"Wealth is the tool of freedom, but the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery". Frank Herbert   A friend, a successful entrepreneur and long-range thinker, laments that in recent years the best brains have been gravitating toward the financial sector. How, he and I were wondering the other day, had these bright minds become so obsessed with wealth creation? Too many people now concentrate on investments – in real estate, equities and...Read the full article »

"One Size Slipper doesn’t fit all".   That was the message in  a recent article by Prof. Jeffrey Hammer from Princeton University. He was writing on a village self-government (Gram Swaraj) scheme funded by the World Bank in Karnataka, India.   According to the article, a village in the Gulbarga district of north Karnataka decided to use discretionary funds from the World Bank to build better toilet facilities. Given the arid conditions,  the only...Read the full article »

Imagine that the official length of a meter changed day to day – 80 centimeters today, for example, and 115 centimeters tomorrow. And that every country had its own measure of length – say the meter in India and the yard in the US – and the conversion rate between the yard and the meter again varied from day to day.   This confusing jumble is what we have been living with for the past 38 years with one of the most important facets of our lives –...Read the full article »