The editor in chief of India Today, Mr Aroon Purie, provides us with an excellent example of illogic that would delight anyone with a keen sense of the absurd. Here’s what he writes at the start of his editorial of Aug 27th: (more…)

This is very disturbing news that was brought to my attention on a mailing list I subscribe to. (more…)

This guest post may be of some interest to Indian students who want to study in the US. The usual disclaimers apply: your mileage may vary, some assembly required, batteries not included, contents may have settled during shipment, void where prohibited by law, not suitable for children under 5, may cause dizziness shortness of breath or nausea, vehicles will be towed at owner’s expense, etc. This exhausts our inventory of guest posts for the decade. Enjoy

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Guest posts are not common on my blog but once in a long while I agree to post one. (There’s one more in the pipeline.) This one comes with the caveat that I don’t understand what’s happening in the Maoist infected areas and why; therefore don’t have any basis for endorsing the post. It’s your call.
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The brutal murder of two boys in Sialkot is actually not the fault of the killers and has nothing to do with Muslims, least of all Islam. The fault, dear momin, lies with the kaffirs. The Hindus are at fault. Confused?
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If you show up the people in government in a way that threatens their very existence in government, then you can be assured that those people in government will waste no time in fixing you real good. Hari Prasad and his colleagues showed that electronic voting machines are not tamper-proof. This should come as no surprise. Nothing in the universe is tamper-proof (including the universe according to those who insist that their On True God™ frequently fixes the universe to suit their moods.) So what’s all the fuss about?
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Christopher Hitchens once wrote “I think human civilisation only begins when people separate religion from the state. Policing that frontier, making sure of it, is a huge thing, culturally and politically. You realise that any attempt to cross it is poisonous – in the sense of lethal.” I am reminded of that while reading yet another account of human savagery in a land which was based on a lethal religious dogma. But be warned that this is rated R for violence. If you don’t have a strong stomach, skip the text and just go to the embedded videos.
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A piece in today’s Wall Street Journal, “America’s Insurgent Pollster: Understanding the tea party is essential to predicting what the country’s political scene will look like,” prompted thought on some differences between the US and India in the context of the oft repeated fact that both are democracies. The article is of interest to me since I want to know how governance in India can be improved. So here’s what I take away from the article, and one other matter.
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India suffers severely from PCD — personality cult disorder. I mentioned that in a post soon after moving to Mumbai from Berkeley in 2003. I believe that the disease under the Italian Sonia Gandhi has intensified. Here are my thoughts from way back when.
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A sense of optimism is an absolutely essential necessity for any future success. That’s true not just at the individual level; collective optimism is as indispensable for national success. However, misplaced optimism grounded on delusions of grandeur can ensure failure through misalignment of priorities and mis-allocation of limited resources. So it is not out of plain crotchety contrariness but rather out of welfare concerns that one must take a dispassionate look at reality to base one’s expectations on, and to chart out a course of action. The balance sheet must include an accurate account of current assets and liabilities — not just future expected earnings grabbed out of the thin air of wishful thinking. I find that balance missing in many of the reports that are generally published by the main stream media and which land in my inbox enthusiastically forwarded by the “mera bharat mahan” brigade.
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In The Pioneer of Aug 10th, A Surya Prakash asks “Where is the Prime Minister?” There’s nothing astonishing in Prakash’s litany of Mr Manmohan Singh’s mis-governance. No one even remotely interested in what’s going on in India can be unaware of the on-going disasters under Mr Singh’s watch. But Mr Singh is not responsible for this pathetic state of affairs.
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Kerala’s descend into radical Islam is eloquently described by Kanchan Gupta in Sunday’s Pioneer article, “Kerala’s slide into radical Islamism.” Here are a few excerpts:
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The Aug 6th edition of the online Wall Street Journal has an article, Asian Entrepreneurs Are Bullish on the Future (behind a subscription wall) which reports on a Legatum Institute study comparing the entrepreneurs in India and China. What it says about India should not come as a surprise to anyone who studies India. The article concludes with this.
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Twitter is not exactly evil but does have a passing resemblance to it. Its saving grace is that you get to know what’s been happening even if, like me, you don’t read daily newspapers or watch news shows.
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It is understandable that all human institutions have their flaws being as they are ultimately the creations of fallible creatures such as ourselves. The ideas that institutions are based upon in their ideal conception may be flawless but their implementation in the real world — what I characterize as a “second best”[1] world — cannot be perfect. The institution of democracy as actually implemented anywhere has imperfections, and in some cases where the necessary preconditions for its implementation are not met, it has serious implications.
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In the Google Age, it is hard not to take the easy way out and just google the answer to many a question which one could have otherwise enjoyed solving and learn a lot from the exercise. I hope that some gave at least a few brain cycles to figure out the puzzle mentioned in the post “The Theater of the Absurd: The War Log edition.” Here’s the follow up to that post.
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Sometimes I wonder, in the context of global Islamic terrorism, whether Pakistan, the US, and the UK are players in a farce or in a tragedy. Of course the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is the protagonist, whether it be a farce or a tragedy. Also it is amply clear that the US and UK are comfortable funding Islamic terrorism indirectly by financially and militarily supporting Pakistan. Their supporting role makes me conclude that the play is actually a farce, even though for the victims of the resulting Islamic terrorism (often idol-worshiping infidels of India) it is definitely a tragedy.
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Generally speaking, Indian democracy consistently fails to elect good political leaders at all levels of government. One of the many reasons for this could be that a certain segment of the voting population has been rendered powerless to affect the outcome of elections: it is the educated, middle and upper class, largely urban segment of the population. The illiterate and the poor constitute very large and powerful vote banks which are pandered to by unscrupulous political parties.
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