Sriram Khé

Graph of the day

2009-07-13T19:45:00.001-07:00

Expect China and India to drag feet on climate intiatives

2009-07-13T00:23:00.000-07:00

Visualize this: The temperature outside is 105 degrees, with about 80 percent relative humidity. There is no electricity, which means no air conditioning. That was my experience on the third day after arriving in Chennai, India’s fourth largest city with a population of more than 7 million. I suppose I have been spoiled by the temperate conditions in the paradise that is the Willamette Valley,

The AfPak quagmire

2009-07-11T22:20:00.001-07:00

A month ago the Register Guard published my opinion piece where I discussed political instability in the Baluch territory of Pakistan and Iran. In that, I referred to the Balochs who are yet another ethnic group whose lands got divided--in this case, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. And the Baluchs have been treated as less-than-equals in these countries, which has therefore resulted in

Kashgar, Uighurs, Kashmir, and Aryans

2009-07-11T18:59:00.000-07:00

With Xinjiang in the news, the curious person in me started wondering whether there might be connections between Kashgar--a major Uighur city--and the name Kashmir. After all, these are all place names up there in the mountains and it is possible that they are all derived from the same clan, of sorts?If Wikipedia can be believed, they are indeed related.The Khasas are an ancient people, believed

My huckleberry friend ....

2009-07-11T18:23:00.000-07:00

Moon River, wider than a mile,I'm crossing you in style some day.Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker,wherever you're going I'm going your way.Two drifters off to see the world.There's such a lot of world to see.We're after the same rainbow's end--waiting 'round the bend,my huckleberry friend,Moon River and me.

Some more on Uighurs, and China

2009-07-10T09:09:00.000-07:00

This time from the Economist:The government, however, was unusually quick to restrict internet and mobile telephone communications. It has been spooked by the role of the internet during recent unrest in Iran. The Iranian opposition has sparked considerable online discussion in China, as well as disapproving coverage in the official media. Within hours of the Urumqi riot, internet access was cut

More on Uighurs

2009-07-10T04:00:00.000-07:00

James Fallows notes that:it is a lasting error and embarrassment that after 9/11 the U.S. won Chinese government support by agreeing that Uighur separatists -- formally, the East Turkestan Liberation Organization -- should be seen as part of the world terrorist threat. After all, they are Muslims.It is such stupid decisions by the US government that continue to fuel the Islamist view that America

Do professors think and say foolish things?

2009-07-10T00:15:00.000-07:00

YES, they do. A lot more than we let the public know. Unfortunately.Christina Hoff Sommers has a wonderful essay, again. When she writes about the lack of professional and academic integrity, I cannot think of any flaw in her argument. Her comments below, in the context of feminism, are applicable to any field:Why should it matter if a large number of professors think and say a lot of

Save the males, part two :-)

2009-07-09T18:29:00.000-07:00

In August of last year, I blogged that we needed to worry about the males.Now, two significant developments--one from economics and the other from science. (No, economics is NOT a science!)In the world of economics, in this Great Recession, it turns out that males have been losing jobs, and finding it difficult to get employed again, than what has been the female experience thus far. So much so

Struggle of the Uighur people is quite real

2009-07-09T18:08:00.000-07:00

In the context of violence in Xinjiang, I am "re-publishing" my opinion piece from the Register Guard (February 5, 2009):A wonderful aspect of teaching is that it is a version of “life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.” The latest was when students introduced themselves in one of my classes, and one said that her off-beat name reflects her Uighur heritage. When I

Mangoes "ripened" with arsenic? How sick!

2009-07-09T18:01:00.000-07:00

The mango fruit is a standard example in the freshman course that I teach. Its Latin name is Mangifera, which, by itself, gives away the fruit’s origin in the Indian Subcontinent because the name comes from how the fruit is referred to in the South Indian languages—in the Tamil language, for instance, it is pronounced as “maanga.” Accounting for more than half the world’s production,

Pakistan is not salvageable

2009-07-09T03:42:00.001-07:00

I am always worried about Pakistan. And it is not because I was born in India, but because of the immense geopoloitical fallout from the Pakistan disaster.It, therefore, feels good to know that I am in good company; here is Christopher Hitchens in an interview with The Walrus Magazine:On a bit of a different subject, I’ve been reading your more recent columns, and in your opinion, what do the

President Obama Still Smoking

2009-07-08T22:21:00.000-07:00

What do people think about this?

