Yearly Archives: 2013


As an active listener, I often nod my head as I listen to people.  Turns out that I do it a little more vigorously than most other people – and this has become a trademark.  During a visit to a very remote village in Rajasthan, all the children of the village followed me for a whole day.  They would ask me questions and when I nodded in agreement every one of them nodded with squeals of laughter. My nodding also has its South Indian touch to it, and so I nod slightly differently when I answer in the affirmative or […]

You’ve got my nod


Google scholar has started a facility for us to build libraries (see announcement) of articles that we are interested in.  I am not sure how useful this will be since I have to maintain a library in my citation manager in any case (I use zotero  now and have used Refworks in the past). The Library allows us to save articles while we are searching for them and it can also give us recommendations based on the library (which Zotero cannot do).  That could be a useful feature temporarily as we search. The coolest feature so far is that it can […]

Google Scholar adds a library feature






A collection of links from sources as diverse as the RSS, CPI-ML, Mili Gazette, India Together and the Dalit News Network. All too often we read news from just the sources that are ideologically aligned to us. I created this page in order to break from this tradition so that I am acquainted with views from diverse sources – whether or not I agree with them. The links will be updated as and when the websites are updated. Bookmark it to stay updated. If you would like to import the feed into your own website or reader, click here. [inline] […]

Diverse opinions from India



Some people are in a crisis and others are enjoying prosperity...who should the government help? A serious policy debate.

People without a crisis


Hot News I’ve been wondering how I would announce the gender of our child once we found out. My initial thought? If it’s a girl, I’d deck out my website in pink with balloons floating around. For a boy? I drew a blank. That thought barely lasted a few seconds before I cringed at myself for boxing our child-to-be into stereotypical colors. Honestly, I’ve loved pink for ages. I still remember a primary school shopping trip when I confidently asked the saleswoman for pink undergarments. She responded with, “Are you Muslim?” To this day, I’m unsure what led her to […]

It’s a…