Battle of the knowledge superpowers

By Sean CoughlanBBC News education correspondent

"Knowledge clusters" are being built in France to kick start hi-tech industries

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Knowledge is power - economic power - and there's a scramble for that power taking place around the globe.

In the United States, Europe and in rising powers such as China, there is a growth-hungry drive to invest in hi-tech research and innovation.

They are looking for the ingredients that, like Google, will turn a university project into a corporation. They are looking for the jobs that will replace those lost in the financial crash.

Not to invest would now be "unthinkable", says Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, the European Commissioner responsible for research, innovation and science, who is trying to spur the European Union to keep pace in turning ideas into industries.

She has announced £6bn funding to kick-start projects next year - with the aim of supporting 16,000 universities, research teams and businesses. A million new research jobs will be needed to match global rivals in areas such as health, energy and the digital economy.

'Innovation emergency'

Emphasising that this is about keeping up, rather than grandstanding, she talks about Europe facing an "innovation emergency".

"In China, you see children going into school at 6.30am and being there until 8 or 9pm, concentrating on science, technology and maths. And you have to ask yourself, would European children do that?

Maire Geoghegan-Quinn: "The knowledge economy is the economy that is going to create the jobs"

"That's the competition that's out there. We have to rise to that - and member states have to realise that the knowledge economy is the economy that is going to create the jobs in the future, it's the area they have to invest in."

But the challenge for Europe, she says, is to be able to commercialise ideas as successfully as the United States, in the manner of the iPhone or Facebook.

The commissioner says that she was made abruptly aware of the barriers facing would-be innovators at the Nobel Prize awards ceremony dinner.

Instead of basking in the reflected glory of a prize winner funded by European grants, she said she had to listen to a speech attacking the red-tape and bureaucracy - and "generally embarrassing the hell out of me".

Determined that this would never happen again, she is driving ahead with a plan to simplify access to research funding and to turn the idea of a single European research area into a reality by 2014.

With storm clouds dominating the economic outlook, she sees investing in research and hi-tech industries - under the banner of the "Innovation Union" - as of vital practical importance in the push towards creating jobs and growth.

"We have to be able to say to the man and woman in the street, suffering intensely because of the economic crisis: this is a dark tunnel, but there is light at the end and we're showing you where it is."

Global forum

There has been sharpening interest in this borderland between education and the economy.

This month the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) staged its inaugural Global Forum on the Knowledge Economy.

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SCIENCE CITIES

GIANT - the Grenoble Innovation for Advanced New Technologies - is an ambitious French example of a knowledge cluster, combining academic research and commercial expertise.

The classic examples have been in California and Boston in the US, and around Cambridge in the UK. Purpose-built centres include Education City in Qatar, Science City in Zurich and Digital Media City in Seoul.

There will be 40,000 people living, studying and working on the GIANT campus. Centres of research excellence will be side-by-side with major companies who will develop the commercial applications. This includes nanotechnology, green energy and the European Synchotron Radiation Facility (pictured above). A business school, the Grenoble Ecole de Management, is also part on site.

This hi-tech version of a factory town will have its own transport links and a green environment designed to attract people to live and stay here.

This was a kind of brainstorming for governments living on a shoestring.

The UK's Universities Minister, David Willetts, called for a reduction in unnecessary regulation, which slowed down areas such as space research.

The French response has been to increase spending, launching a £30bn grand project to set up a series of "innovation clusters" - in which universities, major companies and research institutions are harnessed together to create new knowledge-based industries.

It's an attempt to replicate the digital launchpad of Silicon Valley in California. And in some ways these are the like mill towns of the digital age, clustered around science campuses and hi-tech employers.

But the knowledge economy does not always scatter its seed widely. When the US is talked about as an innovation powerhouse, much of this activity is based in narrow strips on the east and west coasts.

A map of Europe measuring the number of patent applications shows a similar pattern - with high concentrations in pockets of England, France, Germany and Finland.

There are also empty patches - innovation dust bowls - which will raise tough political questions if good jobs are increasingly concentrated around these hi-tech centres. The International Monetary Fund warned last week that governments must invest more in education to escape a "hollowing out" of jobs.

Speed of change

Jan Muehlfeit, chairman of Microsoft Europe, explained what was profoundly different about these new digital industries - that they expand at a speed and scale that would have been impossible in the traditional manufacturing industries.

Governments trying to respond to such quicksilver businesses needed to ensure that young people were well-educated, creative and adaptable, he said.

As an example of a success story, Mr Muehlfeit highlighted South Korea. A generation ago they deliberately invested heavily in raising education standards. Now, as a direct result of this upskilling, the West is importing South Korean cars and televisions, he said.

