Dateline 24 Nov.
On 24 Nov 1955, this bloke was born to K Kuttappan Nair and C Chandramathykutty Amma. Yet another birthday, when my friends and a few relatives (the remainder and the bulk of them will wish me on my birthday as per the Malayalam calendar, on the 27th! Felt nice and happy being in touch with many at a go!! Lekha was the first to call.
Had got up at my usual time and was ready to go to the lab for the tests on my blood sugar. Maman had accompanied me both times - for the fasting and the post-prandial drawal of blood. The readings are coming down steadily and now, I'm armed to meet the doctor on the 26th, at Kochi.
It was a quick lunch at the new eatery at the Dhanya, Remya theatres. The food was nice and the staff seemed to be enthusiastic. We kicked off for Rameswaram by a half past 3 and a slight slackness, saw us doing an additional 80 km - the Foundation's team consisted of Maman, Dr Kamalasanan Pillai, Aji, Prince and myself in the Eeco!
The journey was fun and I kept getting calls which gave me a nice feeling!
A superb feeling!
* * *
............contd.
Prize and Prejudice
It was Wilson who introduced segregation in the US civil service, which had offered social mobility for black Americans.
Another nasty character honoured by the Norwegians was Cordell Hull. The American, who received the peace prize in 1945 for his role in establishing the United Nations, was directly responsible for condemning hundreds of Jews to the Holocaust.
In what is known as the St Louis crisis, in Jun 1939, Hull threatened to withdraw support to US President Franklin Roosevelt if the ship SS St Louis, carrying 950 Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, was allowed to dock in an American port. Lobbying by Hull and the Christian Right, ensured the Jews were not allowed to enter the US but had to return to Europe, where the Germans despatched more than a quarter of them to the gas chambers.
In 2013, the peace prize could have easily gone to Vladimir Putin. While the Americans, their NATO allies and the Gulf emirates had wanted to bomb Syria into the Stone Age, it was Russian President's forceful intervention that averted war in the Middle East. But Putin is not strictly speaking a Westerner nor an Eastern rebel so he didn't fit the bill..
Europeans preferred
Ever wondered why famous Indian authors such as Munshi Premchand, Amrita Pritam and Narayan never received the Nobel? They were giants of the literary world, yet they didn't make it.
Whether it is the raw primal emotions in a short story like 'Kafan' or the decadent sensuality of Nawabi Lucknow in 'Shatranj Ke Khiladi', Premchand was both master stylist and storyteller and an obvious candidate for a Nobel, says Swarajya magazine.
Narayan was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature multiple times, but never won. In an illustrious career spanning six decades, he produced classics such as 'Swami and Friends' that introduced Indian writing to the world. Narayan won fans all over the world of whom author Graham Greene was the greatest, but the Nobel Committee didn't ignore him for decades. India's opposition to the West during the Cold War was definitely a factor.
But there could be an even more insidious factor at work. According to the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, the Nobel Academy prefers to pick European authors. "Since 1995, 85% of the winners have been Europeans", it said in a 2008 article.
According to American author Burton Feldman, the Swedish Academy lacks the linguistic competence needed for a truly international jury, which is not surprising. "Unprepared to read fluently and directly in major and populous languages such as Chinese, Arabic or Hindi, not to mention minor ones, the Nobel committee is overly dependent on translations...."
Prejudice was evident in the very first prize in medicine. in 1901, the Nobel was awarded to Emil von Behring for the discovery of antitoxins but not to his close collaborator Shibasaburo Kitasato, the legendary Japanese physician.
The Nobel judges aren't above bribery and corruption either. In 2008, Harald zur Hausen bagged the Nobel Prize for medicine for discovering that HPV causes cervical cancer. But even as the Swede was basking in his newfound glory, he was being investigated by the police. It emerged that AstraZeneca, a pharmaceuticals company with stakes in HPV vaccines, had close links with key members of the selection committee. Further investigations revealed AstraZeneca was also sponsoring the Nobel website.
In 2018, a sex scandal cancelled the literature prize. In Nov 2017, the Swedish media revealed that the husband of one of the Academy members had been accused of serial sexual abuse, in assaults alleged to have taken place over more than 20 years. The accused man was Jean-Claude Arnault, a French photographer and cultural entrepreneur, married to the poet and academician, Katarina Frostenson.
During the investigations it was discovered that "there had been heavy and well-informed betting in advance of the prize in several of the early years of the century". Frostenson was accused of leaking the names of seven prize winners to her husband ahead of the announcements. The names of the prize winners are the subject of intense speculation and on which many people place bets with betting firms.
Causes of bias
While European ethnocentrism is clearly at work in the fields of science and literature, in the peace prize a deciding factor is Norway's geopolitical tilt. As a NATO member, Norway reflects the prejudices that are inevitable because of the country's entanglement in the military alliance.
.....to be continued.....
