Forced Taxation Vs Voluntary Contribution

Silly Question : Among all the people I know who earn well enough to be taxed, how many invest in tax-saving instruments ?

Answer: Nearly all. Even though we all know that doing so, we're essentially avoiding contributing to our respective country's expenditure on welfare. And the richer people are, the more complete I see the incidence of tax-saving.

Knee-jerk Reaction #1: People who earn money are evil traitors >> Stupid answer.
Knee-jerk Reaction #2: Poor people are evil parasites >> Stupider and insidiously more dangerous answer. (implicit approval of systematic genocide, anyone??)

Reasoning : At the present taxation system coupled with economic scenario, at least in countries like India, the average taxpayer ends up losing his/her future financial security if they pay the full taxes. (now don't quote SRK and Tendulkar to me - I'm talking about the AVERAGE taxpayer!). The yearly raising of slabs and provision of sops and subsidies isn't some favor being done by the governments - they have to do that to stave off popular revolt among the income earners.

There is obviously merit in investing in tax-saving instruments that will give you your hard-earned money back after a period of time, possibly with increments, so that when your child grows up, you can set apart the required capital to fund his/her higher education without dooming them to a debt trap, or for that financial emergency where you simply cannot trust your government for instant assistance. Basically, you have to look after yourself and your family first. If this was not so, then every single tax-free investment - be it mutual funds or insurances or anything - would today not have any reason to exist.

Those who say this is a good and logical balance, don't seem to be looking at the extreme end of the ladder. The richest amongst us are the best placed to really help the country, this important role even finds mention in the world's most ancient religious texts. Yet due to this system, they are typically the ones investing the most in tax-saving (esp since gains multiply as you increase the input capital).

Yes, we have our Bill Gates, Buffets and Premjis, but they are a fractional minority compared to the full quantity that has absolutely no plans to loosen their purses. After all, why should they? They became well off in spite of the system - they've had to fight the system for what they've earned, in many cases being forced to sell their souls just in the quest for their family's happiness. Don't expect them to suddenly turn turtle - you wouldn't. Long-term wisdom isn't as prevalent among the rich as we might be tempted to assume. If it was, we wouldn't see the crap going on around in the name of luxury and high-end lifestyle! :P Therefore, the present system, though seemingly in balance, is screwing us all, by endangering the security of the middle levels while having nothing worthwhile from the top levels.

Note : I'll exclude tax-free contributions from this analysis because in that you're just parting with money that is never coming back to you, for the benefit of your expanded group. There is nothing to be thankful about a donation to a legitimate cause being tax-free - that's like getting surprised at getting wet while having a bath. If such donations were taxed, THAT would be illegal and would amount to outright robbery committed by the state (and don't get me started on taxes on private transactions!) plus it would be willful damage to legitimate causes by giving negative incentive to potential helpers.

Response : FORCED contribution is bad. If you force someone to help someone else, she/he will do whatever it takes to avoid it. It holds true at any scale. Give a kid a chance to help another and he'll do it willingly. Force him to do it and what happens? It's sort of related to the modern discoveries on what really motivates people, see this Talk+Animation video by Dan Pink/RSA for insight. Not only that, by applying force, the person clams up and won't even contribute the little that he/she could easily have without risk to self. Now apply this trend to the entire earning population of a nation and what do you get?

Available Data : Several organizations across the globe, devoted to doing service to ordinary people (aka, what governments should be doing), are operating successfully and even setting milestones, running purely off voluntary no-strings-attached donations. In many cases they're leading the pack in their sectors.
Examples : Wikipedia, Democracy Now, Greenpeace, Mozilla

The example of Wikipedia (I'm actually referring to Wikimedia foundation that runs it alongside a host of other things) is a case in point. It is Humanity's largest ever resource of knowledge, available for free to everybody. It's got more welfare packed in it than any government measure till date, and is totally funded by voluntary contributions, at a barebones budget compared to its closest competitors thanks to a global army of volunteers constituting simple people like you and me. The constituents of Humanity do not pay any taxes to have its greatest Knowledge resource, yet random humans from across the globe sustain it. Those who can, help, of their own volition, without being forced to.

Inference : When you give someone the freedom to help you, they do. Everyone doesn't need to, but if the cause is worth it then nature will make it happen - benefiting the common good for the inevitable prosperity of your own children is a trait embedded in evolution, not needing any external influence. then how many people you know pay their full taxes, again?

Proposal : Open challenge to any Government in the world: Stop this stupid taxation system for a year and open a Paypal account / any avenue by which your citizen, or any netizen, can contribute of his/her own accord towards the development of your country / state / city. I'm not talking about a relief fund for use in emergencies - no surprises for that again - I'm talking actual, run-of-the-mill operations.

Stop the fear-mongering that you won't get anything - because judging by all the adverts and data we are seeing about tax-saving investments, YOU ARE NOT GETTING MUCH FROM DIRECT INCOME TAX ANYWAY, it's costing you 80% of your effort to run after this less than 20% of input, and you are en route to losing whatever you are getting, over the coming years.

Learn from the successes of the open model. Open your mind to the possibility of no-strings-attached funds flowing in like magic, and schools, hospitals, roads, shelters, infrastructures coming up at a scale that you couldn't even imagine before, and then more funds coming in to whatever department's doing the best work. Imagine a country where the anonymous rich voluntarily help the poor out of poverty rather than avoiding them like the plague. Let's see what happens!

Possible middle path : Fine, keep your bloody taxes, we're all going to cheat.. sorry, Invest! our way out of them anyways. But open that Paypal / donation account and mainstream it, trumpet the results and you'll start witnessing a natural flow of goodwill along with greater citizen participation and resultant transparency, of course (Ah, now we know why the babus will oppose this if at all... no scope for bribes in an open volutary model! But we have to chase corruption out anyways, so this can't be a valid excuse). And if you don't want to open up, be prepared to have non-profit NGOs literally replace you. The writing is on the wall.

Accelerated Gnowledge

"If this doesn't blow your mind, then you have no imagination!" - Salman Khan (the global educator, not the actor!)

