BRM / SRR Articles Thread

editorSRR · Post by **editorSRR** » 20 Jul 2008 19:21

Time to start a sticky on articles and comments to the BRM/ SRR. shiv, pls lock the other "poll" thread.
One important outcome of the Poll was on a question that was not asked. There is very strong sentiment among those who have been cranking out the BRM/SS, to go back to the BRM name. We determined that there is an acceptable course that can satisfy (or biss off) everyone, which is to make the "SRR" a subset, a "research pullout section", if you will, of BRM. That's for any potential integrated e-book or print version. Since we are talking now of web-based articles for the near future, this has no impact on our plans. (IOW, lack of articles on the BRM enthusiast side is not going to stop publication schedules of research articles, or vice versa). The integration comes in an integrated Table of Contents web page which can be generated anytime, and when an e-book volume is actually stitched together in making a single pdf file. At that time we will need the talents of Mullah Al Photoshoppi etc. to make a fancy cover.

There are already resources posted on the web, and we are off and running. See
Editor's BLOG: BRM/SRR Drafts
http://brmsrr.blogspot.com/

Other than the BLOGspot, we also have server space with no ads or other nonsense, and it looks pretty fast at least from where I am. This server has (knock on wood, throw salt over the shoulder..) been up and running for over 12 years now (started at 1996 Olympics) with maybe 1 day of interruption total. That seems to be about as good as any internet-based archival resource so far.

Article(s) are under review, and will appear as and when that process is complete. BUT.. all this requires YOU to actually do what the heroine in My Fair Lady yelled to the horse to do: "****, MOVE YER BLOOMIN' ******!!

GET those articles out, pls. Sure we have writers, but we don't want to just publish articles from the oldies and let everyone else slide back into complacency.

Jagan · Post by **Jagan** » 20 Jul 2008 21:07

Will send across a DVD review

before end of the next week. i know I know you said Book Review - but this one is just as good as a book.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 20 Jul 2008 21:59

any immediate deadlines ?

editorSRR · Post by **editorSRR** » 20 Jul 2008 22:29

Hi Rahul: That's what I forgot - you had a link up there too. How about mid-August for what you are doing? Say about 3 weeks from now? Or you can send that link to me right away if you want people to discuss it. I'd prefer to post the articles on the site I have, because the FreeServers tend to come up with ads that make the BENIS thread look like a convent school. It does take me a couple of days to post because it can't be done until I am sitting in front of certain computers, so I'll probably collect a few and post them together. So keep posting links to the freeserver, as long as you can email me so that I have a record that someone gave me permission to post.

(otherwise cruel ppl may claim that all the articles are written by the same person, given the stunning response rate here..

)

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 22 Jul 2008 01:52

editor ji, so what do I do now ?
mail a pdf to you or will this link suffice ?

http://brfrahulm.blogspot.com/2008/07/m ... oviet.html

I feel this one is too general and removed from the Indian viewpoint (at the moment) to find a place on SRR but I would still want people to read and comment on it.

a nice comprehensive coverage of mtn warfare from the Indian POV would have to wait for a few more chapters !

By mid august, I can promise a piece on the PRC doctrine.

Rahul.

editorSRR · Post by **editorSRR** » 24 Jul 2008 00:23

Rahul's article is posted for comments.

editorSRR · Post by **editorSRR** » 24 Jul 2008 01:59

Rahul, for this draft I just copied your article into MSWord and converted to pdf (I have Adobe Acrobat pdf writer, official version). But for the final articles, we plan to use LaTex. I am just learning LaTex (i.e., facing 3 paper deadlines, armed only with templates that I downloaded for that particular organization, and no clue of what the magic slashes and brackets mean). All these years since I used to use the Xerox Integrated Composition System (grand mohterma of LaTex etc) on minicomputers in the Age of Dinosaurs when laser printers first came out, I have been using Word, but I have decided to bite the bullet and learn LaTex.

