Politics on Noetic Nought

Catch of the Year Poll on Ultiworld: A pointless exercise

Thu, 07 Mar 2019 20:23:00 +0530

Ultiworld, a popular Ultimate related magazine did a poll for it’s “readers” to pick the Catch of the Year. I wouldn’t have noticed it normally, but this time around Pranav Rajan, a player from India, featured in it. A lot of people in the Indian Ultimate community tried to ensure the whole community took notice and voted in large numbers!

[…] we studied many hours of tape and solicited your submissions to create a list of 16 finalists. Over the next week, you the Ultiworld readers will have a chance to weigh in and select the Catch of the Year.

Studying all these hours of tape and picking some of the best catches seems like a great contribution to the Ultimate community. It gives these players a good platform of recognition and it also gives all of us people to look up to.

But, I find this whole exercise of popular voting quite pointless. What exactly is Ultiworld trying to achieve here? It seems like it is just a competition to see how much popularity and support each player can garner.

Perhaps unsurprising to those who have followed along with our brackets in the past, Pranav managed by far the most votes in the first round, buoyed by a continent’s worth of support. If past brackets are any indication, it will take massive domestic support to take the young Indian star down in this competition. Can Sovell-Fernandez muster it?

In one of the tighter matchups we’ve seen in this year’s competition, Pranav’s U24 World Championships snag captured 56% of the vote to surpass another young star in the making, Allyn Suzuki of California Current. With the margin always close, Suzuki led as late as with 18 hours to go, but Pranav saw a late surge to claim victory.

The poll is unauthenticated. People can vote multiple times, with simple cookie tweaking. Even if we are relying on people to vote in the “Spirit of the Game”, I don’t see what the community gains out of this exercise.

The players, who featured in the poll, themselves are left wondering if they deserved to win given the poll wasn’t fool-proof and given that humans with all their biases easily vote for players they know, or players from their country, etc.

Ultiworld gets lots of page views and the like. The link to the vote was shared with lots of people who probably hadn’t heard of Ultiworld before or don’t care to read it. May be they found a few new readers?

I would’ve liked the whole exercise a lot more if Ultiworld just stopped at picking the 8 or 16 top catches, and putting them all in a post. But, may be that wouldn’t have got so many page views!

I refuse to participate in any such future popularity contests. And I think we all should.

Thanks to Meghana Iyer for sharing her strong views on this Ultiworld poll and for reading a draft of this post. Thanks to Shantanu Choudhary for encouraging me to write this post.

JP - 19th Century Politics & 21st Century Economics

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0530

Can they co-exist?

Economics and Politics cannot be de-linked.
In the 20th century, Human kind has discovered what works best in Politics.

Role of State?

Public Order, Justice, Rule of Law
Accident of the womb doesn’t determine the fate of a child.
- Education
- Health care
Infrastructure
- Transportation etc.
Natural Resource Development
Social security

India

2% of global economy

Politics

Success Story

Universal Adult Franchise on Day-1
- a great adventure
- an enormous expression of faith
- US, Britain took ages
Retianed political freedoms
intense electoral competition
winners do not punish losers
elected governement is truly in authority
Maturity of federalism

India is a truly vibrant functioning democracy. Moderate growth of economy, and influencing the global economy

Dark Corners

Vote buying
1. Poverty, Illiteracy
2. Power struggle without reference to Ideologies/outcomes
3. Only change in players, no change of outcomes
Freebies after election
Dividing based on primordial loyalties
1. No sense that any party would make any difference
  1. Emotional Purchase is only available

Argument

19th Century Politics, Medieval Politics and Modern Economics cannot co-exist. One of them will have to give way.

