Three Longs & Three Shorts

Mar 2019

Week 5
Week 4
Week 3
Week 1

Short Read

Published on 31 Mar, 2019

How Instagram Replaced the Contacts List

Technology is changing the way we interact and communicate with each other and Instagram is fast becoming the preferred...

Published on 31 Mar, 2019

Can India provide water for all by 2030?

India draws a third of its water from aquifers. However, these aquifers are depleting at a rapid rate. “Most of the...

Published on 31 Mar, 2019

Money-losing companies that went public in 2018 did ...

In what looks like a classic sign of a “bubble”, public investors are valuing unprofitable companies higher than...

Long Read

Published on 31 Mar, 2019

Frontier market debt at a 15-year high

Oxford Economics says that thanks to aggressive bond investments from Chinese investors, public debt in frontier...

Published on 31 Mar, 2019

The Underground Railroad of North Korea

This is a thrilling read about the secret network of NGOs and brokers rescuing thousands of North Korean refugees...

Published on 31 Mar, 2019

Future shock: inside Google’s smart city

Since the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018, data privacy and misuse of data are among the key concerns for...

Short Read

Published on 24 Mar, 2019

Your Environment Is Cleaner. Your Immune System Has ...

When one of our readers sent this article to us, I immediately forwarded it to the missus to score a point in the...

Published on 24 Mar, 2019

What makes a fulfilling career? Ask a teenager

When we are young, we want to do something creative, something fun in our lives. As we grow older, other considerations...

Published on 24 Mar, 2019

Qantas Airways CEO Delivered a Masterclass in Leader...

The article describes a remarkable exchange of letters between Irishman Alan Joyce is the CEO of Qantas Airways and 10...

Long Read

Published on 24 Mar, 2019

What the hell is going on?

Most of us would have observed and pondered over the effects of social media on various aspects of the society and...

Published on 24 Mar, 2019

‘We spoke English to set ourselves apart’: how I red...

Most of us in urban India often find it frustratingly amusing that how our kids can patiently respond in English to our...

Published on 24 Mar, 2019

Meet the safecracker of last resort

This story profiles Charlie Santore, a 48-year-old safecracker licensed in the city of Los Angeles. Charlie operates...

Short Read

Published on 17 Mar, 2019

China gains the upper hand over Germany

This perceptive piece from Wolfgang Munchau underscores just how powerful China has become relative to almost every...

Published on 17 Mar, 2019

Do not fear flying on the Boeing 737 Max

This piece was written before Trump grounded the 737 Max’s in America but most other countries had. Still, John...

Published on 17 Mar, 2019

How Merrill Lynch is Planning for its Customers to L...

As lifespans increase, there is good chance that many of us will live into our 90s. This is going to create new avenues...

Long Read

Published on 17 Mar, 2019

People think that data is in the cloud, but it’s not...

With wireless internet becoming ubiquitous, most of us are oblivious to the fact that much of the data criss-crossing...

Published on 17 Mar, 2019

Getting In – The social logic of Ivy League admissions

In the wake of last week’s American college admissions scandal (which ironically was brought to light thanks to...

Published on 17 Mar, 2019

How Parents of Child Influencers Package Their Kids’...

Parents are now spending serious time and effort get their kids’ images online from the time they are toddlers. Even...

Short Read

Published on 03 Mar, 2019

How data helps deliver your dinner on time—and warm

With Uber deciding to sell Uber Eats India to Swiggy for a stake in the latter, the food delivery space in India is...

Published on 03 Mar, 2019

Why living experimentally beats taking bets

A year ago, former Poker world champion, Annie Duke, published a superb book where she warned against the dangers of...

Long Read

Published on 03 Mar, 2019

Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

A superb piece from Charles Duhigg about what leads to job satisfaction. Charles, a Pullitzer prize winner and the...

Published on 03 Mar, 2019

Not Caring – A Unique and Powerful Skill

Morgan Housel may not come up with radically original thinking in everything he writes but he does have a special skill...

Published on 03 Mar, 2019

Germs in Your Gut Are Talking to Your Brain. Scienti...

