Tyler Cowen on Modi

Tyler Cowen in a recent post What to think of Modi these days:
 “Nonetheless I find most of the extant commentary on Modi fairly misleading and/or naive.

As this outsider sees it, India’s secular democracy was never liberal.  It had certain de facto liberal elements, but largely out of low levels of state capacity, necessitating a kind of tolerance but of course also leading to a very sub-par infrastructure.  Furthermore, it has been commonly described by political scientists as a “democracy without accountability.”  National voting has so much to do with religion, caste, and other particularistic principles that Indian democracy never enforced superior practical performance as it should have.”

“Low dishonest decade”

https://poets.org/poem/september-1-1939

Changers

Meet the Intellectual Founder of Brazil’s Far Right An interview with Olavo de Carvalho. There seem to be similar figures in India starting with ‘Veer ‘ Savarkar.

Ramachandra Guha on bilingualism in India

One of the best articles in my opinion of the current problems in India is one by Mukul Kesavan called ‘An evil hour’, posted earlier. Trying to find more about him, I saw this article by Ramachandra Guha from 2010. It starts with Mukul Kesavan but is about bilingualism in India. Things have changed a bit since then with some states turning to English education. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE BILINGUAL INTELLECTUAL 

An opinion piece on Hindutva

A Hindu critique of Hinditva “Yet, a careful look at India’s culture and society would indicate that religion is all-pervasive: it can be seen in beliefs, rituals as well as in the dangerous stereotypes we nurture about others. Hence, the mere act of debunking religion will not help.”

Two popular US ambassadors to India,

John Kenneth Galbraith reviews a book of Chester Bowles Promises to keep . Chester Bowles book Promises to keep : My earns in public life 1941-1969

An encouraging post on Facebook

Saw this on Facebook from a young man in India. Reminded me of my younger days. I did not have a job but a huge dowry offer because the girl was tall.
“5:00 PM: If you are not interested in this project you can leave! (Boss)

5:03 PM: Hands out resignation. 🙂🙂🙂

I have come this far, on basis of my skill. I never got in to comfort zone. And most importantly money never mattered to me as long as I am learning something new.

I would be happy making 10000Rs a month provided I will have the opportunity to learn something new on regular basis.

Now I am getting paid some 3,00,000 inr a month and I had to sacrifice something I love, my Passion. So I said to myself well screw it I am out of here.

An Impulsive decision

So now after coming home, while celebrating my bravery with a Pizza. I realised what I have done is totally right! Quitting a well paying Job, going back to make peanuts might sound like a bad idea. But money isn’t everything. Money is just something I need to survive I calculated everything and came up with 60,000 inr a month If I have to move back.

But at this very moment I am the happiest person in this world, Its like shawshank Redemption. Getting out of prison through a tunnel full of shit and tunnelling through shit is absolutely worth It.”

Don’t be a Sucker

The full video https://youtu.be/sAu41SpYtl4
An article on the video incorporating some later research:
This 1943 anti-Nazi film keeps going viral. It may be less effective than it seems.

Distrust of elites

i have been accused of this. It seems to becoming common in large parts of the world. Elites seem to have benefited from globalisation and in spite of sprouting eqality and fraternity, they seem to look after their own interests. An article Mukul Kesavan on the ongoing citizenship controversy in India An evil hour mentions some of it: “...the problem with liberals is that they expected abstract ideas to win political victories whereas the truth was that in real life “[d]emocratic struggles for high principles do not happen in a vacuum.” The only way that liberals can prevail against the BJP’s clear-headed majoritarianism is if their “... principles [were] married to lived realities and actual group anxieties.””
Another piece How liberalism became ‘the god that failed’ in eastern Europe by Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes from their book The light that failed.

Three mafias

Meaning and Mayhem from NYReview of books.”’Ndrangheta rites also invoke ancient nature-related symbols, such as the moon and stars, as well as national heroes, such as patriots or generals who helped Italy achieve independence and whom the members consider their precursors: “In the name of Garibaldi, Mazzini, and La Marmora, with words of humility I create the Holy Society.” The ’Ndrangheta has appropriated religious rituals, mythological symbols, patriots, and even saints, much as it has taken possession of certain words, completely changing their meaning—honor, family, mamma—and in so doing has created around itself an aura of mystery and wonder that makes it attractive in the eyes of new initiates, especially the youngest. Symbols and codes serve to create a sense of belonging and to hand down an identity so powerful that its members are even willing to die for ”

Selling Keynesianism

Selling Keynesianism Very readable but it may be ignoring the limits of growth.

On the Brahmin left

The ‘Brahmin left’ vs the ‘Merchant right’: A comment on Thomas Piketty’s new book Seems to make sense. We have seen the shift to aBJP in India and the left occupying plum jobs in India and abroad and preaching rebellion in India.

