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I thought Maharashtra’s compulsory playing of the national anthem in movie theatres was outright silly (forced imposition of “respect” has always rubbed me the wrong way), but this story beats that hands down:
Mexico Fines Woman For Bungling National Anthem

A woman who fumbled a few phrases of Mexico’s national anthem while singing the song before a […]

For a libertarian, legalisation of prostitution is a no brainer. The answer is clearly yes. Today I got a chance to know how clear that was, from the viewpoint of sex workers when I saw Shohini Ghosh’s documentary Tales of the Night Fairies. Shot largely in Calcutta’s red light area of Sonagachi, it is a […]

I’m in Calcutta for the excellent Liberty Art and Culture Seminar. (Feel free to call it Kolkata, but don’t insist that I should too). I’m going to write on the seminar later. This post is on my impressions of Calcutta.

The pollution surprised me. On my earlier visits in 1999 and 2000, it was definitely […]

Rajni Bakshi and I are looking to start a study group on traditional Indian social and political systems. We intend to meet periodically in Bombay amongst ourselves as well as with other learned people to discuss various issues on this theme.
We’ll start with the question (framed by Rajni): What are the various Indian traditions […]

Sometime back, I wrote about the Morgan Spurlock documentary, Super Size Me where Spurlock eats exclusively at McDonald’s and gains 25 pounds and his cholestrol shoots up. Some reviews criticised Spurlock for being biased (e.g. purposely cutting out any exercise) and some hypotheised that it’s not unknown to eat healthy at McDonalds.
Five months later, […]

Christopher Reeve died today. Apart from being a childhood icon, he was someone I respected immensely for his brave battle against paralysis.
During tea, I mentioned Reeves’ death to some friends in the neighbouring office. And was dismayed by the response. “Oh! It’s a release for him” — “I would not want to […]

Or how can I get married without invoking god or government?
Luckily Glen Whitman at Agoraphilia has an interesting post on the issue.
When it comes to marriage, what’s an atheist libertarian to do? What kind of ceremony is appropriate, and who ought to officiate? For an atheist, the obvious choice might appear to be a judge […]

Warm article in the Indian Express on a Bombay family’s visit to Karachi.
The Vaziranis tapped on the huge amount of warmth that people of both countries have.
contrary to popular belief, India is a craze in Pakistan. At one time during their visit there was a delegation from India being visited by hundreds of Pakistanis […]

Continuing on the issue of Oliver Stone’s film Alexander and whether or not Stone misused the Zoroastrian symbol farohar, here is something that Marazban Sarkari, my best friend, wrote in a couple of emails. I’m presenting it as a guest post. Marazban lives and works in the US. My comments are in italics. The rest […]

Ravikiran accuses me of double standards.
The Parsis too wanted some film about Alexander to be banned right? Why don’t you write about them? Your double standards are boggling the mind.
Here are two articles from the TOI on the Farohar symbol in Oliver Stone’s film “Alexander”.
Parsis protest use of holy symbol in film
Holy symbol […]

Banning a book just because someone might be offended by what’s written is a bad idea. Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code is currently in a bit of hot water. It’s been banned in Lebanon and there are protests suggesting a ban in India.
It’s commendable to note that one of the main organisations mentioned (and […]

The International Society for Krishna Conciousness (ISKCON) would like you impressionable and misguided young fools to know that Bollywood movies are demonic and “the aim of most Bollywood movies is simply to destroy morality and India”.
Oh, and one other minor point: please do not, at any cost, fall in love and then decide to get […]

Watching journalists unravel their biases is an engrossing though time consuming activity. (and often others do it better). Here are two examples that caught my eye today.
Aniruddha Dutta exposes the anti-gay prejudices in the press coverage of the recent double murder in Delhi.
Davids Medienkritik has a nice satire on how the German media condones crimes […]

Spoilt Indian brat going to the US for further studies. Worried parents don’t know how their poor bachcha will live alone and survive.
Whoa! See the opportunity?
Well, there are markets in everything!

Libertarian principles sometimes lead to “icky” solutions for certain problems. Let’s take sex selection of foetuses as an example. A libertarian would not advocate banning the practice, although it leads to a skewed male-female ratio and aggravates many social problems. I’d say “let it be” — no need for regulation here.
Those who disagree, please […]

We have two dogs in the family (both bitches) and I love them. Well, not as much as the others in my family who spoil them rotten. I am often the only dog-disciplinarian in the house. The way my parents equate the dogs with humans has always puzzled me. Till I came across an article […]

Ravikiran shows off how many languages he knows. (BTW, There is some debate whether Tulu is just a dialect or a full fledged language)
Well my turn to show off. English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and French. Can read and write in all. French is very rusty now, but at one time I could tell you about […]

A few days back I spent a weekend at my cousin’s farmhouse near Alibaug. I enjoy spending time with her as we often spark off interesting conversations. I was reading Tom Palmer’s Globalization and Culture: Homogeneity, Diversity, Identity, Liberty (download the pdf file) and started to talk about it.
She perked up and asked me:
But what […]

“I’m not religious; I’m spiritual”
I’ve heard this a fair few times, and it’s always puzzled me. First of all, the whole “spirituality” concept is fuzzy in my mind, possibly because different people have different ideas about what it means to be spiritual. It doesn’t help that every other Tom, Dick, and Dickless fella has written […]

Virginia Postrel challenges simplistic interpretations of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs with a strong defence of aethetics as an essential need in itself. (The link leads to a pdf, and might be slow to download)
Human beings do not wait until they have full stomachs and a roof that doesn’t leak before they satisfy their aesthetic needs. […]