Tic tac toe in python

This is my first python game with gui. Done as a hobby project for my coursera course. Hope you enjoy!!
http://www.codeskulptor.org/#user22_lV0ovmPAs0_3.py

The dismal state of education in India

Introduction: 
Almost every other day we get a news in our newspapers about government policies to improve education in India. Almost always the focus of the government is on improving infrastructure in educational institutes. Thousands of crores are allocated every year for improving "education" starting from primary to doctoral. But somehow all these "policies" have made little or no impact on the ground. So, where is the problem? Is it really possible to improve our education system? Being an educationist myself here is my take on this very complex topic.

What is education?
Before we dive into the main topic of improving education system, we must first understand what IS education. This is the definition from wikipedia:
"Education in its general sense is a form of learning in which the knowledge,skills, and habits of a group of people are transferred from one generation to the next through teaching, training, or research"

Although this definition is right I dont think it is complete. It talks about knowledge, skills etc being transferred from one generation to another. But here is the missing part taken from the online dictionary.

Education: An enlightening experience
It is not necessary to be taught something by some person to be called educated. A person who learns on his own and experiences enlightenment is "educated" too.
To put it all together, Education is all about learning and sharing what one has learnt.
Hmmm, this seems to be almost complete. But we have missed a very important aspect of education. I would say that Education is something which makes us all humans. A person may have lots of degrees and lots of knowledge about various fields, but if his behaviour is inhuman then we cannot call him educated.

The journey of system of "education" in India:
The traditional system of education in India is addressed as "gurukula system". Here the student is sent to a guru or teacher who teaches different skills to the student. There are some subtle points which we need to remember about this system.

1. The teachers used to reside in isolated places. Mostly in villages or forests, away from cities. 
2. Each teacher had different capabilities and skills. For different skills a different teacher had to be approached by the student.
3. All education was free. The teachers did not accept any money from students. The students generally had to beg for food in the nearby villages. Sometimes the teachers were funded by kings. In any case, the students were never provided all facilities. They had to face many hardships in the gurukul.
4. Although basic education was common for all, specific education was dependent on the varna of the student.
5. Emphasis was more on pursuing family occupation.
6. The students had the freedom to choose teachers. Teachers were not dependent on students. Yet the students were supposed to respect the teachers.

The british introduced the "modern" education system in India which thrives even to this day. They wanted people who could handle their accounts and transactions. The traditional education system did not have these in its syllabus. They wanted slaves who could work for them sincerely without even complaining of being enslaved. So they started funding this "new" system which paid teachers, took money from students and was based on "schools".

So, this education system was dependent on the needs of the Western nations. It was dependent on industries and politics (and continues to be the same).

Education after Independence

Were any changes made to this system after Independence? Sadly the answer is NO. Before independence the schools taught things which were useful for the british. It helped them loot India using its own people. Since no changes were made to the system the ruling government is able to loot this country with its own people.  Here is an overview of the current system.

1. Universities set syllabus for different courses, conduct exams, provide degrees, have affiliated colleges (are supposed to perform research).
2. There are different types of Universities again. Technical and Non-technical.
3. Some colleges are autonomous. They can do everything except giving degrees.
4. All courses are paid. The pay is again different for different categories of students (based on caste, religion, place of birth etc.)
5. There are many organizations looking upon "quality" of education like UGC and AICTE and there is something called accredition which is done by some organizations like NAAC.

So where is the problem with the current system??

Most of these "educational" institutes are run by politicians or industrialists who use these as a means of black money-to-white money conversion centres. These institutes need to show that they are performing well and the way to do this is through good pass-percentages, awards and ranks.

To make sure that many students pass or perform well these institutes often indulge in malpractices.

The teachers recruited in these are also not competent (although they may have the necessary degree). Most of the people who take up teaching in India do so because they dont get job elsewhere. This being the case how can we expect these teachers to teach well? 

The claim that autonomous institutes are providing high quality education is also flawed. Autonomy is good and productive only when the people to whom it is given are competent and sincere. Teachers will not want to float a course which is new and demands more effort from them and students. The students on the other hand know that they only need to be in the good books of the teachers to fare well in the exams.

