Karuthu Vellam opinion-mapping instrument

This dossier evidences Karuthu Vellam (கருத்து வெள்ளம் · 'the flow of opinion'), an opinion-mapping instrument designed by TLTE for the Tamil diaspora. It serves as a rigorously documented system for discerning opinion clusters on predefined statements without aggregating individual votes or claiming to measure overall consensus. ### Methodology and Privacy Karuthu Vellam's core methodology is a re-implementation of the Pol.is opinion-mapping pipeline, documented in *Recerca* (2021) [A] and further clarified by the `red-dwarf` GitHub project [A]. The system uses principal component analysis (PCA) and k-means clustering to project participant opinions into a 2D space, revealing latent opinion structures. Critical to its design are robust privacy safeguards: cookie-pseudonymity, Laplace-noised live counters, k-anonymity (suppressing cohort cells below N=25), and a continual-release differential privacy framework as articulated in *STOC '10* [A] and *ACM CCS 2014* [A]. The entire TypeScript implementation is auditable and versioned per reading, with a `math_version` stamp. ### Purpose and Refusals Karuthu Vellam explicitly defines what it is *not*: it is not a referendum, election, mandate, census, or a measure of agreement with TLTE [A]. It produces an era-stamped reading of opinion clusters, not a simple tally of support for specific statements. This nuanced approach ensures that the instrument provides an evidence-based, methodologically defensible insight into diaspora perspectives, while proactively rejecting claims of statistical representativeness or electoral authority [A]. ### Transparency and Future Development All aspects of Karuthu Vellam, including its methodology, privacy mechanisms, and the 'stream doctrine' governing its public broadcast, are transparently documented as Tier-A citations [A]. Future developments, such as opening statement submission to members, are gated behind eight public 'graduation gates' that must close first [A]. This structured approach underscores TLTE's commitment to verifiable and accountable operations, making the instrument a crucial component for understanding collective diaspora sentiment within strict ethical and methodological bounds.

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