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Archive for June 2008

The Judiciary Doesn’t Make the Top Ten

Posted by: Aadisht on: June 19, 2008

This Goldman Sachs report on 10 things India needs to do to achieve its potential (via) is pretty good. I have two quibbles with it, though. How come judicial reforms and clearing the backlog of cases didn’t make it to the list? I realise this is a subjective measure of value, but I would have [...]

Desipundit, Poopi, and Disability

Posted by: Aadisht on: June 17, 2008

Jagadguru’s latest post is a wondrous marvel. I reproduce it here in its entirety: Only DP will link to such crappy review like the one they linked for Dasavatharam. The nutcase who reviewed is known for his ignorance and disability to understand science. He writes such a crappy review and DP people link to it. [...]

More on Finance and Inclusive Growth

Posted by: Aadisht on: June 17, 2008

Suddenly, the idea that financial sophistication leads to inclusive growth seems to have caught on (well, except with the Ministry of Finance, which is actually in a position to do something about it). First there was my Pragati piece. Yesterday, Nivirkar Singh’s column in Mint also touched on this: Petia Topalova of the International Monetary [...]

A Newfound Respect for Legal Sanctity

Posted by: Aadisht on: June 17, 2008

India Today (which I read only because my guesthouse had nothing else except Femina) has a report out on how Arjun Singh and/ or the Ministry of Education has found objections to all the National Knowledge Commission’s recommendations except the one on increasing government funding for university education. It seems Arjun is determined to spoil [...]

Kunal Kohli and the Missing Umbrella

Posted by: Aadisht on: June 16, 2008

Kunal Kohli must be struck down upon with great vengeance. Not because Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic mixes Hindi, Urdu and English words into the title. I actually approve of that. Not because it’s a ripoff of Mary Poppins. After all, you can’t expect better from a man who’s already ripped off When Harry Met Sally [...]

From His Mother’s Womb Untimely Ripp’d

Posted by: Aadisht on: June 9, 2008

While I’m in favour of Indian newspapers doing more feature stories that go more in-depth than five hundred words and two soundbites, this Mint article on Caesarean sections is not the way to go. It’s poorly researched, inconclusive, meanders all over the place, and does too much New York Times level balancing of opposing opinions, [...]

The Trouble With Exams

Posted by: Aadisht on: June 9, 2008

So the five month old DU Economics post had this reasonably long comments thread which instead of discussing DU or economics itself ended up discussing the stud-fighter framework, the best sort of examination system, what it is that an examination system should actually be examining, and the difference between CBSE Boards and the JEE. I [...]

In Pragati

Posted by: Aadisht on: June 4, 2008

I have an article on how finance is actually infrastructure and financial sector reforms out in this month’s edition of Pragati. The link to the article gives you an excerpt and you’ll have to download the PDF version (slightly less than 2 MB) to read the full thing. The article had a checkered history. I had almost [...]

Beer Arbitrage

Posted by: Aadisht on: June 4, 2008

Via Skimpy‘s Google Reader Shared Items, I have discovered this wonderful website: pintprice.com. It’s the wikipedia of beer prices. Users e-mail in the price of a pint of beer wherever they live or travel, and the data are updated down to city level. The listed price of a pint in Bombay, for instance, is USD [...]



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