Whenever I am up late I turn on the TV and watch the “Tonight Show” hosted by comedian Jay Leno. My favorite segment of this show is called “Jaywalking”. Reporters from the Tonight Show approach pedestrians in some of the major American cities and ask them fairly basic questions. Some of the responses are hilarious. [...]
Those of us who are in the software industry have been in situations where we release a product to the customer only to find that the customer has found some issues that requires another full release or a patch release. In such situations one of the first questions that management wants answered is why we [...]
We in India know that we have a great history. I am not sure how we know this for a fact but we know. The Chinese hold a very similar opinion. Maybe the concept of the great past is something that our forefathers passed on to us as we pass on to our future generations. [...]
Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace has published the failed states index for 2010. The group aims to rank nations based on what they call “12 Degrees of Failure”. This includes among other things demographics, number of refugees, illegitimate government, brain drain and human rights. For the record Somalia came in first with [...]
The Canadian High Commission in New Delhi has described the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) as “a notoriously violent paramilitary unit engaged in systematic attacks on civilians and responsible for torturing suspected criminals”. This was used as an excuse to deny visa to a former BSF jawan who wanted to travel to Canada. Such language [...]
The story of Alexander the Great is very familiar to most Indians (at least we think we do). We are taught in history classes that Alexander invaded India in 326 BCE. He fought a fierce battle with King Porus (battle of the Hydaspes River) in modern day Pakistan. Porus was defeated but Alexander spared his [...]
The Chennai Corporation has started enforcing the rule that shops in the city should display name boards in Tamil. According to the corporation the names and details in Tamil should occupy at least 50% of the total space. Such laws have been in the books in Chennai and most other parts of Tamil Nadu for [...]
As an Indian who has lived in the United States for a long period of time I am generally in favor of improved relationship between the two nations. For India its relationship with Pakistan, China and the United States are its three most important ones. For the United States its relationship with India is important [...]
Continuing its tradition of passing laws that has no practical use the Union Cabinet of India today approved a proposal submitted by the Civil Aviation Ministry to amend the Anti-Hijacking Act of 1982. This was announced by the Minister for Information and Broadcasting Ambika Soni. The modified act will include the following: Section 3 and [...]
Last week leaders of 70 nations met in London to discuss the future of Afghanistan. The goal of the Western nations is to increase the size of the Afghanistan security forces to about 300,000 by mid next year. This will enable the NATO and other forces to drop down the number of military personnel and [...]
India has invited the Foreign Secretary of Pakistan Salman Bashir to meet with his Indian counterpart Nirupama Rao for talks later this month (Nirupama Rao has already met the Pakistani High Commissioner to India Shahid Malik to discuss the possibility of these talks). New Delhi has indicated that it is willing to discuss any issue [...]
Multiple media outlets are reporting that Congressman John Conyers (Democrat from Michigan) has said in his speech to the House of Representatives that “In order to secure a long-term regional peace, the President must engage India and Pakistan to seek a final political agreement on Kashmir.”
America is now focused on the health care debate, state of the economy, Christmas season shopping, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Tiger Woods. None of this has any relevance to the developing world particularly those countries in Asia that are continuing to see impressive economic growth even as many Western countries are struggling to cope with [...]
Yesterday President Hamid Karzai was sworn in as the President of Afghanistan for the second time. The ceremony was held inside the presidential palace and was witnessed by a few foreign journalists. The capital Kabul was completely shut down and was under curfew.
“Former President George W Bush is a great friend of our country. We, in India, recognize the important role he played in the fruition of the civil nuclear cooperation initiative”. These were the statements made by our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at a
If you are an economist India is today a happy place. More Indians are joining the middle class like never before and almost all vital indicators like poverty level, literacy rate, life span, and health are improving through out the country. Pessimism has given way to optimism.
For the past one year many Western countries have applied pressure on Pakistan to move its army from its Eastern border to its Western border. They hope that this will enable Pakistan to strike the Pakistani Taliban and their friends in the Pakistan – Afghanistan border. The West is correct. India is very unlikely to [...]