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“Start Quote

The triangle of innovation, education and skills is of extreme importance, defining both the problem and the solution”

Jose Angel GurriaOECD secretary general

Perhaps it is not a coincidence that South Korea's government has its own dedicated knowledge economy minister.

Robert Aumann, a Nobel Prize winner in economics, attending the OECD event, also emphasised this link between the classroom and the showroom. "How do you bring about innovation? Education, education, education," he said.

But this is far from a case of replacing jobs in old rusty industries with new hi-tech versions.

Gordon Day, president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the US-based professional association for technology, made the point that digital businesses might generate huge incomes but they might not employ many people. In some cases they might only have a payroll one tenth of a traditional company of a similar size.

It's an uncomfortable truth for governments looking for a recovery in the jobs market.

Degrees of employment

But standing still isn't an option.

Figures released from the OECD have shown how much the financial crisis has changed the jobs market.

Class of 2011 in Shanghai: China now has the second biggest share of the world's graduates

There were 11 million jobs lost, half of them in the United States, and with low-skilled workers and manufacturing the hardest hit. If those losses are to be recovered, it is going to be with higher-skilled jobs, many of them requiring degrees.

But graduate numbers show the shifting balance of power.

From a standing start, China now has 12% of graduates in the world's big economies - approaching the share of the UK, Germany and France put together. The incumbent superpower, the United States, still towers above with 26% of the graduates.

South Korea now has the sixth biggest share of the world's graduates, ahead of countries such as France and Italy.

It means that the US and European countries have to compete on skills with these rising Asian powers.

But the US university system remains a formidably well-funded generator of research. A league table, generated for the first time this month, looked at the global universities with research making the greatest impact - with US universities taking 40 out of the top 50 places.

Their wealth was emphasised this week with the announcement of financial figures from the two Boston university powerhouses, Harvard and MIT, which had a combined endowment of £27bn.

"The triangle of innovation, education and skills is of extreme importance, defining both the problem and the solution," said the OECD's secretary general, Jose Angel Gurria.

"It's a world of cut-throat competition. We lost so much wealth, we lost so many exports, we lost so much well-being, we lost jobs, job, jobs," he told delegates in Paris.

"We must re-boot our economies with a more intelligent type of growth."

From cow dung to biogas to carbon credits for Nepal

SUBMITTED BY KIRTAN CHANDRA SAHOO 

Early this year, I visited several households in the small village of Bela located in the Kavre district of Nepal, about 50 kilometers from the capital Kathmandu. Mr. Niranjan Sapkota’s house was located on a steep mountain surrounded by forests. I had to walk along narrow mountain paths, grabbing on to bushes and sometimes hands of accompanying local staff. I was going to verify if the biogas plant Mr. Sapkota had constructed in the February of 2005 was still in operation.  I turned the brass valve in the kitchen and with a hissing sound, gas flowed and the family pointed to the meal that they had just cooked using biogas from cattle dung that they had in plenty.

There are 225,000 such families in Nepal who now have easy-to-operate biogas plants in their backyards. Bela is considered a model biogas village with almost every house equipped with a biogas plant.

Last month, the Nepal’s Biogas Program reached an important milestone: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), for the first time approved and issued carbon credits to two Nepalese biogas projects. To date, this is the largest worldwide issuance of carbon credits, or Certified Emission Reductions (CERs), in a Least Developed Country (LDC). Two more similar projects from Nepal are now at an advanced stage of being registered with the UNFCCC. Together, these projects are expected to generate about 170,000 carbon credits per year, which is equivalent to avoiding emissions from approximately 60,000 cars every year.

For most women living in this mountainous region of Nepal, looking for firewood every morning was a daily ritual. This program reduces the time spent collecting firewood and, since they are no longer exposed to the indoor smoke from burning of firewood in traditional stoves, it also dramatically improves the health of these women and their children. Other important benefits of the program are lessening the pressure on deforestation and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The program mainly targets isolated and socially marginalized groups in rural Nepal, who can’t access or afford to use modern cooking fuels such as LPG and have been buying kerosene or charcoal, or collecting firewood. Realizing the multiple benefits associated with promotion of biogas plants, the Government of Nepal has decided to use carbon credits as one of the important financing instruments to scale up the implementation of the program. The World Bank’s Community Development Carbon Fund  committed US$ 7 million to the program to purchase the carbon credits that it generates, and a US$ 5 million grant was provided by GPOBA (the Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid , a partnership program administered by the World Bank) to subsidize the construction of the biogas plants.