But I am sure that in time we can generate a standard template for BRM/SRR articles and put it up on the site for ppl to download. We will probably have to accept articles in Word, and do the conversion to LaTex ourselves in the case of many authors who may not have access to all these other complicated things. This conversion can be done at the final stage of publication.

The LaTex strategy is aimed to enable relatively painless merging of all the articles at some point to generate e-book versions of a Volume.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 24 Jul 2008 03:38

editorSRR wrote:Rahul's article is posted for comments.

Rahul-saar

I am not sure if you are aware of this masters thesis from naval postgraduate school. "High Altitude Warfare: The Kargil Conflict and the Future" Marcus P. Acosta. The document is here

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 24 Jul 2008 03:40

Rahul M wrote:thanks lakhmic, I tried to download miktex but the link was erratic and stopped midway for no reason. I don't know much about cygwin, if I install shall I be able to run the linux versions of latex ??
TIA.
btw, please don't sir me, rahul will suffice !!

regards.

Not the binaries, you have to download precompiled latex binaries from cygwin site itself (you can choose the packages when you install cygwin). The versions and behaviors are identical, just that it is linked to the cygwin libraies instead of glibc.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 24 Jul 2008 03:54

lakshmic wrote:
editorSRR wrote:Rahul's article is posted for comments.
Rahul-saar

I am not sure if you are aware of this masters thesis from naval postgraduate school. "High Altitude Warfare: The Kargil Conflict and the Future" Marcus P. Acosta. The document is here

thanks lakhmic.
sure I know about this paper, but I'm looking for some more articles on kargil from the military POV. unfortunately most cover only the paki geo-political game plan. do you know of any ?
regards,
Rahul.

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 25 Jul 2008 21:53

I have an idea for a project, but it may not be a strictly BRR article.

There are quite a few players on the world stage that are linked to each other by some connection or the other. For example, did you know that the founder of Hamas was Osama Bin Laden's teacher in his formative years at the university in Saudi Arabia? So in this case, we have 2 entities that are joined together by this relation. The idea is to create a database of such relationships, all documented of course, with proper references and try to build a tree of such relations. Thus, over time we can have a good database that lists a lot of the players on the stage today, and can view it like a family tree. Given the right software, we can even make it searchable i.e. given a name we can print out all possible relationships with other actors on the stage.

Its not an article strictly, but I am sure it will be extremely useful as a reference.

I have done a small beginning in terms of entities and relationships, but lack the technical skills to build the software to support it.

What do you think? Any volunteers?

If you dont think this is relevant please let me know and I will delete this post.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 25 Jul 2008 22:04

Tanaji, that is an excellent idea !
I hope that others volunteer for the idea since I don't have the required skills with sw, but I wish you all the luck for the project !

regards.

editorSRR · Post by **editorSRR** » 25 Jul 2008 22:42

Tanaji, there are already Israel-centric versions of what you describe. There is software that is used to construct and dynamically display linkages, in the database community. I don't have the url handy, but I think you can find these (and the Israel-centric thingies) if you search for them.

I agree that this is something that can be used as a standing reference. However, you also have to consider the practical issues related to posting something saying: "XYZ is a terrorist". You can't do that without rock-solid evidence, which means you can't do that unless there is a conviction that has survived appeals. Since none of this happens to Pak terrorists who attack India, we come back to the reality that only the Israel-centric version survives.

Sad reality. We dealt with this long ago by saying: "All we are doing is quoting news media articles, here are the references". This can still work, but has to be built into the display. Otherwise the resource and anyone associated, will get attacked with legal weapons. For example, you can't say "*IMI is linked to terrorism" unless you can show convictions of top office-bearers of *IMI, in which *IMI should not exist at all now.

So please incorporate these considerations in what you do, otherwise when it's all done u'll find that you can't post it anywhere.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 25 Jul 2008 23:13

^^^
I suppose those kind of objections can be got around by using words like "rumoured" , "unconfirmed reports", "claimed by so and so (insert Govt. spokesperson)" etc. or is this too naive ?

editorSRR · Post by **editorSRR** » 26 Jul 2008 01:35

Credibility will be accordingly low, and ppl will ask why you are in the habit of publishing "rumors" and "unconfirmed reports" and "usually well-informed sources who prefer to remain anonymous". However, if it is published in a "credible" source, well, one cites the source and leaves it at that.

