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1 - Introduction
- Deepak Khemani, IIT Madras, Chennai
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- Search Methods in Artificial Intelligence
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- 30 April 2024
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- 30 June 2024, pp 1-28
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Summary
We will adopt the overall goal of artificial intelligence (AI) to be ‘to build machines with minds, in the full and literal sense’ as prescribed by the Canadian philosopher John Haugeland (1985).
Not to create machines with a clever imitation of human-like intelligence. Or machines that exhibit behaviours that would be considered intelligent if done by humans – but to build machines that reason.
This book focuses on search methods for problem solving. We expect the user to define the goals to be achieved and the domain description, including the moves available with the machine. The machine then finds a solution employing first principles methods based on search. A process of trial and error. The ability to explore different options is fundamental to thinking.
As we describe subsequently, such methods are just amongst the many in the armoury of an intelligent agent. Understanding and representing the world, learning from past experiences, and communicating with natural language are other equally important abilities, but beyond the scope of this book. We also do not assume that the agent has meta-level abilities of being self-aware and having goals of its own. While these have a philosophical value, our goal is to make machines do something useful, with as general a problem solving approach as possible.
This and other definitions of what AI is do not prescribe how to test if a machine is intelligent. In fact, there is no clear-cut universally accepted definition of intelligence. To put an end to the endless debates on machine intelligence that ensued, the brilliant scientist Alan Turing proposed a behavioural test.
Can Machines Think?
Ever since the possibility of building intelligent machines arose, there have been raging debates on whether machine intelligence is possible or not. All kinds of arguments have been put forth both for and against the possibility. It was perhaps to put an end to these arguments that Alan Turing (1950) proposed his famous imitation game, which we now call the Turing Test. The test is simply this: if a machine interacts with a human using text messages and can fool human judges a sufficiently large fraction of times that they are chatting with another human, then we can say that the machine has passed the test and is intelligent.
6 - Algorithm A* and Variations
- Deepak Khemani, IIT Madras, Chennai
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- Search Methods in Artificial Intelligence
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- 30 April 2024
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- 30 June 2024, pp 147-184
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Finding a solution is one aspect of problem solving. Executing it is another. In certain applications the cost of executing the solution is important. For example, maintaining supplies to the International Space Station, a repetitive task, or sending a rocket to Jupiter, an infrequent activity. Coming down to Earth, the manufacturing industry needs to manage its supplies, inventory, scheduling, and shipping of products. At home, juggling the morning activity of cooking, sending off kids to school, and heading for office after grabbing a coffee and a bite could do with optimized processes.
In this chapter we look at the algorithm A* for finding optimal solutions. It is a heuristic search algorithm that guarantees an optimal solution. It does so by combining the goal seeking of best first search with a tendency to keep as close to the source as possible. We begin by looking at the algorithm branch & bound that focuses only on the latter, before incorporating the heuristic function.
We revert to graph search for the study of algorithms that guarantee optimal solutions. The task is to find a shortest path in a graph from a start node to a goal node. We have already studied algorithms BFS and DFID in Chapter 3. The key idea there was to extend that partial path which was the shortest. We begin with the same strategy. Except that now we add weights to edges in the graph. Without edge weights, the optimal or shortest path has the least number of edges in the path. With edge weights added, we modify this notion to the sum of the weights on the edges.
The common theme continuing in our search algorithms is as follows:
Pick the best node from OPEN and extend it, till you pick the goal node.
The question that remains is the definition of ‘best’. In DFS, the deepest node is the best node. In BestFirstSearch, the node that appears to be closest to the goal is the best. In BFS, the node closest to the start node is the best. We begin by extending the idea behind breadth first search.
We can generalize our common theme as follows. With every node N on OPEN, we associate a number that stands for the estimated cost of the final solution.
4 - Muslim Identities and Political Parties
- Christopher Candland, Wellesley College, Massachusetts
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- The Islamic Welfare State
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- 30 April 2024
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- 30 June 2024, pp 55-84
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O men, We created you from a male and a female, and formed you into nations and tribes that you may recognize each other.
