America has a national crisis in math capacity, competence and merit. American students sharply underperform students in many countries all over the world. Including Vietnam, which is a poorer country than India per capita. We will heavily refer to the 2018 OECD PISA report in below paragraphs, but the below chart graphic is from the … Continue reading American Caste (b)
There are various images I could have chosen to represent Islam in India. One could use the Taj Mahal, the ruins of a temple, a mural of a bloody battlefield, Muhammed Ali Jinnah, the beauty of Indo-Islamic art, and so many more images. Islam in India has had a long and complicated history. People have … Continue reading India’s Islam
(source) The Chalcolithic & Bronze Age civilizations geographically closest to the Harappan or the Saraswati-Sindhu civilization were the twin Eastern Iranian civilizations of Helmand and Halil Rud/Jiroft and the Central Asian civilization of BMAC spread over the southern margins of Turkmenistan & Uzbekistan and as far east as Tajikistan. We have discussed the genetic evidence … Continue reading The Archaeological Evidence for OIT – I
This was a long rolling rant I wrote several years ago while reading Pankaj Mishra’s book “From The Ruins of Empire; The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia”. The format is that I comment as I read the book. So early parts are comments on early chapters and so on. Quotes from Pankaj are in bolded italics. … Continue reading Review: The Intellectuals who Remade Asia (Pankaj Mishra)
Film review from Major Aghan Humayun Amin. (Spoilers ahead) DRONES REVIEW ESSAY Last night I watched a movie named “ Drone” with immense interest. Drones have been a major part of my research since 2006 when I personally and closely saw some drone strikes while serving as a consultant in Afghanistan and Pakistan. My main client … Continue reading Film Review: Drone
I’m no pundit; I’m a person and this post is personal. Many of the themes I touch on are contested and my personal perspective may not sit well with some. That is fine, but before an attempt is made to attack what follows, ask a single question, is this personal for you? I didn’t intend to write this … Continue reading Listen Without Prejudice
I was meaning to write this for some time now but somehow I kept postponing. Razib’s recent post about Mehdi Hasan inspired me to sit down and finish what I was thinking of writing down (https://www.brownpundits.com/2019/07/31/mehdi-hasans-hypocrisies/). This long post is not about Mehdi Hasan par se, or even Ilhan Omar (sheepishly admitting her clickbait … Continue reading Muslim-American personalities and political polarization – part 1
Because Zia was a world champion at sucking up to him. An interesting snippet from Major Agha Amin FROM MY MARCH 2001 INTERVIEW WITH MAJ GEN NUK BABAR SJ AND BAR —-Why did Mr Bhutto select Zia as a coas? There were a number of reasons and these were discussed with me personally by Mr … Continue reading Why did Bhutto Select Zia as Chief
Angus Maddison’s Contours of the World Economy 1-2030 AD: Essays in Macro-Economic History is one of my favorite books (though if you are looking for economic history, Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium is underrated/underread). Maddison’s work is cited in this piece, No, Mughals didn’t loot India. They … Continue reading The ubiquity of the rentier state
There is a lot of talk on this weblog about deaths in premodern conflicts. I want to clarify a few points, at least from my perspective. Both ancient DNA and conventional history and archaeology indicate that massive population turnovers occurred in the past. If you read a book like Genghis Khan: His Conquests, His Empire, … Continue reading Between Marx and the mullah
