Yesterday evening I was at the National Law School in Bangalore. I was invited to have a conversation with the students on the subjects covered in my book, Transforming India. It was a lively conversation and in fact quite heated at points. I enjoy a good argument — sometimes I think I should have been a trial lawyer. In any event, I argued my case and to my pleasant surprise there was push-back from some of the students.

The world is reaching a milestone – nominally today – 7 billion people are alive in the world. I suppose there must be some uncertainty about that number; perhaps we have to give or take 100 million or so. It has been estimated that the total number of people who have ever lived is around 100 billion. Thus around 7 percent of people who have ever lived are alive today. That’s an incomprehensively large number.

Used to be that once upon a time, India had leaders who had a backbone and could shoulder responsibility without buckling. Thus have I heard that one man, Lal Bahadur Shastri, resigned as the railways minister following a train accident in which scores of people died.

Folklore says that things come in threes. Prof John McCarthy, Stanford University, passed away on the 24th of this month. Before that, we said goodbye to Dennis Ritchie. He was found dead on Oct 12th. Steve Jobs died on Oct 5th. It’s been not a very good month for people related to computers and computer science.

I suppose I owe my readers (all three of them) an apology for not posting to this blog. But all that is going to change, as of this very moment. Once you know what I am up to, you will understand the reason for my uncharacteristic lack of communications. I have been wandering around the country.

Now I can say for sure that my book, “Transforming India”, has been read by at least two people. How do I know that? Because two people have recently written about it. My sincere appreciation for the reviews. Selected bits from them, below the fold.

I am certain that Monty Python, the guys who can parody anything under the sun, would be totally incapable of parodying the recent ad by the Pakistani government. Onion News Network will find it impossible to ridicule the attempt at fixing Pakistan’s image. You cannot ridicule the ridiculous, parody a parody. Pakistan’s ad in the Wall Street Journal is a self-parody. One marvels at the people who came up with the idea. They must be the most humorless bunch of retards in the world. But first, here is the …

As some of you may have noticed, I have been away. That is why this blog has been dormant. Oh I have not been physically absent. I was only mentally away, taking a break to learn some economics. I was teaching a couple of courses for the Summer term at UC Berkeley. I am sure that teaching is the most rigorous and effective way to learn something. It is impossible to teach the fundamentals without coming away with a renewed appreciation and understanding of what really matters. What did I …

“What do you think of Indian independence?”

This is the weekend edition — a round up of things that have caught my eye over the week. As it happens, there appears to be a theme: how the powerful have fallen. Three tales about three entities — two people and one firm — tell about their descent from rarefied heights to close to the mean sea level. They are about Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Rajat Gupta, and Infosys.

I have been neglecting my blog because I have a lot to do, what with the teaching and other things. Fortunately, the long 4th of July weekend has given me time to take a breather and I hope to write a few posts today and tomorrow. Do tell what’s on your mind. So while I go and write something sensible, here’s a link to Rajan Parrikar’s photo blog. He’s once again gone photographing in Iceland and the results are phenomenal. Samples below the fold.

I have been usually busy of late. I am teaching two courses this Summer at UC Berkeley. They are upper-level undergraduate courses. One is “Econ 171 Economic Development” and the other is “Econ 121 Industrial Organization.” Both very interesting and fascinating but take up a lot of time. I stand and deliver 8 lectures a week! That’s 12 hours of talking!! Even I get tired by the afternoon of Thursday and for once, I have started looking forward to weekends. Anyway, I have not had much time to do …

Today is the anniversary of “The Emergency“. Mrs Indira Gandhi, daughter of Mr Jawaharlal Nehru, became India’s dictator, and Indians once again became political slaves — a mere 28 years after India’s political independence from Britain. It appears Indians don’t really mind slavery much.

Two excellent pieces in the popular press that are worth reading and understanding. One is from LiveMint.com titled “Return to Rent-seeking.” It does not have a byline — perhaps because it does not say nice things about Dr Manmohan Singh.

Kanchan Gupta rocks. His piece, “The Sterile Debate over Free Speech” is a keeper. Go read it all. An excerpt below the fold.

The July/August issue of The Atlantic magazine has a review of Lelyveld’s book by Christopher Hitchens — “The Real Mahatma Gandhi.” An absolute gem of a piece, it has to be read. Excerpts below the fold. Also, I have blogged about the book and the banning of the book on this blog.

I am teaching during this Summer term at UC Berkeley starting Monday 20th June. Summer courses are hard, both for the teacher and the students since a regular course of 17 weeks is squeezed into 8 weeks. I was foolish enough to agree to teach not one but two courses. That’s a stupid thing to do but in my case it’s par for the course. Still, teaching is always fun and instructive.

People deserve the government they get. That’s generally true, but in the particular case where the government is democratically elected, as H L Mencken observed, “the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” But why just restrict just deserts to governments alone — the easy extension is the press. People deserve the press they get, and exhibit number 1 is the Indian press. The press and the government go hand in hand. That’s true regardless of whether it is a democracy or a …

The Chicago jury’s verdict on Tahawwur Rana, accomplice of the Islamic terrorist David Headley, is provoking comment from the Indian establishment. The charge is that the US should have punished Rana for his role in the Pakistani terrorist attack of Nov 2008 on Mumbai. This is more than a little puzzling. The Indian establishment has not punished the one and only of the surviving Islamic terrorists, Ajmal Kasab. If the Indians don’t have the balls to hang Kasab, whose guilt and involvement in the actual crime is beyond doubt, I …

I am pleased to note that my book, “Transforming India” is available. You will have to be the judge of the content. But I hope you will not judge the book by its cover or the quality of the print run. Due to a major snafu, the book comes up short in the quality of the production department. It is a costly mistake and I am partly responsible for not paying attention to that part of the job. Mea culpa. For now, I hope you do grab a copy and …