Exhibit A:
http://www.gnowledge.org/view_concept_activity?objid=6520&level=1&gen=1&maptype=depmap

A Meta diagram (or concept map or call it what you like) illustrating the linkage of the concept of acceleration with other concepts. This basically tells you that in order to understand acceleration, it's advisable to understand the concepts of velocity, speed, and rate of change prior.
And then, if you successfully understand acceleration, then you can move ahead to understanding terminal speed, force, acceleration due to gravity.

Exhibit B:
Now go to the address bar of that page, change level=1 to level=0 and what do you get...
http://www.gnowledge.org/view_concept_activity?objid=6520&level=0&gen=1&maptype=depmap

You'll have to click-through to see the diagram in full - it's huge!
You can now see all the concepts, right from the very basic, that lead to the one in question, as well as all its offshoots!

The beauty of it : It's all computer-generated, made by stitching together hundreds of simple statements like "A depends on B".

Check out the website: http://www.gnowledge.org/, made and maintained by the gnowledge.org lab of Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, TIFR, Mumbai, (I've had the good fortune of meeting and interacting with Prof GN and his team behind this recently, more on that later!)


Imagine the potential for education : If enough people collaborate to build this up (it's an open collaboration website - everyone can pitch in with little tid-bits to build up the whole), then we can throw all the linear education models out the window and replace them with an organic mesh like this that will help educate in a much better way. This can be used to formulate much better teaching plans.

Looking forward to a lot of cool stuff emerging here!

Inviting you to our school's showcase event : Pratibha, on 17th of March, 5pm onwards!

Update: What an amazing evening!!

Check out the pics from the event here

Check out pics from the making of Pratibha here

This montage, "School Chale Hum" we made was screened at the event on projector, and everybody loved it!

Check out a video slideshow of the event while humming to "Aashaayein Mile Dil Ki" !

Inviting One and All

To a showcase event for our primary english medium school located in Pune. We are a municipal school and the four Teach For India fellows here (and volunteers!) are putting together an event of the sort that our school has never seen earlier - in a nice auditorium and complete with plays, presentations, exhibitions by the students!

PFA the invitation card!

More than audience, volunteers are needed - at as well as before the event! We've done a whole lot of work already including a full fledged dress rehearsal today, but we still need a few good people to be there for critical tasks at backstage or to smoothen things at the changing rooms or to film the event, etc! Please let me or the given contact persons know if if you can help us out! AND PLEASE INFORM BY PHONE - too little time for email and I'll be at the school from morning 7am tomorrow! Do you know a friend who's into event management? Then please forward to him/her!

For a teaser intro to our school and its lovely kids, please check out a video "school chale hum" I've put on http://www.youtube.com/user/nikjs (it's still uploading, should be done in half an hour)

Cheers,
Nikhil Sheth
+91-966-583-1250
Pune, India
Teach For India Fellow, 2011-13
www.nikhilsheth.tk
Find me on: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Google | RangDe

what a day!

What a day! back from one trip and on to another.. been awake 21 hrs! Went to Raigad with Digital Bridge foundation & Gnowledge Labs, they finally made Ubuntu distro with the software for wikipedia 4 schools embedded (and having a lot more edu stuff too), got the dvd image for it and will be taking it further, co-wrote with the teachers a marathi write-up for the rural school there, the village's first contrib to wikipedia marathi, and got the whole dump of Khan Academy vids from a friend in Gnowledge labs!

Now I have an awesome cocktail of super duper educational stuff -- mind-blowing software and mind-blowing content combined, yay~!

Quick post.. more details later

Clarification about WFSOE and English and Indan Language Wikipedias

Comment - a little too long so posting here - to a blog post:
http://shijualex.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/releasing-wikipedia-cd-few-concerns/

First of all, a big thanks for publicizing the Wikipedia For Schools Offline Edition (WFSOE) project. I can't say I started any of it, but I did my best to push it including talking about it, setting up a wiki page for co-ordination among volunteers, contacting the wikipedia community to troubleshoot as I was having problems and directly contacting the developers to try and take the software forward including getting some critical bugs fixed by now.

I would have greatly appreciated it if the author had also posted the link to the main wiki page mentioned in the community email that he is taking inspiration from, as a reference for readers: http://education.wikia.com/wiki/Wikipedia_For_Schools_Offline_Edition or http://tinyurl/WFSOE

As a side thought and for a different audience (my relatives who are not on the net), I'd requested the developers and got made ZIM files of wikipedia in the 3 Indian languages I speak - Hindi, Marathi, Gujrati. (Ref: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3170337&group_id=175508&atid=873518) These, with the English 45000+ articles wikipedia dump, are all stored on my portable HDD which I've used to install WFSOE. Unlike what the more well-off folks like to believe, most computers in schools out there don't have working DVD drives or any optical drives at all, and the WFSOE is 2.8 GBs in size, making any CD impossible. (I never quoted a CD myself - an HT article simplified DVD/USB to CD obviously for its layman readers and this blog post seems to have followed suit despite the facts)

USB drive is the best option, though I'd love to get my hands on one with a read-only switch to avoid all the viruses I've encountered on target PCs so far!

In the email I shared with wikipedia community prior to my talk at GNUnify in Pune, I hence mentioned that I also have these English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujrati dumps in case anybody wants to copy these over, in the spirit of sharing that wikipedians are known for. That email was also marked to several of my contacts in Pune (who really has the the time to write customized emails on the same topic for every group of friends these days, huh??) who I assure you do not happen to be school children at all though at one time they most definitely were as was I, and so the GNUnify event was a common place where we could meet up and swap wikpedia dumps!

How that got intertwined with WFSOE is beyond me. Even the wiki-page I set up that describes WFSOE in detail doesn't have anything of the sort on it. I think any person will know right off the bat that those bigger english and indian-language dumps are definitely not meant for use by school children. Why in the world would an NGO spend several months creating the WFSOE otherwise? Whoever would even think about handing the full versions out to kids (or claim that anyone would start a well publicized open initiative to do something so lewd!) would have to be retarded if not criminally careless. So I have no idea how the author connected those dots and even took it forward (and how!) without bothering to check the facts first.

