Category: Random Draws

The events of the last few days which ended with the UPA government winning a vote of confidence yesterday in the Indian parliament demonstrate something quite dramatically. Rajinder Puri’s editorial in today’s Free Press Journal goes a little bit into the matter but not far enough, in my opinion.
Continue reading “We have met the enemy and he is us”

Old soldiers never die,
Never die, never die,
Old soldiers never die
They just fade away.

Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji “Sam Bahadur” Jamshedji Manekshaw MC (April 3, 1914 – June 27, 2008)

Here’s a warm farewell to Sam Manekshaw from a little boy. And from a soldier to Sam Bahadur.

Here’s an idea. You are going to take a flight sometime in the afternoon. You SMS a particular well-known number. It reads, “Start flight S26641”. Immediately you get a response, “Welcome to updates on Jet Lite flight from Pune to Hyderabad. Estimated 20 minutes delay. ETD 1540 hours.”

Later, around 1 PM, you get another SMS “Jet Lite Pune to Hyderabad delayed 1 hr 20 minutes. ETD 1640.” You plan accordingly. Finally, just when you were about to leave home, another SMS arrives: “Jet Lite Pune to Hyderabad delayed 1 hr 40 minutes. ETD 1700 hours.”

You get to the airport around 1600 hours. You get an SMS at 16:30 saying “Jet Lite Pune to Hyderabad broading.” You proceed to the security and off you go. Once you pass through the boarding gate, the final SMS says, “Have a nice flight. End of transmissions.”
Continue reading “Flight Information System”

Papers by the Scores

A recent report by Goldman Sachs, Ten Things for India to Achieve its 2050 Potential, makes for interesting reading. Part of a long series of papers, this is Global Economics Paper number 169, and their fourth paper dealing with India and its growth potential.

I found it hard to avoid reading it because more than a dozen people forwarded it to me, some with obvious approval of the content. Here I will briefly review the content of the paper and add some of my own thoughts on what reforms India needs. But first, a general word on these sorts of papers.
Continue reading “Goldman Sachs’ 10-point Reform Package for India”

Government schools in rural AP are losing strength because students are deserting them for private schools, according to this news item. (Hat tip: Ramesh Jagannathan)

People who have the ability to move, vote with their feet. So if they are moving away from free government schools to private schools where they have to pay, it speaks rather loudly to the fact that the government schools are not performing. The tragedy is that these failing government schools continue to be a drain on the public funds.
Continue reading “Failing Government Schools in AP”

An electric car is what we chiefly need. So someone has to do the hard work and develop it. Glad that the Norwegians would. [1].

A story in Business Week talks about an innovative Norwegian company, Think Global, that is producing electric cars that make sense: Continue reading “Isn’t it good Norwegians would”