Even after living more than half my adult life in the US, I am constantly amazed by the profligacy in consumption of people in the US. What is even more remarkable is how the ultra-consumption is not limited to native born Americans; many fresh off the boat immigrants quickly take up the habit of mindless waste.
I have arrived at a generalization: Americans are extremely efficient in production and (perhaps as a consequence) are extremely inefficient in consumption. They can afford to be wasteful because they are rich. Conversely, I …

Hi all from JP’s place.
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 April 12th, 2008 Wall Street Journal has an article, “The Rise of the Mega Region” (Hat tip Pankaj Kumar) which argues that rather than entire countries, the proper unit of analysis in the context of economic growth and competitiveness should be the mega-regions.

Pranab Bardhan, a professor of mine at UC Berkeley, whom we have met before here (see Crouching Tiger, Lumbering Elephant, and Pranab Bardhan on the Indian Economy, for instance) has an excellent article in the Boston Review titled “What Makes a Miracle: Some myths about the Rise of China and India.” (Hat tip: Yuvaraj Galada.)
He states the standard view explaining the rapid growth of the two countries:
What explains this strikingly rapid growth? The answer that continues to dominate public discussion in the United States runs along the following lines: …

(Hat tip: Jan Manik)

From The Straight Dope, a great piece of satire: Fifty years later, does America need a stupider motto?
Seriously though, the US is showing signs of serious trouble. Huckabee is raving lunatic, as Pharyngula reports.
PS: My favorite bit in that satire bit is “… and Mexicans continue to occur.” ROTFL with the idea of Mexicans occurring like some periodic drought or infestation.

I have previously observed here that India has what I call a “cargo cult democracy.” In India’s neighborhood that is not a distinction. The entire Indian subcontinent suffers from that malady. The short version is that around here democracy as practiced is a simulation, a facsimile that should not be confused with the real thing that has something to do with informed choice based on differing perceptions of priorities that matter in the larger scheme of things.
Informed choice is not a matter that can be delegated to people who are …

Pakistan matters critically to India. One could dismiss it as a failed tin-pot dictatorship and is of little consequence with respect to India’s development and economic growth. But it is just because it is a tin-pot dictatorship that it matters. Even more precisely, it has been made into a tin-pot dictatorship so that it can serve as a lever to indirectly control India. I deliberately say “made” because it is a tool used by the West and therefore fashioned by and kept in “good” shape to serve the purpose. Principally, …

Golf, not Chess
Economic growth in a sense, and to a much larger extent economic development, is more akin to a game of golf than a game of chess. In golf, the opponent’s moves matter very little; you may as well play by yourself and later compare scores if needed. In chess, your move depends on how your opponent has moved and how he is likely to respond to your move. In other words, chess is a strategic game while golf is not. All this is very broadly speaking, naturally. I …

UC Berkeley on YouTube. My alma mater.
Now you can virtually attend many of the lectures and events at UC Berkeley. I will miss Berkeley a little less because of this.
Here’s a video on “Energy Self-sufficiency in the 21st Century.” A bunch of Nobel Prize winning guys discussing that issue.

During my visit to the campuses of the Thomas Jefferson Institute school at Queretaro and Mexico city, I was asked to address the students. Talk? Me? Of course, I can talk to classes. Been doing that for a while and I must say that I miss teaching. So I am given a pretty hectic schedule of 15 classes. They said that it was up to me how much time I actually spent in each class. I guessed I would talk to them for about 20 minutes or so. As it …

For the past few days, I have been in Mexico. On Monday, on my way from Mexico city to Queretaro, I took a detour and visited the pyramids at Teotihuacan (wiki). I uploaded a few of the pictures of the pyramids.

Yesterday I spent time visiting the school Instituto Thomas Jefferson’s Queretaro campus and a little tour of the city center during the day. Later in the evening, I spoke at a meeting with parents, teachers, and some government officials. The title of my talk was “Education in a …

“Be Indian, fly Indian” could have been the subliminal message that they wanted to convey when they (whoever they are) decided that it would be good to change the name of the airline to “Indian” from “Indian Airlines.” As I have pondered that change of name before on this blog, I will move on. I only mention this because yesterday I was flying Indian to get from Mumbai to Bhubaneswar. I am attending the “International Conference on Entrepreneurship and Innovation” at the Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar.

It is interesting to learn that Goa tops the list of favorite places not just for your average European tourist but also the Al Qaeda. Israel issued a warning to its citizens.
“In light of terrorist threats by Al Qaeda in India, a concrete threat now exists specifically for the Indian state of Goa, which hosts many tourists, among them Israelis, during late December and over the civil New Year,” the National Security Council Counter Terrorism Headquarters has said.

Visiting Singapore is both an exhilarating and a depressing experience for me. To observe the transformation of a mosquito-infested swamp full of poor people into a vibrant developed nation of prosperous people in a brief span of 40 years is exhilarating. Comparing Singapore to India from an Indian’s perspective is depressing: how did we–given all the advantages we had in 1950 compared to Singapore–squander it all and end up being a poor misgoverned over-populated country? That is the depressing bit.

Close to the Worli Seaface in Mumbai around 10 am today. The rain has been coming down since midnight last night. The wind is pretty high, as you can see below.

The high tide today was not as high as it was last Tuesday. The Haji Ali mosque seen from my friend’s 13th floor apartment.

It has been raining since morning. My plans of going to Mumbai have been rained upon. The picture above is taken from Shrikant and Ranjani’s home.

They beat him up. According to the MidDay report of June 1, “after a thorough beating,” they handed him over to the police in Mumbai.

Hi from the Big Apple. Brilliant day outside with snow from yesterday’s blizzard blanketing the city. I am visiting with my friend Reuben who lives on 116th and Broadway (Columbia U.)
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.
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My journey began on the 16th of February …

How shall I go in peace and without sorrow? Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city.
Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret?
Kahlil Gibran The Prophet
My days in Mumbai are numbered. Strictly speaking, all the days of our lives are numbered. I will soon be saying goodbye to the …