Thursday, November 29, 2012

Links. Nov. 29, 2012

R.S. Jennings of United Stated Institute of Peace on Democratic Breakthroughs: The Ingredients of Successful Revolts via Duncan Green who has a summary.There is a coming seminar at CT  on 'The Priority of Democracy' and other books.

Orgtheory.net invites further thoughts on grassroots activism.

Links to two articles on Bal Thackeray in 'Law and Other Things'. I am looking forward to a study of the different trajectories of DMK progeny, Shiv Sena and Telangana state movement.

Discussions why Asians overwhelmingly voted for Obama and Andrew Gelman by Richard Posner. From the second article "According to exit polls in the Nov. 6 election, Asian American voters favored Obama over Romney by a ratio of more than 3-to-1 (76 percent versus 23 percent). This has puzzled a number of Republicans. Asian Americans, more than any other group, including white suburbanites, who are a backbone of Republican support, have demographic characteristics that would seem to make them support low taxes, fiscal austerity, conventional family values, and hostility to affirmative action (especially in higher education)—all policies strongly associated with today’s Republican Party." The profile is similar in Australia and from my limited knowledge of the Indian community, more of them seem to vote the conservative party called the Liberals than the Labour party. 

And a final thought on the persistence of 'traditions' and 'family values'. Recently, we arranged a micro loan for a Dalit christian lady to start a small  business in time for Christmas sales. When we asked her whether she started purchases, she responded that it was magalavaram, not an auspicious day to start. A reasonably well-off Indian friend in Australia says that his brother in India did not make enough money as a banker since he was afraid of displaying disproportionate assets and if only he had sent the money to him, he could have made a fortune for both of them by investing in real estate.

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