Sunday Posts

It is that day of the year when, for one day, the past seems more important than the future. One day to remember and say goodbyes, to sum up and finish - so that one can make a fresh start next day. That's what I am set to do now. On balance, this year changed my life. It started disastrously, with the sudden death of my brother. From that very low point, today is a long way away. But if I have to look back at what has been the theme of the year, it was this - letting things go - people and relationships, vanity, business associations which were not meaningful. In a sense, I streamlined my life somewhat, focusing on what's important. There is work to be done still, and this needs to carry on into 2012, but I have made a start. One great thing about letting go is that one starts to realise the value of what is retained. That happened to me: I suddenly discovered how lucky I am in having what I have. I also regretted not knowing the value of things when I had them - how dearl...

It was a fitting end to a disastrous year in Indian politics, New Delhi based blogger and journalist, John Elliot contends. With the defeat of Lokpal Bill, floor crossings and chaos, India's biggest weakness, its political class, once more is on public display. However, these are dangerous times, whether or not you believe in Mayan prophecy: Party may indeed end for India in 2012. India had its time in the sun. As a solid member of BRIC quartet, the Indian Prime Minister became a regular invitee on the top table of global economics and politics. The country emerged as a partner in democracy with the United States, a regional competitor to China, and started assuming some global role in Central and Northern Africa and in Afghanistan. Its urban middle classes looked stronger than ever. Indian students, buoyed by the rising income, stronger Rupee and upbeat rhetoric, flocked the Western universities. Its businesses started investing abroad, claiming limelight side by side with Chin...

These are exciting times in the international student recruitment market. This is a time for new winners and losers, new markets emerging and dominant ones stagnating, and new rules are being written. After explosive growth for a decade, Australia let its dominating position slip in 2008. Also, Britain, which became a very attractive destination in the new millennium, enjoying 64% growth in annual student numbers in the years leading up to 2010, is all set to lose the markets because of the muddled and unwelcoming approach of the current government, which seems to regard all International students coming from outside the EU as potential illegal immigrants. Further, the coalition government's on-the-fly policy-making has decidedly hurt Britain's position as a provider of High Quality Higher Education internationally: The absurd categorisation of Higher Education, Further Education and Private Education colleges (a system not readily understood elsewhere in the World) for visa pu...

If India has to grow to the next level, it must look beyond its Middle Class. In a classic case of narcissist obsession, India seems to think of itself in terms of what the outside world sees of it - the immense consumption potential of the middle classes - but its own reality is both richer and more diverse than that. So, the model of development that the country must pursue is one that must look beyond the middle classes, and release the enormous human waste that the country continues to endure through poverty. In short, the New India needs to be new, not the old one in some shiny garb. Everyone seems to admit that India's biggest problem is its politics. It may be blasphemous to say so, but democracy has failed India. May be more correctly, India has failed democracy. For all the fine rhetoric and a constitution written in fine English, Indian citizens have little rights or respect from the state. The state that Nehru built ended up being a Desi replica of the Raj, a distant p...

These days, most intelligent conversations tend to focus on two alternative possibilities. First, the more pessimistic ones, see the current recession going the same way as the Great Depression did, slowly altering political opinions and driving the world into protectionism and national chauvinism, finally leading to some kind of great war, which may lead to an end of civilisation. The proponents see a challenger power, like the 19th century Germany, in China, and the incumbent in the form of the massive global empire of the United States. Next, there is the optimistic view, which does not see a violent end of the civilisation but a re-balancing: This is more the doctrine of decline of the West and the rise of the rest. This view suggests a power-shift, to China and India, and possibly Brazil, and that they would emerge as the World's preeminent economic powers, in a replay of what happened during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth century Europe. To be clear, this is not the only vie...

I consciously worked on my 'work ethic', shedding some practices which I may have picked up early in my working life in the quest of becoming a better professional. Indeed, I did find it a never-ending process, I continuously discover things that I can do better, and have now come to accept that I may never be perfect, but have to keep on trying. An important part of my work ethic, I consider, is my Social Media ethic, because social media is important, for my work and my professional identity. It seems almost all media that I use have a social aspect.  Even, book-reading, my intensely personal experience of all media consumptions, always had book-clubs (one that I intended to join, but got rebuffed for Marxian reasons - I didn't want to join a club which will take me as a member) and now have trendier cousins like Librarything , which I use and participate in. But, going beyond hobbies, social media is everywhere at work.  I spend a lot of time on social media, and ha...