Maximising the benefits of Aadhaar

While concerns about data protection are valid, I am a believer in the benefits of Aadhaar. There are two suggestions I have regarding better utilisation of Aadhaar. One is doing away with all sorts of roll numbers from high school till college and replacing them with Aadhaar. The other is since several school leaving boards/ class 12 boards/ higher secondary boards are also integrated with the DigiLocker system, in addition to pushing the digital marksheets through to DigiLocker, if the marks and the subject names in machine readable forms are sent to DigiLocker, and if it can be accessed through an API, then colleges which use an online system to admit students can pull the data from DigiLocker when the student enters the Aadhaar number in the college's admission portal. This mechanism will eliminate the need for verification of physical marksheets, thereby saving lots of human hours for college authorities.

Aardvark to Zyzzyva or Zyzzyzus

It is interesting that the first and the last noun in an English language dictionary can both be names of non-human living creatures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aardvark

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zyzzyva

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zyzzyzus

Law enforcement and crime

    Human beings have a combination of goodness and evil proclivities in them. External stimuli and environment elicit certain kind of reactions. Without fear of punishment, we would give free rein to our evil inclinations. Law-enforcing authorities exist to mete out punishment and keep our evil tendencies in check. When law-enforcing authorities and the government condone evil, rather than strongly condemning it and ensuring punishment for the guilty, human beings take it as a licence to indulge in their deepest evil desires.
    Death penalty for child rapists is a good idea. If enforced and executed properly (without falsely implicating innocent people), it should act as a deterrent to human beings in general from committing such crimes. This law applies to other crimes as well.

Clean-shaven Pope

According to this list, the first clean-shaven Pope was someone called Valentine who was Pope for 40 days from 31st August to 10th October 827.

It was only in the 15th century that all the Popes in a century were clean-shaven. The 16th and the 17th century saw a come-back of the beard but from the beginning of the 18th century, there hasn't been any Pope who wasn't clean-shaven.

This provides a nice way of looking at changing men's fashion in western Europe.

Books that sell in the early twenty-first century

1. Fantasy (Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Amish Tripathi's books etc.) (added advantage of associated series of cinematic adaptations)
2. Examination question papers and preparation guides
3. Romance (with sex, without sex)
4. Simple stories written in simple language (Chetan Bhagat, Jeffrey Archer etc.)
5. Crime fiction
6. Picture books for toddlers and those learning to read
7. Books for slightly older kids but with pictures (Diary of a Wimpy Kid)
8. Motivational -- How to be Rich and Succcessful, How to be Happy, How to be Healthy (What to Eat, How to Lose Weight)

The four most important Indians of the twentieth century

I am currently of the opinion that the four most important Indians of the twentieth century were

a) Mohandas K Gandhi,
b) a man who followed Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru,
c) a man who funded Gandhi, Ghanshyam Das Birla, and
d) a man who was a Gandhian in his school days, Dhirajlal Ambani.

পিকাডিলি-র উচ্চারণ

লন্ডনে ফেলুদা--তে ছোট বেলায় এটা পড়েছিলাম।

বরফে ঢাকা আলপসের উপর দিয়ে প্লেনটা না উড়ে গেলে প্রায় কিছুই দেখার থাকত না।
পাহাড়টার নাম জেনে লালমোহনবাবু জিজ্ঞেস করলেন, 'আমরা কি মন্ট ব্ল্যাঙ্ক দেখতে পাব?'
ফেলুদা বলল, 'তা পাব, তবে মন্ট ব্ল্যাঙ্ক নয়, লালমোহনবাবু। এখন ইউরোপে এসেছেন, এখানকার দ্রষ্টব্যগুলোর নামের উচ্চারণ ঠিক করে করতে শিখুন। অটা হল ম ব্লাঁ।'
'তার মানে অনেকগুলো অক্ষরের কোনও উচ্চারণই নেই?'
'ফরাসিতে সেটা খুব স্বাভাবিক।'
লালমোহনবাবু বেশ কয়েকবার ম ব্লাঁ ম ব্লাঁ বলে নিলেন।
' আর আমাদের হোটেল যেখানে,' বলল ফেলুদা, 'সেটার বানান দেখে পিকাডিলি বলতে ইচ্ছা করলেও আপনি যদি পিক্‌লি বলেন তা হলে ওখানকার সাধারণ লোকে বুঝবে আরও সহজে। পিক্‌লি সার্কাস,'
'পিক্‌লি সার্কাস। থ্যাঙ্ক ইউ।'

এই 'পিক্‌লি' উচ্চারণটার কোনো অস্তিত্ব আজ পর্যন্ত খুঁজে পাইনি। এবং যেহেতু পিকাডিলি শব্দটা এসেছে 'পিকাডিল' বা ফুটো ফুটো কলার এর থেকে, ফলে পিকাডিলি-টাই যুক্তি মত উচ্চারণ হওয়া উচিত।