But there is one inter-mixing regarding not kids but their guardians, that shone a light of optimism so bright it made my day-

Where I demonstrated the WFSOE to school teachers/principal, I also showed them the much bigger english one as a possible fallback for the staff in case an article they want isn't there on WFSOE (at present it's pretty sparse and I eagerly await a newer version, seeing that the ZIM format occupies around 1 GB lesser than the original WFSOE, hence making room for over double the number of articles!), and along with that loaded the Hindi and Marathi wikipedias to show them for real that Wikipedia is present in Indian languages as well - a fact they were never aware of.

So then, the staff naturally kept a copy of whatever I had on a staff-access-only computer, from where they'd take it all to their own homes and neighborhoods and to other schools. These things are released for free distribution and any adult has full right to store a copy. The teachers at the schools are MUCH more concerned about the content going to the students than any of us will ever be so I trust their responsibility more than I can trust any self-proclaimed guardian. Besides, I'm not a pessimist and neither is Wikipedia.

Anyways, upon operating the Marathi wikpedia offline, saying that they were impressed would be an understatement. Unwittingly I'd brought them the world's largest electronic offline collection of easily searchable (that engine's a feat of computer engineering - lightning fast and catches everything!) and instantly accessible (almost no lag time even on slower PCs) Marathi language articles loaded with images, inter-links and great formatting that is completely free of cost and without any strings attached. Even more so for the Hindi one twice its size!

Those of us who are regularly on the internet don't realize it so soon, but to the people seeing it and experiencing it for the first time, this was something amazing. There has never been anything like this seen before. They were at it like moths to a flame, and when they reached the article on Shivaji, the response was ecstatic! They then searched for their respective hometowns and on not finding sufficient info somewhere, they immediately told us they want to update it on Wikipedia the next time they get their hands on the internet! This all happened in a village in Raigad district, Maharashtra. Suddenly, by just giving an offline version, we had created potential future Wikipedia Marathi contributors - not some geeks in a metro but teachers in a village! On why they wanted to edit, they told us in a matter-of-fact manner they were grateful to Wikipedia for giving so much content for free and so they felt impelled to give back and make it even better.

Anyways, I digress. We duly told them that these english-full, hindi, marathi versions can be used by them but the WFSOE is meant for school kids. Before us they were themselves sure of that!

So if the blog post I'm long-commenting on is concerned about the impending social catastrophe arising from adult-content wikipedia offline versions (yeah, like it's porno-pedia or something!) being distributed to innocent school children, I'm afraid the author has been blogging up the wrong tree here and my apologies that a mis-read email wasted the author's precious time, though after a review I honestly can't find anything wrong with it. (The email. The blog post - let's not say more!)

Actually, come to think of it, it would make an awesome Indian news channel story -
आज की सनसनी खेज़ खबर! विकिपीडिया ने बाटा विज्ञान के बहाने मासूम बच्चों को अडुल्ट कंटेंट वाली CD ! कौन हैं यह दरिंदे? आखिर क्या चाहते हैं येह लोग ?? क्या इसमें हो सकता है विदेशी हात? देखते रहिये, बकवास खबरें!

****LOL!*****

Changing profile/index location for Kiwix on Windows

Quick primer : Go to http://tinyurl.com/WFSOE
Changing profile / index location for Kiwix on Windows. This can also be taken as a guide for pre-installing indexes for your zim files.
1. Go to a path like this: E:\Users\NIKHIL\AppData\Roaming\www.kiwix.org\Kiwix
--this path is for Windows 7 and Vista and on my PC the OS is on E: drive; for Windows XP it would probably be like
C:\Documents and Settings\Nikhil\Application Data\www.kiwix.org\Kiwix
2. Open profiles.ini to edit (just double-click or open with Notepad or whatever text editor you use)
Add these lines to whatever’s already there:

[Profile1]
Name=Localize
IsRelative=0
Path=C:\Kiwix Profile
Default=1

----------------
3. Make the new folder (“C:\Kiwix Profile” here), leave it empty, run kiwix once and then close it. After running you'll find all sorts of files have been created inside "C:\Kiwix Profile".
4. Shift the index folder from old to this new profile folder and rename it to something legible like "wikipedia_en_wp1_0.8_45000+_12_2010_rc1.zim.idx" (note: this is a folder, not a .idx file. All index folders have .idx or .index at the end.) so you can identify it with your zim file rather than those weird long alphanumeric names. See the library.xml in the old profile folder to figure out which .idx folder is for which zim file in case you’ve loaded multiple zims by now.
In case you don’t have it already, I’ve uploaded some indexes (incl. for the latest english wikipedia zim) on this shared online folder: http://www.4shared.com/dir/ua44LHvy/Indexes.html You can directly download and unzip them to the new profile (using 7-zip).
5. Open library.xml inside the profile in a text editor and make a change like this:
<library current="4dd18dea-9afd-080a-080a-50c68d62072f5675"><book id="4dd18dea-9afd-080a-080a-50c68d62072f5675" path="C:\Wikipedia\wikipedia_en_wp1_0.8_45000+_12_2010_rc1.zim" last="1298420521" indexPath="C:\Kiwix Profile\wikipedia_en_wp1_0.8_45000+_12_2010_rc1.zim.idx" indexType="xapian"/></library>
Take care of your absolute paths.
6. To add more indexes, simply repeat the steps and remember to vary the ‘book id’ variable in library.xml. Also you may set last=”undefined”. It should all be between the <library …> </library> tags.
7. Now run Kiwix again. Hopefully it should be done.

Volunteer your bandwidth for a few days for a collaborative mass educational download effort and let's make history!

Hi All,

I came across Khan Academy a coupe of months ago. It's an amazing phenomenon of one man starting a lone mission to spread education using a microphone and MS Paint, and how his efforts have by now helped thousands of students understand basic concepts in several subjects. Attached is a screenshot from a brilliant lesson that teaches complex multiplication simply.

I've recently found that they've released all their videos free for all. Not only that, they've also opened them up to netizens for dubbing in any language. It's an amazing educational resource that should be spread everywhere - even more so where there is limited or no internet connection. They can even be used as training materials for teachers in under resourced schools.

