yazadjal.com

New Delhi’s Liberty Institute has a superb page on Ayn Rand to commemorate her centenary year. To Ayn Rand, I owe two debts. Her writings showed the hollowness of my agnosticism and made me an atheist. From her I learnt that morality needs no conception of God. And she goaded me to have the courage […]

My suggestion for the April Meet of the Bombay Blogger’s Blah.
Date: Sunday, April 10, 2004
Time: 3 pm
Venue: Cafe Coffee Day, near Pritam Hotel, Dadar East (very close to the station and ideal for both Eastern and Western suburbies)
And hey, it’ll be great if we can have some LJers as well.
This is not restricted to the […]

According to the Indian Express, the Indian govt is evaluating a set of guidelines for Infertility clinics. Quote from IE:
“When there were no rules, there was no question of prosecution,’’ said a senior ICMR official, adding, ‘‘there is no reliable information on the number of ART clinics in India as there is no […]

Dilip D’Souza on the incompleteness of “divine” or “inner conscience” justice.
We’ve had innumerable horrible crimes in India — the Delhi massacre of 1984, the Bombay one of 1992-93, the Gujarat one of 2002, the Bhagalpur blindings, assorted ghastly caste slaughters in Bihar, add your own. Pretty much never have we been able to punish the […]

Ever wondered why Mahatma Gandhi never won the Nobel Peace Prize? He was nominated five times: 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and 1948. The Nobel Foundation’s site has an article explaining the omission. Interesting commentary, more on the Nobel Prize process than on Gandhi’s “suitability.”

Good cricket writing is a delight to read, especially while you’re follwing a match. Here’s a small vignette from a bulletin by Amit Varma.
Rahul Dravid and Tendulkar had added 98 in 168 balls when Bucknor struck. Tendulkar was beaten by the late swing of a ball from Abdul Razzaq, and the daylight between bat and […]

While googling for VKRV Rao, I came across this webpage of the Delhi School of Economics. Manmohan Singh became the 14th Prime Minister of India nearly a year back (May 22, 2004) but the Delhi School, where he taught international trade between 1969-71, still thinks he’s a former Finance Minister!
Maybe someone should suggest that there […]

Johan Norberg, the defender of global capitalism had an interesting experience while giving a talk in Jordan.
Yesterday at an overcrowded lecture at the university in Amman, I got a lot of interested responses and questions from the students, until the moderator, a teatcher and supervisor, intervened and said that my book was offensive, and […]

It’s the Iranian style. And has a new supporter in Eugene Volokh. Sometime back I’d written about the death penalty and the right to life being compatible. Some of the comments, especially Ravikiran’s and Gautam’s are worth a relook.
Volokh takes the argument further.

I particularly like the involvement of the victims’ relatives in the killing […]

It happens rarely, but the blog Medienkritik has pulled off a little coup by getting the website of Stern, a major newsmagazine in Germany to acknowledge a mistake and change it. Bravo!
Link courtesy: Samizdata.

As a guest blogger on AnarchoCapitalistLibertarian, a term as yet to be defined by the proprietor of the blog, or by his infamous “cartel”, I have taken this pleasant task upon myself.
The term anarcho-capitalist was coined by the late Professor Murray N Rothbard to describe his political credo. Since then, very few people – like […]

While going through the bloggies, I came across this perky article on how to blog. (It won the bloggie for Best Article or Essay About Weblogs). Some nice points. The brackets encapsulate my two paise contribution.
1. write every day.
2. if you think youre a good writer, write twice a day.
6. have comments. dont be […]

While Bombay rocked yesterday afternoon; I, surprisingly, felt nothing. Some of my colleagues rushed out, consulted our neighbours, and all agreed that they’d felt a tremor. All, that is, except me.
It seems that I’m not easily swayed!
Here’s a piece on it in today’s Mid-Day. Interesting para below:
BMC’s disaster management cell
Vilas Vaidya, in-charge of […]

Free markets are sustainable in the face of shrinking fossil fuel resources.

Came across Thoreau’s blog via Under the Fire Star. Wonderful concept. And this post hit home as well.
Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature,—if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the […]

Jackwa aur Jillwa
Gaye upar Hillwa
Paani bhari ke waaste…
Jackwa gir gawa
Uka khopdiya phoot gawa
Aur Jillwa awat ludkan pooore raaste…
Got the joke from here. Imagine Laloo as Jackwa and Rabri as Jillwa. Splits me up completely!

We had a cozy meet that started in Café Coffee Day, InOrbit Mall, Malad. Amit, Veer and Anand (yes, unlike last time, he located us) were already there. After all the high reviews, I had to have a Qahwah in Malad. I confess it was my second Qahwah in February, but the VT Coffee […]

Alex Singleton of the London based Globalization Institute explains why it’s spelt with a z and not an s. And the reason is not as American as you would think!

I resurrected this old joke on the political aspect of name changes while I was on an ego surf sometime back. It focusses on the misuse of Shivaji’s name, but you can easily substitute Gandhi / Nehru / your favourite political icon and it will still be as sharp. When I first posted this on […]

I just discovered that I share a birthday with two Lok Sabha MPs: Jivabhai Patel from Mehsana in Gujarat (Congress) and Guharam Ajgalley from Sarangarh in Chhattisgarh (BJP). Unfortunately, as of now, no Rajya Sabha MP shares my birthday. Sob!
It’s instructive to note how badly laid out the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha […]