Short read: Russia is paying schoolgirls to have babies. Why is pronatalism on the rise around the world?
The title might sound like an extreme case of pronatalisim – a policy that supports higher birth rates. But it is on the rise across the world – from Chief Ministers of South Indian states to Donald Trump himself – governments are exhorting people to have more babies. “In some parts of Russia, schoolgirls who […]
Short read: Ode to America – A Personal History of American Finance
Warren Buffett attributes his success to his ovarian lottery – the fact that he was born in America, well captured in his now famous quote “Never bet against America”. This essay by Marc Rubenstein details this brilliantly – “Today, the US accounts for 4% of the world’s population, 27% of its GDP and 60% of its market […]
Short read: Chinese J-20 isn’t just a fighter jet—it’s a signal to US, Japan and India
As Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd valiantly tries to commission a fighter jet it has been working on since 1971, China’s fighter jet program threatens to pull ahead of America’s. That should be of interest to us not least because China sells these same fighter jets to Pakistan. Sana Hashmi writes for The Print: “A recent China […]
Long read: Blind to Disruption – The CEOs Who Missed the Future
No other technology in history came close to being the most broad-based disruptive threat for so many industries as much as AI. Hence, this essay from Steve Blank is a timely reminder for company managements and investors alike. Blank uses Clayton Christensen’s disruption model, beautifully illustrated in his brilliant book “Innovator’s Dilemma” to take us through the […]
Long read: That Dropped Call With Customer Service? It Was on Purpose
We have all been there – on calls to customer service agents of banks or airlines or widget manufacturers or government departments; calls on which we are kept “on hold” for hours and then when we finally get to speak to an agent, we are presented with a complication or some sort of pre-qualification process […]
Long read: ‘You can’t be the player’s friend’: inside the secret world of tennis umpires
If you think your job is stressful you should try being a professional tennis umpire. This riveting long read in The Guardian from William Ralston first gives you a brief history of how paid full time professional umpires were created in the mid-80s to referee tennis matches (after things had crazy over the previous decade […]
Short read: Unsung History: The Merchants Who Controlled the Chola Empire
The nexus between business and government isn’t a modern phenomenon. This fascinating piece about Indian history gives us a glimpse of one of India’s dominant kingdoms, almost a millennium and a half ago, when trade flourished and contributed to the success of the rulers. It refers to the Chola empire and its famous merchants, collectively […]
Short read: I’ve Spent My Life Measuring Risk. AI Rings Every One of My Alarm Bells
Paul Tudor Jones is amongst the most accomplished hedge fund managers in the world. And by definition, a ‘hedge’ fund manager is meant to know a thing or two about managing or hedging risk. And here he is ringing alarm bells about AI and the risks it poses to humanity. He starts by talking about […]
Short read: When Dubai almost became a part of India
The cocktail party circuit talk in the Maximum City is about how one of these days a slice of POK will become a part of the Union of India. Those Indians who get excited at the thought of territorial acquisition would be shocked to hear that once upon a time, the whole of the Middle […]
Long read: More young people are getting cancer. It changes everything
Progress in medical science has indeed helped improve life expectancy by enabling early detection of disease as well as cure. However, lifestyle changes have also increased incidence of the deadly disease of cancer, which is also manifesting early in people’s lives: “Breast cancer mainly affects middle-aged and older women – the median age of someone diagnosed […]
Long read: The plunder and loot by private healthcare in India
Harsh Mander is a notable writer and social activist. In this piece he focuses on a dilemma that governments across the world are facing: “Paul Farmer in ‘Pathologies of Power’ speaks evocatively of the crossroads at which humankind today finds itself. Healthcare, he observes, can be considered either a “commodity to be sold” or “a basic […]
Long read: The scammers gaming India’s overcrowded job market
In 2018, Snigdha Poonam authored one of the best non-fiction books written in India in recent times. Her “Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing the World” is a collection of vivid reports from the smaller Hindi-speaking cities of North India where young men & women grapple with lack of employment opportunities and yet nurture intense ambition and […]
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