[audio:http://wp.patheos.com.S3.amazonaws.com/blogs/drishtikone/files/TUM-PUKAR-LO-Hemant-Kumar.wmv.mp3|titles=TUM PUKAR LO by Hemant Kumar] This is from Khamoshi, a 1969 Rajesh Khanna and Waheeda Rehman starrer. Song is sung by Hemant Kumar. A sweet and velvetty melody! Read more
India’s Inflation is getting worse every day. And somehow Fiscal policy and Monetary policy “don’t talk to each other”. The level of corruption and the inadequate fiscal responses are taking the nation in a direction that can undo most of the growth projections touted by the Government and some overzealous economists. Interesting Article. Inflation isn’t going back to the old normal any time soon, for several reasons. Start with food. India is structurally short of food supply, the 4-5% annual... Read more
A very insightful interview with Kalpana Kochar, the Chief Economist for South Asia at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). She tackles the employment schemes and also the abysmally low levels of nutrition in India. Are job schemes, such as NREGA, are causing labour shortage ? All I have are these anecdotes where everybody complains that they can’t get people to work in the farm. We don’t know the full extent of what is happening. I suppose it is true. The... Read more
Came across a news item today, where a Pakistani couple – 83 year old Ilyas Ashar and 66 year old wife Tallat Ashar had kept a deaf and mute Pakistani girl, – they had brought all the way from Pakistan, as a slave – when she was 10. She is now supposed to be 19 or 20. The girl was not only ill-treated, tortured and abused, but she was also raped by this 83 year old guy. Speaking through an interpreter... Read more
Indian Marriages are a world unto themselves. The behavior is typical and interesting. Bride and Groom are accidental diversions. People actually go to live a fantasy. Many things are common and have grown into people’s imagination not because of any genuine reason, but because they are peculiar. So it is very common for all the adult men to drink and not just drink but do so out of a car trunk converted into a bar. The car trunk-turned bar is... Read more
A rose was born in a lovely garden of marigolds and jasmines. In his small lifetime that he had woken up, he was sad and despondent. One day, a Sage happened to pass by and hear his crying. “What happened, O’ lovely one?”, the Sage asked. “Please don’t kid me. I am not lovely from any angle.” retorted the Rose. The Sage smiled and remarked – “And, why do you say that?”. “Sir, look at those white and bright yellow... Read more
Two guys, Tushar Vashisht and Mathew Cherian – one an Investment Banker who studied at University of Pennsylvania and other from MIT – came to India to work at the UID project. Recently, there was a big debate (see Sushma Swaraj’s speech in the Indian Parliament below) about how the Government had announced that anyone living above Rs 32 in a city was above the poverty line. In the village it was Rs 26. One day the two friends first decided to... Read more
There is a story of Mohammad Bin Tughlaq – who has been historically known as the “wise fool”. He had great ideas – like starting the coins (currency), but soon everyone in his kingdom was printing their own thing. He taxed the most prosperous region – Doab – the most, in fact so much that it became drought ridden in a few years. Indian Government of today also is like that “Wise Fool”. It has started this rural employment program. ... Read more
Amongst all the contemporary actors, I have seen that the ones from the Kapoor family have always been under-estimated for their acting ability. Rishi Kapoor is probably one of most under-estimated of the actors of his age. I was pleasantly surprised by his role as Rauf Lala in Agneepath. He was so convincing that one just hated every moment of his presence! Read his interview which is fairly interesting. …an actor who has started in his teens, playing the role... Read more
The future of US is being dented like never before. It is becoming harder and harder for lower income kids to get better educated than that more affluent. This is the beginning of a caste system of its own kind, where the kid of a highly educated / well to do couple will be an educated or at least well to do, while the kids of the blue collar will remain blue collar workers. The achievement gap between low-income students... Read more
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