For the last several years I have been working with this biogas program. The road to getting carbon credits for the program has not been easy. It has taken over four years to get the first batch of CERs successfully verified and certified through the UN system. The challenges included finding appropriate and credible ways to monitor and quantify carbon credits from thousands of biogas plants that are spread over long distances and located in remote areas.

The deadlock was cleared this past August when the UNFCCC issued the first CERs for the projects. By September 2011, over 92,000 CERs have been issued to the first two registered projects. These carbon credits are helping to offset the cost of owning and operating the plants and making the projects financially sustainable over time. In our evaluation, we found that more than 95% of the biogas plants were operating smoothly after five years of installation, demonstrating the robustness of the technology as well as the quality of program design and implementation. The monitoring system developed in collaboration with the World Bank also works well. Hopefully, this can provide a model for similar projects in other countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa where firewood is still widely used for cooking.

Seeing the women of Bela in their homes, spending time with their children instead of scouring the countryside for firewood, made this long road to certifying and verifying emissions completely worth the effort.

 

Central Bank’s mandate is to attain both ‘economic’ and ‘price’ stability

A reader of My View on popular fallacies of currency appreciation published in the previous few weeks has directed a series of questions to me. What is Central Bank’s mandate? Should it just target to stabilise the domestic prices? Or should it try to maintain stability in the exchange rate? Or should it work for ensuring a higher economic growth?

