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
When I landed in Delhi 14 years ago, I was miserable. Affordable housing was a joke, eating out was costly, travelling home once in a few months was an expensive proposition and to make matters worse, I was surrounded by people who lived in an alternate universe. Economic worries never troubled them. Fast forward to … Continue reading Inequality can be a good thing
Look around yourself and observe all the objects you see. Every one of them will one day be categorized as waste and either end up in a landfill, get decomposed, broken down, recycled or end up in the oceans. Everything we touch was created by generating waste; and will some day end up becoming waste. … Continue reading Thinking about Waste
