Thank goodness that the wealth was concealed — until now. Now the government is eyeing the wealth. Actually, come to think of it, the UPA government does quite a good impression of an invading Islamic horde.

Alright, I should cease and desist from doing my usual rant.

I woke up to a rainy day. The hotel’s name sounds funny to me — The South Park. I will be in town till tomorrow afternoon and then go to Bangalore.

I will be at a bunch of public events in Bangalore on the 3rd, 4th and 5th of Nov. My friend Amit Malviya (@Malviyamit) is managing my Bangalore schedule.

On the 3rd, at the National Law School at 5:30 PM.

On the 4th at 10 AM, at the BMS College of Engineering. Later that day at 6 PM I will be in IISc. Details of that here.

On the 5th, at Bangalore University at 10.30am.

Then off to Chennai. I am looking forward to the Takshashila Shala on the 6th of Nov. Finally back to Mumbai on the 7th.

The rest of the time, I am in Mumbai.

I am off to the old motherland. I will be the guest of Lufthansa flight from SFO to Frankfurt on their Airbus 380, and then on to Mumbai (on a Boeing 747, I guess.) First time on A380 — I am looking forward to it. I will catch up after I land in Mumbai on Oct 13th Thursday at 1 AM. Take care.

Modern technology is amazing.

Last night after dinner at DC (just a stone’s throw away from the White House at the world famous Willard Intercontinental Hotel — I must mention), I hit the road. I took I-495/95 for the first bit, passing Baltimore, MD. Then crossed the Delware Memorial Bridge. .

The bridges provide an important regional connection for long-distance travelers. While not a part of Interstate 95, they connect two parts of the highway: the Delaware Turnpike (Interstate 95 in Delaware) on the south side with the New Jersey Turnpike (later Interstate 95 in New Jersey) on the north side. . .

The bridges are dedicated to those from both New Jersey and Delaware who died in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. On the Delaware side of the bridge is a War Memorial, visible from the northbound side lanes. The toll facility is operated by the Delaware River and Bay Authority.

Then I took the NJ Turnpike. Always remember a Simon & Garfunkel song “America”:

“Kathy, I’m lost,” I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They’ve all gone to look for America
All gone to look for America
All gone to look for America

I exited NJ Turnpike at exit 9 after about 80 miles on it. Road tolls drive me crazy. On the West coast, we don’t have them; only on bridges. But around here, you have to pay toll to use their roads. Injustice, I say. Highway robbery. There should be a law against this sort of highway robbery.

Anyway, c’est la vie. Keep tuned for further updates on where in the world I am. Have fun.

Light and Shadow at the Trona Pinnacles .(Click to see the whole lot.)

My friend Rajan Parrikar’s recent photo shoot in the Mojave Desert. He calls it Light and Shadow at the Trona Pinnacles.. “During a recent visit to Death Valley in California’s Mojave Desert, I overnighted in the desert town of Ridgecrest to shoot at the nearby Trona Pinnacles. This atmospheric locale has served as a setting for several well-known sci-fi movies and commercials. The basin with its Trona Pinnacles, the adjacent Searles Lake salt pan serviced by an unlikely railroad, and flanked by the Slate Range to the east and the Argus Mountains to the west, evokes an ambience that is at once enchanting, eerie, and alien.”

That brought to mind my visits to Death Valley. One winter night we had camped in the Valley. Whenever I hear the 10,000 Maniacs song “The Painted Desert,” the line “The stars were so many there, they seemed to overlap,” always reminds me of that still, moonless, cold night. Once I passed through the Mojave Desert on my way to the Grand Canyon in the summer. It was so hot that you can die within a couple of hours if you don’t have shelter.

I am hoping to go back there on my Great American Road Trip 2010. (A couple of spots still open for that one!)

“I wanted to be there by May at the latest time
isn’t that the plan we had or have you changed your mind?
I haven’t read a word from you since Pheonix or Tucson
April is over, will you tell me how long
before I can be there?”

The Initial Mystery that attends any journey is: how did the traveler reach his starting point in the first place?

Louise Bogan, Journey Around My Room

Talking of journeys, I am going on a road trip across the US starting June 15th from New York City. Three places left. See the Great American Road Trip 2010. Please do spread the word around to those you think may be interested. Thanks.

