Reading list:

An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions (2012)

An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions 4 / 5 stars. Equally devastating and enlightening. Dreze and Sen’s academic take on India’s ironic growth story — how it came to be one of the fastest growing economies in 2012, while still pitifully lagging behind in critical human indices — is extremely well researched, even-keeled, and eye-opening.

Through a blunt, data-driven narrative (bereft of opinions) the economists lay bare the systemic neglect that has befallen India’s underprivileged at the hands of policy-makers, mass media, politicians, and even the “relatively” privileged.

While the authors attempt to maintain a slight undertone of hope throughout the book, you can’t help but lament the state of affairs, especially when contrasted against other developing economies (some far far behind in their economic journey). The opportunity lost hurts all the more in the domestic comparisons, where one can clearly see that change is possible, right there in the same country, just a few states away.

As heavy as it can be at times, it does make for a very good read.

[On the connection between low birthweights and poor nutritional health in women] … adult women are more undernourished in South Asia than almost anywhere else in the world. - Chapter: The Nutritional Failure

The long-standing neglect [of childcare service] arises partly from a common assumption that the care of young children is best left to the household. - Chapter: Childcare As A Social Responsibility

What is really startling is not so much that the official poverty line is so low (Rs. 32 per person per day), but that even with this low benchmark, so many people are below it – a full 30% of the population in 2009-10, or more than 350 million people. - Chapter: Poverty and Social Support

“The definitive idea for deliberative democracy is the idea of deliberation itself. When citizens deliberate, they exchange views and debate their supporting reasons concerning public political questions.” - John Rawls, Theory of Justice

“Patience is a minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.” - Chapter: Impatience and Democracy

A Gentleman in Moscow

A Gentleman in Moscow Review in progress.

Vyshinsky: Why did you write the poem?

“It demanded to be written.” - Alexander Ilyich Rostov

And the galaxy turns as well, a wheel within a greater wheel, … And when that celestial chime sounds, perhaps a mirror will suddenly serve its truer purpose – revealing to a man not who he imagines himself to be, but who he has become.

For if a room that exists under the governance, authority, and intent of others seems smaller than it is, then a room that exists in secret can, regardless of its dimensions, seem as vast as one cares to imagine.

Fate would not have the reputation it has if it simply did what it seemed it would do.