Vivek’s Info

Note: The “topics subpages” on your right gives details on topics of special interest. For an overall overview, read on.

This page is divided into (1) For social science students (2) Special topics of my interest (3) Entertainment. If you’re looking out for any particular topic, you may wish to quickly skip ahead.  I also have a large collection of Useful Links categorized by topics.  These are automatically added from my del.icio.us bookmarks i.e. the links are constantly updated.

1. For social science students

As a student I do reviews of books and software that I add to the site regularly. Notes from my student life can be found under the tag Diary of a doctoral student. This tag indexes the widest range of issues of interest to me as a doctoral student: utilities, personal issues, time management issues, and notes on many a topic of my interest.

Books and articles

As of now most of my book reviews related to economics or development. But my interpretation of these two terms is rather wide, and so my books will also come technically from different disciplines.

Software and utilities for students

I distinguish software from utilities by seeing if it’s downloaded and run in one’s PC. The range of utilities covered include research related utilities, information management (specially bibliographic utilities), time management utilities, and other miscellaneous stuff such as video cutters, etc.

Bibliographies

I’ve been trying to maintain detailed bibliographies on subjects of my interest. I’ve started putting these online. Most of the bibliographies are downloadable and could be imported into citation managers. Given the interdisciplinary nature of my study, the bibliographies are from different disciplines. Many of them are straight out of coursework, some I have made on my own.

Interesting talks online: Video and audio recordings

I have been listening to talks, interviews and discussions online by interesting people like Michael Foucault, Edward Said, Amartya Sen, and others. I am working on indexing them in this site with brief descriptions, where possible.

2. Special topics of interest

Right to food

I have decided to give my favourite topic a special consideration - and a special page. Please click here, or “Right to food” in the navigation bar above.

Social Movements

I have previously worked in the Right to Food Campaign and National Federation for the Fundamental Right to Education (NAFRE) in India. Starting from this experience, I have an interest in collective action as an important aspect of our lived world. My social movements collection here includes notes on books, documentaries, talks, and some personal notes.

Education

As a student I better show some interest in education! Given my close association with the right to food campaign, naturally some of the posts are on school feeding. But I have also been interested in topics such as common schools, school reforms and other subjects. Some interest groups in the country have been talking of introducing “market based systems” such as school vouchers, charter schools, etc. These ideas ofcourse are imported from USA. Since I came to the US, I have been trying to learn more about how these systems function. What I have learned about them so far is far from enthusiastic. More on this is coming soon.

Field Notes

These are informal notes I made from field trips in India, and a few in the US. Most of these are on issues around the right to food. The notes are typically long, and may be of interest only if you wish to read about how things function on the ground. I am currently working on thematic posts based on the field notes, which may be of greater utility and interest.

3. Entertainment

Movie Reviews

Sneaking out for a movie has become one of my favoured hobbies. Geographically, my movies come from all over. But I have fairly strong likes and dislikes. Very often I find movies highly rated in rotten tomatoes or IMDB to be quite unwatchable (e.g. Baby face, Some like it hot). At the same time, I rely heavily on lists made by people to select movies to watch. Since there may be others with a taste similar to mine, I thought it would be useful to include reviews and ratings from my perspective. My ratings are intended to compare movies within my sample and so movies that are generally rated high may get a rather low rating in this website. In other words, there are movies rated 1/5 or 2/5 that I would have enjoyed watching – these are not necessarily bad. They just point to the fact that among movies I watched there are those that I enjoyed relatively more.

When I am unable to do a full fledged review, I’ve done a short blurb and a rating all in one page to enable comparison of movies.

Fun Stuff

The blog contains posts about my friends and other little experiences such as shopping trips, leaving to the US, etc.