Symbols

Meaning and mayhem from NYReview of books on Mafia organisations.”The ’Ndrangheta has appropriated religious rituals, mythological symbols, patriots, and even saints, much as it has taken possession of certain words, completely changing their meaning—honor, family, mamma—and in so doing has created around itself an aura of mystery and wonder that makes it attractive in the eyes of new initiates, especially the youngest. Symbols and codes serve to create a sense of belonging and to hand down an identity so powerful that its members are even willing to die for the organization.”

Shailendra

A recent article Shailendra — the Leftist poet and Dalit genius whose lyrics define beauty of simplicity despite what the article says, it was known that he was a Dalit. “Babu Jagjivan Ram, on his birthday, on August 30, 1966, said he was the most popular ‘Harijan’ poet of India after Sant Ravi Das.” From https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/entertainment/shailendra-poet-of-the-masses-not-given-his-due-in-hindi-literature

Another quote from Bronkhorst book on Brahmins

“Brahmins, in their self-understanding, owed their special status to the fact that they knew and preserved the Veda, which includes numerous mantras that are supposed to be effective if correctly pronounced in the right circumstances. Their particular concern with the correct pronunciation of those mantras is responsible for their interest in phonetics, and for the composition of treatises dealing with this topic, either in general or focused on specific Vedic texts. The effectiveness of those mantras, furthermore, showed that these mantras, and the language of these mantras, had a close affinity with reality. Sanskrit and reality were, in their opinion, closely connected, and this is a theme that comes up again and again in Brahmanical thought.
This fundamental conviction found expression in a single encompassing vision, in which both the Sanskrit language and the Veda had their place. In this vision, Sanskrit was eternal, i.e., without beginning in time; other lan- guages were at best corruptions of the only language that really existed, viz. Sanskrit. The Veda, too, was without beginning in time, and therefore without author. It needed no author, because the Veda was the pure expression of the Sanskrit language.Studying Sanskrit and studying the Veda were therefore two sides of the same coin. This issue will be taken up in the present section.” 
And more from Bronkhorst “An innovation introduced by the new Brahmanism is the belief that the Sanskrit language—i.e., its words and sounds—are eternal, and therefore without beginning and end. Patañjali the grammarian did so, but he was not the first. Already Kātyāyana held that belief, as is clear from vārttikas such as P. 1.1.56 vt. 12: anupapannaṃ sthānyādeśatvaṃ nityatvāt. There is, on the other hand, no indication that Pāṇini had accepted it. Nor had Yāska, who uses the word nitya a few times in his Nirukta, but never in the sense ‘eternal’.216 Assuming, for simplicity’s sake, that all Brahmins adopted this new conviction of the eternality of words more or less simultaneously, and considering that Yāska is almost certainly more recent than Pāṇini,this would have happened at some time between Yāska and Kātyāyana.”

From Anis Kidwai to Johannes Bronkhorst

The quote earlier from Kidwai and a comment on Facebook led me to the book  How the Brahmins Won: From Alexander to the Guptas by Johannes Bronkhorst
Here are some preliminary comments from the book, as sort of unintended consequences of introspection.  “As a matter of fact, much if not most of Brahmanical literature from this period [Alexander to Guptas] is directed at Brahmins and deals with exclusively Brahmanical concerns. It appears, indeed, that Brahmins of that time made major efforts to create a separate identity for themselves, an identity they could maintain in circumstances where they could not count on a tradition of respect....These ideas about society can be looked upon as natural extensions of the ideas Brahmins had developed about themselves: Brahmanical standards of purity became applicable in society at large; Brahmanical ritual practices came to accompany the lives of many non-Brahmins; Brahmanical ideas of the Brahmins’ posi- tion in society were extended so as to provide a template for society at large; Brahmanical claims to royal protection turned into manuals of statecraft; etc.
...Brahmanism, then, should be thought of as a homogeneous vision of Brahmins and their position in the world, and primarily the result of the self- centered preoccupation of Brahmins during a difficult period in which their traditional position in the world was under threat. This self-centered preoccu- pation became the basis of features that in due time transformed an important part of the world. But those successful features cannot be understood without an understanding of the self-centered preoccupation from which they arose. This means that Brahmanism has to be looked upon as a whole that cannot be grasped by cherrypicking and excluding aspects of our choosing.”
In my reading, I am also keeping in mind Emmanuel Todd’s work on family systems and The Language of the Gods in the World of Men Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India by Sheldon Pollock

Another quote from ‘In Freedom’s Shade’ by Anis Kidwai

“Chaudhary Ridaulvi gloated: ‘It’s all there in an article I wrote—the brahmin has always been dominant in India. Buddhism prospered but Brahminism ensured its ultimate obliteration. Islam shone only briefly, soon losing its identity to be coloured in the same hues as Brahminism. Christianity too bowed before Brahminism in the shape of the Theosophical Society, which acknowledges brahmin supremacy. Brahminism is hegemonic by nature. However much Gandhi may struggle, and all of you rant and rave, India will never be free of the Brahminical order.’”
A book with a similar theme https://www.amazon.com/How-Brahmins-Won-Alexander-Handbook/dp/9004315195 byJohannes Bronkhorst

Conservatism and Boris Johnson

“I wonder whether Boris Johnson and his squalid associates are Conservatives at all. The Conservativism I understand is about public duty, generosity, the instinct to conserve what is good in our society; the importance of the rule of law and of institutions; suspicion of leaps in the dark. I am thinking of the Conservatism of Burke, Lord Salisbury, Oakeshott.“ from Boris Johnson wants to destroy the Britain I love. I cannot vote Conservative by Peter Osborne.

