Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw

This is a follow up to an Oct 2010 post, “The US and its Deadly Faustian Bargain” which needs revisiting because of new information. I urge you to read that post to get a sense of the insanity that is going around. What the new information does is just add more evidence to confirm my hypothesis that the US is the auctioneer in the dollar auction formulation of the conflict between India and Pakistan.
Continue reading “The US and its Deadly Faustian Bargain — Part 2”

Baba Ramdev is a popular Hindu leader. He is widely respected and celebrated for his teachings on yoga shastra. He is a tireless teacher to millions of people. He has rendered incomparable service to his followers in India, and — with the power of the internet — around the world. No one can take away the significance of his achievements in bringing understanding and empowerment to his followers in their private and social lives.

No one except Baba Ramdev himself, that is.

I think that the greatest enemy that Baba Ramdev faces is himself, as sometimes happens with people with extraordinary talent. They are victims of their own successes, and the knife sticking out of their backs is often one that they themselves hand to their attackers.
Continue reading “Baba Ramdev is a Very Great Man”

Presenting a short playlist of randomly selected songs for your weekend listening. Do let me know if you like it. Since a few people have written to me asking me what I thought of Baba Ramdev’s fast, I will write about it in my next post sometime tomorrow. Have a good weekend. Bye.

http://8tracks.com/mixes/322023/player_v3

The subtitle of Siddhartha Deb’s article, Feast and Famine, in the Boston Review reads, “India Is Growing, But Indians Are Still Starving.” The subtitle is too short. It should have added, “If India had not been growing, a couple of hundred million additional Indians would be starving.” I make this point because the article gives the impression that somehow India’s growth has something to do with the 800 million Indians who have to survive on less than Rs 20 a day.
Continue reading “The Starving 800 million in India”

Winston Churchill’s pithy observation that “the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter” is unfortunately too accurate to be dismissed lightly. We are often acutely reminded of that by the results of elections, in developed as well as in developing countries. It is a marvel that the myth of the enlightened voter persists against all evidence to the contrary.
Continue reading “Democracy, Elections and Voting — Part 3”

As you probably know, 21st of May is the rapture. Nothing to do with rap music or anything like that. Just that Jeebus will be gathering those who believe in him. Anywho, check out this thoughtful video on the upcoming rapture.

“The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who knows why will always be his boss.” Ralph Waldo Emerson was a clever man. Someone else wrote that if we know the why, we can always figure out the how. Perhaps it was I or perhaps it was someone smarter. Anyhow, this is an open thread. Say what you will. I am going to be back in a bit.

Many of you know that I believe that the backbone of India’s transportation system has to be rail-based. I love trains and continue to marvel at how amazing railroads are. This post is about how amazing are the machines that lay, repair and replace railroad tracks in advanced industrialized countries (and I suppose nowadays in China.)
Continue reading “Railway Track Replacement Machine in Action”