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I know this is more detailed than usual, but I am fascinated in the continued mystery of this artifact. Almost 400 years after it's creation, no one truly knows how to decipher its text and illustrations. What follows is based on my research into the origins, authorship, hypotheses about the code/cipher, and what exactly the cider (cypher?) attempted to discuss. I've included either online links to published works and images or citations and added links to further explain terminology for those interested.For those interested in the details read on. For those who just want to know the generalizations, read the introduction and the last 5 paragraphs.CITATION OF IMAGE : WIKIMEDIA COMMONSSince its discovery in 1912, the 15th century Voynich Manuscript has been a mystery and a cult phenomenon. Full of handwriting in an unknown language or code, the book is heavily illustrated with weird pictures of alien plants, naked women, strange objects, and zodiac symbols. The script is comprised of roughly 25 to 30 individual characters (interpretations vary) written from left to right in a single, elegant hand. Scattered throughout are illustrations of unidentifiable plants, astrological diagrams, doodles of castles and dragons, and a particularly odd section that shows naked women bathing in pools connected by flowing tubes. It looks like the map of an ancient water park, but scholars suggest it might be medical or alchemical in intent.The manuscript is an illustrated codex hand-written in an unknown writing system. The vellum on which it is written has been carbon-dated to the early 15th century (1404–1438), and it may have been composed in Northern Italy during the Italian Renaissance. The earliest information about the existence comes from a letter that was found inside the covers of the manuscript, and it was written in either 1665 or 1666.No one has yet demonstrably deciphered the text, and it has become a famous case in the history of the cryptography. The mystery of the meaning and origin of the manuscript has excited the popular imagination, making the manuscript the subject of novels and speculation. None of the many hypotheses proposed over the last hundred years has yet been independently verified.The first confirmed owner was Georg Baresch, an obscure alchemist from Prague. Baresch was apparently just as puzzled as modern scientists about this " Sphynx" that had been "taking up space uselessly in his library" for many years. (For the history of ownership of the manuscript please refer to History of the MS and Voynich manuscript - Wikipedia ).A letter written on August 19, 1665 or 1666 was found inside the cover and accompanied the manuscript when Johannes Marcus sent it to Kircher (Zandbergen, René (May 19, 2016)."Voynich MS - 17th Century letters related to the MS". The Voynich Manuscript). It claims that the book once belonged to Emperor Rudolph II, who paid 600 gold ducats (about 2.07 kg of gold) for it. The letter was written in Latin and has been translated to English. The book was then given or lent to Jacobus Horcicky do Tepenecz, the head of Rudolph's botanical gardens in Prague, probably as part of the debt that Rudolph II owed upon his death.He learned that Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher from the Collegio Romano had published a Coptic ( Egyptian) dictionary an claimed that have deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs; Baresch twice sent a sample copy of the script to Kircher in Rome, asking for clues. His 1639 letter to Kircher is the earliest confirmed mention of the manuscript that has been found to date (Schuster, John (April 27, 2009). Haunting Museums. Tom Doherty Associates. pp. 175–272. ISBN 978-1-4299-5919-3).The manuscript then disappeared for 250 years, only to resurface when it was purchased by Polish book dealer Wilfrid Voynich in 1912. Voynich refused to divulge the manuscript’s previous owner, leading many to believe that he had authored the text himself. But after Voynich’s death, his wife claimed that he had purchased the book from the Jesuit College at Frascati near Rome.In 1903, the Society of Jesus (Collegio Romano) was short of money and decided to sell some of its holdings discreetly to the Vatican Library. The sale took place in 1912, but not all of the manuscripts listed for sale ended up going to the Vatican. Wilfrid Voynich acquired 30 of these manuscripts, among them the one which now bears his name.For the next section describing the physical and scientific characteristics of the manuscript, please refer to Voynich manuscript - Wikipedia and Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library).The codicology, or physical characteristics of the manuscript, has been studied by numerous researchers and institutions. The manuscript measures 23.5 by 16.2 by 5 cm (9.3 by 6.4 by 2.0 in), with hundreds of vellum pages collected into 18 quires. The total number of pages is around 240, but the exact number depends on how the manuscript's unusual foldouts are counted.The quires have been numbered from 1 to 20 in various locations, using numerals consistent with the 1400s, and the top righthand corner of each recto (righthand) page has been numbered from 1 to 116, using numerals of a later date. From the various numbering gaps in the quires and pages, it seems likely that in the past the manuscript had at least 272 pages in 20 quires, some of which were already missing when Wilfrid Voynich acquired the manuscript in 1912. There is strong evidence that many of the book's bifolios were reordered at various points in its history, and that the original page order may well have been quite different from what it is today.Radiocarbon dating of samples from various parts of the manuscript was performed at the University of Arizona in 2009 (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.voynich.nu/extra/carbon.html&ved=2ahUKEwjVnfiUoJXeAhVH64MKHQ_-CDMQFjAAegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw2ZfVBKgSiZY_BColPi-ACB) results were consistent for all samples tested and indicated a date for the parchment between 1404 and 1438.Protein testing in 2014 (Strong Notes http://PDFApprendre-en-ligne.net) that the parchment was made from calf skin, and multispectral analysis showed that it was unwritten on before the manuscript was created. The parchment was created with care, but deficiencies exist and the quality is assessed as average, at best. The goat skin binding and covers are not original to the book, but date to its possession by the Collegio Romano (Zandbergen, René (May 27, 2016."About the binding of the MS". The Voynich Manuscript).Insect holes are present on the first and last folios of the manuscript in the current order and suggest that a wooden cover was present before the later covers, and discolouring on the edges points to a tanned-leather inside cover.Many pages contain substantial drawings or charts which are colored with paint. Based on modern analysis using polarized light microscopy (PLM), it has been determined that a question pen and iron gall ink were used for the text and figure outlines; the colored paint was applied (somewhat crudely) to the figures, possibly at a later date. The ink of the drawings, text and page and quire numbers had similar microscopic characteristics. Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) performed in 2009 revealed that the inks contained major(http://PDFApprendre-en-ligne.net ›) of iron, sulfur, potassium, calcium and carbon and the amounts of copper and occasionally zinc. EDS did not show the presence of lead, while X-ray diffraction (XRD) identified potassium levels oxide, potassium hydrogen sulphate and syngenite in one of the samples tested. The similarity between the drawing inks and text inks suggested a contemporaneous origin.The blue, clear (or white), red-brown, and green paints of the manuscript have been analyzed using PLM, XRD, EDS, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The blue paint proved to be ground azurite with minor traces of the copper oxide cuprite. The clear paint is likely a mixture of eggwhite and calcium carbonate, while the green paint is tentatively characterized by copper and copper chlorineresinate; the crystalline material might be atacamite or another copper-chlorine compound. Analysis of the red-brown paint indicated a red ochre with the crystal phases hematite and iron sulfide. Minor amounts of lead sulfide and palmierite were possibly present in the red-brown paint. The pigments were considered inexpensive.CITATION OF IMAGE : WIKIMEDIA COMMONSThe first half of the book is filled with drawings of plants; scholars call this the “herbal” section. None of the plants appear to be real, although they are made from the usual stuff (green leaves, roots, and so on; search a word like “botanical” in the British Library’s illuminated-manuscript catalogue and you’ll find several texts that are similar to this part). The next section contains circular diagrams of the kind often found in medieval zodiacal texts; scholars call this part “astrological,” which is generous. Next, the so-called “balneological” section shows “nude ladies,” in Clemens’s words, in pools of liquid, which are connected to one another via a strange system of tubular plumbing that often snakes around whole pages of text. These scenes resemble drawings in the alchemical tradition, which gave rise to a now debunked theory that the thirteenth-century natural philosopher Roger Bacon wrote the book. Then we get what appear to be instructions in the practical use of those plants from the beginning of the book, followed by pages that look roughly like recipes.The drawings of different herbal plants are the most interesting thing that found on Vacation manuscript. Unfortunately, none of the 126 plant illustrations can be definitively identified. However, the plant pictures at least enabled certain conclusions regarding the date of origin, before the radiocarbon dating was performed. Until now no one can match these drawings to any known plant species. It is believed to be Voynich manuscript was written in 15th century. Apart from the herbal section, this mysterious manuscript also contains astronomical, biological, cosmological and pharmaceutical section.Every page in the manuscript contains text, mostly in an unidentified language, but some have extraneous writing in Latin script. The bulk of the text in the 240-page manuscript is written in an unknown script, running left to right. Most of the characters are composed of one or two simple pen strokes. Some dispute exists as to whether certain characters are distinct, but a script of 20–25 characters would account for virtually all of the text; the exceptions are a few dozen rarer characters that occur only once or twice each.The illustrations are conventionally used to divide most of the manuscript into six different sections, since the text itself cannot be read. Each section is typified by illustrations with different styles and supposed subject matter except for the last section, in which the only drawings are small stars in the margin. The following are the sections and their conventional names (Shailor, Barbara A. "Beinecke MS 408; Beinecke Rare Book And Manuscript Library, General Collection Of Rare Books And Manuscripts, Medieval And Renaissance Manuscripts):Herbal, 112 folios: Each page displays one or two plants and a few paragraphs of text, a format typical of European herbals of the time. Some parts of these drawings are larger and cleaner copies of sketches seen in the "pharmaceutical" section. None of the plants depicted are unambiguously identifiable.Astronomical, 21 folios: Contains circular diagrams suggestive of astronomy or astrology, some of them with suns, moons, and stars. One series of 12 diagrams