Pertinent Observations

Archive for August, 2009

31 Aug

Why Inclusiveness Matters

I want to take examples of two situations from traffic engineering to demonstrate why inclusion is important, and it is critical that everyone be “taken along” in any grand plan. The usual arguments for inclusion that you find from proponents of schemes such as the NREGS is that if you don’t include, people will riot [...]

29 Aug

Ten Kilorupees of Books

That’s what I won when I won the Chennai landmark quiz two weekends back, along with Kodhi and Aadisht. Ten kilorupees of book coupons to be cashed at any Landmark book store. Correct that – it’s one coupon worth ten kilorupees. Which means that I’ll need to spend all of it at once. In another [...]

28 Aug

Hug Theories

This is some kind of a chow-chow bhath post – I’ve aggregated several concepts related to hugging and the Mata Amrita Index and am putting them in one place. Firstly, is hugging a cost or a benefit? This thought came to my head recently when I was really thankful to a friend and wanted to [...]

25 Aug

Punjoo Wedding

On Saturday I was in Delhi to attend a Punjoo wedding. Technically, it was a half-Punjoo wedding if you take only the marrying couple into question, but given the overall processes, venue, events, guests, etc. it can be classified as a completely Punjoo wedding. Apart from the groom and a handful of his family members, [...]

21 Aug

Traffic signal policy

Is it fair on the part of the city government to direct people’s choices of routes by imposing a suboptimal timing plan on a traffic signal? Or is the government supposed to respond to demand and design the signals looking at the traffic in various directions? Which is supposed to lead which? Which is the [...]

20 Aug

The National College Flyover

What will happen to the controversial National College Flyover when the Metro gets built? If I remember right, the proposed Metro goes from Lalbagh West Gate up Vani Vilas road, and is supposed to take a right turn on to K R Road at the National College circle. Surely there is no space on VV [...]

18 Aug

Cults and organized religion

On the way back from Mysore last week, my mom asked to go to an orphanage in Srirangapatnam which is run by one Mr Halagappa, a follower of the Sathya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi (ok I must mention that followers of the Sai Baba get pissed off if you call them followers – they claim [...]

16 Aug

Return to corporate whoredom

Waking up early in the morning Formal shirt and trousers, neatly pressed An hour’s commute each way Conversations by the water cooler Team lunches; Expense accounts Hourly coffee breaks Meetings. Conference calls. Presentations Studs. Fighters. Free-riders. Reviews. Deadlines. Status reports. Salary credit! //

13 Aug

Mysore trip – Table of contents post

I returned last night from a two day driving trip to mysore and surrounding areas. There are several things to blog about, but I felt too lazy to make notes in my mobile. Also, I was driving most of the time, so didn’t really have the time to make notes. I made a lot of [...]

08 Aug

Outliers – Notes

Last evening I borrowed Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers from the library. Finished off reading it in one sitting this morning. I had been disappointed with his earlier book (The Tipping Point) and have been describing it as a blog post that has been written in 200 pages. Outliers, on the other hand, is significantly better. For [...]

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