I have been reading Sen's excellent memoir 'Home in the World' published recently. His reflections on Marx, Adam Smith and Srafa are a valuable reading to explore the long arc of key ideas in economics. One of those ideas is the idea of value. Taking a leap from there, the following is a reflection on … Continue reading The real conflict in gig work – Marx, Sen and Technology
Category: Reflection
Russia and Ukraine
Few thoughts on the Russia - Ukraine war that is going on. Some of the most generous and affable people I have met in my travels were Ukrainians. A poetry collection of Wislawa Szymborska sits on my bookshelf as I think of Ukraine. A friend pulled it out from her shelf as I spoke of … Continue reading Russia and Ukraine
Roundup 2021
Leh. December, 2021 It was a productive year on several counts. It was also a year when the pandemic became a fixture and most of life and work kept getting rearranged around it. I can’t recollect a single decision taken in 2021 that wasn’t adjusted for Covid-19. There were daily realizations of how uncertain and … Continue reading Roundup 2021
Day 432: ‘Can fight Covid, not starvation’
22/05/2021 Day 432 ‘Can fight Covid, not starvation’ It is the 432nd day of the pandemic. Things lose meaning when they go on for long. The pandemic seems to be one such. The count is suffering the same fate. Yet, I keep at it. This is the only harmless continuity. The mood right now is … Continue reading Day 432: ‘Can fight Covid, not starvation’
The only worlds of existence
These are thoughts on digital saturation, Twitter and my conscious attempt to step away. The transfer of our life’s processes to the digital world seems near complete now. There is barely a task in our daily life that we do completely un-mediated by digital technology. Or, without using an ‘online’ tool. So much so that the … Continue reading The only worlds of existence
Books Read in 2020
This comes in after a quarter of 2021 has already slipped by. I could only draw a blank when I tried to recollect all the books that I read in the past year. It had to wait until I returned to Bangalore and look at the shelves and pull out all of them. Visual memory … Continue reading Books Read in 2020
Alternatives
Walking up on the trail I hear a gentle creaking of pine trees. The mid-winter weather is foggy with intermittent rain. Up on the ridge sits a small village at about 2900 meters altitude. The snowline begins here. It is colder and windy than the valley. A motorable road rises up from the valley and … Continue reading Alternatives
Roundup 2020
If there was a time when we actually meant most of what we said, it is this year. Our ‘how are you doing’ has often been genuine this year. We have wished to hear from our relatives and friends hoping that they are fine. That they have not caught the virus. That they haven’t lost … Continue reading Roundup 2020
On comparison and its impact
The following are some thoughts on 'comparison' - the theme of a module in a course on ideas in education. A mark of the current times is that there is space in a typical day's schedule to explore these ideas and reflect on their relevance in life. Beginning from within the family, some of the … Continue reading On comparison and its impact
Day 105: Pandemic and us
Ajangaon, July 2020 07/07/2020 Day 105 This morning we went beyond the little hillock on which the road climbs up immediately, from the coffee point where we sit during rides. It is a short ramp, about a kilometer long. It then descends into an expansive flat land until the next low rise hill range in … Continue reading Day 105: Pandemic and us
Contested Realities 