On Jinnah , Partition and related issues - 1

After the Advani episode, there has been a lot of writing on these issues in many Indian newspapers and magazines. Some of these articles changed my understanding of the whole problem quite drastically. I may be wrong in this.. but I felt that this was one issue in which the print media gave importance to both schools of thought. Advani's political game did bring about a debate..atleast in the Indian Media. And I thank Advani for that!
I will present excerpts from a particular series run by AG Noorani(a noted SC lawyer and constitutional expert) in the Frontline. These are longish, well written articles that even laymen can make sense of. The first one titled "Jinnah's secularism" was in the issue that carried Advani's Pak trip as a cover story. This article focussed on analysing the particular speech and questions pertaining to Jinnah's secular credentials. The author contends that

" The speech has been quoted in bits and pieces; never analysed as a whole"

and goes on to give us more quotes from the speech.

J:"Now, if we want to make this great state of Pakistan happy and prosperous we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor. If you will work in cooperation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this state with equal rights, privileges and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make."

is the part that Advani talked/wrote about.
Jinnah was pretty categoric about his views about intra-hindu and intra-mulsim conflicts..

J:"...We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities -.... - will vanish....."

Jinnah was clearly reaching out to those who did not wish for partition and was painting a secular future for Pakistan. The fact that this speech is often condemned in muslim fundamentalist circle is probably testimony to this fact. The author even feels that Advani's actions gave Pakistan's secularists a major boost.As regards Jinnah's secular credentials, these lines from his pronouncement in the legislature makes things further clear...

J: "I Sir, stand here with a clear conscience and I say that I am a nationalist first, a nationalist second and nationalist last... I once more appeal to this House. Whether you are a Mussalman or a Hindu, for God's sake do not import the discussion of communal matters into this House, and degrade this Assembly, which we desire should become a real National Parliament. Set an example to the outside world and our people."

But the question ofcourse is why did he lead the two-nation theory faction and sought a division of British India on communal lines?? AG Noorani uses these phrases to summarise the attitude of the Congress in the 1930s, the prime reason for this change in Jinnah's attittude..

" Congress leaders demonised him systematically. So did Indian academics and the press."

"His political record from 1906 to 1939 reveals a spirit of conciliation and statesmanship, which Congress leaders did not reciprocate. Indians must begin to acknowledge his greatness and the grave injustice the Congress leaders did to him."

But he also comments that

"But he went overboard and did much harm by his miscalculations"

The driving point of the article is that

"Jinnah yet awaits a fair assessment, warts and all......... Indians and Pakistanis must reflect on all aspects of his life, not selectively as they do"

Being in India, you rarely get to hear arguments for Jinnah. School text books will do "two nation theory" bashing and just mention that Jinnah lead the two nation theory movement in the late years. This forces a particular image of Jinnah in most minds. I hope this article moves people from such a state. Not everything(both the pro-Jinnah and anti-Jinnah comments) that the author claims needs to be true.. but it presents the arguments in a much more complete manner than usual. It certainly helped in breaking a few notions that I had, though I am still far from taking concrete positions. Does anybody of an equivalent analysis in the Pak media??.. that would really help me in understanding things better.

Science and Art

liked that?.. that is M51 in Canes Venatici. This is taken from the entries for Princeton's Art of Science competetion. The entire display is here. (link via badastronomy)

Wikipedia needs help!

How many times have you landed up at a wiki after googling?? Free, good quality information is the hallmark of wikipedia... the thing that started it all. For me, the wikipedia and its off-shoots have been of immense use as a ready,quick reference. The wikipedia concept (anybody can contribute!) has been a true revolution and must be one of the greatest successes of the internet era. For more on this ..go to the wiki for wikipedia !
The Media-wiki software could be used by anybody to create a wiki for themselves. There are numerous wikis out there..each serving netizens in their own small way. And now the parent body needs some help! The entire thing is run free of cost and they need donations to keep it that way.
Ho here to help them.

Sid Varad-1984

There is a new blog by Sid Varad and he calls it "November 1984". The first post is a copy of the report of the citizens group that went into the details of the riots. It is longish and certainly worth a read.(A shorter version appeared here) Make sure that you keep tabs on this blog! Sid seems to have the practice of posting with the actual dates. And this post is dated "Aug 15 1990"..but the Outlook extract does not have any date on it.