Diversity can be tolerated, or it can be embraced. The Quran seems to suggest not only that tolerance of diversity is good for minorities but also that interaction with people from other backgrounds enables one to understand oneself better. This is an insight, that diversity is not merely to be tolerated, nor even to be recognized as a good in itself, but to be recognized as essential if one is to understand oneself. For by interacting with others one might learn that the apparently natural and inevitable is in fact cultural and pliable. Diversity allows one to be “reminded that there is no center of the world.”
More than 200 million Muslims live in Pakistan, about 98 percent of the population. This is about 15 million more Muslims than India, where Muslims make up just over 13 percent of the population. But reference to Pakistan as a ‘Muslim country’ or ‘Muslim nation’ can give rise to the mistaken notion that Pakistan's population is monolithically Muslim. Pakistan's population is extraordinarily diverse. There are Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Parsi, agnostic, and atheist Pakistanis. And the cultural and religious diversity within the Muslim community is also very great. No country has a richer variety of Muslim religious traditions and political identities. There are both Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims; the former make up about a quarter of the population of Pakistan. Within the Shia community, there are Bohra, Ismaili, and Ithna-Ashari (Twelver Shias). Within the Sunni community, there are those who follow the Hanafi fiqh (school of jurisprudence) and those known as Ahle Hadith (people of the ahadith), who do not follow any fiqh;4 within the Hanafi community, there are Barelvi and Deobandi. And the ‘Islamic’ political parties are as varied as the fiqh (schools of Islamic law) and masalik (religious denominations).
This chapter provides a concise history of the establishment of Pakistan, its Muslim identities, and its ‘religious political parties,’ as the self-professed ‘Islamic’ political parties are known in Pakistan.
Conclusion: Postcolonial Afterlives of Law and Revolution
- Sandipto Dasgupta, New School for Social Research, New York
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- Legalizing the Revolution
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- 07 May 2024
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- 30 June 2024, pp 296-313
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Independence is not a word which can be used as an exorcism, but an indispensable condition for the existence of men and women who are truly liberated, who are truly masters of all the material means which make possible the radical transformation of society.
—Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the EarthDemocracy is thirsty, cold, and hungry.
—Michel Chevalier, Des Intérêts Matériels en FranceHe was extraordinarily happy today because he was going to witness with his own eyes the coming of the new constitution. In the morning fog, he went around the broad and narrow streets of the city but everything had the same old and worn-out look. He wanted to see colour and light. There was nothing.
—Sadaat Hasan Manto, ‘The New Constitution’Foreboding and Hope
The long process of drafting the Indian constitution was coming to an end. It was the time for concluding speeches in the Constituent Assembly: members sharing their final thoughts on what they had (or had not) been able to accomplish. Ambedkar had done more than most to shape the text that was now in front of them. His speech would become one of most quoted parts of the assembly debates. ‘If we wish to maintain democracy not merely in form, but also in fact, what must we do?’ Ambedkar asked. This was his answer:
The … thing we must do is not to be content with mere political democracy. We must make our political democracy a social democracy as well. Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy.… On the 26th of January 1950 we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril.
Dedication
- Christopher Candland, Wellesley College, Massachusetts
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- The Islamic Welfare State
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- 30 April 2024
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Notes
- Sandipto Dasgupta, New School for Social Research, New York
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- Legalizing the Revolution
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- 07 May 2024
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- 30 June 2024, pp 322-479
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7 - 100 Years After Indenture: The Present Generation of Indo-Trinidadians and Their Cultural Environments
- Edited by Ashutosh Kumar, Banaras Hindu University, India, Crispin Bates, University of Edinburgh
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- <i>Girmitiyas</i> and the Global Indian Diaspora
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- 20 April 2024
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- 30 June 2024, pp 157-175
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TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO TODAY
Trinidad and Tobago is a twin-island republic located at the southern tip of the Caribbean archipelago. Approximately 10 kilometres from the northern coast of Venezuela, the islands are collectively comprised of around 2,000 square miles of land. Tobago is the smaller of the two with a wealth of natural scenic beauty. Trinidad is the agricultural, industrial and service hub of the nation. Both islands have separate and interesting histories. While Tobago has a predominantly homogeneous racial grouping, Trinidad reflects a mosaic of races and cultures, the result of its separate and distinct historical antecedents and heritages (built and natural). This multicultural mix is reflected in existing population statistics, in its philosophical, social, economic, religious and physical landscape and in its artistic expressions. It is manifested in its performative traditions: its fasts, feasts, rituals and festivals. Within this cultural dynamo the Indo-Trinidadian contribution is noteworthy, adding significantly to the rhythm of daily life. This chapter explores what has been, and what continues to be, the role of the Indo-Trinidadian in shaping this dynamic, syncretic culture.