depicts conventional symbols for the zodiacal constellations (two fish for Pisces, a bull for Taurus, a hunter with crossbow for Sagittarius, etc.). Each of these has 30 female figures arranged in two or more concentric bands. Most of the females are at least partly nude, and each holds what appears to be a labeled star or is shown with the star attached to either arm by what could be a tether or cord of some kind. The last two pages of this section were lost (Aquariusand Capricornus, roughly January and February), while Aries and Taurus are split into four paired diagrams with 15 women and 15 stars each. Some of these diagrams are on fold-out pages. Astrological considerations frequently played a prominent role in herb gathering, bloodletting, and other medical procedures common during the likeliest dates of the manuscript. However, interpretation remains speculative, apart from the obvious Zodiac symbols and one diagram possibly showing the classical planets.Pages from the astrological section of the Voynich manuscript (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)Biological, 20 folios: A dense continuous text interspersed with figures, mostly showing small nude women, some wearing crowns, bathing in pools or tubs connected by an elaborate network of pipes. The bifolio consists of folios 78 (verso) and 81 (recto); it forms an integrated design, with water flowing from one folio to the other. The basins and tubes in the "biological" section are sometimes interpreted as implying a connection to alchemy, yet they bear little obvious resemblance to the alchemical equipment of the period.Cosmological, 13 folios: More circular diagrams, but they are of an obscure nature. This section also has foldouts; one of them spans six pages, commonly called the Rosettes folio, and contains a map or diagram with nine "islands" or "rosettes" connected by “causeways" and containing castles, as well as what might be a volcanoes.Pharmaceutical, 34 folios: Many labeled drawings of isolated plant parts (roots, leaves, etc.), objects resembling apothecary jars, ranging in style from the mundane to the fantastical, and a few text paragraphs.Recipes, 22 folios: Full pages of text broken into many short paragraphs, each marked with a star in the left margin.The overall impression given by the surviving leaves of the manuscript is that it was meant to serve as a pharmacopoeia or to address topics in medieval or early modern medicine. However, the puzzling details of illustrations have fueled many theories about the book's origin, the contents of its text, and the purpose for which it was intended.The first section of the book is almost certainly herbal, but attempts have failed to identify the plants, either with actual specimens or with the stylized drawings of contemporaneous herbals. Only a few of the plant drawings can be identified with reasonable certainty, such as a wild pansy and the maidenhair fern. The herbal pictures that match pharmacological sketches appear to be clean copies of them, except that missing parts were completed with improbable-looking details. In fact, many of the plant drawings in the herbal section seem to be composite: the roots of one species have been fastened to the leaves of another, with flowers from a third.In 2014, Arthur O. Tucker and Rexford H. Talbert published a paper claiming a positive identification of 37 plants, six animals, and one mineral referenced in the manuscript to plant drawings in the Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis or Badianus manuscript, a fifteenth century Aztec herbal.(https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://hydeandrugg.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/tucker-and-talbert-and-the-voynich-manuscript/amp/&ved=2ahUKEwj0yOyeoZXeAhUMyoMKHcbYC0AQFjABegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw02Tn96aBEZ7MZzUTgdk5h7&ampcf=1) They argue that the plants were from Colonial New Spain and represented the Nahuatl language, and date the manuscript to between 1521 (the date of the Conquest) and circa 1576, in contradiction of radiocarbon dating evidence of the vellum and many other elements of the manuscript. However, the vellum, while creation of it was dated earlier, could just have been stored and used at a later date for manuscript making. The analysis has been criticized by other Voynich manuscript researchers, pointing out that—among other things—a skilled forger could construct plants that have a passing resemblance to theretofore undiscovered existing plants.Exhaustive scientific and conservational analysis of the parchment on which the manuscript is written, the stitching of the binding in which it is contained, and the inks and paints with which it was written and illuminated have disposed of the notion that the manuscript dates from the thirteenth century or that it is the work of Roger Bacon. Radio carbon dating of slivers from a range of pages has firmly dated the book’s materials to the years around 1430. The vellum pages are made of good-quality (and therefore expensive) calfskin, commonly used in book production all over medieval Europe. (Goatskin vellum, by contrast, would have strengthened the case for a southern German or Italian origin, a provenance favored by many students of the manuscript.)Many people have been proposed as possible authors of the Voynich manuscript, among them, Roger Bacon, John Dee or Edward Kelley, Giovanni Fontana, or Voynich himself. Please refer to The Voynich Manuscript, edited by Raymond Clemens Yale University Press 2016 and to Voynich manuscript - Wikipedia for summations of the proposed authorship of the manuscript.Marci's 1665/1666 (Jackson, David (January 23, 2015). "The Marci letter found inside the VM") cover letter to Kircher says that, according to his friend the late Raphael Mnishovsky, “the book had once been bought by Rudolf II How Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia for 600 ducats” (66.42 troy ounce actual gold weight, or 2.07 kg). (Mnishovsky had died in 1644, more than 20 years earlier, and the deal must have occurred before Rudolf's abdication in 1611, at least 55 years before Marci's letter. However, Karl Widemann sold books to Rudolf II in March 1599.)According to the letter, Mnishovsky (but not necessarily Rudolf) speculated that the author was 13th century Franciscan friar and polymath Roger Bacon. Marci said that he was suspending judgment about this claim, but it was taken quite seriously by Wilfrid Voynich who did his best to confirm it. Voynich (Here's What You Need to Know About the Mysterious Voynich Manuscript) contemplated the possibility that the author was Albertus Magnus if not Roger Bacon. The assumption that Bacon was the author led Voynich to conclude that John Dee sold the manuscript to Rudolf. Dee was a mathematician and astrologer at the court of Queen Elizabeth I of Englandwho was known to have owned a large collection of Bacon's manuscripts.Some suspect Voynich of having fabricated the manuscript himself. As an antique book dealer, he probably had the necessary knowledge and means, and a lost book by Roger Bacon would have been worth a fortune. Furthermore, Baresch's letter and Marci's letter only establish the existence of a manuscript, not that the Voynich manuscript is the same one mentioned. These letters could possibly have been the motivation for Voynich to fabricate the manuscript, assuming that he was aware of them. However, many consider the expert internal dating of the manuscript and the June 1999 discovery of Baresch's letter to Kircher as having eliminated this possibility.It has been suggested that some illustrations in the books оf an Italian engineer, Giovanni Fontana, slightly resemble Voynich illustrations (Has the Enigmatic Voynich Manuscript Code Finally Been Cracked?). Fontana was familiar with cryptography and used it in his books, although he didn't use the Voynich script but a simple substitution cipher. In the book Secretum de thesauro experimentorum ymaginationis hominum (Secret of the treasure-room of experiments in man's imagination), written c. 1430, Fontana described mnemonic machines, written in his cypher. At least Bellicorum instrumentorum liber and this book used a cryptographic system, described as a simple, rational cipher, based on signs without letters or numbers.Baresch's letter bears some resemblance to a hoax that orientalist Andreas Mueller once played on Kircher (Athanasius Kircher, Victim of Pranks). Mueller sent some unintelligible text to Kircher with a note explaining that it had come from Egypt, and asking him for a translation. Kircher reportedly solved it. It has been speculated that these were both cryptographic tricks played on Kircher to make him look foolish.Raphael Mnishovsky, the friend of Marci who was the reputed source of Bacon's story, was himself a cryptographer and apparently invented a cipher which he claimed was uncrackable (c. 1618). This has led to the speculation that Mnishovsky might have produced the Voynich manuscript as a practical demonstration of his cipher and made Baresch his unwitting test subject (No, the Mysterious Voynich Manuscript Is Not Written in Hebrew). Indeed, the disclaimer in the Voynich manuscript cover letter could mean that Marci suspected some kind of deception.In 2006, Nick Pelling (Pelling, Nicholas John (2006). The Curse of the Voynich: The Secret History of the World's Most Mysterious Manuscript. Compelling Press), proposed that the Voynich manuscript was written by 15th century North Italian architect Antonio Averlino (also known as "Filarete"), a theory broadly consistent with the radiocarbon dating.The Voynich manuscript has been studied by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including American and British codebreakers from both World Wars I and II. Most assume that the manuscript is written in what’s called a substitution cipher (Substitution cipher - Wikipedia). This is one of the simplest and most ancient types of codes, in which letters of an established alphabet are swapped for invented ones. The problem is that hundreds of years of study have been unable to work out which language the Voynich manuscript was originally written in.According to the "letter-based cipher" theory, the Voynich manuscript contains a meaningful text in some European language that was intentionally rendered obscure by mapping it to the Voynich manuscript "alphabet" through a cipher of some sort—an algorithm that operated on individual letters. This was the working hypothesis for most 20th-century deciphering attempts, including an informal team of NSA cryptographers led by William F. Friedman in the early 1950s. (Reeds, Jim (September 7, 1994). "William F. Friedman's Transcription of the Voynich Manuscript" (PDF). AT&T Bell Laboratories. pp. 1–23). The main argument for this theory is that it is difficult to explain a European author using a strange alphabet—except as an attempt to hide information. Indeed, even Roger Bacon knew about ciphers, and the estimated date for the manuscript roughly coincides with the birth of cryptography in Europe as a relatively systematic discipline.The counterargument is that almost all cipher systems consistent with that era fail to match what is seen in the Voynich manuscript. For example, simple substitution ciphers would be excluded because the distribution of letter frequencies does not resemble that of any known language; while the small number of different letter shapes used implies that nomenclator and homophonic ciphers would be ruled out, because these typically employ larger cipher alphabets. Please ciphers (Alberti cipher - Wikipedia) were invented by Alberti in the 1460s and included the later Vigenère cipher, but they usually yield ciphertexts where all cipher shapes occur with roughly equal probability, quite unlike the