amalgam

Last week I read an article titled "I am just a poor boy though my story’s seldom told ", that I would like to share with you. As an introduction to the article I share with you the first two paragraphs of the article here: That the children of the poor underachieve in later life, and thus remain poor themselves, is one of the enduring problems of society. Sociologists have studied and described it. Socialists have tried to abolish it by dictatorship and central planning. Liberals have preferred democracy and opportunity. But nobody has truly understood what causes it. Until, perhaps, now. The crucial breakthrough was made three years ago, when Martha Farah of the University of Pennsylvania showed that the working memories of children who have been raised in poverty have smaller capacities than those of middle-class children. Working memory is the ability to hold bits of information in the brain for current use—the digits of a phone number, for example.

With debates on the possibility and effectiveness of miliatary action on Pakistan doing the rounds these days the following article by Amitav Ghosh in the New York Times makes for a fantastic read and I share that with you here. India’s 9/11? Not Exactly SINCE the terrorist assaults began in Mumbai last week, the metaphor of the World Trade Center attacks has been repeatedly invoked. From New Delhi to New York, pundits and TV commentators have insisted that “this is India’s 9/11” and should be treated as such. Nearly every newspaper in India has put “9/11” into its post-massacre headlines. The secretary general of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the leading Hindu nationalist political faction, has not only likened the Mumbai attack to those on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but has insisted that “our response must be close to what the American response was.”

Another bomb blast. This time in Assam. Militants belonging to Karbi Longri National Liberation Front (KLNLF) are suspected to be behind tha blast. The blast went of inside coach number 8209 of 901 Lumding-Tinsukia passenger train, exploded around 8 am as it entered Diphu railway station. Almost 30 people are suspected to be dead as of now. Read More ... I am waiting to see how India responds to this. Will the anger rise or will it make the country resigned to the idea that life of terror is now the norm and inevitable. Will the country discriminate between terror based on who is responsible for it or on the basis of which part of the country is attacked?

China touches fifty. So does India. For China, it was their best Olympics. India too, never had it better. And for the first time, I can understand why people talk about China and India being competitors for world domination.