Appointed PM, Dr MM Singh, is Not Weak

It is widely reported and generally held as a fact that the appointed prime minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh, is weak and ineffective. He was appointed in 2004 and has dutifully followed the orders that were given to him. It is heartening to note that the widely held perception that he is weak and spineless is being challenged by his superiors. I am very pleased to note that he is being supported by those who appointed him and for whom he toils day and night (except on those nights when he worries about the families of terrorists.) The age of loyalty, as opposed to the age of chivalry, is not dead. So please read the glowing testimonials that prove that Mr Manmohan Singh is not a tool and that he is not weak and spineless.

This public service message brought to you courtesy of an anonymous reader of this blog and in the interests of the on-going general elections in India.

The Dollar Auction: Some Figures

I have maintained for a while that the reason that Pakistan gets propped up by the US and its allies is that India and Pakistan are engaged in a dollar auction game and therefore anytime Pakistan is about to go bankrupt (and therefore be unable to continue the game), the US and its allies rush to prop it up. How much money is involved in keeping Pakistan alive so that it can continue to wage jihad against India? Here are the figures from an article, “Fail, then reap rewards,” by Brahma Chellaney in the Deccan Chronicle. Continue reading “The Dollar Auction: Some Figures”

Make No Little Plans — Revisited

One of the consistent themes of this blog has been that India should think big. My favorite quote in this context is from Daniel Burnham, the fabled Chicago architect who said that we should think big:

Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big.

Continue reading “Make No Little Plans — Revisited”

Shourie on Indian Money in Tax Havens

For 55 years, the Congress has been the party in government of India. India has been a command and control socialist economy, which implies that politicians who controlled the license-permit-quota-control raj had the opportunity and the means to collect rents from businesses and put them away off-shore. This is not the most surprising thing in the whole world.

I am sure that if I had the opportunity to grab billions of dollars, I would have been sorely tempted. I most certainly don’t claim to be totally incorruptible. If the system permits it, and if the temptation is large enough, who can blame another for giving in? The important thing then is to make sure that such tempting opportunities don’t arise in the first place. The institutions we build matter more than the character (or lack thereof) of individuals involved in government.

Arun Shourie has done a masterful deconstruction of the arguments that the Congress put forth in response to Shri Advani’s recent insistence that the Congress-led UPA government has been dragging its feet on the issue of following up on the matter. Shourie is a master of the written word and his logic is impeccable. So even if one does not know too much of the story, just reading his deconstruction is enough for one to get the facts.

Below the fold are some excerpts from the piece by Shourie, “Congress Caught in its Own Web.”: Continue reading “Shourie on Indian Money in Tax Havens”

The Do-nothing Good Dr Manmohan Singh

“One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.” Thus spoke Will Durant, the celebrated American historian and philosopher, the author of the 11-volume The Story of Civilization. I sometimes wonder if Dr Manmohan Singh, the PM of India appointed by the Italian boss of the Congress Party, ever read history and if he did, whether he learned that lesson. Doing nothing is a good thing if the default is to do stupid thing. As the Buddha, the Enlightened One, the One Who Went Thus, had said, “First do no harm; then try to do good.” It appears that the appointed (as opposed to elected) PM is ignorant of what the Buddha said and what Durant had pointed out. He should have struck to doing nothing instead of what he actually did.
Continue reading “The Do-nothing Good Dr Manmohan Singh”

“Till human voices wake us, and we drown”

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April is the National Poetry Month in the US. “Inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month is now held every April, when publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools and poets around the country band together to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture.”
Continue reading ““Till human voices wake us, and we drown””

The Future of Education and Technology — Part 2

In the previous post, “The Future of Education and Technology,” I wrote that technology will have a disruptive influence on the present education system. But that is par for the course since the influence of technology on education has always been disruptive, rather than incremental. One could say that the education system in general has long periods of stasis punctuated by some technology-driven disruption.

In the following I will argue that the system is ripe for another of those disruptive events that will push the system from its current state to a qualitatively different higher state. As this is a personal view, my argument boils down to a lot of hand waving and no data. I will also introduce an analogy to explicate the changing role of the level of skills required in the production of education. I will use the manufacturing system — specifically automobile manufacture — as an analog.
Continue reading “The Future of Education and Technology — Part 2”

On the future of education and technology

In what is to follow, I will focus on what is a core concern of this blog: education and related matters. One thing is certain in a world of uncertainty: the system will change. So I would like to ponder the direction and magnitude of the change. It is also certain that the change will be technology based and in a sense will be technology driven. I will take some lessons from books and the web. One book that I have spent some time with recently is “The Race between Education and Technology” by Goldin and Katz. I would also like to touch upon the the future of universities. My point of departure is that technology will have a disruptive influence on them.
Continue reading “On the future of education and technology”

The biggest clown in the circus

I think the biggest clown in the circus must be Mulayan Singh Yadav — affectionately known among his followers as Mullah Singh Yadav — of the Samajwadi Party. He has figured out that computers lie at the root of the problems that India faces. Why?

“The use of computers in offices is creating unemployment problems. Our party feels that if work can be done by a person using hands there is no need to deploy machines,” Mr. Mulayam Singh said at a press conference after unveiling the [Samajwadi Party] manifesto.

Continue reading “The biggest clown in the circus”