Some time back some1 tried to strong-arm some1 I know. The guy claimed that the linked article did not say what the author claimed it did. The author kicked him right back by saying, well, (duh!) why else do you think I linked the article, so that readers can judge 4 themselves instead of depending YOUR organization's interpretations?"

That ended that.

enqyoob · Post by **enqyoob** » 26 Jul 2008 23:26

In a 14-page e-mail sent to select television channels titled "The Rise of Jihad, revenge of Gujarat", the Indian Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the serial blasts in Gujarat's main city.

(comment deleted as police with lathis seen approaching..

)

Jagan · Post by **Jagan** » 26 Jul 2008 23:53

narayanan wrote:They sure write more than the worthies here... .

N3, I think this kind of approach to generating more articles by poking fun (or provoking?) at fellow BRF-ites is not going to work. You may want to rethink this. This is just like blaming the entire communitiy because a few failed to deliver.

IMO, JMT, 2NP and all that...

OTOH, you may want to elaborate who are the worthies who deserve the title worthies are..

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 27 Jul 2008 11:08

I am sending an article for SRR which I think should be called BRM. I will now read this thread to figure out exactly where to send it

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 27 Jul 2008 14:33

editorSRR wrote:Time to start a sticky on articles and comments to the BRM/ SRR. shiv, pls lock the other "poll" thread.
One important outcome of the Poll was on a question that was not asked. There is very strong sentiment among those who have been cranking out the BRM/SS, to go back to the BRM name. We determined that there is an acceptable course that can satisfy (or biss off) everyone, which is to make the "SRR" a subset, a "research pullout section", if you will, of BRM. That's for any potential integrated e-book or print version. Since we are talking now of web-based articles for the near future, this has no impact on our plans. (IOW, lack of articles on the BRM enthusiast side is not going to stop publication schedules of research articles, or vice versa). The integration comes in an integrated Table of Contents web page which can be generated anytime, and when an e-book volume is actually stitched together in making a single pdf file. At that time we will need the talents of Mullah Al Photoshoppi etc. to make a fancy cover.

There are already resources posted on the web, and we are off and running. See
Editor's BLOG: BRM/SRR Drafts
http://brmsrr.blogspot.com/

Other than the BLOGspot, we also have server space with no ads or other nonsense, and it looks pretty fast at least from where I am. This server has (knock on wood, throw salt over the shoulder..) been up and running for over 12 years now (started at 1996 Olympics) with maybe 1 day of interruption total. That seems to be about as good as any internet-based archival resource so far.

Article(s) are under review, and will appear as and when that process is complete. BUT.. all this requires YOU to actually do what the heroine in My Fair Lady yelled to the horse to do: "****, MOVE YER BLOOMIN' ******!!

GET those articles out, pls. Sure we have writers, but we don't want to just publish articles from the oldies and let everyone else slide back into complacency.

Maybe I am dumb - but I see no link on this page that enables anyone to submit an article, and I have not been able to figure out how to submit on the blog.

I have emailed the article to an editor SRR email I had acquired earlier.

But seriously how does anyone actually submit an article? Speaking of "submissions" I submit that I do not understand words like Latex etc unless there is a connection with "Hum do hamaare do" or "Ek ya do bus"

enqyoob · Post by **enqyoob** » 27 Jul 2008 17:44

You mean... u didn't c the left-hand side column?

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 27 Jul 2008 20:32

narayanan wrote:You mean... u didn't c the left-hand side column?

Ahhhhhhhh..

I see it now

Muppalla · Post by **Muppalla** » 30 Jul 2008 07:09

Tanaji wrote:I have an idea for a project, but it may not be a strictly BRR article.

