Category: Reviews

  • Hinduism by Kshiti Mohan Sen

    With a foreword by his better known grandson, Amartya Sen, I picked up this Penguin paperback 2002 reprint of Kshiti Mohan Sen’s 1961 book last year at a Kochi bookshop. With only 138 pages for a very grand title “Hinduism”, the book seems overambitious from its cover itself. Yet, I found it to be a fairly comprehensive account…

  • Tibet, Tibet: A review

    Meanwhile, at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles, the Dalai Lama blessed a new Shi-Tro mandala (a three-dimensional religious sculpture) in front of a large, paying audience. The mandala had been created by a Tibetan monk who ran a local Buddhist centre, assisted by his American wife, who worked in creative marketing for…

  • A confused biodiversity congress: First impressions from the 2nd Indian Biodiversity Congress

    For every complex problem, there is a simple solution, and it is invariably wrong – Madhav Gadgil, quoting HL Mencken at the 2nd Indian Biodiversity Congress I had an opportunity to attend the 2nd Indian Biodiversity Congress that started today in Bangalore. What was quite amazing was the diversity of speakers in terms of their background/disciplines…

  • Refly speaking

    If I have seen further, it is by using a good reference manager… Well, Newton certainly did not have a great reference manager, nor did he perhaps need one. Those were days (at least in the Western world) when the best way to “catch up” on emerging research was to attend one of the society…

  • Aloha Oe: A review

      Aloha Oe is a short story by Jack London, an American author. The story is set in the wharf of a Hawaiian Island, where a ship is just departing with the coterie of a Senator who is just winding up a junketing trip to the island. The senator is accompanied by his daughter, Dorothy. The…