V on AD

In response to my question on Atanu Dey's scathing post, V posts a scathing comment. I encourage you to check it out.

Incredible !ndia

The latest Incredible India commercial is wonderful (yes, I'm a sucker for these things). It superbly highlights our diversity, though I'm sure it romanticizes some of the locations.



Last year, the Ministry of Tourism appointed Aamir Khan as the brand ambassador for the Atithi Devo Bhavah campaign. Its a public awareness campaign which intends, "through advertising campaigns in the print and electronic media to increase social awareness and preservation of the rich Indian heritage and to sensitise the people regarding their attitude and conduct, specially towards women tourists who are our guests."

I found the focus on "women tourists" funny, though I commend the idea. You can see the commercial here.

New Jersey

My friends from New York love to make fun of New Jersey, until they get here. Even though it is known as the armpit of America and it has areas that you can smell before you can see, it is actually quite beautiful. With 50 State Parks, it has fantastic hiking trails and campsites.

Couple of pictures from my first two hiking weekends this summer. Check out this website for some great trails - Hiking in NJ

When I first moved here, when people asked me where I lived, I would always say New York - I don't know whether it was consciously or not. But recently, I've been saying New Jersey, again not intentionally. I wonder if thats a sign of some sort.

Another piece on Congress

In this piece, Atanu Dey presents a scathing critique of the Congress -

For every election cycle that the Congress gets to govern India, India suffers a generation’s setback. The dozen or so elections since India’s political independence that the Congress has won the right to rule India, India’s development has been delayed by around 200 years. In that period, hundreds of millions of Indians have lived lives of utter destitution. Today one of out every two children below five is malnourished — the implications of which are so staggering in terms of retarded mental and physical development that it makes one weep bitter tears for the utter and needless waste of human potential.

Contrast where India is now relative to where it could have been — a developed nation — and it is easy to argue that the Congress must be responsible for hundreds of millions of premature deaths and billions of human years of misery. The cycle of poverty and misery gets one more boost today, another generation worth of opportunity lost, another couple of hundred million lives forced into horrible misery whose only redeeming feature would be that thankfully they will be short.

Quite honestly, I don't really understand his point - and I welcome an explanation. Is his point that the BJP or another party would have done better? I doubt it. What do you think?

What I do

In case you are wondering about the type of research I do, here is an article that I co-authored - Randomized experiments in microfinance

And here is an Economist review of a new book co-authored by my boss - Smooth operators

Elections no. 1

As the 15th Lok Sabha elections draw to a close, I thought it would be fun to reflect on India's first elections held in 1952 (info from Ramachandra Guha's India After Gandhi) .

Here are some interesting facts -

- India chose universal suffrage from the get-go. This meant that the electorate consisted of 176 million, 85% of which were illiterate. All party slogans and mission were depicted by symbols - a pair of bullocks, a hut, an elephant. Each ballot box had a symbol on it so that people could drop their ballot in the box of their party of choice.

- 4,500 seats were contested. 224,000 polling booths were equipped with 2 million ballot boxes. 16,500 clerks created the electoral rolls and the elections were supervised by 56,000 officers who were aided by 280,000 helpers and 224,000 policemen. I would love to see what the numbers are for this year's election - perhaps then people will understand why the IPL was not held at the same time as the elections.

- 2.8 million women (mostly in the north) were struck off the poll list because they registered themselved as "Raju's mother" or "Keshab's wife".

- 60 per cent of registered voters voted. The highest turnout, 80.5 per cent, was in Kottayam in Kerala. In Bombay, 900,000 residents voted - 70 per cent of the electorate.

- there were only 1,250 reported offences including 100 incidents of canvassing within hundred yards of the polling stations, some committed unknowingly by painted cows.

The American Ambassador feared that the elections would be "the biggest farce ever staged in the name of democracy anywhere in the world." But a tour around India during the elections changed his mind - he saw multiple parties contesting freely and illiterate folks making informed decisions. He wrote "In Asia, as in America, I know no grander vision than this, government by the consent of the governed."

Need I say more? I know the usual complaints - the growing power of regional parties and people voting on basis of their religious and social allegiances and not on issues. I understand the concerns and share some of them. But at the core, I am proud of our system of governance and the process of selection of our leaders.

Say no to plastic!

Here is a plug for a fantastic operation that my mom is running.

Over the past six months, she has taken it upon herself to reduce the number of plastic bags being used in Bombay. I am exaggerating a bit, but the intention is there.

She started by buying raw cloth and giving it to her driver's daughter who was learning to stitch. She would buy the finished bag from the girl for Rs. 10 and then distribute them for free. A useful combination of creating employment and saving the environment.

She has taken a few steps forward (with some help from my dad and brother). She now makes more styles of bags and gets them from multiple sources - most are still made by women who work from 10p-12a to earn Rs. 30.

She sells the bags to shopkeepers, relatives and friends and also distributes them for free to vegetable vendors, drivers, cooks and their relatives, neighbors etc. The point is to keep the bags in circulation - so you want to get them to folks who will use them on a regular basis.

I'm going to help her sell some in the US. If you are interested, please let me know. The choice is between two types of bags. The first is a heavy duty, Trader Joe size, canvas-like bag, which is perfect for groceries ($2). The second is a series of multi-purpose, colorful cloth bags of varying sizes ($1).

All proceeds go into making more bags.