Budget Analysis
So I finally finished going through today’s Mint and noticed that most of it was filled with analysis of the budget. I tried reading most of them, and didn’t manage to finish any of them (save Anil...
View ArticleAxes of diversity
Companies and educational institutions, especially those that have a global footprint and a reputation to protect, make a big deal about diversity policies. It is almost impossible to sit through a...
View ArticleProbability of accidental death
So I’ve received two separate SMSs from my bankers over the last few days. One of them asks me to sign up for the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana at Rs. 12 per annum for an insurance against...
View ArticleIndian Americans and the Selection Bias
There is this one chart from the Economist that has been doing its rounds over the interwebs over the last few days: Basically it shows that Indian Americans are much more accomplished academically and...
View ArticleParks and Urban Safety
On Wednesday evening, I walked to Gandhi Bazaar for an evening snack. It’s not often that I do that, for it’s not a pleasant walk. Firstly, there is the Tagore circle underpass which was built after...
View ArticleHow to improve regulation of utilities – comparing Delhi and DC
The Business Standard reports that the Delhi government has rejected the license applications of Uber, Ola and TaxiForSure. The snippet doesn’t say much more. Contrast this with Washington D.C. which...
View ArticleTwitter and Radically Networked Outrage
The concept of Radically Networked Outrage was originally conceived by my Takshashila colleague Pavan Srinath. Having conceived of it, he had promised to blog about it, but it’s been over a month and...
View ArticleUnions and competition
I completely fail to see why workers’ unions are against competition in the sector. The latest round in this comes from the National Federation for Indian Railwaymen (NFIR), which represents most of...
View ArticleOne Rank One Pension – some thoughts
There has been a lot of debate of late on whether veterans should be moved to a “one rank one pension” system. I won’t bother explaining the whole deal here, I’ll let you read this brilliant post by...
View ArticleOn Sub-nationalism
Pramit Bhattacharya has a nice piece in MintOnSunday about the positives of sub-nationalism, which fosters provision of public and common goods. He cites academic research to contrast Kerala and Uttar...
View ArticleGetting BRT to work
Dedicated bus lanes are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for BRT After significant success in Ahmedabad and spectacular failure in Delhi, Pune is the latest city in India to embark on a...
View ArticleCar-free days, traffic jams and social capital
While most news nowadays is fairly hilarious, one piece was more hilarious than the others. This was about traffic jams in Gurgaon yesterday, a day that had been declared as a “Car Free Day”. You might...
View ArticleLarge sites and universally accessible blocks
Currently reading this paper by Brelsford, Martin, Hand and Bettencourt of the Santa Fe Institute (did I tell you I just got my first MOOC certificate from this institute last week?) on the topology of...
View ArticleAn unauthorised biography of an unauthorised biography
I just finished reading a book which was like a Telugu movie – the beginning promised much, as did the reviews. About a third into the book, I was sending excerpts from its chapters to friends. Two...
View ArticleOn 2ab, Communal Harmony and Economic Growth
I’ve used the concept of “2ab” once before, a day after the Prime Minister used the term in a much lampooned remark, to explain why we need Net Neutrality. I turn to the same concept again to explain...
View ArticleOn people returning awards
So it seems to have become a fashion nowadays for writers to return any awards they’ve received from the government. It all started with Nayantara Sahgal, and it has set off a virtual procession. Maybe...
View ArticleIndia as a Triangle Power
In the course of a “thinktanki” discussion at the Takshashila office on Monday, I came up with the concept of the “triangle power”. As it might be intuitive to guess, the concept stems from Indian...
View ArticleBlockchain and real estate
Based on the title of this blog post, you might assume this might be about Honduras, where there is a proposal to use the blockchain to store land records. The problem with Honduras is that there is no...
View ArticlePolitician salaries and corruption
Recently, Vijay Nair, CEO of OML Entertainment, which organises the popular NH7 Weekender music festivals, tweeted that the Weekender in Delhi last month was the first where he didn’t have to pay a...
View ArticleCharging for parking
In a potentially interesting move, the Delhi government has declared that starting from 2016, only half the stock of Delhi’s cars will be allowed on the road each day, based on the parity of the number...
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