language-like letter distribution which the Voynich manuscript appears to have.According to the "codebook cipher" theory (Languedoc Mysteries), the Voynich manuscript "words" would actually be codes to be looked up in a "dictionary" or codebook. The main evidence for this theory is that the internal structure and length distribution of many words are similar to those of Roman numerals, which at the time would be a natural choice for the codes. However, book-based ciphers would be viable for only short messages, because they are very cumbersome to write and to read.That the encryption system started from a fundamentally simple cipher and then augmented it by adding nulls (meaningless symbols), homophones (duplicate symbols), transposition cipher (letter rearrangement), false word breaks, and more is also entirely possible.Steganography (Steganography - Wikipedia) that the text of the Voynich manuscript is mostly meaningless, but contains meaningful information hidden in inconspicuous details—e.g., the second letter of every word, or the number of letters in each line. This technique, is very old and was described by Johannes Trithemius in 1499. Though the plain text was speculated to have been extracted by a Cardan grille (an overlay with cut-outs for the meaningful text Cardan grille - Wikipedia) of some sort, this seems somewhat unlikely because the words and letters are not arranged on anything like a regular grid. Still, steganographic claims are hard to prove or disprove, since stegotexts can be arbitrarily hard to find.It has been suggested that the meaningful text could be encoded in the length or shape of certain pen strokes. There are indeed examples of steganography from about that time that use letter shape (italic vs. upright) to hide information. However, when examined at high magnification, the Voynich manuscript pen strokes seem quite natural, and substantially affected by the uneven surface of the vellum.Linguist Jacques Guy once suggested that the Voynich manuscript text could be some little-known natural language, written in the the plain with an invented alphabet. The word structure is similar to that of many language families of East and Central Asia, mainly Sino-Tibetan (Chinese, Tibetan, and Burmese), Austroasiatic (Vietnamese, Khmer, etc.) and possibly Tai ( Thai, Lao, etc.). In many of these languages, the words have only one syllable; and syllables have a rather rich structure, including the patterns. (Lev Grossman, "When Words Fail: The Struggle to Decipher the World's Most Difficult Book", Lingua franca, April 1999).This theory has some historical plausibility. While those languages generally had native scripts, these were notoriously difficult for Western visitors. This difficulty motivated the invention of several phonetic scripts, mostly with Local letters, but sometimes with invented alphabets. Although the known examples are much later than the Voynich manuscript, history records hundreds of explorers and missionaries who could have done it—even before Marco Polo's 13th-century journey, but especially after Visiting do Gama sailed the sea route to the Orient in 1499.The first page includes two large red symbols, which have been compared to a Chinese-style book title. (Chinese Sinograms in the Voynich THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT)The main argument for this theory is that it is consistent with all statistical properties of the Voynich manuscript text which have been tested so far, including doubled and tripled words (which have been found to occur in Chinese and Vietnamese texts at roughly the same frequency as in the Voynich manuscript) (Voynich: the evidence).It also explains the apparent lack of numerals and Western syntactic features (such as articles and copulas), and the general inscrutability of the illustrations. Another possible hint is two large red symbols on the first page, which have been compared to a Chinese-style book title, inverted and badly copied. Also, the apparent division of the year into 360 days (rather than 365 days), in groups of 15 and starting with Pisces, are features of the Chinese agricultural calendar(jie qi, 節氣). The main argument against the theory is the fact that no one (including scholars at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing) has been able to find any clear examples of Asian symbolism or Asian science in the illustrations.In 1976, James R Child, a linguist of Indo-European languages, proposed that the manuscript was written in a "hitherto unknown North Germanic dialect" (The Voynich Manuscript Revisited'). He identified in the manuscript a "skeletal syntax several elements of which are reminiscent of certain Germanic languages", while the content itself is expressed using "a great deal of obscurity".Leo Levitov proposed in his 1987 book, (Solution of the Voynich Manuscript: A Liturgical Manual for the Endura Rite of the Cathari Heresy, the Cult of Isis), that the manuscript is a handbook for the Cathar rite of Endura written in a Flemish based creole. He further claimed that Catharism was descended from the cult of Isis. However, Levitov's decipherment has been refuted on several grounds, not least of which is its being unhistorical. Levitov had a poor grasp on the history of the Cathars, and his depiction of Endura as an elaborate suicide ritual is at odds with surviving documents describing it as a fast. Likewise there is no known link between Catharism and Isis.In February 2014, Professor Stephen Bax of the University of Bedfordshire made public his research into using "bottom up" methodology to understand the manuscript (Voynich: the evidence). His method involves looking for and translating proper nouns, in association with relevant illustrations, in the context of other languages of the same time period. A paper he posted online offers tentative translation of 14 characters and 10 words. He suggests the text is a treatise on nature written in a natural language, rather than a code.In 2014, a team led by Dr. Diego Amancio of the University of São Paulo's Institute of Mathematical and Computer Sciences published a paper detailing a study using statistical methods to analyse the relationships of the words in the text (Probing the statistical properties of unknown texts: application to the Voynich Manuscript. Amancio DR, et al. PLoS One. 2013).Instead of trying to find the meaning, Amancio's team used complex network modelling to look for connections and clusters of words. By employing concepts such as frequency and intermittence, which measure occurrence and concentration of a term in the text, Amancio was able to discover the manuscript's keywords and create three-dimensional models of the text's structure and word frequencies. Their conclusion was that in 90% of cases, the Voynich systems are similar to those of other known books such as the Bible, indicating that the book is an actual piece of text in an actual language, and not well-planned gibberish.The unusual features of the Voynich manuscript text (such as the doubled and tripled words), and the suspicious contents of its illustrations support the idea that the manuscript is a hoax. In other words, if no one is able to extract meaning from the book, then perhaps this is because the document contains no meaningful content in the first place. Various hoax theories have been proposed over time.In 2003, computer scientist Gordon Rugg showed that text with characteristics similar to the Voynich manuscript could have been produced using a table of word prefixes, stems, and suffixes, which would have been selected and combined by means of a perforated paper overlay (https://doi.org/10.1080/0161-110491892755).The latter device, known as a Cardan grille (Cardan grille - Wikipedia) was invented around 1550 as an encryption tool, more than 100 years after the estimated creation date of the Voynich manuscript. Some maintain that the similarity between the pseudo-texts generated in Gordon Rugg's experiments and the Voynich manuscript is superficial, and the grille method could be used to emulate any language to a certain degree.In April 2007, a study by Austrian researcher Andreas Schinner published in Cryptologia supported the hoax hypothesis (https://doi.org/10.1080/01611190601133539). Schinner showed that the statistical properties of the manuscript's text were more consistent with meaningless gibberish produced using a quasi stochastic method such as the one described by Rugg, than with Latin and medieval German texts.Some scholars have claimed that the manuscript's text appears too sophisticated to be a hoax. In 2013 Marcelo Montemurro, a theoretical physicist from the University of Manchester, (Keywords and Co-Occurrence Patterns in the Voynich Manuscript: An Information-Theoretic Analysis), published findings claiming that semantic networks exist in the text of the manuscript, such as content-bearing words occurring in a clustered pattern, or new words being used when there was a shift in topic.With this evidence, he believes it unlikely that these features were intentionally "incorporated" into the text to make a hoax more realistic, as most of the required academic knowledge of these structures did not exist at the time the Voynich manuscript would have been written.(Alphabet by Hildegard von Bingen, Litterae ignotae, which she used for her language Lingua Ignota)Detail of the "nymphs" on page 141; f78r CITATION OF IMAGE : WIKIMEDIA COMMONSIn their 2004 book, Gerry Kennedy and Rob Churchill suggest the possibility that the Voynich manuscript may be a case of glossolalia (speaking-in-tongues), channeling, or outsider art. If so, the author felt compelled to write large amounts of text in a manner which resembles stream of consciousness, either because of voices heard or because of an urge. This often takes place in an invented language in glossolalia, usually made up of fragments of the author's own language, although invented scripts for this purpose are rare.Kennedy and Churchill (The Voynich Manuscript: The Unsolved Riddle of an Extraordinary Book Which has Defied Interpretation for Centuries 2004) use Hildegard von Bingen's works to point out similarities between the Voynich manuscript and the illustrations that she drew when she was suffering from severe bouts of migraine, which can induce a trance-like state prone to glossolalia. Prominent features found in both are abundant "streams of stars", and the repetitive nature of the nymphs in the biological section.This theory has been found unlikely by other researchers. The theory is virtually impossible to prove or disprove, short of deciphering the text. Kennedy and Churchill are themselves not convinced of the hypothesis, but consider it plausible. In the culminating chapter of their work, Kennedy states his belief that it is a hoax or forgery. Churchill acknowledges the possibility that the manuscript is a synthetic forgotten language (as advanced by Friedman) or a forgery as preeminent theories. However, he concludes that, if the manuscript is genuine, mental illness or delusion seems to have affected the author.In 2014, expert in applied linguistics Professor Stephen Bax published an article in which he claimed to have translated ten words from the manuscript using techniques similar to those used to successfully translate Egyptian hieroglyphs. He claimed the manuscript to be a treatise on nature, in a Near Eastern or Asian language, but no full translation was made before his death in 2017.Recently, history researcher and television writer Nicholas Gibbs (Voynich manuscript: the solution) have cracked the code, discovering that the book is actually a guide to women's health that's mostly plagiarized from other guides of the era.Gibbs realized he was seeing a common form of medieval Latin abbreviations, often used in medical treatises