Author: Atanu Dey

Economist.

The Powerful Nutcase of Iran

Mr Ahmadinejad is a nut-case. Unfortunately, he is also very powerful and his nuttiness can harm a lot of people, not just Iranians. He’ll come to a sticky end, undoubtedly, but he will also lead a lot of his compatriots to misery and doom.

This is the only economy in the world – indeed possibly in world history – in which you can borrow money from the bank and then receive a higher rate of interest by depositing it in the same bank.

Mr Ahmadinejad, who says he is proud of his ignorance of economics, also seems to believe the laws of supply and demand do not apply to the Islamic republic. [BBC]

Iran has the largest combined natural gas and oil reserves in the world, and is the third largest exporter of oil. One would have expected Iran to be a wonderfully developed economy. But it isn’t. It is well recognized that natural resource wealth, if mismanaged, can be a curse rather than a boon. Add theocracy to oil and you have the makings of a powerful bomb — a suicide bomb.

Two broad generalizations. First, economic development requires good policies, not just a wealth of natural resources. That implies good leadership. Good leadership depends on a dynamic, forward-looking, and scientific culture. Second, mixing religion with affairs of state is a bad idea.

India has yet to learn those two lessons. Its economic policies continue to be socialistic — meaning, it is static, regressive, and harmful. This is understandable as the policy makers are neither smart nor good. Most disastrously, the Congress led UPA government is mixing theology with state policy. It sits in judgment and privileges one religion over another.

I look at Iran and just hope that India does not go that way.

What did Nehru Incarnate as?

This one is really funny. And a bit sad. My friend Anup in Australia sent me the link to an article, Prabhupada And Nehru’s Incarnation, from the Prabhupada Hare Krishna News Network.

The setting is in Brooklyn, New York, a few weeks after Nehru’s death in 1964. Someone asks the guru Prabhupada what he thought became of Nehru after his death. The writer of the article recounts Prabhupada’s answer. Read on.
Continue reading “What did Nehru Incarnate as?”

These are a few of my not-favorite things

Some things make me see red. Not in any particular order, here’s the list. It is not exhaustive, merely a random set that I can unfortunately recall right now.
Continue reading “These are a few of my not-favorite things”

Shubho Bijoya Dashumi

This morning I went to say farewell to Devi Durga at the Durgamahotsav close to where I live. I took the picture of the protima above. The traditional belief among Bengalis is that Ma Durga along with her children — Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesh and Kartik — comes to visit her parental home for 10 days. Today is the 10th day, Vijay Dashmi, when she goes back to her in-laws. People then visit each other and wish “Shubho Bijoya” after she leaves.

Durga will be back next year, of course. But Durga is just one manifestation of Shakti, the consort of Shiva. Shakti will be back as “Ma Kali” in about three weeks. Kali puja occurs during Diwali. Diwali is not a big deal for Bengalis but Kali puja is.

So here’s wishing you all a Shubho Bijoya.

[Previous posts on Bijoya: 2007, 2006, 2005.]

Standup Comic Dan Nainan

Source.

[Thanks to Jayant for the link.]

I find the bit about “grazed” donuts really funny because I have known a lot of Japanese people. Too bad he “exprained” it. Also the bit about getting a couple of immigrants to do the dirty work — shows that his father does have a sense of humor. Have fun.

Post script: Thanks to Amit for pointing out the typo in the name. It is “Nainan” and not “Nianan” as originally posted.

Pictures from India

Here’s a collection of scenes from India at The Big Picture from bostom.com. (Thanks to Raja Sekhar for the link.)

There are 34 pictures in all there. I chose to include a small version of a picture of Durga idols being made because today is Maha-Ashtami — the 8th day of Durga Puja. In two days, it will be Vijaya Dashmi — the day on which we celebrate the victory of Mother Durga over evil.

