There is a very famous woman in India who is a Roman Catholic. Roman Catholics take as their undisputed leader the Bishop of Rome, aka the Pope, or Papa. You’d have thought that in this day and age, people would have given up on medieval superstitions. Most have but some — even some very powerful people — are superstitious. How superstitious? (more…)
When someone reads out an email address and reads “@” as “at the rate of.” That reveals a marked inability to deal with symbols. (more…)
Our journeys have a destination. But they have a starting place also. (more…)
The Chinese leadership knows how to think big — which is more than what one can say about the Indian leadership, which one must remember has been mainly from the Congress party led by the Nehru-Gandhi Dynasty. One case in point is how big the Chinese leaders think about railways. (more…)
I am an internet Hindu. The wannabe part refers to the card-carrying bit. What we Internet Hindus(tm) chiefly need are genuine laminated identity cards. Commies and pseudo-secularists no doubt have their official authorized genuine cards. So I too want one. I am sure that among the hordes of Internet Hindus(tm), there must be some who are good at creative graphic design. You may ask, “How do you know there are hordes of Internet Hindus(tm)?” Here’s how. (more…)
I have often wondered where the pseudo-seculars of the Indian main stream media — the Burkhas, Sataricas, Amendhatis — got their education. One conjecture I have is that they got bussed to school — on the Samjhauta Bus — to Pakistan’s Punjab province. (more…)
Richard Feynman (1908 – 1988) is one of my great heroes. Here’s a short video of his. (more…)
In a 11 March rediff article titled “Mediocrity has become the norm“, the transcript of an interview of Arun Shourie makes interesting reading. I especially like his views on how Indian education has to change.
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I don’t know what zone-h.org is. Someone pointed me to the site saying that he could not access it from India and believes that the government of India has banned it. He said that he has “heard (from a reliable source) a rumour that the Government of India has a fairly regular habit of issuing fiats to ISPs to block various websites that it feels are objectionable for some reason.”
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* * * Ganesh -- the One with a Mighty Body * * *
My friend Rajan Parrikar’s photo feature on Ganesh — the One with the Broken Tusk, the One with the Huge Body, the One with the Brilliance of a Million suns. (more…)
As I am wont to do, I pick up newspapers while travelling. It is not good for my mental health but what can I do — sometimes newspapers hold the sort of fascination for me that rubberneckers have for gruesome road accidents. An item in yesterday’s Times of India (ok, ok, bad move I know) caught my eye: “Just a bottle of water can power your home.” (more…)
Last year in February, Rajesh Jain and I had written a note on “Ideas for India.” Following Rajesh’s example, I am reposting the note here, for the record. (more…)
Malavika Patil asked in a comment to the post “My Position on MF Husain”: “Does obscenity/pornography deserve free speech rights?” As a free speech fundamentalists, I can only answer, “Yes, yes, and yes!” I am enough of a realist to believe that no individual or group is so wise as to be a judge of what speech deserves the protection of law and what doesn’t. The only way forward is to allow all speech, regardless of how someone feels about it. (more…)
I am off to Delhi and will be on the road much of the time. Often comments are held in moderation — so if your comment does not show up immediately, please be patient. I will have internet access but not all the time.
Bye for now.
This should not require any clarification but one has little choice but to live in the world as it is, not in an imaginary world where people are reasonable. One anonymous person posted a pretty needless question on my post “The Land of Retards and Hypocrites.” He, or she, wrote, “Are you unhappy about Husain’s depictions? Are you okay (or sort of okay) with cases slapped on him?” (more…)
What do Pat Robertson, Priyanka Chopra, Jerry Falwell and Mahatma Gandhi have in common? If you thought that they were all religious nutcases, you are wrong. Priyanka Chopra’s nuttiness doesn’t belong to the religious variety. So think again. Give up? OK, they all blame people for natural disasters. (more…)
Among economists who can explain economics to anyone even remotely interested in the subject, Prof Kaushik Basu is in a league of his own. Many years ago as a graduate student at Berkeley, I had had the privilege of hosting him for dinner together with Profs deJanvry and Sadoulet. I occasionally re-read his columns to learn how to write. Here I present an extended excerpt from a 1997 India Today column of his. {Click on image for source.} (more…)
I will be in Delhi next week Monday and Tuesday (8th & 9th of March.) If anyone wants to meet up, it would be excellent. Please email me atanudey at gmail. (This is a sticky post and will be unstuck in a few days.)
The power of ideas has been a constant underlying theme of this blog. All transformations, good and bad alike, are fueled by adoption of ideas by people. Allow me to quote from a book that I am currently reading. (more…)
