General
The Discomfort Zone will change
The TDZ is transforming from a personal blog to a collaborative, independent, online magazine.
Leave of Absence
This blog has been silent for quite some time and I owe you (few) readers an explaination. I am currently traveling in Ecuador, till the end of the year, which has prevented me from doing more than make remarkable observations on society here.
I should be back with something worth writing about in the new year. [...]
Al Gore Does Not Deserve the Nobel Peace Prize
The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for creating “an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming.” And what does this have to do with peace?
Leave of Absence & Agricultural Subsidies
I am always surprised at how many people land on this blog, often from very diverse and intelligent sources, to give me extremely incisive input. Considering their time spent here, I consider it only fair to mention that I will not be updating this blog very regularly for the next two weeks. In that time [...]
Book Review: Required Readings on India
Books on India are a dime a dozen these days. But while much of the attention has been focused either on fiction writers, in the vien of Jhumpa Lahiri or Amitav Ghosh, or on the economic success of India, a series of books have been published in the last months that analyze India’s polity and [...]
Book Review: In Spite of the Gods, by Ed Luce
Edward Luce spent five years in India as South Asia bureau chief for the Financial Times. In his words during that time, Indians were, with few exceptions, “unreservedly kind, open, hospitable and tolerant.” In return, Luce has gifted India this book - In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India.
The title suggests [...]
Easter Readings: A Francophone View on India
It is good to be able to read media in multiple languages. It tells me how other parts of the world - beyond the Economist - see the world. So this weekend, I was surprised - and pleased - to see India in some fairly unexpected quarters of French media.
Returning to India: of Struggle and Hope
A friend pointed me to Piya’s blog. Piya has a penchant for clicking photos and has just returned to live in Delhi after several years. Only two months old, the blog is already an excellent illustration of the riot that India is for one’s senses, and the eccentricities it presents. Reading it, I finally had [...]
