India’s Present-day Society Lacks the Desire to See Every Child at School

Prof. Krishna Kumar, Director of the NCERT was interviewed by Frontline dated March 14, 2008.

“….There is plenty of evidence to say that India’s present-day society lacks the desire to see every child at school…

… Education is a long-term investment. To make such an investment generously, one needs faith in the future and the hope that we will get there. For appropriate investments in education we also need socio-political imagination and a social consensus on certain basic ideas, such as the idea that every child matters. In our country such a consensus has yet to emerge. Far too many people still believe that only the so-called bright or smart children matter and deserve education of the best quality.

Also, a lot of people perceive education as a private concern, in the sense that they worry about their own children but don’t feel hurt or pained when they see others’ children exploited or treated badly. In such a social ethos, any government will have difficulty in pushing radical educational reforms…

… In every area, from science and maths to social science and language children must be given a space to reflect, ask questions, wonder, and probe sources of knowledge outside the textbook…

If progress in examination reform has been slow, the case of teacher education is worse. The sector is facing a grim situation, with rampant commercialisation on the one hand and a lifeless, uninspiring B.Ed. curriculum on the other…

… Teaching profession is in a deep crisis today and in certain parts of the country it is in a shambles, with unqualified, part-time para-teachers serving in place of professionally committed teachers…

… We live in a very divided society. People just defend themselves and their own interests in everything. [Points to bottled water on the table.] We even drink different kinds of water, and education is like that. It all depends on class, caste, gender. For at least two decades there has been a high value placed on education even by the poorest. But the system has not evolved to the point where their children get the attention they deserve.”

I, me, myself culture of India's non-poor.....


'Look, we've discussed all this. If it gets the kids into a decent school, it's worth it...'
The Spectator 2008

Nana Patekar नाना पाटेकर, Are You Qualified To Speak on These Matters?

“Lisa: While I was gone I got some really good advice from Paul and Linda McCartney.
Homer: Rock stars. Is there anything they don't know?”

[3F03] “The Simpsons” “Lisa the Vegetarian” by David S. Cohen Directed by Mark Kirkland Production code: 3F03 Original airdate in N.A.: 15-Oct-95

Pudhari पुढारी on March 3, 2008 reported:
” Nana Patekar supports Raj Thackeray राज ठाकरे.”

There is no problem with that.

Problem is with the reasoning Mr. Patekar has given for his action: “If son of the soil is not acceptable, why the formation of linguistic states and why we need domicile certificate.”

To equate the language struggles of the 1950s with the current agitation- targeting lowly paid, largely poor North Indians- is a cruel joke.

The current agitation reminded me of “The Hungry Tide: A Novel by Amitav Ghosh” based on a true story of a group of poor immigrants to Sunderbans who in the name of environment protection are chased away by Bengali bhadralok. Another example is the slaughter of poor North Indian immigrant workers by militants in Assam.

No doubt language is the first and fundamental element of human identity. But the goals of the language struggles of the 1950s were not narrow, short sighted and hence they didn’t target only one group of minorities. Those struggles therefore remain, in terms of social composition, popular participation, and moral fervour, perhaps the most significant social movements of independent India.

While attacking bhadralok Amartya Sen’s book “The Argumentative Indian” for its omission of language as a theme, Ramachandra Guha observed:

‘…The most striking omission, in terms of theme, is that of language, a matter of vital importance to India and Indians. (The word does not rate an entry in what is a fairly extensive index.) Whether or not premodern India was “multicultural”, as Sen claims, it was certainly multilingual. From the Mughals in the north to the Nayakas in the deep south, royal courts featured multiple languages of discourse. Some of the greatest medieval poets and composers wrote their songs and verses in three or four tongues. At least in the towns, the common folk were also conversant with several languages.

Of course, across vast stretches, and particularly in the countryside, a particular language predominated. But no one language held sway across the subcontinent. It was as a bow to the massively multi-lingual character of the nation-in-the-making that the Congress, under Gandhi’s lead, decided to form provincial committees by linguistic zone. From the 1920s, the Congress PCCs were based on language – Oriya, Marathi, Kannada, etc – with their respective jurisdictions being at odds with (or cutting across) the provincial boundaries of British India. When independence came, the Congress leadership reneged on the promise to form new states based on language. The Congress rank-and-file revolted, taking the masses and activists of other parties with them. Across the country, popular movements broke out calling for the formation of linguistic states. Bowing to public opinion, Nehru conceded the demand.

