Anant in a recent comment on this blog concluded with the seemingly wise statement “to revenge is pleasure, to forgive divine.” I say seemingly wise because it does not withstand any level of scrutiny. Forgiving an enemy may or may not be a very wise principle if you are dealing with an individual. Being magnanimous towards someone who in a momentary lapse of reason has harmed you could be a good strategy if the person realizes his folly and is genuinely sorry about his aberrant behavior. But it could be …

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Oh, alright. I was getting tired of posting only development related stuff. So I thought that I would intersperse stuff that I write with stuff that I like written by others. Here is a perspective piece written by a Canadian and published by a Canadian newspaper. (I hope that I am not stepping on too many copyright toes.)
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Source: ‘The Province’ (Tuesday, May 1, 1990)
ADOLF HITLER IN GOOD COMPANY
by Crawford Kilian
My Lawyer friend Nick Mephisto took me out for a celebration lunch yesterday, …

An interesting press release was forwarded to the India-Gii mailing list this morning by Venky. He wrote:
IndLinux.org has launched a Hindi Interface for GNOME, the GUI for the GNU/Linux operating system. We request users to download the software from www.indlinux.org and give us their comments and feedback. Those interested in volunteering are requested to go through the web site–we need volunteers with technical skills as well as volunteers with skills in translating from English to Hindi, Gujarati, Telugu, Kannada and other …

This is a followup to the comments on my post on Gandhian Self-sufficiency.
It is more than a bit unfortunate that we have a tendency to immediately label any criticism of any person as a sign of disrespect. Any person whose image cannot withstand the harsh glare of honest criticism says something about the fragility of that image. The image takes on a aura of such holiness and awe that any hint of possible flaws is taken as sacrilegious. Taken to an extreme, this …

I am somewhat familiar with the concepts of Satyagraha and non-violence that Gandhi preached and sometimes practiced. They are interesting tools and can be employed effectively in some circumstances. But, like all tools, they too can’t be employed in every case; they are not easy for mere mortals to employ even under favorable circumstances. In fact, they have severe limitations in that they are not general purpose tools but are rather special purpose tools. The interesting thing is irrespective of whether …

Here’s a story I heard some time ago, about a farmer who consistently won the first prize for his fine crop of corn every year at the county agricultural contest. Peculiarly, after the contest he would give away the seeds of this prize-winning corn to the neighboring farmers. This puzzled some people, until someone finally asked him why he shared his good fortune. He answered, “Well, growing corn in my field requires pollen from the neighboring fields. If they don’t have good corn in their fields, I will never be …

This weblog is about India’s development as seen from my personal viewpoint. Like many others, I too have a vision for India although it is not as well known as the famous Vision 2020. Among all the visions that I have had the privilege to see, Nani Palkhivala’s has resonated the most with what my vision is.
I had found it on the usenet some years ago. Unfortunately, now I cannot trace exactly when it was that Nani delivered this address to the Australian College …

This one is to be filed under “INDIA IS A SUPERPOWER” category.
The newsletter from US-India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) contained this:
We need support and financial contribution from at least 50,000 Indian Americans by March 2004 to persuade the US government to support India in its fight against HIV/AIDS. The US government has already funded 14 nations in curbing the HIV/AIDS menace. With your support, India can become the 15th country to receive the much-needed US funds for fighting the epidemic.
Begging bowl all shiny and ready, I suppose. What the …

Of course India is shining. Just ask the guy who is raking in the stuff from his BPO company. Or ask the those who are buying all the electronic gizmos from the mega stores in the mega cities. India, defined strictly as those people at the top of the heap who make a shining living because the supply of people at the bottom of the heap is so abundant that they work for next to nothing, is shining and how.

From Rajesh’s Emergic weblog an item on second hand Japanese cars in the third world. I am reproducing my comment on Rajesh’s blog here for the record.

This is from the NOT A VERY BRIGHT IDEA Department. Mr. Ram Narayanan sent out an email reporting that a US Congressional delegation was going to visit India. Quote:
Congressman Crowley said, “…With over 300 million citizens considered middle class and with a burgeoning economy and geo-political role, strengthening US-India relations is more important now than ever for trade and security. I commend the Confederation of Indian Industries for putting together this exceptional program to give the delegation a well rounded overview of the political, economic and cultural vitality …

In an Indian Express article by Vijay Kelkar (Advisor to the Finance Minister) and Ajay Shah (Consultant, Department of economic affairs) ponder the question Why is this a very happy Diwali? (Oct 2003) Their answer is REFORMS. It is an interesting article and it belongs to the same class as the series of articles that Arun Shourie wrote around mid-August regarding the rise of the Indian economy.
The article by Kelkar and Shah essentially tells us that the Indian economy is not doing badly and …

To confront the cliches and shibboleths of one’s age is neither easy nor rewarding. The emperor’s new clothes exist only in the imagination of those committed to maintaining an obvious falsehood for fear of falling out of favor. I believe it is time that we examine some of the ICT related myths that drape the development emperor. I will categorize them as myths, misunderstandings, misconceptions, and misapprehensions and number them randomly. I may even intersperce them with some facts.
Misapprehension #78: There is a digital divide and it is the …