So I've started downloading the whole lot for spreading to schools in Pune where I live, using a Torrent they've published (strictly no money involved! I'll just use my portable HDD!). But it's huge - 28.9GBs - and I have a very slow connection.

But it's all neatly divided into subjects and chapters so while I'm downloading the initial Maths ones, you can take History, one more can do a chapter in Physics, and so on! Then once we're done we can all meet up and combine them all. This can be done in less than a week if enough of us work as a team - anyways we are so prolific at downloading movies and all - so let's do something for all the students in our city for a change! (and legal too! :P)

How we'll collaborate : Browse to this wiki site:
http://education.wikia.com/wiki/Khan_Academy_torrent_download

You can scroll to the table, press the Edit button, put in your name & contact (phone, email, twitter handle, anything) next to a chapter of your choice to indicate that you're downloading it. Put "in progress" in the last column. Once done, go there again and enter the date of completion. It's that simple - no coding or tech expertise needed!

So here's an open Call for a Mass Collaborative Educational Download effort! This will probably be the first campaign of its kind happening in Pune, so here's a chance for you to be a part of history and make a positive impact on the society!

If you're not familiar with torrents and downloading, you must know someone who is! (Who gives you all the movies??) Do share the web page on facebook / twitter, forward this email and spread the word!

Note to friends in other cities : you can copy the table over and start a similar thing for your city on that wiki page as well!

Cheers,
Nikhil Sheth
+91-966-583-1250
Pune, India
Teach For India Fellow, 2011-13
www.nikhilsheth.tk
Find me on: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Google | RangDe
Join me on: Pune Documentary Club | Let's Do it Pune | Toastmasters in Pune | Wikipedia For Schools project

Disclaimer :Only download if you're sure you have an unlimited GBs broadband internet connection or you'll end up with a big bill ~!~

News coverage for Wikipedia for Schools project

The Wikipedia for Schools project got a small but incredibly helpful mention in Hindustan Times, Mumbai, on Sunday 13th Feb 2011 !

See on the far right under "Pune" !

all image credit to HT, source

Click here to see the article on HT website.
Special thanks to Radhika Raj, journo at Hindustan Times!

Here's the text:
Pune Wikimedians are compiling CDs of select English Wikipedia articles for free distribution to schools across the state that have no internet access. Last month, an early copy of the CD was handed over to a municipal school in Pune as an experiment. "The students had never seen an encyclopedia before", says electrical engineer Nikhil Sheth, 25, the man behind the project. "Some logged on to read about the history of the Taj Mahal, others started exploring pages related to animals."

>>I'm extremely grateful for the publishing, but, well... don't expect a newspaper to have full accuracy when they have to economize on words... also they have to write it for the layman... so here are some corrections, though perfectly understandable I have to share them...

1. It's DVD or the package is in a USB drive... size is 2.7GBs so it can't really fit on a CD.
2. We might do compiling select articles later, right now it was "Wikipedia for Schools 2008/09" selection created by the SOS Childrens Villages in collaboration with Wikimedia, and the very portable and easy-to-proliferate DVD/USB package was created by some ingenious people behind Kiwix.org and OpenZIM.
3. Handed over... more like went below every table, stuck the USB cord in the behinds and installed in each computer!
4. The students hadn't seen a digital encyclopedia before... books they must have had a peek for sure.
5. I wish I'd been identified as a to-be Teach For India fellow or an IT professional instead of electrical engineer... I haven't been an electrical engineer since I graduated ;)

The pic was taken in Shantabai Ladkat School, Nanapeth, Pune - the first school where I installed Wikipedia for Schools. In the pic it's loaded on Teach For India Fellow Kaushik's netbook; After demo'ing it there, I'd gone and installed it in the computer lab. Here's the original:

Want to get in on the action? Browse over to http://tinyurl.com/WFSOE, sign up and join the movement to empower schools across India and the world!

get your copy of Wikipedia for Schools +more at at GNUnify 2011, SICSR Pune, today and tomorrow

Hi Wikipedians and Friends,

I'll be there all day today at SICSR Pune (http://gnunify.in/) and will also transfer to someone at the college; anybody interested in getting a DVD-ready copy of Wikipedia for Schools Offline Edition, you can copy it from us here. Bring a USB or computing device with min 2.7GB free space.

I'm very grateful for the organizers at GNUnify for giving a generous slot tomorrow (12th Feb, 11:45am) to talk and discuss about Wikipedia for Schools project. Please attend! You can read up more on it on http://tinyurl.com/WFSOE


I'm also bringing the dumps of :
Wikipedia English Dec 2010 selection (wikipedia_en_wp1_0.8_45000+_12_2010_alpha1.zim, 3.74GB),
Hindi Wikipedia (wikipedia_hi_all_01_2011_beta1.zim, 483MB),
Marathi Wikipedia (wikipedia_mr_all_01_2011_beta1.zim, 212MB),
Gujrati Wikipedia (wikipedia_gu_all_01_2011_beta1.zim , 112MB)

All these can of course be downloaded online from http://tmp.kiwix.org/zim/0.9/
(Due thanks to Emmanuel and Kiwix team for speedy creation of the Indian language dumps!)

So see you there, and let's bridge the internet divide, using the Largest Ebooks ever Created ! (sorry, couldn't resist using that!)


Cheers,
Nikhil Sheth
+91-966-583-1250
Pune, India
Teach For India Fellow, 2011-13
www.nikhilsheth.tk
Find me on: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Google | RangDe
Join me on: Pune Documentary Club | Let's Do it Pune | Toastmasters in Pune | Wikipedia For Schools project

Cover letter for Wikipedia For Schools

I was asked by a school principal to prepare a letter describing the Wikipedia For Schools so the school trustees can get to know about it before giving their permission to install in in their computer lab. This is where a realization dawned : I had till then just assumed I'd pass on the URL and whoever needs to know will see it and know. It's not so, and I'm glad I was made to sit and create a cover letter as it solidified the initiative. I'm sharing the cover letter here. Please evaluate it and give any recommendations in the comments section.

