Street sexual harassment is something that women have to contend with in India. While generally true, I have heard that the degree of harassment varies from city to city. Delhi is especially bad but Kolkata is a much safer place for women. It appears that in Kolkata, people take an interest in what is going on around them, and if they notice a woman being assaulted, they actively discourage the behavior by beating the crap out of the person. It is part of the culture and everyone knows. It basically …

You only live twice,
Or so it seems.
One life for yourself,
And one for your dreams. . . .

This is a blog. Schizophrenic though it may be, but I am fundamentally against blogging. I believe that there is a humongous mountain of absolutely wonderfully written totally worthwhile news, views, and analysis out there, and most of it is available to you via the wonder that is the Internet and the WWW, and so there is absolutely no need for anyone to waste time reading blogs. Go read a book, instead.

” . . . the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly …

BBC reports that the US has done a U-turn and is not opposed to the Iran-India LNG pipeline through Pakistan. I suppose that the US has finally figured out that the pipeline would make India vulnerable to even more Pakistani blackmail and all in all, it would be a bonus for the US. Normally the US puts the screws on India by merely arming Pakistan to the teeth. This time the dumb Indians are obliging the US by voluntarily bending over for Pakistan with no help from the US.
The …

Officials in Massachusetts are debating whether to become the first U.S. state to ban hospitals from handing out free samples of infant formula, provided by formula companies, to new mothers. (Reuters Feb 22, 2006)

Formula for Milking the Digital Divide.

From Keith Hudson to “Daily Wisdom” subscribers:

“As I promised myself last week, I am pensioning-off Milsted’s Dictionary of Regrettable Quotations and have bought myself the Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations with a jester’s hat on the dustcover for Saturday’s random dip. The book is still so new and the binding so tight that the random page 121 (subject “Fashion”) threatens to snap shut like a mousetrap unless I place a Reebok trainer upon it to hold it open while I type from it. … ”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To: Keith Hudson

Keith,
Thanks for the daily …

The cartoon row has prompted a bunch of writers to issue a statement warning against Islamism, the new totalitarian threat, BBC reports. Three of the writers are from the Indian subcontinent; three are from Iran; three from France.
The full text of the statement follows.

Education as the Linch Pin

As you may have heard, George W Bush is in India briefly and will be in Pakistan as well. I am sure that there is much rejoicing going all around among the movers and shakers in India about how wonderful the visit by an American president is. Lavish dinners and a lot of hoopla can be distracting. Who cares who the person is. We are really interested in what is in it for us. (The “us” is not people of India at large but the movers and shakers.)

The Missing Middle
“Often in Indian you can find a very fancy Rs 12,000 a night hotel room, and you can find a flea-ridden Rs 700 a night hotel room. Why can’t you find a good clean comfortable Rs 2,000 a night room? What is with this missing middle?”
“Hey, same as in food. I can go and get high-priced medicore food at a fancy restaurant at a fancy hotel and get low-priced low-quality food at a hole in the wall. But it is hard to find a reasonably priced restaurant serving …

Most regular readers of this blog figure out soon enough that when it comes to the question of India’s ills and its causes, I refer to Jawaharlal Nehru. Like all roads eventually leading to Rome, all my explanations into what India is suffering from and why lead to Nehru, the Nabob of Cluelessness, at some point. I look around the country and marvel at how much damage has been caused by one single individual. It will take centuries to clean up and the cost in terms of lives lived in …

Why are we so materialistic?