VINDICA

An interesting piece by Kuldip Nayar about the decline of Britain, drawing strongly on his experience as a former Indian High Commissioner to that country. As the saying goes, reports of the demise are exagerrated. Britain is still a country with a vibrant economy, providing economic and lately political leadership to Europe.

Ramananda Sengupta's well argued piece about the ills that organized Religions visit upon the society. One thing that strikes me as odd though is why Indian writers never anchor their thoughts on the Indian experience? The author talks about Crusades, Holocast, Great Leap Forward and many other events that caused suffering, but there is no mention of anything Indian, say the Cast System, or violence of early Islamic incursion into India. Its is not as if India is free of its share of Religious atrocities.

In this remarkable essay , Robert Stark seeks to prove that Christianity in general and Protestant faith in particular is the reason for the rise of everything from Science and Capitalism in the western society. While the other world religions emphasized mystery and intuition, Christianity alone embraced reason and logic as the primary guides to religious truth. According to Stark, the reason why capitalism did not develop outside Europe was because: Instead, leading religions outside the West called for asceticism and denounced profits, while wealth was exacted from peasants and merchants by rapacious elites dedicated to display and consumption. It is remarkable how even a Professor at Baylor University can develop tunnel vision when talking about religion. Consider the following: Japan's Buddhist traditions, and Samurai rapciousnous did no prevent it from developing a successful capitalist economy. "rapacious elites dedicated to display and consumption" is an apt term t

A bunch of Indian parliamentarians are caught on camera taking a bribe to ask particular questions in the Parliament. The questions themselves are funny (although the joke seems to have been lost on our well read MPs). My favorite: Whether the Railway Ministry has placed any order for purchase of the Yossarian Electro Diesel engine from Germany? Is the ministry aware that the Tom Wolfe committee report in Germany has halted its induction into the Euro Rail system? There are more questions with allusions to JD Salinger, Catch-22, Tom Wolf and Ernst Hemingway. The MPs have been issued show cause notices. This is good!

If the radiance of a thousand suns Were to burst at once into the sky, That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One... Robert Oppenheimer, who led the American Project to develop the Atom Bomb is widely quoted as quoting the above verse from the Bhagavad Gita upon seeing the first bomb go off. In a later interview, he mentioned that another verse from Gita also came to his mind during that moment. I am become Death, The shatterer of Worlds Of course, Oppenheimers brother claims all he said was "it worked!, it worked!!". However, facts should not come the way of a good story. The biggest such urban legend i have heard is a story that "young woman" in the Hebrew bible was translated to "virgin" in the Greek version. I do not have the erudition, nor the scholarship to know the truth one way or another as a fact. However, I wonder it it matters in the context of an established story. Over the years philosphers and scientists seem to have obsessed wit

A nice New York Times story about how the Golden Quadilateral connecting the four Indian metro cities is changing lives in India.

In Tamil Nadu, Kushboo and Suhasini are dragged to court for making comments about pre-marital sex in the context of the HIV-AIDS threat. In Karnataka, public officials have black paint poured on them and are roughed up for making comments about Belgaum's desire to be part of Maharashtra. In Maharashtra, the Shambaji Brigade ransacks Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute accusing them of "maligning Shivaji's name". In Delhi, two theatres are bombed for screening a movie that allegedly hurt Sikh sentiments. In Bengal, the producers of a movie on Netaji are dragged to court for portraying Subash's love interest with an Austrian lady. This outlook article paints a portrait of India going to the dogs.