These are the general questions which ordinary members of the public ask themselves relating to the Central Bank. Everyone holds answers to these questions according to his or her convenience. Hence, if one asks these questions from 100 people, it is likely that he would get more than 100 different answers.
The writer thought of answering these questions, drawing facts from an article he wrote several years ago.
Economic and price stability is the Central Bank’s mandate
The Central Bank’s mandate is to pursue ‘economic and price stability’ as one of its core objectives. This new mandate was given to the Bank by an amendment to its governing law, Monetary Law Act, in 2002.
This is somewhat a departure from the central banks in the rest of the world which have been mandated to attain only ‘price stability’. Hence, it may be puzzling to many whether the Central Bank of Sri Lanka has been given an additional objective to attain.
The amendment to the Monetary Law came as a part of the modernisation program which the Bank commenced in 2000. One of the essential ingredients of that programme was to update the Monetary Law to be on par with the emerging global best practices relating to central banking.
Up to that time, the Central Bank had been entrusted with a multitude of objectives: attaining domestic price stability, participating in economic development, preserving the external value of the Rupee, protecting banks from collapse and maintaining the financial system stability etc.
These objectives were not very clear and were often in conflict with each other. They also posed difficulties in monitoring the progress or assessing the success of the Bank. Many critiques had pointed out, and the technical staff too in the Bank had experienced, that the Bank could not succeed in its main task of taming inflation and bringing about price stability, if it was saddled with other tasks that would go against its main objective.
Hence, there emerged a general consensus that the central bank should do only what it can do effectively and not otherwise. That consensus required the Central Bank to pursue a single objective, namely, the attainment of price stability.
Redefining price stability target in a peculiar way
Following this consensus that emerged through the consultative process involved in the modernisation, the technical staff of the Bank proposed an amendment to the Monetary Law by mandating the Bank with the task of attaining two core objectives. They were the attainment of both ‘price stability’ and ‘financial system stability’.
When the draft law was submitted to the then Governor, A.S. Jayawardena, for clearance, he had changed the ‘price stability’ to ‘economic and price stability’. The puzzled and bewildered technical staff flocked to his room seeking a clarification, since it was not in line with the accepted international trend. The writer recalls that even the Resident Representative of the IMF at that time too was puzzled by this seemingly inappropriate mandate being added to the Bank’s objectives.
A.S. Jayawardena’s wisdom
But, Jayawardena, assuming his usual erudite and serious posture, offered a different explanation which had never occurred to the technical staff. The writer recalls him saying “…if you have only price stability, then you would fall into the trap of attempting to stabilise a price index which is not what is meant by price stability, in the context of a central bank. The attainment of price stability for a central bank means elimination of both excess demand and excess supply in the market so that the market is free of potential inflationary or deflationary pressures. Such an equilibrium will help the country to maintain a balance in the balance of payments and thereby stability in the exchange rate.”
At that time, many in the Central Bank, including the present writer, did not fully understand the wisdom enshrined in that statement. It even led to the confusion of many that the Bank had been mandated to stabilise the growth rate as well, in addition to the stabilisation of prices. Accordingly, some even charged that the Bank had failed in its tasks, when there was a negative growth in the economy in 2001.
In hindsight, it can now be discerned that Jayawardena’s wisdom was to present the price stability in its totality in clear terms so that the future central bankers would not try to address only a sub part of the issue, namely, rising consumer price indexes.
The true meaning of economic and price stability
We could illustrate this point as follows:
An economy produces goods and services, numbering billions, for use by its members. The total of these goods and services, when they are offered in the market, is called the aggregate supply. This aggregate supply consists of real goods and services which the users can consume or use as inputs for further production. Hence, it is known as a real quantity, quite distinct from an imagined or assumed quantity.
For instance, a coconut is a real quantity, while saying that its value is Rs. 5 or Rs. 10 or any other value is an assumed or an imagined quantity. This real quantity has to be exchanged among members of the society.
Since it is practically impossible to trade one commodity for another commodity in a modern complex economy, there arises the need for adopting a common medium of exchange. ‘Money’ offers the service of this common medium of exchange at the cheapest cost to conclude billions of transactions without a hindrance.
Money values are simply imagined or assumed values
Money, unlike real commodities, is a peculiar animal. Its usefulness arises from its ability to acquire real goods and services which people can enjoy. For instance, I accept my salary in money, because that bundle of money enables me to acquire the rice I want to eat.
If money does not have this ability, no one would be interested in having money. Hence, the value given to money is simply an imaginary value. As a result, money bears a nominal feature, as against the real feature borne by other goods and services. That is why any value measured in terms of money is also known as a nominal value.
How does money work?
We may illustrate the role played by money in an economy by considering the operation of a simple economy where there are only two commodities, say, coconuts and money. Everybody has to use money to get coconuts or use coconuts to get money so as to store their wealth (for getting coconuts in the future).
Suppose there were 10 coconuts and 100 units of money. Then, each coconut has to be exchanged for 10 units of money per coconut. Now, suppose, through a miracle, the money endowment of people doubles to 200 units, while the number of coconuts remains unchanged at 10. Then, the price of coconuts in terms of money rises to 20 units from the earlier 10 units. What has happened here is that when the amount of money doubled, while the production of coconuts had remained unchanged, the prices too have doubled.
What would happen to the price level, if the number of coconuts too doubled along with the doubling of money? Then, 20 coconuts would be exchanged for 200 units of money. Hence, the price level would remain unchanged at 10 units of money per coconut.
Now, suppose that the number of coconuts doubles to 20, while the amount of money remains at 100 units. In this case, the price level has to fall from 10 units of money to 5 units of money.
Let’s consider one more possibility. Suppose that there has been a devastating hurricane and it destroys exactly a half of the original number of coconuts, leaving the balance half intact for use by people.
Now, in this economy, there are only five coconuts against 100 units of money. It is not difficult to discern that the prices would rise to 20 units of money per coconut. What would happen if the amount of money too is raised to 200 units in this scenario? Then, the price of coconut would skyrocket to 40 units of money.
The moral of the example
