The business plan was about creating a business which would help the blind become more productive. But the presenter took elaborate pains to avoid the word “blind”and instead constantly referred to the “visually challenged.” I suppose the PC police would have immediately handcuffed and hauled off anyone who was so insensitive as to directly point to blindness and call it such. No, a person is not blind but visually challenged. And I wondered how long before the PC police decree that “visually challenged” is itself un-PC and now you have …

Dateline: July 7th, 9:20 AM
Lobby of the Ministry of Rural Development, Gate No. 6, Krishi Bhavan, New Delhi.
Dear Diary:
Got here too early for my 10 AM meeting since I could not accurately estimate the time it would take me to find the place.
Immediately upon entering, stopped by security. One man in civilian clothes, apparently the receptionist, rudely commanded me to wait. He did not display the least hint of common courtesy.

Only humans are capable of free speech, and those who value free speech have freedom. The rest are slaves. They may be slaves to a religious authority or a political authority, but slaves none the less. The whoremasters who try to take away the right to free speech under the pretext that it may be offensive to some are the worst enemies of human dignity and freedom.

Some time ago, I had lamented India’s funding of Pakistani jehadi groups and then posted a followup to that. In a comment to the former post, Tanveer wrote a comment:
Atanu: You are a Phd in economics, I am sure you know enough how the world works. There isnt always a meaningful reasoning to everything more so in the world of politics. BY your logic since India itself spends so much on nuclear weapons it has no right to recieve any kind of aid. And since the US spends more …

“India funding Pakistani jehadis” prompted Dan to comment:
Couldn’t you make the argument Indian charity and compassion during Pakistan’s time of need might make a positive impression on at least a few Pakistanis. Maybe the aid provided will change a couple of hearts and minds and they will be less likely to “throw a bomb over your fence.
Dan, unless you are kidding, your naivety is touching. If $25,000,000 were to change a couple of hearts, then to change the few hundred million hearts that need changing would require a brazillion** dollars …

Money is fungible.
If I give money to my neighbor to help out with his grocery purchases, I may be acting out of good neighborly feelings. But what if he is an alcoholic? By giving him money, I could as well be funding his alcohol purchase. Even if I were to buy groceries and have them delivered to his home, I am again freeing up his own money for booze. Worse yet, what if my neighbor actually builds bombs in his basement which he frequently lobs over the fence and destroys …

From Donal McIntyre’s site on the legacy of Mother Teresa:

Following my post yesterday on abusing children Mother Teresa style, I came across Christopher Hitchens’ article in the UK Mirror, “Why Mother Teresa Should Not Be a Saint.” I will quote only a bit here for the record but really you have to read the article to get a better understanding of what Teresa was all about. (I got to know of the article from a post by Anthony Loewenstein titled Mother Teresa Slammed Again.)

On Aug 1st British television carried an investigative piece by Donal McIntyre about the treatment of children in an orphanage run by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. He quotes Dr Aroup Chatterjee, a medical doctor in London and the author of Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict, as saying that “the Indian government is “terrified” of her reputation but if similar practices were found in any other home, it would have been shut down.”

I will be traveling till the 25th and will not have access to the web. That is why I will maintain web silence and not because I am done with the topic at hand.

I stand corrected by TTG on the point about the entire khandaan of Nehru-Gandhi family not having one single solitary degree. It appears that Cha-Chaji was not entirely untutored. Thanks to TTG I actually came to learn another fact about another hero of mine — Mother Teresa, the Merciless — she had supported Indira Gandhi’s dictatorship. I …

The last posting, Why is India Poor?, has drawn sufficient attention that there needs to be a follow-up addressing some of the points raised in the comments.
It is interesting to note that the arguments against my view of Nehru and his failed economic policies are generic. I will repeat them and my counter-arguments here.
My argument. Economic policies matter. If you have sound economic policies, you get commensurate economic performance. India’s economic performance sucks. It performs dismally in any sort of ranking of human development and economic performance tests. Half the …

What India is today is to a large extent the result of policy choices made by its leaders — especially post India’s independence. Prior to 1947, India’s fortunes were dictated by the British. The British were in India for — not to put too fine a point on it — looting the place. That is totally understandable. Every institution they created was directed towards the final goal of enriching themselves. Colonizers don’t go about colonizing foreign lands out of a sense of altruism. They do it for the moolah.
After …

Dear Chief Minister of West Bengal Mr. Buddhadev Bhattacharya:
I have come to learn that there is some possibility of renaming Park Street as Mother Teresa street and erecting her statue.
I think this is a very bad idea. The image of Kolkata has been forever tarnished as a result of Mother Teresa’s activities. For greater details on why this is so, I would urge you to read what some neutral observers have to say about the lady. I have a few articles on the subject and I recommend a book …

I am never quite sure why people insist that the Indian democracy is so great. To me it appears to be the greatest curse imposed on India from up on high. It is totally politically (sic) incorrect to take this view, of course. But I don’t apologize for believing so and I am convinced that the Indian voter is corrupt.
Rajesh Jain’s blog has an item on lessons from India’s elections which got me thinking. The claim made by Shekhar Gupta of the Indian Express is that India’s …

This is a rant. Displaying equanimity in the face of adversity is an admirable quality. I am afraid that there are times when one has to give vent to one’s true feelings and come out openly and call a steaming pile of excrement a steaming pile of excrement without mincing words. I am refering to the recent Supreme Court decision to support the reduction of fees for the IIMs from Rs 1.5 lakhs to Rs 30,000.
Today’s Times of India editorial calls it a senseless subsidy. …