Reservation & the question of Independence

All Political Parties are up in arms, chiding the Supreme court for its ruling on this issue. Though this is not the first time that the political spectrum has risen against the Supreme Court.. this problem has some nuances. The Supreme court seems to have taken a position with only "independence" of private institutions taken into consideration. A clarification from the center, assuring pple that a new legislation is on the offing has calmed down things a little. Reservation in educational institutions is necessary as that is the only way to give oppurtunities to the many who deserve it. (Do u go on with private companies too??.. that is a bigger issue.. ) My motive here is to highlight two issues...

Though the court asked for some regulation from the govt to ensure that 'merit' and not money wins the game.. this is unlikely to work. Atleast in TN, the business of govt regulating admission fees, insistence on admission tests etc. has turned into a big joke. To most of these managements, running colleges has become an instrument of money making and they go to any limits to achieve this. Even if you ask the student to pay the entire expenses.. there is no way that the amount could spiral to the exorbitant rates that these managements charge. (Last heard... a medical seat was sold for 20 lakh in a popular college and eng seats go for 2-7 lakhs) Even assuming that the reservation bill gets passed, regulating (read as 'driving sense into') the managements of these colleges would remain a big problem.

The other is with the question of how you look at 'merit'. This is tricky. The few who get into good colleges (say IITs).. do not do so because of sheer ability. The fact that we had parents who could afford a city life/costly coaching classes are greater factors. I don't see anybody denying this. Though this is far from a equal platform, the IITs stick to this method as they can afford to tailor their programmes to meet the needs of students who already have a good exposure to the fundamentals. Lack of access to good teachers/books makes a student from rural background disadvantaged. The students who get through the reservations may find it tough competing with pple from more affluent backgrounds. At the level of a college, it is probably very tough to bridge this gap. Though it is important to stick to some reservations at these levels... this is no solution. Upgrading facilities and quality at much lower levels of education(where the govt. dominates in terms of reach) is the only permanant way out. Reservations at higher levels are only temperory solutions, but very important nevertheless.

The Greatest Physics Paper.

Clifford (of cosmicvariance) has started a debate to decide on the Greatest Physics Paper. This is ofcourse a matter of preference..but a debate on such topics can be a nice way to look back at the wonderful history of Physics and Scientific Thought. So.. if u have special choices, go and comment there. Current favorites seem to be the Principia, Kepler's observations,Maxwell's paper on reformulating laws of Electricity and Magnetism,Einstein's spl relativity paper and Dirac's two papers that laid the foundation of the unification of SR and QM.(my prediction : principia will win hands down..competition is for the rest of the places ;-) )

ps: i am pushing a particular paper by Emelie Noether, agst the other heavyweights.. u r welcome to support it!
Update : Still no support for Noether!

The power of blogging

[via Sean at cosmic variance]
Bitch PhD uses her popularity to good effect! ..to help Sarah in Chicago.
Here is the announcement asking for help and this is what happened. All of this ...in a day's time!

Hoax Alert!

Have you heard of Mars coming close this August?.. and looking as big as the moon? Beware!.. the email that told you this is full of rubbish. Though this is a very old 'forward'.. it seems to have gained in popularity in the recent times..at least with people around me. There are many out there who have taken this forward to be true at face value..this is to all of them. I am quoting a reply by Varun in another mailing list. The contents of the original 'forward' are prefixed by a '>'.

> *Subject:* First Time in Human History
>
> *Mars is going to be a second moon of earth for a day. *
>
> *Hi all,.
> *
>
> *NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN. *
>
> *The** Red Planet (MARS)** is about to be spectacular! This month and
> next,
> Earth is catching up with Mars in an encounter that will culminate in the
> closest approach between the two planets in recorded history. *

Great oppositions, as we will call these, occur once every decade or so.
Its not too rare... the opposition of mars occurs about once in every two
years, which is a close approach between earth and mars. The word
"opposition" comes from the fact that on that day, the earth, sun and mars
are almost in a stright line, so the sun and mars are opposite to each
other in the sky on that day. But neither the orbit of earth nor mars is
circular, so the distance between the two planets may be different on each
of these approaches. Once a decade or so, it is closer than most
approaches - this is called a "great opposition". The last one happened in
2003, if i remember the date right.