Comparison with China
1. Argument against Democracy is detrimental to economies
  1. Autocracy - everything bad that happened
  2. Democratization - everything good that happened
    1. it’s more than just voting
    2. in some respects China is perhaps more democratic than India
What India needs
1. Art of democratization of our society
  1. even after we have 7700 words in the constitution on this issue
  2. We created over structured under powered local governments.
  3. recognize the merit of de-centralization
    1. link between authority and accountability
    2. understanding of link between vote and public good
    3. link between taxes and services rendered
      - tax avoidance is a national sport!
2. Rule of Law
  1. impeccable system of law normative-ly
  2. weak, in practice
  3. simple elegant answers exist.
    1. administrative forms comission
  4. Culture of VIPs, cronyism, …
3. Fight Corruption
  1. corruption in India is Ubiquitous!
  2. answers are self-evident
    1. institutional mechanisms
4. Electoral System
  1. Proportional Representation
  2. Presidential system
  3. Old fashioned - first past the post system needs to go
    1. One vote can change things
    2. Vote buying will continue

Challenge

We need to set the house in order today
What happens to one-sixth the humanity cannot but impact the rest of the world!

Questions

Answer-ability of administrators

Vicious cycle of politicians (get purchase) trying to change the system

bad politics drives away good politics

young people recognizing the centrality of politics

deep engagement of middle class

pursuit of personal goals along with pursuit of public good

politics - improved only by better and more politics, not revulsion

Telangana issue

Our federalism has matured remarkably

neither a cure nor a catastrophe

it’s a practical solution some people are seeking

if language is not a marker, what’s the new marker?

there’s nothing wrong with having markers
some uniform principle

big city is seeking a separate state-hood

could happen with another state
how do we resolve it?

Once these things are resolved, it doesn’t matter what happens.

the real answer lies in de-centralization

Rule of Law and Democracy

over-centralization has been our bane

decentralization is a tool of democracy

delivery of rule of law is weak

we have to set that right

freedom and economic growth are compatible - show this to the world!

Maoist insurgency

the only form of dissent is within the bounds of the constitution

state and the people have every right and duty to control it

hierarchy of principles - preserving of constitutional order

Positive experiences during your term as legislator

politicians are just another set of human beings. period.

do whatever it takes to stay in power
they are not villians
1. political framework

Conclusion

We have the technology. The world is truly flat. We have the resources, to be able to fulfil all the basic needs of all the people and the potential of the country.

We lack are institutions, right kind of politics. They take a lot of nurturing. Let us be engaged. It is our future that’s on the line. Economic growth is spurring changes in the country. Communications revolution is helping bring change. The question is, What direction of change? I ask of you, to make a difference to the way the Indian political trajectory takes shape.

Unitedly Independent!?

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0530

First things first…

स्वतंत्रता दिनोत्सव की शुभकामनायें

Wish You All a Happy Independence Day..

స్వాతంత్ర దినోత్సవ శుభాకాంక్షలు…

[yes, I know just three of the eighteen… and no foreign ones.. ]

Every year, during this time of the year, the papers and news and blogs and all other such media, are filled with analyses, comments, opinions and all sorts of things on the progress made (and not made) by Independent India…. the flavour of patriotism that was only subtle all this while, tends to grow upon us as the Day arrives and I’m no exception.

Being an average Indian, just one amongst the Billion, the progress (or non-) is a very big issue for me to comment on and I would leave that job for the better qualified or the more courageous ones. But I wonder, I (just) wonder…..

Come August and its the beginning of a new semester, bringing along “Elections” in campus. This time is no different… I can see people gearing up…. campaigning has begun even before the announcement of elections or nominations… and what goes on here?

“Dude.. I don’t need to campaign.. there’s enough guys from our state in our hostel.. so contesting= winning.. don’t worry!”
“Look dude.. both of us are from the same state.. so I know you will be obviously voting for me.. but still if you want, you can have a look at my Agenda… "
“Hey, its not important for me to tell you my agenda… its sufficient for you to know that my opponent hails from the other half of the country (North-South)where we hail from..
“People.. we need to make sure that only one person, belonging to our state contests for this post… or the votes will get divided”

Where are those ideals of unity and brotherhood? Isn’t it important that the best person be chosen? Shouldn’t the abilities of a candidate be considered rather than where (s)he hails from or what tongue (s)he speaks? Isn’t it an irony, that all this happens precisely during this time, when the whole nation is celebrating the birth of an Independent India?? Shouldn’t at least the celebrations be able to evoke the emotions of brotherhood, love and equality amongst us?? Shouldn’t the fact that all of us are here with a purpose, a common goal of education, enough to get over the differences of language and origin? Shouldn’t the interests of the College and the Students overpower such minor issues??