Category: About

Why blogging has been intermittent

Things have been slow around here, you may have noticed. A few people have asked why. Part of the reason has been that I have been really distracted. First there was the travel. I had left for India early December 2015. Visiting places and meeting people is distracting although fun. I started back from India on Jan 23rd. First stop was Brussels. I arrived at Zaventem airport in Brussels at 8 AM on Jan 23rd. That was two months ago. Seeing the pictures of the bombed-out departure hall brings back memories. I have walked that hall close to a dozen times over the last few years. Yesterday’s terrorist attack at Brussels airport felt somewhat personal to me. After Brussels, I stopped for a week on the East coast to visit friends in New Jersey and Boston, and got home to San Jose on 2nd February.
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Hello from Bangalore

Greetings from Bangalore. I arrived this morning to visit with friends. The journey from the airport to the city was predictably hellish. It looks like Bangalore’s traffic woes are going to get worse before it starts improving.

Where in the World is Yours Truly

This is for the information of friends and family. I am traveling a bit. I am in Nasik until Tuesday 29th. I leave for Bangalore from Mumbai on Wed 30th morning, and get back to Mumbai 3rd morning. Between 7th and 10th, I am in Pune. Jan 11, 12 & 13 I am in Mumbai. I leave for N Delhi 13th evening and get back to Mumbai 17th. I leave for Brussels on Jan 23rd morning. Then off to the East coast on Jan 25th. In the East coast, I will be in NJ, NY, Washington DC and Boston. Ping me in case you wish to meet up.

Regional Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, Los Angeles 2015

rpbd2015 I will be in Los Angeles this weekend. There’s a “Regional Pravasi Bharatiya Divas” (regional non-resident Indian day) in LA. Details here.

I have never been to one. I am going to this one to basically check out what the tamasha is all about. Many years ago I had attended the mother of all tamashas — a PanIIT meeting.

“What’s PanIIT?” you say. It’s a meeting of a group of completely self-absorbed engineers from IITs with very inflated egos who congratulate themselves on how astonishingly amazing they are and how they are the almighty’s gift to humanity, if not the entire creation. Go read my report on the 2006 PanIIT meeting that was held in Mumbai. Also see my thoughts on the 2008 PanIIT where I talk about the funding of new IITs.

India Needs a New Constitution

Human societies are rule-based. Rules not just define human societies but rules also differentiate between societies. Sufficiently large collectives of of people (say 100,000 or more) are indistinguishable in terms of their endowments because we all belong to the same species and we are just random draws from the same gene pool with minor variations. IF that is so, then what’s the origin of the inequality we observe in the wealth of nations? Why is Burundi not as wealthy as Sweden? The answer is that different societies follow different sets of rules, and the outcomes differ. Out of all the rules, norms, customs and traditions of a people, the formalized high-level set of rules is called the constitution.

In the following piece, co-authored with Rajesh Jain, I argue that India needs a new constitution. It was published today in Quartz. Here it is, for the record.
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2. Goodbye, Yogi Berra

Four days ago, Tuesday, I was in NJ. It was the end of a very hectic East coast visit. I returned the rental car around 9 AM. I had put around 1,500 miles (about 2,500 kms) on it doing trips to Washington DC, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston. The Hyundai Elantra was comfortable and spacious but it handled turns rather uncertainly. Could have been due to the tires but it could also be because I am used to a firmer suspension on my Saab 9-3. Anyhow, the rest of the day was spent in transit from Newark NJ to San Jose CA on Southwest Airlines. The layover was in Austin TX, a city famous for its music (Austin City Limits).

Upon arrival late evening, I got to know that Yogi Berra had passed away that day in Caldwell NJ. Although I have no interest in baseball, I had always loved “Yogi Berra-isms”. Indeed, I consider knowing them as part of a complete American education. In the final exams I set for econ courses I have taught, I always included one bonus question for extra points: “What is your favorite Yogi Berra-ism?” I kid you not.
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1. Turbulence at Houston

My little visit to the East coast — which started very early in the morning of Thursday Sept 10th — ended when I arrived at San Jose on Tuesday 22nd night around 9 PM. I had an exciting visit which included a great deal of going places, meeting people, giving talks and generally having a good time. My colleague, Rajesh Jain from Mumbai, and I met lots of new people and discussed the work that we propose to do. I am sure that I will be writing about that in future blog posts. Right now, I am going to generally ramble on, a stream of consciousness kind of reporting.
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East Coast

I am going to be in the East coast — NYC, Edison NJ, Boston, Washington DC, and Philadelphia — over the next two weeks. I am making a couple of presentations at the Global Dharma Conference in Edison NJ. My presentations are on Sunday 13th Sept. Aside from that, my colleague Rajesh Jain and I will be traveling to meet people, visit institutions and universities such as George Mason University, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, MIT etc. I may even go visit the Brookhaven National Labs in Long Island for a bit.

Blogging, which is any case very slim, will get even sparser. Be well, go good work and keep in touch.

An Open Letter to PM Shri Modi

“Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
— Justice Louis Brandeis in Olmstead vs United States 1928

 

May 26th, 2015

Dear Prime Minister Shri Modi:

I write this letter as a long-time supporter. I have had great expectations from you. Considering the importance of the matter I wish to address, this is very short; considering that you will probably not read anything longer than a powerpoint slide given your busy schedule, it is much too long. Therefore although addressed to you, it is meant for the ordinary citizen of India.

The opportunity for transformational change arises rarely. Rarer still are the times when these opportunities are actually seized and the nation transformed. We never get to know about those missed opportunities because history neither records nor evaluates failures positively. The potential for change exists rarely but actualizing that potential is even rarer still. So rarely do transformations occur that when they do happen, they are highlighted in the history of nations centuries after the events, often long after the entire population has been replaced many times.
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Ask me anything

It’s time to have a conversation. I intend to have google hangouts on a regular basis. I am taking suggestions on the day and time. But first, would you like to join? Would the weekends be a good time for you? And if so, what time? Of course, you can ask me anything by leaving a comment on this post. I hope to hear from you on this open thread.