In the above example, coconut constituting a real output represented the aggregate supply of goods and services, measured in real terms. The total amount of money in the hands of the people represented the demand for coconuts.
Since the money value of coconuts is an imaginary concept, that demand could be described as the nominal aggregate demand for goods and services. What would happen to the general price level will depend on the interplay of these two demand and supply forces.
The rest of the analysis follows the normal microeconomic theory. If the aggregate demand is higher than the aggregate supply, there will be an excess demand in the economy. That excess demand will generate pressure for the general price level to rise.
Similarly, if the aggregate supply is higher than the aggregate demand, the resultant excess supply will put pressure for the prices to fall. Then, it follows that, if someone desires to have price stability, he should try to equate the nominal aggregate demand with the given real aggregate supply.
Keeping excess demand or excess supply at zero level
The price stability, in the context of a central bank, means the maintenance of a zero excess demand or excess supply in the total economy, commonly known as the macro economy. In that situation, all incentives for prices to rise or fall are non-existent.
What is meant by economic stability in the broad objective of the Central Bank is the attainment and maintenance of this state. A central bank cannot be complacent until it has attained this level of stability.
The way to attain that level of stability is to control the nominal aggregate demand by controlling the main force affecting that aggregate demand: the quantity of money in the hands of people. This is because in the long run, the general price level moves exactly in accordance with the movement of money supply. It led the Noble Laureate Milton Friedman to remark in his Noble Laureate Oration that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon”.
The manifestations of excess demand or excess supply
There are three manifestations of an excess demand or an excess supply.
First, people on average make high inflation expectations about the future and use that high inflation in all the negotiations they make with other parties. A good example is trade unions asking a higher wage increase from employers.
Second, the consumer price index starts showing some volatility in its change or stubbornness when it comes to falling below a given level, say 7 or 8 % per annum.
Third, the exchange rate comes under pressure for depreciation on account of a chronic shortage of foreign exchange earned through normal commercial transactions. The country may, accordingly, experience deficits on a continuous basis in its current account of the balance of payments.
Low growth in a consumer price index is no reason for complacence
The presence of any one of these situations requires a central bank to go into action. This means that, even if the consumer price index shows stability or a relatively low growth, the central bank cannot remain idle if other manifestations are present. There, a central bank should try to eradicate the cause instead of pampering with the symptoms.
There appears to be a general tendency for equating increases in the cost of living with inflation. An increase in the cost of living occurs when the basket of commodities consumed by a given group of people entails a higher cost.
As mentioned earlier, this is measured by compiling a consumer price index. A central bank cannot do anything about the increases in the cost of living, since it does not produce goods and services.
That is why John Exter, the founder Governor of the Central Bank, remarked in his very first press interview that “…the Bank does not itself produce goods and services. It will facilitate it by creating right monetary conditions.” Implicit in these ‘right monetary conditions’ is the need for attaining economic and price stability in its totality.
Inflation versus cost of living
Inflation is a much wider phenomenon than the cost of living. It entails the absence of stability in the macro economy leading to an increase in all the prices at the same time. A consumer price index measures the price impact on a consumption basket consisting of only consumer goods.
In contrast, inflation occurs when the prices of all goods, consumption, intermediate, investment and inputs, rise at the same time. It elevates the general price level to a higher level, including those of the consumer goods.
The above misunderstanding may lead to the pitfall of a central banker trying to stabilise the value of a cost of living index through artificial means. It can be attained by fixing price ceilings or granting price subsidies. But, it does not cure the malady of generally rising prices generated by rising nominal aggregate demand over the real aggregate supply.
A subsidy could ease the burden on the cost of living of a given consumer or a group of consumers. But, if the subsidy is financed by incurring a loss elsewhere, it does not help fight inflation. That is because at the place where the loss is incurred, there is a deficit supply that generates pressures for prices to rise.
Similarly, price controls may keep the cost of living index under control. But, as long as there is excess demand in the macro economy, it does not help to contain inflation.
Price trimming is no answer to inflation
The US authorities have recently been criticised on account of a move suggested to stabilise the price index by adopting what is known as ‘trimming of prices’. Under this system, if the price of a given commodity rises by more than 5% in any given month, it has been suggested to remove that commodity from the basket of commodities in the index on the reasoning that consumers would have substituted some other commodity for that commodity.
Such a measure understandably reduces the increase in the price index and the cost of living allowances payable to workers, but it does not eradicate excess demand in the market.
Unintended consequences of supporting a currency against the market forces
As we have shown in previous My Views the pressure for a currency to depreciate is only a symptom of a chronic ailment and the cause of that ailment is the continuous price inflation in the country taxing exporters and subsidising importers. It leads to an excess demand for foreign currencies in the market.
Central banks sometimes resort to addressing the issue by supplying foreign currencies out of its reserves to keep the market demand satisfied misreading the excess demand to be a temporary development.
But it creates a series of unintended consequences bringing further ‘economic instability’ to the economy: the loss of reserves requiring the country to borrow abroad; the creation of domestic liquidity shortages putting upward pressure for interest rates; the central bank’s supply of liquidity to keep interest rates down by printing new money; the generation of further pressures for the currency to depreciate due to higher subsidised imports and higher inflation and the creation of undesired distress in the country’s banking and financial institutions.
So, as shown by the experience of the East Asian countries in 1997, central banks trying to fix economies by adopting short cut methods would eventually get entangled in a serious vicious spiral of moving away from both the economic and price stability and financial sector stability.
It is always advisable for policy makers to learn from the bad experiences of other countries. Just trying to stabilise a price index instead of targeting for an overall balance in the economy will certainly worsen a country’s ailments.
So, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka should always keep in mind that it is mandated not to attain just ‘price stability’, but ‘the economic and price stability’.
(Wijewardena can be reached at waw1949@gmail.com)

Higher Science of Early Tamils [HQ]

Mahatma

“Thereafter, the heart of that great soul, who had contemplated on the self in many ways, had a disciplined mind, had good eyesight, had ranged about everywhere in Lanka and had followed the righteous path, became filled with grief over not having found the daughter of King Janaka.” (Valmiki Ramayana, Sundara Kand, 7.17) tataḥ tadā bahu vidha bhāvita ātmanaḥ | kṛta ātmano janaka sutām suvartmanaḥ | apaśyato abhavad atiduhkhitam manaḥ | sucakṣuṣaḥ pravicarato mahātmanaḥ || Lord Rama’s faithful servant, Shri Hanuman   , one of the kindest people to have ever graced this earth, whose devotion to God is unmatched and whose every action is worthy of praise, adoration, glorification, remembrance, honor, discussion and contemplation, is a realmahatma. Atma can mean body, mind or soul, and maha means great. In this respect Hanuman is great in soul, body and mind, so the termmahatma applies to him in every meaningful way. When he went searching for Sita Devi   , the abducted princess and wife of Lord Rama   , through the enemy territory of Lanka, the temporary bouts of depression he encountered only further increased his mahatma status. Just as no one is more dedicated to Rama and pleasing Him than Hanuman, no one feels more dejected and unhappy over failing in his devotional efforts than Hanuman. This very quality actually ensures his ultimate success and also the success of any person who is fortunate enough to think about him on a regular basis. Hanuman proved to be a great soul when he first met Shri Rama in the forest of Kishkindha. The Ramayana    is a poem celebrated not only for its scholarship and entertainment value. Composed in the Sanskrit language, the work sings about the glories and pastimes of a non-different form of Godhead. Rama is ever glorious and brilliant. Aside from the authority of the Vedas, Rama’s divinity can be proven simply by His exhibition of divine qualities. Though roaming the earth as a seemingly ordinary human being, Rama could enchant anyone who met Him, provided that their vision was pure. If someone were to present before us a beautiful painting, depending on our consciousness we may or may not appreciate it. If we are in an angry mood, intoxicated, or distracted by other concerns, we may not appreciate the beauty of the painting. Similarly, God’s influence is all around us, but unless and until our consciousness is purified, we cannot notice the divine presence. Just imagine then the misfortune of those who get to see God in person and then mistakenly identify Him to be an ordinary human being. Worse, some even take the Lord to be their greatest enemy, as was the case with Ravana, the King of Lanka. During the Treta Yuga, Ravana was the most materially opulent ruler of the world. If there were television and print media back in those times, he would have been talked about and followed every single day. His lifestyle was just like that of the rich and famous. Beautiful palaces, elegant jewelry, heaps of gold and loads of women and wine filled his kingdom. Despite his possessions, when he heard about God roaming the forests, Ravana couldn’t accept Him for who He was. Rather, Ravana was jealous of everyone. While Hanuman is a mahatma, Ravana and characters like him are just the opposite. They are petty misers that recognize their inferior nature. To compensate, they try to tell themselves otherwise; eliminating any and all competition at the same time. Hearing of a beautiful princess residing in the forest of Dandaka, Ravana had to have her. He paid no attention to the fact that she was already married to Rama and that she would never become his wife. He went ahead anyway with his plan to take her, a plot that would temporarily succeed in separating the beloved couple, Sita and Rama, who are forever in each other’s company, for they share one consciousness, a bond of love and affection that can never break. The mahatma Hanuman first met Rama when the Lord and His younger brother Lakshmana    made their way to the Kishkindha forest in search for Sita, who had been taken behind their back. Unlike Ravana, Hanuman recognized that Rama was the person he would devote himself to for the rest of his life. If he had failed to notice Rama’s divine qualities he would have been excused, for there was a pretense related to their first meeting. Sugriva, the king of the Vanaras living on Mount Rishyamukha, was afraid that maybe his brother Vali had sent assassins to do him away. Sugriva and Vali were mortal enemies, and since Vali was more powerful, Sugriva sought refuge on Mount Rishyamukha. A curse had prevented Vali from entering that area. Hanuman’s job was to see what the two princes wanted, for their presence in Kishkindha was conspicuous. Just imagine two identical looking youths, decked out in the military garb of the time [bows, arrows and swords], approaching your area. If we see that the cops have come to our house, we will surely be alarmed. Hanuman’s duty was to see why such powerful fighters had made their way to a peaceful forest. Though initially taking on a false guise to trick the two princes into remaining calm and benign, Hanuman couldn’t help but appreciate their divine qualities. Eventually he shed his false form and revealed everything about himself, something that didn’t square with the instructions given to him. In one second, in an instant, not even waiting to check with the scriptures to see who Rama was or if He was worthy of service, Hanuman turned into the greatest friend. Placing the two princes on his shoulders, Hanuman leapt up to Mount Rishyamukha and then arranged a meeting with Sugriva. An alliance was born, one that would seal Ravana’s doom. Sugriva’s massive army was then dispatched around the world to search for Sita. Though they searched far and wide, there was no success. Finally, it was learned that Sita was on a distant island called Lanka. Only Hanuman was capable of reaching it; therefore the success of the mission was suddenly entrusted to him. Though he faced many obstacles, Hanuman finally made it to Lanka. The above referenced quote from the Ramayana describes his dissatisfaction over not having found Sita after searching for so long. In describing Hanuman’s qualities, it is said that he had contemplated