Anant in a recent comment on this blog concluded with the seemingly wise statement “to revenge is pleasure, to forgive divine.” I say seemingly wise because it does not withstand any level of scrutiny. Forgiving an enemy may or may… Read More ›
About
Why, oh why, are they so materialistic?
Prashant has raised a very interesting point. And one of the more important statements he makes is “… several religions of the world preach that material belongings are unimportant.”
The Triple Point of the World at Zero Degrees Humanity
Rain I keep waiting for the real monsoons to show up in Mumbai. Do they have any thunder and lightening and huge downpours around here or does this anemic occasional rain showers pass for the monsoons? Thank goodness that I… Read More ›
Born Under a Wandering Star
As the song goes, I was born under a wanderin’ star. Lately my wandering has been confined to attending ICT for development shindigs around the country. But it gets mighty tiring. So I thought that it is about time to… Read More ›
The Amazing Ogallala Aquifer
I have been neglecting this blog because I have been traveling to places exotic. Well, maybe not all that exotic since it was just Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh. I had gone there to speak at a conference on… Read More ›
Dollar Auctions and Deadly Games
Some years ago during the Kargil episode, I had analysed the conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir as a dollar aution (DA)and written a piece called Dollar Auctions and Deadly Games. I believe that the model has interesting implications… Read More ›
It’s the Small Stuff, Stupid
An ironic bit of popular wisdom goes Don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s all small stuff. In the context of economic development, I totally agree with the latter bit, but strongly disagree with the former bit. If we don’t sweat… Read More ›
What I Believe
It is easy to defend the view that resource scarcity is a crucial causal factor in most conflicts. And since scarcity of resources increases with increasing populations, a greater balance between resources and population numbers could reduce strife. I see… Read More ›
Why don’t they feel the pain?
Ever wonder why poor nations are poor and rich nations are rich? I don’t. I believe I know why the poor stay poor and the rich get rich. Consider this from The Wall Street Journal of Jan 19th. The report… Read More ›
HMS Titanic 4
In the last few days I have been trying to understand what caused the Titanic to sink. To belabor the obvious I must admit that I consider the sinking of the Titanic to be a metaphor. There are important lessons… Read More ›