The language struggles of the 1950s remain, in terms of social composition, popular participation, and moral fervour, perhaps the most significant social movements of independent India…

…When, in 1962, the scientist J B S Haldane told an American journalist that he happened to be “proud of being a citizen of India, which is a lot more diverse than Europe, let alone the US, USSR, or China, and thus a better model for a possible world organisation”, he had its linguistic diversity principally in mind, along with its diversity of religions, cultures, diets, apparel, etc.

…To say that language is constitutive of human identity would be an underestimation; it is the first and fundamental element of human identity. Pakistan broke up, and Sri Lanka is in the throes of an unending civil war, because its rulers and thinkers disregarded this fact. That India stays together as a multilingual state is a tribute to its traditions of heterodoxy and pluralism, as well as to its political democracy, where at least this particular set of disputes was finally settled by reasoned argument and negotiated compromise…”

Can we please have "reasoned argument and negotiated compromise" instead of loud, hysteric dialogues of a bad jingoistic Hindi film?

Pity No N S Phadke ना सी फडके to Describe New Cricket Record

On March 1, 2008, South African opening batsmen Graeme Smith and Neil McKenzie broke the Test world record for the best opening partnership set by Indian openers Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy on January 7, 1956. It was the first ever Test series between India and New Zealand.

Brief scores:

India (1st innings): 537-3 decl (M H Mankad 231, P Roy 173, P R Umrigar 79*)
New Zealand (1st innings): 209 all out (B Sutcliffe 47, S P Gupte 5-72)
New Zealand (2nd innings): 219 all out (J R Reid 63, J G Leggat 61, S P Gupte 4-73, M H Mankad 4-65)
Result: India won by an innings and 109 runs

I had a lesson in my school text based on Phadke's masterly essay describing Mankad-Roy's record breaking achievement of 1956. Reading it was such a thrill.

N S Phadke ना सी फडके (1894-1978)- one of the highest paid Marathi authors- was a lousy novelist for my taste.

But Phadke was a pioneer when it came to writing in Marathi on cricket. See a related post here.

I also enjoy reading many of his short essays on various subjects. His essay on Bal Gandharva (बालगंधर्व) is also masterly.

Phadke once imagined that the 'time-man' कालपुरुष was ferrying all books in a boat with a limited carrying capacity. As time goes by and new books keep loading, the time-man is forced to discard books of lesser quality. Phadke obviously hoped that the time-man would keep a few of his books on board.

I am afraid all of Phadke's novels have now probably been thrown out by Kalpurush! Read Vilas Sarang's essay in Marathi on this here.

Almost none of his books has survived the scrutiny of either popularity over long time, like Sane Guruji's Shyamchi Aai (श्यामची आई ), or critical taste.

[Phadke would hate this comparison with Sane Guruji because he has written scornfully about Guruji's literature. See साने गुरूजी पुनर्मूल्यांकन, संपादक: भालचंद्र नेमाडे, १९९९ पृष्ठे: ३७-५७ (Sane Guruji Revaluation, Editor: Bhalchandra Nemade, 1999 Page: 37-57)]


Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy,India v New Zealand, 5th Test, Madras, January , 1956

Scratch it!

Asian Age informed on February 2, 2008: “Scratching does ease the itch you get.”

Big deal. As if I didn’t know this.

Well, what they mean is that scientists now have found reasons why scratching is pleasurable.

In 1978, I was infected with scabies खरूज, king of all skin ailments in India. I got it from my dear friend “Ravya“ R E Bedekar. I very well knew that scabies was contagious but took no precaution. In no time, scabies had spread even to my genitals.

For few days it was still not diagnosed. Home remedies were being tried.
Then I saw our family Ayurvedic doctor – (Dr. Adivrekar). He asked me if I had visited any hooker or, if not, if I wore clothes of someone who did. It was a bad time to receive the diagnosis. My mother had just undergone a major operation and was still in the hospital.

I felt scared.

To get second opinion, I saw our family allopathic doctor (Dr. Sathe) who immediately diagnosed it- to my lasting relief- as scabies and prescribed me a white lotion (I forget its name but will recognize its smell even today) and some tablets. My sister helped me apply the lotion.

Venerable education expert Dr. Chitra Naik- who along with her husband J P Naik have done so much to promote education in India- once told her television interviewer that she always carried skin ointment while traveling to villages because it acted as a passport to a home in rural India where at least one member of a largish household suffered from scabies!

