Month: June 2009

The Lesson that the BJP needs to learn

“What exactly is ‘Hindu nationalist’ about the BJP?” asks T V R Shenoy in an excellent piece in rediff.com news.
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Favorite Bits from the Archives: Competition

Competition on the supply side is good if you are on the demand side, and competition on the demand side is good if you are on the supply side. Otherwise competition is evil. That is why governments of third world countries limit competition on the supply side — the better to extract rents from the economy.
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Favorite Bits from the Archive: Stuff and Ideas

Some good stuff gets buried in all the trivia. Here are a couple of posts from December 2007 that I feel makes a bit of sense.
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Wide-bodied Globalization

Hi from Edison NJ. Got here from Mumbai on Wednesday morning at 4:40 AM, nearly an hour ahead of schedule. Too damn early. I suppose if the flight was arriving at 11 PM, then it would have arrived an hour late. Natural perversity of the universe. OK, I am done with the complaining bits. Now for the good bits.
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Mr Kapil Sibal: Abolish the Human Resources Development ministry

It seems to be the season for focusing on education. I will do the conjecturing below but first here are a bunch of articles on what’s going on in education in India.
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Favorite bits from the archive: Types of Government

India is very widely celebrated as having a democratic government. India’s government can also be accurately described another way. A kakistocracy is defined as government by the most corrupt and the least principled. As India’s case clearly demonstrates, the two are not mutually incompatible.
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Rajeev Motwani has Passed on

I didn’t know who Rajeev Motwani was. It’s only when I heard of his passing from my friend Rajan in the San Francisco bay that I got to know of him. Rajan wrote, “To me, he is important because he was one of the few truly great Indians in the Valley (as opposed to the many Indians in the Valley who think they are great).”

Here’s Google founder Sergey Brin’s tribute to Rajeev Motwani.

Weekend Readings: Renaissance of India

Here are a few links. The first one is on Sri Aurobindo, a giant of a renaissance man. Then a few on education.
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