Day: August 21, 2008

Common Sense

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Thanks to you all who wrote to ask why the hiatus in blogging. I was very busy with reading and thinking. The problem apparently is that I can either write or I can think — but not both at the same time 🙂

Thomas Paine’s pamphlet, Common Sense, is what kept me busy. Reading Paine is an intellectual delight for me because I keep marveling how closely my ideas mirror his. I was hooked from the first line in the introduction to the pamphlet: Continue reading “Common Sense”

UC Berkeley gets a bronze

It’s heart-breaking but what is one to do. UC Berkeley, in a ranking of world universities conducted by a Chinese university published the ranked list of top 500 universities, doesn’t get the gold. (Thanks Ashish Asgekar for the link.)

UC Berkeley, my alma mater, I regret to say shows up behind Harvard, and — horror of all horrors — behind a junior university which shall not be named here. The only consolation for me is that the university that my nemesis attended — Cornell — shows up way down the list at rank 12.

It is a matter of some pride and considerable astonishment that two Indian universities make the list of the top 500: IISc and IIT-Kgp figure in the 303-401 space. I say astonishment because I am constantly amazed that given that the Indian government has done all it can to destroy education in India, even in this ranking by a Chinese university, two Indian universities are mentioned. But I am sure that given what the government is doing to cripple the IITs, they will be also-rans in the rankings race soon enough. After that, I suppose the government can set its sight on the IISc and kill it in short order.