Centre to state funding in India

The general scheme is described here How do states get revenue from centre? But often there are arguments about unfair allotments. Even when the money is delivered, there seem to be delays in the distribution and sometimes the money is blocked: Andhra Pradesh Funds Blocked Over Not Filing Necessary Paperwork: Report “Non-submission of UCs could be mainly because of two reasons. Either the central funds were not fully utilised in time or used for other purposes. Given the severe financial crunch faced by the state, 'adjustment' of funds is not uncommon," a senior official in the finance department said.
The above mentioned adjustment seems to be that the state diverted these funds to one location (during Naidu’s time on the advice of his son Lokesh) from which they release in manner that they consider appropriate. The current state government has not changed the procedure yet. This means that the recipients have to go through two bureaucratic agencies with delays and possible bribes at both places. With the change of government at the state level, the centre seems to be releasing more funds https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/with-jagan-at-helm-centre-extends-over-rs-4-000-crore-to-andhra-pradesh/story-gt0rRG60LNxDyknR9ZAkXJ.html
From a case that I followed, a women’s welfare Organization has not received funds for two and half years. Funds were blocked in April this year since they were not spent in time. By the time they were released, Lokesh came up with the above scheme and now they have to be released again from a central bureaucracy in the state. And the funds may be frozen again if they are not spent by next March. Meanwhile the Organization borrows at the rate of 2-3 percent for month.
Why do the welfare organisations still do such work? My guess is that some of them do out of genuine concern for others. Some skimp on expenses and try to make profits.

Arjun Appadurai on current India

A Syndrome of Aspirational Hatred Is Pervading India

Anis Kidwai from partition days

is translated. I just acquired a copy. An excerpt here Did Sardar Patel order the eviction of Muslims from Delhi villages? it seems that he did. A quote:
“Kidwai, along with two activists, visited ziledar Trikha Ram who said he had no animus against Jaitpur’s Muslims as they belonged to his caste and gotra (clan). Kidwai records Ram telling her: “When the government announced that no Muslim was to live in India, we told our Muslim brothers, ‘Now that it has been decided that only Hindus can live in India, why don’t you all become Hindus, so we don’t lose each other.’” Unwilling to convert, Jaitpur’s Muslims trooped out to Humayun’s Tomb after being given a teary farewell on the village outskirts.

When told the government had not made any announcement that India was for Hindus alone, Ram said he was willing to get them back. However, Ehsan turned down the offer. Kidwai notes, “Whether deriving from mistaken beliefs or a lack of trust or the possibility of a forced conversion, he (Ehsan) refused to return.””

Habib’s presidential address at Indian historical congress 1947

The present and the past, our approach to history recalled recently by Ramachandra Guha History against sectarianism

Dalit women

The Spectre Haunting Hindutva: An Assertive Dalit Woman

Schools and children

BIOLOGYEDUCATION Mismatch Between Our Biologically Evolved Educative Instincts and Culturally Evolved Schools

Not all mosquitoes are bad

The secret world of mosquitoes reveals their larger role in our environment

“Mosquitoes have many functions in the ecosystem that are overlooked. Indiscriminate mass elimination of mosquitoes would impact everything from pollination to biomass transfer to food webs.

There are about 3,500 mosquito species, many of which want nothing to do with biting humans or any other animal. Even in species that bite, it is only the females that do so and just to develop their eggs.“

Mobility in America

The Typical American Lives Only 18 Miles From Mom

One of the greatest goals

https://youtu.be/o8wGN5uDaVg I used watch his games on TV during 1968-69. Genius.
Compare the more recent greats https://youtu.be/TmcezBlz2KM

Mother tongue

As a child, Lily Iervasi remembers her grandmother speaking Motu, one of more than 800 distinct indigenous languages that make up Papua New Guinea’s rich linguistic tapestry (possibly a promotional article from ANU) “Lily’s grandmother hailed from Hanuabada, a small town outside Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea. She met Lily’s white Australian grandfather there post-WW2, and they married, eventually returning to Australia to raise their family. They agreed that their children would only speak English; assimilation was the cultural fashion at the time, Lily says. “They wanted their children to fit in.”

Her grandmother learned to assimilate too. A quick learner, she picked up English from her children and wide social network.

A few years ago, she was diagnosed with dementia. As the end neared, she started losing her adopted language. English words and phrases slipped through the cracks of memory. Eventually, all she was left with was her original tongue, Motu.”