on the self in many ways. The aim of human life is to perform yoga. When it is practiced perfectly, yoga brings so many extraneous benefits. Just as any object of beauty is appreciated more when we are sober and clear of mind, the Supreme Lord is honored, remembered and delighted in when the mind is fixed on His transcendental name and form. Only with a human birth can the spirit soul understand the need for yoga and then take the necessary steps to practice it perfectly. Hanuman had contemplated on Rama’s lotus feet many times. Therefore his practice of yoga was absolutely perfect. Yoga has changed from a spiritual technique to a meditational and health routine today because of the tremendous benefits that come from trying to connect the soul with God. If we remain steady in mind on contemplation of the Supreme Absolute Truth, naturally the functions of the senses will be in equilibrium. Every distress of the body can be attributed to an imbalance of various forces. Anger is an increase of rage, disease a disproportionate rise of different substances internally, and distress the rise of frustration. As there can be none of these effects in yoga, anyone who practices it well can find many health benefits, including a longer life expectancy. Though it is explicitly stated here, it should go without saying that Hanuman had a disciplined mind. No one can meet God and directly undertake His service if their mind is always jumping from one thing to another. In fact, the root cause of this unsteadiness is frustration and lack of enjoyment found in personal sense gratification. If the mind should settle upon something that provides it tremendous pleasure, there is no reason for it to become undisciplined. Who would ever want to leave the company of the Supreme Lord and His associates within the mind? Hanuman was disciplined because he always thought of Rama and how to please Him. Hanuman also had good eyesight. This quality is specifically mentioned here because of the nature of the mission. Hanuman had to find a princess amidst hundreds of the most beautiful women in the world. His eyesight had to be very good; otherwise he had no chance of success. He was also roaming through Lanka in the dead of night, as this would keep the chances of the Rakshasas discovering him low. Since his eyes were always alert, Hanuman had not glossed over Sita. He had already searched through many places and saw basically all there was to see in Lanka. Every type of engagement was going on in the nighttime in the sinner’s paradise ruled over by Ravana. Though he saw everything, Hanuman had yet to find Sita. This meant that she must have been somewhere that he hadn’t yet searched. The presentation of this verse is purposeful. Hanuman’s divine qualities are listed, and they all relate to his ability to find Sita. Even though he is a mahatma and was armed with every quality necessary for finding Sita, he still became dejected over not finding her. He was depressed that he had not pleased Rama in spite of his many so-called gifts. What’s ironic is that though Hanuman’s sadness can be taken as a contrast to his great qualities, it actually further enhances his glorious stature. A true mahatma would behave in the way that Hanuman did when faced with the same conditions. The only cause for sadness in this world is failure in devotional activities. Otherwise, in every other type of endeavor there will be temporary bouts of success and failure. These events rush in like the waves of the ocean. There doesn’t even have to be much effort put in, for time ensures that the sting of defeat will eventually wear off and that the thrill of victory will eventually subside. Only a person who didn’t love Rama with all their heart would have not been dejected over failing to find Sita. In this way Hanuman’s depression further endears him to the pious souls around the world. Though he possessed the necessary divine qualities, he didn’t expect anything to be handed to him. He would have been excused for wallowing in self-pity. “I abide by the scriptures, meditate on the self, follow the Lord’s orders, brave through every obstacle thrown my way, and still I can’t succeed. Life is not fair. No one is as unfortunate as I am. Why does it feel like it only rains on me?” Instead, Hanuman continually shrugged off his despair and forged ahead with the mission. He would eventually succeed and become forever celebrated for his heroic determination in the fight against the evil forces of this world. Because of the disgust that comes with the cycle of temporary ups and downs encountered in the material world, hearing of Hanuman’s glorious activities brings tremendous joy to the heart. Just seeing his face one time is enough to bring a smile to the distressed soul looking for meaning in life. The Vaishnava acharyas, those who maintain the same love and affection for God by teaching others by example, strongly recommend that anyone who is looking for pleasure in life simply chant, “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare   ”. This chanting   , when done in the proper mood and practiced on a regular basis, is as good as meditation. Without the holy name of the Lord, the many methods of religion are like zeroes. Without the higher numerals, zeros are always nothing in value. But as soon as a single one is placed in front, the zero becomes ten. Then the more zeroes you add the greater the value you get. Shri Hanuman keeps Sita and Rama always within his heart, so his activities never become zero. On the contrary, just as God’s glories remain manifest for all of eternity, so do Hanuman and his wonderful activities documented in the Ramayana. As a true mahatma, Hanuman brings peace to the mind of anyone who is wise enough to connect with him, honor him and follow his example of dedication in bhakti-yoga, or devotional service   . In Closing: Hanuman, he of terrific eyesight, Can see in Lanka, though city not so bright. Had contemplated much on the self, Thus followed bhakti to Rama and none else. That he had not found Sita was strange, With attention all of Lanka he did range. His qualities made him all the more sad, Not succeeding in mission made him feel bad. Overcoming obstacles made his stature increase, Would eventually find Sita, from distress gain relief.

