Category Archives: India

Hinduism and Evolution

Posted on May 21, 2010 by Basab Pradhan

Today the Texas Board of Education voted on how American history will be taught in Texas schools. It is a version of history that fits the conservative world view. From the New York Times The conservative members maintain that they … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, India | 14 Comments

IPL on YouTube

Posted on May 17, 2010 by Basab Pradhan

From the FT today Mr Walk said a recent Indian Premier League cricket series had notched up 55m views on YouTube – more in the US than in India – and it found a market for Bollywood in Estonia by … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, India | Comments Off

An Indian Passport and Indianness

Posted on March 5, 2010 by Basab Pradhan

M. F. Husain surrenders his Indian passport and takes up Qatari citizenship. As the drama plays out and now peters out in the media an interesting question to ask is what is it that makes one an India. Now one … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, India | 1 Comment

Sena Mobocracy

Posted on February 4, 2010 by Basab Pradhan

As the Shiv Sena stokes the fires of communalism, parochialism and other uglisms, Shahrukh Khan remains unfazed. Siddharth Varadarajan writes When confronted by the mob power of the Shiv Sena, MNS or other right-wing groups, the police in India invariably … Continue reading →

Posted in India | 4 Comments

India’s Parliamentary Form of Government Rocks

Posted on January 30, 2010 by Basab Pradhan

Last week was a good week for President Obama. A State of the Union Address that was much more plain speak than his usual soaring rhetoric. Then he went into the lion’s den – the Republican Caucus – and demolished … Continue reading →

Posted in India | 7 Comments

Management Consulting in India

Posted on January 20, 2010 by Basab Pradhan

A new research paper Management Matters: Evidence from India suggests that the average Indian company can be improved significantly with the help of modern business practices. The study involved offering free consulting to a set of mid sized companies in … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, India | 8 Comments

English Medium Education Can Lead to Poorer English

Posted on January 9, 2010 by Basab Pradhan

Giridhar Rao has a new essay out From Mother Tongue to Many Tongues which makes two interesting points One that English medium education can lead to “poor educational outcomes” “It is now well established that when a child begins learning … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, India | 2 Comments

More English and More Non-English

Posted on December 13, 2009 by Basab Pradhan

Chetan Bhagat has a recent post on his blog which is a transcript of a speech that he gave at the British Council in Delhi. He defines two groups in India. One, which he calls E1, is proficient in English … Continue reading →

Posted in India | 10 Comments

Best Practices in Voter Bribery

Posted on March 31, 2009 by Basab Pradhan

India’s general elections are around the corner. As you know, the most important factor that determines the outcome of our elections is money – how much and how it is spent – in the crucial electoral process of buying votes. … Continue reading →

Posted in Humour, India | 9 Comments

More on IT Unpolicy

Posted on March 26, 2009 by Basab Pradhan

In my previous post IT and the Role of Government I objected to Atanu Dey’s arguments against having an IT policy for India. He proposed, what I called an “IT Unpolicy” – basically, do nothing.

Posted in Economics, India, Technology | 4 Comments