-
Like the website?
All topics
All topics (expanded)
Featured
-
The art & craft of academic writing: Interviews & talks
Unlike a lot of people, writing does not come to me naturally. It has been a slow and difficult learning process, and I had to contend with massive writing project as I started the dissertation. As it turned out, writing the dissertation was fun, but not always. It took me an year and a half to write the dissertation after the fieldwork, and in the process, it helped me to know what other writers had gone through. A lot of that advice came from the committee and from my peers at the University, and some of it came from webcasts on…
-
Zotero: The best citation tool around, and it’s free
Zotero is a free-software to manage bibliographies and citations with advanced functions and an easy interface As a doctoral student a lot of my time goes into managing my references. Thankfully there are many tools around to help me manage my references and to speed up the process of inserting citations while I write my papers. After a lot of trial and error I settled on Refworks that I was really happy with. Unfortunately it is a paid software with a stiff fee that I may not be able to afford once I leave the university. Thankfully, a friend told…
-
8 Principles for open government data & beyond
In an age of digital information, how should government publish electronic data in keeping with high standards of right to information.
-
Mernissi’s Dreams of trespass: Best feminist work I have read yet
Brilliant auto-ethnography questions the rules surrounding women’s lives
-
Kamal Hassan’s Anbe Sivam: An underrated classic
Story of changing values in an era of globalisation; an all-time favourite
Latest
-
Making subjectivity visible: Sections from my dissertation
Posted on December 31, 2011 | 2 CommentsMy pot belly, being 'rosy complexioned' and other stories from the field. I wrote these pieces in a course on ‘creative non-fiction’ and included them in the dissertation to provide my readers a break from the formal monotony. Sadly, most people remember sections of this from the dissertation, and little else. Such is the life of a doctoral student. -
Classrooms without walls
Posted on December 21, 2011 | No CommentsAfter watching a news report on the appalling number of schools in India without even a building to house it in, I saw an advertisement mentioning “My classroom has no walls, I have no ceiling”. I would have thought that it were a fundraising advertisement to build schools, but for the white smiling face in the ad. It turns out in this strange world that classrooms without walls can also be sold as an opportunity. -
Two bizarre gates
Posted on December 10, 2011 | No CommentsThe strangeness of the gate of the Delhi School of Economics compared to an equally bizarre gate in Los Angeles. -
Mind-maps for organising the layout of a chapter, article or dissertation
Posted on November 17, 2011 | No CommentsMind maps can help us contend with different ways of organizing the layout of chapters, books or articles when we are confronted with different way of organizing it. -
Photosynth of Stanford on a beautiful cloudy day
Posted on November 13, 2011 | No CommentsPanoramic view of one of Stanford using Photosynth software of Microsoft. -
Need for public service mobile application foundation for India
Posted on November 8, 2011 | No CommentsDuring my last visit to India, I participated in a few meetings on questions such as strengthening the right information act, the role of the PDS, and other social issues. In all these meetings there was a vigorous debate on how mobile phones could be used on each of these issues given the rapid spread of mobiles in rural India. Despite periodic discussion about the use of technology, I did not hear viable ideas among my activist friends. I believe that this is in part because most of them are not advanced users of technology, and they have definitely not...
More
-
Human rights
Rights based approach to development: Lessons from India’s Right to Food Campaign
No Comments -
Institutional economics
Review of Easterly’s Elusive quest for growth
No Comments -
Books, articles & talks
Edward Said’s talk on ‘Clash of Civilizations’ by Samuel Huntington
No Comments -
India
Best book on India’s development by Amartya Sen and Dreze
No Comments -
Institutional economics
Easterly’s critique of cash for condoms: a case of poverty of economic approach
No Comments -
Institutional economics
Collected works on Anthropology and institutional economics
No Comments -
Early institutional theorists
Babasaheb Ambedkar’s works online: Books, articles, talks
5 Comments