Addressing this question requires a definition of the term ‘culture’. Culture in this sense is the sum total of one's norms of behaviour, one's values, attitudes to spiritual and religious development, to society, to family and to personal growth and development, to life in general. It is influenced by our heritage, traditions, legacies and our present circumstances. Culture is thus the vehicle and platform for maintaining historical linkages and for shaping one's environment. It guides and inspires a people, giving them a personality of their own. It influences the environment, provides historical continuity and opportunities and sets out a veritable road map for future development.
Over the years the various cultural streams in Trinidad have assimilated. These streams have included the cultures of the former European colonizers, of the various ‘mother’ countries as well as internal innovations within them. To them have been added both North and, to a lesser extent, South American ideas, values, behavioural patterns, traditions and aesthetics. Today, evidence reveals the existence of a unique, syncretic emerging culture in Trinidad and Tobago. Intertwined with this emergent culture are major identifiable elements of cultural persistence in the Indo-Trinidadian psyche, as is very apparent in their everyday lifestyles. There is a kind of ‘ethnic dualism’ as parallel cultural traits exist side by side.
References
- Md Azmeary Ferdoush, University of Eastern Finland
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- Sovereign Atonement
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- 30 April 2024
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- 30 June 2024, pp 174-195
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Introduction: Remnants, nations, and the sovereign
- Md Azmeary Ferdoush, University of Eastern Finland
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- Sovereign Atonement
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- 30 April 2024
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- 30 June 2024, pp 1-26
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On the night of September 28, 2014, Selina, an expectant young woman and a mother of two, was brutally murdered in front of her six-year-old son by four men, one of whom was later found to be her husband. While her neighbors discovered the deceased woman the next morning and informed the authorities of it immediately, her lifeless body remained on the crime scene for the next two days (Daily Ittefaq, 2014). Selina was a resident of India's Islampur enclave inside Bangladesh. Since she was an Indian enclave dweller, neither the crime scene nor Selina's body was under the official jurisdiction of the state of Bangladesh. Furthermore, the unique territorial oddities of the enclave prevented the Indian police from intervening, because the enclave was inside Bangladesh, another sovereign state, where the Indian police lacked authority. For the Indian police to have entered Bangladesh in an official capacity, they would have required complicated bureaucratic arrangements. Local residents and political figures pressed the Bangladesh police to consider it from a “humanitarian perspective.” Only then was Selina's body taken and preserved in a morgue in the Bangladeshi district of Lalmonirhat. After several meetings, concerned authorities across borders – that is, the Bangladeshi police, the Indian police, and the respective border security forces, the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and Border Security Force (BSF) of India – arranged for a team of Indian police to investigate the crime scene inside Bangladesh. Selina's body was taken to India for an autopsy. It took eighteen days for Selina's body to be handed back to her family and friends for her funeral.
Only a few years later, the situation for the residents of the enclaves was significantly transformed. In another former Indian enclave of Dasiar Chhara, located inside Kurigram district of Bangladesh, I met Nuruddin1 during my ethnographic fieldwork in 2017. Dasiar Chhara was then merged with regular Bangladeshi territories and was undergoing numerous state-making processes as part of a successful territorial swap between India and Bangladesh. I was taking a walk and having a casual chat with Nuruddin, a twenty-seven-year-old man, who was enthusiastically showing me how things had changed in Dasiar Chhara after it officially became part of Bangladesh.
7 - Property and Labour
- Sandipto Dasgupta, New School for Social Research, New York
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- Legalizing the Revolution
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- 07 May 2024
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- 30 June 2024, pp 232-269
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Landlord of England art thou now, not king,
Thy state of law is bondslave to the law.
