married his second wife, Eva Colorni, who died from stomach cancer quite suddenly in 1985. They had two children, Indrani, a journalist in New York, and Kabir, who teaches music at Shady Hill School.

His present wife, Emma Georgina Rothschild, is an economic historian, an expert on Adam Smith and Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. Sen usually spends his winter holidays at his home in Santiniketan in West Bengal, India, where he likes to go on long bike rides, and maintains a house in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he and Emma spend the spring and long vacations. Asked how he relaxes, he replies: “I read a lot and like arguing with people.”

HONORS & AWARDS

• He received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his work in welfare economics in 1998.
• In 1999 he received the Bharat Ratna ‘the highest civilian award in India’ by the President of India. In 1999 he was offered honorary citizenship of Bangladesh from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in recognition of his achievements in winning the Nobel Prize, and given that his family origins were in what has become the modern state of Bangladesh.
• He received the 2000 Leontief Prize for his outstanding contribution to economic theory from the Global Development and Environment Institute.
• He was the 351st Commencement Speaker of Harvard University.
• In 2002 he received the International Humanist Award from the International Humanist and Ethical Union.
• Eisenhower Medal, for Leadership and Service USA, 2000.
• Companion of Honour, UK, 2000. In 2002, he received an honorary degree from the university of Tokyo.
• In 2003, he was conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Indian Chamber of Commerce.
• Life Time Achievement award by Bangkok-based United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).
• In 2009, Sen became a member of the SNV Netherlands Development Organisation’s International Advisory Board to contribute to the organisation’s work in poverty reduction and sustainable development.
• He was chosen to deliver the Demos Annual Lecture 2010

PUBLICATIONS

• Choice of Techniques, 1960. Sen, Amartya, An Aspect of Indian Agriculture, Economic Weekly, Vol. 14, 1962.
• Collective Choice and Social Welfare, 1970, Holden-Day, 1984, Elsevier. Sen, Amartya, On Economic Inequality, New York, Norton, 1973. (Expanded edition with a substantial annexe by James E. Foster and A. Sen, 1997).
• On Economic Inequality, 1973.
• Poverty and Famines: an Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, 1981a.
• Sen, Amartya, Poverty and Famines : An Essay on Entitlements and Deprivation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982.
• Sen, Amartya, Food Economics and Entitlements, Helsinki, Wider Working Paper 1, 1986.
• Sen, Amartya, On Ethics and Economics, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1987.
• Drèze, Jean and Sen, Amartya, Hunger and Public Action. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1989. Hunger and Public Action, jointly edited with Jean Drèze, 1989.
• Sen, Amartya, “More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing”. New York Review of Books, 1990.
• Sen, Amartya, Inequality Reexamined, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992.
• Nussbaum, Martha, and Sen, Amartya. The Quality of Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity, with Jean Drèze, 1995.
• Sen, Amartya, Reason Before Identity (The Romanes Lecture for 1998), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999.
• Commodities and Capabilities, 1999.
• Sen, Amartya, Development as Freedom, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999.
• Development as Freedom, 1999. Reason Before Identity, 1999.
• Freedom, Rationality, and Social Choice: The Arrow Lectures and Other essays, 2000.
• Sen, Amartya, Rationality and Freedom, Harvard, Harvard Belknap Press, 2002.
• Rationality and Freedom, 2004.
• Inequality Reexamined, 2004.
• The Argumentative Indian, 2005.
• Sen, Amartya, The Argumentative Indian, London: Allen Lane, 2005.
• Sen, Amartya, The Three R’s of Reform, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 40(19): pp. 1971-1974, 2005.
• Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (Issues of Our Time), New York, W. W. Norton, 2006.
• Imperial Illusions: India, Britain, and the wrong lessons. By Amartya Sen.
• Response by Niall Ferguson. Equality of Capacity by Amartya Sen.
• The Idea of Justice Harvard University Press & London: Allen Lane,2009.

Checkout the ASCII Art of Amartya Sen in the below link. Please use Lucida Console font to view the art in Notepad. Before that in Notepad go to Format and Uncheck the Word Warp and then Go to Font and Reduce the Font Size to 3 to 4 pt. Use only Lucida Console Font.

http://www.4shared.com/document/wjNitkjG/Amartya_Sen.html

CHETAN BHAGAT – THE MODERN INDIAN AUTHOR

Chetan Bhagat was born on April 22, 1974 in New Delhi. He is an Indian author who has written Five Point Someone – What not to do at IIT , One Night @ the Call Center, The Three Mistakes of My Life and 2 States – The Story Of My Marriage. He has also written the script of Hello, the Hindi movie based on One Night @ the Call Center. He is married to Anusha, who was his classmate in IIM.Along with Advaita Kala and Karan Bajaj, Chetan Bhagat is considered among the trio of modern Indian writers that have rewritten Indian publishing rules and brought a new scale to the Indian publishing landscape with previously unheard of book sales.

Bhagat attended Army Public School from the year 1978 to 1991, Dhaula Kuan, New Delhi. He studied Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute Of Technology (IIT), (1991-1995) Delhi, and then studied at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM) (1995-1997) where he was named “The Best Outgoing Student”.

He fell in love with his IIM Ahmedabad classmate Anusha and they eventually got married.[1] A fictionalized version of his love story is given in his book 2 states – The story of my marriage.

Bhagat’s writing style tends to be simple, with linear narratives and vivid storytelling. His protagonists tend to be named after Lord Krishna, like Hari, Shyam, Govind or Krishna. All his books have a number in the title (e.g. ‘five’ in the first, ‘one’ in the second, ‘three’ in the third and ‘two’ in his latest book.) When asked about this Chetan replied “I’m a banker, I can’t get numbers out of my head.” He is a columnist with Dainik Bhaskar & The Times Of India, and writes on political issues.

ON TELEVISION

Chetan Bhagat is a judge on a soon to be hosted Reality show by Star News called Star Anchor Hunt.

AWARDS

• Society Young Achiever’s award in 2004.
• Publisher’s recognition award in 2005.

Checkout the ASCII Art of Chetan Bhagat in the below link. Please use Lucida Console font to view the art in Notepad. Before that in Notepad go to Format and Uncheck the Word Warp and then Go to Font and Reduce the Font Size to 3 to 4 pt. Use only Lucida Console Font.

http://www.4shared.com/document/mxLjMM5K/Chetan_Bhagat.html