Sunday Posts

For the last year or so, I was trying to achieve a balance between my academic and commercial work. I am lucky in a way because I love the work I do, so it's more than the usual striving for balance between what one loves and what one has to do. Though I get paid to do it, my commercial work is exciting - global, touches many lives and involves ideas. On the other hand, I see my future - few years from now, perhaps - in teaching and writing, and hence, the academic work that I am doing is more than a hobby. Though it still remains a balancing act, I don't necessarily see this as a dichotomous relationship - one or the other - and believe I should do both well. This brings me to the update: That, while I have prioritised on commercial work in the last 10 days or so, I have also made significant progress in focusing my mind on the subject of my research: A history of Calcutta University! In a way, it is obvious: This is the first modern university in India, which happens to...

A week into my 100 day plan, I have kept most of my pledges except doing a daily update on this blog. And, that is perhaps for better: It is best to let the mind settle when embarking on a new enterprise before starting to write about the experience (Remember, in a different context, Robinson Crusoe made the same argument - that it was better that he started writing his diary long after he arrived on the island, as, if he started writing immediately, his desolate mind would have filled the narrative with trivial and boring details). However, I kept most of my other pledges, including arriving at a more health-conscious daily routine, getting back to serious reading, and pursuing my commercial endeavours in a more focused manner. Getting back to creating checklists and maintaining them was the first step: I fished out my checklist book from under the pile of books where it had disappeared, and the act itself made me feel more focused. The start was predictable - I listed out 10 ta...

My attempts to write a true Sunday Post failed in the past.  I started this blog to maintain a scrapbook of ideas, as I live through my immigrant life (which, presumed I, would only be a temporary phase). But the overarching priorities of the migrant life - to 'prove' myself - soon took over. Over time, this blog became more like a 'billboard', an advertising space, an extended CV of sorts, where I, somewhat desperately, wanted to show off and make a point. Indeed, all that was counter-productive: Experts write papers, not blogs. But it is that the charm of expertise, even if limited to occasional recognition by complete strangers through my blog, which subverted my motivation. This is what I want to undo now. It is important to undo this for several reasons, but primarily as I change myself. At this very moment, I am at the end of one journey and embarking on another. It has been three years that I stepped out of my boot-strap enterprise and got into working ...

Indian Higher Education needs reform, and urgently. The post-Independence system of education, built on the edifice of the colonial structure, largely made of State-owned and State-supported colleges and universities, largely failed to create the publicly minded citizenry it was set up to educate. Even its elite segment, set up at great public cost and access to which were tightly controlled through nationwide aptitude tests, and which has created a large number of Silicon Valley millionaires (and some billionaires of repute), fell short in terms of the local impact: As China powers itself into Higher Education, creating not just highly ranked universities but also stealing the march on technological innovation, the shortcomings of these institutions have become as apparent as ever. But this is not all: The reform is needed because attempts at reform have failed. The wave of privatisation since 2006, encouraged by the state and the central governments in India, has created a syst...

Education will be transformed by technology, but not until the technologists have fully appreciated the Culture question. This is EdTech's blind spot. Culture is 'soft' - it is hard to capture in a spreadsheet - and yet Education is a 'cultural activity', deeply embedded in the society that surrounds the learner and constantly informed by its history. Tech, on the other hand, at least in its modern, global, incarnation, wants to be culture agnostic: Its quest for scale is intricately linked to its ability to operate culture blind. The EdTech businesses fail to account for culture for more reasons than just its inherent claim for scale. They also assume technology is used in an uniform way, despite all evidence on the contrary. The users almost always adapt technology to their own purpose, rather than changing their habits to suit what the technologists originally intended, but such ideas are not welcome in technology circles addicted to the idea of 'ha...

One big conversation in India is about its resurgence, of its getting back to Global top table. However, the very conversation also indicate an admission of a fall, that there is a period of Indian history that is not that glorious. There is no consensus about the history of the fall, though: For some, the ignominy commenced with the Islamic conquest a thousand year ago, for others this started with the Colonial period in the Eighteenth Century. But everyone interested in India and its supposed resurgence must at some point or the other face this question of History: Why did a supposedly great civilisation succumb so easily to invaders from outside? There are some conventional answers. The most obvious one is the diversity of India, that India is not really one country. However, while this may be the conventional answer, there is little agreement on what this really means. The thesis, originating mainly from British Colonial historians, positioned India as merely a geographical e...

As one of my correspondents accurately pointed out, responding my earlier post on UK General Elections , one big loser on the 8th June was Centrist politics. The Labour Party, under a now secured Mr Corbyn, is likely to move further to the Left, just as the now insecure Theresa May, living on the support of the reactionary DUP, is likely to move further to the right. The Blairite domination, which moved the Labour Party to the Centre is well and truly over, and the Compassionate Conservatism of Cameron is now a distant memory.   As someone who celebrates the end of Careerist politics, I should perhaps welcome this. But I acknowledge Centrist Politics is more than just a Careerist ploy. At a time when Britain faces existential questions - and the Post-War World System is endangered - the ability of politicians work with each other is crucial; polarisation of politics does not help in these circumstances. And, besides, it is perhaps time to revisit the categories of Right ...