Expressing his frustration, Rajan Parrikar wrote saying that Indians appear to be experts in losing. . .
…on every front. For three days as the Mumbai terrorist drama unfolded on American TV screens, there was not a SINGLE official Indian representative offering the Indian perspective. The Pakistani ambassador, on the other hand, went on several channels proclaiming Pakistan’s innocence and telling Americans how his nation was an innocent victim instead!
Then there was Ms Zain Verjee, the CNN International anchor and a muslim, who did not let a single opportunity …

The terrorist attacks in Mumbai may mark an inflection point in the war against India by Islamic forces. Over centuries of terror — and tens of millions of innocent victims — India has been reduced to dhimmi status. Whether or not India has been finally pushed to wall is the question. Will the collective grow a spine or will it continue to just total up the lives lost while meekingly submitting to Islam’s avowed goal of claiming India as dar ul Islam? Is there some hope that India will finally …

{Follow up to part 1 and part 2.}
I think that anyone who is not horrified at the terrible state of Indian education is not paying attention to what’s going on in India. One person whom I met recently clearly gets it. Manish Sabharwal was one of the speakers that impressed me at the TiE-ISB Connect ‘08 a couple of weeks ago at the ISB in Hyderabad. He started TeamLease in 2002, India’s leading staffing company.
TeamLease Services is India’s leading staffing company and provides a range of Temporary and Permanent …

In the jungle, the the mighty jungle the lion sleeps tonight . . . no not that lion (lyrics) but this lion.
Contrast the Prime Minister’s callous indifference [to the alleged torture of the sadhvi] with the sleepless nights he spent when the Australian Police were interrogating Dr Mohammed Haneef for his links with the Glasgow bombers.
Here is an item that handily qualifies for the “Idiotic Statements of the Year Award”: Indira Gandhi’s vision saved us from current financial crisis: Sonia Gandhi
Prudence implies ensuring an economic system that imposes clear, fair …

For me, visiting northern California is like returning home. I arrived here on Saturday evening and feel like I never left this place. This journey to the San Francisco bay area was one of the nicest that I have ever had, thanks to the excellent Jet Airways flight from Mumbai to SFO via Shanghai. That’s a first for me — traveling to the US via China.

Do you know the way to San Jose?
California dreaming
Hotel California
I left my heart in San Francisco
Any more?

{Followup to part 1.}
Nov 6th, the first day of TiE-ISB Connect 2008 had a packed schedule. The final panel, “Taking India Forward”, was the most memorable for me.

Nicholas Kristof in an op-ed in the New York Times asks:
Quick, what’s the source of America’s greatness?
Is it a tradition of market-friendly capitalism? The diligence of its people? The cornucopia of natural resources? Great presidents?
No, a fair amount of evidence suggests that the crucial factor is our school system — which, for most of our history, was the best in the world but has foundered over the last few decades.
As I wrote in 2001, “The most devastating impact of our dismal educational system is that we are condemning …

Pranab Bardhan on why any Indian government’s claim that it supports reforms is not credible:
. . . it is anomalous to expect reform to be carried out by an administrative setup that for many years has functioned as an inert heavy-handed, corrupt, over-centralized, and uncoordinated monolith. Economic reform is about competition and incentives, and a governmental machinery that does not itself allow them in its own internal organization is an unconvincing proponent or carrier of that message.

One of the persistent themes of this blog is the dismal failure of the education system. There is a direct relationship between the excellence of the educational system — human skills — and the broad performance of the economy. So even without knowing much about an economy, if you find the economy in dire straits, you can as a reasonable hypothesis maintain that the educational system may be dysfunctional.

These days power availability has deteriorated significantly in Pune. Where I live, power is not available for about seven hours every day, including Sundays. The peak power shortage robs people of an essential resource during the most productive part of the day. If this is the situation in a major metro city like Pune, it is easy to imagine how hard life must be in most of India, especially for the 800 million who have to subsist on less than $2 a day, most of whom live in rural India. …

Sandeep seriously considers why the Pope gets Gandhi’s message wrong:
Benedict’s interpretation of Gandhi’s message of non-violence is false. Gandhi’s non-violence doesn’t stand for a cowardly acceptance of injustice and unprovoked violence. Gandhi viewed proselytisation as cultural invasion and a hindrance to peace.
Andrew Sullivan writing for The Atlantic on why he blogs.
From the first few days of using the form, I was hooked. The simple experience of being able to directly broadcast my own words to readers was an exhilarating literary liberation. Unlike the current generation of writers, who …

Are we there yet? Not really. The airlines and travel industry have miles to go before arriving at systems that are not obviously deficient. The e-ticket I printed out last evening listed my Mumbai-Hyderabad flight 163 on Kingfisher airlines as departing at 10:40 AM today. At the check-in counter at 10 AM, I was told that the flight was closed. Why? Because the flight departs at 10:10 AM.

As I will be talking about energy on panel on energy at the ISB on Friday, I looked into the archives to see what my position on energy is. It would save me time because otherwise I will have to reason from the basics and reach my conclusions. I hardly ever remember the conclusions — I just know the basics and then have to derive the results in a series of logical steps, so to speak. It is good to have the blog archives to help avoid having to derive …

So here begins a bit of travel. I will be in Mumbai tomorrow and in Hyderabad at the TiE-ISB Wednesday through Friday. Saturday 8th I will be back in good old Pune but only for a short while. Back to Mumbai on Friday the 14th of Nov and go to the US on 15th of Nov.
I expect to be in back home in the SF Bay area on the 15th itself. A couple of weeks there. Which means that I will be celebrating Thanksgiving (Nov 27th) with friends in …

I will be at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad for the TiE-ISB Connect 2008.
India’s most exciting annual networking event for entrepreneurs and investors, the TiE-ISB Connect ‘08 will be held on November 5th, 6th and 7th, 2008 at the ISB campus in Hyderabad. Organized by the TiE, Hyderabad Chapter and the Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (WCED), ISB, TiE-ISB Connect enables interaction of aspiring entrepreneurs, early-stage ventures, and growth-stage ventures with potential investors, successful entrepreneurs and mentors.
I will be a panelist on the session “Next 800 Million: …