Happy Fourth of July!

On this day in 1776 the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress which announced that the 13 American colonies were no longer part of the British Empire. That was the culmination of the American Revolution.

The American Revolution refers to the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which the Thirteen Colonies of North America overthrew the governance of the Parliament of Great Britain, and then rejected the British monarchy itself to become the sovereign United States of America. In this period the colonies first rejected the authority of the Parliament to govern them without representation, and formed self-governing independent states. These states through the Second Continental Congress then joined together against the British to defend that self-governance in the armed conflict from 1775 to 1783 known as the American Revolutionary War (also called American War of Independence). This resulted in the individual states uniting to form one nation, breaking away from the British Empire in 1776 when the Congress issued the Declaration of Independence. While the states had already rejected the governance of Parliament, through the Declaration the new United States now rejected the legitimacy of the monarchy to demand allegiance. The war lasted for seven years, with effective American victory in October 1781, followed by formal British abandonment of any claims to the United States with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. [Wiki.]

* * * *
It’s been a while since I was in the US on July 4th — the last time was back in 2003. As I mentioned before, I am teaching a course on economic development at UC Berkeley over this summer. It is a wonderful break to teach a topic close one’s head at a place close to one’s heart.

So the rest of the post is personal — the what I had for breakfast type. Here’s what’s happening.

* * * *

Date: Thursday 25th June

The first week of class is always the busiest week for an instructor (as opposed to the last week of class which is the busiest for a student.) Class started this week and so I am really busy. I just can’t figure out where the time goes.

Today the weather in the Berkeley/Oakland area is totally different from yesterday’s. Yesterday when I came home (I live up in the Oakland hills, overlooking the San Francisco bay — see satellite map), the fog from the Golden Gate of the San Francisco Bay was rising up to the Bekeley/Oakland hills and engulfing the house. That leads to the strange effect of rain only under the trees — the trees were condensing the moisture. It was cold and windy. It reminded me of Mark Twain’s observation that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.

Today it was clear. Sunny but not too cold.

Drove to school and did my teaching. I teach Monday through Thursday. Office hours are 2 to 4 Tue and Wed at Evans 697. My office is next to Brad deLong’s. As good neighbors, we are going out for lunch on Wednesday next week after class.

Campus is about 6 miles (10 kms) from home. I cannot use a bicycle because of the steep climb on the way back. I will be driving to school — or when possible, my friend Courtenay will give me a ride. Rides are always welcome as parking is a major hassle around campus. I am not willing to pay for a parking permit in one of the UC parking lots. That means that I have to often park around a mile away from campus. But that is not so bad because walking up and down hills is good for the body.

* * * *

Here’s how Google cameras captured the address I live at:

View Larger Map

If you mouse over the picture, you can change the orientation and see the neighborhood. Actually, the drive up is over 2 miles of winding and steep climb up quite a narrow road. If I were living down in the flatlands of Berkeley, I would have used a bicycle to get to school. Going up 2 miles of steep climb with cars coming around blind corners is hard and dangerous.

* * * *

Date: Sunday 28th June

(Picture on the right: Cassie at 2 years of age.)

Everyone is home today. I live with my friend Courtenay, her husband Alexis, and Cassie — she’s just turned 4. Courtenay is presently laid-off and looking for a job. She does advertising media director type of work; Alexis works for Abbot Diagnostics.

Wow! It is hot! It was probably 95 degrees inside the house in the afternoon. No fans in the house. We had to go outside because at least in the shade under the trees it was manageable.

* * * *

The weather around here is really variable. One day it is sweltering hot — and the next day it is freezing cold. On Monday it cooled down. The fans that Courtenay had brought from her mom’s place on Sunday night aren’t needed.

Bob passed away on Sunday night after a year-long fight with cancer. He was 78. He was Courtenay’s step-father.

* * * *

Date: Wednesday 1st July

Courtenay said that she would take me to school today after dropping Cassie off at day care. It was one of those perfect days: perfect temperature in the 70s, clear blue skies. I was driving and Cassie in the backseat was being needy and cranky, as she often is. Courtenay was doing her best to calm her down. Let’s listen to a song, we all decided. Which one? How about “Should I stay or should I go”? Cassie likes that.