about herbs. "From the herbarium incorporated into the Voynich manuscript, a standard pattern of abbreviations and ligatures emerged from each plant entry," he wrote. "The abbreviations correspond to the standard pattern of words used in the Herbarium Apuleius Platonicus – aq = aqua (water), dq = decoque / decoctio (decoction), con = confundo (mix), ris = radacis / radix (root), s aiij = seminis ana iij (3 grains each), etc." So this wasn't a code at all; it was just shorthand. The text would have been very familiar to anyone at the time who was interested in medicine.The mysterious medieval Voynich Manuscript is probably a women's health manual, according to history researcher Nicholas Gibbs.Once he realized that the Voynich Manuscript was a medical textbook, Gibbs explained, it helped him understand the odd images in it. Pictures of plants referred to herbal medicines, and all the images of bathing women marked it out as a gynecological manual. Baths were often prescribed as medicine, and the Romans were particularly fond of the idea that a nice dip could cure all ills. Zodiac maps were included because ancient and medieval doctors believed that certain cures worked better under specific astrological signs. Gibbs even identified one image—copied, of course, from another manuscript—of women holding donut-shaped magnets in baths. Even back then, people believed in the pseudoscience of magnets.As soon as Gibbs' article hit the Internet, news about it spread rapidly through social media, arousing the skepticism of cipher geeks and scholars alike. Unfortunately, say experts, his analysis was a mix of stuff we already knew and stuff he couldn't possibly prove.So where does that leave us with our understanding of the Voynich Manuscript? Exhaustive scientific and conservational analysis of the parchment on which the manuscript is written, the stitching of the binding in which it is contained, and the inks and paints with which it was written and illuminated have disposed of the notion that the manuscript dates from the thirteenth century or that it is the work of Roger Bacon. Radio carbon dating of slivers from a range of pages has firmly dated the book’s materials to the years around 1430. The vellum pages are made of good-quality (and therefore expensive) calfskin, commonly used in book production all over medieval Europe. (Goatskin vellum, by contrast, would have strengthened the case for a southern German or Italian origin, a provenance favored by many students of the manuscript.)Equally, all this effectively rules out any possibility that the manuscript is a post-medieval forgery—it is inconceivable that the huge quantities of blank parchment needed for such a forgery could have survived from the early fifteenth century. The book’s pages, whose consistency suggests that they derived from a single source, would have required at least fourteen or fifteen entire calfskins. It is therefore overwhelmingly likely that the manuscript was written and illustrated soon after the parchment was prepared, in the first third of the fifteenth century. Its fluent cursive handwriting, without emendation of any kind, seems incompatible with the notion that it might nevertheless be a careful scribal copy of an earlier medieval text. The dating of its materials to the early fifteenth century rules out the suggestion, credited by art historians like Erwin Panofsky, but never very convincing, that the manuscript contains illustrations of plants such as capsicum or the sunflower, unknown before the discovery of the New World.The manuscript was probably composed of 100s of texts, notes, observations and illustrations related to aspects of women's health during the Midieval and Rennassance periods, along with a little alchemical knowledge. In all likelihood, women did not constitute the intended audience, rather it would have been directed towards herbalists, alchemists, philosphers and pharmicists. But from the start, the known evidence suggests that the manuscript was only known by a select group of scholars and royality, experiencing a cyclical pattern of a few years in the spotlight, followed by centuries of relative anonmyity in secret collections and libraries.

There have been many arguments both for and against the World Culture Festival 2016 being conducted on the Yamuna plains. The National Green Tribunal alleges that the event has destroyed the river and the environment.Let us go through a detailed analysis of the various important claims put out by the National Green Tribunal’s (to be referred as NGT hereafter) Expert Committee alleging damage to the Yamuna Floodplains post the World Culture Festival, 2016 conducted by the Art of Living Foundation.I would like to present before the readers a statistically unbiased and scientifically backed representation of this case which is currently sub-judice.Land Description:Before we go further, it is essential that we first geographically define the area over which the World Culture Festival was conducted (From 11th March –13th March 2016)The land parcel is a finite piece of land over the Yamuna floodplain bound by the DND Flyover to its South; Barapulla Drain to its North;River Yamuna to its East and Ring Road to its West.Area ~ 25 hectaresCan be located on WGS (World Geodetic System) 84 coordinates 24 deg 34’55’’N and 77 deg 16’43’’EHere is the detailed image categorically bifurcating the various land sites w.r.t it’s usage for the event(Source: Google Earth, 15th of March ,2016)2. It is very essential to draw the following conclusions from the above satellite images:3-Permanently ramps existed since 2008 (Having bituminous pavement,with potholes and degenerating bituminous overlay).7-Area marked by the purple region previously had mounts of construction waste (malba) solid waste,which has been cleared for the WCF 2016 event by the Art of Living foundation at its own expense.8-Unpaved earthen road running parallel to the Barapullah drain,which is in existence at least since the year 2000,used for vehicles and earth-movers engaged in drain cleaning and slit removal in this section of Barapullah drain.The temporary installations and the make-shift stage are also clearly visible from the satellite imagery.Fig 1:Permanent Ramp 1 having bituminous pavement existed at least since Jan 2008Fig 2:Permanent Ramp 2 having bituminous pavement existed at least since Jan 2008Now, let us go and categorically visit each claim made by the NGTClaim 1: No permission sought from the NGT by the Art of Living Foundation before the eventFacts:The entire site belongs to the Delhi Development Authority (DDA)Firstly,the NGT is a court,a tribunal and an autonomous institute, not a government agency to give permissions.Here is the official permission letter sought by the Art of Living (Vyakti Vikas Kendra India-Trust of the foundation) to use the land site for the event and it no where states that prior permission from the NGT needs to be sought.As you can see, the permission letter is approved by the Honorable L.G. of Delhi and duly signed by the Office of the Chief Engineer (E.P.)Mr.D.P.Singh of the DDA on 15th of December 2015.Apart from this, the Art of Living organization had taken permission from 20 various organizations and competent authorities (Government Bodies)The entire list of the government bodies is elucidated below:Central Public Works DepartmentDelhi Development AuthorityDelhi Fire ServiceDelhi Jal BoardDelhi PoliceDelhi Pollution Control CommitteeDelhi Traffic PoliceDepartment of Irrigation and Flood ControlDistrict Disaster Management AuthorityEast Delhi Municipal CorporationIndian ArmyIrrigation DepartmentMinistry of Environment and ForestsMinistry of External AffairsMinistry of Home AffairsNew Okhla Industrial Development AuthorityPublic Works Department-DelhiPublic Works Department-UPSouth Delhi Municipal CorporationUttar Pradesh Government2. Claim 2: Alleging the presence of wetlands on the eventFacts:To understand this point, we need to first comprehend the difference between a wetland and a floodplain.According to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands ,signed in 1971 (Iran) wetlands are defined as: "areas of marsh, fen, peatland or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt, including areas of marine water the depth of which at low tide does not exceed six metres"(The Convention on Wetlands, called the Ramsar Convention, is an intergovernmental treaty that provides the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources. Number of Contracting Parties: 169)There are currently 26 Ramar sites in India which are enlisted below:Ashtamudi Wetland,KeralaBhoj Wetland,Madhya ParadeshChandertal Wetland,Himachal PradeshChilika Lake,OrissaDeepor Beel,AssamEast Calcutta Wetlands,West BengalHarike Lake,PunjabHokera Wetland,Jammu and KashmirKanjili,PunjabKeoladeo National Park,RajasthanKolleru Lake,Andhra PradeshLoktak Lake,ManipurNalsarovar,GujaratPoint Calimere Wildlife and Bird Santuary,Tamil NaduPong Dam Lake,Himachal PradeshRenuka Wetland,Himachal PradeshRopar,PunjabRudrasagar Lake,West Tripura DistrictSambhar Lake,RajasthanSasthamkotta Lake,KeralaSurinsar-Mansar Lake,Jammu and KashmirTsomoriri,Jammu and KashmirUpper Ganga River,Uttar PradeshVembanad-Kol Wetland,KeralaWular Lake,Jammu and KashmirBhitarkanika Mangroves,OrissaSo, according to the Ramsar sites (India being a signatory of the Ramsar convention) , the World Culture Festival venue does not come under the wetland category.Wetlands come under Ecologically Sensitive Zones are are protected areas by the government.Now,let us analyse the land area with respect to the Survey of India (The Survey of India is India's central engineering agency in charge of mapping and surveying) mapsHere is the Annexure -1B Portion of 1:25000 Scale Detailed Map of Delhi, published by the Survey of India in the year 1985,Under the direction of Major General Girish Chandra Aggarwal, Surveyor General of India; Titled-’Delhi Guide Map,Third Edition 1985′The map clearly depicts the WCF 2016 event site as an extremely flat “Point Bar” (floodplain deposit) without existence of any wetland or enclosed waterbody. The flatness of this land parcel is to the extent that contour indicating difference in height of the order of 100cm is also non-existent throughout the area.Another important point for record in this map is the existence of natural path of ‘Kushak River – Barapullah Drain’ prior to straightening of its channel traversing straight into River Yamuna and filling of its original channel. The map also depicts the situation prior to construction of Guide Bank and DND Flyway.Looking at the National Wetland Atlas (Published in March 2011 by the Space Application Centre,ISRO,Ahmedabad),it fails to indentify a single wetland on the event site.According to the National Geographic Society, floodplains are defined as “A flood plain (or floodplain) is a generally flat area of land next to a river or stream. It stretches from the banks of the river to the outer edges of the valley”A Floodplain does not require jurisdictions of the environmental authorities that a wetland does.Floodplains have a rich history of interacting with the society for civilizations to flourish.The first great civilizations all grew up in river valleys. The oldest, 3300 to 2500 BCE, was along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the Middle East; the name given to that civilization, Mesopotamia, means "land between the rivers". The Nile valley in Egypt had been home to agricultural settlements as early as 5500 BCE, but the growth of Egypt as a civilization began around 3100 BCE. A third civilization grew up along the Indus River around 2600 BCE, in parts of what are now India and Pakistan. The fourth great river civilization emerged around 1700 BCE along the Yellow River in China, also known as