At a global IT giant where I worked, I always admired gall (pun intended!) of a very senior manager who scratched his genitals, in full view of everyone he was talking to, without a care in the world. I was always amused, never angry by his action. I understood his compulsion!


Artist: Peter Arno The New Yorker 13 June 1931

Are Historical Films Inspirational or Just Plain Nuisance?

While talking to Newsweek March 3, 2008, Israeli author Amos Oz said:"...The past doesn't just play a role; it almost dominates this region. People remember too well and too much. Both Jews and Arabs carry deep, dramatic injuries."

Historical Hindi film Jodhaa-Akbar has created a stir in India. On February 27 2008, there was chaos in the town of Sangli. (Of course, I take every report in Indian news media with a big pinch of salt because as Steve Salerno said the mainstream news business is so unaccustomed to dealing with issues at any level of complexity and nuance that they’re wont to oversimplify their story to the point of caricature.)

Supporters of the film ask us to forget the history on which purportedly it is based and just to focus on film’s cinematic values. (I then wonder why use names like Akbar & Jodhaa or Bajirao & Mastani. Why not use Zeenat-Imran or Gangubai-Balwantrao?)

They also say history is never objective and hence should be “used” to further “good causes” like Hindu-Muslim unity.

Prime Minister J L Nehru too probably would subscribe to this view.

"...All of which shows how little Nehru understood India and the communal question which tore it apart. His arrogance and ignorance contributed not a little to the tragedy. During the First World War, socialists were dismayed to find the working class as nationalistic as any other in place of the solidarity which theoreticians accepted. Sixty years after Independence we face not only the communal question but also caste divisions…"

(A.G. NOORANI “Path to Partition: A witness’ account” Frontline, October 19, 2007)

Historian T S Shejwalkar त्र्यंबक शंकर शेजवलकर (1895 - 1963) argued that even Mahatma Gandhi didn’t have much use of history. Shejwalkar also wished that Nehru and Gandhi studied Panipat 1761 in any detail instead of him!

(Preface to “Panipat 1761”, 1968)

Inspirational history excites me too. Occasionally it moves me to tears. Amartya Sen is a leading exponent of it.

But does it work and for how long?

While reviewing “GOD’S CRUCIBLE /Islam and the Making of Europe, 570 to 1215 “ By David Levering Lewis, ERIC ORMSBY observed:

“…Thus, as Lewis notes, “sumptuary laws required that non-Muslims display badges and that clothing worn by dhimmis be distinguished from that worn by Arabs.” Non-Muslims were not allowed to ride on horseback without a permit, or to bear arms. Moreover, for sound fiscal reasons, conversion to Islam was not warmly encouraged since non-Muslims who converted were no longer required to pay the head tax on which state revenues depended. Though well aware of the overly rosy picture often painted of Muslim Spain, Lewis sometimes accepts it himself. Nowadays, we know all too well that the enforced wearing of badges to signify religious affiliation is hardly a sign of tolerance. That was true in Muslim Spain too…”

So was medieval tolerance, where conversion to Islam was not encouraged, anchored to the state revenues and not to some exalted value system? Even in India?

Reviewing “IDENTITY AND VIOLENCE/ The Illusion of Destiny” By Amartya Sen, Fouad Ajami said:

”… Sen works with the anecdote: His potted history is tailored for interfaith dialogues. He writes of the great Jewish philosopher Maimonides, who, when forced to emigrate from "an intolerant Europe" in the 12th century, was able to find "a tolerant refuge in the Arab world" in the court of the great Muslim ruler Saladin.

But this will not do as history.

Maimonides, born in 1135, did not flee "Europe" for the "Arab world": He fled his native Córdoba in Spain, which was then in the grip of religious-political terror, choking under the yoke of a Berber Muslim dynasty, the Almohads, that was to snuff out all that remained of the culture of convivencia and made the life of Spain's Jews (and of the free spirits among its Muslims) utter hell. Maimonides and his family fled the fire of the Muslim city-states in the Iberian Peninsula to Morocco and then to Jerusalem. There was darkness and terror in Morocco as well, and Jerusalem was equally inhospitable in the time of the Crusader Kingdom. Deliverance came only in Cairo -- the exception, not the rule, its social peace maintained by the enlightened Saladin…

… Inspirational history can go only so far; it will not bend to Sen's good cheer.”

In an earlier post, I noted how the Nizam’s army slaughtered cows in a temple complex in Maharashtra. I also mentioned how Chitpavan Brahmin chieftains of Maratha army looted Hindu shrines around the same time.

