I would like

to see Gideon Haigh feel the same way when Autralia/New Zealand/England make a ridiculous stance on a ICC president nomination. I don't intend to support the 7 board members who voted against Howard. But, to simplify the issue at hand as self-serving is not only ridiculous but funny. What have the 3 boards done for all the years. How can you sit so silent then and rant because people who are at the top don't agree with you. Its like Fox making fun of Obama because he does things they don't agree with!

Anyway, I do think that the boards that voted against Howard need to highlight why they did so as Sambit Bal points out here.

A novel idea that

might offer many advantages to the parliamentary process in India.

Fiscal Austerity

Who do you agree with?
Economics Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman who claims, in his New York Times weekly column, the world is heading towards a Third Depression.
Live Mint Bare Talk Columnist Anantha Nageswaran, who claims the fiscal austerity might be the right option!
Read the articles and decide. I think Nageswaran points seem more reasonable while Krugman's view seem to emanating from personal preference than sound logic.

Ok, I might be wrong (or may be not smart enough to get it) but what the hell I will not stop to opine!

Does anybody

among the NSG members have the courage to stop the Nuclear deal between China and Pakistan? I am not sure. But lets see!

You can hardly

disgree with Rahul Bhattacharya regarding the poor state of cricket!

Life....

As you grow old there are different phases you pass through. A couple of years ago it was all good news with lots of friends getting married. However, the last year and a half has been different. There are still good news about weddings, engagements, jobs etc. But there has been a new dimension of constant news of deaths of people I have known. It kinds of scares you and at the same time reminds how fickle once's life is. Enjoy it while you can!

A fable

by David Brooks on how liberalism might be at a loss

Listen to this comeback by Manoj Tiwary

during his India A match from the link here by jrod. Please be ready for A rated language!

An interesting

article on the course of liberalism here by Ross Douthat in the New York Times. I do not entirely agree with his views but it does provide an interesting take on the criticism of Barack Obama by liberals like Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart.

BJP top brass meet today to discuss Bihar row- Hindustan Times

Does n't BJP have any political acumen. How do they expect to make any progress if they cannot maintain their alliances. See the Bihar row. It is very immature of a national party to lose alliance partners on issues that seem trivial and could have been managed. The Congress on the other hand is working hard to please its allies at the cost of progress. What an awesome state of affairs for India. Hmmm!

Want to make a change in India?

May be its time we follow the lead of the people discussed in this Amit Varma post

Some excerpts

Raj uses the term ‘colour pictures’ as a metaphor and a proxy: what he actually showed these men in power was “a vision for a better future”. He made it compelling and tangible, with no vague head-in-the-clouds talk about grand ideas. These examples are not examples of liberal ideas per se, but this is exactly the approach that classical liberals in India should take: Eschew the grand talk, get down to brass tacks, bring out the colour pictures.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta has a nice

piece on the problematic governance of Congress here!
An excerpt

The Congress will need to ask sooner or later: how long can this supposed division of political responsibility and responsibility for government continue? At the moment it is producing a situation where both head of party and head of government emerge only very episodically to perform any leadership function. And if at the very top there is so little decisiveness, you can only imagine what signal this sends to the rest of the system: that individual responsibility can be evaded by lobbing the ball in the court of an EGOM.

Well ..Well

How smart are congress politicians. I mean Modi was in charge when Godhra riots took place and he is tattooed as a villain for life (and rightly so!). But Rajiv Gandhi presided 2 riots. Yes, one riot of killing Sikhs (for assassinating Indira Gandhi) and the Bhopal tragedy. His government allowed Henderson to run away. Negotiated a pittance as liability*. But well for 15 years nobody cared about. I would love to know how congress runs their publicity machinery so well. Stunning, or should I say !@#$$^&* unbelievable!

All those educated folk who vote for Congress and stand against BJP because BJP flaunts Narendra Modi (a villain), Please answer this: How can you vote for a party which allowed such tragedy to happen in the first place, and allow the perpetrators to run away in a state owned plane? OPEN YOUR EYES PEOPLE OF INDIA. PLEASE OPEN YOUR EYES. YOU ARE GETTING LOOTED BY THE SAME FAMILY FOR YEARS AND IT WILL NEVER STOP.

*BTW he was also awarded the Bharat Ratna (may be for doing these things so smartly!).

Sidharth Monga

has a nice piece on how cricketers try to handle heckling here
An excerpt on how Dravid manages to hold his ground!

Dravid's way is pretty effective too. 'From the team bus, when I put the curtain down, I often see there are people lined up waiting for you, waving at you,' he says. 'There is a young kid on the road, selling magazines. He smiles at you, recognises you through the tiny window, waves at you, does a cricket action for you. That's passion. That's what it is about. I always look at it and say, that's the world game. The whole world's got to be grateful for that. And when I came across the rare idiot of the other kind, that kid is what I think of.'

You can't help but respect this man immensely. He is not only a talented, hard working cricketer but a geneuinely wonderful human being.

What can you say?

A piece by Annie Zaidi requesting Obama to look into the Union Carbide case. Well, as long as it not American lives I don't see anybody from the White House giving a damn!

Reading books

There are days where I wish I read books for a living. These books I read transport me into a different world allowing me to feel different emotions in different ways. Somehow, reading a sad story gives me an outlet for my own suffering. Similarly, a happy ending makes me joyous about my own good fortune in life. It is as if I am connected to a different world through the books I read. I am grateful for acquiring the habit of reading books. Two contemporary authors have touched my life so much that at different moments in my life they have given me solace, provided me with context to my pain and allowed me to understand life a little bit better. Jhumpa Lahiri and Khaled Hosseini - Thank you.

Just finished reading Unaccustomed Earth. It's a nice book. Nothing really great, but there is a connection I feel that makes it wonderful, really wonderful for me!

Hmmmm

Well, its been a longtime since I posted on my personal life. So many things have ironed out over the last 1 month its hard to imagine. There will be some new beginnings, some old baggage and of course optimism for the future. Lets see how things turn out!

Greatbong has

sensible piece on the flotilla incident here.

An experiment in teaching

working great!

Sal Khan at Gel 2010 (founder, the Khan Academy) from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

Link via (Rajesh)