Hi, I’m Bhuvan.This is my commonplace book.

AI videos are crazy

These AI videos are crazy

On brain rot

A thoughtful essay by Mahika Dhar in Public Books on brain rot as political resistance. Please read it. I want to preface this by saying I could be wrong. This might well be a misreading of her piece. But I came away with a small confusion, and I think it's worth sitting with. A little mental exercise: replace "brain…

Gandhi vs Ambedkar

Ambedkar saw Gandhi as a timid and hesitant reformer. Orthodox Hindus, on the other hand, saw Gandhi as a dangerous revolutionary attacking the very basis of scripture and tradition. This disjuncture in viewpoints brings to mind some comments of the great black abolitionist Frederick Douglass on his great white contemporary Abraham Lincoln. In a speech of 1876, Douglass remarked that ‘viewed from the genuine abolition ground,…

Sukumar Sen and India's First Election

An act of faith Between October 1951 and February 1952, a country that had been free for barely four years asked roughly 176 million adults to choose their government. Some 85 percent of them could not read or write. Most had never voted for anything, and the world largely doubted it could be done. It was the largest election humanity had ever attempted, spread over a million square miles of mountains, deserts, jungles and…

A tale of two Chinas

Outside China, the key question is whether companies use Chinese technology or compete against it. Cheaper Chinese industrial robots and machinery can boost productivity and ease labor shortages for their customers. For rival producers, the economics are less appealing. European machinery makers illustrate the squeeze. China has moved from a major buyer of advanced machinery to a formidable competitor at home and abroad. In…

Sales of weight loss drugs in India

Spurious drugs are a recurring problem in India, said Mahesh Zagade, a former commissioner of the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration. He said that while the country’s laws are robust, implementation and enforcement have been lacking. Short-staffed regulators, the possibility of corruption, and easy access to raw materials have contributed to the problem, in his view. “This is a failure of the official machinery,” he…

Indian government sucks at industrial policy

I’d say that I am not against the government’s actions; I am very much for the government’s actions on dealing with the fundamentals. So let’s focus on public goods such as education and healthcare, let’s focus on building good roads, let’s focus on creating a good business environment, let’s focus on utilities, let’s focus on water, electricity, logistics. These are areas where you have a much better chance of success…