Month: February 2026

The world of today is changing at an unprecedented pace, and that pace of change is only going to accelerate. The good news is that the change is mostly in the positive direction along multiple dimensions such as material welfare, civic services, infrastructure, security, and so on. The negative aspect of the change is that inequality is increasing. That is to be expected. 

I don’t decry the increasing inequality as long as the economically backward are also advancing at an increasing pace.  Inequality is a feature, not a bug. That is, I don’t particularly care if the rich are getting richer so long as the poor are also getting rich. That has been the trend forever in most parts of the world and there’s no reason to expect that it will not continue into the future.

Let me make the case a bit more concrete by considering the case for India and the US. Compared to 50 years ago, both the US and India are much better off today. But the gap between the two has decreased significantly and evidently. Though the US was — and is — much richer than India, India has seen relatively more progress. Faster economic growth is not that hard when an economy is not at the leading edge of development. Continue reading “Thailand or India”

Today is Mahashiv Ratri, the day that Shiva married Parvati.

As we all know, the Hindu trimurti are Bramha, the creator who brings the universe and life into existence, Vishnu the preserver who sustains the universe, and Shiva who destroys illusion and decay, making way for renewal and transformation. As the transformer, Shiva dissolves the universe at the end of a cosmic cycle making possible regeneration and renewal.

Shiva is also the ultimate ascetic who meditates. He is the primal yogi.

There are aspects of the universe that can only be apprehended symbolically. As a Hindu, I am capable of and comfortable with symbolic reasoning and apprehending the universe symbolically. I am not forced take everything literally.

Bramha, Vishu and Shiva are symbols that refer to deep truths that undergird the incomprehensibly complex universe. Taking them literally reveals ignorance and stupidity. People who are too cognitively challenged cannot distinguish between symbols and what they represent.  Continue reading “Maha Shiv Ratri”

I Grew Up Clueless

Growing up in India, I was fortunate enough to attend a pretty decent school (SFS school) in a second-tier city (Nagpur). I say I was fortunate because at that time only a small percentage of Indian children could attend school and of those who could, most got a fairly mediocre education at best.

Our school was good by the prevailing standards. By sheer good fortune, many of my classmates ended up being fairly successful in various professions. Half a dozen became doctors, a couple very successful lawyers, a dozen engineers, a couple US-trained PhD economists (including yours truly), many teachers, a tenured US professor, and a handful businessmen. A fairly large cohort ended up migrating to the US.

Looking back at it, I’d say that the education we received was passable in math and science but sorely lacking in the social sciences. That was because education was controlled by government bureaucrats who knew little of any relevance and had no clue what education was about. I suspect that they were uneducated themselves. Continue reading “India’s Great Virtue: Democracy”