Some perceptions of India invoke ideas of the British Raj and the colonial rule in nostalgic terms and sometimes not as flattering as you want them to be. I remember watching films on "heat" and "dust" and the snobbish, nose-in-air attitude associated with colonial history and feeling a little uneasy. There is a bit of that even in the more recent "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" but the story in the end is positive and kind of embraces all that is India. Coming back to heat and dust and weather one wonders what we could perhaps write about where we live and the never ending winter. It also depends on which end of the perception spectrum you happen to be located.

A decade earlier, the weekend would be a virtual get together because Indians would call their family and friends from the United States once a week and speak to everybody at home. This was because the calling rates were exorbitant. However, calling rates dropped and then came the VoIP technology, which meant calling at any time was possible.

Bad news has this habit of sneaking up from behind when I am relaxing in my rocking chair. Man always has to wrestle with man-made laws, and high-handedness is universal. Little changes from country to country except the rules of engagement, but the pin hold on the individual remains the same, no matter where you live. Life, as you know, will kill you. And then, as reliable soothsayers confirm, you die. But, what if you don’t leave the planet for good, and are left to nurse insult upon injury, as in the following story?

According to the World Bank report of 2010, Chinese people saved the most that year by putting away 38 percent of their earnings as savings. The reason given is China has no national safety net. India came in second at 34.7 percent due to their accelerated Gross Domestic Product growth, followed by Turkey (19.5 percent), Switzerland (14.3 percent), Ireland (12.3 percent), Britain (7 percent), Brazil (6.8 percent), the United States (3.9 percent), Japan (2.8 percent) and Australia at 2.5 percent. Take note that the United States is not in the last place, whereas, Japan's past stellar habits of 15 percent or more savings have taken a hard beating after two "lost decades" with stagflation (Stagnation + Deflation) and near zero interest rates to dig the economy out from a deep hole (sounds familiar).

It is the season of increased giving. There is almost a flurry of activity heading to tax preparer’s offices to ascertain how much can be donated for a good return. Aid is built into the economic system of this country as much as it is in its culture. And charity is a most appreciated quality. Development aid has long been recognized as crucial to help poor developing nations grow out of poverty. It is of significance that the United Nations has urged developed countries to spend 0.7 percent of their national income on aid to poorer nations, a target that remains quite indefinite. According to the most recent figures of the Development Assistance Committee, a consortium of the world’s main donors, the developed world gave nearly $120 billion in assistance to the developing world in 2009, or 0.32 percent.

 

Last month, I arrived in Barrington, R.I., after traveling to Pune for a month. I also visited Mumbai and Delhi, combining work with family visits. I grew up, went to school, college, and worked in India. I have lived in America for over 20 years and have returned to visit India on more than 10 occasions. However, every time I return from India, I feel I have entered America for the first time. America is my other home, where I work as a college professor and live in a suburban home with my wife and kids.

Sadly, India rapes for the same reasons that India bribes, honks unnecessarily, drives drunk and over speeds, why it pushes and pulls and can't form a line, also why it spits and urinates where it wants and why it refuses to clean its hands before dishing out food with the same hands.

By Puran Dang

 

The children are gone, their infectious smiles are gone

The murder of Jyoti Singh Pandey, the New Delhi college student who was kidnapped, gang-raped, and died late last month, represents the treatment of India by its politicians, the Organization of Minorities of India said in a statement.

 

In his book "Why Smart People Do Stupid Things with Money," Bert Whitehead describes eight different financial personalities. For the past seven years I've taken a character from Dickens's A "Christmas Carol" and used them to illustrate one of these personalities.

We all have heard the expression that time is a great healer. But what we have not heard too often is that it also attenuates the impact of the event as time goes by. The Aurora, Tucson, Virginia Tech and Columbine horrors have faded and, with the passage of time, the memory of Newtown, Conn., massacre — caused by a military-style killing machine — will also decay for the event to become just one more carnage marker on the highway of mass murders. The tragic episode played out in Sandy Hook Elementary School proved once more that, under the veil of "citizen protection," guns are killing Americans, including young children, and that big guns kill big time.

Sometime around 350 BC, Aristotle observed thus: "He who has not learned to obey cannot be a good commander."

By that token, re-elected President Barack Obama can only be a half good commander since he pushes for the causes of 50 percent of Americans and disobeys the other half. But all this can change with a stroke of boldness. The country is too divided and for it to continue like this bodes disaster from here on unless something is done quite bold. Since Obama does not have to be re-elected, he can be real bold.

If you think voting is a waste of time – then think again. It is the people, who by exercising their right to vote, elect  local, state and federal officials, including the President and thus push forward policies that loom large on the town, your job, your taxes, your health care, your children’s education and hence the future of this nation itself. Elections are the cornerstones of our democracy and, in fact, voting is the process to form a healthier democracy that then is able to facilitate the most vital want of our life – happiness.