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Category: UPDATES
what I am currently reading, reviewing, critiquing
Protected: Poetry Sundays: Bihar’s boat people
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Protected: Poetry Sundays: Your gifted bangle
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Protected: Poetry Sundays: Stranger
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Protected: Poetry Sundays: I will know when the swing swirls
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Gender gaps in education
Interesting new paper from Dr Ashwini Despande of Ashoka University on gender gaps in school education in India, which underlines the persisting gaps in the quality of education offered to girls as compared to boys. The paper notes that “the gender gap in private schooling increased slightly over the period, with the largest increase in […]
Market for Economists 2021
Here is an interesting paper on what the academic job market looks like for new PhD economists in 2021. The findings reveal that while the supply of PhD economists is likely to be stable, the share of employers with at least one position open is likely to go down with a drop in demand. Read […]
Protected: Poetry Sundays: Touch me slowly
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David Graeber
David Graeber passed away earlier this month. Around the same time, I tested positive for Covid, hence the late post. I kept reading the condolences and remembrances pouring on the internet, as tweets, articles and newspaper obituaries, starting with his partner Nika Dubrovsky tweeting about his demise: She later also shared Graeber’s plans for his […]
Protected: Poetry Sundays: Slave girl
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Will equal inheritance rights widen gender inequality?
I explore this in my op-ed this week for Moneycontrol.
Why my heart gently weeps
I cried all the way while driving back home. This was three weeks ago. I was at the Aadhar enrolment centre in New Delhi for an update in my national identity card, my first outing after the lockdown in April. If I didn’t have to leave for the UK in December for my research, I […]
Protected: [Poetry Sundays] A life like Anthoine Hubert
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Notes on how to write
The short and beautiful answer to this, in the words of my dear friend Shriya (find her lovely blog here), is: Just write. Don’t think much, just write, write, write. I followed her advice and I think, just writing helps overcome writer’s block and gets rid of the imposter syndrome. It’s super effective. That tackled, […]
50 before I die
Making to-do lists is banal. We may never get around to doing them. But perhaps, putting them on a list will help me stay focussed. I need daily reminders of things I want to do before I die. Here is the first 14 out of 50 in the order of priority: 1. Work on strength […]
Protected: On my mother’s birthday: a poem
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What has happened to Shinzo Abe?
Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has resigned on account of poor health. Speculations to this effect were rife after he was seen emerging out of a hospital earlier this week. Abe has been Japan’s longest serving prime minister, quite a remarkable feat for a country obsessed with consistently high performance, so replacing him will be […]
Mint opinion: India’s descent into stepwells of growth
Important long read by Kaushik Basu. How India started out as a promise and is now fast deteriorating into decline.
Debuted with Opinion in Moneycontrol today
I will be writing op-eds for moneycontrol, India’s number 1 financial news website, and today was my debut. Do read. Moneycontrol Link: https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/opinion/time-for-a-policy-rethink-on-crime-and-poverty-eradication-5762451.html
How to be happy
I am attempting to gather my thoughts around each of the points suggested by Harsh Mariwala on Twitter today on how to be happy. Let’s see how it goes: Think about what you’re grateful for Umm. What am I grateful for? For life, no matter whatever it brings. Being alive is a gift. Also for […]
The Ambani-Adani alliance in Indian business
Chances are, you have read this already. If you haven’t, I would urge you to read this sharp piece by Andy Mukherjee. It’s an alarming tale, cautioning us of the monopoly India is poised to be heading towards. If privatisation has done any good, it has mostly done it for the capitalists, more recently in […]
Oral History Interview for SAADA
Such a lovely interview by Gaiutra Bahadur (whose Coolie woman is one of my favorite books based on the life of the subaltern) of her aunt Kokila Bahadur for SAADA, who arrived in America when she was in her late 20s as a nurse trainee at a local hospital. Today, she is 81 and in […]
Remembering Emmanuel Farhi
This month, thousands of readers have read my posts on Emamnuel Farhi, which is why I think, along with me, they would also like to join this online memorial service for the economist who would have turned 42 on September 8th. For those who missed my posts, you could read them below: Emmanuel Farhi Emmanuel […]
Quote
“I knew I could be the best in the world if I got one second better every day.” This inspired me today. Who said this?
John McPhee’s invaluable memo on Elicitation
The piece I always turn to every time I have to head out for field interviews. Do give it a try, it teaches you something.
Insurgent Empire
Neat review of Priyamvada Gopal’s book Insurgent Empire in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies by Dinyar Patel [citation below] Gopal frames this period as just a prelude to truly sustained and productive co-operation between colonial subjects and British anti-imperialists in the inter-war period, but such alliances had already blossomed in significant ways. By […]
Loving shout out to my brother’s film making
He made this short three years ago. Missing him terribly, sharing the work that I so love for the visual delight it is.
TikTok, China and Swadeshi
India is facing an uphill task battling the Covid-19. New Delhi, its national capital, is flooded with cases and subsequent stories of misery and deaths due to the pandemic. Its financial capital Mumbai is buried neck deep in the crisis. The infectious disease has reached its southern state with a vengeance – there have been […]
Millennials are gutted but some companies are trying to uplift them
Millennails are truly gutted. I remember I had barely started my career as a journalist when the 2008 financial crisis plunged the global economy and it seems, my generation has not recovered from it yet. Blame it on economic crises after crises, and this year, we are staring into a recession even as we lose […]
Netmeds
India online pharmacy scene is hotting up. RIL has bought majority stake in Netmeds within days of Amazon making its foray into the Indian e-pharmacy market in Bengaluru. Walmart-owned Flipkart is also looking to foray in the space, which has grown during the COVID-19 pandemic. This windfall for the online pharma space in India come […]
India Unemployed
Five million salaried Indians lost their jobs last month. This is the highest figure for this year. And as the graphs show, it’s going to get worse in August. The job loss among the salaried class is not a surprise to me. I have known this for sometime as I have spent the last year […]
Bubonic Plague replay 2020
If you thought this is done with and buried by our ancestors in history, you are terribly wrong. A California resident has now tested positive for the plague, becoming the first case in five years since the disease has been detected in the state. The plague originated in Asia over 2,000 years ago and was […]
