The Fabulous $10 Indian Government Laptop

“Everything reminds Milton of the money supply. Well, everything reminds me of sex, but I keep it out of the paper,” wrote Nobel prize-winning economist Robert Solow in 1966 about Milton Friedman, another Nobel laureate economist, the father of monetarism. 🙂

Everything reminds me of India’s failed education system — and by extension — the stupidity of the government policymakers, bureaucrats and politicians included. Unlike Bob Solow, however, I cannot keep it out of my posts.

The PickensPlan

You’ve got to hand it to the Americans — they think big. Thinking big is the first step to doing big things. There too they are no slouches. Both in terms of good and bad, they do think and do big things. The modern world you and I inhabit (and it is important to remember that not everybody lives in the modern world — a couple of billion of our contemporaries live in a world that is decidedly primitive) has been shaped by Americans to an extent that is hard to overstate. Love it or hate it, you cannot ignore the US.

Earthquake in Pune

This morning around 12:40 AM, I am sure there was an earthquake around Pune — the building shook for about 10 seconds. Having lived for decades in the San Francisco Bay area, on and around dozens of faults (San Andreas, Hayward, etc) and having been through dozens of quakes, including one of the biggest (the Loma Prieta in 1989), a little shake like that does not evoke much of a reaction. It is all ho-hum stuff.

I could find no reference to any earthquake in the news on the web. Perhaps some local Pune paper would. But did find an item in the BBC: Quake rocks Southern California. Good. Magnitude 5.4. What time? Not reported. Or even which date? Nope. The BBC report neglects to mention such minor details. Very disappointing bit of reporting. I wrote to the BBC. Let’s see if they fix it.