Nothing stops you from learning

not poverty, not the lack of a school, not the lack of money, just a teacher, a wall and willing minds

a temporary school under some under construction flyovers in New Delhi, India with couple of volunteer teachers.

bravo!

The Writer Who Built the World’s First Engine-Powered Submarine

What a man. Quixotic yes but there's a man with a vision. Truly before his time son. Somebody who can achieve much! He failed to operationalise his submarine but he is remembered for being unreasonable and not taking no for an answer. And then he was a writer fighting for what he believed in. 

And a wonderful happy birthday to you son. You're 18 now. A man in all senses. My prayers are with you for you to have a happy life son. 

Love

Baba

The Writer Who Built the World’s First Engine-Powered Submarine
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Writer-Who-Built-the-Worlds-First-Engine-Powered-Submarine--224148171.html

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Narcis Monturiol loved the ocean’s corals so much, that he built a machine so he could better enjoy them

• By Rob Dunn
• Smithsonian.com, September 18, 2013, Subscribe

A man cannot one day just decide to build a submarine, much less the first poweredsubmarine, much less if that man is a writer. Yet that is just what Narcis Monturiol did.

As a young firebrand of the mid-19th century, Monturiol flirted with inflammatory subjects including feminism and Communism, placing him under the watchful eye of an oppressive regime. When he fled to Cadaqués, an isolated town on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, he found a peaceful fishing village where he could expand on his ideas of a Utopian world. It turned out that Cadaqués would also be the inspiration for his biggest idea.

Mapping temperaments

 

A fascinating visualisation of how artists show off their temperament. You may debate the placements, but its very interesting to see where the chaps are placed, eh?

Why would you want to repair your hymen 5 times?

This news story is just erm bordering on the off the wtfness scale so many times like its a demented bottle fly banging its head against a window.

I quote the last bit which also completely bewildered me.

Possibly the most interesting thing about both of these websites is that they feature bundle offers—at hymenshop.com, you can get five artificial hymens for $114.95; athymenshop.net, you can get five of them for $103. I’m honestly trying to envision the situation that would call for five artificial hymens—I haven’t had any success yet. It could be a good device in a grim yet devastatingly entertaining farce by Pedro Almodóvar.

Exporting Christianity: Governance and doctrine in the globalization of US denominations

Modelling the spread of Christianity, fascinating study here.

In this paper we build a model of market competition among religious denominations, using a framework that involves incomplete contracts and the production of club goods. We treat denominations akin to multinational enterprises, which decide which countries to enter based on local market conditions and their own “productivity.” The model guides us in estimating how a denomination's religious doctrine and governance structure affect its ability to attract adherents. Using data on the foreign operations of US Protestant denominations in 2005 from the World Christian Database, we find that (1) denominations with stricter religious doctrine attract more adherents in countries in which the risk of natural disaster or disease outbreak is greater and in which government provision of health services is weaker, and (2) denominations with a decentralized governance structure attract more adherents in countries in which the pastor cost of connecting with congregants is lower. These findings illuminate factors shaping the composition of religion within countries, helping account for the rise of new Protestant groups. They also provide empirical evidence for the recent theoretical developments in organization and trade.

India is one of the countries where there is a pretty significant missionary push. Entire states have been proselytised out of their ancient Hindu/Animist background like Nagaland and as one has noted, that sometimes comes with a rather strong pushback. I quote from their conclusion:

The literature provides explanations for why strict religious groups have prospered in Israel (Berman, 2000) and Indonesia (Chen, 2010), based on Iannaccone's (1992) model of religious groups as clubs. Our contribution is to show theoretically and empirically how denominations compete for believers and how country characteristics affect the market value of a denomination's attributes, which is helpful for understanding the global expansion of Protestant Christianity. Strictness is more desirable in countries in which individuals are more exposed to shocks associated with natural disasters and disease outbreaks, and less desirable in countries with better health services. Weak governments and weak institutions may thus favor strict religious organizations. What may in part account for the recent globalization of Protestant Christianity is the lowering of state barriers to religion (Barro and Hwang, 2007), coupled with the slow expansion of state capacity in many developing countries, leaving individuals without adequate means to insulate themselves against risk.

So the pushback against missionary Christianity is not just in India but also in many other countries. Combine that with weak state power, bad infrastructure etc. etc. and then you wouldnt be surprised that the local populace reacts badly.

Getting the team mobilised to help the school

So the project is slowly spinning up. One of my close friends put me in touch with this school which requires fund-raising and other assistance. This is a fascinating place, a school associated with a madrassah providing secular information in a poor area of Delhi. The key element of charity and institutional building is sustainability. Its too easy to just give money, but to make the charity self sustaining, to make it work long term, to have proper governance, that requires people, time, money, energy and direction.

So what I did was to introduce the Enactus team at LSE to them. We have some great people in here. Very smart and intelligent chaps. Very driven and full of passion and enthusiasm. They have created a project team and are now in contact with the school.

By the way, the school has a new website, do check it out. Very good work that these brilliant chaps are doing.

Getting the team mobilised to help the school

So the project is slowly spinning up. One of my close friends put me in touch with this school which requires fund-raising and other assistance. This is a fascinating place, a school associated with a madrassah providing secular information in a poor area of Delhi. The key element of charity and institutional building is sustainability. Its too easy to just give money, but to make the charity self sustaining, to make it work long term, to have proper governance, that requires people, time, money, energy and direction.

So what I did was to introduce the Enactus team at LSE to them. We have some great people in here. Very smart and intelligent chaps. Very driven and full of passion and enthusiasm. They have created a project team and are now in contact with the school.

By the way, the school has a new website, do check it out. Very good work that these brilliant chaps are doing.