Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness

Tale of Two Countries: Slumdog Millionaire & The Story of India

by Anurag Wadehra

Recently, the controversial Slumdog Millionaire, a British film set in India, swept up four Golden Globe awards with its emotional story of a kid from slums who aces the Indian version of the game-show "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire." The movie is playing across the various U.S. cities, powered by strong word of mouth endorsement.

At the same time, PBS finished showing a six-part documentary series called the Story of India. Hailed as an impressive compression of Indian history from ancient to modern times, the doc serves as a resume of the nation: it casts all the significant milestones of India in the very best light while airbrushing the persistent Indian conflicts of caste, religion and class.

Cato's brilliant Ad

by Reena Kapoor

Hundreds of economists, including Nobel laureates and other prominent scholars, have signed a statement that the Cato Institute has placed in major newspapers across the United States. Take a look if you have not seen this already: Download CATO AD

Random Notes on Obama's Ascent

by Reena Kapoor

As the nation celebrates and pours all its hopes into a vessel called Obama, a libertarian like me watches from the sidelines, a little bewildered at the enormity of the emotion and wonders if I am missing something. 

"The Call of Conscience"

by Anurag Wadehra

For your spiritual reflection, you can do no better than read the posthumous editorial of Lasantha Wickramatunga, the editor of the newspaper Sunday Leader in Sri Lanka. He was killed two weeks ago for his fierce criticism of the Sri Lankan government's handling of its war on terror against LTTE (the separatist terror group also called the Tamil Tigers).

Auto Sins

by Reena Kapoor

A funny video related to green automobiles presented of course in an entertaining way! Be sure to pay attention to the audio - it's remarkably well-written.

The Power of Parody

by Anurag Wadehra

Stop This Viscious Slaughter is an excellent satire by Martin Lewis on Huffington Post comparing the current Hamas-Israeli conflict to that between England and Germany in the Second World War. Unlike political op-eds where each side lays out its arguments in critical, logical terms, with ad nauseum debates on definitions and premises, the parody relies on the rhetorical power of similarity and association between the two situations.

Message and the messenger

by Anurag Wadehra

In this commentary Don't say capitalism is wrong, the content itself is hardly newsworthy: a principled defense of capitalism that is familiar to most libertarians.

That the author Kaushik Das is an economist working for an obscure Indian bank; that he is published in the premier Indian news website; that there is hardly any MSM newspaper in U.S. that would publish such an unapologetic defense of capitalism - is worth pausing to reflect.

Satyam Gets Eaten By The Tiger: Reality

by Anurag Wadehra

By now, the spectacular flameout of Satyam, the fourth largest Indian IT firm, is front page news. The obvious irony - Satyam means truth in Sanskrit - has not escaped the media.

What is more instructive however is the utter lack of irony or remorse in the CEO's letter to the board, in which Ramalinga Raju brazenly defends his actions to procure more funds by duping fresh victims right till the very end. This brief letter offers a remarkably clear insight into Raju's ethical framework, or rather the lack of it.

Rand: Always relevant...

by Reena Kapoor

Simply brilliant article in WSJ by Stephen Moore Atlas Shrugged: From fiction to fact in 52 years about how we've completely lost our way and the US has indeed become a mockery of a society Rand predicted it would if it followed its bad egalitarian/socialist economic policies.  The article simply makes you sad and angry about the state of affairs in this so called bastion of capitalism & liberty!

Life of An Innovator: Josiah Wedgwood

by Anurag Wadehra

While many of us have admired the Wedgwood pottery, we may not have heard of the man who created the enterprise. In an interview with Ockham's Razor titled Innovator for the Ages, Professor Mark Dodgson of University of Queensland, Australia, nominates Josiah Wedgwood, founder of the Wedgwood Company, as one of the greatest innovators of all time.

That's a tall claim, until one reads about the life of this astounding man.