> *The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Due to the way
> Jupiter's
> gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be
> certain
> that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the last 5,000 years, but it
> may be as long as 60,000 years before it happens again. *

contradiction ! If astronomers are not sure of orbit as the mail claims
here, then where did the number 2287 come from ?

fact : astronomers do very detailed observations of planets, and the
orbits of planets can be calculated with great accuracy over enormous
periods of time. It is true that the gravity of jupiter perturbs orbits,
but that effect is well measured and well predictable for all the major
planets. Hence, we know exactly where mars will be, on any given date and
time.


> *The encounter will culminate on **August 27th when Mars comes to within
> 34,649,589 miles of Earth and will be (next to the moon) the brightest

error !
the opposition of mars in 2005 is in november, not august. see for example
http://www.tnni.net/~dustymars/Article_2005.htm
the site explains clearly how the 2003 approach was closer than the 2005
approach of mars.

> object in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will
> appear
> 25.11 arc seconds wide. By August 27, Mars will look as large as the full

error !
the quoted angular diameter of mars is not true for ANY date this year.
This can be verified from numersous astronomy software. for a simple, free
software usable online as well as offline, see www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky
(or download "home planet" from the same site)

> moon to the naked eye. Mars will be easy to spot.*

contradiction !
the moon subtends an angular diameter of about 30' (called 30 arc minutes)
in the sky, which is 0.5 degrees. The quoted angular diameter of mars is
29" (29 arc seconds, i.e 29/60 arc minutes, or about 0.01 degrees. thats
60 times smaller than the moon.
And of course, the true diameter of mars at oppositions this year is about
20 arc seconds, or 90 times smaller than the moon !

> *At the beginning of August it will rise in the east at 10p.m. and reach
> its
> azimuth at about 3 a.m. by the end of August when the two planets are
> closest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its highest point in the
> sky

contradiction !
the opposition of mars this year is in early november, not august. Only in
late october - early november 2005 will you see mars overhead at midnight.
in other times in 2005, it ill be overhead at other times - NOT midnight.

> at 12: 30a.m. That's pretty convenient to see something that no human
> being
> has seen in recorded history. So, mark your calendar at the beginning of
> August to see Mars grow progressively*
> *brighter and brighter throughout the month.*

mars will keep becoming brighter, true, but it will become brightest in
late oct / early november, not in august. If you are lucky to have clear
skies, you can go out and look for yourself !

closest to earth in a few centuries or not, the beautiful red neighbour of
earth is always a good sight to see !

This forward even made it to the newspapers! Gujarat Samachar had carried it on its front page. I came to know about this thanks to this email. Some sense prevailed with the newspaper publishing an apology later on. This goes to show the level of science reporting in the country.The correct info is just a click away and yet ..

If you want to know the truth about what mars is doing this year, go here.

update : I am getting 3/4 hits from google for this particular post with pple searching for "mars as big as moon" and so on. Irrespective of whether these people believe this or not..the fact seems to be that this email is very popular ..so I appeal to u pple that u send a clarification to who ever sent you the original 'wrong' email. Also, good old BadAstronomy has a post on this.

Jayalalitha and her salary

Jaya likes to make political statements by doing innovative things with her (official)salary. Last time around..she spent the five years in office receiving one rupee a month!!!!, or that is what she claims. At the end of it all ..she found herself barely managing stay afloat in a sea of cases - "disproportionate assets" being one of them . See this old article from Frontline . for a list of some of those cases (these days..not many remember everything). Ofcourse, political vendetta was involved in the framing of these charges .. but no sane person would believe that Jaya was above the board. Well.. that is history.
Now, Jaya is back to her ways and this time..her salary goes to the temples for annadhanam.(the practice of giving food free of cost to the needy). See this Hindu report.
Clap people, clap! That is what she wants us to do.
No harm with charity..but why call all reporters to your office and make your way to the newspapers? And I heard that religion needs to be kept away from politics. Why not give something to the many muslim and christian organisations which do a lot of charity work? But I must admit that I found her unexpectedly sane during the last 1/2 years of her stay at the office. She did many things with surprising speed : getting veeranam water for chennai, making rain water harvesting popular in chennai etc. This is not to say that she has changed. The attack on the Hindu office and the recent attempt to cancel the TNPCEE showed her true self. With the elections looming over and the notification time not far away.. we are probably in for more surprises!

Reply to the Astrology debate

This is a longish reply to frog's comments here...hence added it as a new post.

frog said :

Also tell me one pure mathematics discovery made by any of these DAE institutes that has helped the man in the street.