But there is a crucial difference between the two.

To say, Marathas didn’t slaughter pigs in mosques would be very simplistic. But by and large they didn’t disrespect shrines, holy books and women of other religions. Until 1857 at least.

In the eyes of most Hindu readers of Indian history this difference perhaps makes some Muslim rulers evil and their Hindu counterparts – much like today’s politicians- corrupt and incompetent but not evil.

India owes a lot to Sufism. People consider ways of Sufis parallel to the ways of Bhakti saints. Like saints, Sufis are considered other-worldly and hence neutral to the politics of their time. (I would argue that most Bhakti saints were not other worldly at all.)

William Dalrymple claimed: “…Sufis succeeded in bringing together Hindu and Muslim in a movement which spanned the apparently unbridgable gulf separating the two religions. To this day, while Muslims usually predominate at Sufi shrines, you also see huge numbers of Hindus, as well as the odd Sikh and Christian. Here for once you can see religion acting to bring people together, not to divide them. In modern India, Sufism is not something other-worldly so much as a religious force that demonstrably acts as a balm on India's festering religious wounds…”.

Historian Setu Madhavrao Pagdi सेतु माधवराव पगडी, expert in Urdu and Farsi, studied sufism and wrote a book on the subject: सूफी संप्रदाय , तत्वज्ञान आणि कार्य (Sufism – Philosophy and Work) 1953. While acknowledging the debt of great sufi saints, he argued that sufis fully co-operated with the policies of aggressive Muslim rulers. He further said that many sufi shrines- he personally visited them- were built by demolishing Hindu temples.
(Jeevansetu जीवनसेतु, 1969)

With luck inspirational history may help create good cinema like Mughal-E-Azam(1960) but I wonder if it can ever work as a social balm.

Artist: J B Handlesman The New Yorker 26 February 1972

To India Goes the Award for the Most Celebrity Obsessed Culture

I couldn’t watch academy awards function this year after an hour. It got so boring.

I never watch any Indian film award function. At last count there at least are a dozen of them. This year even my wife doesn’t wish to watch any of them. They all look the same...muck like gowns at academy awards function...parade of celebrities. Rate at which Indian media are busy fabricating celebrities is scary.

A. O. SCOTT has written an excellent essay “Are Oscars Worth All This Fuss?”. (NYT February 24, 2008).

“…I’m only slightly ashamed to admit that I found myself hoping that the strike (the Writers Guild strike) would shut the Academy Awards down; that for once, in a year of such cinematic bounty and variety, appreciation for the best movies could be liberated from the pomp and tedium of Hollywood spectacle. ..

… So I am not against the Oscars, any more than I’m dismissive of the Salesman of the Year or the Employee of the Month, or opposed to lavish annual trade association conventions for actuaries or ophthalmologists. But I am nonetheless bothered by the disproportionate importance that the Academy Awards have taken on, and by the distorting influence they exercise over the way we make, market and see movies in this country. The Oscars themselves may be harmless fun, but the idea that they matter is as dangerous as it is ridiculous. ..

… In the past it was frequently safe to assume that any relationship between the Oscars and artistic quality was coincidental. The academy was never supposed to be hip, daring or responsive to what was newest and most risky in the world of cinema. It was just what its name implied: the mainstream, the establishment, the old guard. Sometimes, yes, the best picture prize would actually go to the best picture, but more often the academy’s neglect of a film was a reliable index of its merit. The good judgment not only of critics but, more important, of independent-minded, adventurous moviegoers has traditionally been measured by its distance from the consensus of the movie industry.

And that, it should not be forgotten, is what the Academy Awards represent: the self-assessment of a self-interested, self-involved professional clique…

… In the old days it was more often the opposite: the academy would belatedly gild the lily of commercial success with a shiny finish of ersatz class. This vulgarity was the saving grace of the Oscars. It was not necessary for film lovers to take them seriously or for media outlets to cover them like presidential campaigns, with horse-race reporting, sober analysis and war room spin doctoring. A bit of perspective is needed. The wonderful thing about the Academy Awards is that they are fundamentally trivial. To pretend otherwise is to trivialize movies.”

Private Benefits at Public Cost? Sugar Cooperatives in Maharashtra.

A K D Jadhav, Mumbai has written scathingly about sugar cooperatives in Maharashtra (Economic & Political Weekly, February 16-22 2008).

Sugarcane is auspicious for a “cultural Hindu” like me. I was raised in Western Maharashtra where I often saw a standing crop of sugarcane (see picture below). It gave me a great solace.

