Finally found the perfect voice recorder with great clarity, space, battery life and other great features I have tried my hands on four to five voice recorders so far. When I left to India for my fieldwork I was determined to get a good one that matches all my requirements. I will be doing long interviews and attending conferences – so I needed one that has a powerful mic and could record for long durations. When I read or when I work on some topic, I like to record my thoughts as they come. I needed a voice recorder that […]
Vivek Srinivasan
I was sauntering around in Toys R Us at Time Square in the Christmas season. Anyone who has been there around this time knows of the incredible amount of crowds that come there. Most people sport a wonderful festive attitude – even New Yorkers. I was there just to enjoy this atmosphere and was happy to look around and talk to anyone who cared to. I sustained myself with some wonderful small talk. I started having a conversation with a latino family from the mid-west. They had come to the ground floor so that their 17 year old son can […]
Child care – American style
1 Young people contribute a lot in social movements...but what is their status in them?
Being young in a social movement
The best task manager online now goes offline! I have been excited with the prospect of Google Gears that will allow many online applications to be used when we are offline. After the announcement there was a little lull and I was waiting for the products to be rolled out – and the first of them that I have seen is my favourite Task Manager – Remember the milk. With this the task manager can now be used when we are offline as well. Google gears is a product that allows developers to create applications for us to use online […]
Remember the milk available offline with Google Gears
Comparisons are often drawn between the New Deal in USA and the Employment Guarantee Act in India (NREGA). One programme of new deal comes close to NREGA – Civilian Conservation Corps The Government of India passed the all-important National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in 2005 (for an intro click here). Whenever I mention it to my friends in USA the first question they ask me is, “is this like the new-deal”. The new deal has many similarities with NREGA, but is a much wider concept. NREGA is a programme dealing exclusively with labour-intensive, unskilled work. Employment programmes under new […]
America’s New Deal & India’s Employment Guarantee Act
Sindhu Bhairavi Year: 1985 Writer: K. Balachander Director: K. Balachander Length: 2 H 50 M Category: Drama Rating: 5 out of 5 A classic Tamil movie that’s almost perfect Sindhu Bhairavi is a rare love story where the relationship between the man and the woman is based on an intellectual craving. JKB, an acclaimed Carnatic singer (played by Sivakumar), has a beautiful wife (played by Sulokshana) who has no knowledge of music or interest in it. He discovers a fan of his – Suhashini – a keenly intelligent woman who thrives on music. Her knowledge of music, willingness to confront […]
Sindhu Bhairavi by Balachander: A treat for every sense
A friend of mine believes that tigers are rational and calculating. If he were a philosopher or an academic of some other brand I would have acquiesced to his argument. But Vinayan and I were in a jungle and we were waging a life and death argument. “Tigers know that if they kill people, people will kill them in turn”, argued Vinayan, “and being rational they will not kill people”. Saying this he urged me to walk into the Jungle as far as we were permitted with the hope of meeting a tiger. Having a rather limited faith in rationality […]
Snakes, Tigers and Crazy Friends
Many good movies have come out of Indians living abroad in the last decade. Monsoon Wedding is highly known, but there is a lot more to look at. Here are five such movies. Most of my American and European friends have seen Monsoon Wedding by Meera Nair. This is by far the most popular movie till today by an Indian director based abroad. But there are many more good movies that are worth watching that are much lesser known. Here’s a quick introduction. The acclaimed Meera Nair has taken quite a few movies. Among these, I am fond of Salaam […]
Lively ‘Desi Movies’: Going beyond Monsoon Wedding
Pertinent questions are being asked about the sustainability of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in the US…but the causes and options are not articulated fully Since there is a lot of hullaboo about the “crisis” in social security I tried to find what it’s all about. To my considerable surprise, I found that if the current trends continue, the system will go insolvent in early 2040’s. This kind of foresight in fiscal planning came as a surprise to me – but it is welcome. The crisis is attributed to a demographic shift towards the aged that is going to sharply […]
Are we asking the right questions on Social Security & ...