======================

Date: 9^th February 2011

Respected Sir / Madam,

Sub: Permission to install Wikipedia For Schools Offline Edition in computer lab

I am a Teach For India volunteer and will be joining TFI as a fellow this year (2011-13). I'm presently involved with a grassroots volunteer project where we want to spread an offline version of Wikipedia (largest online encyclopedia in the world), specifically made for school children from ages 8 to 17, to schools all over the country. For details please visit http://www.tinyurl.com/WFSOE

I would like to request permission to install this encyclopedia in the computer lab of your respected institution so that the students and teachers can benefit from it. There are no costs or charges involved.

The package is of 2.7GBs size and can be easily installed or copied from a DVD or a USB Drive to any computer in under 10 minutes. The software running it is Kiwix (http://www.kiwix.org), an open source free reader created for this purpose. We may need to also install "Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 drivers" (included, free) to make it run properly on older computers. Wikipedia For Schools is distributed for free and non-commercial use for spreading to schools around the world. Below is a paragraph quoted from their press release on http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/archive/2008/10/2008-wikipedia-for-schools :

Press Release: Wikipedia for Schools

Oct 22, 2008 12:00 PM

SOS Children UK, in coordination with the Wikimedia Foundation, has released a complete 2008/9 revision of the Wikipedia Selection for Schools, which is perhaps the most successful "checked content" project derived from the English Wikipedia. Previous revisions have been distributed off-line widely across the globe including by the Shuttleworth Foundation to South Africa Schools, by the Hole in the Wall project to rural Indian children and through SOS offices worldwide. The updated selection has the content of a 20 volume encyclopaedia - with 34,500 pictures, 20 million words and articles on more than 5500 topics….

….SOS Children's Villages is best known as the world's largest orphan charity (UK Charity No. 1069204) but is also a very large educational charity running 192 schools with 91,000 pupils in the developing world. See www.soschildren.org

To check the contents of this encyclopedia, you can visit http://schools-wikipedia.org which is an online version of the same package. This project has been successfully implemented in Shantabai Ladkat English Medium School in Nanapeth, Pune (contact: TFI Fellow Moiz, 9819117826). I look forward working with your esteemed institution on this project.

Yours Faithfully,
Nikhil Sheth
Teach For India Fellow, 2011-13
Previously working with Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.
Contact:  966-583-1250, nikhil.js@gmail.com

================================
..So... ok??

Points to note:
1. I want to give them a complete and honest picture of what will be going into their computers, so they don't tell later that "Hey, you didn't tell us about this!".
2. The non-commercial, moneyless nature of the project is to be stressed and specified as early as possible so they can be assured that no one is after their school's limited money.
3. The persons we're working with may only have a rudimentary knowledge of computers. They typically are very fearful of viruses, are prone to labeling anything that doesn't work at first try as having "virus". One teacher informed me there was a virus in her comp because she couldn't get through the account creation stage of gmail successfully. (this is one of the reasons we must spread an encyclopedia - to inform people and dispel rumors)
4. The text above is already a one-full-pager so no more additions please - suggest replacements and deletions only if you must.

Gandhi's bane and Hitler's boon

Gandhi's bane : Because people labeled him a Mahatma, they assume no one else can do the good things he did.

Hitler's boon : Because people label him so, they assume their own leaders can never do the kind of atrocities he did.

Both are wrong.

Don't stereotype, people. All humans are humans. You are singularly capable of being both Gandhi and Hitler - the choice is yours.

The Search for the best Video compression

I woke up a little too early this morning, and took the time to do some photo and video managing.

Handling videos is always a problem – the files from the camera are usually way too large –  like, 915MB for a 12 min video!

So the obvious thing to do is to convert them. So the search for the best possible quality with the lowest possible ‘MB’ footprint begins. Mine has been continuing, like… forever! I then looked to Youtube for inspiration – they now have great quality streaming videos, and obviously they must be very meticulous about the file size to ensure maximum users can watch. I checked and they can put 2 mins of good quality (default) video into 3.65 MB! Wow!

The video codec used there is .H264 – a relatively new, apparently open-source codec that’s now being adopted across the world especially for HD Video. Before we had DivX and then a proprietary-less XviD as well… this seems like the next thing.

So after some trials and errors I’ve zeroed in on a compression setting that manages to keep my videos in good quality – good enough to play back fullscreen without cringing too much – and low enough size. Although I still can’t manage to get down to Youtube’s ratio without sacrificing quality – I guess it even depends on the processor – they must be having some powerful stuff doing the encoding! I’m using FormatFactory free software, and the setting is: [AVI HD AVC(H264) 480x360]

Some screenshots:

Start FormatFactory and select the ‘All to Mobile Device’ under Video on the left sidebar

 

Drag in all your files on the next screen. Don’t press OK yet! Click on ‘Output Setting’.

 

At the next screen “More Devices”, on left pane, Under ‘HD AVC(H264)’, choose “AVI HD AVC(H264) 480x360” and press OK.

Now you come back to your videos list. Press OK to start converting. See the other settings – where you want the output files to be, etc. I prefer to have them in the source folder only.

Result:

So, I got a 12min video down from 937MB to 65MB! And quality.. well, I can’t exactly show you the videos, but here are screenshots:

Before:

After:

So it’s not too grainy, decent enough, and the MB footprint reduced to less than 1/10th. The final video is about 5MBs per minute. So as of now this is the compression setting I’ll recommend. But the search, as always, continues ~~

Oh, and get the K-Lite Code Pack to play any and all videos with any video player on your computer.

Teach For India Mindmap

Here's a Mindmap I've started!