Mukul Kesvan writes about his father’s death (posted before)in Do anglophones paddle in the shallows? “But the middle-of-the-night question—what language do you scream in when you’re tumbled from your bed at 2am by an earthquake—remains. In the last week of my father’s life, his mind abandoned his hospital bed present, and ranged back to his childhood. He called to his mother, who had died when he was a boy, and spoke to his grandfather, who had raised him. For all the languages he had learnt over a very long life, and despite his own acknowledgment of the primacy of English, he died in Tamil.”

Rapes in different contexts

Hawke urged daughter to keep rape allegations secret: report

Father Killed In Jail & Aunt Dead In Mishap, Is Unnao Rape Victim Paying Price For Accusing BJP MLA?

Problems with growth

Forget 'developing' poor countries, it's time to 'de-develop' rich countries 

Fascinating discussion on Brexit and other things

https://youtu.be/xdtssXITXuE

Removing paan stains

Mumbai Girls’ Brilliant Way to Remove Paan Stains Could Save Railways Crores Every Year

Speaking to The Better India, Nishtha said, “For the competition, we had genetically modified a microorganism, bacteria to be precise so that it produces specific enzymes which could degrade or remove the pan stains. But as the release of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) in the environment is not safe and has various government regulations and keeping in mind the suggestions given from industries we decided to move it to an ‘enzyme based application system’ which will remove these stains in an effective way.”

One Brexit fear

One of Brits' Biggest Brexit Fears Is That They'll Have to—Oof—Eat American Food I would go further. Keynes in 1933 Via Gautam Menon. As Keynes said in 1933:
“Ideas, knowledge, science, hospitality, travel – these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible, and, above all, let finance be primarily national.
For these strong reasons, therefore, I am inclined to the belief that a greater measure of national self-sufficiency and economic isolation among countries may tend to serve the cause of peace, rather than otherwise." I would go further and go for local self sufficiency even with in countries as much as possible. That may one way to counteract the tyranny of the state including one’s own.

From the review of a book on pandemics

How pandemics shape social evolution “As Snowden discusses, by restricting the land available to people of colour, apartheid accelerated the growth of a migrant labour system that divided black families. It also encouraged new forms of social and sexual behaviour. Both developments, in turn, hastened the spread of AIDS once it arrived. Young men growing up away from their families, for instance, often developed standards of masculinity that promoted sexual conquest and violence; South Africa now has one of the highest rates of rape in the world (K. Naidoo S. Afr. Med. J. 103, 210–211; 2013). ” This seems to have parallels in some Indian sexual violence cases.

On violence against women

Some links via Pramathanath Sastry.
Are men more violent than women?
Socialization Isn’t Responsible for Greater Male Violence
Some links about societies where women have more say:
International Women's Day: What are matriarchies, and where are they now?
What does a society run by women look like?
These links were found in the discussions about the rape, murder and burning of Priyanka Reddy near Hyderabad. Depressingly similar to Nirbhaya case.

An opinion piece from Haaretz on Corbyn

The contract on Corbyn

Remembering C.P.Ramanujam

From The Wikipedia article “Just after his death a commemorative hall was named after him in the former Istituto di Matematica (Institute of Mathematics) of the university of Genoa.” The context may be this. He was one of the few people who studied Italian geometers as well as Grothendieck. Italian geometry from those days was supposed to be interesting but full of gaps and mistakes. Ramanujam was probably one of those who could appreciate what was good in Italian geometry and could justify some of it with modern techniques. I think that some of the Italian mathematicians who met him appreciated this and named the hall after him. He was deep scholar and learner. Even after became a professor, he used to learn a lot of stuff. He felt that his knowledge of Topology was deficient and when Spanier’s book on Algebraic ToPology came out, he read it cover to cover doing all the exercises. Once he said to me ‘ Even though I myself say it, I know algebraic surfaces well”. Coming from such a modest man, it was some statement.

Before one of his breakdowns, I was around and could see it coming. I stayed with him most of a night drinking and talking. Even that state, he was polite. He said “Shall I fight with you?”.

Boris Johnson predicted to win

Johnson Says There’ll Be No U.S. Trade Deal if It Includes the NHS “Boris Johnson is heading for a 68-seat majority in the House of Commons, a mandate not seen since the height of the Margaret Thatcher years, according to the most hotly-anticipated poll of the election campaign. A margin that size would allow him to ratify his Brexit deal ahead of the Jan. 31 deadline, and potentially give him some breathing space to compromise in subsequent trade negotiations with the European Union.”
But Corbyn reveals secret documents that ‘confirm Tory plot to sell off NHS in US trade talks with Trump’ 

Passion for playing the piano

Experience: I learned to play the piano without a piano

Apparently a quote Of Charles Darwin

"If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin"

Branko Milanovic on the current state of capitalism

The ‘crisis of capitalism’ is not the one Europeans think it is “The facts show capitalism to be not in crisis at all. It is stronger than ever, both in terms of its geographical coverage and expansion to areas (such as leisure time, or social media) where it has created entirely new markets and commodified things that were never historically objects of transaction.” 
And
“There is however another issue that does seem to affect most countries, and it is to do with the functioning of political systems. In principle, politics, no more than leisure time, was never regarded as an area of market transaction. But both have become so. This has made politics more corrupt. Even if a politician does not engage in explicit corruption during their time in office, they tend to use the connections acquired to make money afterwards. Such commodification has created widespread cynicism and disenchantment with mainstream politics and politicians.”

