Sunday Posts

I have just finished reading Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind . An interesting book, with loads of resources and activity pointers, which makes the case for the dominance of 'creative' types in the world of business. Indeed, we always knew that, but this book brings several things - a case for right brain thinking [or R-directed thinking as the author calls it], six dimensions of R-directed activities and several resources to improve all these dimensions - together. The argument is pretty straightforward. The author labels our age 'conceptual age, and differentiates it from the information age, which we just lived through. So, he sees modern history moving from industrial age [starting early nineteenth century and culminating in the great expansion of industrial capacity by the middle of the twentieth] to information age [starting with the advent of computers and the Internet and reaching its zenith in the first decade of the new millennium, when computers and networks b...

I have stopped posting for a few days as I realized I am becoming a Blog Addict. I set myself up indeed. I started writing the blog after reading Julia Margaret Cameron, and her suggestions on writing morning pages to get to the habit of writing. I wanted to make it public, contrary to her advise, as I was thinking that this will make me more conscious and a bit better in writing. However, I discovered the other, social, aspect of blog writing soon, when I started getting comments and making friends with some of those who left comments. It was indeed a great, intoxicating experience, getting to know people who I have never met and never possibly will, and being guided by them on subjects which I am concerned with but did not know much about. I even connected up with a few long lost friends, who wrote emails after reading certain blog posts. This even became a subject of discussion at work, when some of my colleagues read my blog, and in the family, where I became a butt of joke for com...

Fareer Zakaria puts a question on American Military expenditure in his very popular Fareed Zakaria GPS programme: Should the America reduce its military expenditure, currently at $651 billion? The logic is that this is way out of proportion with the comparable big power states, and should the nation keep spending as much money as it does. This is a loaded question and will indeed draw a lot of responses. I have my views too, but since I am not an American, I chose to reflect about this here rather than writing back to CNN. Let us start with how much America really spends on Military. This information is available at various places on the web, but I shall just compile this together here. First, a list of military expenditure by states reveal how much more America spends on Armed Forces. Here are some key statistics. United States spends $651 Billion out of the total reported global expenditure of $1470 Billion, or roughly 44% of the total. Interestingly, total NATO expenditure on mi...

I am still in regular conversation with entrepreneurs in India who are setting up various business schools in different parts of the country. As I observe, I know that this is currently the rage - the business to be in - and everyone is betting that the recession will drive a clutch of students to Business School, as they won't be able to find easy employment after finishing college. The reading is possibly valid, to some extent. I just talked about my own plans to go to a business school because recession has presented me the best opportunity to take a break. However, one wonders whether there is too much of activity in the Business School space in India, whether the business plans for these schools are essentially faulty and whether this will all implode in a couple of years time. I essentially have three issues with this frenetic activity in the business school space. First, I do think it is too opportunistic. People don't seem to learn, and this is another example of every...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Personal message text: Interesting Read. We know that this recession will impact our society long after this is technically over. Here is some indication how this will happen. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recession fourth R in education http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090412/tuk-recession-fourth-r-in-education-6323e80.html =============================================================== The recession has become the fourth R in addition to the traditional educational trinity of reading, writing and arithmetic, according to a survey. More than half (51%) of all parents are teaching their children about the economic downturn, with over six in 10 (62%) believing it is important their offspring grasp the current situation. But although parents are taking teaching their children about the recession into their own hands, many...

I am trying to do something brave - planning to go to university for a year. Yes, that's right - I may stop working for a year and live without income, and study. This is indeed counter-intuitive at my age. However, I think the recession has presented me with an excellent incentive to take a break. Truth be told, I always wanted to do this. I always thought I need a restart in my career. A sort of change of direction from what I have been doing. In my career, one thing followed the other and I moved by default or following opportunities. However, I never had a chance to set my agenda or get something I like. I am hoping that by being brave and following my heart, I shall set that right now. So, the plan is more or less final now. I exit employment at the end of August and join one of the business schools [there was an alternate thought, but now I zeroed on studying business] for a year. I can not possibly afford to live in London. Also, I would love to stay in one of the smaller un...

Nations, the modern currency of our identity, were not there forever. That's an obvious fact, but how often we forget this in our political discourse? Like many other things, governments, printed money, passports and visas, we take nations for granted too. As if they were always there, and by extension, always will be there. However, truth is - nations are a fairly modern invention, and there is absolutely no guarantee that they will even last our lifetime. The usual British apologists of imperial rule in India argue that there was no India prior to British rule. They reason the British rulers have conceptualized India as a nation, given it its modern geographic shape and unity. Indian nationalists, of course, take strong exception of this view and point towards the historical entity of Bharat , in its expansive geographic form. They cite the great Indian kings of Ashoka and Akbar who united the country and ruled it for a number of years. The argument goes on. Pointless argument, ...