There! It’s done. I have finally finished studying, for the moment at least. When I finished my Grand O this morning, I heaved a huge sigh of relief. Finally! Now, I can take a good few days of well-deserved vacation. It feels amazing not to have anything to study after years of studying. I think…
Month: June 2007
Technical problems and randomness
I have done it! And proud of myself. 🙂 My Windows XP installation crashed last evening. I came back from dinner with friends and tried starting my computer and it simply refused to start. After many failed attempts at reviving it, I finally set down to the task of effecting a complete system reinstall, something…
Religious intolerance and fundamentalism
Recently, I came across a website called Challenging Islam. It was interesting from a purely academic perspective and so I bookmarked it, promising myself I would come back to it when I had the time. True to my promise to myself, I returned last night, and took the time to read the contents of the…
Language, culture and politics
During one of my philosophical musings earlier in the day, I wondered how important language was to our lives. From language, my thoughts drifted to the anti-Hindi agitation of the 1960s in Tamil Nadu. And from there, it turned inevitably to the massive north-south divide that still exists in India. I had blogged once earlier…
Of the Indian economy and human development…
Reading the news, especially news from India, seems to give me plenty of blog material. The latest in the series is this article from Statesman, Calcutta (oops! its Kolkata now!) stating that over 48% of all outbound investment is from the IT and the IT-enabled sector. The point of this post is not to debate…
The politics of religion
I was planning to post on existential philosophy over the next few days. But, I came across something in the Hindustan Times that spurred me on to posting earlier, and about a topic entirely different from existentialism. It was about the apology issued to the son of Congress politician Vyalar Ravi’s son, Ravi Krishna for…
Mon cher Monoprix!
Doing some last minute grocery shopping at 9 15 pm in France can sometimes be an amusing experience. I decided to pick up some food from Monoprix because I needed oil and milk. I figured it would not hurt to pick up some rice and vegetables too. I had nearly finished my shopping when Ana…
Reasons for love…
Facebook is a great thing sometimes. It may distract you when you are trying to learn the principles of international humanitarian law, but it certainly appeals to the creative side of your brain and helps you post on your blog at alarming speeds. The 10 posts I put up in May is proof enough. This…
Rants…
It has been a crazy week. For the first time in two years, I am thinking about how stressful it is to be at Sciences Po. To tell you the truth, I have never felt this kind of stress until now. Not even when I was forced to sit through 5 exams in 4 days…
Free Kian Tajbakhsh
Hey! Finally decided to use this blog for something constructive. Kian Tajbakhsh, internationally respected scholar and social scientist, cousin of my professor, and Indophile was arrested by Iranian authorities on charges of spying. He is being held at Evin Prison in Iran, without access to a lawyer or to visitors. Please take a few minutes…