*** An evening with Dr Chandraprakash Dwivedi ***

Last evening, we had Dr ChandraPrakash Dwivedi at our home for dinner (thanks to Amitabh). I had met Dr Dwivedi before but last night was different…
We talked not just about “Chanakya” but also Buddhist philosophy, film-making, Vedanta and some of his recent projects, including “Upanishad Ganga“.
And I learnt what it is to be truly humble…The first thing that strikes you about the man is his humility. In spite of his prodigal talent and extraordinary creativity, there is not a trace of arrogance or …

Two things stand out from my visit to Bharat last week: lots of (sometimes too sweet) tea and a palpable sense of hope.
I managed to squeeze in four semi-public meetings during my 4-city trip, and several private conversations centred on political reforms and prospects for change in India..
The first of these meetings – in Bengaluru – was organised by Janaagraha on the topic of “New Age Political Movements” in India. I shared a panel with Dr Shankar Prasad who is contesting as a Loksatta candidate in the upcoming BBMP elections. …

This post has been pending for awhile. But I felt today was a very appropriate day to reflect back on five years of blogging that has generated more than 1000 posts.
As you will notice from the screenshot below, the blog had the highest number of daily hits yesterday (by a wide margin) following the “Open Letter” post that went live on Rediff.

At one point, the site was pulling in hundreds of comments every hour. As I noted elsewhere, although I was overwhelmed, I should not have been surprised since this …

जाड़े की एक सुबह…
सूरज से आँख मिचौली करते हुए पंछी…और सूर्य-किरणों से गर्माहट पाती हुई कुछ तितलियाँ…

उनमे से एक भोली सी, नन्ही सी तितली…
हौले से, चुपके से पास आई…
और पुछा: “इतने उदास क्यूँ हो?“
.
“राष्ट्र संकट में है…विनाशकारी शक्तियां बलवान हो रहीं हैं…
इस सुनहरी धुप में मैं आने वाले संकट की चिंता में डूबा हूँ…”
.
वह बोली..
“अपने आप को सम्हालो…जब आप नहीं रहोगे तो देश को क्या बचाओगे?
…अपने आप को सम्हालो…सामर्थ्य एकत्रित करो…
लोगों में आशा जगाओ ..उन्हें प्रेरित करो…
एकत्रित करो, संगठित करो…
पर स्वयं ही उदास रहोगे तो …

On Wed evening, as the chaos at Heathrow was unfoldoing in front of me, the “still calm” part of my brain was thinking about what might have triggered the seeming breakdown of the entire system…
Not that the snow or the severe weather was a surprise…
And not that things were somehow smooth until 7pm before suddenly unravelling…
As early as 11am on that day, flights were being cancelled and rescheduled. Even while this was happening, online departure schedules were blithely showing “Scheduled” for flights later in the day; albeit with a disclaimer: …

*** CAUTION: Long Post. Not Funny ***
I rarely write posts about personal matters on this blog but I think what happened with me on 6th Jan deserves a blog post…
Those of you who live and/or have visited the “developed world” know that it is rare to come across instances of complete meltdown in such a “system”.
Yet, when they do happen, the failure can be “spectacular”. I have always been fascinated by what causes such breakdowns and how can they be averted. Yesterday, I got a glimpse of one.  Here is …

Regular readers may remember one of my fond dreams that I first mentioned on the blog more than a year ago.
This dream was the “Hope Summit” – first indicated in a post in Sept ‘08 (and many times since). An idea that was hatched over an animated dinner discussion one summer night in Delhi might finally become a reality.

This coming weekend, a small number of political activists and representatives from half-a-dozen political groups will meet in Pune to discuss our approach towards electoral politics, the challenge of creating an alternative …

Dear All: I’m very pleased to announce that all posts on || Satyameva Jayate || are now being cross-posted on the Offstumped Community portal.
To those of you who have not yet discovered it, the portal is:
A Community of Indians committed to Freedom and National Interest drawing philosophical, ideological and political inspiration from ancient Indian ideas of Truth and Justice

To those already familiar with the forum, I would request you to please join the discussions and debates that are being held on a regular basis (the  next online discussion is this …

The first post of 2010 – a brief excerpt from Chapter 3,  The Way of Action (emphasis mine):
Arjuna asked:
Hey God, if you feel that, wisdom is superior to action,
Why are you pushing me to do this savage war? 1
You seem to enchant my brain by your conflicting words,
Please tell me decisively that, by which I will get fame. 2

Lord said:
Oh sinless one, in the times ancient, I had taught
Two distinct ways of paths to follow,
The path of wisdom for the discriminatory and
The path of action to those performers of action. …

