Food for Thought 18
Important stuff for us Indians. Political Corruption and the Art of the Deal How Trump's business partnerships in India are creating conflicts of interest in the White House and corrupting the presidency By ANJALI KAMAT Investigations into Donald Trump’s foreign entanglements may have largely begun with Russia, but the president and his family have a special relationship with India, too. Since Donald Trump and his children first began talks with developers in India, around 2007, the Trump Organization has entered into more deals there than in any other foreign country. Five of them are still active—four luxury residential projects and one commercial tower—and are valued at an estimated $1.5 billion. Donald Trump Jr. has made at least ten trips to India over the past decade, calling the country “the biggest push for our organization.” His most recent visit was a headline-grabbing jaunt in February. In the days leading up to [...]
Food For Thought 17
This one is a bit long, but believe me it's one of the most brilliant and thought-provoking essays ever written. The title itself is enough to pique your curiosity. And that's not surprising considering it's written by one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th - or any - century: Bertrand Russell. He was a mathematician and a philosopher who wrote many books for the general reader. Thank goodness for that! If you like this essay (I don't see any reason why you shouldn't), go ahead and buy any one of a number of books by him. If you find it a bit tough, read it once without stopping, and then re-read. You'll get it, I promise. Happy reading! In Praise of Idleness By Bertrand Russell [1932] Like most of my generation, I was brought up on the saying: 'Satan finds some mischief for idle hands to do.' Being a [...]
Food For Thought 16
This one is an angry piece but it better be; anyone who's aware of what's going on in the world cannot help being angry. I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT THIS IS THE BEST WE CAN DO Let’s not let history end here please… by NATHAN J. ROBINSON In the beginning there was… well, I don’t know what there was. But then there was a tremendous explosion. Then, for a few hundred million years, there was nothing of much interest. After that, stars and galaxies began to form, and they were fascinating and beautiful, but nobody was there to notice. Billions and billions of years went by, until a molecular cloud happened to collapse, inadvertently giving us the Sun, moon, asteroids, etc. Our humble planet Earth formed by accident, and for billions more years it was wet and gassy, with little to recommend it save some bacteria here and there. Then [...]
Food For Thought 15
Read this one carefully; and really try to understand this. If more people were aware of this and understood it, then we wouldn't be so easily fooled and won't be so unnecessarily impressed by these idiots. Institutionalized Fraud: How Wall Street Survives on Predicting the Past By Jeff Schweitzer “Bull Market - A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius.“ Anon. Entertainers and charlatans who claim to read minds use a common trick of stating the obvious. “I feel there is someone in the audience thinking about a man named Peter.” Given that Peter is a common name, most likely a few vulnerable souls in the crowd will yell “yes, yes” in rapt amazement. If the seer is unlucky that night with an unusual absence of Peters and nobody answers, he would quickly move on to find the right name in a skilled way [...]
Food For Thought 14
This one is cool! It will improve not only your reading skills but logical skills as well. My only suggestion is not to straightaway go to the solution. First work it out as much as possible on your own. The Logic Puzzle You Can Only Solve with Your Brightest Friend POSTED BY BRIAN GALLAGHER ON JUL 16, 2018 You have to cleverly build “common knowledge” to solve this lethal riddle.Wikicommons You’ve been caught snooping around a spooky graveyard with your best friend. The caretaker, a bored old man fond of riddles (and not so fond of trespassers), imprisons each of you in a different room inside the storage shed, and, taking your phones, says, “Only your mind can set you free.” To you, he gestures toward a barred window. Through it, you can see 12 statues. Out of your friend’s window, which overlooks the opposite side of the graveyard, she [...]
Food For Thought 13
The Hunt for Earth’s Deep Hidden Oceans Water-bearing minerals reveal that Earth’s mantle could hold more water than all its oceans. Researchers now ask: Where did it all come from? A couple hundred pebble-size diamonds, plucked from Brazilian mud, sit inside a safe at Northwestern University. To some, they might be worthless. “They’re battered,” said Steve Jacobsen, a mineralogist at Northwestern. “They look like they’ve been through a washing machine.” Many are dark or yellow, far from the pristine gems of jewelers’ dreams. Yet, for researchers like Jacobsen, these fragments of crystalline carbon are every bit as precious — not for the diamond itself, but for what is locked inside: specks of minerals forged hundreds of kilometers underground, deep in Earth’s mantle. These mineral flecks — some too small to see even under a microscope — offer a peek into Earth’s otherwise unreachable interior. In 2014, researchers glimpsed something embedded [...]
Food For Thought 12
This one is on one the heroes of the last century, Rachel Carson. Since 1782, the bald eagle has been the national symbol for the US. Yet, more than 50 years ago, the species was in danger of extinction: in 1966, only 487 pairs remained. The primary culprit was sneaky – a chemical pesticide called DDT. Sprayed from planes to control mosquitoes, DDT seeped into water bodies, where it worked its way up the food web, through aquatic plants to fish, and then to bald eagles who ate the fish. DDT caused the birds to produce thin eggshells so that the eggs often broke during incubation or didn’t hatch. Thanks to writer and scientist Rachel Carson, bald eagle populations have rebounded. (More here)
Vocab 6
More words for you!
Food For Thought 11
Welcome back to another post on developing reading habits, and concomitantly increasing our knowledge. This one deals with our very own country and its past. It's a very basic introduction to Indian Philosophy. And here philosophy is used not in the colloquial sense but in the strict sense of the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline. Introduction Indian Philosophy (or, in Sankrit, Darshanas), refers to any of several traditions of philosophical thought that originated in the Indian subcontinent, including Hindu philosophy, Buddhist philosophy, and Jain philosophy (see below for brief introductions to these schools). It is considered by Indian thinkers to be a practical discipline, and its goal should always be to improve human life. Orthodox (Hindu) Schools The main Hindu orthodox (astika) schools of Indian philosophy are those codified during the medieval period of Brahmanic-Sanskritic scholasticism, and they take [...]
Vocab 5
Here's a wonderful thought, and that it'll teach you new words is bonus!