the Huang-He River Civilization.Many towns have been built across floodplains because of easy access to fresh water,the fertility of floodplain land for farming,cheap transportation, via rivers and railroads, which often followed rivers and ease of development of flat land.Large cultural and religious gatherings taking place on various floodplains across India like the Kumbh Mela and the Maramon Convention.The World Culture Festival venue was thus a floodplain and not a wetland as claimed by the Expert Committee of the NGT.3. Claim 3: Destroying the natural flow of the river YamunaFacts:A comparison of river morphology has been conducted on satellite images for the period between 22nd of December 2000 till 10th of May 2016.Fluvial Geo-morphology of the river (i.e. land form related to the river) and its floodplain (over which the event was organized) indicates continuity of a pattern in channel dimension, sedimentation,bank deposition,bank erosion and flow of the river.On a careful examinations of images between 26th August 2015(month of monsoon in Delhi) to 10th May 2016(Pre-Monsoon Dry Summer Season) no abnormality in the pattern of flow;channel dimension;riverbed;or morphology of both the banks has been noticed.Further,examination by ground verification in a series of field studies found no scientific acceptance of the above mentioned claim by the NGTHere are the satellite images taken that show the continuity of pattern of the river flow:Pic 1: 26th August 2015 (Post-monsoon)Pic 2: 29th October 2015 (Post-monsoon)Pic 3: 23rd November 2015 (Post-monsoon)Pic 4: 15th of December 2015 (Post-monsoon)Pic 5: 27th of February 2016 (Preparation for the event in progress;stage scaffoldings under construction)Pic 6: 15th of March 2016 (Post WCF, Pre-Monsoon)Pic 7: 25th of May 2016 (Depicting the entire area utilized by the World Culture Festival 2016,now evacuated,cleared and all the temporary installations removed)And as I write this answer now (13 th of May 2017, 15:39 hr), I have taken the snapshots from Google Earth of the venue and it is as it was before the event.The above images tell us that there is no change whatsoever in the natural river course of the Yamuna. This again proves the Expert Committee’s claims as false and unscientific.Selection Bias by the Expert Committee members?In the report,the expert committee have replied upon a singular satellite image for the event as opposed to a larger sample size covering pre-monsoon and post monsoon images for 15–20 years despite its availability to the public on Google Earth.The Expert Committee compared the satellite images of the venue dated 5th of Sept 2015 (Peak monsoon season) with that of a mid summer picture of March 2016, post the event (Summer pre-monsoon)It doesn’t take an Einstein to realize that such a comparison cannot be done in the first place.The Expert Committee is basically trying to attribute the negative effect of the lack of rain to the World Culture Festival !4. Claim 4: Destroying the reeds,grasses,natural vegetation on the river bed and the venueFacts:High pollution in the River Yamuna has led to a situation where dissolved oxygen tends to zero (often less than 1), high load of suspended particulate matter, high turbidity almost blocks the sunlight penetration in the water within few centimeters of vertical depth etc.All of the above factors collectively create a situation where no macro flora could grow or anchored within the riverbed of the Yamuna.Reeds and grasses could only grow beyond the riverbed in the riparian zone of the floodplain.The images of the last 15 years,indicate that the floodplain around the venue had some strips and patches of reeds. Those patches have been compared with the images after the event and on a comparison of images, no change in area covered by reeds has been observed.Riparian reeds along the Barapullah drain and small patches behind and in front of the guide bank (near the bridge of DND flyway) are unaltered before , during and the period post the event.Also the number of trees before and after the event were counted using high risk satellite images and they were found to be the same.Pic 1: Regrowth of grasses on over the location where once the stage was raised (17th of April 2016)Pic 2: State of grasses on the event venue (17th of April 2016)Pic 3: Undisturbed riparian reeds along the abandoned channel in front of the Guide Bank (17th of April 2016)Pic 4: Undisturbed riparian reeds along the Barapullah Drain (17th of April 2016)Also, another important to note that the Expert Committee of the NGT accused the Art of Living Foundation for bringing in and dumping the malba (construction debris) and flattening the malba thereby destroying the flood plain.Firstly, as shown by the satellite images of the land parcel furnished earlier, the purple area indicates the unsolicited construction debris that existed since the year 2000.Trucks were seen emptying tonnes of malba on a daily basis when the Art of Living began preparation for the event (circa December 2015)Once the land was allotted to the foundation, the Art of Living sent out a letter the the DDA citing these concerns about the existing construction dump.To which, the DDA didn’t remove the debris whereas told the Art of Living Foundation to remove the malba at its own cost !Here, is the invoice of the contractor ,who was given the duty to remove the debris from the venue site ,under the instructions the Art of Living Foundation (Cost borne by the Art of Living Foundation !)This is how the site appeared before the event:So, why did the NGT falsely accuse the foundation wherein no cementing/foundation work of any sort was undertaken for the event?5. Claim 5: Disturbed the aquatic life of the riverFacts:The river Yamuna (Delhi stretch) is nearly devoid of fish species due to extremely low level ( ~0) dissolved oxygen in the river water.Let us analyze the water quality of the river Yamuna first.Referring to the “Water Quality Status of Yamuna River” report by the Central Pollution and Control Board (erstwhile Ministry of Environment and Forests,Government of India),here is the longitudinal profile of the dissolved oxygen.(Report foreword by V. Rajagopalan, Chairman-CPCB)(Notice the graph points near Nizamuddin Bridge ,Agra Canal)The report goes out further to state that“ In Yamuna River low BOD and low DO was observed more oftenly may be due to consumption of oxygen by settled sludge in the riverbed.”(Ref 3.13, page No.42)Other key notations from the report are listed below:“The sources contributing pollution are both point & non-point type. Urban agglomeration at NCT – Delhi is the major contributor of pollution in the Yamuna River followed by Agra and Mathura. About 85% of the total pollution in the river is contributed by domestic sources. The condition of river deteriorate further due to abstraction of significant amount of river water, leaving almost no fresh water in the river, which is essential to maintain the assimilation capacity of the river.”“In the critically, polluted stretch of Yamuna river from Delhi to Chambal confluence, there was significant fluctuations in dissolved oxygen level from Nil to well above saturation level. This reflects presence of organic pollution load and persistence of eutrophic conditions in the river.”“Bacteriological contamination is significantly high in the entire Yamuna River stretch. Total Coliforms are generally well above the prescribed water quality standard even sometimes at Yamunotri also. The microbiological analysis confirms that the bacteriological contamination was predominantly contributed by human beings.”Here are the longitudinal profiles of the Total and Faecal Coliforms in Yamuna River :Not to forget the drains opening up in the Delhi stretch.“Najafgarh drain of NCT – Delhi is the biggest polluter of River Yamuna, which contributes about 26% (year 2001) to 33% 22 (year 2000) of total BOD load and 48% (year 2003) to 52% (year 2001) of total discharge that joins Yamuna river and canal at Delhi by various drains. There are 70 sub drains that join main Najafgarh Drain. The study indicated that the total BOD load received by Najafgarh Drain through sub-drains was 136 TPD, whereas the BOD load at the terminal end of the Najafgarh Drain was 83 TPD only. This reduction may be contributed by biodegradation, deposition of setllable material at the bottom and diversion of drain water for irrigation etc”.“ River Yamuna receives significantly high amount of organic matter, which is generally, originates from domestic sources. For biodegradation, this organic waste requires oxygen, causing significant depletion of dissolved oxygen in river water. The oxygen depletion not only affects biotic community of the river but also affects its self-purification capacity. This problem is critical in the river stretch between Delhi and confluences of river with Chambal. In Delhi stretch, the load of organic matter is so high that it consumes the entire dissolved oxygen available in river water.”Presenting another latest report by the Central Pollution Control Board titled “Water quality status of in Delhi stretch of Yamuna River”Exhibit 1: Water quality of river Yamuna river in terms of Dissolved Oxygen (DO)The above graph clearly shows that the standard DO should be~4–5 whereas near the Nizamuddin bridge and Okhla region it below 1.Exhibit 2: Water quality of river Yamuna in terms of Total ColiformThe report also throws light on the discharge of various drains in the river Yamuna.“There are twenty one major wastewater drains in NCT-Delhi, out of which 18 drains join Yamuna River and rest joins Agra/Gurgaon canal.All the drains join Yamuna River downstream of Wazirabad barrage.These drains are being monitored regularly on monthly basis.The range of total BOD Load of 18 drains join Yamuna river was 105 TPD (August, 2015) to 229 TPD (January, 2016).Total discharge of these drains was varied from 29 m3/s (May, 2016 to 43 m3/s (August, 2014).The collective average of these drains for the year 2015 and 2016 in terms of discharge was about 34.8 m3/s and 34.3 m3/s respectively whereas, BOD load average for these two years was 164 Tons/day (TPD) and 178 Tons/day respectively.Based on the Discharge and BOD load of 18 drains Najafgarh drain was the biggest polluter of Yamuna River followed by Shahdara drain. These two drains alone contributes about 74% of total Bod load and 82% of total discharge of the 18 major drains that join Yamuna river at Delhi.”Exhibit 3: Discharge of major drains joins Yamuna River at DelhiLastly, I wish to produce a report titled “ Restoration and Conservation of River Yamuna” authored by the NGT Expert Committee members itself in the year 2012–13(Authors Prof. C.R.Babu, Prof.A.K.Gosain, Prof.Brij Gopal-All being expert members of the NGT)The report categorically states that“the loss of life supporting potential of the river is the major concern to the public, the Government and the courts”“the flowing water, the river bed, the floodplain forest and grassland ecosystems are locally extinct”Here is a snapshot of the same :The report also states that:“The Delhi urban stretch of 22 km in the downstream of Wazirabad barrage upto Okhla barrage (Section III) is critically polluted and dry weather flow is almost the treated and untreated sewage from 22 drains and the fresh water flow from upstream or lateral connection and it is perhaps one of the most polluted river stretches in the country with zero DO and over 30 mg/l BOD levels”Whereas, the same committee members in its final report slamming the Art of Living state the following:How could the World Culture Festival destroy something that according to the same committee members didn’t even exist in the first place.Why is the Art of Living blamed selectively for the pollution of the river Yamuna over the past decades?Isn’t