As I see it, mathematics is very fundamental to scientific human thought and the better we understand it (at various levels of abstractness), the better we can understand nature. The debate on role of Maths in physical sciences is still alive and this is a good place to start. It is a Current Science special on this issue. This debate exists because of the fantastic success that math-model building has achieved. The success is very *real*...and yes it helps the man-on-street. Ex. Cell phones use Electronics which can be understood only thro QM, which in turn uses a lot of sophisticated Math. -- stuff that was "pure math" before it was used. I just picked one such example. We can sure have a debate on whether science has helped us(I say 'yes'.. a hell lot!) but with Astrology there is no debate...it has achieved nothing.

And in hindsight, I think 'non-truths' should replace 'fantasies' in my earlier post . That would be a better representation of what I was trying to express.

As far as Humanities are concerned, what it seeks to do is to understand the dynamics of social relations and their analysis is often through scientifically collected statistical information. If 9/11 happened, it happened for everybody. All of us 'saw' it. Imagine a social scientist continuing to insist that 9/11 did not happen!..she/he will be driving people nuts. This is precisely what astrologers do!

And as reg Art, I think we humans have long been enthralled by beautiful things(paintings, music, theater etc. etc.) and it is only fair that we give space to people who make these possible. ( no intention to make it sound secondary) And more importantly these don't seek to be "predictive" in any sense.
The important thing is that Astrology seeks to operate in domains in which our knowledge, though far from complete, is enough to show that it is WRONG. (Please , I repeat....Astrologers STICK to atrociously old data. We know more for sure). And This has NOTHING to do with science sounding haughty.

A tailpiece

Inder Malhotra says,(in the hindu, as a tailpiece)

The most widespread comment on Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee's latest tantrum in the Lok Sabha is, "Mamatadi behaved exactly like herself.

:-)

Himalmag

I came across this wonderful magazine based in Nepal, thro google. Kanak Dixit runs this. It had apparently been down for about an year, due to financial troubles. (I got this info from here . It is re-starting operations and I hope it fares well. The mag is here .
Amongst the archives,I found this , a very good panel discussion on the Indo-Pak Nuclear Risks. Many eminent media personalities from both the countries do some plain-talking. I hope such talk goes on in the diplomatic circles too! I don't support India's decision to go nuclear and feel that the urgent need is to promote mutual confidence amongst the two countries so that we stop spending millions on these things and instead focus more on the burning needs of the sub-continent..Poverty, illiteracy and health.
Himalmag seems to have a penchant for group discussions.. look here for a very nice discussion of how the Indo-Pak problems are portrayed in the Media. Again, the frank assessments from each of the participating editors/journos make it a lively debate. This is in stark contrast to the usual(and often mindless) bashing that goes on between the two countries.
Yet another discussion is here. The style here is different with contributors making "speeches" instead of actually arguing point-by-point.
The reports in himalmag are certainly different from what the usuals dish-out.. So BOL Himalmag..may ur good work continue!

Bombay and TOI

While doing my "Why I like The Hindu " post, I had made an assumption that Bombay is in love with TOI. But, That does seem to be entirely true. Recently, I came across quite a huge number of blogs blasting TOI for this front-page (link to a image posted by Uma) story it carried after the recent Cloudburst in Bombay. Her original post and the numerous comments that followed can be found here. She also has links to other posts on the same topic.

Actually, I wonder why TOI has changed(many people on those blogs thought TOI has changed for the worse,of late). For ex, this collection of articles that P.Sainath wrote for TOI is a stunning portrayal of the reality in our villages and how it continues to be neglected in India. Hats off to TOI for carrying such articles. And sure, TOI still carries such articles.. but it is totally in contradiction with the image it projects with this article covering the cloudburst. Confusing times, I guess, for the Editorial Board.

The non-science called Astrology

Nanopolitan noted Sean Carrol's rebuttal of Intelligent design and feels that the astrology camp India is similar in charachter to the Intelligent design camp in the US. neelakantan doubts if we understand enough to debunk astrology. This is a reply.

First,to me, any endevour is a "science" only if it seeks to understand the world around us and is able to make predictions which are testable anywhere by anybody.Needless to say, these predictions must work.

