Atanu Dey on India’s Development

From pillar to post
Michael Palin, of the Monty Python parrot skit fame (remember “he’s probably pining for the fjords”?), went on another of his global tours in 1991, which was broadcast as the BBC travel documentary from Pole to Pole in 1992. Heading south from the North pole (well, whichever way you go from the […]

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The Acorn says that “Italy should mind its own business.” It appears that the Italian foreign minister intends to lodge a protest with the Indian ambassador to Italy about the recent violence in Orissa — “to demand ‘incisive action’ to prevent further attacks against Christians that have left 11 people dead in India so far.” […]

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One can’t seem to get away from the devastating effects of faith – especially monotheistic religious faith – around the world.
Blind faith can justify anything. If a man believes in a different god, or even if he uses a different ritual for worshiping the same god, blind faith can decree that he should die–on […]

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Newly educated and semi-educated classes - social or intellectual - seek positions in government bureaucracies or social advocacy rather than in industry and commerce where competence is inarguably measured at the end of every business quarter. The growth of bureaucracies needed to absorb these swaggering imbeciles is precisely opposed to society’s growth and development both […]

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“All people dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind, wake in the morning to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people, for they dream their dreams with open eyes, and make them come true.” - T.E. Lawrence

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Swami Laxmananand Saraswati, an 80-year old Hindu priest, and five others were murdered by what is suspected a Christian mob recently in Orrisa. The news is that “police have arrested Pradesh Kumar Das, an employee of the World Vision, a Christian Charity, from Khadagpur while escaping from the district at Buguda. In another drive, two […]

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On March 8th, 2008, Richard Dawkins spoke at the Wheeler Auditorium on the UC Berkeley campus during his US book tour for his book “The God Delusion.” I am an absolute admirer of Prof Dawkins.
You could see the google video of Richard in Berkeley (56 mins) or you could see it in six parts […]

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An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal (Aug 13th) by Charles Murray, “For Most People, College is a Waste of Time” has many points that I agree with. (Hat tip: R S Malapati.)
For a while I have been convinced that it is better to separate teaching from testing and evaluation. See this post “De-linking […]

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Pro-industrial policies promote industry, pro-health policy promote health, pro-education policies promote education. So it is natural that India’s pro-poor policies — and let’s be very clear that every single one of India’s economic policies have been pro-poor — work and promote poverty and the number of poor keeps on going up. The absolute number keeps […]

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A new world
That the world has changed radically in just this generation is nowhere more evident than in matters that have something to do with information and communications technology. The evidence is all around us — including this fact that I am writing this on a laptop somewhere in India and anyone with a connected […]

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Try: http://webwarper.net/webwarper.exe Example of viewing: http://webwarper.net/ww/www.deeshaa.org/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=1320 ]

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It’s heart-breaking but what is one to do. UC Berkeley, in a ranking of world universities conducted by a Chinese university published the ranked list of top 500 universities, doesn’t get the gold. (Thanks Ashish Asgekar for the link.)
UC Berkeley, my alma mater, I regret to say shows up behind Harvard, and — […]

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Sunday was a day of travel for me. It took me 14 hours to get from Pune to Hyderabad, door to door. I had a 3 PM flight to Hyderabad out of Mumbai. Even though I left home at 8 AM, I could not reach Mumbai airport in time. The Lonvala hills had received a […]

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Thanks to the greatest invention of humankind, I came across the work of one grandpa through his blog “The Zen of Zero,” a couple of months ago. Who is he?

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An ordinary Joe at the gas station (note the car license plate at the start of the video.)

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A few days ago the Supreme Court of India admitted a petition challenging the subsidy for haj. (Link). The Rs 280 crore (~ US$ 60 million) a year subsidy for Muslims to visit Saudi Arabia, the petitioners claim, is not just unconstitutional but discriminatory.

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There can be no doubt that Australia is looming larger and larger on the Indian horizon. Speaking personally, thanks to my participation with the LAFIA2008 — Leading Australia’s Future in Asia-Pacific — delegation in July, I have gained an increased appreciation of the issues that will draw Australia and India into a deeper strategic and […]

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A modern digital computer is a general purpose machine, as opposed to say a toilet flush which is a special purpose machine. General purpose machines can be programmed to do an infinitely wide array of tasks. Humans are the ultimate general purpose machines.
Humans can be programmed to do astonishing feats of technological and scientific […]

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This is an open thread. Say what you will. In case you need a login to comment, email me atanudey at gmail and I will add your selected user name.

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I spent the last evening in the American Center near Churchgate, Mumbai, at a presentation on the launch of the “one laptop per child” — OLPC — in India. The event was hosted by a bunch of institutions: Asia Society, Digital Bridge Foundation (created by the Reliance ADA Group), MIT Alumni Association of India, and […]

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