The system of accredition also demands research paper publications from students and faculty. Getting a paper published is no longer difficult thanks to internet and existence of huge number of conferences.

With all these problems and many more, is it really possible to improve the quality of education in India?

Web-scraping with Python: Building a bot to fetch results from VTU website

Since three days i ve been working with this project of fetching results from vtu website. This problem was floated by Girish Sir and is a frequent problem for all staff members after announcement of vtu results. I used BeautifulSoup and mechanize python modules for doing the parsing and connections respectively. Here is an overview of what has been the outcome.

The python mechanize module ‎https://pypi.python.org/pypi/mechanize/‎ is extremely simple yet powerful tool to fetch data from websites.
Its interface is almost similar to how we interact with websites using a browser. The vtu results page has a form with name as "new" which houses an "input" tag called "rid". So we need to select that form and initialize the contents of that input tag to our usn. Then submit the form. Here is the code to do that.

by the way if there are multiple forms in the page br.forms() is the way to go.

The response is a new page with the result and is stored in the "resp" variable. We can now use BeautifulSoup to parse this page to fetch the results.
1) Get the html of the page with resp.get_data()
2) create a new BeautifulSoup object with this html
3) The result table is stored inside a "td" tag with width "513". Note that this should be unique and it is in this case. In fact there are many tables within this "td". Get all of them.
4) Result table is the second one so tables[1] is the result table. It has a number of rows and columns. Find them all and fetch the data in them and store in a list. The code is self explainatory.


Python ROCKS!!

Reading Think Bayes

I have started reading the book http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkbayes/html and thought of posting some interesting stuff i read.
Here is a problem from chapter 3:

Suppose I have a box of dice that contains a 4-sided die, a 6-sided die, an 8-sided die, a 12-sided die and a 20-sided die. Suppose I select a die from the box at random, roll it, and get a 6. What is the probability that I rolled each die? 

We need to first define the hypothesis(H) ie our prediction of which die has been rolled. In this case the hypothesis has to be a number from the list 4,6,8,12 and 20.

Also the data or observation(D) we are given is that the first random roll resulted in a value of 6.  We have to find the posterior probability distribution P(H|D=6) ie probability of each outcome H=4, H=6, H=8 etc  given the data D=6. The Bayes' theorem says that P(A|B) = P(A).P(B|A)/P(B). in our case P(H|D=6) = P(H). P(D=6|H)/P(D=6).

Now P(D=6|H) is going to be a distribution like

Hypothesis(H)	Probability
P(D=6|H=4)	0.0
P(D=6|H=6)	1/6 = 0.1667
P(D=6|H=8)	1/8 = 0.125
P(D=6|H=12)	1/12 = 0.0833
P(D=6|H=20)	1/20 = 0.05

As you can clearly make out the values do not sum to 1. So add all these values and divide each value by the sum (normalize). This is needed to make it a probability distribution. so final result table will be,

Hypothesis(H)	Probability
P(h=4|D=6)	0.0
P(H=6|D=6)	0.392156862745
P(H=8|D=6)	0.294117647059
P(H=12|D=6)	0.196078431373
P(H=20|D=6)	0.117647058824

This is called (after normalizing) the Likelihood ie likelihood of getting a 6 on a roll for each die. It is obvious that if we roll a 4-sided die getting a 6 is impossible. Hence likelihood of this happening is 0.0.

The main strength of this book is all problems are solved computationally. The author gives programs for all these and that too in Python. Now if we get more data by going on picking a die at random and rolling the probabilities will change.

Chandrshekhar Azad: The lion who made the British tremble

The true name of Chandrashekhar Azad was Chandrashekhar Tiwari. Born in a brahmin family his mother wanted him to become a sanskrit scholar. But he was a warrior by birth and was interested in warfare. So he learnt archery from the tribals in his village and this helped him in using pistols later on. The massacre at Jallianwala Bagh lit fire in his heart and at the age of 15 he participated in the Non-cooperation movement of Gandhi. Arrested for doing so he was produced before the court where he got his name "Azad". The story goes
The Judge asked his name. He replied "Azad". Judge asked his father's name. He replied "Swaatantra" (freedom). The judge asked where he stayed. He replied "Jailkhana"(ie jail). The judge had lost his temper. He sentenced him to 15 days of rigourous imprisonment. The Azad said "I said all this because i knew you would send me to jail". Everyone laughed at this and judge lost his temper further. He sentenced him to 15 lashes. With each lash he said "Bharat Mata Ki Jai". After this incident he decided that getting thrashed like this would not fetch freedom He pledged that he would never get caught again and preserved this pledge throughout.

