“Everything reminds Milton of the money supply. Well, everything reminds me of sex, but I keep it out of the paper,” wrote Nobel prize-winning economist Robert Solow in 1966 about Milton Friedman, another Nobel laureate economist, the father of monetarism.
Everything reminds me of India’s failed education system — and by extension — the stupidity of the government policymakers, bureaucrats and politicians included. Unlike Bob Solow, however, I cannot keep it out of my posts.

You’ve got to hand it to the Americans — they think big. Thinking big is the first step to doing big things. There too they are no slouches. Both in terms of good and bad, they do think and do big things. The modern world you and I inhabit (and it is important to remember that not everybody lives in the modern world — a couple of billion of our contemporaries live in a world that is decidedly primitive) has been shaped by Americans to an extent that is hard …

This morning around 12:40 AM, I am sure there was an earthquake around Pune — the building shook for about 10 seconds. Having lived for decades in the San Francisco Bay area, on and around dozens of faults (San Andreas, Hayward, etc) and having been through dozens of quakes, including one of the biggest (the Loma Prieta in 1989), a little shake like that does not evoke much of a reaction. It is all ho-hum stuff.
I could find no reference to any earthquake in the news on the web. …

I admire Penn and Teller. They are sensible, forthright, articulate, and most of all very entertaining. So here’s an episode of their “Bullshit” series from 2003. It is about the hysterical reactions of some to the matter of global warming and climate change.

Penn and Teller – Bullshit! – Environmental Hysteria

The following is an article by me that appeared in ISB’s in-house magazine insight June 2008 issue.
There is a definite positive relationship between the size of the habitation and the productivity of the population.”
The full article is below.

The news of death and destruction from terrorism has become somewhat of a routine. The politicians make inane statements about how all this is most lamentable and aside from telling people to “maintain peace and quiet” they appear to go about their business as usual. The reactions from various quarters are predictable from past experience. One reaction which fills me with revulsion and disgust is the type that emanates from idiot pseudo-secularist commies. One such ended up in my mailbox just minutes ago. One Jaya Kamlani contributed this to a …

The Hindu reports that an official of the “Indian Union Muslim League has asked the media and public to not to brand the perpetrators of the deed as Muslims.”
“I appeal to the media and the public not to brand the perpetrators of the Bangalore blasts as Muslims,” State president of IUML K M Khader Mohideen told reporters here on Saturday night.
“These kind of people are neither Muslims, Hindus or Christians. The Centre and the state government should take steps to nab them quickly,” he said.
That’s an example …

I really don’t have much to add to what insanity I had reported on the post titled “Crackergate“. This follow up highlights a comment made by one “/ehj2″ in a Cosmic Variance thread (also titled “Crackergate.”) Every once in a while I come across something that I wish I had written. This comment is one of those. Here it is, for the record.

A BBC report on the recent Ahmedabad bombs concludes with:
Mr Modi has been accused of failing to protect Muslims in the riots in Gujarat during 2002 in which at least 1,000 people died, including many in Ahmedabad. The violence erupted when a fire broke out on a train carrying Hindu pilgrims, killing at least 59 people.
I suppose BBC had reported the American attack on Afghanistan in 2001 with something like:
The US invaded Afghanistan after the twin towers of the World Trade Center in NY collapsed after fire broke out killing …

I don’t think that I have ever had a more hassle-free flight ever than the one that I had last night. I left home around 9:45 after dinner. It was drizzling a bit. (Thanks, Raj, for the ride.) At 10:15 I was at the Spicejet counter and got a printout of the e-ticket. Was the flight on time, I asked. “It is before time,” I was told. By 10:25, I had a boarding pass and had gone through security. At 10:30, I was on board the flight. I have never …

The events of the last few days which ended with the UPA government winning a vote of confidence yesterday in the Indian parliament demonstrate something quite dramatically. Rajinder Puri’s editorial in today’s Free Press Journal goes a little bit into the matter but not far enough, in my opinion.

This is a wordle cloud of the post “National Corruption Guarantee Scheme–Revisited.”

The bad news is that it is easy enough to get a free blog (wordpress, blogger, blogspot, etc) and it is easy enough to cut and paste stuff to the blog. The good news is that if inexpertly done, plagiarism is easily noticed.
Here’s a case in point. This post on DKSHAMLI’S BLOG (July 5th, 2008) is an exact copy of my post titled “Unfair and Unlovely” (April 20th, 2007). This is done without the slightest nod to the original. Nowhere on the dkshamli blog is there any indication that …

One has to defer to experts when it comes to matters that one does not know much about. I don’t know what the deal is with the nuclear agreement with the US is and over which the UPA government is possibly going to fail tomorrow.
In the mail today was a piece by a retired chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. It is reasonable to suppose that he knows what he is talking about. So here’s what he calls “Ten misconceptions about the nuclear deal” by P. K. Iyengar below …

Anyone familiar with the disastrous state of India should not be overly surprised to learn that the Indian parliament has an overwhelmingly greater percentage of criminals than the general population. How effectively a nation functions and how successful it is depends on its leaders who make public policy and thus critically determine the outcome. India’s failure to develop and achieve its potential is proof positive that its leadership is lacking.
Underdevelopment, poverty, and all other ills that plague India are an unavoidable consequence of poor public policies and choices.

Is this the much tom-tommed Indian democracy? The convicted 6 who may decide UPA’s fate:
Among those who hold the key to the survival or fall of the government on July 22 are six jailed MPs, some convicted on serious charges like murder, others accused of heinous crimes. Check out the men who both sides are seeking to woo to win that day.

Pappu Yadav alias Rajesh Ranjan
RJD, Purnea, Bihar
SENTENCED in Feb 2008 for life for murder of former CPM MLA Ajit Sarkar in 1998.

Suraj Bhan
LJSP, Balia, Bihar
SENTENCED To …

The world is going to hell in a handbasket. That’s what you’d think if you consider all the bad news coming at you from all quarters — inflation, the rising price of food and fuel, the commies taking their ball and going home (you wish), the possibility of a disappointing monsoons, sundry acts of terrorism, and so on. Comic relief is what one sorely needs to lighten the doom and gloom.
So here’s some news of the weird that fits the bill. It comes from the University of Central Florida. (You …

I have a piece in today’s livemint.com on India’s Energy Challenge. The money quote is this:
The advanced industrialized economies were lucky to have had their development fuelled by cheap fossil energy. Today’s developing economies have a much tougher challenge. It was a very short window of opportunity which opened just about 150 years ago and is likely to close in the next 40 years, by when the known reserves will be depleted at current levels of consumption.
All told, 200 years is a very brief interlude considering thousands of years of …

India is a country that’s renowned for its diversity – the country is a potpourri of different languages, religions, castes and cultures. While this variety makes the nation more interesting and intriguing, it’s kicking up a storm in the sphere of education. The country’s government-aided institutions all allow a certain quota of seats to be reserved for educationally and socially backward classes and for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

I have been busy in meetings in Delhi and could not find time to blog. Waiting at the New Delhi airport for an Indian flight to Chennai, which is delayed an hour. Will keep in touch later.