Rumi Nations

It's interesting to look at the Coursera communities around the world. Here are the   Top 10 cities on the list . They are: 1) Stanford, 2) New York, 3) London, 4) Bangalore, 5) San Francisco, 6) Moscow, 7) Athens, 8) Toronto, 9) Washington, DC, 10) Mumbai. What to make of this list? No wonder four American cities are in the list. Multi-cultural London is there. A bit odd to see Moscow there but not Beijing or Shanghai or Hong Kong. Good to see Bangalore (or is it Bangaluru?) and Mumbai (and not Bombay!) on the list. Athens is probably the biggest 'surprise' presence here. The next are: 11) to 15): Kyyiv, Chicago, Vanderbilt, Barcelona, Sao Paulo; 16) to 20): Hong Kong, Delhi, Singapore, Los Angeles, Boston, and Madrid. The next 11 are: St. Petersburg, Seattle, Melbourne, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Sydney, Paris, Philadelphia, Beijing, and Bogota.

When I happened to be hospitalized six months back, I got to experience firsthand all the aspects of privatized healthcare. I opted for one of those premium hospitals to avoid having to wrestle with the long lines and the general all-round madhouse atmosphere of a government hospital in India. I experienced the enormous cost of private healthcare which would surely be un-affordable for a vast majority of Indian families. I experienced the tricks of health insurance -- I had 2 or 3 policies but had to pay the entire cost out of pocket [in advance]. Very clever of profit-minded insurers. An example: I happened to be in the hospital for only one day and that was the deductible for one of the policies I was holding. Clearly I was not sick enough. But those are specific problems of the healthcare industry. What struck me was a personal experience which I feel I can extend and generalize.

As we approach the one year mark of the attacks in Mumbai, quite predictably my prediction that nothing much will happen has come true. I don't blame the government. There is really not much that the government could have done. Pakistan is a semi-failed state and the terrorists who attacked Mumbai might have originated in Pakistan but one can't consider the Pakistan state to be an accomplice in the attacks. Pakistan is suffering copiously from terrorism on its own soil as terrorists mount ever more daring attacks against the Establishment, the ISI, etc. The U.S. continues its drone attacks in the border regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan which shows how much Pakistan has ceded its sovereignity to that country ...