Related Post: The Big Picture collection of pictures of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

On IITs, PanIIT, and the Funding of 50 New IITs

PanIIT 2008

It’s coming up to that time of the year again when a very large group of completely self-absorbed people with very inflated egos gather to congratulate themselves on how astonishingly amazing they are and how they are the almighty’s gift to humanity, if not the entire creation.

The PanIIT 2008 site declares: “IIT Alumni 2008 Global Conference is being held at IIT Madras, from 19th to 21st December. With 3000 alumni participants from around the globe, a galaxy of eminent speakers, and selected sponsors who are leaders in their industry, the 2008 Global Conference will be the most impressive ever. The focus this year is to inspire IITians to innovate and transform India.” [Emphasis added.]

The Bright and the Beautiful

Really very impressive. Especially the globe and galaxy bits, and the eminent speakers. Shilpa Shetty and Hema Malini are eminent speakers. Not impressed, are you? Well, then consider this. Not only will Prof Amartya Sen be there, but the “Nobel Laureate has rescheduled his busy schedule to make time for us”.

Now are you impressed? Do you have any idea what it means when a NL flies in to attend even though it means major disruption of his other engagements? What on earth could be more important than the annual PanIIT circus?

Now that I am done with expressing my disgust with the organization and its c-j antics, it is time to move on to more substantial and important matters. It has to do with gratitude, credit constraints, education, fairness, development, and India.
Continue reading “On IITs, PanIIT, and the Funding of 50 New IITs”

Bill Maher’s Religulous

Bill Maher is not everyone’s cup of tea but I absolutely enjoy his shows. He pulls no punches when it comes to ridiculing monotheism. But then you may say it is an easy job considering that monotheistic religions are ridiculous. Here’s the opening paragraph of a Salon.com review of the movie:

What if there was a religion, asks comedian Bill Maher, in which an all-powerful god from outer space decided to send his unborn son on a suicide mission to planet Earth? So this space-god impregnates a human female in some mystical, not-quite-physical fashion, and she gives birth to a baby who is both a human being and a divine incarnation, simultaneously the space god’s spawn and the space god himself. (Oh, space god also has a third manifestation, one that’s totally invisible.) So space-god junior is born on Earth destined to be killed, even though he’s a space god and therefore immortal.

Read the rest of the space-god story in the New Testament (aka the Bible). Check out the Old Testament and the Quran (Koran) for the other versions of — to borrow a phrase from Richard Dawkins — breathtaking inanity.

India, being the land of people who are more Catholic than the Pope and more Mullah than the Ayatollahs (remember, India banned “The Satanic Verses” and thus set in motion the reward for the murder of Salman Rushdie), there is no chance of “Religulous” being shown in theaters in India. The government would not allow it. Only books and paintings denigrating Indic religions are allowed by the “secular” government of India.

So I do my best to counter the “secularism” of the government of India by ridiculing monotheism.

A bit more from the Salon review below the fold. Continue reading “Bill Maher’s Religulous”

Plagiarism by Big Media

Sudipta wants bloggers to wake up:

Bloggers, wake up! For long the mainstream media has been plagiarising pictures from our blogs for long. And they seem to get away with it with impunity. Because they don’t respond to emails. They don’t publish letters sent to the editor about their reporters lifting images with impunity. How can they — these losers can’t stand up to own their mistakes; . . . They copy images, text, opinions, and they aren’t man enough to acknowledge the source: let alone ask for permission or compensate monetarily. Twilight Fairy, Archana, Bobinson have pointed it out before. And now, Shrinidhi finds one of his pics on the Times of India.

So how does one respond to theft? By reporting it. And by using the law. But then, you have to have laws against intellectual property theft and have the time, money and persistence to go through with an expensive and protracted legal case. But what about petty intellectual theft? It’s possible but very unlikely that any individual has the capacity to drag something like The Times of India to court.

I guess that in the case of petty plagiarism of the sort that Sudipta is pointing at, the remedy is that sufficient people call “Shame on you!” Perhaps the word will get around and will deter theft.