Troubleshooting the Wikipedia For Schools Offline Edition + Call to Action

That big term shall henceforth be referred to as WFSOE (wow, sounds like a cool game! As it should!)
In my pilot drive at Shantabai Ladkat school in Nanapeth, Pune, I came across some issues when installing WFSOE on some older computers: The indexing process never took off. Now, indexing is what kicks in the first time you open a .zim file in the primary form of Kiwix (the software used here.. look, just go with it, ok?) – it’s necessary if you want to be able to Search thru the WFSOE. So that’s a dilemma : a whole encyclopedia and we can’t even search our favorite topics! So, started looking around.. and thanks to a comment on my original post on WFSOE, I started downloading the pre-indexed, ready-to-DVD version of WFSOE that the awesome folks at Kiwix.org prepared:
http://download.kiwix.org/portable/wikipedia_en_for_schools.zip
Note: Don’t start downloading it yet – it’s freakin’ huge – 2718MB direct download! And, as in many such ventures, I detected a problem only AFTER fully dloading it over 3 days! I can’t say whether the issue is there in the original file hosted on kiwix.org or if it crept in during my downloadathon, but that’s just it – huge file direct download = Russian Roulette. This blog post is the story of that issue, how I hacked my way past it, and the solutions for anyone who wants to download a good, awesome, readily working version of WFSOE. To make things interesting, we’ve got screenshots galore!
Expand this article to read thru it… long length!
If you’re looking for the wiki page, http://education.wikia.com/wiki/Wikipedia_For_Schools_Offline_Edition (short URL: http://tinyurl.com/WFSOE)

If you’re just looking for the Call to Action, go to the very end after expanding.

Images from Teach For India

I think I'll let the images do the talking here! (Click to enlarge)

Wiki and Walky Weekend in W(m)umbai

Hi All!

Sharing some pics from Mumbai Dream Run last Sunday.. it was more of a carnival than a run, with lots of shouting and dancing thrown in!

You'll find more pics adding over the coming week on http://picasaweb.google.com/nikhil.js ; and I'll post videos too on http://www.youtube.com/user/nikjs

I started out with Team RangDe.org (an online micro-credit social investment platform), but half an hour into it lost them (I was, ahem, distracted..)

...and then joined the Teach For India group instead!

 

 

Also nearly bumped into two old friends from the TCS contingent..  ;)

Ajay - Right after the Carnival ended, we headed like a pack of hungry dogs to Jazz buffet restaurant in Marine Drive... and I got to implement most of the recommendations from your humorous speech on Buffet meals. Wishing you were there... those waiters never saw it coming! ;)

One note about the Jazz restaurant - they've strategically placed all the Desserts at a spot where there's very little place between the table and a wall section. Only thin people can squeeze in to take it and even that's an effort! Smart!!

Also attached a pic from Wikipedia 10th anniversary Mumbai meetup that took place on Saturday (and one of the reasons why I wasn't around last Sat)


At the meetup, when the right time came, I made a pitch about the wikipedia for schools project, how I installed the offline version at an under-resourced english medium school in Nanapeth, Pune and the impact it's had..  and  the response was so great, with university professors and tech bloggers lining up their laptops to copy it and expressing interest, it's turned into a movement now that can potentially spread all across India!

Check out http://wikipediaforschools.4shared.com

We also learned about Google IME - which installs any Indian or other language into your computer and is being used by many senior citizens with no technical knowledge to contribute Indian language articles on wikipedia! It uses an auto-suggest concept the same way we add recipients when sending email.. no need to type the whole word, and it learns the most often used words so you get faster each time. Tres comfortable, even for rapid switching between English and the language. Do check it out if you're interested in creating vernacular content or helping your folks do it.

http://www.google.com/ime/transliteration/
(read through the installation instructions once)

And between these events, equally exciting, was to-and-fro across Mumbai using the best transport imaginable - the Mumbai Local!
On Friday night, I was in the middle of a crowded bogie when I found from a phone call that I was supposed to get off at Andheri instead of Borivli.. and just then the train reached Andheri. Everyone said there's no way I can get out here in time, but with a huge squeeze-through effort, I managed to alight, with all parts intact at the nick of time. 1 second late and the train would have been too fast moving out and I'd have crashed! Now I know how a baby feels after being pushed out of a womb!!
Oh, and a Kudos to the automated ticketing machines with touchscreens - Damn easy to take your ticket now, I didn't have to wait in any line at all.

One thing I appreciated about my Mumbai Local experience was that the people care about each other, despite all the rush. And it works - people with big bags just pass them on to the middle of the bogie and call for them when their station is coming - implicitly trusting every one of the 20 or so people who pass it along. Whenever I asked a question out to the crowd, I was given a detailed and helpful answer, and then they even acted to help me at times without me having to ask them. And there's groups of people interacting, brainstorming all the time. I saw a TED video once about how coffee shops in England where people could interact for long hours and weren't forced to buy stuff, could be the reason behind her huge leap forward in science, knowledge and trade over a century ago. I have a strong feeling the Mumbai Local is doing the same for Mumbai.

Also did a night-over with college buddies on Friday night.. one of them had come straight from the airport after a long onsite stint and we all met up after a long time. On Saturday night, met family friends after many years and got a huge bear-hug from Nilaxi Aunty which was even more crushing than the trains! I was so lost in chit chatting with them I totally forgot to take photos! :(

So, it was an eventful weekend in Mumbai and with the wikipedia for schools project, we may just have opened a Pandora's box (a good one!) for more things to come!

Oh, and for TFI friends.. I introduced myself at the wikipedia meetup as a Teach For India Fellow -- good publicity -- Wanna take it forward??


Cheers,
Nikhil Sheth+91-966-583-1250

Google IME and Wikipedia (हिंदी में)

नमस्कार | मैं निखिल हूँ.
और मैं अभी google IME का इस्तमाल करके हिंदी भाषा में लिख रहा हूँ |
(English translation : I'm using Google IME to write in Hindi.)

इसका एक screenshot नीचे है :

-------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

इसका सबसे बड़ा फायदा ये है की हमें पूरा शब्द लिखनेकी ज़रूरत नहीं पड़ती | यह खुद ब खुद तोल मोलके शब्दों की लिस्ट सामने ला देता है |
जितना ज्यादा इस्तमाल हम इसे करें, ये उतना अच्छा होते जाता है.

हमारे कंप्यूटर में ही एक भाषा की तरह ये install होता है, और इस तरह हम कहीं भी अपनी भाषा में लिख सकते हैं |
भाषा बदलने में भी कोई time नहीं लगता, जैसे इस फोटो में दिखाया गया है.