Sight of sugarcane getting transported from fields to factories in bullock-carts and trucks brought great excitement to us. Many boys- and few men- chased those vehicles to pull out a long sugarcane stick. It almost always was a very dangerous game. I remember many accidents those acts caused.

During the sugarcane season, in the evenings, our mother often took three of us to a particular sugarcane juice bar ऊसाचे गु-हाळ at Miraj. There a male buffalo pulled a huge, creaky, wooden juicer. If it didn’t scare, the sound always precluded any conversation, making us concentrate on the act of drinking.

Even today a glass of sugarcane juice at Muralidhar sugarcane juice bar मुरलीधर रसवंती गृह on Bajirao Road, Pune gives me greater pleasure than a glass of beer or any other beverage.

Despite movies like "The Contest" सामना 1975, I believed sugar cooperatives generally did more good than bad for farmers of Maharashtra and the society at large.

That impression started to change few years ago.

In Maharashtra, sugar cane covers just three percent of the land yet corners around 60 percent of the state irrigation supply and is a cause of substantial groundwater withdrawals; the water table in places has dropped from 15 metres to around 65 metres in the past 20 years.

Frontline March 2005:

“…There was a time when the sugar cooperatives did benefit rural areas. The very first sugar cooperative, which was established by Vithalrao Vikhe Patil, was a reaction to the plight of cane-growing peasants who were trapped by landlessness, moneylenders and the exploitative policies of private sugar mills. In the mid-1940s peasants struggled to market their sugarcane. Extracting sugar from cane was expensive and uneconomical. So the cane was made into jaggery. But as there was a surfeit of raw sugarcane and jaggery prices invariably reached rock bottom. In 1948, Vikhe Patil organised the sugarcane growers of 44 villages in Ahmednagar district in western Maharashtra. The outcome was Asia's first cooperative sugar factory, which was commissioned in 1950…

… The strength of the movement was the involvement of the farmers who were shareholders in the sugar mill regardless of the size of their holdings. Over the years, this truly democratic idea got corrupted and farmers with larger holdings grew more powerful. In practice, this altered the power structure of the cooperatives. In the elections to the governing bodies of the sugar factories, money became such a powerful tool that the top posts of chairman and vice-chairman usually went to the richest farmers even though the majority of members were farmers with small- or medium-sized holdings…

…`Private benefits at public cost' is how a report of the World Bank summed up the role of Maharashtra's sugar cooperatives. Though the cooperative movement has helped rural Maharashtra, it has also been at a high cost to the exchequer. Sugar cooperatives have a complicated structure, which makes it possible for them to incur losses but not profits. This is because profits are fully distributed among the members of the cooperative, whereas losses are not; losses accrue to the cooperative. It is bad enough when a cooperative makes losses but when it is shown to be making a loss when it has actually made profits, then the members of the cooperative are being cheated of their share of the profits. In addition, the burden on the government rises because the government bears the losses of the sugar cooperatives and also provides subsidies.

Though initially the subsidies provided to the cooperative sector did benefit farmers both rich and poor, they gradually came to benefit only the rich farmers…

… With low cash inputs, high subsidies, high returns and generous financial support from the State, it is clear why sugar cooperatives are attractive to promoters. But these have also been the reasons for the cooperative movement's downfall…”

A K D Jadhav:

“…As far back as 1977 Michael Lipton in his book Why Poor People Stay Poor highlighted the driving force behind unequal associations as their susceptibility to capture. The cooperative movement of Maharashtra is a classic study of this phenomenon, whereby the Maratha Deshmukhs sought to use caste as a means to induct Maratha Kunbis (peasants) in their bid to capture and perpetuate power and pelf.

Y B Chavan, schooled in M N Roy’s dialectics, saw the potential for building the edifice early in his life. The contrived Maratha “majority” through Kunbi (OBC) induction in large swathes of western Maharashtra in the 1950s and 1960s, around the time of the formation of the state, created an opportune moment for Chavan and his 96 clans (96 kulis) to capture the state Congress and through it the levers of political power in the state.
Almost immediately thereafter the cooperative movement received large sums of tax-payers’ money as virtual handouts from the state budget. The extraordinary scheme was and is still based on a special debtequity of 90: 10, the debt being provided by the cooperative banks based on state guarantees and 90 per cent of the equity being provided by the state from its budget as a direct handout.

