White Rice (4)
12/30/11 •
I just finished reading “Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea” by Barbara Demick, who was the Los Angeles Times correspondent for the Koreas at the time of writing. Published in 2009, the book follows the lives of six defectors, all of them from the Northeastern city of Chongjin, as they starve through the [...]
Recent Posts
Poverty in Pragati (0)
11/20/11 •
As promised, I have an updated and expanded version of my post on The Poverty Numbers at Pragati. From my blog post, I have subtracted some things in the interest of space – the discussion on the recall period being most prominent. More importantly, I have added some things, so you should read the Pragati [...]
The Journalism of Outrage (1)
11/12/11 •
After retiring from the Supreme Court, Justice Markandey Katju now heads the Press Council of India, a role that everyone knows is a sinecure. Nonetheless, he has managed to stir up a controversy by saying nasty things about the competence of Indian journalists. He also wants additional regulations on newspapers. We don’t have to agree with [...]
Avatar, Technology and Steve Jobs (4)
10/15/11 •
I recently watched Avatar. The movie is set in a future where humans have colonized other planets. The protagonist, Jake, is an ex-marine who has lost the use of his legs in war and is confined to a wheelchair. (Apparently, he has not been able to obtain treatment that would make him whole because his [...]
The Scrap Over Poverty Statistics (4)
10/09/11 •
What should we make of the latest scrap over the Tendulkar committee report? Here are some thoughts. Poverty isn’t a binary variable. There is no switch that, when turned on, defines a household as poor vs. non-poor. There are various degrees of deprivation, and we have differing intuitions about at what level of deprivation we [...]