On the universality of music

Universality and diversity in human song, a recent research paper. A brief note on the same https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03567-4

Henrietta Locks portrait unveiled

The Smithsonian unveils a portrait of Henrietta Lacks, the black farmer whose cells led to medical miracles

Female authority

What does female authority sound like? Marie Yovanovitch and Fiona Hill just showed us.
And The Guardian on Fiona Hill https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/21/fiona-hill-the-durham-miners-daughter-creating-waves-in-dc? The last link posted yesterday.

David Graeber reviews Robert Skidelsky’s new book

Against economics by David Graeber in NewYork Review of Books. Richard Werner’s work mentioned in the article is described here A lost century in economics: Three theories of banking and the conclusive evidence. The question arises why mainstream economics continues to be popular. Possibly hegemony aligned with the interests of dominant countries as described by Marion Fourcade  
The construction of a global profession: transnationalization of economics. She seems to have softened her stand since then described in this post by Tim Taylor Reviled because it matters.

The attraction of US

In spite of trumps Fiona Hill: the Durham miner's daughter creating waves in DC : “This country has offered for me opportunities I never would have had in England. I grew up poor with a very distinctive working-class accent. In England in the 1980s and 1990s, this would have impeded my professional development." It must be similar for many underprivileged in India. But many who migrate from India seem to be from the privileged classes and those from the underprivileged classes face discrimination from other Indians similar to what they face in India. 

A book review by Alex Tabarrok of MR

The Anarchy by William Dalrymple. The full review http://eh.net/book_reviews/the-anarchy-the-relentless-rise-of-the-east-india-company/ Recommended.

Interview with Rahul Banerjee

RAHUL BANERJEE KHEDUT MAZDOOR CHETNA SANGATHAN (KMCS), INDORE, MADHYA PRADESH (M.P.). Long, over 1hour forty minutes.  YouTube link https://youtu.be/JhaEgu8EQEQ

An overview of some of the work of George Price

The mathematics of kindness Several other links have been posted before.

Two women

https://youtu.be/SuNkgyuD1Uk
And the current ‘acting’ president of Bolivia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanine_%C3%81%C3%B1ez “In a deleted Twitter post from 2013, Áñez called an indigenous ritual of the Aymara people "satanic" and said that no belief system is better than the Christian God.^[22]”

Energy Swaraj, by Chetan Singh Solanki

https://youtu.be/HZAQrVIjAxU

Individual vs group

When the Strong Outbreed the Weak: An Interview with William Muir
“Muir’s experiments reveal a tremendous naiveté in the idea that creating a good society is merely a matter of selecting the “best” individuals. A good society requires members working together to create what cannot be produced alone, or at least to refrain from exploiting each other.  Human societies approach this ideal to varying degrees, but there is always an element of unfairness that results in some profiting at the expense of others. If these individuals are allowed to breed, and if their profiteering ways are heritable, then selecting the “best” individuals will cause a cooperative society to collapse. It’s a good thing that the early eugenicists did not have their way!

Muir’s experiments also challenge what it means for a trait to be regarded as an individual trait.  If by “individual trait” we mean a trait that can be measured in an individual, then egg productivity in hens qualifies. You just count the number of eggs that emerge from the hind end of a hen. If by “individual trait” we mean the process that resulted in the trait, then egg productivity in hens does not qualify. Instead, it is a social trait that depends not only on the properties of the individual hen but also on the properties of the hen’s social environment.”

Al-Assad on Trump

Syria’s Al-Assad: Trump, Openly Criminal, is the best US President we could Wish for

On sad Bollywood songs

Ranjish Hi Sahi: How Sad Bollywood Songs Make Life Bearable by Manjri Indurkar. One of the gloomiest songs is supposed to be Gloomy Sunday originally in Hungarian. Billie Holidayversion in English https://youtu.be/KUCyjDOlnPU

Janelle Shane on AI

The danger of AI is weirder than you think

Longer version 

AlisonGopnik interview

The mind at work: Alison Gopnik on learning like children Right combination of nurture and autonomy “Parents, it turns out, have an important role in fostering curiosity and exploration. Gopnik describes a recent study from Columbia University psychologist Nim Tottenham’s lab that updates classical theories of avoidance learning. If you put an adult rat in a maze and it goes down one end and gets a shock, it never goes down that end of the maze again. But young rats actually prefer the arm of the maze that leads to the shock—when their mother is present. And Tottenham replicated this result with three- and four-year-old children as well. If the child feels safe, they are more motivated by exploration than by a predictable outcome.”

Free downlads from California uni. Press

About 90 books, I downloaded this and a few more https://www.luminosoa.org/site/books/10.1525/luminos.72/

Cellular life

Cellular Life, Death and Everything in Between “We now know that cells can flirt dangerously with the boundary of death — and perhaps even cross it entirely — yet regain their lost function.”

