Atanu Dey on India’s Development

And just in time for April Fool’s Day. I wonder what the newspapers around the world will unleash on the unsuspecting on April 1st. The greatest April fool’s joke is undoubtedly the Swiss spaghetti harvest of 1957. The BBC explained that the harvest was particularly bountiful not only because of the mild weather but also […]

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. . . that the chief typewriter monkey has called in sick the last couple of days. Which also means that there will be no posts for the next few days. However, the management recommends the archives for your reading pleasure.

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This is a personal post. Not exactly what I had for breakfast type of post but close.
I clearly remember the moment when a light went off in my head. Brian Wright was teaching and we were talking about EV and CV. Equivalent variation and compensating variation, and the related concepts of “willingness to pay” and […]

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This is a follow up to the post on Indian spending on education abroad.
The actual spending may not be $13 billion annually but the argument does not change even if the figure was much lower. What matters is that it is indicative of a problem and we should be concerned about it. It should […]

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That’s what a report in the Hindustan Times claims: US $13 billion each year. Figures such as these are unbelievable but I suppose someone must have done the numbers. In any case, I had estimated that number to be around $10 billion a few years ago.
Let’s pause for a moment and figure. $13 billion […]

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Sir Arthur C Clarke 1917–2008 departed the planet yesterday for his rendezvous with Rama in geosynchronous orbit.

Like millions of others of my generation, I grew up reading science fiction. I liked Arthur C Clarke the best. Based on his story “The Sentinel,” the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey,” is one of my all-time favorite […]

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I confess that if there is one human whom I come close to worshiping, it is Albert Einstein.

[Picture source.]
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity… Never lose a holy curiosity.”

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One of my pet peeves is the idiotic mixing of English and Hindi words in advertising copy which is cropping up everywhere on billboards and in print. Perhaps it is considered cool. But it is cool in only the way that displaying abysmal stupidity and illiteracy is cool–which is to say it isn’t. What it […]

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Charles Babbage (1791–1871), the English mathematician was the father of the idea of a programmable computer. Babbage built a mechanical computer called “the difference engine.” He once corresponded with Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Sir,
In your otherwise beautiful poem “The Vision of Sin”, there is a verse which reads,
[…]

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The headline in the NY Times article simply says, “INDIA’S GREAT PROBLEM: Nobody Knows How to Educate Her 300,000,000 People.” It begins
For many years past, those who have known India best have recognized that one of her greatest, if not her greatest, problem was that of education.

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Caesar ignored the soothsayer’s warning to “beware the ides of March” and on March 15th in 44 BCE was assassinated. Cassius was among the attackers. Caesar knew that there was something suspicious about Cassius. He had remarked to Antony:
Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o’ nights:
Yond Cassius […]

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I used to have a blog at UC Berkeley. It was titled “Life is a Random Draw.” I wrote it for a couple of years and decided to shut it down as it was attracting too much spam. I will re-publish some of the posts from the Berkeley blog depending on relevance. Here’s one from […]

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This is a follow up to the post “Suicide! Suicide!”
Of shoes and ships . . .

Let me tell you a story. This happened many years ago on a train journey. A couple of children were running around the compartment playing. The father of one of the kids, busy talking to a fellow traveler, would every […]

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To minimize spam, comments are closed after 21 days of posting. That’s a pity as sometimes people like to comment on archived posts. The occasional open thread should help in this regard.
I have been pondering where I want to go with this blog. One idea is to increase the range by posting all sorts […]

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A fatwa is a religious decree made by a mullah. A “patwa” is like a fatwa but made by Patil. A patwa, like a fatwa, is not based on reason or logic. But it is not just a matter of whim, a fancy, a just-like-that sort of thing. It is calculated to serve Patil’s and […]

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B Raman is the one to read to understand matters of security. His analysis is accurate and dispassionate. So do yourself a favor and read his recent paper (March 8th) at the South Asia Analysis Group site on “Aurangzebs of Today.” He delves into the history of how Aurangzeb is perceived in Pakistan and why.

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I have it on good authority that Satyameva Jayate is India’s national motto. The English translation of the Sanskrit is “Truth Alone Prevails.” Is that claim itself true? Can it really prevail in a land where some people are afraid to speak what they perceive to be the truth because some others confront that expression […]

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This post summarizes some of my thoughts on why the Indian educational sector must be liberalized.

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Pardon me if I sound a bit like that woman from the French resistance in the side-splittingly funny British comedy series “‘alo, ‘alo” when she enters through the windows at the back of the tavern and says, “Listen to me very carefully. I am going to say this only once.” She of course prefaces all […]

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