If you are one of the three people who regularly read this blog, please pardon the lack of posts the last few days. I finished my brief stint at ISB in Hyderabad and now I am back in Pune after a brief stop-over in Mumbai.
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Category: About
OpenThread: Your turn to speak
It’s been a while since we had an open thread for readers to give feedback. So here’s an opportunity for you if you have something to say. I have never deleted any comment merely because I don’t agree with an opinion. The only time I delete comments is when it is clearly spam, totally irrelevant or is abusive.
Say what you will. And stop lurking.
The Economics of Urbanization
“The Economics of Urbanization” is the title of a course that I plan to teach at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, starting next week. I am looking forward to being at the ISB for the next five weeks.
The course is an exploration of the idea (related to the theme on cities and urbanization explored on this blog) that economic growth and urbanization are bidirectionally linked. I hope to argue the case for urbanization of India based on simple economics.
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Where’s Waldo Now?
Good news!
“Where’s Waldo Now” has been reissued. Worth having around the house. Kids of all ages would love it.
I have copied bits from one of the reviews at Amazon below the fold.
(If you are considering a gift for me, I strongly recommend “Where’s Waldo: The Complete Collection.”)
🙂
OK, so where am I now? I am in Mumbai on my way to Hyderabad this afternoon for a meeting at the Indian School of Business. I’ll be back.
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The “About” Page is Done
You know it took me only five years to get around to writing the “About” page. I think you should all read it and post comments.
🙂
Right now it only has a brief bio. I will add a photo and some links later. Thanks for visiting. Also, consider this to be an open comments post. Say what you will.
Dilli Chalo
I am off to Delhi for a few days. I hope Jet Airways — the same airline that ferried me back and forth to San Francisco just a few weeks ago — gets me there from Pune uneventfully tomorrow afternoon. I am attending the 19th Skoch Summit in Delhi on 22nd and 23rd. Then I will spend the weekend with friends in Delhi and return on Republic Day, perhaps after attending the republic day parade.
I am excited about this visit to Delhi. As you know, politicians are my favorites and the best of them live in Delhi. Who knows, I may bump into the prime minister. Just kidding. Can’t bump into insubstantial things. But seriously, it’s been a while since I was there. The last time I was with a delegation from Australia. They were an absolutely wonderful group, led by Prof Andrew MacIntyre, Dean of the College of Asia and the Pacific, Director of Crawford School of Economics and Government at the Australian National University, whom I am privileged to call a friend.
See you in Delhi.
Traveling for a bit
So here begins a bit of travel. I will be in Mumbai tomorrow and in Hyderabad at the TiE-ISB Wednesday through Friday. Saturday 8th I will be back in good old Pune but only for a short while. Back to Mumbai on Friday the 14th of Nov and go to the US on 15th of Nov.
I expect to be in back home in the SF Bay area on the 15th itself. A couple of weeks there. Which means that I will be celebrating Thanksgiving (Nov 27th) with friends in the Silicon Valley.
Then I head off to the East Coast for a week. I will be in Edison NJ, Philadelphia PA, and NY NY. Then a week in Toronto Canada and then back to the Bay Area and stay a week or so and return by end of December.
I am very excited as I have not done any serious traveling since June. Let’s meet up if possible.
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.
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On the US Financial Crisis
Richard Feynman has claimed that “it is safe to say that nobody really understands quantum mechanics.” He was serious about it because of the complexity of the subject and the counter-intuitive consequences of the theory. Sometime I think that the global financial system is also beyond comprehension. But that is not quite true. Unlike quantum mechanics, the financial system is an artifact, albeit a very complex one. Also, it is possible to understand something and yet be unable to fully control it all the time. Once in a while, it can crash. When–not if–it does crash, you figure out what broke, fix it so that it does not break again, and get on with life. It will break again later due to a different bug but it will never be entirely bug free.
As I am an economist, I am supposed to understand the financial system. Luckily, I am not that sort of economist and so I don’t feel the slightest embarrassment admitting that I don’t have much of a clue. But sometimes I think that perhaps not too many people — even those whose business it is — have a clue either. Some suspect that even the chairman of the Fed, Ben Bernanke, too is not fully clued in. Go figure.
Anyway, I wrote a piece on the meltdown of the US financial system for MailToday. Why? Because everyone and his brother is writing one. So why not I? It will be in the papers tomorrow. But you, dear reader, get to read it today!
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Five years of Opinions and Perspectives
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
— Marcus Aurelius [121 CE – 180 CE] (Emperor and stoic philosopher.)
This blog had its first post on this day in 2003. For five years, I have been expressing my opinion and perspective on a range of topics that deal with development and India. I had been writing a blog at Berkeley, “Life is a Random Draw”, for a while before I started on this one. I shut down the Berkeley blog as maintaining it was becoming a bit of a bother. It was my colleague Rajesh Jain who suggested that I should write a blog on economic development of India.
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Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw 