This is what I am hoping to read this weekend…(Update: Excerpts added)
Ramasetu: Protecting heritage and coastline (A ppt presentation, 31 March 2012) by Dr Kalyanaramam
Who’s Responsible for Meeting the Cyber Threat? by Alan Woodward
So what have governments done in response to this situation? Well, they have acted in remarkably different ways.
For example, you might imagine the all-out attack on Estonia in 2007 would have led to an aggressive response. Instead it led to the formation of the Co-operative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCD COE). The purpose of CCD …

Start your Sunday evening with It’s Tracking Your Every Move and You May Not Even Know by Noam Cohen:
A favorite pastime of Internet users is to share their location: services like Google Latitude can inform friends
when you are nearby; another, Foursquare, has turn ed reporting these updates into a game.
…But as a German Green party politician, Malte Spitz, recently learned, we are already continually being tracked whether we volunteer to be or not. Cellphone companies do not typically divulge how much information they collect, so Mr. Spitz went to court to find out …

Very brief excerpts from some of the blogs/stories I am reading (and thinking about) this weekend…
Japan earthquake: Emperor Akihito’s exceptional speech

Minutes before Emperor Akihito made his first-ever television address to his people, the Japanese public broadcaster NHK instructed its editors to cut into the speech if important news on the unfolding nuclear crisis broke
Japan earthquake: Emperor Akihito’s exceptional speechMinutes before Emperor Akihito made his first-ever television address to his people, the Japanese public broadcaster NHK instructed its editors to cut into the speech if important news on the unfolding nuclear …

This weekend, I will be focusing on Kashmir…To set the tone, here is a small selection of some great background articles on Kashmir…Pl do read through all of them. Some reiterate points made by other commentators; others raise fresh issues. All are thought-provoking.  Read on:
First, excerpts from A ‘moth-eaten’ India? by Chandan Mitra (Feb ’10; emphasis added):
A small but influential section of public opinion in India has been pleading for “flexibility” in the Government’s approach to the Kashmir issue. Some important opinion makers have, in fact, gone on record to …

Here is what I read this weekend….
First, a strong case by Prof R Vaidyanathan on why our “kirana” stores need to be supported (emphasis added):
…More than 125 lakh kirana stores provide a source of livelihood to 16 crore people…The retail trade comprises all kinds of people and formats — from street vendors to departmental stores of various types, shapes and characteristics.
More than 80% of trade is accounted for by partnership and proprietorship forms — often called the unorganised sector. The kirana shop adjacent to my home opens at 7am …

This weekend, three excerpts – on three very different topics – sent to me by three friends.
The first is an excerpt from a keynote speech delivered by Sh Sam Pitroda on “India in a globalized world” at Nehru Centre, Mumbai (Thanks Prashant):
…Today, education is definitely on the national agenda. I believe that this is a great window of opportunity because we have a very large young population. We are prepared to invest on education. Our economy is growing at 8 to 10%. But, at the same time, don’t have big …

This weekend, please find a selection of articles from the North-East, touching on some of the topics previously discussed here. More “Notes from North-East” next week. Stay tuned.
The first extract on Majuli, the world’s largest riverine island in the world and its “Satras“:
Majuli was one of the nerve-centres of the Neo-Vaisnavite Movement during its heydays. It was at Majuli (then known as Dhuwahat, Ahom territory) that Mahapurusha Srimanta Sankaradeva met his foremost disciple and apostolic successor, Madhavadeva for the very first time, in the 16th century. This event, referred to …

Dear All:  This weekend reading is in a different format from previous ones…Please do give me your feedback or indeed other ideas for improvement. Thanks a lot.

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“Demography is destiny”, said Augustus Comte, a French philosopher of the 19th century. Demography, to use a simple definition, means the religious, cultural, or any secular, composition of a nation’s population. As the French were the first to understand the ideas of nation-state and national interest that originated in the 18th and 19th centuries, they could realise the criticality of demography to a nation-state. …

First, some excerpts from a piece by Gerard Alexander on Why are liberals so condescending?
Every political community includes some members who insist that their side has all the answers and that their adversaries are idiots. But American liberals, to a degree far surpassing conservatives, appear committed to the proposition that their views are correct, self-evident, and based on fact and reason, while conservative positions are not just wrong but illegitimate, ideological and unworthy of serious consideration. Indeed, all the appeals to bipartisanship notwithstanding, President Obama and other leading liberal voices …

This is what I am reading this weekend.
How Bengal towns are becoming transit points for fake notes
West Bengal’s intelligence agencies have expressed concern that Pakistan-and Bangladesh-based racketeers are using the state’s Murshidabad and Malda districts as transit points to smuggle in fake notes to India.
Statistics reveal fake notes of nearly Rs 2.5 crore was seized from more than 300 people arrested over the past five years…
The arrested people revealed Murshidabad and Malda as transit points for the fake money racket.
…Chapai Nawabgunj is one of many centres in Bangladesh where …