Jean-Marc Jancovici and Christophe Blain’s 'World Without End' – a comic about Climate Change that outsold Asterix in France in the year of its launch was a sharp, engaging introduction to Energy Sources and Climate Change. The panels that caught my attention were the ones explaining the long-term impacts of Chernobyl and Fukushima. According to … Continue reading The Real Costs of Chernobyl and Fukushima
So many of the gastronomical delights of our modern life would be impossible without modern refrigeration. Cheeseburgers, chilled beer, ice cream and of course all the imported exotic items like Norwegian salmon, Swiss cheese and Australian beef would have just remained local delicacies restricted to a few 100 kilometers from their point of origin had … Continue reading Our Refrigerated World
In ‘Free to Choose,’ Milton Friedman—the poster boy of free markets and the favourite punching back of the left—makes an interesting comparison between India’s 30 years after independence and Japan’s 30 years after the Meiji Revolution. At these respective moments in time, both countries were similar in terms of their rigid feudal/caste structures, limited natural … Continue reading An India-Japan comparison
Rob Henderson, the psychologist and writer grew up in nine different homes before his eighth birthday. He was born to an unwed drug junkie who died when he was three. His childhood, as described in his memoir ‘Troubled’ was typical of orphans growing up in foster homes in the US – abuse, neglect, teen gangs, … Continue reading Luxury Beliefs
While reading Brian Klaas’ Fluke, I came across the fascinating mental model of ‘Complex Adaptive Systems’. This post is going to be slightly jargon heavy. Please bear with me. A watch is a complicated system of engineering. However, if you remove one spring, the watch won't morph into an unpredictable entity. Its behavior can be … Continue reading Complex Adaptive Systems
Joe Studwell’s ‘How Asia Works’ is a seminal work examining the different trajectories adopted by the Asian countries in the aftermath of the Second World War. India doesn’t figure in the scope of this work. The focus is mainly on Northeast Asia (Japan, Korea), South East Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam) and of course China. Studwell … Continue reading How Asia Works
I got my ten-year-old daughter vaccinated against HPV yesterday. The vaccine is now also part of the Universal Immunization Programme of the Government of India. SII’s CERVAVAC is a four-strain vaccine while Merck’s GARDASIL-9 is a nine strain one with a price difference of almost 6x. GARDASIL is recommended by Merck as a three-shot vaccine … Continue reading HPV Vaccination
During this era Singapore Airlines, a government company, ran a centerfold advertisement that featured an Asian woman of somewhat vague ethnicity. She could have been Chinese, Indian, or Malay. She stood in a misty, impressionistic setting, looking out at the reader demurely, holding a single water lily. There was no information about the airline’s fare … Continue reading Bananas, Beaches and Bases
When something sounds too good to be true, always be suspicious. The incoming revolution in the transport sector heralded by Musk revolutionizing EVs - by making them an object of desire – has been touted as the best thing to have happened to mankind. While the energy to power these vehicles will someday be ‘clean’, … Continue reading The Underbelly of the EV Revolution
During the Great Depression, a decade of droughts and severe dust storms caused an ecological phenomenon called the Dust Bowl in the United States. Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Colorado were gripped by mass rural impoverishment. The situation became more fraught as the period coincided with the introduction of mechanized farming pushing thousands into penury. … Continue reading The Dust Bowl
