Why Twitter ?

When you use it, you 'tweet' like a bird and make a short announcement to the world: examples, "Just found the best Dosa joint in all of East Delhi [ Images ] at..." or "sighted Priyanka Chopra [ Images ] at Bangalore airport" or if you are more serious, "Shashi Tharoor [ Images ] is with Fareed Zakaria [ Images ] on CNN right now.". . .More. . .

Brazil: Pele, Ronaldinho, Samba

Their ignorance is understandable. This land is so far, so remote in one's imagination, that to believe that all of Latin America speaks Spanish; that to Samba is the same as to tango is natural though not true.At my Brazilian end too, I get questions. "What is common and what is starkly different between Brazil and India?"...More

Is hard work worth it?

So those of us, content with fixed deposits or provident funds were somewhat smug and felt that we were insulated. But the realisation has dawned on us that there is no 'decoupling,' to use a currently fashionable financial expression...More

Can BRIC save the world?

Let all of us, including the distinguished ambassadors of BRIC send a joint resolution to Senator Obama [Images],' thundered the tall old man in an immaculately tailored suit in the front row...

Fission, Fusion, Confusion?

I wish I had paid more attention to Physics when it was being forced down our throat," he now said with a touch of sadness. "I should have taken good old Mr Swaminathan a little more seriously," he said recalling our old Physics master from the school. Same here, I nodded.
I looked around. His desk was littered as always with tomes, monographs, papers, clippings...

Hey, where did my country go?

Has the world changed irrevocably with the CNN and the internet? Are we denizens of the clich�d global village, inhabitants of a flat world without borders or boundaries? Are the local and the global merging? Yes and no......

Inside every blogger is an aspiring author

You discover that behind and beneath a book lying unbought and unread in a bookshop there is an entire universe of ambition, aspiration and frustration. So much striving; so little success; so much writing, so little printing...

All that shines is not Silicon

All happy marriages are alike. Each separation is messy in its own way,' Tolstoy may have said in a slight variation of his famous line.....

Finding love on a flight

Is it true that marriages are totally arranged between strangers in India?" I am often asked by foreigners at parties. Along with curiosity about the caste system and the significance of the bindi on the forehead, . .More. . .

Desi in US is the hyphen

The Kannada poet and academic at the University of Chicago, the late A K Ramanujan had said quite some time back that he saw himself as the hyphen between Indian-American. His life and values had been shaped by his Indian heritage; his skills and academic rigour had been enriched by his American training. He had benefited by both sides of the hyphen. . .More. . .

Execess in Vegas

Its 197,144 slot machines, at the last count, are designed to lure a staggering thirty eight million visitors a year, to bet on numbers. Win or lose, don't count the money, but keep looking at the numbers -- at the gambling machine...But why am I, an Indian diplomat, writing about the numbers, about Las Vegas? Have I lost my sanity or do I have a wish for early retirement?...More...

The Gadar movement

Posted to San Francisco from Delhi, I had wondered as to why the Indian government, soon after our Independence had set up an office in this city to cover the western part of the United States. After all, in the fifties there was no Silicon Valley, no technology tie ups, . .More. . .

The mind in a burger

We were traveling together on a California highway and had to reach the stadium in time for the game. Paul is my guide and mentor for the stranger ways of this land...More...

Swara across the seas

There was devotion in the air, but this was not a temple. We were at the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, a pretty suburb, just north of San Francisco and the occasion was the 85th birthday earlier this year of Khansahib Ustad Ali Akbar Khan...More...

Rock Star Rocket Scientist

Something seems to happen to you guys when you cross the Atlantic. You become a changed personality. I wanted to find out why?" said Dr Kalam...The large audience just loved the opening...More...

The UN at its cradle

As resident diplomats, we were gathered at the Veterans Memorial Hall to meet the visiting dignitary. In a nice touch, the Secretary General was meeting us in the very room where the UN Charter had been signed in June 1945. . .More. . .

Which part of India are you from?

The simple truth of the matter is that every Indian has multiple identities and this is natural and can be normally non-conflictual. A George Josef in Silicon Valley can be a Keralite, a Christian, speak Bengali in addition to Malayalam having studied at Calcutta, a proud IITian and yes an Indian at heart and in deed. . .More. . .

Weaving it together: Web 2.0

. . .networks such as Facebook or MySpace may create a vast net of cyber friends, but in the process may dilute the intimacy and authenticity of real face-to-face friendships. As it is said, 'the net brings distant friends closer but drives close friends somewhat distant'. The cyber world can get so addictive that the real world loses its hold, sometimes. . .More. . .

The Chinese Encounter

I was eagerly looking forward to some good spring rolls and stir-fried noodles. My escort, a Chinese student organiser, however, said that she hoped that it would be nan and chicken curry, in honour of the session devoted to India. 'I just love Indian curry', she said laughing. We reached the venue. Sandwiches from Subway were laid out in rows and we grinned at each other, though inwardly disappointed. . .More. . .

America: Guns and Losses

In the babble, on the very first day, I heard an opinion that if only more professors, more students had guns for self-defence, the lone deranged gunman Seung-Hui Cho would have been shot earlier, that lives would have been spared. At first I did not believe that I could be hearing this. But over the next weeks, I heard this argument being made time and again, by pundits of a particular ilk. . . More. . .