We put on that song. We were driving along San Pablo St in Berkeley. Traffic was light, it was 9 AM. The song ended and the next song on the CD began with the long familiar notes of the piano. It was Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge over troubled water.” For some reason it was magical. We all sang along.

(That song was recorded exactly 40 years ago. Amazing, isn’t it.)

We arrived at the day care and I said that I will wait in the car for Courtenay to go and drop off Cassie. I had a bit of reading to do before my class, anyway. But the song following S&G was “What a wonderful world.” I ended up listening to it a couple of times and did not bother with reading. Reading can wait. Louis Armstrong’s song in the here and now cannot.

(Here’s a video of Louis Armstrong singing that song. Wonderful expressions on his face.)

* * * *

Today I am in San Jose at Adrian’s.

Yesterday (Friday) was “4th of July” holiday. When the 4th falls on a Saturday as it does this year, the holiday is on the 3rd, and when it falls on a Sunday, the holiday is on the 5th.

I drove down yesterday afternoon from Oakland. Adrian was alone at home as the family is in Boston. He’s always doing something — building something, fixing cars, building houses — all that you’d expect guy who grew up in a farm to do. He’s also a crack packaging engineer. Works for semiconductor firms designing those little black packages that chips live inside of.

Prasad came over to Adrian’s place so that he could catch him before he left. Adrian took a red-eye to Boston, on his way to Ireland. His mom is not doing well and he’s taking Niamh and Christopher to see their grandma perhaps for the last time.

Prasad and I went out for dinner. Fast food at a restaurant on Santa Teresa in San Jose.

* * * *

I have some work to do today. As I am alone at home, I will have no distractions. It is 11 AM now and I have not even gotten out of bed. I have to grab something to eat before I pass out from hunger. I will do so as soon as I post this.

Talking of food, dinner tonight is at Prasad’s place. It will be fish.

OK, that’s it. I am out of here. Happy 4th of July once again.

I like the 777. In fact, I like all wide-bodied aircrafts, the favorite so far being the Boeing 747. I think my favorite will become the Airbus 380 once I travel on one.

These planes epitomize globalization. Take the Boeing 787 “Dreamliner”. Where’s it made?

Boeing manufactures the 787’s tail fin at its plant in Frederickson, Washington, the ailerons and flaps at Boeing Australia, and fairings at Boeing Canada Technology. . . the wings are manufactured by Japanese companies in Nagoya such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which also makes the central wing box. The horizontal stabilizers are manufactured by Alenia Aeronautica in Italy; and the fuselage sections by Global Aeronautica and Vought in Charleston, South Carolina (USA), Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Japan and Spirit AeroSystems, in Wichita, Kansas (USA). . .

The passenger doors are made by Latécoère (France), and the cargo doors, access doors, and crew escape door are made by Saab (Sweden). . . Japanese manufacturer Toray Industries and Boeing announced a production agreement involving $6 billion worth of carbon fiber. . . On February 6, 2008, TAL Manufacturing Solutions Limited, a subsidiary of the Tata Group (India) announced a deal to deliver floor beams for the 787 from their factory at Mihan, near Nagpur, India to assembly plants in Italy, Japan and the United States.

The manufacturing of commercial airplanes in the US reveals the patterns of current international trade. Most international trade occurs between advanced industrialized countries and much of that trade is in intermediate goods (as opposed to finished goods). Quite often the same category of finished goods are traded between two nations — cars are traded between Germany and the US — because it increases variety in consumption and lowers cost of production due to scale economies and specialization. Consumer goods account for only about a third of the US imports.

There is a new pattern emerging: the involvement of emerging economies in the production of intermediate goods. The 787 has bits that are made in Nagpur in India. This has implications for the development of infrastructure such as roads, ports and airports in India besides the development of human resources. Investments in these will increase the trade linkages between India and the advanced industrialized economies.

The course is an exploration of the idea (related to the theme on cities and urbanization explored on this blog) that economic growth and urbanization are bidirectionally linked. I hope to argue the case for urbanization of India based on simple economics.