Indian brains smaller

'Indian brain is smaller': IIIT-Hyderabad researchers create Indian Brain Atlas “The average Indian brain is smaller in height, width, and volume as compared to the western and eastern population like the Chinese and Korean according to the first-ever ‘Indian Brain Atlas’ created by researchers of the International Institute of Information Technology-Hyderabad (IIITH).” Research for medical purposes.
Check also The Human Brain Has been Getting Smaller Since the Stone Age and Neanderthals Had Bigger Brains Than Modern Humans — Why Are We Smarter?

Developing local self sufficiency in USA

The US city preparing itself for the collapse of capitalism

Facing water problems in Madhya Pradesh

Meet the IAS Officer Who Helped MP Farmers Battle Drought With Over 16,000 Ponds

Free bus rides for women in Delhi

Delhi’s free bus rides for women are welcome. Other cities should follow its example

Razib Khan on Indian Americans

The native and coconut civilization Not quite Macaulay’s children says Razib Khan.

Fighting back

Women From Haryana Are Leading A Campaign To Stop Wearing The Veil

Comrade

To demonstrate how the figure of the comrade can be a figure for us, an operator for a politics of those engaged in emancipatory egalitarian struggle, I’ve offered four theses:

1. “Comrade” names a relation characterized by sameness, equality, and solidarity. For communists, this sameness, equality, and solidarity is utopian, cutting through the determinations of capitalist society.
2. Anyone but not everyone can be a comrade.
3. The Individual (as a locus of identity) is the “other” of the comrade.
4. The relation between comrades is mediated by fidelity to a truth. Practices of comradeship materialize this fidelity, building its truth into the world.

Together they articulate a generic political component activated through divisive fidelity to the emancipatory egalitarian struggle for communism. A comrade is one of many fighting on the same side. From Four theses on the comrade by Jodi Dean, a review of her recent book Comrade: An Essay on Political Belonging (Verso) by Macmillan Alvarez.

Criminalising begging

Breaking : 'Criminalization Of Begging Is Outcome Of Extremely Prejudiced Social Constructs' : J&K HC Strikes Down Anti-Beggary Laws  “Criminalization of begging is the outcome of extremely prejudiced social constructs of presumption of criminality against the poor and baseless stereotypes, in ignorance of the extreme exclusion and disadvantages faced by the poor who are struggling to survive. The criminalization of begging which makes poverty an offence, is intended to remove poor people from public spaces, deprive them of the Constitutional guarantees of inclusiveness and pluralism and results in further deprivation to them", observed the judgment given by a bench comprising Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Rajesh Bindal. (Jammu &Kashmir High Court).

using AI to write with the mind

AI allows paralyzed person to ‘handwrite’ with his mind

Narrative economics

The world’s top economists just made the case for why we still need English majors “Nobel Prize winner Robert Shiller’s new book “Narrative Economics” opens with him reminiscing about an enlightening history class he took as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. He wrote that what he learned about the Great Depression was far more useful in understanding the period of economic and financial turmoil than anything he learned in his economic courses.”

Harvard again

Harvard and TIAA's farmland grab in Brazil goes up in smoke

Scott Alexander on indian economic reforms

INDIAN ECONOMIC REFORM: MUCH MORE THAN YOU WANTED TO KNOW
“I was vaguely aware that India had done relatively well, but I didn’t grasp the scale. This should be up there with the rise of China as one of the most important (and most encouraging) news stories of my lifetime. And if it was really due to the 1991 reforms, they should go down alongside Deng Xiaoping’s liberalization of China as one of the century’s great achievements........If we had a better understanding of what exactly happened and how it was reversed, it could be an important source of information for developing countries in the future.”

Tim Taylor on global rise in services trade

The rise of global trade in services

Juan Cole on Russia Turkey deal

Unlike Trump, Putin faces down Turkey on Plans for Massive Syria Incursion

But Trump May have his points Robert Shiller: Recession likely years away due to bullish Trump effect

Learnt a new word today

Learnt a new word today ‘praxis’. Via Gautam Menon from the Sartre lines “a binary praxis of antagonistic reciprocity.”, which may represent any thing from boxing to capitalism to marriage. I prefer D,R.Nagaraj phrase ‘intimate enmity’ which he used to describe the relation between untouchables and others.

Mathematical models for innovations

Mathematical Model Reveals the Patterns of How Innovations Arise

Based on Zipf’s, Heaps’ and Taylor’s Laws are Determined by the Expansion into the Adjacent Possible

Long read on Snowden

Snowden in the Labyrinth by Jonathan Lethem, a review of ‘Permanent Record’ by Ewpdward Snowden

Two reviews by Michael Roberts

Theft or exploitation?- a review of Stolen by Grace Blakeley
‘Capital and ideology ‘by Thomas Piketty

Another on RCTs

Seems fairly comprehensive. WHAT RANDOMIZATION CAN AND CANNOT DO: THE 2019 NOBEL PRIZE by Kevin Bryan at ‘A Fine Theorem’.

