The current Common Wealth Games fiasco represents everything that is wrong with governance in India. It was just bizarre watching the Delhi CM Sheela Dikshit and the organizers reasoning the recent bridge collapse and the dirty conditions inside the living areas. Its absurd that the CM considers this a "minor incident" because the bridge was meant only for the common people and not athletes, and that does not really affect the games as such. And who knows, may be it will become a major incident if the entire stadium...
The magnanimous new skyscraper rising in the horizon of North Bangalore’s almost non-existent skyline is in a way a preamble to the shape of things to come in the next decade of the City’s growth. Although...
It was ironic watching Karnataka CM Yediyurappa on TV calling all civic bodies to maintain strict vigilance to prevent new slums from cropping up in the city even as two new slums are taking shape in...
This message was forwarded to me some time ago by my boss at CNBC-TV18. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7. The eighth would pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank...
Over the last three and half months I have only been preoccupied with preparing for the CFA -1 and also looking at opportunities to start a business venture. Of course this also includes a month I spent volunteering full-time at Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy (JCCD). It has been a rather uncomfortable break after I returned from New Zealand, but so far so good. Only lately, I am increasingly starting to wonder about my future. Should I really act on this “great” business idea that struck me three...
I think the Nuclear Liability Bill that was finally tabled in the parliament last week is probably the only reason to cheer for the UPA government since its inception. It may have been a grueling haggle...
I finally read “Imagining India” by Nandan Nilekani. The book is a fantastic read for anyone interested in India and its future status in the world economy. Imagining India walks the readers through India’s economic experiments after Independence and Nandan’s trials and tribulations of being a businessman during the “license raj”. Nandan offers fantastic insights into how India we see today transformed from 1950s through the 90s on the back of “ideas” – ideas that held India back for a long time even after Independence...
First came Matrix and now comes Inception. It’s startling how Hollywood directors manage to narrate complex ideas with such sheer brilliance. All cheers to Christopher Nolan and the Wachowsky Brothers for making films that challenge the viewers to dissect the meaning and mindscape of their movies. It comes as no surprise that Inception has garnered such critical acclaim with the Times of India calling it “most original movie ever” and NY times tabling it “the biggest mind-fuck” of the century. As Inception continues...
I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by a sense of impending doom facing India after reading the recently released McKinsey Report on India’s urbanization trends in the next decade. Although the urban...
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