Microbiomes are the trillions of microbes inside the healthy human body. This arresting New York Times article says...

Feb 2019

Week 3
Week 2
Week 1

Short Read

Published on 17 Feb, 2019

How a Naga tribe is challenging cliched notions of a...

Vrinda Shukla in her beautiful and eye-opening article questions the definition of backwardness. Vrinda shares her...

Published on 17 Feb, 2019

The Biggest Returns

Morgan Housel uses the energy efficiency analogy to bring out the point that we have a better shot at securing our...

Published on 17 Feb, 2019

Evidence deficit haunts billion-dollar brain trainers

In our quest to become smarter, many of us have to taken to using books, apps and trainers. In this piece, Anjana Ahuja...

Published on 17 Feb, 2019

The two tribes of working life

Office goers, says this column in The Economist, can be split into two groups. The first tribe are called FOMO: people...

Long Read

Published on 17 Feb, 2019

India Proposes Chinese-Style Internet Censorship

The Indian Government’s proposed amendment to the IT act to regulate content on social media and messaging platforms...

Published on 17 Feb, 2019

The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

A six year old article but a fascinating one nonetheless about the science that gets us addicted to junk food. Michael...

Published on 17 Feb, 2019

Tribal World – Group Identity is All

25 years ago Samuel Huntington had taught those who read his controversial book “The Class of Civilisations and the...

Short Read

Published on 10 Feb, 2019

Ikea furniture does not need to fall apart

In his succinct article, John discusses the adverse impact that consumption led growth has put on the environment and...

Published on 10 Feb, 2019

Bridgewater’s Self-Obsession Actually … Works?

Eileen Murray, the co-chief executive officer of Bridgewater Associates, spoke at a hedge fund conference this week,...

Long Read

Published on 10 Feb, 2019

The Trump era could last 30 years

Gideon Rachman raises the question whether Britain’s vote for Brexit and America’s election of Donald Trump are a...

Published on 10 Feb, 2019

Why women win in the long run

This remarkable FT article takes us into the world ultra-long distance running where the results show that women...

Published on 10 Feb, 2019

The Disturbing, Surprisingly Complex Relationship Be...

In an interesting new book called “White Identity Politics”, American political scientist Ashley Jardina of Duke...

Short Read

Published on 03 Feb, 2019

Another tech bubble could be about to burst

In his article, Rana Foroohar beautifully captures the downside of massive growth in the number of...

Published on 03 Feb, 2019

Cracks are opening in the global monetary system

Part of the fun of reading the legendary strategist Russell Napier is that we are reminded that we have so much more to...

Published on 03 Feb, 2019

Afroz Shah’s New Year Lesson

Priya Ramani, the Mint columnist whose spunk catalysed the “Me Too” movement in India last year, profiles a very...

Long Read

Published on 03 Feb, 2019

How This All Happened

Morgan Housel distils the post war US economy into this lucid piece which brilliantly converges the discourse towards...

Published on 03 Feb, 2019

Dharavi Diary – What happens when girls in one of th...

Part of India’s renaissance is ordinary people making extraordinary efforts to life of the people around them. This,...

Published on 03 Feb, 2019

Kotak Lawsuit: Will It Finally Make RBI Accountable?

A pioneer in investigative journalism in India, Sucheta Dalal, has written a thought provoking piece on what is...

Jan 2019

Week 3
Week 2
Week 1

Short Read

Published on 20 Jan, 2019

Why you gotta love Jasprit Bumrah

Rohit Brijnath is the sort of sportswriter who can make a sportslover love sport even more. But this one is about...

Published on 20 Jan, 2019

Jack Bogle: the selfless preacher of the passive rev...

We had to pay our respects. And the FT Editorial does the job in a nice, succinct way. Jack Bogle, the father of...

Published on 20 Jan, 2019

Robots will help Chinese firms cope with wages and t...

Esquel, a Chinese company, is a leading manufacturer of shirts for Western brands like Hugo Boss and Tommy Hilfiger and...

