links, May 11,2014

Possible changes in Economics teaching at some places: "Kingston will respond positively to calls from students for genuine reform of economics education—like those made by the Post-Crash Economics Society in Manchester, and the International Student Initiative for Pluralism in Economics (which was launched only days ago).

These student calls for genuine reform are timely, because though there are some initiatives for reform, academic economics has, if anything, become more hostile to criticism of the mainstream and to presentation of alternative perspectives than it was before the crisis."

Trying to find a bit more about Ukraine, I find from this site ""Arseniy Yatsenuk, it should be noted, has something called the Arseniy Yatsenuk Foundation. If you go to the foundation’s website you will see the logos of the foundation’s “partners.” Among these partners we find NATO, the National Endowment for Democracy, the U.S. State Department, Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs in the UK), the German Marshall Fund (a think tank founded by the German government in honor of the U.S. Marshall Plan), as well as a couple of international banks. Is any comment needed?"

From Duncan Green (Remember Chindur) "But citizen activism has always been characterized by spikes of activity, rather than the steady, long term grind of states and business lobbyists. As an issue moves down the policy funnel. technical content gets greater, and the chance to mobilize the public declines"

From an old Hindu article(2001) on the origins of HMT rice "SIXTY-FIVE-YEAR-OLD Dadaji Ramaji Khobragade is a farmer with a grouse. He is a celebrity in Vidarbha for developing a variety of rice called HMT, which is now grown over a large part of the region. A native of Nanded village in Nagbid tehsil of Chandrapur district in Maharashtra, a decade ago, he selected and bred a variety of rice, mystifyingly named HMT, which has become popular in neighbouring States as well.

However, his efforts have gone largely unnoticed by the agriculture research establishment." 

But there seems to be some recognition later "A rice farmer from Nanded village in Maharashtra became celebrity as the 'Forbes' magazine named him in the Most Powerful Rural Indians list for his innovation in rice production." and Anil Gupta's article.
And David Brin on politics.

P.S. More on the Forbes list http://www.nif.org.in/forbes_news There are several posts earlier about Anil Kumar Gupta and Honey Bee Network