Love Songs Round - Paruvame .wmv

Sleep, reading key to playtime

EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY

Structured activities, rather than TV, are most likely to have an impact on the amount of time a child spends in play, new research has found. Results from the ECU Play Project found that a child who spent an extra hour a day sleeping and being read to was more likely to engage in an additional 30 minutes of unstructured play per day. Unstructured play is important for the cognitive, emotional, and social development of children. Through play, children learn about sharing, decision-making, resolving conflict, and abstract thinking. ECU School of Psychology and Social Science lecturer, Dr. Bronwyn Harman, is the lead researcher in The Play Project. She said the research emphasises the importance of a balance in activities for a child’s optimal health. “There has been a long-held belief in the importance of the three ‘R's: reading, writing and arithmetic. We contend the fourth ‘’R’—recreation—is as equally important,” she said. The Play Project results came from quantitative research conducted in 2010 with parents of four year old children. A total of 564 participants were included in the survey. The study showed that four year olds spent, on average: 1.88 hours per day on television; 1 hour per day reading; 3 hours per day playing; and 10.35 hours per day sleeping. The research found that children who spent an hour a day at day care and an hour a day in structured activities such as dancing lessons or sports were less likely to participate in unstructured play. However, Dr Harman said the results should not be interpreted as a criticism of day care. “Day care and television both have their place in raising healthy children. This research emphasizes and reinforces the importance of balance in activities for optimal health and positive outcomes for Australian four year olds.” Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

What splits twins apart

GARVAN INSTITUTE

“The aim of our study was to understand what role genetics plays in determining who we are, versus the role of environmental factors." Image: jfairone/iStockphoto Identical twins have identical genomes, but that is where it stops. There are subtle differences in their personalities, how they look, how they act and in their susceptibility to disease. How can this be? It all depends on how the “epigenome” is modified by the environment, say scientists from Sydney’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research and Queensland Medical Research Institute, who have just completed an 8-year study involving 512 adolescent twins (128 identical twin pairs, as well as 128 non-identical twin pairs), with an average age of 14.15 years. More specifically, it depends on exactly how particular parts of the genome are affected by ‘methylation’, or the attachment of hydrocarbon molecules - ‘methyl groups’, that literally change the voice of the genome, silencing some genes and amplifying others. Garvan epigeneticists Dr Marcel Coolen and Professor Susan Clark focused on the methylation profiles of a group of ‘imprinted’ genes that are important in the control of growth during early development. They found differences in the methylation profiles of these imprinted genes, even in genetically identical twins. It is these changes, they say, that probably give rise to differences we observe in identical twins. Their findings are published in the International journal PLoS One, now online. “The aim of our study was to understand what role genetics plays in determining who we are, versus the role of environmental factors,” said project leader Professor Susan Clark. “We compared genetically related people with genetically identical people, seeing how closely their methylation patterns matched.” “Our findings support the hypothesis that changes in methylation reflect the interplay between the environment and genetics.” “We showed that methylation patterns are exquisitely inherited, and so the methylation patterns of identical twins are still very similar to each other. This demonstrated that the DNA sequence does instruct the methylation pattern. When that methylation pattern changes, however, it gives rise to potential changes in phenotype, or who we are.” “This is one of the largest studies ever undertaken of this sort, and these are challenging studies, so having proof of principle is important.” “We now have evidence that changes in methylation patterns occur in genetically identical people and therefore these changes can potentially change disease susceptibility.  The next step will be to examine twins that are discordant for a particular disease – such as Type 2 diabetes. In those cases, we will be looking for discordance in methylation of the key genes.” Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.