YouTube is free. Who foots the bill?

2009-07-08T06:09:00.001-07:00

[An] estimated seventy-five billion videos will be served up by YouTube this year. Although the magic of Free technology means that the cost of serving up each video is “close enough to free to round down,” “close enough to free” multiplied by seventy-five billion is still a very large number. A recent report by Credit Suisse estimates that YouTube’s bandwidth costs in 2009 will be three hundred

Asia isnt rising, and America aint setting soon

2009-07-07T16:29:00.000-07:00

Over at Foreign Policy, Minxin Pei writes about the rise of "Chindia" and the decline of America:Don't believe the hype about the decline of America and the dawn of a new Asian age. It will be many decades before China, India, and the rest of the region take over the world, if they ever do.These are my feelings too. I hope to visit China in 2010. India, I am convinced, is more a paper elephant

Will we be able to feed 9.5 billion people?

2009-07-06T07:43:00.000-07:00

The Aspen Ideas Festival is over. You nor I went to that one means that apparently we did not have ideas that anybody wanted to listen to, or we did not have the money to listen to those with ideas! Oh well .... James Fallows was one of those that the attendees wanted to listen to, and has blogged about a session he moderated; it was on "Feeding the World's Billions." Fallows writes:Sample

Thailand and India stealing America’s medical mojo

2009-07-06T02:22:00.000-07:00

“We needed a visa to go to India, but not to come here. So, we came to Thailand for medical treatment.” So said a couple from Dubai, with whom I shared a table while we were on a cruise boat down the Chao Phraya River to Bangkok from the historic ruins of Ayutthaya. After completing the medical procedures, the young husband and wife from Dubai had been vacationing in and around Bangkok for a week

Violence in Uighur territory of China

2009-07-06T00:12:00.000-07:00

The presence of a student of Uighur ethnicity sparked me to write about them--particularly in the context of Guantanamo.A few days ago, I read this compelling essay by Parag Khanna. When I read about Urumqi in that essay, I emailed that student--now a former student since her transfer--whose family is from that city.I had hoped for a debate/discussion between this student and another student--an

Facebook.Students.Teachers.Friends?

2009-07-05T20:24:00.000-07:00

I created a Facebook account some time ago merely to understand what the fuss was all about. Then, a few months ago, I started using it (kind of) when I realized that it was the best way to keep in touch with a friend back from my high school days. And before I knew it even students emailed me to add me as a "friend" .... I find it kind of strange to read status updates about students who do

The death of the newspapers.

2009-07-05T20:16:00.000-07:00

It is not an exaggeration by any means. Megan McArdle writes:Journalism is not being brought low by excess supply of content; it's being steadily eroded by insufficient demand for advertising pages. For most of history, most publications lost money, or at best broke even, on their subscription base, which just about paid for the cost of printing and distributing the papers. Advertising was

Will mothers attend the Copenhagen climate conference?

2009-07-05T19:51:00.000-07:00

Visualize this: the temperature outside is 105 degrees, with about 80 percent relative humidity. And there is no electricity supply, which means no air-conditioning. That was my experience on the third day after arriving in Chennai, which is India’s fourth largest city with more than seven million people. I suppose I have been spoilt by the temperate conditions in the paradise that the

Tina Fey calls it quits!

2009-07-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

Click here

Happy birthday, America

2009-07-03T16:49:00.000-07:00

Right from when I was a kid—a long time ago in India—I was familiar with the importance of the Fourth of July in the United States because of a family connection: the standing joke at home was that my parents lost their freedom when they got married on the very day that Americans celebrate their independence. So, yes, anniversary greetings to my parents.After my wife and I gained our citizenship,

The end is near ... of the world, that is :-(

2009-07-03T08:40:00.000-07:00

All that talk about green shoots was just too damn premature, it looks like. Which is what I was always worried about.The unemployment numbers do not look good at all. Think about the U-6 numbers then--you will lose sleep!As far as I can make sense, the mess in Iraq has the potential to make this Great Recession a version 2.0 of the Great Depression. The contiguous geography from Iran through

The last emperor .... of India ...

2009-07-02T18:20:00.000-07:00

From the BBC:Madhu is the illiterate great-great-granddaughter of emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar and has been employed to run errands in Coal India's offices. A letter of employment will be formally handed over to her by the coal minister at a function in Calcutta next month. She and her mother currently run a tea stall in the slums of Calcutta.