this nothing but sheer hypocrisy?From the above data, following points to be noted:Yamuna river (Delhi stretch)is a dead river with almost zero dissolved oxygen, high amounts of pollutants and no fresh water. How can aquatic life survive under these chemically harsh conditions?The discharge of major drains in the Delhi stretch of the river along with industrial effluents and the pollution levels of Yamuna is alarming.Why does the NGT put the blame on the Art of Living Foundation which has done zero damage to the floodplains and the river?What has NGT done to curb the industrial and human pollution which are harming the river Yamuna?There is a strong judgmental bias in the current NGT report Vs the Art of Living and Others6. Claim 6: Alleging compaction and leveling of the floodplainFacts:Before going to analyse the charges of compaction, it is quintessential that we first define the nature of the land where the event was conducted.According to the report “Environmental flow for monsoon rivers in India-The Yamuna river as a case study”, the Yamuna floodplains has alluvial sandy soil (Reference: Rao, S.V.N., Kumar, S., Shekhar, S., Sinha, S.K. & Manju, S. 2007. Optimal pumping from Skimming Wells from the Yamuna river flood plain in north India. Hydrogeology Journal 15: 1157-1167)According to one of the Expert Committee member-Prof.A.K.Gosain’s earlier published research paper titled- “A new scheme for large-scale natural water storage in the floodplains: the Delhi Yamuna floodplains as a case study”, the author says “the river has been bringing sand from the mountains and depositing it along its basin, forming the floodplains. This accumulated sandy layer exists to an average of depth of 40 m”The report earlier furnished in claim 5 by the expert committee members itself (Can be found here) states that the floodplain near the river Yamuna has “sand and gravel”.Hence, it is a well established fact that the floodplain has sandy soil ! So, can sandy soil be compacted ?Now,given the above data, let us go through some scientific studies about sand compaction and verify the allegations by the NGT.For a confirmatory statement on the extent and exact reason of consolidation and/ or compaction in qualitative and quantitative terms, laboratory test of undisturbed soil samples from the land parcel will be required.By comparing the current soil density with the previous records of soil density over the land parcel,the difference could be worked out.But conducting such a test of unconfined sand/sandy soil appears almost impossible due to the established principles of soil mechanics.Referring to the established principles of soil mechanics and geo-technical engineering from the widely accepted and used textbook for soil mechanics by Prof.V.N.S.Murthy tiled “A Text Book of Soil Mechanics & Foundation Engineering” let us go through the pressure-void ratio curves of sandIn the above curve, it is clearly evident that “ more than 90 % of the compression has taken place within a period of less than 2 minutes. The time lag is largely frictional. The compression is about the same whether the sand is dry or saturated”.“The amount of compression even under high load intensity is not quite significant as can be seen from the curves.”It is obvious that the natural consolidation of this land parcel would have taken place in the geological past immediately after the deposition with some movement of animals and humans over it.It appears from the final report that the expert committee didn’t conduct any geo-technical analysis and not a single report was attached as an annexure to their claim.Verbally saying that they went there and saw the top soil layer become a thick crust is not evidence. There are tests that are legally permitted in the courts of law which the expert committee doesn’t seem to have done.The WCF area occupied ~ 25 hectares of land out of the total 9300 hectares of the floodplain (Approximately 0.26 %)So to exert the high pressure for land compaction it would require numerous heavy weight rollers (which apparently weren’t used by the organizers).Furthermore, the curve for dense sand in ‘Void ratio v/s pressure in kg/sq.cm’ indicates that dense sand (as deposited by the Yamuna and Ganga) does not show noticeable changes with increase in pressure.It is an undeniable fact that this land parcel has been under agricultural practices since decades (if not centuries).Agricultural practices; tilling (harrowing); movement of farms equipment and agricultural machinery; movement of dumpers for unabated dumping of construction waste for years and then the movement for trucks and dumpers for removal of the same has already shaped the consolidation and /or compaction of this land parcel ages before the event of the World Culture Festival 2016 was organized.Moreover, it is important to note that the entire stage for the event was supported by a series of iron scaffolding with raft footing (shown in the figure below)An Engineering Marvel ?Nothing was anchored in the natural stratum to hold the stage, overall the stage had a floating foundation. Can’t believe? have a look at this :Pics: The stage was made of thousands of such scaffolding rods in lattice structure spread across 7.5 acre (stage area)Pic: Scaffolding structure (showing the highest level) used for construction of the stage ; photographed during the removal of the stage.Pic: Steel plate rod used for distribution of the load, without any anchorage in the ground; photographed during the removal of the stage.The stage had negligible impact on the ground. Overall the stage was a floating stage and the impact of a floating stage on sandy soil is insignificant. For the record, no cement foundation was done as can be seen from the pictures.Trivia: The physics behind this stage bears a strong visual analogy with a yogi sleeping on a bed of nails. As a matter of fact, this ancient technique used by hathayogis in India has been a source of inspiration for the design of this stage !Pic: The concept of “Yogi Nail Bed” used as an inspiration for the WCF stage is based on the principle of uniform distribution of weight over a large surface area, therefore the overall impact is extremely low or negligible.Finally, the only court permissible test to determine compaction of soil is the CBR Test (California Bearing Ratio Test). It involves taking soil samples before and after the event and then applying the test. Since the expert committee did not collect any soil samples before and after the event to come up with the alleged 13 cr damage,the Art of Living Foundation themselves requested the NGT to conduct the CBR test at the venue, and the application was duly rejected !Here is the permission letter made by the Art of Living Foundation to the NGT (which was disposed off by the NGT !)The Chairman of the Expert Committee of the NGT Mrs.Shashi Shekhar (IAS) (Ministry of Water Resouces, Govt. of India)even goes out to the extent of saying the compensation of 120 cr put forth on the Art of Living foundation as ad-hoc and unscientific and not based on any scientific assessments. The Chairman does not even endorse the compensation.Also, it is important to see whether the NGT conducted any scientific studies before quantifying the damage if any ?It would be very astounding for the reader to realize that no such thing was done. Only a mere “visual inspection” was conducted by the Expert Committee members of the NGT at the venue on the 6th of June 2016(Singular visit).And no scientific evidence and data samples have been provided by the NGT Expert Committee in the Court of Law.That’s like going to a doctor who after just glancing at your direction hands you a list of ailments he assesses that you suffer from and proceeds to slap you with a fat bill for your future treatments !It is surprising to believe that the Chairman of the Expert Committee Mr.Shashi Shekhar has distanced himself from the committee’s recommendations. The Chairman’s signature is also missing from the final report. And only 4 out the 7 Expert Committee members have signed the final report !7. Claim 7: Going from ecological “restoration” to ecological “rehabilitation” of the floodplainFacts:Throughout the first report, the Expert Committee members of the NGT have used the term “restoration” and in the final report they use the word “rehablitation”Why the sudden switch?Because, the NGT Expert Committee cannot prove any damage that was done to the floodplain and the environment by the event.In their final report this is what they state:It is not possible for the ‘Expert Committee’ to assess the ecological status of the site before and after the event? This was their primary job in the first place !Also, the committee points out that it is extremely difficult to assess the costs of environment damage and degradation accurately because“it requires substantial time, human and other resources to collect detailed quantitative information on the nature, extend and magnitude of various activities listed earlier for restoration”That’s a clever way of saying that they cannot prove the damage quantitatively and qualitatively and hence the question of restoration is redundant.They also go on to state that “estimation of the costs of restoration requires the preparation of a Detailed Project Report that may take several months to a year besides financial resources.”Who can buy that argument? Why was the Expert Panel commissioned in the first place?Moreover, the Expert Committee states that it has now decided to “REHABILITATE THE IMPACTED SITE”.The NGT’s proposed plan includes creating a bio diversity park, two large water bodies, three tier planting of vegetation,and establishing new sewage treatment plants,etcLet’s put things into perspective, firstly, the Committee says that it cannot prove any damage scientifically. Consequently they cannot assign costs to restore damage. Hence, they wish to switch the narrative from being a “restoration cost” to “rehabilitation cost”. And moreover, they wish to build a utopian biodiversity park for which the Art of Living should bear the cost ! (Slow claps !) Wait, I am not yet done !In order to build this dream park, the Expert Committee has submitted a ‘Budget’ for building this park. The budget lists ‘Salaries and Consultancies’ as a cost component to monitor and supervise the construction. This cost component totals up to 7 CRORE RUPEES ! Here is their estimations !That’s not all friends. The NGT Expert Committee even goes on record to state that “rehabilitation” will take a period of 10 years and the expert committee members have nominated themselves to undertake this project as “Consultants”(Indeed a very sly way of pocketing the 7 crore!)In the final analysis,the expert committee members in their final report state that they are unable to differentiate the activities required to restore the floodplain and the activities to undo the alleged damage due to the event. That is a very clever way of saying that they cannot differentiate the damage done to the floodplain before the event and the damage done by the event.As this article says,“The Art of Living case will go down as a test for environment activism in the country. The nation expects the NGT will gather enough courage to call the bluff of the committee and go by the merits of the case”.References:http://delhi.gov.in/wps/wcm/connect/55a9380047b2199a9155d5bdc775c0fb/Final_Report_NGT-Yamuna_Restoration%2B(11-4-2014).pdf?MOD=AJPERES&lmod=-287594179https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1306/1306.2709.pdfhttp://www.cpcb.nic.in/newitems/11.pdfDelhi Development AuthorityTextbook of Soil Mechanics and Foundation EngineeringGoogle Earth – Google EarthNational Green TribunalHomepage | Ramsarflood plainCentral Pollution Control Board :::https://www.artofliving.org/in-en/newsroom/press-statement/independent-environmentalist-statement-ngt-reporthttp://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/2edvol3d.pdfWill NGT call the Yamuna expert panel's bluff?Written by:Soham D’SouzaBachelors in Chemical Technology-Institute of Chemical Technology (former UDCT) , MumbaiMumbai

