Musings

As I marvelled at Vikram's lunar soft landing, my friend quipped, "How is this worthy of such grand celebration in 2023 when the US put humans on the moon and brought them back — in the 1970s!" Before I go about my response, let me also present you with the merits of his argument. Mr C. Rajamohan, an international affairs journalist,  writes , "While Chandrayaan 3 took nearly six weeks to get to the Moon, the failed Russian mission Luna-25 arrived there in a week. China’s Change-5 launched in 2020 took a week. In 1969, the US Apollo-11 mission, which landed the first men on the Moon, took just four days." (FYI: The Saturn V rocket, which powered the Apollo mission, remains the most powerful rocket ever built) Since there is a lot of talk about cryogenic rocket technology, let me also tell you that we were late by two decades in indigenising it. Cryogenic technology was first mastered by the US as early as 1963, followed by Japanese, French and Chinese. Russia ...

During my UPSC preparation, I often read many expert opinions championing the cause of free trade. After the 1991 economic reforms, any talk on protectionism is censored. However, these Free Trade Champions are often caught in a fix when asked about our burgeoning trade deficit with China. If open trade is supposed to increase efficiency and make your economy more competitive, why is India still a trading colony of China? Why is there a deafening silence from these people when India chose not to join RCEP?  Joe Studwell's How Asia Works attempts to answer these questions.  Studwell doesn't shun confronting the harsh truth - That protectionism is a device to hone your industries. When you are at your nascent stage of industrialization and when you quickly open your economy, how will your domestic businessmen ever get their hands dirty? How will they learn to create/make things?  This begs us to the next question. If protectionism is indeed the way, should we revert to p...

  The mind always instinctively fears the unknown. And it is not always a bad thing. It is an innate biological response before our brain comes up with a solution to deal with the unknown. Scientific discoveries have always been bringing spotlights to the unknowns. Hence it is inevitable that most people see these unknowns sceptically. But my point here is that scepticism should not turn into blind cynicism. When we hear words like corporates, science and profit, our mind automatically associates them with evil. And it is not particularly astonishing because new frontiers of science have always been born out of controversies. But why do people arrive at immediate conclusions without thinking twice? According to Daniel Kahneman's theory, our brain has two operating systems - System 1 and System 2. System 1 is fast and unconscious, automatic, and effortless. It does not have self-awareness or control and adheres to the dictum: What you see is all there is. Whereas System 2 is slow an...

Open: An Autobiography is more of a memoir, or like reading a diary. Rest assured, you cannot put down this book without finishing it. My friend often points out that great talents could become larger-than-life characters if spotted and groomed at a much younger age. You can find many examples - Bill Gates and Viswanathan Anand are a few names that come to the top of my mind. There seems to be a strong correlation between success and parental nurturing. This book is one such example - adding weightage to this correlation. But at what cost?  Agassi hated tennis! Not in a textbook sense of hate. His relationship with tennis is not something one would understand when told. They must feel it - Feel what it is like to excel, respect and honour something you grew up hating! When you have a demanding father imposing his will on you and seeing you as his means to find the purpose of his life, your identity gets screwed up. And it takes aeons to figure it out. You do not know why you p...

In recent days I have been thinking a lot about my privilege.  This is because I am starting to interact with people of all social standings.  We do not know how certain actions lead to certain consequences- I sometimes miss my office shuttle and would be forced to take a share auto for commuting. By sitting along with co-passengers and having small chit-chats throughout the journey, I can glimpse a part of their world. For instance, I would hear stuff about how the share auto drivers would not have their breakfast until they had earned the money they had spent on fuel. I often see how women run en masse to get into the government public transport buses. (In Tamil Nadu, women in the state can travel free of cost on the government-owned city and town buses)   In this light, I would want to narrate two incidents that inspired me to ponder on my privilege.   Scenario 1# -  A restaurant serving good food but cuts costs at the wrong places:   Duri...