Published on 20 Jan, 2019

Volatility: how ‘algos’ changed the rhythm of the ma...

The single most frequently asked question to a stock market professional is “where do you think the markets are...

Long Read

Published on 20 Jan, 2019

I saw the making of Cheteshwar Pujara

From patience in maths to patience in life and on the cricket field, this outstanding piece on Cheteshwar Pujara has to...

Published on 20 Jan, 2019

Shareholders dethroned as rulers of value

In this sublime essay, John Plender explains how capitalism has changed in the last 100 years and the implications it...

Short Read

Published on 13 Jan, 2019

Why people prefer bad news

The article reinforces the subject of “Factfulness”, the refreshingly positive and fascinating book by the late Dr...

Published on 13 Jan, 2019

Oat milk sales surge as more consumers go dairy-free

Milk from cows or from soya beans or almonds is passe. The new fad is milk from oats. “The scramble for oat milk is...

Published on 13 Jan, 2019

WhatsApp’s child porn problem: Google and Facebook’s...

In case you thought that the worst thing about social media is that it allows facists and religious fundamentals to...

Long Read

Published on 13 Jan, 2019

IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

More of Taleb this week, this one is by Taleb. In his usual scathingly critical style, he has a go at psychologists and...

Published on 13 Jan, 2019

Bitter Bill – India’s transgender community is going...

In case you are on those people who spends her waking hours worrying what will happen in the next General Election or...

Published on 13 Jan, 2019

Blowing up – How Nassim Taleb turned the inevitabili...

“Taleb runs Empirica Capital out of an anonymous concrete office park in the woods on the outskirts of Greenwich,...

Short Read

Published on 06 Jan, 2019

Retreat from private infrastructure projects

20 years ago there was lots of discussion in India about how to attract more private sector investment in...

Published on 06 Jan, 2019

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE / MACHINE LEARNING – Powerfu...

“In India, approximately 74,000 women die from cervical cancer every year, accounting for 1/3rd of the burden of...

Published on 06 Jan, 2019

Climate Change Drives Fish Into New Waters, Remaking...

The fishing grounds are shifting northward as water temperatures rise, forcing crews to retool their boats and rework...

Long Read

Published on 06 Jan, 2019

Intellectual humility – the importance of knowing yo...

A paradoxical attempt by Brian Resnick to bat for intellectual humility especially among social scientists backed by...

Published on 06 Jan, 2019

Beyond the bottom line: should business put purpose ...

A fairly balanced and constructive debate around the need for ‘purposeful capitalism’, that can even carry the most...

Published on 06 Jan, 2019

Too rich to jail

Maureen Dowd says that the rise of populist politicians like Trump is due to the failure of the American political...

Dec 2018

Week 5
Week 4
Week 3
Week 2
Week 1

Short Read

Published on 30 Dec, 2018

My life as an oracle

An introspective piece by Gideon Rachman, arguably one of the best commentators on geopolitics. The introspection...

Published on 30 Dec, 2018

Wedding excess has reached giddy new heights

John Gapper helps us understand why intelligent, rich people like Isha Ambani and Priyanka Chopra spend so much money...

Published on 30 Dec, 2018

People who exercise have different proteins moving t...

We know that people who exercise are healthier and live longer. What we don’t know is why is there a link between...

Long Read

Published on 30 Dec, 2018

How the Surprise New Interactive Black Mirror Came T...

For the uninitiated, Black Mirror is a futuristic series on Netflix about the dark side of mankind’s advances in...

Published on 30 Dec, 2018

How McKinsey has helped raise the stature of authori...

This year McKinsey’s annual retreat for its busy consultants was in Kashgar in China, a country which McKinsey, like...

Published on 30 Dec, 2018

Why you should care about the Nate Silver vs. Nassim...

In case you have not heard about Nate Silver, here is the bluffer’s guide. “Nate Silver is the co-founder of...

Short Read

Published on 23 Dec, 2018

What Our Elitist Reaction to the Zomato Delivery Man...

A video uploaded on Twitter showed a Zomato delivery rider eating the customer’s order before proceeding with his...