There are quite a few players on the world stage that are linked to each other by some connection or the other. For example, did you know that the founder of Hamas was Osama Bin Laden's teacher in his formative years at the university in Saudi Arabia? So in this case, we have 2 entities that are joined together by this relation. The idea is to create a database of such relationships, all documented of course, with proper references and try to build a tree of such relations. Thus, over time we can have a good database that lists a lot of the players on the stage today, and can view it like a family tree. Given the right software, we can even make it searchable i.e. given a name we can print out all possible relationships with other actors on the stage.

Its not an article strictly, but I am sure it will be extremely useful as a reference.

I have done a small beginning in terms of entities and relationships, but lack the technical skills to build the software to support it.

What do you think? Any volunteers?

If you dont think this is relevant please let me know and I will delete this post.

Tanaji, Are you thinking on the lines of searchable Metadata behind Entity relationship diagram? It is doable but little complex. Let me know what you are thinking.

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 30 Jul 2008 16:07

Mupalla,

I am not sure what it is called technically. But yes, its an Entity relationship diagram in the simplest sense. What I envisage is once a person provides a entity name, the software will throw up all the relationships associated with that entity. Clicking on the entities would provide a biodata and known information about it, clicking on the relationship would provide details on the relationship and references to where that relationship came from.

I think one would require a database at the backend of this. As N3 has said, there are some libel issues that may arise. We may get around it by making it anonymous from a host based somewhere remote... That has its "trust" issues of course, but so does wikipedia.

In fact, there is good reason to make it open as Wikipedia, with a form being given to users to upload entities and relationships.

The software must be able to support thousands of E-R.

What do you think?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 06 Aug 2008 20:29

Tanaji and Mupalla, An excellent idea. Maybe it can be created as a web based database. I was thinking on those lines too for some time but not got anywhere as I am not tech savvy.

BTW, check out kartoo.com for a version of the idea.

editorSRR · Post by **editorSRR** » 06 Aug 2008 21:41

Posted: New Article.

"The US Army and Iraq: the Unexpected Transformation, and its Lessons for India" By J. Price

Read and comment away!

editorSRR · Post by **editorSRR** » 07 Aug 2008 01:25

I don't believe this - someone deleted two of my 3 posts announcing new articles. Evidently reading-challenged!

New Article Posted:

The Partition Factor In The Status Of Indian Muslims
The moulding of Hindu attitudes towards Muslims, and the outcome for the Muslims of India.
By Shiv Sastry

Please comment below the article. Thanks!

editorSRR · Post by **editorSRR** » 07 Aug 2008 01:26

This is a different article - DON'T DELETE THIS POST please!

New Article Posted:

Review: "Hunters At Dawn"
Hunters at Dawn : The Air Battle of Longewala
A Review By Jagan Pillarisetti

Please comment below the article. Thanks!

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 07 Aug 2008 01:27

sorry boss, that was me.

I thought those were repeat posts as the wordings were the same.

sarrrree again !!

enqyoob · Post by **enqyoob** » 07 Aug 2008 01:30

Oh, that's fine, you only deleted the articles by Shiv and Jagan, but they are such nice guys..

editorSRR · Post by **editorSRR** » 16 Aug 2008 18:00

Any volunteers (incl. Acharya of course!) to pick up the fine effort that Acharya has started, collecting all the media articles and YouTube videos that we can find on the Georgia War of 2008? Try sorting according to "US/USK", "Russian/Ossetian/Abkhazian", "Georgian" and "Other". Purpose is to try to unravel who started it, what happened to the civilians in S. Ossetia, the civilians in Gori, the Peacekeepers, the Georgian military, US advisors in Georgia (did they participate in the invasion of South Ossetia?) and the Russian counter-move. Also, updates on the ground reality there after the "ceasefire".