--------------------------

-------------------------

बस वो नीचे का 'अ' दबाइए (या CTRL+G) और वापिस english पे आ जाइये, फिर वापिस हिंदी पे | ये मेरे लिए बहुत important है, क्यूंकि मुझे शुद्ध हिंदी नहीं आती ;)
हम नीचे का keyboard button click करके complex अक्षर भी दाल सकते है | जैसे की श्र, ऋ, ॐ, ज्ञ, ऽ

इसको आप यहाँ से install कर सकते हो :
http://www.google.com/ime/transliteration/

उनके Help Section में अच्छी तरह से सब बताया गया है.
मैं मुंबई में wikipedia की दसवी सालगिरह (15 Jan 2011) पर किये गए function में गया था, VJTI college में. वहाँ मैंने कुछ नए दोस्त बनाए, उनमे से Mr. समीर शाह ने मुझे इसके बारे में बताया.

---------------------------------------------------

(होलाल्केरेजी, निखिल (मैं), समीरजी)
-------------------------------------------------

समीरजी एक retired software engineer हैं , जो विकिपीडिया गुजरती में खूब योगदान कर रहे हैं, येही Google IME का उपयोग करके | एक और senior citizen मेरे अच्छे दोस्त बन गए, Mr. होलाल्केरे लक्ष्मिवेंकतेश, जो कन्नडा में योगदान कर रहे हैं | उन्होंने http://www.baraha.com/ का बराहा software use किया है google IME की तरह ही है.
तो भाषा की सीमा पार करके आप भी अपनी मात्र भाषा की विकिपीडिया पर लग जाइए, बहुत मज़े वाला काम है !

हिंदी : http://hi.wikipedia.org
गुजरती : http://gu.wikipedia.org/
मराठी : http://mr.wikipedia.org/
कन्नडा : http://kn.wikipedia.org/
और भी अनेक भाषाएँ हैं इधर!

Wikipedia for Schools project

Inviting one and all to a very ambitious project : Wikipedia for Schools - the Indian leg

======Update====

I've created a WIKI page for this grassroots movement - all info on that now, in a much less confusing form!

Wikipedia_For_Schools_Offline_Edition


======================
Let me just quickly put in the essentials here...

Welcome to http://wikipediaforschools.4shared.com/

You can download and install separately kiwix and the huge .zim file from here, or take the torrent for the whole thing. It is recommended that you take the torrent.


Direct link for torrent file
The magnet URL for the torrent is: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:MY657CRWERM4QHKMIVQXW6Q3SPZLQELA
Alternate direct download:
http://notebook.nikhiljs.operaunite.com/file_sharing/
(Using Opera Unite, this is a direct bridge to my computer)

In case it's not working, please contact yours truly here or on twitter or facebook,  or anyone else in the seeders community that is going to be formed once this gets out.

Background : On the 10th Anniversary of Wikipedia on 15th Jan 2011, at an event held in VJTI, Mumbai, one of the big goals stated was to take the offline version of wikipedia for schools (http://schools-wikipedia.org/) to all the computers across the nation that kids use but that don't have internet connection. One of the wikipedians happened to have it on his portable HDD! There was immense interest expressed by everyone gathered and we all made a committment to share this and spread it as far and wide as possible. This is the first step towards that.

Aim :
Many schools and computers in childrens' homes across the country don't have internet connection. So our aim is to copy this encyclopedia - wikipedia for schools - to each and every one of those computers, so all the kids have a chance to tap into the number 1 knowledge resource of the world!

Guide:
If you're going the torrent way:
1. Download the .torrent file and open it in your torrent sofwtware. Start downloading.
2. Read the READ ME FIRST  text file in the folder that you download.

If you're going the other way:
1. Download the kiwix software, either from here or check out http://www.kiwix.org

2. Download the huge wikipedia for schools .ZIM file. There's a folder for it here and it's got the file split into parts of 100 MB each. They simply have to be joined together once you've downloaded them all. See the README file in there for instructions. (Note: They're still getting upload as this is being written, so you might not find them there immediately)

3. Copied instructions from the torrent here on.. it's the same:

4. Run / double-click on kiwix.exe (the executable with the black kiwi icon)

5. From the top menubar, click File > Open

6. Locate the .zim file you want to use, press Open / Ok.

7. Now you will probably see a popup asking you : "Do you want to index your ZIM file now?" -- press OK.

8. This indexing is a 1-time activity that may take some time. You'll see the progress on the bottom right. May take 10 mins or more. It is necessary to complete for you to be able to search for articles.

9. Meanwhile, you can click-browse through the encyclopedia while you're waiting for indexing to finish. In case you by mistake cancelled it, you can open it again and will be asked again..

10. Once indexing is done, it's ready! Now next time you run Kiwix, you'll get the last opened .zim file already opened and ready for searching.

---------------
Thanks for showing interest in this project!
Let me / us know if you're facing any problems!

Plato's Republic

This is a comment that I posted to an interesting blog-post :

21st Century Democracy & Plato's Republic

Loved the closing line!

I'm more of a leaner on the conspiracy side; The way Obama's campaign happened, had something very telling : a suspiciously universal support, even from the big corporates. Look at the funding done by them! That has never happened to any sincerely good effort. And the opposition was deliberately weakened like hell. It all looked like a set-up from the start, and the bankster bailout confirmed the suspicions : Here's a mole made to give the impression of "change" when in practice, the Obama Administration seems to have done the same things Bush was doing.

Even at home, I can't digest many things. The scandals seem to be just the tip of the iceberg. What's happening in the nether regions of the country, with industrialists seizing more and more lands, which is causing the Maoist disputes in the first place; and with the Nuclear Deal also... noble intentions, but by fully allowing suspect companies in who don't have a good track record?
And at Copenhagen and ensuing climate summits.. the way India gave up its own people's future in favor of industrialists' concerns ("Don't say you'll reduce Coal consumption, or the ONGC stocks will fall!") When we know that despite all the drawbacks, if the most populous nation on Earth would have taken a stand to stamp out any possible climate threat before proceeding with progress, the rest of the planet would have followed suit. (If a poor guy comes and drops money into a donation box, the rich ones standing around are automatically shamed into following suit). We have a historic opportunity to become the undisputed moral authority in the world by taking a stand (and given our lower consumption we don't even have anything to lose!) but we're blowing it away thanks to vested interests. And Manmohan Singh is not doing anything about it. Jairam Ramesh is someone who is - I'd make him the next PM and ask that Rahul boy to go back to playing Age of Empires on his computer.

