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.