Some apparently simple ideas have profound implications. One such is the idea of economies. It comes in various flavors: scale, scope, agglomeration, internal, external, and so on. These are tied to other concepts. Scale economies arise from the presence of fixed costs. Which brings us to the varieties of costs — fixed, variable, marginal, sunk, etc.

Like most foundational courses, it will be a vocabulary course. Vocabulary is important because without it, reasoning about a topic would be too tedious if not impossible. A course on the economics of urbanization is, aside from anything else, a course on economics. My job will be to build the vocabulary so that one can competently reason about the matter of urbanization and with some luck, reach some tentative position on why it matters, and the policy implications that flow from that position.

Good news!

“Where’s Waldo Now” has been reissued. Worth having around the house. Kids of all ages would love it.

I have copied bits from one of the reviews at Amazon below the fold.

(If you are considering a gift for me, I strongly recommend “Where’s Waldo: The Complete Collection.”)

OK, so where am I now? I am in Mumbai on my way to Hyderabad this afternoon for a meeting at the Indian School of Business. I’ll be back.

Bits from a review at Amazon:

“Where’s Waldo” series consists of unique colorful picture books where the illustrations are filled with hundreds of tiny characters doing all kinds of funny things. Your goal as a reader is to find Waldo, a guy in red and white shirt on all those pictures. If finding Waldo gets too easy then you can spend countless hours trying to find other special characters and situations. Mentally, this activity is similar to assembling a 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle, only it’s more fun.
One great thing about Waldo books is that even small children can spot Waldo as well or even better than adults, it doesn’t require any skills other than good eyesight and ability to pick out details. This makes it fun to read together and compete with your kids of virtually all ages, not just 4-8 as the Amazon reading level suggests.

I am excited about this visit to Delhi. As you know, politicians are my favorites and the best of them live in Delhi. Who knows, I may bump into the prime minister. Just kidding. Can’t bump into insubstantial things. But seriously, it’s been a while since I was there. The last time I was with a delegation from Australia. They were an absolutely wonderful group, led by Prof Andrew MacIntyre, Dean of the College of Asia and the Pacific, Director of Crawford School of Economics and Government at the Australian National University, whom I am privileged to call a friend.

See you in Delhi.

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 the Silicon Valley.

Then I head off to the East Coast for a week. I will be in Edison NJ, Philadelphia PA, and NY NY. Then a week in Toronto Canada and then back to the Bay Area and stay a week or so and return by end of December.

I am very excited as I have not done any serious traveling since June. Let’s meet up if possible.

Go. Profit from exile. To see, listen, walk, pause beside wisemen; question savages and madmen; and listen to stories. It is always pleasant and, sometimes, improves you.

I have neglected the blog for most of the last few weeks because I have been busy. I have listened, walked, and paused beside the wise. Though I did not question savages and madmen, I did have an experience which I can only term as transformational. I had glimpses of instant satori. Putting that in words is obviously impossible. So I will not even try to do so here. Perhaps some other time. Now it is time to get back into the fray.

I had a wonderful visit to the US. Most of all, I acknowledge the undeserved kindness of so many people. You know who you are and you have my gratitude. Instead of naming people, allow me to name the associated places: Edison NJ, Chicago IL, Boston MA, Acton MA, Astoria NY, Jersey City NJ, Philadelphia PA, and Wilmington DE.

As it usually happens with me when I travel, I learnt a lot of stuff. The easy stuff I will put down in words here.

1. Avoid traveling Continental Airlines if you can. In fact, avoid all US airlines.
2. The duty free shops at Mumbai’s international airport are getting better. Buy your stuff upon arrival. Exception: perfumes are best bought abroad.
3. Do all your shopping at Costco. But then, you know that Costco has been my favorite store for over two decades.
4. If you are traveling economy (as I did), try and check-in last. That way, you can quickly identify which bunch of adjacent seats are available and grab a seat that will guarantee a nice lay-flat 16-hour journey. The obvious drawback is that you could end up in the middle-seat if the flight is full.
5. Don’t expect free booze on economy class. The airlines are hurting and some are charging five bucks for a drink in cattle-class. There’s no such thing as a free drink on most American airlines.
6. Kindle, the ebook reader from Amazon.com, should have been designed by Apple.
7. GPS is better than the old trusted Rand McNally road maps.
8. Carry a jacket and an umbrella. It was cold and rainy, but not in an unpleasant way.
9. Invest in a top of the line noise canceling headphones.

