From the abstract of ‘Why Do People Stay Poor? Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh’, November 24, 2020: There are two broad views as to why people stay poor. One emphasizes differences in fundamentals, such as ability, talent or motivation. The other, poverty traps view, differences in opportunities stemming from differences in wealth. We […]
Edit, 6.04 pm, December 15, 2020: A reader pointed out to me that The Guardian may in fact have been joking, and it has been known to be flippant on occasion. If this is really the case, I pronounce myself half-embarrassed for having been unable to spot a joke. But only half because it seems […]
When an alumnus of the IISc wanted to organise an astrology workshop at the institute’s premises in 2017, students and various members of its teaching faculty rose in protest and wrote to the director to have the event cancelled, and it was cancelled. Their voices died down quickly after and didn’t emerge when astrology workshops […]
Growing up, watching Friends was a source of much amusement and happiness. Now, as a grownup, I can’t watch a single episode without deeply resenting how the show caricatures all science as avoidable and all scientists as boring. The way Monica, Rachael, Phoebe, Chandler and Joey respond to Ross’s attempts to tell them something interesting […]
Couple caveats: I wrote this post on the night of October 28, before the workshop was cancelled on the morning of October 29. I haven’t bothered to change the tense because issuing this caveat at the top seemed simpler. A highly edited version of this post was published on The Wire on the morning of […]
In most of Tamil cinema, “men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.”