Author: Atanu Dey

Economist.

Weekend Edition: They Fell From Grace

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.
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The Age of Superfluous Information — Revisited

The Economist’s article, “Too much information: How to cope with data overload,” deals with information overload. (Hat tip Prasanna Viswanathan @prasannavishy for the link.) For a few years I have been concerned about it since I have a very low threshold for information. In 2005, I pondered the matter in a number of blog posts. I realize the irony in writing yet another blog post on information overload, but there you have it. The Economist article underlines my fears.
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The BJP Must Get its Act Together

It is widely rumored that India is a vibrant democracy but one wonders if the rumors are wild exaggerations with little bearing to reality. I could be wrong but doesn’t the idea of a democracy include having an effective opposition to the ruling party? Or is it still a democracy if it is a one-party rule which does whatever suits its narrow interests because there is no opposition to provide the checks and balances that are needed to assure that the ruling party does not use its rule to enrich itself at the cost of the national interest? In a sense, one cannot entirely blame the staggering misgovernance of the Antonia Maino, aka Sonia Gandhi, led UPA — it is partly a consequence of the utter failure of the BJP to provide a suitable opposition to the misrule of the UPA.
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Open Thread: Say What You Will

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.
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Stumbling around the blog

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 any serious work. So here’s a post hauled from the archives which I liked reading. It is from Nov 2007. Let’s see how “Quo Vadis, Pakistan” has held up.

June 25, 1975 — The Day Mrs G showed her true colors

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.
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Rent-seeking

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.
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Kanchan Gupta: “The Sterile Debate over Free Speech”

Kanchan Gupta rocks. His piece, “The Sterile Debate over Free Speech” is a keeper. Go read it all. An excerpt below the fold.
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Hitchens’ Review of Lelyveld’s book on Gandhi

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.
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