Historically, mankind feared many forces of nature. It would have been easy to find a correlation between floods and the position of ,say, the Sun/Moon. It is fair to expect that in the same vein, planets were roped in and were assumed to affect all aspects of human life. As a matter of fact, Newton himself was impressed by Astrology. But today, we know MUCH more. We can fly a satellite into a comet, send satellites to observe the sun, put telescopes in orbit, fly to space and come back. These are no mean things. They are possible purely because of the precision that we are able to achieve in our predictions. They don't use "Priyanka Gandhi will be PM by 2007" - type predictions, the ones a Astrologer seem to love. We know FOR SURE that there is NO truth is all this business of Rahu, Kethu etc affecting our lives. If you don't agree, show me a prediction from Astrology that works 100% fine ,all the time. I can give you numerous such examples from today's Science.

Any astrology column, is often an exercise in tactful writing which will make almost anything seem possible. They put their good composition writing skills to work... Don't believe me?.. look at this. This is a daily page..I have saved a copy of the Aug 6th page here
Our beloved Astrologer says:

• "Get a clearance from superiors before embarking on a new project" - If you needed an astrologer to tell u this .. u r in serious trouble - consider resigning your job.
  
• "Devote time and attention to those who can fully appreciate your optimism" - Did I tell him that I am optimistic?..I am sure even the writer does not understand what he is trying to say.
  
• "Influential people may get some new offer regarding business. Do not jump for the offer without due consideration." -- Brilliant..as general as it can get. New management guru in the making... Arindham Choudhry, u have competition!
  
• "Travels may not yield the expected results. Progress can be seen. Exercise more caution on your health front." - What on earth is "Progress can be seen" doing there? vague-o-vague
  

I have chosen only a few of the 'predictions' to comment here. Even if some of the others sound more precise, the point is that there is little there that any concerned friend/relative won't tell you. Revered Mr. Astrologer is useless. *may*, *likely*,*most probably* seem to be his favourite (only?) adjectives.

Now if you think I am guy a who thinks science solves everything..sorry,that is not my point. We might/might not find a theory which would explain everything. But we know for sure certain things just don't happen. Put a ball in a pit and chant your heart out.. the ball won't rise on its own. This is a centuries-old observation. There is no known exception.If you think everything is maya.. then forget about the world..go to the forest and spend ur time. No objections! Why bother about teaching Astrology in universities? Leave the rest alone.(Note: I am not rubbishing philosophy..my point is that this whole money-minded astrology business is in conflict with such philosophical thoughts too)

I for one think that these 'expert' astrologers perfectly know that they are cheating people and they adapt with times to ensure their hold remains(heard of "computerised horoscope matching for marriages"??.. what a combination!). In India, this debate sprang into focus sometime back with the Astrologers demanding induction of their 'science' into the universities. See this article by Prof. Jayaram of IMSc, written in this context. He is a theoretical physicist who writes often in Hindu/Frontline on Science-Society issues. He was also a very prominent voice against India's Pokhran nuke tests. He notes that even personalities like our current Finance Minister Mr.Chidambaram think that astrology should be developed with a "modern scientific basis". No marks for guessing what our "nationalist" NDA thought about vedic astrology. But for some quick action by eminent scientists, astrology would have made into our universities. Come on pple.. there are enough other things in Indian History that we can truly be proud of. I find it utterly surprising that even the well educated fall prey to such pass-times. I don't know as to why this is the case....is this a failure of the scientific community to reach out to more people? ..or is it an incurable plague in our society?

Why do I like The Hindu?

Going beyond TN often means I get few chances to look at the Hindu in the print form. (parts of Kar, Andh are exceptions..not sure about Kerala).It is particularly a problem when you are travelling long distances in trains to places in North India.HT and TOI tend to dominate out there. Historically, I guess TOI and Hindu have always dominated in select territories. Coming from Chennai(bulit-in bias acknowledged!)..I am hooked to The Hindu.
I was away for a month-and-a-half in Allahabad and I got to see The Hindu only in bunches, once in 4/5 days. That often meant spending a few days without reading Hindu's ed & op-ed pages...which are my favorite.( my netlife isn't discipled enough..can't think of wading thro links on that unimaginative Hindu website on a daily basis) Although I knew I was always biased towards Hindu..I never had much of a anti-(other papers) feeling. But this month-and-a-half sort of polarized things more.
Some of the prominent differences that I notice are:

• Sheer size/cost ratio ..Hindu wins Hands down! ..inspite of the one rupee (mis-)adventure of Deccan Chronicle in Chennai.(an aside.. DC is particularly dumb..I was shocked to see it carrying "Astrologers assure that there is no effect due to tenth planet" on the front page!)
  
