Girish's Blog

What I'm Reading Rj has taken a collection of Sherlock Holmes short stories from the library and I read them again after probably 20 years. In retrospect, these stories seemed interesting because of the novel character who was the center-piece of the stories and his eccentricities rather than the who-done-it part of it. Most of the stories do not reveal all the clues to the reader - Holmes often goes on solitary expeditions and the reader, along with Dr.Watson is often left in the dark regarding what Holmes has found. In contrast, almost all the Agatha Christie stories have all the clues laid out, although the most crucial clues are always played down, and after the climactic denouement in the library one can go back and find these clues.

Discussion on death penalty with Rj. Kerry had said that he opposes death penalty except for terrorists. My view is that this is pretty wishy-washy - this has to be a black&white issue and one cannot have positions on both sides of the issue. If you impose the death penalty on an individual, terrorist or otherwise, then you are pro-death penalty. Rj thinks that death-penalty should be decided on a case-case basis - I agree, but then one cannot say that one is against death penalty.  

Recieved my gmail account today - a day after Yahoo upped the storage quota to 100MB on the two accounts I have over there. So now it raises the question of whether I need to change my e-mail address to get an additional 900MB !

What I'm reading I normally have multiple books going on in parallel - some are bathroom reading, some are dining room reading and others are dedicated reading. Execution - by Ram Charan and Larry Cassidy Reiterates what every executive needs to know - strategic planning needs to be follwed by execution of the plan and followup. Has some good examples and case studies. Message in a Bottle - Nicholas Sparks Strictly for reading for at those brain dead times when I need to read someting but don't want to concentrate too much. I find it hard to beleive that this is a NY Times best seller. The language is much too convoluted, the story does not flow freely and the characters speak as thoigh they were in a book or a movie. History of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission - Swami Gambhirananda Inspiring reading on Swami Vivekananda and his efforts in arousing a sleeping nation and the organizational efforts in creating the SRK Math and Mission and setting the path they h...

On the Parliamentary elections in India In May 2004 Sonia Gandhi, the leader of the Congress Legislature Party announced that she would not be accepting the post of the Prime Minister of India and that Manmohan Singh would be the PM. This was greeted by her admirers as a great renounciation on par with that of Gautama Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi and an expression of her "Indian" character. Let's look at these aspects: can one renounce what was never one's to claim ? I might as well renounce the Presidency of the United States. The legal eligibility of Sonia Gandhi to assume the post of the PM was never clearly established and all that the Congress party has to claim for this position is the "people's mandate". The Congress Party never projected her as the PMerial candidate and while she certainly nursed ambitions of being the PM, the potential roadblocks on the way possibly dissuaded her.  As Swami Vivekakanda said in his lecture on Karma Yoga, " If...