Azad joined Ram Prasad Bismil's HRA(Hindustan Republican Association) and participated in the famous Kakori train robbery where they looted money and arms from the train. Azad was never caught but many of his friends were executed later. Azad hid in the jungles near jhansi as acting as a saint and teaching people of the village. He was a popular figure in the village. He hatched the plot to slay J P Saunders after the killing of Lala Lajpat Rai. He tried his best to free Bhagat Singh and his friends and lost his life during such an attempt.

He met Nehru in 1931 and persuaded him to fight the case of Bhagat Singh. But Nehru refused. After this meeting he went to Alfred Park with some of his close friends to discuss but one of his  had turned as an informer and had informed the Police about his location. Bishweshwar singh and Nott Bower led the attack on Azad following the standard british way of firing from behind. But Azad noticed Bower pointed gun at him and showing his sharp shooting skills shot Bower on his wrist and Singh in his mouth(Singh was abusing Azad) and hid behind a huge tree. Alfred Park was surrounded by policemen. Nearly 40 vans of Police had been called. In the firing that ensued Azad killed 3 policemen and injured scores of them though hit in the thigh by a bullet. He gave cover fire to his friend Sukhdev Raj and helped him escape. When he had just one bullet left he fired it into his head keeping his pledge of not being captured. The police did not come near him for a long time fearing he might get up. Such was the fear he had instilled in them. Long live the memory of our heroes. Vande Mataram

Remembering our forgotten heroes!!

With the 65th independence day nearing it is now time to write a post on 3 of the revolutionary freedom fighters india produced in the last century. I am talking about Chandrashekhar Azad, Veer Savarkar and Madanlal Dhingra. This post will give a glimpse of this lesser known daredevil Madan Lal Dhingra and the other two will be talked about in the following posts.
Madan Lal Dhingra was a born patriot. He got sacked from his college in Lahore for protesting against the Principal's order to wear uniform stitched from English cloth. He got sacked from his job for trying to organize a union (he had a job under British). He made contact with Abhinav Bharat founded by Savarkar and managed to get a seat at University College, London. In London he trained under Savarkar. Abhinav Bharat Mandal mandal was trying to prepare a bomb on its own and dhingra played a crucial role here. One interesting instance:
The members were boiling a chemical for preparing bomb late night and all fell asleep. The chemical was on the verge of bursting out when a member got up to extinguish the flames. But what he saw was a miracle. Dhingra was holding the vessel which was more than 300 degrees hot with his bare hands and coolly placed it on the floor. The skin of his fingers was charred and blood was oozing out but he was calm as if nothing had happened.
The is one more such instance in his life:
Once there was a meeting to talk about the bravery of japanese in the war against the british. Dhingra was annoyed and said that Indians were brave too. All the people made jokes about him. Then ensued a verbal duel btw those people and dhingra. After some time a man poked dhingra's arm with a big needle saying "Let me see how brave indians are". Dhingra was unmoved. He stood still while the needle pierced its way through his hand. Such was his love for this country.

Dhingra assasinated Sir Curzon Wyllie who was then termed as the old unrepenting foe of india. Dhingra fired at Curzon with a revolver when he had attended a function organized by National Indian Association in London. He was later sentenced to death in London. Below are some excerpts from his words during and after trial:

"I do not want to say anything in defence of myself, but simply to prove the justice of my deed. As for myself, no English law court has got any authority to arrest and detain me in prison, or pass sentence of death on me. That is the reason I did not have any counsel to defend me."

"And I maintain that if it is patriotic in an Englishman to fight against the Germans if they were to occupy this country, it is much more justifiable and patriotic in my case to fight against the English. I hold the English people responsible for the murder of 80 millions of Indian people in the last fifty years, and they are also responsible for taking away ₤100, 000, 000 every year from India to this country."