It is very bold of you to proclaim “Vietnam remains one of the most corrupt countries in Asia” when that is not true. It is also not constructive or conclusive to hold on to these corruption indexes as the sole and absolute authority or use them to pit countries against each other.http://www.cmi.no/publications/file/2120-is-it-wrong-to-rank.pdfThe extent of corruption in a society is often debated on the basis weak information. Data on corruption will usually have limitations since people involved in the crime seldom will speak out about their practice.The need for information about the extent of corruption has triggered a number of empirical studies. Several institutions have developed corruption-related criteria on which they rank countries. By far the most famous index of this sort is the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), published yearly by Transparency International (TI). This index aims to measure what people think about corruption, and is not presented by TI as true facts about the actual levels of corruption. The CPI is an "index of indices"; it is composed from a number of different sources that all provide a relevant ranking of countries. The World Bank has constructed a similar index, which is part of its efforts to estimate the quality of governance. The World Bank's approach to estimating corruption is similar to the methodology TI applies to make their ranking; several of the sources are the same, and the two indices correlate well. The main objectives behind the indices are to raise awareness, enable statistical research to understand and better confront the problem, and to encourage governments in their anti-corruption efforts.I will shortly explain how these indices are constructed and notify about some of the ambiguities in this information. Then I turn to their contents and discuss the problem of an unclear distinction between illegal and "legal" corruption. I discuss the common practice of interpreting these indices as reliable information about actual extents of corruption within a country, and I raise concerns that common misinterpretation of the CPI can be damaging.Limits of the CPICorruption estimation has been a topic of much debate, mainly since the CPI was first published in 1995. Since then, Transparency International has become the most important institution in collecting and distributing corruption-related information. The CPI is one of several ways in which TI systematizes such information. This index is the most famous and applied source on information about the level of corruption in countries, and therefore the issue of debate in this paper: to what extent is this detailed ranking fruitful and useful? Should its information be referred to with more caution? While the CPI gets the most attention, many of the comments on this type of estimation are relevant also to the World Bank index. TI and the World Bank are fully aware of measurement problems, and do indeed encourage debate.° Construction and interpretationThe elements in the construction of the composite corruption indices are data from externally conducted polls and surveys and a method of scaling these data into one index. The data are collected by independent institutions, these are non-profit organizations and consultancy companies, and the respondents are business people, the general public and country analysts. When the surveys include several issues, only the data on corruption is applied for the corruption index. The assessment of a country is based on several data sources, and the data must represent current conditions, as well as a ranking of countries.Each survey is given equal weight when integrated into the index, independently of age and correlation to the other surveys. For aggregation and accurate ranking, data from the different sources have to be standardized and converted into the same scaling system. This is mainly done by transforming the standard deviations and the means in the different sets of data, to fit with the mean value and standard deviation of the index from the previous year. When this is done for all the sources, the index is estimated by computing the simple mean for each country. The result is a CPI score between 0 and 10 for each country included in the index. Lambsdorff (2005) describes and explains the specific formula.The strength of the composite indices lies in their ability to be more informative than individual data sources. However, given all the information about the methodology and the sources, the content of the index continues to be unclear to many of us. What does it mean that China is ranked number 71 with a score of 3.4, while the UK is ranked number 11 with a score of 8.6? The lack of a standardized approach to estimating the level of corruption makes it difficult to know whether the rankings reflect the number of transactions affected by corruption, legal or illegal activities, the level of bribes or the cost to society.The relation between numbers on the ranking is unclear, and the ranking must be considered ordinal. A ranking of 6 does not imply that the country in question has twice the amount of corruption compared to a country with a ranking of 3; it just means that the former country has “more corruption". The index is still readable as a presentation of the countries' ranking, but it is often referred to as if these precision problems were not present. It is also difficult to interpret a dynamic dimension of the index. The media pays significant attention to changes in the relative position of countries. "Is our country performing better this year?" However, if country X is ranked below country Y one year, then placed above it the next, it is difficult to tell if there has been a reduction of corruption in country X, or if there has been an increase of the problem in country Y.The change is also likely to be a matter of arbitrary fluctuations within the error band. A change of the score from one year to the next can of course represent a true change in the perceived level of corruption within a country. However, it can also be explained by a change of the mean and standard variation of the whole sample of countries, an inclusion of new sources, or an improvement in the methodology. Transparency International aims at using the most reliable and up to date sources, which also means that the contents of the underlying studies vary.The problems related to definition and quantification mean that empirical research on corruption is also affected. There have been a number of studies in which the correlation between the level of corruption, as measured either by the World Bank indicator or TI's CPI, and some other phenomena is analyzed, such as economic growth, inequality, religion, barriers to trade, the level of foreign direct investment, and so on.Independent of the quality of the calculation behind such studies, the extent to which we can rely on the conclusions is uncertain when the underlying information is weak.° Crimes or legal activities?There have been numerous discussions about how corruption should be defined. A major problem is that the word is applied to activities that are both legal and illegal. This means that it is difficult to tell whether a bad score on a corruption index refers to officially permitted activities or to violations of the law. Some people will say that all kinds of corruption-like activity are harmful, and it is not important to distinguish between them. Others will consider this matter in the light of defamation, restrict the use of the term corruption to its legal sense, and try not to label people, companies or countries as "corrupt" unless there is good reason to assume that laws have been violated. When trying to estimate even less precise aspects of a society, such as the quality of governance or social capital, it is obvious that these are subjective and uncertain qualities. As for corruption, which also is a legal term, we do not have international consensus on the term's meaning, which should ideally have been in place before we started ranking countries based on people's subjective perceptions of its extent.The impediments to reach such an international consensus are significant. The legal definitions of corruption and cross-border bribery of public officials differ somewhat from country to country.Even within countries there are doubts and discussions about the boundary between legal and illegal activities. Most jurisdictions have far too few precedents for this sort of legislation. No detailed judicial discussion will be undertaken in this paper. The following three grey zones are important, however, because (a) they are common to most countries, (b) they have not been clarified by the new international conventions, (c) they are causing most of the ambiguities about the term corruption, and (d) they tend to inhibit welfare improvements.(i) Facilitation paymentsUnofficial fees paid to get things done, and smalle r bribes demanded for services that a public official is expected to provide in any case, such as the issuing of licenses or customs clearance. The justification for facilitation payments is often based on a lack of bargaining power. The question of whether the person who makes the payment commits an offence according to the cross-border legislation on corruption will depend on judicial details in his/her/its country of origin.9Marketing(ii) Marketing targeted at specific individuals who represent a client, either a public or private institution, where expensive gifts and excursions are offered to encourage informal relations with the potential client. Many firms claim this kind of marketing to be essential. While procurement rules are usually in place for large contracts to ensure free and fair competition, there will always be legal ways around these statutes. There are loopholes in the rules of exception which allow for direct negotiations, and there are ways of making it appear as if the procurement rules have been respected, by violating the rules of communication, for instance (Søreide, 2006). This form of influence deters competition, and thus welfare improvements.Political pressure(iii) Political pressure applied to influence the outcome of tenders on big contracts. This kind of pressure is conducted with the help of subsidies, export-credit deals, aid to the buyer linked formally or informally to the purchase, commercial pricing issues and trade barriers, tied defence/arms deals, or threats of political sanctions or specific voting in international organizations.These practices are difficult to attack legally, as they are carried out by political leaders at the highest state level.Domestic judicial clarifications will not automatically solve the CPI's problem of unclear legal meaning of the term corruption. Countries differ, for instance, inherently in their degree of institutionalizing influence on important financial decisions. In the USA it is legal to finance political parties. This is a form of lobbyism in which private firms pay huge amounts in campaign finance. The border between lobbyism and corruption can be unclear. In its legal form, however, it may lead to political support for changes that mainly benefits individual firms or their executives, while consumer welfare is reduced. In many other countries, private influence on politics is not legalized or institutionalized in a similar manner. In other words, while payments made to influence specific political issues are legal in some places, this is called corruption in others. The outcome