Arnav's Angle

Canada is planning to go plastic with their bank currency notes! I have been waiting for some country to start this trend for so long. It makes much sense to have plastic money which is basically indestructible as well as much more difficult to counterfeit. Also, in India after the pan wallas and parking wallas have gotten a hold of that paper money it goes through a lot to remain in shape and stinks up your wallet if you receive it. Plastic would definitely solve all these issues and make money last much longer in a better condition. Though we'll loose the crispiness of freshly printed cash from the bank!

Isn't it a paradox that the police/government charges a person if they disobey the law. This amount effectively acts as a revenue for them. Though it is in the best interest of the nation for a person to follow all laws, it is also in the interest of the police department if people commit any unlawful activities, since they get revenue from these actions. Its like a suppliers market: the government provides for the rules that "shouldn't" be broken and the police makes an income when these rules are broken. By driving past a red light and paying a fine, I effectively purchased the action of driving past that red light. There is however a better way of dealing with this situation. Since, the government has a network of various different businesses they conduct, they can allocate all "fine" revenues to a separate purpose such as educational fund, or improving health and sanitation in the city and keep rotating this every year and fix a permanent budget for th...

will nations manage moon property as well as they manage earth? http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/water-moon-north-pole/ Higher funding into space research, space crafts and research on the science of how to sustain life on the moon. It is now only a matter of years!

I love the fact that Gmail has an undo button. I type a long detailed email, send it and within a few seconds change my mind and undo the sending. Voila! I get my mail back. I re-read it, obviously make multiple changes and resend it. And in my case I always remember important points that should be included a few seconds after I've pressed the send button.

Amazing talk about how India will be the superpower in terms of swaying and inspiring people in years to come through its cultural diversity and complexity. Power will not be defined by the size of the army or by the arsenal of nuclear weapons but by their cultural, social and lifestyle philosophies, ideologies and practicality.  You can watch the video at TED talks:  Soft Power Talk is by India's Minister of State for External Affairs, Shashi Tharoor.

Does the language we read/write in have anything to do with how early we get bad vision?  There is obviously a difference within countries, as some countries have a higher percentage of people with bad vision than others. Is the difference due to language, due to climatic and weather conditions and how much sun shines in the area? Can societal eye health be a predictor for something larger, more meaningful, such as how happy the country is, or whether is it more developed?

I've just discovered new information about household lizards. They aren't animals. They aren't from the reptile family. They aren't insects. Household lizards, the kind sitting on your wall right now, are actually highly sophisticated Chinese machinery that the British East India company had traded opium for. By the 1680s the Chinese already had a very sophisticated logic and thinking process, far superior to any other nation (consider "The Art of War", written much earlier). They had discovered everything that was needed to be discovered about the intellectual aspects of the human race and had answered the unanswerable question of life. Powerful knowledge at such a nascent stage of the universe had left them wanting for more than was possible. The British, by then, had discovered everything that was needed to be discovered about the material aspects of life. They had become fearsome seafarers and explorers, krafty tradesmen and businessmen and practical t...

This discussion is dedicated to Mayank Rajgarhia as it is he who suggested discussing it. What do people repent most in life? Is it the things they have done and wish they hadn't or the things they wish they should have done? I think it depends on the time of their life you ask them this question. And for many, it might even be both, in unequal quantities. However after rephrasing the question in another way, the answer becomes more obvious: What do you repent more: having been 'stupid' or having been a 'coward'? Now, this would really give you a better picture. I'm sure more people would now say that they repent having been a 'coward' more, since they would be more acceptable to being defined as a 'coward' rather than calling their actions 'stupid' (Forrest Gump will vouch for this). Most of the things you have done you probably still wish you had, except hoping that less people would know about it. Such as, "having slept...

Yesterday, for the first time I visited the Merchant chamber of commerce in Calcutta and a club (Bengal club) which I hadn't even heard about until then. It is then that I realized how little I know about the city which I live in. If I make a casual estimate I think I would know more about Pittsburgh (where I was for 4 years) than about Kolkata where I've been for 22 years. I think me, myself and our wider generation (16-28) these days involve ourselves so much with the internet and so little with reality that we forget to explore our physical surroundings and rather occupy our time with landmarks on the internet and with sites such as www.stumbleupon.com and www.wikipedia.org and facebook and this one. If I ask someone who has lived in Calcutta for the last 18-25 years if they know where the Customs House is, or  where in India is the Ordnance factory board, or whether they know the best way to get to Sunderbans they will only tell me that I ask ridiculous questions of no ...

ONE TIGHT SLAP! What are the advantages of beating your children?  Beating your child can have huge advantages in terms of discipline. It counts as speedy action from a parent without much effort to think of a better solution. The practice has however died down in recent times. But, what does beating a child do? Does it harm them? It will make them obey your commands, by putting fear in them. It will make them think twice about doing things they aren't supposed to It does not make the child violent. It will make them beat their own children, thereby continuing the trend It releases stress (scientifically proven on rats) The history of 'one tight slap' a.k.a 'zorr ka chaata'. Where did the phrase come from?  Till much after Indian independence children were beaten up thoroughly if they didn't obey. During late 1960s, just around the time when the Beatles had become popular in the United States, the calming effect was passed on to In...