Category Archives: Eclectic

How To Become A Spiritual Guru

Becom­ing a spir­i­tual guru is not as dif­fi­cult as it may seem.
There are one or two guides already writ­ten on the web, but after my pop­u­lar Rule­book for Indian TV News Pro­duc­ers, I thought I would write my own guide to becom­ing a Spiritual Guru.

Appear knowl­edge­able about at least one ancient phi­los­o­phy and way of life.

The Straight Dope FAQ on Indian Elections 2009

Or what news­pa­pers and media will not tell you about the 2009 Indian Par­lia­men­tary Elec­tion.
Will the new gov­ern­ment go in for reform?

Absolutely! Though there may be a slight dif­fer­ence between what every­one under­stands by reform and what the gov­ern­ment means by reform. From the government’s per­spec­tive reform means re-forming the gov­ern­ment. The party in power

Rulebook for Indian TV News Producers

Any new­bie TV News Pro­ducer who wants to com­pete with the top Indian news chan­nels will be well advised to com­ply with the fol­low­ing guidelines:

All news is BREAKING NEWS. This also means that if there is no news, BREAK all jour­nal­ism rules to get BREAKING NEWS.
TV news chan­nels are in the busi­ness of TRPs,

Dreams of An Unquiet Mind

I am amused by peo­ple who say they have no dreams. When even ani­mals dream, how can peo­ple not? An evil thought comes about sub­ject­ing such peo­ple to dream depri­va­tion, if only to advance sci­en­tific under­stand­ing.
I dream both in color as well as in black and white. As with most peo­ple, I have recur­rent dream

Virtues of Politicians

I’m sick and tired of all the politician-bashing that blog­gers seem addicted to these days. Why do we have to be so crit­i­cal all the time? Why not see the glass half-full? Decid­ing to be an opti­mist, I present “Virtues of Politi­cians”:
Politi­cians have great ora­tory skills.
Enthralling thou­sands of peo­ple at ral­lies who stand lis­ten­ing in

Weekend Flea Market 20-Oct-2007

An assort­ment of stuff I came across in cyber­space, offered sec­ond hand, for any­one who may be interested.

Despite veto threats from the Bush admin­is­tra­tion, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives approved the Free Flow of Infor­ma­tion Act that would shield jour­nal­ists — and some blog­gers — from being forced to reveal con­fi­den­tial sources in fed­eral cases. See

Weekend Flea Market 13-Oct-07

The Fri­day Flea Mar­ket is now open all week­end! An assort­ment of stuff I came across in cyber­space, offered sec­ond hand, for any­one who may be interested.

Wired Mag­a­zine has a very inter­est­ing arti­cle on how racial pro­fil­ing can be used in foren­sics with great suc­cess. The Incon­ve­nient Sci­ence of Racial DNA Pro­fil­ing also explains how

QOTD — 10th Oct 2007

After the intense and enlight­en­ing dis­cus­sion on an ear­lier post — An Unquiet Mind Over Mat­ter — I couldn’t help resist shar­ing today’s Quote of the Day from The Quotation’s Page. It’s a per­fect rejoin­der that serves a sump­tu­ous dessert of humor!
Those who believe in tele­ki­net­ics, raise my hand
– Kurt Von­negutUS nov­el­ist (1922 — 2007)

Religion vs. Atheism in Parenting

A few weeks back, I read Richard Dawkins in The God Delu­sion say:
I want us to flinch when we hear of a ‘Chris­t­ian child’ or a ‘Mus­lim child’. Small chil­dren are too young to know their views on life, ethics and the cos­mos. We should no more speak of a Chris­t­ian child than of a

Weekend Flea Market 5-Oct-07

An assort­ment of stuff I came across in cyber­space, offered sec­ond hand, for any­one who may be interested.

If you haven’t read it already, Thomas Friedman’s penul­ti­mate op-ed 9/11 Is Over, is a must-read.
China has now started block­ing all RSS feeds as well.
A woman has been sen­tenced to death by ston­ing in Iran for com­mit­ting adul­tery. Kaman­gir