can be equivalent. The extent to which the respondents to the CPI's different surveys make a distinction at this point is not known; whatever they do will be wrong in terms of definitions. It is wrong to describe the practice as corruption when the payments are completely legal. In an international ranking of corruption, it would also be wrong not to include similar ways of buying influence.An index score is supposed to cover all kinds of corruption, from huge oil contracts to the payments made to get assistance when giving birth. Being this all-encompassing, the index fails to distinguish between the forms of corruption that represent welfare problems, and the corruption that functions as a substitute for prices or public solutions in cases of weak or absent public institutions. Rose-Ackerman (1999) makes an important distinction at this point. She explains why the basic feature of the market does not necessarily depend on the extent to which public services are legally privatized, or if more informal solutions are in function, and organized by means of facilitation payments/informal rates. The welfare implication depends on the presence of markets and the supply of the many different services requested, not necessarily on how the payments correspond to formal rules. The variation across countries, in the achievements made on how to organize or institutionalize public services, depends on their quality of governance, GDP level, political system, political stability, and so on. Weak states will easily come out as more corrupt when informal solutions, illegal payments and bribes occur to replace wages, for instance in the lack ofgovernmental financial transfers to local providers of public services, such as education, health care, or infrastructure. To the extent to which this is a measurement problem for the CPI ranking, it is limited by the fact that the group of countries with widespread and harmful corruption overlaps considerably with the group of those that are unable to offer public services that they are required by law to supply.° Perceptions and the actual extent of corruptionMeasuring perceptions of corruption is meant to be a best possible solution to get indications of true levels of corruption in a situation with vast measurement challenges. Measuring different people's perceptions of corruption provides in itself interesting information about people's opinion. Some problems arise, however, when these data are treated as reliable information about the actual extent of corruption in a country.Many of us would consider newspaper headlines or court cases unreliable estimates of the actual frequency of corruption. Whereas regular media coverage of corruption might inform on freedom of speech, the media can be biased and interested in scandalizing the problem, or it may be controlled by the state. The number of court cases on corruption in a given country would not necessarily be a better indicator. The judicial system may not have the capacity to investigate and prosecute all the cases that emerge. In addition, the police force may lack the necessary independence, or may even be corrupt itself. However, the individual's opinion, and the view of the survey respondents who form the basis for the construction of the indices, will be influenced by the same sources, the media and court cases, and it is a question how detailed a country ranking should be made when based on perceptions.One challenge is related to the quantification of the problem, which is highly ambiguous. It is not clear to what extent the level of corruption reflects the frequency of corrupt acts, the damage done to society or the size of the bribes. The polls and surveys behind the CPI ask different questions related to corruption, and do not cover precisely the same issue. Some sources aim at political corruption, while others ask about lower-level bureaucratic corruption. Most of the polls and surveys ask for a general opinion on the magnitude of the problem ("how widespread" is the problem), usually not the respondents' personal experiences, which basically means that they ask for people's subjective intuition of the extent of something unobservable. Given the discussion in the previous section, it is even unclear what this unobservable phenomenon is.The respondents are, without explicit definitions, asked to quantify "the misuse of public office for private or political party gain" and encouraged to rate "the severity of corruption within the state."This strong reliance on individual perceptions makes the interpretation of the index too dependent on assumptions of how people develop their opinions. Rumours, prejudices or media attention have an impact on experts as well as on ordinary people. TI, being concerned about this matter, also states on their web page that the most important sources of information about corruption are media, friends and contacts. Of course, if several individuals share a perception of reality, the perception may reflect the truth, but this is far from obvious.There are several reasons why a gap between perceptions and the actual level of corruption is to be expected. I will first discuss some problems due to ambiguities about definitions, and than go on to some systematic biases. People's perception of more or less of something is instinctively based on comparison. An estimation of the level of corruption, as an inexperienced quantification, may be based on comparison with the situation in a neighbouring country, the situation in countries where corruption is more or less frequent, what the situation ought to be, or their personal high ethical values. The problem of corruption in Italy may seem negligible compared to the situation in Bolivia.Compared to Sweden, however, Italy faces a big challenge. While corruption must be expected to vary between state institutions, economic sectors and professions, we cannot expect respondents to describe the average level of corruption within the country in question. The CPI should accordingly not be applied as an indicator of this average. The respondents' perceptions will also differ with their different perspectives, their background, wealth and experience. And, ironically, one of the more severe challenges to the objectivity of the CPI is probably its own fame. Many of the respondents, the experts in particular, "know" the level of corruption from the index published the previous year, and the most recent CPI will automatically be correlated with the previous ones.The World Bank and Transparency International both make the assumption that the stochastic errors across the sub-indicators are independent. Given the respondents' way of developing their perceptions of the level of corruption, however, such dependence is likely to occur, as the different underlying surveys seldom ask for each individual respondent's own experience, but rather their general impression of the problem. One specific bias that has got some attention recently is a "poor is bad" effect: that poor countries are perceived to be corrupt simply because they are poor while rich countries come out as clean because they are rich. Kaufmann et al. (2005) analyze this bias for the quality of governance, and conclude that the variance in the estimated quality of governance due to the measurement error must be implausibly strong for this effect to be significant. Their conclusion relies to a large extent on the above-mentioned assumption, that measurement error is uncorrelated across the different sources of data. Whether this bias is significant for the estimation of corruption levels is unclear. Weber (2005), who applies TI's Global Corruption Barometer to distinguish between respondents' perceptions and reported experiences, finds more evidence for this type of bias among the subjective variables.° Implications of publicityWe know that the unreliability of the CPI as an indicator for actual extents of corruption implies that countries are perceived as less or more corrupt than they actually are. TI's openness about the estimation problems increases the organization's credibility. One problem, though, is that the background documents and warnings about how to read the index are not, apparently, read by the public. Incorrect interpretation in the press is the rule rather than the exception, and, based on the CPI, countries are referred to as "the third most corrupt country in the world" and so on. The fallacy in this interpretation of the CPI, as true information about the extent of corruption, is described in the discussions above. In addition, the CPI does not include all countries, i.e. corruption can be even more frequent in the countries not included in the CPI.The broad media attention paid to the CPI is often considered a value as it may improve the public's awareness of problems related to corruption. This is a value that clearly depends on perspective.Incorrect interpretation may have damaging implications, and developing countries are the most vulnerable to this problem. A poor ranking is undeniably a message to the world about flourishing corruption, fraud and bribes, about low ethical values, about greed, and about lousy politicians. The scepticism that develops towards the country and its inhabitants, the honest as well as the dishonest, may encourage anti-corruption campaigns. Whether anything is achieved in the form of welfare improvements is difficult to tell if this achievement balances for the local economic consequences, in the form of possible lost private investment and aid, for instance.It is also difficult to gauge the local aggregated response to a signal of widespread corruption. Everybody will denounce this kind of practice in public, of course, but there will also be those who see new opportunities as it is apparently easy to obtain benefits with the help of corruption. Foreign firms may happen to worsen the local market culture by offering bribes or gifts above the "usual level". In this way, the publishing of a poor corruption rating can contribute to higher levels of corruption in countries where the actual extent of corruption is lower than indicated by the CPI.This self-fulfilling prophecy problem is general and also present when information about the extent of other forms of undesired activities in a society is published, such as tax evasion, the breaking of speed limits, smuggling, and so on. Information that a specific offence is common has different effects on individuals. We still wish to be informed, but it is important to consider and limit possible undesired consequences.The publicity around the CPI has indeed raised attention to the problem of corruption and thus probably had an impact on corruption control in a broader sense. It is, though, a challenge to single out the different mechanisms and determine their impact. During the years of the CPI we have seen far more international cooperation on this issue, significant judicial improvements and the removal of tax deductibility for cross-border bribery. Even so, the problems that prompted these efforts appear to be present at least to the same extent as one decade ago. Kaufmann et al. (2005) find no reason to assume that corruption is on the decrease worldwide. The effect of anti-corruption efforts may still be positive. It takes some years to have a bearing on attitudes and choices, and we do not know what the situation would have been if these efforts had not been made.ReferencesAckerman, B. and I. Ayres (2002) Voting with dollars: A new paradigm for campaign finance, Yale University Press.Alberto A. and B. Weder (2002) "Do Corrupt Governments Receive Less Foreign Aid?," American Economic Review, 92(4): 1126-1137.Andvig, J. (2004) "Alternative perspectives", A comment on corruption and governance in B.Lomborg (ed.) 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