Short read: Is the decline of reading making politics dumber?
If you are one of those who looks forward to the Three Longs and Three Shorts every Sunday or any other form of reading, you should know that you are a rare and dwindling breed. The Economist follows up the FT piece we featured last week on the same subject of the decline of reading as a habit. So, […]
Short read: Why we have hair on our heads
“We were once covered head to foot in hair. And then we lost most of it but kept the mop up top. Why the hairy scalp? What scientific purpose does it serve? “ Filmmaker Alexander Trowbridge investigates. In this video he says that the main function of hair is “protecting the head’s precious contents…beyond protecting you […]
Short read: Why India Should Not Walk Into the China-Russia Trap
Over the past month as India has tried to build a future without America as a geo-political ally, India’s flirtation with China has led to a slew of editorials around the world about whether the Dragon and the Elephant are now going to kiss & make-up. Amongst these articles, James Crabtree’s piece stands out for […]
Long read: If you meet the Singaporean on the road
Continuing with the theme of building nations, here’s a counter-intuitive take on Singapore – a country people world over have marvelled at over the years, all the more commendable given the short span in which it has achieved this status. The author, a Singaporean whilst proud of its development, laments about the lack of creativity. […]
Long read: Litigation Nation, Engineering Empire
In last week’s edition, we featured a piece on the Electro-Industrial stack that will build the future as software gets embedded into industrial systems and how America is behind China on critical elements of this stack. This piece in some ways builds on that. It is actually a critical review of a new book on China, the world is […]
Long read: How Patients—And Private Hospitals—Are Struggling With Ayushman Bharat
The Ayushman Bharat (AB) health insurance program for the masses should be hailed as one of the major achievements of this NDA government. Brilliant in conception, AB gives the poor access to Rs 10 lakhs of annual health cover at a small fraction of the cost of medical insurance policies from the private sector. Furthermore, […]
Short read: The lamentable decline of reading
The tendency to endlessly scroll on social media is indeed a global phenomenon, not just in India. It is eating into other productive activities including reading. This editorial in the FT cites studies which show a dramatic drop in reading habits. “…an extensive US study found that just 16 per cent of people spent any […]
Short read: India’s gaming ban is a down payment to secure its demographic dividend
Last week, we featured a piece which argued that India’s recent ban of real money gaming will likely give rise to money laundering and gamers going underground. In this piece, India’s Chief Economic Advisor, Mr V. Anantha Nageswaran whilst not denying the second order effects, defends the decision as a trade off for more structural […]
Short read: Meet the Indian ‘tradwives’ who are clocking millions of views online
In Chapter 4 of our bestselling book “Behold the Leviathan: The Unusual Rise of Modern India”, we explained last year how Indian women are progressing much faster than their male counterparts in a range of areas. What we didn’t highlight in the book is the struggle taking place in millions of households and in the […]
Long read: Intrinsic Value Is Subjective: A Big Problem And A Big Opportunity For Investors
The Indian stock market has been remarkably resilient in the wake of slowing earnings growth and elevated valuations. Experts attribute it to the sustained flows into mutual funds by retail investors who are supposedly less discerning about valuations and fundamentals. But many believe in Benjamin Graham’s quote that the market is a voting machine in […]
Long read: The Electro-Industrial Stack Will Move the World
The remarkable growth in the role of software in our lives over the past couple of decades was best captured by Marc Andreessen. In 2011, Andreessen the founder of Netscape and more famously the founding partner at Andreessen Horowitz, one of the world’s leading venture capital firms, wrote in an essay about how ‘software was […]
Long read: An AI-powered Bhagavad Gita project and a question: Who am AI?
We have been deeply influenced by how Gurcharan Das thinks about and writes about India. So, it was poignant to read his thoughts on how AI is now going to interplay with his authorship to give the world the benefit of his wisdom but in a new avatar (quite literally a “new avatar”). In this […]
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