I have so much to say…but for once, I feel lost for words…
This post is an important milestone in a journey that began more than five years ago. It is the 1000th post published on this blog. It feels like a lot… but your support, encouragement, participation and engagement has made this a truly enjoyable experience.
Without its readership, this blog would have been a lone voice in the wilderness. Thanks to everyone who stumbled on this blog, or were referred to by a friend or discovered it accidentally – or …

UPDATE: The total amount raised now stands at £400*. Sincere thanks to everyone who pitched in (list below)
***
Yesterday evening, 20-25 souls braved the sub-10 degree temperatures and the London rush hour to join us at a small gathering to remember the attack on Mumbai last year.
We did what most of you felt we should have done.
We honoured the memory of those gave their lives to protect ours…and we had an open discussion on terrorism and ways to tackle the challenge.
Highlights: A presentation by Amitabh Soni that brought back the memories …

…happening over the next 2 days. I hope the changeover will be smooth.
In case of any major hiccup (I hope not), please direct your browser to this URL: http://bshantanu.wordpress.com/ where I will post updates (only in an emergency).
In case you see anything strange or not like what it should be, please email me at jaidharma AT gmail.com
There are still some issues with rendering Devanagari font properly on the blog and I hope to get around to fixing it soon (by the way, in case you are reading this and are …

If you’ve ever found yourself having accidentally deleted v. v. important photos/audio/video from a memory card/ memory stick, SD card etc, despair not…
Check out ZAR Data Recovery Software which saved my skin y’day…(and helped maintain domestic bliss in the household).
As someone has written on their site: “This stuff simply works…”.  I “discovered” it after using (and abandoning) half-a-dozen different software apps.  I hope you don’t have to use it…but if you do, you will be impressed.
P.S. The image recovery application is free…and in case you are wondering, I have not …

Dear All: Just a brief reminder to everyone regarding my comments policy. Pl. do read.
*** Important Points about Comments on this blog ***
All irrelevant and/or off-topic comments will be removed without notice.
All comments with tenuous links to the post will be removed without notice.
Comments that are not posted on the appropriate threads will be removed without notice. To find relevant threads to post to, please use the “Search” box in the right-hand side bar or the “Categories” drop down menu at the bottom of the right hand side bar.
Comments that …

Enjoy excerpts from this stunning piece, courtesy Mises.org (emphasis mine).
*** Excerpts from The Trouble with Democracy: Maslow Meets Hoppe by Doug French ***
Chapter 24 from Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe.
H.L. Mencken described politicians as “men who, at some time or other, have compromised with their honour, either by swallowing their convictions or by whooping for what they believe to be untrue.“[1]
The Sage of Baltimore had it correct, that to be elected and stay elected in American politics to any full-time position requires the suspension of …

Dear All: I am opening this second thread to continue the discussion over from On Religious Freedoms and Secularism. I am reproducing the last few comments to maintain continuity in the discussion. I believe the comments have been reproduced accurately but if some of them look misplaced, pl. let me know.
Please continue to share your thoughts below.
Thank you.

Thoight-provoking excerpts from Arun Shourie’s We must have no price… (emphasis mine):
In one who will stand up to power…conduct and character are everything.
1. ..the first thing to do is to avoid: to avoid the activists’ virus — one that attacks newspapermen as much as activists. There is a real injustice, a real case of wrongdoing. The activist or newspaperman chances upon the evidence. He takes up the issue. As he succeeds, more and more persons reach out to him, and point him in the direction of other wrongs. More and …

To all my readers I owe a big apology. I have long been promising a definition of the word “Dharma” – a word that crops up every now and then in many discussions on this blog – and is also the part of my blog’s sub-title. But as I started to write this post, I realised that this should actually have been one of my first posts, if not the first. Anyways, better late than never.
As I began to do some background reading on this subject, I realised that it …

This post has been pending for a while. A few months ago, the Freedom Team of India (of which I am a member) released its draft policy on Religious Freedom and Tolerance for public comment. I was reminded of this when I read Atanu Dey’s recent article in Pragati. I believe this matter is worthy of serious debate and at the heart of some critical challenges that we face in our polity today.
I am therefore reproducing excerpts from the FTI policy and Atanu’s article below to prompt a discussion. Pl. …

This post has been long overdue…It is a very small attempt at saying “Thank You” to those whose toil has made my blog a bit more friendlier, nicer and useful.
Those of you who blog and/or are thinking of starting your own blog, pl. do consider these plugins…I don’t think you will be disappointed.
Top of my list: Akismet…which keeps my comments inbox sane and safe…Akismet is one of the best spam comments filter  – ever. It was developed by the smart folks who wrote the WordPress code…If you have a WordPress …