—William Shakespeare, Richard IILand is like ivies. It requires the might of the stick to maintain and grow. Everything else comes after. Comes on their own. Even the law.
—Satinath Bhaduri, Dhorai Charit ManasThe way this question is being dealt with may appear to them not completely right so far as they are concerned – but it is a better way and a juster way, from their point of view, than any other way that is going to come later. That way may not be by any process of legislation. The land question may be settled differently.
—Jawaharlal Nehru, Constitutional Assembly Debates, 10 September 1949In 1935, in the midst of the global depression, W. E. B. Du Bois published Black Reconstruction in America. The purpose of the book was to challenge the dominant narrative on the failures of the post-Civil War reconstruction in the American South. But the book was concerned with a failure on a larger scale – of democracy in America. At an even larger scale, the arguments of the book foreshadowed the challenges for the not-yet-born democracies in the still colonized peripheries. For Du Bois, the end of the Civil War and the initial years of the Reconstruction offered a singular chance for the realization of democracy in America. The first step towards this was franchise for the formerly enslaved (male) black workers. The next step, Du Bois argued, had to be a proper redistribution of land to those workers. After all, he noted, ‘their demand for a reasonable part of the land on which they had worked for a quarter of a millennium was absolutely justified’. Ownership of some property that ensured their subsistence was the only thing that could prevent the formerly enslaved from being forced back into a relationship of dependence on and subservience to the very plantations they had been emancipated from. It was not only just, but also necessary. Universal franchise could not survive, Du Bois wrote, ‘without personal freedom, land, and education’. Thus arose the demand for 40 acres of land for emancipated black workers.
Contents
- Supriya Routh, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
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- Labour Justice
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- 30 April 2024
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- 30 June 2024, pp vii-viii
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Epilogue
- Md Azmeary Ferdoush, University of Eastern Finland
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- Sovereign Atonement
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- 30 April 2024
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- 30 June 2024, pp 162-167
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As a phrase, sovereign atonement brings two concepts – “sovereign” and “atonement” – together, which is perhaps not the first combination that comes to mind when we think of them individually, not least because they are rarely discussed on the same page due to their treatment predominantly by two distinct domains of knowledge: politics and theology. However, the idea of the sovereign is primarily discussed in close relation to power and violence, in sharp contrast with an image of an apologetic and amending body atoning for its past deeds. It is therefore unsurprising that the phrase appears unorthodox or even “weird” on first reading. Nonetheless, throughout the book, I have demonstrated that atonement can be used productively in relation to the sovereign to further unlock the everyday state, power, territory, governance, violence, citizenship, and belonging in novel ways. It does so not just by offering a lens through which to examine these issues more deeply but also by providing a foundation on which they are cross-examined against each other. In this epilogue, I undertake precisely this task: teasing out how sovereign atonement, both as a lens and as a framework, coherently binds the book through an inquiry into the issues that have been discussed in their specificity across the chapters in thick ethnographic detail. In doing so, I start by taking a step back. First, I discuss the meaning of the “sovereign” the book has used. I then shed light on the nature of “atonement” to clarify precisely in what sense I have used the term throughout. Finally, I delve into a discussion of how the merging of these two concepts – that is, sovereign atonement – pans out across the book.
Sovereignty's meaning has been discussed in a range of ways and contexts. Yet Stephen Krasner identifies four major applications of the term (Krasner, 1999). These are international legal sovereignty, Westphalian sovereignty, domestic sovereignty, and interdependence sovereignty. According to Krasner, international legal sovereignty refers to the practices that allow one territorial entity to recognize another through formal juridical independence. Westphalian sovereignty is generally used to describe a political organization of territories based on the inclusion and exclusion of actors who have the power to exercise authority within the territory in question.
Index
- Sandipto Dasgupta, New School for Social Research, New York
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- Legalizing the Revolution
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- 07 May 2024
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- 30 June 2024, pp 480-490
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Appendix: Charities Studied
- Christopher Candland, Wellesley College, Massachusetts
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- The Islamic Welfare State
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- 30 April 2024
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- 30 June 2024, pp 277-285
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Key to Affiliations
(G) indicates that an association is owned and operated by government, usually by a provincial government.