Published on 23 Dec, 2018

FT big read – India: The most polluted place on earth

This graphics rich FT article shows why those who live in India (especially those of us who are raising our children in...

Published on 23 Dec, 2018

Blade sets course for congested cities in India

Blade, a helicopter rides app, is expanding into India, its first non-US market. Blade has done some number...

Long Read

Published on 23 Dec, 2018

How to avoid burnout this Christmas

Looking for a New Year’s resolution? Embrace aimlessness, suggests Josh Cohen, a psychoanalyst and professor of...

Published on 23 Dec, 2018

Passive attack: the story of a Wall Street revolution

For those interested in knowing everything about arguably the greatest financial innovation of the past century –...

Published on 23 Dec, 2018

FT Big read – Agritech – Disrupters take root

A variety of Silicon Valley funded start-ups are bringing a range of innovations to bear upon the US farm sector with...

Short Read

Published on 16 Dec, 2018

Lifting Weights Has a Surprising Effect on Mental He...

There is plenty of research which shows that exercise can help with depression. Most studies however focus on aerobic...

Published on 16 Dec, 2018

The State of Being Stuck

A wonderful piece on patience and perseverance from a Mathematician’s perspective – virtues key to success in any...

Published on 16 Dec, 2018

Why northern Europe is the new American dream?

Simon Kuper is in superb form in this fluent essay on how overworked American professionals now look enviously at...

Long Read

Published on 16 Dec, 2018

Dr. Elon & Mr. Musk: Life Inside Tesla’s Produc...

An investigative piece about Elon Musk’s travails with Gigafactory and Model 3 by Charles Duhigg, the Pullitzer prize...

Published on 16 Dec, 2018

Jim Simons – the Numbers King

The revolution that Jim Simons, an award winning Maths professor from Stony Brook University, started in 1982 when he...

Published on 16 Dec, 2018

Christopher Wylie – what happens next?

Christopher Wylie, the former Cambridge Analytica employee, who blew the cover on what the group was upto, is a very...

Short Read

Published on 09 Dec, 2018

Airbnb will start designing – and selling – homes

Airbnb is getting into the business of providing affordable homes through an initiative called Backyard which is to be...

Published on 09 Dec, 2018

Intelligence profiling opens up uber-parenting poten...

The genetically perfect Superwoman is pretty quickly going to become a reality to two different streams of advances in...

Published on 09 Dec, 2018

Bilfinger launches Youtube-style skills videos

Bilfinger, a German construction group, has created a series of videos in response to the German working age population...

Long Read

Published on 09 Dec, 2018

Be Afraid of Economic ‘Bigness.’ Be Very Afraid.

This New York Times piece by Tim Wu, a law professor and the author of the recently published “The Curse of Bigness:...

Published on 09 Dec, 2018

The Friendship That Made Google Huge

No, this is not about Sergei Brin and Larry Page. James Somers, in this lovely piece in The New Yorker, talks about how...

Published on 09 Dec, 2018

Three lessons in decision making from a poker champion

In this crisp video, poker champion Liv Boeree, tells us that there are three mistakes which poker players make which...

Short Read

Published on 02 Dec, 2018

Why my generation is the last of the hedonists

Janan Ganesh notes the millenials’ growing abstinence from use of alcohol and drugs and even physical intimacy and...

Published on 02 Dec, 2018

Why Central Bank Digital Currencies Will Destroy Cry...

In this insightful piece, Roubini explains why it is easy and almost inevitable that Central Banks use their unique...

Published on 02 Dec, 2018

Will UK House Prices Ever Rise Again?

Across the English speaking world – including India – a delusion that grips affluent people is that there is some...

Long Read

Published on 02 Dec, 2018

Extreme Athleticism Is the New Midlife Crisis

Canadian psychologist Elliot Jacques’s 1957 paper on “Death and the Mid-Life crisis” brought out the aspect of...

Published on 02 Dec, 2018

Adm. McRaven Urges Graduates to Find Courage to Chan...

As a start-up, we run into people every now and then who try to use their muscle to put us in our place. In the narrow...

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