• Even ed/op-ed articles tend to be much smaller in TOI and HT compared to Hindu. I guess this must be a part of an Editorial policy to limit the sizes. And if the reason is more space for ads.. it is indeed sad. Hindu certainly gives more space for detailed analysis and insight. I hope it stays that way. It terms of getting prominent people to comment, I guess all of them do that well.But unfortunately, I often got the feeling of a wonderful article ending just as it was starting while reading TOI and HT(will dig up a few from the archives and post the links). N.Ram, while delivering a lecture at IITM confessed to extreme pressures to allot adequate ad-space to keep the cost of the paper low. He however made it clear that he would not dilute content beyond a limit.
  
  
• Hindu tends to be left-centered..and I sort of like that. This observation is ofcourse strictly personal and I am not sure of how many pple share this particular view about The Hindu. A friend of mine is a pure leftist and he complains that the Hindu isn't left enough! He also let out the secret that N.Ram (during his loyola days) had been an active member of AICUF, a student organisation dominated by leftist thoughts.
  
  
• The Hindu, ofcourse is much more conservative and u will probably never see a flashy image of a bollywood actress on Hindu's frontpage. TOI/HT might not have problems doing something like this. But this is fair considering that papers obviously try cater to the their audience. Chennai.. needless to say..is more conservative than Bombay! This attitude also shows in the choice of articles. I feel that there is certainly a lesser element of sensationalism (again in comparison to HT/TOI)in the way Hindu even chooses its headlines!
  

The first point is my primary source of the small anti-(others) feeling but the third one contributes to an extent.I tend to prefer lesser sensationalism.

So .. Do we have a tenth planet?

A 'yes' would truly seem epoch making. But in reality .. this really isn't a question of scientific worth. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jup and Saturn were known for a long time. Hershel discovered Uranus in the 1700s, JG Galle discovered Neptune after a few had predicted the existence of such a planet thro calculations and CW Tombaugh added Pluto to the list in 1930. Pluto has been and remains a celestial body with an identity crisis. ..To be (a planet) or not to be?. 'Planet' is a loosely defined term with many eminent astronomers having their own views (shape,size,composition,orbit properties are popular criteria). Pluto has had its own opponents, but has made its way to our School Text Books as the ninth planet. And the rest of the eight fellows.. they are in better placed.... They are all BIG..by pluto's standards.(alright...i know mercury is small.. but it is part of the old 'planet' listing... enrolled much before we started measuring sizes and distances!) . Mike Brown puts down this bigginess condition in a scientific way here.(he lists other conditions too). This debate, however, was not very prominent in the public domain. For the layman..we have always had nine planets.(Brown's page was made for Sedna)

The debate was pushed into public glare last year following the discovery of Sedna by Brown and his team.(see press release) Brown categorically rejected the possibility of Sedna being called a planet. Now, with the yet to be christened 2003 EL61(the object touted as the tenth planet these days), the debate is back in focus. The discovery was announced by Brown (again!) and his team and this time around..they apparently insisted on it being called a Planet. There is a lot of confusion surrounding this discovery. The number of interesting objects actually discovered and the nature of the press releases are being speculated by various pple on the internet. But even assuming that all is fine with the discovery and if we indeed have an object of the claimed size ....do we call it a planet?

It is important to realise that with modern telescopes , vast and unexplored regions of our cosmic neighbourhood are now accessible to us. So, new discoveries are bound to be made. Ofcourse, we will cheer them whenever they are made. Sedna and this latest discovery fall in this domain and full marks to Brown and his team for their fantastic job. Such discoveries require great patience and meticulous observations. More will probably follow.These are times when even graduate text-books get left behind by new discoveries(Observational Astronomy never had it better!). We will understand more about the new objects in terms of their sizes, orbit, composition etc in the future. Though we may not know these things to a great accuracy, these are well defined attribites.. ie when I ask "What is the diameter of Sedna?".. there is no inherent ambiguity in the question. On the other hand, "Is xxx a Planet?" is an ill-posed question and a yes/no answer may not always be possible. It is time school text books are rewritten.. agreed. But not with an extra planet.... but with a clarification that there is nothing exact about something being a 'planet'.Much remains to be understood about 'Planet' formation and there is no fundamental reason for us to pre-suppose the size range in which 'round' objects revolving around the sun fall. Lets us treat these discoveries for what they are .. path-breaking advances into a previously unknow zone and avoid this rant about things being 'called' a planet. This isn't a debate of worth!