(NP) indicates than an association is nongovernmental and not affiliated or associated with a political party or political, including militant, movement.
(P) indicates that an association is associated with a political party.
(RI) indicates that an association is based at a religious institution, such as an awqaf, church, dargah, darul uloom, gurudwara, imambarah, jamaatkana, jamia, or madrasah.
The location [in brackets] is that of the head office or a branch or local office(s) that the author visited. Many of these associations operate countrywide.
Aagosh-e-Noorani Foundation [Rawalpindi] (NP—Noreen Tahir)
Aghosh Edhi Home [Multan] (NP)1
Aasthan Latif Welfare Society [Makli] (NP)
Abbasi Shaheed Hospital [Karachi] (G)
Abdul Sattar Edhi, Bilquis Edhi, and Kubra Edhi Foundations [Karachi] (NP)
Abdullah Shah Ghazi Dargah [Karachi] (RI)
Abdullah Shah Ghazi Dargah langar [Karachi] (NP—Kisan Oil Mills)
Abdullah Shah Ghazi Dargah Ramzan langar [Karachi] (NP)
Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance [Karachi and Gilgit-Baltistan] (NP)
Aga Khan Child and Maternity Care Hospital [Hyderabad] (NP)
Aga Khan Education Service [Karachi and Gilgit-Baltistan] (NP)
Aga Khan Foundation [Islamabad] (NP)
Aga Khan Health Service [Karachi and Gilgit-Baltistan] (NP)
Aga Khan Hospital [Karachi] (NP)
Aga Khan Hospital [Singal] (NP)
Aga Khan Hospital for Women [Garden East, Karachi] (NP)
Aga Khan Hospital for Women [Karachi] (NP)
Aga Khan Housing Board [Karachi and Gilgit-Baltistan] (NP)
Aga Khan University Hospital [Karachi] (NP)
Aga Khan University Hospital Community Health Centre [Karachi] (NP)
Aisha Bawany Waqf and Academy [Karachi] (NP)
Akhuwat [Lahore, Karachi, Kot Mithan] (NP)
Akhuwat Health Services [Lahore and countrywide] (NP)
Akhuwat Sindh [Karachi] (NP)
Al Akhtar [Bahawalpur] (P—Jaish-i-Mohammad)
Al Anfal Trust [Muridke] (P—Lashkar-i-Taiba)
Al Asar Welfare Society [Lahore] (NP)
Al Ehsan Free Eye Hospital [Mughalpura Lahore] (NP)
Al Falah Manzil [Islamabad] (NP)
Al Ghazi Trust Hospital [Bhong] (NP)
Al Hira Girls College [Mirpur] (NP)
Al Ibrahim Trust Eye Hospital [Gaddap Town] (NP)
Al Khair Trust [Karachi] (P—Jamiat Ulema-i-Islami)
Al Khidmat Khawateen Trust (P—Jamaat-i-Islami)
Al Khidmat Welfare Committee [Karachi] (P—Jamaat-i-Islami)
Al Khidmat Welfare Foundation [Lahore] (P—Jamaat-i-Islami)
Al Khidmat Welfare Society [Karachi] (P—Jamaat-i-Islami)
5 - Stochastic Local Search
- Deepak Khemani, IIT Madras, Chennai
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- Search Methods in Artificial Intelligence
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- 30 April 2024
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- 30 June 2024, pp 115-146
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Search spaces can be huge. The number of choices faced by a search algorithm can grow exponentially. We have named this combinatorial explosion, the principal adversary of search, CombEx. In Chapter 4 we looked at one strategy to battle CombEx, the use of knowledge in the form of heuristic functions – knowledge that would point towards the goal node. Yet, for many problems, such heuristics are hard to acquire and often inadequate, and algorithms continue to demand exponential time.
In this chapter we introduce stochastic moves to add an element of randomness to search. Exploiting the gradient deterministically has its drawbacks when the heuristic functions are imperfect, as they often are. The steepest gradient can lead to the nearest optimum and end there. We add a tendency of exploration, which could drag search away from the path to local optima.