That’s it for now. More to come.

Please come to Boston for the springtime
I’m stayin’ here with some friends and they’ve got lots of room
You can sell your paintings on the sidewalk
By a café where I hope to be workin’ soon

The weather is rainy and cloudy. I am staying with friends in Acton, MA.

What else? Read the commencement address by PJ O’Rourke, “Fairness, idealism and other atrocities: Commencement advice you’re unlikely to hear elsewhere” from the LA Times of May 4th. (Hat tip: Sushant.)

PJ makes four excellent points. Of course I think they are excellent because I believe in them precisely. The short version:

1. Go out and make a bunch of money
2. Don’t be an idealist
3. Get politically uninvolved
4. Forget about fairness

The other two points I only partially agree with.

Mouse-over the picture to see the controls. Clicking on the second icon from the left at the bottom shows the picture captions. Note especially the Art Institute of Chicago building where Swami Vivekanand gave his famous talk in 1893. What looks like a huge drop of mercury is The Cloud Gate:

Cloud Gate is British artist Anish Kapoor’s first public outdoor work installed in the United States. The 110-ton elliptical sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates, which reflect the city’s famous skyline and the clouds above. A 12-foot-high arch provides a “gate” to the concave chamber beneath the sculpture, inviting visitors to touch its mirror-like surface and see their image reflected back from a variety of perspectives.

No sooner do I arrive in Edison, NJ that the NY Times calls it a place where Indians (now New Jerseyans) thrive. [Hat tip: Maria]

Oak Tree Road [in Edison, NJ], which runs through this sprawling town of 100,000 people and into neighboring Woodbridge Township, may be America’s liveliest Little India, with 400 Indian businesses that attract Indian immigrants from across the region. But the impact is more than just commercial. Indians make up from 20 to 25 percent of the population, and they have spearheaded the transformation of Edison — an overwhelmingly blue-collar and middle-class white community a generation ago — into a town with a decidedly Asian flavor.

Edison is next door to New Brunswick where my old alma mater Rutgers is located. On Saturday afternoon I drove briefly through Rutgers. Those were the days my friend, we thought would never end . . .

The weather is cold and rainy.

So that’s the story. I am alive though not totally well. I got a bad stomach ailment and was laid up most of Sunday and today. I hope to get well enough to travel to Chicago tomorrow. More later.

I should also mention that my colleague Rajesh Jain’s company – Novatium – was among the winners of the innovation award given by Sun. Rajesh made a great 2-minute plug for the Novatium network computer at the awards ceremony. I am personally thrilled to see Novatium’s success.

Moving on, I am on the road for the next week. Today I will go to Patna (via Delhi, as there is no direct flight from Mumbai) and then after a couple of days of giving gyan to the Aga Khan Foundation, return to spend a few days in Delhi. I am scheduled to be on a panel at the “Sustainable & Participative Initiative for Rural Infrastructure Technologies (SPIRIT 2007)” on the 24th in Delhi. I guess to regular readers of this blog it will not come as a surprise that I would basically stick to my position: forget developing rural areas, think about how rural populations can be developed.

Be well, do good work and keep in touch.

Apologies for not keeping in touch. Having too much fun in Mexico City visiting the Instituto Thomas Jefferson:

Based on the principles of self esteem, respect, and academic excellence, our mission is to develop educated leaders for the 21st Century who can compete, succeed, and be role models in this high tech world while maintaining a commitment to family and moral values.

The Thomas Jefferson Institute is located in the northwestern part of Mexico City in the State of Mexico. The school has a total population of 1,850 students, 130 teachers and 70 administrative staff members. The Thomas Jefferson Institute has developed into one of the most prestigious schools in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area.

I am visiting as the guests of the founders of the school, Jeanene Bluhm Bruns and Ricardo Carvajal. Ricardo spent the last four hours telling about the school and the vision which motivates it, and then we went on a grand tour of the facilities. Accompanying us were two beautiful ladies — Mariana and Ivana. Mariana is Project Leader and Ivana heads Educational Research and Development.