Online news is more than just reading the same stuff online…it’s a great way of comparing how news is presented across different news papers Given that newspapers are our sole source of information on a variety of issues, news bias is a serious issue. In the days of reading on paper, I would subscribe to one, or at most two newspapers and read through them cursorily. But thanks to Google News (and other such news search engines), I now compare the presentation of news across newspapers. Google news puts together articles on a topic from newspapers across the world, and […]
Google News: Advantage of using news readers
Page 3 IMDB Year: 2005 Director: Madhur Bhandarkar Category: Drama Rating: 5 out of 5 A fantastic out of the box movie from India ‘Page 3’ by Madhur Bhandarkar is one of the nicest Indian movies I have seen in the last five years or so. The plot of page 3 is available in many sites, and I will not write about it here. I shall concentrate instead on some aspects that liked most in the movie. Unique story line The story, to begin with, is refreshingly different, and is a drastic shift from the typical formula-based movies. This does […]
Page 3: Madhur Bandarkar & Konkona Sen scintillate
Anthropology and institutional economics Rating: 3 out of 5 Editor: James M. Acheson Year: 1994 Category: Anthropology, economics, institutional economics Publisher: University Press of America ISBN: 0819195952 This volume is one of the rare collection of papers I found looking at Anthropology and institutional economics. Surprisingly, though the two have a large scope for collaboration, there is very little work happening between these two disciplines, to my knowledge. This volume provides a useful introduction. The book starts with an introduction about Anthropology and Institutional economics by James Acheson. This is followed by an essay on New Institutionalism by Robert Bates. […]
Collected works on Anthropology and institutional economics
Good introductory video on using right to information to combat corruption by Arvind Kejriwal Arvind Kejriwal has been at the heart of an inspiring campaign to combat corruption by using the right to information. He spearheaded a campaign in Delhi along with many other groups that popularised the use of right to information. Arvind got the Magasassay for his work. The videos below contain a talk he gave on using RTI, which I think is a good introductory material for people with an interest on how it could be used, and what it means.
Fighting corruption using right to information: Arvind Kejriwal’s talk
It looks like Government of Bihar has launched a Right to information call centre. Personally, I think this is a great idea, though I dont know how it works at this point. If found a video about it in You Tube that has been widely televised. This is a eight minute clip about that appeals to different groups of people to use it, and gives an idea about how it could be done.
Right to information call centre in Bihar: Video clip
Food politics: how the food industry influences nutrition and health Rating: 5 out of 5 Author: Marion Nestle Year: 2002 Category: Nutrition, Political Economy, Agriculture Publisher: University of California Press Fascinating book on the politics of food in USA The book was motivated by the contradictions between nutrition policy and practice. The author argues that the basic nutrition advice has remained more or less constant for the last fifty years. She examines the role of food industry in the US in creating an environment conductive to over eating and poor nutritional practice. Overproduction, Competition & pressure to make people eat […]
Food Politics by Marion Nestle: How industries influence eating
Robert Moses was the most prolific builder of public projects in New York City leaving behind a contested legacy I chanced across a debate on the legacy of Robert Moses that was held at Museum of the City of New York. The webcast of the discussion includes a 20 minute presentation by the Dy. Mayor of New York, Daniel Dotoroff and it is followed by a powerful presentation by Majora Carter of Sustainable South Bronx. Daniel gives a brief overview of Robert Moses’ life and work and draws an analogy to the work he is involved with currently. Robert Moses […]
Legacy of Robert Moses: Webcast of Discussion
I had almost become tierd of reading the last few months. Books were becoming repetitive, and arguments were being recycled at an alarming rate. Finally, I landed on a brilliantly written book by Jane Jacobs. I have by now heard a lot about her seminal book, Death and life of great American cities, and I saw some webcasts of her interviews. Finally, I decided that I want to read some good stuff and laid my hands on this book. Jane Jacob’s presentation is lucid and she has a highly engaging style. The content is very original and challenging, and on […]
Finally a good book to read
This is the fourth post I am writing today when I should be writing my paper. The term is about to end and I just don’t feel like reading or writing (don’t ask me what enables me to write all these posts, that’s the irony about me). I have been working on my topic for an year now, and am yet to defend my proposal. If I am topic fatigued now, what will become of me when I get to the writing stage? I know that I have to make writing fun – and it has often been the case. […]
Lantern & the sea: a dream to make dissertation writing ...
For the last three or four months, I have just not felt like reading anything. I have not stopped reading…but that which I read has been random stuff. My comprehensive exams are not far away, and I am in no mood to do any sustained work. Infact, I came to the office with the idea of reading and writing a paper; instead, I am writing this blog post. Part of the problem is that I’ve run out of exciting new books. I dont claim that there are none around – but I have not been able to lay my hands […]
I don’t feel like reading
Ph.D. is a long haul & often a tiresome journey. Knowing oneself well can make the process fun, quick & worthwhile I audited a wonderful course on doing a dissertation with Prof. Nick Smith in the department of education at SU. A small part of the course was about methods, theories, and other academic paraphrenalia that make up the dissertation. Instead, his main concentration was to prepare us mentally to do the dissertation well and enjoy it. If there is one lesson that was central to the lectures, it is “know yourself”. Knowing one’s body rythms, when we feel like […]