We also look at the power of many for problem solving, as opposed to a sole crusader. Population based methods have given a new dimension to solving optimization problems.
Douglas Hofstadter says that humans are not known to have a head for numbers (Hofstadter, 1996). For most of us, the numbers 3.2 billion and 5.3 million seem vaguely similar and big. A very popular book (Gamow, 1947) was titled One, Two, Three … Infinity. The author, George Gamow, talks about the Hottentot tribes who had the only numbers one, two, and three in their vocabulary, and beyond that used the word many. Bill Gates is famously reputed to have said, ‘Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.’
So, how big is big? Why are computer scientists wary of combinatorial growth? In Table 2.1 we looked at the exponential function 2N and the factorial N!, which are respectively the sizes of search spaces for SAT and TSP, with N variables or cities. How long will take it to inspect all the states when N = 50?
For a SAT problem with 50 variables, 250 = 1,125,899,906,842,624. How big is that? Let us say we can inspect a million or 106 nodes a second. We would then need 1,125,899,906.8 seconds, which is about 35.7 years! There are N! = 3.041409320 × 1064 non-distinct tours (each distinct tour has 2N representations) of 50 cities.
Dedication
- Supriya Routh, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
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- Book:
- Labour Justice
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- 30 April 2024
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- 30 June 2024, pp v-vi
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3 - Stories of Girmitiyas: Folklore and The Sociocultural World of Indentured Indians in The Sugar Colonies
- Edited by Ashutosh Kumar, Banaras Hindu University, India, Crispin Bates, University of Edinburgh
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- <i>Girmitiyas</i> and the Global Indian Diaspora
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- 20 April 2024
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- 30 June 2024, pp 69-82
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Summary
The presence of Indian labour across the globe during the nineteenth century not only helped transform the capitalist global economy but also affected the cultural expression, including folklore, of migrant workers. More than 1.3 million Indians signed contracts of indentureship between 1834 and 1916 and shipped out to sugar plantations across the globe under the aegis of European empires. The first colony to bring in Indian indentured work was Mauritius in 1834. British Guyana imported indentured labour next in 1838, Trinidad and Jamaica in 1845, the smaller West Indian colonies of St Kitts, St Lucia, St Vincent and Grenada in the 1850s, Natal in 1860, Suriname in 1873 and Fiji in 1879. Most indentured Indian labourers chose to stay in their new homes after the termination of their contracts and formed a distinct Indian diaspora in their respective host countries. Indentured Indians brought many sociocultural norms and expressions to the host countries which evolved over the succeeding generations. Folklore is one of these traditions.
Folklore is the traditional expression of a society or a particular group of people in which folk tales, songs, ballads, proverbs or jokes are transmitted from one generation to another. In the course of transmission, the folklore changes, depending on the place and cultural context. This is one of the reasons that different versions of the same folk tales exist. The origin and authors of folklore usually remain hidden as the stories and traditions are carried on and spread orally among often illiterate people.
INDENTURED FOLK TALES
When indentured migrants reached plantation colonies, they not only brought Indian religio-cultural norms but also folklore. Most of the folklore of the indentured Indians is in the Bhojpuri language as the majority of migrants were from the Bhojpuri-speaking areas of north India. However, over time, exposure to the languages, places and space of the host countries meant that indentured folklore in Mauritius can be found in both Creole and Bhojpuri. Other folklore in Mauritius is recorded in south Indian languages, such as Tamil, as a significant portion of the indentured there were from south India.
There are broadly five kinds of folk tales prevalent among Indian indentured societies across the globe. These are didactic tales, social stories, religious tales, love stories and entertainment stories. Moralistic tales endeavoured to encourage certain behaviours in children (and adults). A moral education was attempted through such accounts.
6 - Sanctions for Citizenship: Indians Overseas and Imperial Reciprocity
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- By Heena Mistry
- Edited by Ashutosh Kumar, Banaras Hindu University, India, Crispin Bates, University of Edinburgh
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- <i>Girmitiyas</i> and the Global Indian Diaspora
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- 20 April 2024
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- 30 June 2024, pp 139-156
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On 4 November 1944, the home department of the Government of India ordered a notice to be placed in the Gazette of India announcing the enforcement of the Indian Reciprocity Act against South Africa. Because persons of Indian origin in the Union of South Africa faced restrictions in entering, residing in, and trading, the central government directed that similar restrictions be imposed on South Africans of non-Indian origin in British India. In addition, the home department distributed an office memorandum explaining that the Government of India had decided to enforce the Indian Reciprocity Act and take retaliatory measures against the union government. The memorandum declared that the decision to finally implement the Indian Reciprocity Act against the Union of South Africa was a reaction to proposed legislation, such as proposed legislation that was colloquially known as the Pegging Bill. The proposed bill, which would later be passed as the Trading and Occupation of Land (Transvaal and Natal) Restriction Act in 1943, was referred to as the ‘Pegging Act’ because it ‘pegged’ a racial pattern of land ownership in the Durban municipal area. Sir Shafa’at Ahmad Khan, the agent of the Government of India in South Africa at the time, had also recommended that the Government of India consider more drastic retaliatory measures towards the union government, advising that the bill be made immediately applicable. The floor of the legislature, Indian public opinion and the press were all insistent in demands for retaliatory measures against South Africa.
The Government of India decided to give effect to all measures of the Reciprocity Act. One of these measures was to refrain from employing any more South African nationals of non-Indian origin in the various services in India, as Indians in South Africa were not employed in any but the ‘most subordinate and menial posts’. Only approximately 200 white South Africans were employed in India. Specifically, the Home Department requested that South Africans of non-Indian origin not, in future, be appointed to posts in the Indian Civil Service and the Indian Police and other services at the provincial or federal levels. Despite putting these measures in place, the memorandum admitted that they were ‘not likely to be of any considerable magnitude’ because so far, no South African had been employed in the Secretary of States or Provincial Services and the number of those who held technical posts was negligible.
References
- Christopher Candland, Wellesley College, Massachusetts
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- The Islamic Welfare State
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- 30 April 2024
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- 30 June 2024, pp 294-315
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2 - Unravelling the Texts: Memory, Reforms, and Literary Sulh-i-Kul
- Farhat Hasan, University of Delhi
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- Voices in Verses
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- 06 March 2024
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- 30 June 2024, pp 21-54
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Summary
This study has two related ambitions: one is to recover women's poetic compositions, and the other is to see how their participation in the literary sphere was remembered and represented by connoisseurs, critics, and the common folk in the early modern period. In order to do so, it focuses, as discussed earlier, on two biographical compendia (tazkiras) of female poets, both written in the nineteenth century, and this poses several problems before us. For one, we need to understand the implications of recovering women's lyrics from the tazkiras since our access is mediated by the selection, observations, and biographical notes that their authors provide before citing their poetic compositions. In line with the standard format of literary tazkiras followed across the Persianate world, in almost all entries there is a selection of verses, but these are preceded by biographical clips of varying lengths. The question then is: how are these life stories to be read and interpreted, particularly when they purportedly intend to highlight and preserve the contribution of women to the shaping of the literate tradition? Related to this, we need to be attentive to the disciplining thrust in the life stories and the inbuilt exclusions and silences that were integral to the discursive incorporation of women's poems within the early modern literary culture.
Raising the issue of ‘authenticity’ in texts of memorialization only fetches diminishing returns, and it is important to realize that our tazkiras not only carry verses that were ‘authentic’ but also the ones whose genuineness was suspect, but they were still in circulation in commemorative spaces. Not an inconsiderable number of women poets had poetic compilations or diwāns of their own, and when their work is mentioned in the tazkiras, one could be fairly certain about their genuineness. It also happened not infrequently that married men provided to the authors poems composed by their wives; or the tutors, impressed by some of their female students, shared their couplets with them. Even so, our authors also picked up a large amount of their material from gossip and discussions in the markets (bāzār), coffee houses (qahwa-khāne), courtesan's quarters (kotha), and poetic assemblies (mushā ‘ira).