Choreography by Ragini?

“The famous Shankarabharanam thillana "Nadir deem tanadirena" (Moolaiveetu Rangasami Nattuvanar) was adapted into "Na ja, na ja baalam" by Anil Biswas in the Indo-Soviet co-production 'Pardesi' (1957, Hindi). This was beautifully choreographed for her sister Padmini by Ragini standing in for the choreographer from Bombay who did not show up in Russia. ” according to V.A.K. Rangarao in this report. This also occurs in the article Hindi film dance But does not mention the specific dance.

https://youtu.be/S1IsY_-TAss

A new book on Arabs

Review: Arabs. A Three Thousand Year History of Peoples, Tribes and Empires by Omar Ali
About the author Tim Mackintosh-Smith
Another review Arabs by Tim Mackintosh-Smith — charm offensive 

Sins of our forefathers

“. . . I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments” (Exodus 20:5–6)
Inherited Learning? It Happens, but How Is Uncertain

Crisis of capitalism?

Why it is not the crisis of capitalism “It will either continue with its conquest of more, yet non-commercialized, spheres, or it would have to be controlled and its ”field of action” reduced to what it used to be.” says Branko Milanovic.

More on 2019 Nobel for economists

The ‘randomness’ of 2019’s Nobel economics laureates
An earlier article by Pranab Bardhan reviewing ‘Poor Economics’ and other books Little,Big:Two Ideas About Fighting Global Poverty
Another https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/06/08/2018/open-letter-fifteen-leading-development-economists

Russia emerging as the new power broker in Middle East

A Turkish-Russian entente cordiale in the making by M.K.Bhadrakumar
Russian troops patrol between Turkish and Syrian forces on border from The Guardian
Russia’s balanced diplomacy in Middle East on rise as US policy crashes by Fijian Cunningham

2019 Nobel in economics

The Nobel Prize in Economic Science Goes to Banerjee, Duflo, and Kremer
A Nobel for Randomistas   H Peter Dorman:”On balance, I think it’s fine that this prize honors experimentalism, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the larger picture.  Using experimental methods to incorporate more learning in program administration should be standard practice; perhaps some day it will be.  But the big problems in poverty and oppression are too complex and encompassing to be reduced to experimental bits, and there is no substitute for theoretical analysis and a willingness to take chances with large-scale collective action.”
Chris Blattman on Randomized trials “Randomized trials will join the pantheon of mediocre methods at our disposal.”

The ones who walked away

A few friends have mentioned this short story The ones who walked away from Omelas

Baware Bain song with English subtitles

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rHZn4Ai0O3o

Yuichi Mori : agriculture without land

How Japan is revolutionizing agriculture without land or workers
Hydroponics revolutionises agriculture in Japan

https://youtu.be/7Cp8W0Ryk8Y

John Le Carré has new novel

From the review :
His attitude to Brexit is pungently expressed in the new novel. “It is my considered opinion,” one of the characters declares to Nat, “that for Britain and Europe, and for liberal democracy across the entire world as a whole, Britain’s departure from the European Union in the time of Donald Trump, and Britain’s consequent unqualified dependence on the United States in an era when the US is heading straight down the road to institutional racism and neo-fascism, is an unmitigated clusterfuck bar none.”
'My ties to England have loosened': John le Carré on Britain, Boris and Brexit 

An old theme

In the long run, wars make us safer and richer by Ian Morris (from 2014). He wrote books on the theme,
Another Is war necessaryfor economic growth? By Vernon W. Ruttan
 Y the same author The Role of the Public Sector in Technology Development: Generalizations from General Purpose Technologies* 

On Rawls

Neoliberalism and Rawls “[in a 1995 meeting] Rawls broke his own prohibition on commenting on current politics to say that the greatest challenge to American democracy, at that moment, was the systematic undermining of the fair value of the political liberties by the growth of capital and rising income inequality. As I recall, he described growing inequality as leading to a growing imbalance in political power and as a “crisis” that threatened the survival of democracy. I’m pretty sure he was talking about neoliberalism.“

Kurds in Syria

Kurdish leaders mull cooperation with Damascus & Moscow as US pulls troops from northern Syria
Worried for Kurds in Syria, abandoned by US? Here’s an obvious solution but it will make Washington hawks MAD
Juan cole’s view
Portraits of Kurdish struggle at Jaconin gives a quick overview of Ocalan’s view of democratic federalism and its influence on Syrian Kurds. This experiment may now be now reaching an end. “The authors Öcalan encountered would greatly influence the future role of the PKK, in particular the work of the American social theorist Murray Bookchin. Bookchin advocated ecologically sensitive, decentralized power-sharing in local communities as the basis of all decision-making, suggesting general assemblies at the local level were the true path to democracy.