Plato's republic idea is highly susceptible to a set-up. The kids may have been saved from their parents' brainwashing, but who would guarantee them safety from brainwashing by the elite? Parents will still always want a better future for coming generations and would instill that desire in their children. The elites of today, with their own children safely settled or secured, don't seem to be concerned in any way for our country's future. Which is sadly short-sighted, as we're all still on the same planet.

Topic on LinkedIn: "What is the most important thing that you have learned while serving your club as an officer?"

Good points.. pretty much echoes my feelings on the topic too.

Esp points 2 and 3! We all tend to forget sometimes that tolerance and forgiveness are more important virtues than most other things.
I'm blogging this for future reference!

Regards
Nikhil Sheth
www.nikhilsheth.tk

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: The Official Toastmasters International Members Group
Date: Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 1:55 PM
Subject: New comment on "What is the most important thing that you have learned while serving your club as an officer?"
To: Nikhil Sheth

LinkedIn Groups

Group: The Official Toastmasters International Members Group Discussion: What is the most important thing that you have learned while serving your club as an officer? For me, lots of little learnings about process but a couple of big ones: 1). Give people space to work it out for themselves; let them know what your expectations are in terms of what needs to happen (rather than what you want to happen) and, critically, give them permission to ask questions. I've been amazed at the number of people who are nervous to do that, and that applies doubly if they come from a culture where you're not supposed to question things. 2). One of the best bosses I ever worked with had a simple philosophy: "When something goes wrong, I remind myself that 'no-one ever turned up to work with the intention of doing a bad job'". Adopting that approach makes things much easier. 3). Accept that "it seemed a reasonable idea at the time" is a valid reason for why things were done in a way you're not keen on. 4). If a thing could be done by one person, it might not have been worth doing. The best results come from mixes of skills - but ONE person normally hold the key vision. Pressed for one of these, I'd choose the first. If they know they are in a safe place to make mistakes, people tend to build better teams. Posted by Mike Diggins

Volunteer Drive for new Library at Shantabai Ladkat School, Nanapeth, Pune

Hi everyone,
I’ve been volunteering at the Shantabai Ladkat English Medium school in Nanapeth, Pune where TFI (Teach For India) fellows Kaushik, Gunvant, Moiz and Sarika are teaching 3rd and 4th Grade. Helping out in teaching or just taking care of the class or playing games with the kids, it’s been a wonderful time and I’m loving it!
Recently, our school got a huge consignment of childrens’ books donated by expatriate Indians living in the Gulf countries. We’ve received around 1400 books stuffed in 14 cartons, and everybody’s overjoyed!
With this, a new library is being set up in the school so the kids can make full use of the new resources and frog-leap in their reading skills and general knowledge.

And that’s where YOU come in! We’ve got so many amazing books for kids of all levels – right from books with under two lines a page, to the complete set of World Book Encyclopedia! We need to grade these books by reading ability, by color-coding them using a scheme we refer to as “GROWBY”, serial-number them and finally cover them in plastic to make sure they last loooonngg!

So, starting Tuesday, 21st December 2010, we’re having a week-long Volunteer Drive – call us up, get your friends together and come in anytime over the whole week to help out in grading the books! Even if you can spare just an hour, it’ll be make a huge difference and really help us to speed up the books-encoding process!
This drive will continue from Tuesday through the week and even over the weekend of 25/26 Dec, so please find a time slot in your calendar and come! Our aim is to gift the school kids a new library for Christmas / New Year!

Time: Any time between 8am to 1pm which is the normal school hours, but if you’re in a big enough group then we will create the time slot suitable to you. Make sure you call one of us so we can co-ordinate!

Contact persons:
Moiz : +91-9819117826
Gunvant : +91-7798408929
Kaushik : +91-9823223209
Nikhil : +91-9665831250

 
Location: Shantabai Ladkat School
Sadar Bazaar, Nanapeth
Pune, Maharashtra, India
Show on Google Maps

Here are some pics of the kids you’ll be helping out!
    
>the last one : I was able to install Wikipedia for Schools offline edition in our school’s computer lab (which doesn’t have internet, of course) and in two of the Fellows’ notebooks last week! So the kids now have the world’s knowledge at their fingertips!
Find more pics on the school’s Facebook Page! Spread the word around, tell all your colleagues and your friends and let’s do a fun Library Drive for the kids!

UPDATE: 23 Dec 2010:
We've had an awesome 3 days of browsing through and sorting 100s of books - right from simple word pictures all the way to Shakespeare; right from simple books on grammar all the way to World Book Encyclopedia!

On Day 1, we separated 2/3rds of the books by fiction and non-fiction ones. On Day 2, we categorized them further by subject - short stories, young readers and rhymes in fiction; and science, social science, english, maths, activity, reference, magazines and vernacular.

On Day 3 (Thursday 23rd Dec 2010), we took all the short stories books and color-coded them using a “GROWBY” scheme that’s being used for the current books in the school. In that, books of 2 sentences or less per page are under G – Green; and this stretches to Y –Yellow for books that have more than 10 sentences per page.

In all this, volunteers as well as students have played a pivotal role. On all the days, during library period (each standard has library period 1 day a week), we got the students to do the categorization, transport, handling and arrangement of books en masse, while the volunteers, ahem, supervised! The students have done a stellar job and showed brilliant teamwork and dedication; while the volunteers have energetically helped and guided them every step of the way! A big thanks to everyone!

Much more to do now : We have to serial-numberize the color-coded books and cover them in transparent plastic so they stay good! Along with serial numbering, we will enter the titles in computer/laptop so that we have a database ready.

Oh, and bonus for the volunteers coming on Day 4 – Fri 24th Dec’10 : The school is celebrating Christmas Party! Also, we’ve recently acquired a Projector thanks to some generous friends, and so there’s going to be movie screenings as well – you can come help out, as well as enjoy the festivities 7.30am onwards, at Shantabai Ladkat English Medium School (SLEMS!) in
Nanapeth, Pune~!

PICS: