Where Indian elites sign up to get married. I can’t spell out exactly why hate this but I do. Their ads on TV are ridiculous-I thought they were badly done satire. Nope. They are very serious. My fellow countrymen, these are the people who think they are better than you. Watch and Weep.
Note the stupidly-accented English, obnoxious arrogance and general air of contemptuousness.
Also see:
In 1965, a book titled Vedic Mathematics was published in English. Since then, the subject has become an industry that shows no sign of diminishing. In its latest manifestation, parents who know no better are shelling out serious money in the hope that their children will become scientific geniuses. They really shouldn’t bother. The subject amounts to nothing more than a few cheap parlour tricks, and there is nothing Vedic about it…
Bharti Krishna Tirthaji was born in 1884 with some talent for science and mathematics. But he eventually paid heed to a passion for Sanskrit and philosophy, and joined the Sringeri math in Mysore to study under its Shankaracharya. In 1925, he became a Shankaracharya himself. All through these years, he’d kept up his interest in science and mathematics. Many scholars before him had dismissed the Atharva Veda as arcane and difficult to understand, but Tirathji decided to spend time studying it in the belief that he could excavate the knowledge that he felt must lie there.
Child geniuses are usually overrated, their future especially…Tulsi’s father has for long said that his son’s rumoured genius is a consequence of a mystically arranged conception that would not only produce a male child, but also a very smart male child. “It is a science called eugenics,” he told The Times of India recently, probably not knowing what he was talking about. “I and my wife had to plan everything in the process of having the child, right from our diet to our mood to the sex itself,” he said. The result was Tulsi, who obtained an MSc degree at the age of 12. It is not hard to imagine that this feat would inspire the Indian media to call him a child prodigy. Though, in time, the moral of Tulsi’s story would be that a 12-year-old need not have any extraordinary cerebral capacity to obtain a Masters degree from Patna University..
Baba points me to this amazing site that does translations of the Chinese online world for the benefit of English-speakers. Keep in mind that India barely registers in the mind of the average Chinese as opposed to the China-fixation of Indians.
India is the dirtiest country I have ever been to. I have heard people say that Pakistan, which is to the west and Bangladesh, to the east, are worse, but that is probably beyond the limits of my imagination.
In two months in India, I went from south to north, visiting some tourist towns that I had read about. I also went by train and bus to countless towns and open fields that weren’t so famous, and everywhere there were people had something in common — dirty, messy and stank.
Another yearly ritual in India is the criminal waste of food grains that are left out in the monsoon rains to get wet and rot. It gets worse with every year.
CNN-IBN has running a campaign against it for the past couple of years. The scale of wastage is truly disgusting considering the mass poverty prevalent in the country.
See:
The factors behind juveniles committing heinous crimes such as rape are partly biological and partly psycho-social. Earlier, children used to attain puberty at the age of 14 or 16. Now, it has come down to 10 years, she says.
A lot of hormonal changes happen in a child’s body at that age and if such children drop out of schools, they fall into the high-risk category, says Madhu. “They huddle together on the streets and fall into bad company,” she says. “Such children would have faced abuse at home, might have a single parent or a broken family with a history of substance abuse. It is natural that they show more aggression.” ..
Vidya Reddy of Tulir, a centre that works for preventing child sexual abuse, says: “The way statistics on crime is collated, compiled and analysed in this country is a joke. If more cases of sexual violence are reported, it shows that awareness level is high and people have confidence in the police.” But conviction rates are low in India because even consensual sex between juveniles who fall in love and elope are registered as rape cases. In such cases, victims turn hostile in court, she says.
Part of the reason for decreasing age at puberty is better nutrition I would imagine. I doubt that is a reason for increasing rapes.
R. Jagannathan, editor in chief, web and publishing, Netowrk18 argued in a Firstpost.com column earlier this year that buying gold for the household is like opening a tiny Swiss bank account…His argument is that the rich have avenues to hedge their currency and political risk (industry takes its investment abroad, high net worth individuals buy assets abroad), but the households do not have the capacity or the money to do that. Their defence against a falling rupee, inflation and very grim political uncertainty is to move their money abroad by importing the one thing they understand that the world also understands as a store of value—gold.
The Indian fascination towards gold is well-known. Keynes has critiqued it as well. (h/t Tyler Cowen) There are festivals with religious sanction where Indians binge on gold. And the ritual of the Finance Mininster pleading with citizens to hold back on buying gold has become stale and tiresome as of now. Maybe his effort should be put into improving the economy so that people become confident enough to invest in it rather than desperately trying to prevent loss of value as they are now?
Floods currently all over North India (and many other parts as well). Huge loss of life and property. Hoping for communities to recover from the pain as soon as possible.
regards
I just got back from St. Tropez for a weekend under the sun. I went with some Arab/European friends and was the only proper desi in the group.
While all of them were fretting about being burnt or how their tans would look (some hairs go blond, some faces go pink) I was very happily (& easily) able to soak up the scorching sun’s rays.
I should have used sun factor (all people should regardless of colour or complexion) but it felt so good to be able to stride through the broad sunlight uplands without any care or concern. We coloreds of the world (the vast & growing majority btw) be proud to be brown, black & yellow if only because we can tan so well (use sun screen though wherever you are).
This applies to all of us. Point your criticisms to people other than the small community that supports this blog. It creates a hostile atmosphere for everybody but especially for women, I note with some anguish that all the ladies have disappeared and a “boys only” space currently exists on BP. This is completely unacceptable.
To repeat, there is much to disagree (which is fine) but dont make it personal.
regards
ZackNote: To echo what Sid has just written. Let’s try to make BP above the personal attacks & abuse in general. I’ve always encouraged an open forum format but let’s also keep it constructive & meaningful; it’s not about trolling the comments board but also gaining from the experience (which is why I’ve always encouraged commentators to transition to authors, vox populi vox dei peeps).
Otherwise I’m happy to report that Sid is a lucky token for BP; it’s the first time in a month that we’ve topped 300 views, no idea why but I’m declare today Sid (& ND) Appreciation Day.