Pertinent Observations

Earlier today, I wrote about some theoretical aspects regarding ministry formation – talking about incentivising, regional/community balance, etc. Here are some pertinent observations about the ministry itself.

There have been some rumblings about three leaders from Bellary (two Reddy brothers and Sriramulu) who have less than ten years in the party have been accommodated. My argument [...]

So Yeddyurappa has been finally sworn in as the CM of Karnataka, this time hopefully for a longer period. Some 29 people have already been sworn in with him, leaving just four more slots (there is a limit of 34 on the size of the ministry). Trouble has already started brewing as some senior leaders [...]

I wrote this in a mail to the Satin group. This was in response to a mail by Amit Varma talking about priests in Haridwar who conduct the pre-ashes-dunking ceremony, and their fees, and the bargaining, and what could be a decent solution for the problem. I thought it might make sense as a standalone [...]

This is just to remind you that the second Bangalore Photowalk is going to happen this Sunday (1st June). We start from in front of Ravindra Kalakshetra (the gate of the building to be precise) at 730 am.

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I think the last thirty years of Indian politics and policy can be explained using the “public enemy number one” theory. It all started off with emergency, when the Congress easily became the enemy. For the elections in 1977, an alliance of non-congress parties was quickly cobbled up with the sole intention of keeping the [...]

The government’s latest gimmick to keep petrol prices unrealistically low is to impose a special additional levy on income tax and corporate tax in order to finance the deficit. Basically a scheme to rob peter and pay paul. Make the higher-income guys pay for the excess oil consumption by the lower income guys.

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A couple of months before the elections, the Congress realized that the absolute non-performance of the Dharam Singh government might prove costly to it. In a quick move, they asked S M Krishna to step down from the Maharashtra Governorship and to take over the campaign in Karnataka.

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I seem to be looking out for “double meanings” in everything. I’m reminded of that seen in Upendra’s seminal movie Shhhh, where the director Kashinath is reputed to be a master of double meanings, and he has an assistant whose sole job is to point out the double meanings that some of the dialogues that [...]

That’s what i did immediately before I proceeded to the VidyaShankara temple to look for porn. I spent half an hour at the Sri VidyaShankara Home Products store buying pickles and other assorted condiments. I ended up buying a bottle of Appe Midi Mango pickle (made out of whole uncut tiny mangoes). Then one bottle [...]

It seems like.
They decided to extrapolate based on one data point – Tejaswini Sriramesh beating Deve Gowda – or there might be another which I can’t recall right now and they came to the wonderful conclusion that the Deve Gowda family will get defeated when faced with women candidates. They even got an astrologer to [...]