Gandhi criticized Dhingra for his act. He said:
"It is being said in defence of Sir Curzon Wyllie’s assassination that...just as the British would kill every German if Germany invaded Britain, so too it is the right of any Indian to kill any Englishman.... The analogy...is fallacious. If the Germans were to invade Britain, the British would kill only the invaders. They would not kill every German whom they met.... They would not kill an unsuspecting German, or Germans who are guests. "

This statement shows the low logical skills of our Father of the Nation. If German's invade Britain the British cannot obviously ask everyone whether he s an invader or not before killing. Moreover Curzon had been deemed as a foe of india long before this incident.
And amazingly Dhingra got support from the British:
Talking about Dhingra Churchill said (Taken from Wikipedia):
 Churchill said that there has been much discussion in the Cabinet about him. Lloyd George had expressed to him his highest admiration of Dhingra's attitude as a patriot, in which he shared…He will be remembered two thousand years hence, as we remember Regulus and Caractacus and Plutarch's heroes and Churchill quoted with admiration Dhingra's last words, as the finest, ever made in the name of patriotism…"


Dhingra's Last Words:
"I believe that a nation held down by foreign bayonets is in a perpetual state of war. Since open battle is rendered impossible to a disarmed race, I attacked by surprise. Since guns were denied to me I drew forth my pistol and fired. Poor in wealth and intellect, a son like myself has nothing else to offer to the mother but his own blood. And so I have sacrificed the same on her altar. The only lesson required in India at present is to learn how to die, and the only way to teach it is by dying ourselves. My only prayer to God is that I may be re-born of the same mother and I may re-die in the same sacred cause till the cause is successful. Vande Mataram!"

Education!! What is it exactly?

A question in this year's NET paper and our Govt's Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan Ad is the inspiration for this post.
This ad which keeps getting some screen space among other commercials every now and then goes this way - A small girl is walking towards school and saying that from today she wont go to fields with her parents but will go to school. The same ad in newspapers asks parents not to send children to work but to school to get "educated". So what exactly is this "education"?

The first quote from Swami Vivekananda which i had read when i was a boy was "Education is the manifestation of knowledge already in man". I could'nt really comprehend this one then, but after so many years i now know that it deserves a deep analysis. So the purpose of education is to bring out the hidden talents in students. But sadly, thanks to the British, we are sending our children to schools which have become more of marks-fetching machine manufacturing units. We can't really blame the schools though. The mother of a school-going boy in our neighbourhood had come to our house. That boy had never gone for tuitions. But had started going recently. Hence he had no time to play. I asked his mother what was the reason. She replied that the maths teacher wants the answers to be written in the same format(method etc) as she taught in her tuitions! I was annoyed at this. This was murder of maths. But this is what is happening everywhere. We don't find children playing anymore. They don't participate in sports as their studies may be affected. The teachers on the other hand are pressurized from the management to show good results so that they can show to their regulating body that they are performing well!! Same is the state with colleges. Our schools and colleges are now producing citizens who are excellent at cheating others, the nation and themselves. They are trained from childhood to SOMEHOW get marks. This gets extended to their jobs once they grow up.

The vicious circle: Nowadays almost all schools and colleges are run by rich politicians or businessmen through trusts. And we have bodies such as AICTE to look into the quality of education being imparted . We also have accreditions such as NBA which schools and colleges strive to get because that will help them fetch grants and  funds. The university demands that colleges show some minimum pass percentage otherwise the college/school will be questioned. Thus the teachers have to make sure their students score well leading to decline in the quality of education.

 So, education is not about scoring marks and getting a degree. It is about becoming human. It is about gaining knowledge and using it for the betterment of all. It is about producing good responsible citizens. A person who works in his field sincerely is an educated person. A person who sweeps the locality sincerely each day is more educated that the rich guy who shamelessly wastes water on his compound and cars each day. We need to shun this British-infected mentality that a person who learns english is educated. All arts need to be respected. A person who lifts garbage sincerely is not uneducated but an employee who shamelessly draws salary each month without doing any productive work is uneducated.
That which makes rich is not education but that which makes us love and respect everything around us is. Let us become truly educated!