November 2008 - Posts - A Daily Download

November 2008 - Posts

Are we prepared to live in a police state?

Posted by Sukumar Ranganathan at 
Under News In the wake of the blasts in Mumbai are all of us -- including those who have ways of making themselves heard in print, television, or blogs -- prepared to live in a post-9/11-US kind of environment? The building where the Mint office is located started checking vehicles and IDs a month or so ago, and judging from the number of complaints...

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What the Mumbai terror attacks really mean

Posted by Sukumar Ranganathan at 
Under News If media reports -- and that's all we have at this time -- are to be believed, the terrorists involved in the ongoing attacks in Mumbai came in by boat and landed at the Gateway of India. Apart from tourists and pleasure-seekers taking joyrides on boats (for a nominal fee), this is a route used by the rich and famous. Their yachts are...

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Mr.Sachs and Mr.Murugappa

Posted by Sukumar Ranganathan at 
Under Rants A colleage forwarded me a message from PR firm Vaishnavi regarding a meeting with (I quote): "Mr M M Murugappa, Chairman of the Rs 9582 crore Murugappa Group". One would expect the communications agency representing a company or a group to get names and designations right. The man's name is M M Murugappan and I used to know...

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What's the opposite of Irrational Exuberance?

Posted by Sukumar Ranganathan at 
Under News It is now almost 12 years since Alan Greenspan first used this term which quickly became common currency to explain things that analysts couldn't understand. In 2000, Yale professor Robert Shiller borrowed the term for the title of his book on bubbles. As the front pages of newspapers, even Indian ones, begin to devote more space to stories...

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Burma Comic

Posted by Sukumar Ranganathan at 
Under Cult Fiction Take a Candian cartoonist with an eye for the peculiar and a tendency to end up in out-of-the-way places and then publish comic books about his experiences. Put him in Burma (which is what governments that do not recognise that country's totalitarian regime call it; those like India who want some of the country's gas call...

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The slowdown and The Great Gatsby

Posted by Sukumar Ranganathan at 
Under Fiction I first read F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby in the 1980s when I was in engineering school. I have re-read it thrice since. The first time was in the mid 1990s when several of my friends lost their high-paying jobs in finance when the stock market bubble burst. The second time was in the early 2000s when the dotcom boom went...

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Where have all the management gurus gone?

Posted by Sukumar Ranganathan at 
Under News The latest issue of Fortune has a nice article on 10 management gurus to watch . It's a good list, if only because most people, including this blogger had started thinking that there were no new gurus on the circuit. India hasn't had much luck in creating management gurus. MB Athreya can claim to be the country's first management...

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God and the slow-down

Posted by Sukumar Ranganathan at 
Under News So, do Indians start believing more during a slowdown? The logical answer would be yes. Then, would they start propitiating the Gods more at such times? One would think not. After all, companies shutting stores and product lines or laying off people are unlikely to spend money when neither the return on investment nor the payback are certain...

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Did Bhansali Really Keep Narayana Murthy Waiting?

Posted by Sukumar Ranganathan at 
Under News Last evening, CNBC covered at length a Mumbai investor event featuring Enam's Vallabh Bhansali and Infosys' Narayana Murthy . Murthy and Bhansali go back a long way. Enam managed the Infosys IPO (1993)and had to step in when it looked like the issue would devolve. Two people -- one was an independent director on the Infosys board...

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J Girl

Posted by Sukumar Ranganathan at 
Under Cult Music Joni Mitchell turned 65 Friday and the Wall Street Journal had this nifty tribute . Among female singers, I remain partial to three Js and one G: Mitchell, Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, and Grace Slick. It's hard to pick one favourite. I like all of Mitchell's Blue. I think Joplin's Cry, Baby is outstanding. I love Baez's...

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Simian Semantics

Posted by Sukumar Ranganathan at 
Under News Reading this interview in Tehelka where Bajrang Dal chief Prakash Sharma, in response to an interjection by the interviewer that he is "leaping" from one topic to another, says that it shouldn't suprise anyone that he leaps around because he is from the Bajrang Dal (literally, army of Hanuman), I was reminded of an incident...

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FUCK

Posted by Sukumar Ranganathan at 
Under Cult Fiction Sure, this newspaper has a rule that guides the usage of the f-word, and it allows the whole think to be spelt out (what else can fxxk be? Fork? Flak?) if it is part of a quote or the name of a book. Well, Fuck is what Martin Rowson's amazing comic book (which is largely built around one word) is called. The book is simply the...

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Black Crowes

Posted by Sukumar Ranganathan at 
Under Cult Music There's a really cool nugscast edition showcasing The Black Crowes covering various songs by artists such as The Band, The Jerry Garcia Band, The Grateful Dead, even Delaney and Bonnie. I have several Black Crowes CDs with me but must confess that I haven't really listened to them in almost five years. A-ha moment: they sound...

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