We visited classrooms and labs. I got a chance to talk to the kids. They were friendly and very self-confident. Naturally, I took lots of pictures (which I will put up on a Flickr album soon.) Over the years, I have visited a lot of schools. I have to admit that this has been one of the very best. Being here I feel envious of the kids that they get to attend this amazing school.

For now, this is just a brief note to say that I am alive and well, and that I will be logging in later to give you the news in detail.

I have been wandering around the world for the past couple of weeks. Which partly explains why I have been neglecting this blog. Then there is the acute case of writer’s block that I am suffering from. It is with some trepidation that I am pushing against that block. So here goes nothing.

~~~~~~~~

My journey began on the 16th of February when I left Mumbai for New Delhi. After a bunch of notable meetings, I headed south to Nagpur, my home town. A few days there and then I went to Bangalore. It had been donkey’s years since I had last been there. Things had changed. It was the center of India’s information technology storm. The city appeared to have hit puberty and grown big overnight and was too big for its boots. I had been warned about the vehicular exhaust pollution but it was still a shock to be actually immersed in it in the city center. In any event, I had a bunch of good meetings and visited with my friends. I arrived back in Mumbai on the evening of the 28th.

This one is turning out to be a real web log: an account of where I have been. Boring stuff but I think this will get me out of the fear of writing.

Anyway, the next day, March 1st, I had a bit of bureaucracy to take care of. I had overstayed my 180-day visitor’s visa by a few days and it appeared that I will not be allowed to leave India without having my visa extended. So off I went to the Foreigner Registration section at the Mumbai Police Commissioner’s office. It took about 3 hours to pay a penalty of $30 and get a piece of paper that extended by visa by a few days.

It had been a long time since my last encounter with the Indian government bureaucracy. I had to fill in a few forms, wait for a long time to meet with the appropriate official and witness first-hand antiquated processes which appeared to serve no apparent purpose other than to employ people and fill numerous registers with handwritten notes. The main official I met was courteous and helpful. Why had I overstayed? Circumstances I could not avoid, I replied. He filled in a few forms, walked over to various parts of the office where he pulled out other various registers and wrote in them. Then he went to another part of the office and brought with him a rubber stamp and stamped one of the registers. Went back to put away the rubber stamp and then moved the register to another part of the office.

After about 15 minutes of this, he finally declared that I will have to pay a penalty of $30. I reached for my wallet. No, he said. I had to go to another section and pay the fine and then I have to bring him back a receipt and we will continue with the process. So off I went and waited for about 20 minutes at the other section. When my turn came, the man filled in three different registers with the same details that had already been entered several times in various registers earlier: name, date of birth, father’s name, passport number, etc. In each case he would carefully pick up carbon papers, carefully insert them in to the registers, then enter things in triplicate. Another 15 minutes and I was all done with paying my fine and getting a receipt. Back to the other guy. He now gave me a piece of paper which extended my stay till March 2nd. And then he got up and went to another part of his office, found a rubber stamp, and stamped my passport with it. I was about to thank him profusely when he said, “Please collect your passport after 6 PM.”

He explained that they only take in the cases between 10 AM and 2 PM, and after processing, returned the passport in the evening. Could I please have my case expedited? Well, since you are leaving in less than a day, perhaps an exception could be made, he said. He handed me the passport and I left.

~~~~~~~

Information technology tools are great for handling information. Computers are useful things for pretty much any application which deal with information processing, storage, and retrieval. At that Foreign Registration office, I am sure that a bit of IT hardware and software would not be out of place. But it would of little utility unless the processes that run in that office are rationalized. The need for rational processes is greater than the need for hardware. Buying hardware is easy; rationalizing processes is hard.

~~~~~~~

Later that night (early morning of 2nd March, actually), I took an Air France flight from Mumbai to New York’s JFK via Paris. Same awful Air France food. Why do they serve icy-cold hard rolls with the food? In any event, I met my friend Courtenay in Paris during my 5 hour layover and had lunch with her. It was snowing and cold in Paris, the coldest March they have had in 30 years.

OK, writer’s block cleared. I guess from now on, I will be writing regularly. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.