Tailpiece.
Reached Rameswaram by a half past 10. Since the bookings were done by the ever efficient Indira ma'am, we parked into the Collectorate's Guest House on arrival.
Had got up at my usual time and was ready to go to the lab for the tests on my blood sugar. Maman had accompanied me both times - for the fasting and the post-prandial drawal of blood. The readings are coming down steadily and now, I'm armed to meet the doctor on the 26th, at Kochi.
It was a quick lunch at the new eatery at the Dhanya, Remya theatres. The food was nice and the staff seemed to be enthusiastic. We kicked off for Rameswaram by a half past 3 and a slight slackness, saw us doing an additional 80 km - the Foundation's team consisted of Maman, Dr Kamalasanan Pillai, Aji, Prince and myself in the Eeco!
The journey was fun and I kept getting calls which gave me a nice feeling!
A superb feeling!
* * *
............contd.
Prize and Prejudice
It was Wilson who introduced segregation in the US civil service, which had offered social mobility for black Americans.
Another nasty character honoured by the Norwegians was Cordell Hull. The American, who received the peace prize in 1945 for his role in establishing the United Nations, was directly responsible for condemning hundreds of Jews to the Holocaust.
In what is known as the St Louis crisis, in Jun 1939, Hull threatened to withdraw support to US President Franklin Roosevelt if the ship SS St Louis, carrying 950 Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, was allowed to dock in an American port. Lobbying by Hull and the Christian Right, ensured the Jews were not allowed to enter the US but had to return to Europe, where the Germans despatched more than a quarter of them to the gas chambers.
In 2013, the peace prize could have easily gone to Vladimir Putin. While the Americans, their NATO allies and the Gulf emirates had wanted to bomb Syria into the Stone Age, it was Russian President's forceful intervention that averted war in the Middle East. But Putin is not strictly speaking a Westerner nor an Eastern rebel so he didn't fit the bill..
Europeans preferred
Ever wondered why famous Indian authors such as Munshi Premchand, Amrita Pritam and Narayan never received the Nobel? They were giants of the literary world, yet they didn't make it.
Whether it is the raw primal emotions in a short story like 'Kafan' or the decadent sensuality of Nawabi Lucknow in 'Shatranj Ke Khiladi', Premchand was both master stylist and storyteller and an obvious candidate for a Nobel, says Swarajya magazine.
Narayan was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature multiple times, but never won. In an illustrious career spanning six decades, he produced classics such as 'Swami and Friends' that introduced Indian writing to the world. Narayan won fans all over the world of whom author Graham Greene was the greatest, but the Nobel Committee didn't ignore him for decades. India's opposition to the West during the Cold War was definitely a factor.
But there could be an even more insidious factor at work. According to the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, the Nobel Academy prefers to pick European authors. "Since 1995, 85% of the winners have been Europeans", it said in a 2008 article.
According to American author Burton Feldman, the Swedish Academy lacks the linguistic competence needed for a truly international jury, which is not surprising. "Unprepared to read fluently and directly in major and populous languages such as Chinese, Arabic or Hindi, not to mention minor ones, the Nobel committee is overly dependent on translations...."
Prejudice was evident in the very first prize in medicine. in 1901, the Nobel was awarded to Emil von Behring for the discovery of antitoxins but not to his close collaborator Shibasaburo Kitasato, the legendary Japanese physician.
The Nobel judges aren't above bribery and corruption either. In 2008, Harald zur Hausen bagged the Nobel Prize for medicine for discovering that HPV causes cervical cancer. But even as the Swede was basking in his newfound glory, he was being investigated by the police. It emerged that AstraZeneca, a pharmaceuticals company with stakes in HPV vaccines, had close links with key members of the selection committee. Further investigations revealed AstraZeneca was also sponsoring the Nobel website.
In 2018, a sex scandal cancelled the literature prize. In Nov 2017, the Swedish media revealed that the husband of one of the Academy members had been accused of serial sexual abuse, in assaults alleged to have taken place over more than 20 years. The accused man was Jean-Claude Arnault, a French photographer and cultural entrepreneur, married to the poet and academician, Katarina Frostenson.
During the investigations it was discovered that "there had been heavy and well-informed betting in advance of the prize in several of the early years of the century". Frostenson was accused of leaking the names of seven prize winners to her husband ahead of the announcements. The names of the prize winners are the subject of intense speculation and on which many people place bets with betting firms.
Causes of bias
While European ethnocentrism is clearly at work in the fields of science and literature, in the peace prize a deciding factor is Norway's geopolitical tilt. As a NATO member, Norway reflects the prejudices that are inevitable because of the country's entanglement in the military alliance.
.....to be continued.....
Tailpiece.
Reached Rameswaram by a half past 10. Since the bookings were done by the ever efficient Indira ma'am, we parked into the Collectorate's Guest House on arrival.
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