Öcalan critiqued the Marxist-Leninist roots of the organization and introduced the theory of democratic confederalism as a new way forward in 2005. “Democratic confederalism” advocates for self-administration in Kurdish areas, which could operate in duality with the Turkish state, as well as the other parts of Kurdistan. Democratic confederalism was described as not just for Kurds, but as a system that could be replicated by any population in the Middle East. This collective mass of small units could confederate with one another to form a new kind of local power that challenged the authority of centralized states.”

About learning

I came across the article below via various academics. Thanks to Suresh Govindarajan for some clarifications. The study is about undergraduate students. One of the techniques is mentioned below. But I am not sure whether it can be done uniformly for all subjects. Some mindless learning also may be useful. Perhaps the use of the technique below extends beyond the particular subject. “Learning occurs when we get something wrong and have to correct it. So a particularly effective way to teach something in a way that will stick is to put students in a position of having to arrive at the best answer they can, without hints, even if that answer is wrong. Then, after they have committed (preferably some time after), you can correct them, preferably with a hint (just one) to prompt them to rectify the error themselves. Psychologists who have studied this refer to the approach as introducing “desirable difficulties.” Google it if you have not come across this term before. (The term itself is due to the Stanford psychologist Robert Bjork.) “ STUDENT TEACHING EVALUATIONS ARE EFFECTIVE, BUT NOT IN THE WAY YOU THINK
My experience: I have read the article a couple of times now. I wonder whether some mindless learning and just staring at stuff without understanding may also useful since it may be difficult to follow the procedure described at the end (desirable difficulties) for all subjects. I describe my experiences. In college I studied Complex Analysis during the month before the final examinations and completely forgot about it after the examinations. Then in 1978, at the age of 37, I found that William Thurston has completely changed the area that I have been working since my thesis days. I could not understand any of it. I used to stare at the notes before going to sleep. Then in 1982, I realised some elementary aspects of it can be understood through Complex Analysis and started a seminar learning Complex Analysis along the way. Then in 1984 I attended a conference on Thurston’s work at work only to find that professors from various universities studying his notes word by word and trying to fill in the details. That gave a start and some understanding, enough to use some of it and even prove some related results, came bit by bit. Now in 1979, a collaborator Peter Scott used parts of Thurston’s work I did not learn and am going through the same process again. I do not really know what mixture of methods works in learning.

A bit more about ”Growth” by V.Smil

Just got a copy of “Growth: From Microorganisms to Megacities” by V.Smil after seeing a mention of it by Ashutosh Jogalekar. One problem that has been bothering is ‘interest rate’ which has been with us since Mesopotamian times. Apparently, the problem was solved in ancient times by periodic debt cancellations, as pointed out by Michael Hudson. I feel that growth is related to this since as long as there is interest on money, growth is needed in at least some important parts of the economy. I wanted to see how Smil handles this. A first look at the book shows that Smil does not even mention ‘rate of interest’. I will still read the book since it seems to have a lot of ‘facts’ but doubt whether he really solves the problem of growth.

Resentment epidemic in the west

The West Has a Resentment Epidemic “What has changed in the last generation, however, is the level of economic and wealth inequality between regions of Western countries. As Joan Rosés and Nikolaus Wolf have shown, regional divergence began in the 1980s with globalization and deindustrialization, and it has deepened in recent years.

If we are to understand the depth of populist anger, we must look to the economics of regional resentment. In the United Kingdom, for example, a person’s position on leaving or remaining in the EU in the 2016 referendum was linked to the geography of the nation’s housing market, with research showing that property prices are one of the best predictors of whether voters supported or opposed Britain’s vote to leave the EU, even at the ward level (the smallest electoral unit, of around 5,000 to 6,000 voters).”

How does this apply to India?

A bit about this blog

i have not been looking at the comments for more than three months since there has been a medical emergency in the family. My apologies to those who might have commented. In any case, my aim has always been to keep links in one place for future reference. Links disappear and so I used to copy some passages from the links. But now even that has become rare due to some pressures at home and moreover Facebook has taken over some of the functions though it is difficult to find old posts there.

Book review review of a book on aggregate production function

Book Review: The Aggregate Production Function and the Measurement of Technical Change: ‘Not Even WrongThe book has been linked before and was freely available online for a while. May be still available.

Saudi Arabia realising its weakness

Saudi Arabia Recognizes Its Weakness and Is Ready to Talk to the Iranian Foe

Long read on EU

The revenge of the elites

Infinite growth

The delusion and danger of infinite economic growth is attributed to Robert Solow who said "If it is very easy to substitute other factors for natural resources, then there is, in principle, no problem. The world can, in effect, get along without natural resources" (Solow, R. (1974). "The economics of resources or the resources of economics." Amer. Econ. Rev. 2: 1-14) via http://www.uvm.edu/~jfarley/publications/Limits_to_Growth_revised%20clean.doc

Another We must leave growth behind by V.Smil

Evolution of Gandhi

Evolution of Ganndhi’s thought by Irfan Habib. Starting as a middle class prejudiced person, Gandhi seems to have changed his views and evolved to what is still an enigmatic personality. Irfan Habib attributes some of it to Gandhi’s exposure to the poor after his return from South Africa.