Billionaire Raj by James Crabtree compares growth of the economy in South India to South East Asia, which is an apt comparison. Crabtree’s book is an overview of the billionaire oligarchs who rose to power post the liberalization of Indian economy in 1991. The name “Billionaire raj” (“raj” ~ empire/rule) is a homage to the phrase “license raj”. License Raj was the term to describe the rule of the erstwhile socialist Indian government that used to pick winners with license to operate. […]
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A famous meme due to Senator Ted Stevens analogizes internet as “a series of tubes”. Like bustling cities, it is a fuel that converts the potential energy constrained in orderliness, to a kinetic energy of human endeavor. Internet releases the atoms of our thoughts to escape parochialism. Internet is messy, disorderly and increasingly ruled by social media monopolies, but it can be where “the mind is free”. […]
Leave a CommentEvery reader likely knows Barbara Tuchman as one of the excellent writers and historians from the 20th century. This book was an apertif before heading into her Pulitzer-winning book on Stilwell. These notes are based her visit to China with her daughter, over six weeks covering eleven cities and some rural towns. (About double the time spent compared to my last trip to China). A fascinating snapshot of life in China in 1970s, particularly the black and white plates, and her observations of art in China. Tuchman herself notes that this book was a brief project between considerably important projects. The second part is based on her New Yorker essay, “If Mao Had Come to Washington“ discussing how Roosevelt-Mao meeting (which…
Leave a CommentIt has been a tough April, and I am among the fortunate ones. I know from the extraordinary people around me, how difficult and dire the conditions have been for many people.
Here are my pandemic recommendations. Some light, some heavy. Some funny, some serious. Instead of reviewing them fully, I recall the associative memories from reading experience that came back to me, as I thumbed through these copies.
Ronan Farrow, along with journalists like Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, deserve our deepest gratitude. While they make it clear that they are not the story, it requires a certain guileless audacity to jump into unknown dangers where “angels fear to tread”. Much like Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, Catch and Kill is a peerless example of investigative journalism into strange realities that we believe exist only in fiction.
Leave a CommentThe Anarchy covers the rise of East India Company (EIC) from the arrival of Thomas Roe in 1608 at Surat, all the way up to the Battle of Delhi in 1803. It is a fascinating and an expansive topic. For Indian readers, it is also a somber read as we know and reflect how the next hundred odd years unfolded. EIC with its crown-blessed untrammeled monopoly rights subjugated ancient empires, appropriated massive wealth, and dovetailed the direction of a subcontinent forever.
There has never been a multinational corporation that was as powerful, as nimble, as unregulated and as successful as the East India Company. In fact, East India Company may have been the first corporation that was “too big to fail”, when it was rescued by a massive bailout in 1773, by the members of British Parliament, many of whom owned stake in EIC.
Leave a CommentLast July, I took the high speed train from Shanghai to Beijing. The trains in China were comparable to the Shinkansen in their speed and comfort. In the business class, the seats could apparently recline flat. Petite hostesses hushed by, offering bottles of water, and serving snacks and local juice brands. As the train hurtled forward, I stared outside the glass windows from my lofted perch of elevated rail-line. I saw divided highways and undivided farmlands, with their almost-prairie looks. Towns that zipped by the window, looked like well kempt oversized matchboxes arranged carefully in a quadrilateral.
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