Skip to main content

News please

Well, here's one of my occasional news round-ups of the day ... just a random collection today's news headlines that caught my fancy for some reason or the other ... oh, so it's my 'editorial judgment' and I am responsible for it, okay!!! So, don't hyperventilate please, ye reader, if you are not in agreement with my particular choice of headline items ... you are free to have your own blog and then talk THERE about the stuff that interests you ... of course, I know that my stuff is better than your stuff — that's a NO-BRAINER!!! So, with that helpful 'disclaimer' or 'Preface,' let's get started ...

  1. Oh, let me start with yesterday's news in fact ... I saw Barkha being 'tried' on NDTV by folks like Dileep Padgaonkar and Sanjay Baru and Swapan Dasgupta. Manu Joseph was there too and the program overall helped me gain some perspective into the whole controversy since I have not been following it too closely ... well, seems like Barkha has not committed some sort of an 'original sin' after all ... and folks were merely hyperventilating after all ... as is the usual nature of media folks to do ...
  2. Ratan Tata is aggrieved about private conversations being bandied about openly with impunity and he has rightly filed a petition in the Supreme Court claiming that his right to privacy has been breached. I shudder to think what all the government might be recording ... when you combine the power of technology, the headiness of power that you feel when you have the official sanction to wield that power, and the secrecy that surrounds this whole business, I think this is a perfect recipe for 'MISUSE' ... All I can think of that the government can do to minimize the scope for misuse of this right would be to have multiple people involved in the decision-making process. And there should be an annual or six-monthly audit of all the wiretapping performed. Ahhhh, I am thinking of Gene Hackman from Enemy of the State. It's such a difficult balance to maintain really .... on the one hand you have the need of the state to keep a tab on things ... have the technological ability to keep a tab on things and then there's this massive scope for abuse/misuse ... a perfect storm ...
  3. And so the circus in Andhra continues ... a son claiming that he is the 'rightful' heir to his father's legacy ... well, I guess his argument certainly has merits in this country where many elderly men/women pass on their legacies to their kids ... so, why not Jagan???
  4. I did not know that the present CVC is the former Telecom Secretary. Need I say more? What a corrupt person he must be!!! And he's the Chief Vigilance Commissioner !!! My foot !!!
  5. WikiLeaks has managed to stir things up once more ...what a fantastic job it is doing ... stirring up one hornet's nest after another and giving sleepless nights to many people around the world ... folks must be wondering: am I next on the list? Here's wishing WikiLeaks all the Godspeed in the world ...
  6. Well, the NDA is going paperless ... that is the National Defense Academy.
  7. What else ... the Sensex is northbound ... exports are on the rise, GDP expected to grow spectacularly ... all positive news basically ... oh well ... cheers then!!! India Shining

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Longforms and 'Best of 2017' Lists and Favorite Books by Ashutosh Joglekar and Scott Aaronson

Ashutosh Joglekar's books list. http://wavefunction.fieldofscience.com/2018/03/30-favorite-books.html Scott Aaronson' list https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3679 https://www.wired.com/story/most-read-wired-magazine-stories-2017/ https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/12/the-best-books-we-read-in-2017/548912/ https://longreads.com/2017/12/21/longreads-best-of-2017-essays/ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/21/world/asia/how-the-rohingya-escaped.html https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-journalists-covered-rise-mussolini-hitler-180961407/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/artificial-intelligence-future-scenarios-180968403/ https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/01/20/citizen-kay https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/where-we-are-hunt-cancer-vaccine-180968391/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/dna-based-attack-against-cancer-may-work-180968407/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/22/dona...

Articles Collection August

Hope to get around to reading or finishing these articles. Some day. When David Remnick writes about Russia, you gotta read. All of David Remnick's articles in the New Yorker. All of Ken Auletta's articles in the New Yorker. Profile of cricket boss N. Srinivasan in The Caravan. Excerpt from Lena Dunham's book. Yes, I for one think it's wrong to teach children to believe in God. It's child abuse. Plain and simple. Philip Seymour Hoffman's last days . Where do children's earliest memories go? Does humanity's future lie among the stars or is our fate extinction ? Chapter 1 of Sam Harris' Waking Up . Finding the words , an elegy. Eight days, the battle to save the American financial system . Love stories from the New Yorker. Profiles from the New Yorker. 25 articles from the New Yorker chosen by Longreads . The Biden agenda from the New Yorker. Kim Philby by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker. Miles O'Brien's PBS story about the ...

Ayn Rand Was Right

Do we exalt the John Galts and Howard Roarks among us or despise them? Do we admire the ultimate, self-centered and selfish capitalists or the selfless, self-sacrificing altruists? Oh sure there are the Martin Luther King, Jr.s and Mahatma Gandhis and Nelson Mandelas and Aung Sun Suu Kyis we like to point to as icons and worthy role models for our children. But look deeply and we find that we are obsessed with the wealthy. And who are the wealthy? Why do we let the Robert Rubins, Sandy Weills, Jakc Welchs, Jamie Dimons and their Wall St. brethren keep their millions? Because we consider that right and their right. Let alone the hedge fund people whose entire purpose is to become billionaires. How many people explicitly make life choices that will lead to a life of service -> not be a charlatan like Mother Teresa but just helping the underprivileged without trying to 'achieve' greatness by so doing. So Lance Armstrong and Greg Mortensen and the Evangelical Christ...