On the abbreviation "DAD" (dollar-a-day)

When I was growing up, a phrase I often heard - mostly from the mouths of working people - would translate thus: "What is money? After all, its dirt off your hands." Then, there is this memory of my grandfather; as soon as he sat up after a night's sleep - it was usually in the open, under the stars - no mosquitos then as now - he would bring his hands up palm towards him and mutter something in Sanskrit. Later, I learnt that this was a fairly wide practice.

One day, years later, I figured out what that short Sanskrit was about. In translation, it will go "On the front of the hand is Lakshmi, Mother of prosperity, In the root of hand is Saraswati, Mother of learning. In the middle is Govinda, (Krishna).Thus we respectfully see our hands in the Morning"... The Sanskrit word for hand is 'Kara' (from this you get Kartaa - kartaar - Creator) which is also the root word for Karma.... That prayer is now contracted into temple ritual and in some homes as routine. Not much feeling or undertanding go in it.

I have always maintained that the two hands and the head form the Triangle of Cognition.

All of the above bubbled up when I received a banner from a friend that I ended up using for this blog. As I did this I wondered how many would understand that I am using D. A. D. as a figure of speech. I do not 'make' a dollar a day. In fact, any money I 'make' is little and far in between. Its a situation that can be best summed up as "Total Employment at Zero income"

So, How do I make ends meet? how do I get 'food' on the table?

My answer: I am supported by the awesome philanthropy of people who do make about a dollar a day. They work with their hands. They are not greedily attached to money. Although they are not heard saying those old things I mentioned in the beginning, their actions indicate that they know their validity in their bones. In comparison the class of people above them is shameful in its stingy, calculating, hoarding attitude.

I find the philanthropy of dollar-a-day people just awesome. It is possible that the human race has a giving instinct, some kind of a gene. When people have nothing to give, they give themselves, and that is what is enoblingly awesome. They have little material wealth. Hardly any education. They are too busy to read newspapers or watch TV. And yet, in their working and in their amazing capacity to give themselves they sustain more than the people meeting at any G-8 conference.

- Vyom Akhil, an email dated 06/02/2007 9:06 PM

Milton who? MILTON What?

This MILTON isn't a who, but a what?

Technically, MILTON is, in my opinion, the best thing to bridge the so-called digital divide, which, Scott MacNealy, ex-boss at Sun Microsystems, convincingly argues is a fiction. He says there is a divide - the old economic one. It's digital technology that is narrowing it. (More on this in another blog later)

If we look around and notice all the connectivity that is occuring amongst the poor via the mobile phone it won't be hard to agree with Scott.

So, then where is MILTON, whatever it is? And why is it NOT on the radar of any of the 'Big Players'?

You've heard of that saw the economists have made a cliche of - the one about bad money chasing the good one out of the market?

Maybe, its the same thing with technology. Bill Gates' Microsoft OS versions have a larger market share despite Steve Balmer's unending patchy-watchy updates and the hackers peeling and penetrating through them while Apple is, marketsharewise, struggling away.

It's a shame that Open Source has just fan clubs in the developing countries. In the Indian media I have come across only one mention of Ubuntu, the easy-to-operate, free Net-downloadable PC operating system, with three-year support. Ubuntu OS is discussed here on this icon for 10 minutes clipped from the half-hour BBC Digital Planet program. The icon-link includes my comments below the player.

While recently praising The Fiesty Fawn, Ubuntu's latest free-to-download-OS on air, BBC Digital Planet's tech-expert Bill Thompson hasn't come back with a test-drive report. To hear him, right-click on this icon and open the 36-sec clip in its own window with its accompanying comments. Or click on the player below for a listen sans the commentary.



For the question Where is MILTON? I have an audio-visual answer. This player has the audio

As you heard, MILTON is a low-frequency wireless connectivity system that addresses the crucial 'last/first' mile to/from the user.

Furthermore, it offers data transfer rates that are very significantly higher than Wi-Fi and Wi-Max.

In most developing countries, this last mile connectivity is what really matters.


The middleclass 'establishment' in Asia, Africa and Latin America can get their fibreoptic connections but I have not seen any small towns and villages in India where the 'last' mile is NOT an aggravation for the average inhabitant.

In fact, it is  in a condition analogous to the pot-holed dirt roads that usually lead to them. Here is an example from Chile:
A remote mountain village in that country got lucky and, with the help of its enthusiastic mayor, "they" came in to showcase wireless connectivity there.

Take a listen at this icon  for a 232-sec 'case-history' type report that, under the hoopla, downplays the problem of the last-mile connection, which wouldn't have occurred had they opted for the low frequency MILTON.

The small village might not have needed 16 line-of-sight connectivity high frequency nodes or hotspots. One radio frequency MILTON hub would have been enough. Those wire-meshed home walls mentioned in the clip would not have affected it propagation

The visual is in the form of the text below - An email I sent, January 30 this year, to the BBC World Service program :

["Sub: Business Daily Today on Wi-Fi/WiMax

Namaskär,

Apropos of your report today on wireless connectivity for "developing countries", I was dismayed that, aside from the heaviliy 'pushed' Wi-Fi and WiMax, a third option was not even mentioned, leave alone discussed/debated.

When compared to WiFi/WiMax, the amusingly acronymized 'cognitive' wireless system, MILTON, (a) has a faster data-transfer rate, (b) needs just one 'hot-spot' per a village or two, and (c) has a significantly lower i.e.r.h. (imagined electromagnetic radiation hazard) and other hassles because it "uses the license-exempt bands that operate at 5 Gigahertz.." and (d) is easily affordable by the end-users themselves without any doles, hand-outs or subsidies.

For anyone interested, I am pasting below a couple of URLs that will tell you more about MILTON - successfully tested a decade ago, jointly by Indian and Canadian engineers.

Why it has not become the preferred choice for wireless connectivity in the developing countries is perhaps because - other than the scientists and engineers who developed it - MILTON has had no angels backing it, no 'stakeholders'.
Furthermore, since it is not an 'in-house' production of the telecom companies, there's no one to help line bureaucratic pockets and assure political kickbacks to make a determining decision in its favor.

Svasti!
xxxxxxx
-------------------------
MILTON Info URLs:

1. http://www.bittyurl.com/?1cbe09

Title: "Canada Launches New Partnership with India for R&D Into Wireless Broadband"

Quote: "Researchers in Canada and India will soon be ... looking at the potential uses of a new technology developed in Canada called a Microwave-Light Organized Network, or MILTON. This technology... distributes broadband Internet wirelessly over an area of several kilometers... (in) rural and remote areas...."

2. http://www.bittyurl.com/?830b8a

Title: Milton HomePage

Quote: "The Milton system is a cognitive radio network that sense(s) the radio environment for interference to provide bi-directional, cost-efficient, high data transfer-rates telecommunications services at license-exempt bands that have been identified for world-wide use by the World Radio Congress of 2003... Designed to be a low-cost community wireless radio network (it) has the capability to identify poor quality radio links.. (and change) to provide high-capacity Internet to regions of the world with underdeveloped or older telecommunications infrastructures."]