The charge that CNN took videos of the destruction of Tkshinvali and dubbed it as Russian attacks on Gori, is especially troubling and worth a lot of attention. The censoring of the video segment where Saakashvili is shown cowering with terror all over his face on the simple rumor of a Russian airstrike (there wasn't any at all) is also of great interest. Russian sources report that Georgian forces systematically destroyed residential portions of Tkshinvali, and went around tossing grenades into the basements where civilians were hiding, also that they shelled hospitals with heavy artillery and tank fire, that they attacked refugee columns, and that they went around systematically killing off wounded children. There was an early image of a long line of civilians lying dead on a ridge or meadow, evidently the result of a systematic massacre. We need that.

The Georgians also keep accusing the Russians of atrocities, any clear evidence of that needs to be found (I have seen none at all.. the only thing shown is a picture of a woman lying wounded in the ruins of a bombed apartment, with a dead person nearby, supposedly in Gori, but even that is doubtful given the CNN antics reported above. There is another video of a wounded, bleeding woman coming out of a building, and a swarm of papparazzi just going all around her, snapping pictures with not the slightest sign of any intention to help her in any way. What are the ethics of such behavior?

Because this conflict has no religious or racial overtones as far as most desis are concerned, it seems to be a good calibration point for the reliability, honesty and sheer dishonesty of media in different parts of the world. So it is essential to grab as much uncensored footage and reports as possible while we can. Please download and archive, not just find links, because links are going to become 404 and content is going to be altered very fast when certain people realize the implications of what they initially reported.

Anyone who can translate Russian (and what do they speak/write in Georgia, except for the western-trained dictator?) please contribute.

Shivani · Post by **Shivani** » 17 Aug 2008 11:51

We must have your real name and contact information in your email for all submissions. You may prefer a pen-name (BRF handle) on informal articles, but SRR peer-reviewed articles must have real names and contact info.

Where does one submit informal articles and will they also get published in BRM? In other words, is there a way to get published without meeting the prerequisite of peer review?

editorSRR · Post by **editorSRR** » 17 Aug 2008 17:35

Hi!

Please check the BLOG http://brmsrr.blogspot.com/

Detailed instructions are posted on the left column. Yes, BRF articles can be published without the Anonymous Peer Review. In fact all can be posted on the BLOG without going through that. However the Anonymous Review through the Comments should remove any fears about this. Nothing to prevent you from getting there first, and posting glowing comments yourself. This is what is delaying me from posting articles myself - the need to compose those glowing reviews first.

Pathma · Post by **Pathma** » 21 Aug 2008 10:28

editorSRR,

Hi. I hope you are including the article on Tirukural on War in the next issue.

editorSRR · Post by **editorSRR** » 23 Aug 2008 18:26

Hi Pathma:

Something wrong there - I don't see it submitted. Please do send it to me at editorSRR at gmail dot com

Thanks!

Pathma · Post by **Pathma** » 29 Aug 2008 10:44

Hi editorSRR,

I just sent it to editorSRR@gmail.com.

Thanks.

Pathma

enqyoob · Post by **enqyoob** » 06 Sep 2008 20:05

Pathma, EditorSRR tells me he got it, thanks, but pls don't shoot - it may take a few days for Editor to put it up on the website for technical reasons (access to server requires being in a certain place..).

editorSRR · Post by **editorSRR** » 16 Sep 2008 20:36

RayC:

The answer to your question is: The word limit, if it exists, has not constrained anyone so far. We welcome full-length articles. Some people prefer short notes for the "BRM" part, but "SRR", certainly, would like comprehensive articles.

Your comment is accurate, but I encourage you to post it on the Blog site, in order to motivate the authors to do the needful as appropriate.

Thanks!

(Does this mean some full-length articles are coming?

)

editorSRR · Post by **editorSRR** » 16 Sep 2008 23:49

Posted new article
"Tirukural on War, Defense and Foreign Affairs" Dhanika Nagalinkam

Cheers

Pathma · Post by **Pathma** » 18 Sep 2008 20:14

Dear editorSRR,

The article is by Pathmarajah Nagalingam, and not Dhanika.

Pathma

vivek_ahuja · Post by **vivek_ahuja** » 27 Sep 2008 14:48

Editor saar,

I have submitted an article for the SRR effort. I hope it was delivered properly!

-Vivek