By their own admission, Jack Ma is uncomfortable with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Elon Musk is scared. But why? Contrary to popular perception AI is old. To be precise it’s 51-years old, widely acknowledged to have been born at a conference at Dartmouth College in 1956. That conference was attended by a diverse group of people. Three of them presented the Logic Theori
Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda feels that coffee would go well with the conversation we are about to have in the elegant, wood-panelled study of his Delhi house. “Do people drink coffee in Odisha?” I ask him to break the ice. “Once upon a time, coffee was not available there. Nowadays, I am amazed to see cafes selling coffee even in remote villages,” says Panda, who r
While researching a book I was writing on Bhutan, my cousin passed along Eric Weiner’s Geography of Bliss. Published in 2007, the book is a series of articles on different countries, most of whom rank very high on the happiness index, as to why they are happy. Each chapter is titled with a whimsical title, such as “Happiness is failure” and “Happiness is efficiency&rdquo
Peter Ronald deSouza is a professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi, and held the Dr S Radhakrishnan Chair of Rajya Sabha till April 2017. He works on issues of democratic politics and comparative politics of South Asia. A former director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS), Shimla, where he served two terms from 2007 till 2013, he was
Matthieu Ricard, 71, was dubbed the world’s happiest man after scientists carried out intensive research on him as he meditated. He is an author and holds a PhD in molecular genetics. Yet he gave up a promising career and became a Buddhist monk. An associate of the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, Ricard now lives in a monastery in Nepal. In an email interview, the man with a
The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) adopted the report of India’s human rights record review on May 9. There were 250 recommendations by 103 countries that had taken the floor five days earlier to comment on the human rights situation in the country. Reviewing human rights This was India’s third Universal Peri
The rise of populism – the revolt of common people against the elite or the ‘system’ – has been one of the broad themes of the past decade. Till 2000, populism was confined to obscure corners of the world, in Latin America and the former Soviet Block, and was largely ignored by the developed countries. The last time populism was strong across the world was in the 1930s.
Ever since the Reserve Bank of India-appointed P J Nayak Committee submitted a report blaming RTI as one of the constraints on the governance of public sector banks (PS Banks) in May 2014, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) has been analysing the RTI performance of 24 PSU Banks. RTI Performance of 24 PSU Banks: Here are main findings
Chetan Bhagat started as an investment banker, before turning to writing. His first novel, Five-Point Someone, sold briskly, and one bestseller followed another. Finally, The New York Times called him ‘the biggest selling English language novelist in India’s history’.His books have inspired movies like 3 idiots, Hello and the upcoming movie Half Girlfriend. Bhagat has also
In March, parliament passed the Mental Health Care Bill, which among other things decriminalises suicide and bans the use of electric shocks for children. To understand the new law, Archana Mishra turned to psychiatrist Vikram Patel, former chairman and co-founder of the Centre for Global Mental Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Patel, named among the Time magazi
Sometimes, when the change is too rapid and dramatic, you might not know whether it is really happening. It is understandable, considering the fact that you simply don’t recognise it. Without you knowing, however, a dramatic change is already taking place. When Klaus Schwab talks about the fourth industrial revolution, it is not going to be too difficult for you to just lo
Arvind Panagariya’s is one of the most elegantly done up offices in Lutyens’ Delhi. Its modern furniture is arranged to create multiple work areas, and the spacious office is enlivened by the Madhubani paintings on the walls and miniature potted plants placed in nooks and corners of the room. The get-
Is the world getting greener? That would be a paradox when nations are putting their heads together to find ways to fight global warming. While the world is condemning carbon dioxide (CO2) as the culprit for global warming, there are some who are fighting for the cause of CO2. And they cite scientific data to support their stand. They say that CO2 is in fact leading to an increase in gre
It is not surprising that the Global Nutrition Report 20161 places India ‘off course’ for all nutrition indicators, with some progress in stunting and underweight, and none at all in anaemia among women of reproductive age and wasting of children. India’s jinx in tackling this last unaddressed outpost in its growth and development story continues. Tho
Tell us about the documentation work of indigo farmers’ testimonies. The testimonies of indigo farmers of Champaran were placed before the agrarian commission in 1917 but afterwards there was no study. These testimonies are housed with the National Archives of India. The National Archives and the Sabarmati Ashram have entered into a kind of partnership by w
Champaran was Gandhi’s first political campaign in India, and he chose to work in rural areas and for farmers. Can you tell us more about this context – how unusual was this for the mainstream political leadership back then? Gandhi had already travelled through the rural side of India and he never took up politics. It’s wrong to say it was a politica
If it was needed at all, the supreme court has cleared the air. The Lokpal Act, it has ruled, is perfectly implementable even without the pending amendments. The interpretation from the apex court is welcome, but the government does not seem to be in any hurry to appoint the ombudsman in the first place. A bench of justices Ranjan Gogoi and Navin Sinha on Thursday
India’s affinity for gold is a well-known fact, so is its dependence on gold imports to meet the domestic demand. More than 98 percent of the gold consumed in the country is met through import, while the rest is met through recycled domestic gold. In 2015-16, India imported 926 tonnes of gold. Ironically, despite this huge appetite for gold and such massive imports,
The functioning of a national commission, be it NHRC, NCSC or NCST, depends on its head. Being the chief information commissioner (CIC), what is your vision for CIC? And what has been your experience so far? The chief information commissioner and ten information commissioners (ICs) are creation of the Act. What the Act defines is general superint
How do you view the state of contemporary Indian literature? Our cultural spaces are in a bad state – and this affects the writing, publishing and reading of literature. Over the last few years, we have seen far too many cases of the self-appointed thought police intimidating writers. From the Tamil writer Perumal Murugan to the young Kannada poet Huchangi
