Ants' point of view

Edward O Wilson is one of the most important biological theorists of the times. An expert on social insects, discoverer of new species and passionate advocate of biodiversity, he is best known for his groundbreaking work on animal behaviour.
Wilson has written that he knows best: a book where ants hold centre stage. A boy in southern Alabama is in the thrall of ants and nature. The protagonist, Raff Cody, lives in a working class neighbourhood, whose mysteries extend beyond the complex codes of social ambition on his mother's side and his father's robust rules of manhood, into the wild edges of a place called Nokobee Country.
The story gets off to a Huck Finn-like start as Cody persuades his cousin to sneak away on a perilous journey in search if the Chicobee serpent, a legendary river monster. But soon his mother drags him to visit the family matriarch, Aunt Jessica- in many ways the perfect queen Ant. Sitting calmly in her stuffy room, the matriarch disseminates faint odours and crucial in formation about the family, wile her unpaid lifelong servant gets busy with bringing soda crackers. Raff is stupefied- if ants wrote a stage play for humans characters, it would look like this.
Wilson does exactly that in the novel's second section. Presented as Raff's undergraduate thesis, it carries the reader down the ant hole to present the biological cycles of ant colonies. It describes life from the ant's point of view : "Where humans send their young men to war, ants send their old ladies."                        

Read more »

Shades Of Green

In one of the essays in the book, journalist Lyla Bavadam quotes on African proverb: "Till lions have their historians, tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter."This sums up the requirements of an environmental journalist. In times when corporates have the ear of the government, environmental journalists have to represent the environment to people who make laws.

As Richard Mahapatra writes in his essay, representing the environment is always about representing poverty. Every story written from an environmental angle also has global perspectives. The environmental journalist must unravel how global developments impinge on villages of India.

Is the environmentalist journalist an activist with a pen then ? Yeas and No. Reports about mining giant Vedanta in a New Delhi newspaper can have visible reactions in the London Metal Exchange. As Mahapatra writes global markets take note when reports of rising rates of suicide by groundnut farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh appear.

We also live in times when the environment has gone mainstream. A sports or an urban affairs reporter today is likely to write a story on golf courses in Gurgaon using lots of water. If a reporter writes about the environmental aspects of a story in an intelligent fashion, most editors will carry the story. Today is a strong case for ghettoizing environmental journalism by giving a page to the environment. .

But there is also a flip side to environment going mainstream.    
             

Read more »

Dorm Hackers

In america's Silicon valley celluloid fantasy can sometimes become a reality. For two Harvard undergraduates, Mark Zuckerburg and Eduardo Saverin, who created Facebook, the social networking site's early success propelled them into a world of cool nightclubs and hot dates. But the site also landed them in a legal battle that soured their relationship.

Ben Mezrich's book on Facebook's founders is replete with little-known details. Spurned by a fellow Harvard undergraduate in 2003, Mark Zuckerburg retailiated by hacking into the university's online dormitory to download female student's photos and create a website where male students can rank them by appearance. University officials shut down the site and disciplined Zuckerburg for his prank, but the idea for facebook had been born. In 2004, Zuckerbrug with his friend Saverin launched Facebook's prototype for Harvard students. As its popularity increased , the website opened to additional colleges , high schools, and , in 2006 to everyone over 13. THE ACCIDENTAL BILLIONAIRES tracks this evolution of Facebook. 

The book is at its best while describing the fraternity ho-use atmosphere in the site's early days. At one point, to hold a competition to recruit new programmers, Zuckerburg decides the candidates must not just hack through line after line of computer code but also drink shot after shot of whiskey.          

Read more »