Watched the financial-thriller-drama movie “The Big Short” the other day. As you might already know, the movie is on the sub-prime crisis of 2007-08 and resulting Great Recession, about four guys who looked around and predicted that the US housing market was a bubble which would crash in the imminent future, taking banks and the…
Everyone needs a home. In ancient times, people built houses to live and last a lifetime. Then modernity happened and the house turned from primarily a place to live to an investment vehicle and a speculative instrument, turning home-buying turned into a high-stakes gamble. In big cities, space crunch dictated that homes be concrete boxes…
People are dumbfounded at Kerala appointing retired tennis legend Steffi Graf as the state’s brand ambassador for Ayurveda. Aren’t there enough eligible Mallus in Malluland to promote Ayurveda? Why Graf when we have Sreesanth? (OK bad joke). The reason is simple. She is selected to promote Ayurveda (and Kerala) outside India and not within the…
“Sir, all you need to do is just walk into our store!” This phrase is used by customer service people in India like it is the magic spell. When you hit a deadwall trying to grapple over bad the bad phone connection with the customer care executive help with your aforesaid bad phone connection, they…
One of the channels of outrage in the aftermath of the brutal, inhuman violation, assault by six men and subsequent death of the 23-year old lady in Delhi was directed at an unexpected target: The Indian Punjabi rapper Honey Singh (Yo! Yo! Honey Singh). It started on the internet first and on the ground later…
How the 45th US president-elect and the issues that dominated his high-voltage election campaign will actually turn out as a matter of policy continue to be subject to intense speculation. However, drowned out by all the din about the wall, illegal immigrants, Muslims, ISIS or trade pacts, there were a lot of other issues that…
So, as per the US and President Barack Obama, Osama Bin Laden is dead. If Wikipedia, the trusted source of all the World’s information is to be believed, the operation to nab him was carried out by a “Joint Special Operations Command” of the US Army with inputs from the CIA. This shatters our belief…
Yesterday, India’s uncrowned king of bubblegum literature, Chetan Bhagat, decided to celebrate Father’s Day by recycling an old locker room joke about child custody and a Coke vending machine. Minutes after the tweet was published, all hell broke loose and a shitstorm of outrage ensued on Twitter with all kinds of people, trolls, bots and…
This is not a review for the movie ‘The Social Network’. Enough accolades and adjectives have been doled out for the Movie, Facebook, Mark Zukerberg and etc. The movie itself was just above the ordinary as far as I am concerned, but all its pitfalls were eclipsed by the raw awesomeness of the story and portrayal on how the guy built up Facebook….
The Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) has a long and illustrious history that precedes even the state of Kerala or India. It starts in 1937 when the Travancore State Transport Department was constituted by HH Sree Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, the Maharaja of Travancore. The first buses were imported from England. Post independence the TSTD was incorporated as an…
Electric vehicles are the future. Most arguments levelled against EVs are only well-placed misconceptions. Did you know most EVs now offer 250-300 km range as standard on a single charge?
There was a time not so long ago which today would be difficult to even imagine having existed. I am talking about those ancient days when there was no way to meet people other than physically getting out of your house and encounter other human beings face to face. Young Indian people were the ones…