Civil Society is not a new idea – if we consider that voluntary actions and individual initiative are at heart of it – its presence in India is rather new. Fifty years ago, except for Marxist who drew inspiration of Gramsci rather than Lenin, we did not hear much talk about civil society. These days, …
Sixty years after the the independence, two phenomena are ubiquitous these days. One is the manner in which public anxiety shows itself over many problems with which our public institutes are beset – misuse of funds, lack of discipline, absenteeism, work stoppage, strikes and so on – all of which are in some way related …
Cartoon from The Hindu. Used without their permission. My apologies for being a reactionary. Mr. Jairam Ramesh – a relatively respected union minister who has given hopes to everyone who are concerned with environment – is an IITB alumnus. He is well known to take u-turns on his statements. He recently made a remark about …
The accusation that Indian society is incapable of changing by itself came from various Western thinkers. Most prominent among them was Karl Marx, a man of immense intellect. In his essay, The British Rule in India, he wrote that ‘England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, was actuated only by the …
There will not be any civilization worth the name if it does not grant certain amount of privacy to its members. But different civilizations put different premium on it. Privacy does not fascinate Indians much. Most of us will see it with indifference. I am not aware of a large amount of work done on …
In these times, it is no longer taboo to talk about ‘feelings’ in plain terms – at least in academic circles, if you are lucky enough to be in one. You can criticize feelings and they will not come after you like they did with Bertrand Russel. Game theory, economics, sociology and psychology have taken quiet …
We intend to differentiate males and females. In fact, we are going to make them complementary to each other. Surely, this is an oversimplification for both of them exhibit certain behaviors common to each other. This is more or less an Utopian view of human race. This is not to say that ‘if men are from planet X then …
Feminism means different thing to different people. These meanings are sometimes diagonally opposite. If for some equal rights, if not more, are the ultimate aim for feminism; others are willing to give up some rights if it guarantees that idea of ‘family’ will not get undermined. Not only most of the men, but a substantial number of …
“Read not to contradict and confute, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider” — Francis Bacon The man who has not the habit of reading is imprisoned in his immediate world, in respect to time and space. His life falls into a set routine; he is limited to contact and conversation …
Take Boolean Algebra with two elements for instance, the underlying finite field is equivalent to or where NAND and NOR are considered as universal gates. This means that instead of defining two operations , I can work with either NAND or NOR and all things will fall in places. Is this property, which is true …