Maratha clansmen backed by Kunbi numbers were encouraged to get into “coops”, pick up readymade projects of Rs 10 to 20 crore (1960s and 1970s), access 99 per cent of the funds from the state and its institutions and use the structure to perpetuate their hegemony.

What Baviskar calls the “success” of the cooperative movement in Maharashtra is in fact a humongous failure of the rule of law. The genesis of the sugar cooperative lies not in the “business” of making sugar and earning wealth for the cooperative but in the use of the structure as a medium for siphoning off funds from the treasury into the coffers of the kulaks. All the sugar coops have thrived on running subsidies not only by way of the original infusion of fixed and working capital by publicly funded institutions, but with continuous infusions at regular intervals thereafter in the form of revival and restructuring grants, soft loans and government guarantees.

For this reason it is not possible to understand Baviskar’s pride in the 5 million tonnes of sugar produced in Maharashtra, because that sugar is produced at a huge cost to the state exchequer, depriving other sections of society of public funds to which they have a far greater claim.”

Celebrating Next Big Sterile Statistics

Which statistics will Indian media celebrate next? I can never guess.

Currently they are celebrating figures at which cricketers were auctioned. My son is a cricket-stat nut. Sometimes he is a big nuisance around.

Outlook February 25, 2008 celebrated:

”…1.60 million Indians can’t resist the Facebook Phenomenon” and then went on to discuss exciting facebook lives of many so-called celebrities.

I don’t quite get it. Perhaps because I am still not on Facebook.

”… Facebook purports to be a place for human connectivity, but it’s made us more wary of real human confrontation...For young people, Facebook is yet another form of escapism; we can turn our lives into stage dramas and relationships into comedy routines…” (ALICE MATHIAS, NYT October 06, 2007).


'We met on Facebook and split up on Bebo.'

The Spectator February 2008

What is a Real Oriental, Edward Said?

Do only insiders can know the truth about their societies? Edward Said’s much-discussed Orientalism (1978) thought so.

About it, David S. Landes said his classic “The Wealth and Poverty of Nations” (1998):

“Insofar as one uses this claim to discredit the work of intellectual adversaries, it is polemical and antiscientific. But insofar as it points to the instrumental value and power of information, for good and for bad, it makes an important point.”

While reviewing 'The Great Transformation' by Karen Armstrong, JOHN WILSON said:

“…In our own time of "great fear and pain,"Armstrong proposes that we look to the Axial sages for "two important pieces of advice," both of which turn out to be quite uncontroversial: We should practice self-criticism (amen), and we should "take practical, effective action" against excessively aggressive tendencies in our own traditions (amen again).

But after 400 pages of historical argument, the banality of such declarations is staggering.

Yes, we need to learn to see things from other points of view. But once we have done that, once indifference and ignorance and prejudice and other obstacles are cleared away, real differences — political, religious, and cultural — remain. “ (NYT, April 30, 2006)

Wilson sounds as if it is easy to clear indifference and ignorance.

On the other hand, it’s impossible to clear it considering following state of affairs in USA.

Susan Jacoby, author of “The Age of American Unreason”:

“Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don’t think it matters.” She pointed to a 2006 National Geographic poll that found nearly half of 18- to 24-year-olds don’t think it is necessary or important to know where countries in the news are located. So more than three years into the Iraq war, only 23 percent of those with some college could locate Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel on a map.” (NYT February 14, 2008)


“… Most people at the CIA don't speak foreign languages, so communications between and within other nations go untranslated…” (Doug Brown’s review of “Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA” by Tim Weiner). (Powells.com February 16,2008)

Why just middle-east? In the West, I feel, quality of scholarship about India was better in 19th century than today. Many India based 'popular' Indian historians don't read Indian language books to source their material.
I have already written about ignorance of likes of V S Naipaul when it comes to India. For the same reason, even many educated and well-off Indians- living in India and abroad- are ignorant about India.


Artist: Ned Hilton The New Yorker 5 September 1936

Write it Down Anju. Multi-Storied Parking Lot at Pune.

The multi-storied parking lot with a capacity to accommodate 300 cars or 2,000 two-wheelers was inaugurated on November 5, 2007 at Pune. Of course, there are few roads- like FC road- that now seem to be used only for parking!

The 4.55-crore parking lot project includes a ground plus five stories and is constructed on a 10,000 sq m plot.A six metre-wide ramp has been constructed for vehicles to pass through to upper levels and provision has been made for installing lifts in the future.

I hope my wife Anju will note the advice in following picture.


'For heaven's sakes, Dennis, write it down.'

The Spectator, February 2008