Category Archives: india

A Lesson From 26/11 – Better PR?

Recently there have been reports of a terrorist group aligned with LeT planning on hijacking an Air India flight and using paragliders to launch suicide attacks against India. The kind of lucidity, clarity, and specificity in the news reports seemed unusual (almost unprecedented) for India. Looks like among the lessons learnt from 26/11 is that it is not sufficient to just do your job, you need to make sure that your stakeholders (the people of India) know that you are doing your job. In other words PR/marketing. So are we going to see more ‘transparency’ from the government on intelligence information and credibility of terrorists threats?

Glenn Beck’s US health care vs. Indian health care

If you needed any evidence at all to convince you that Glenn Beck is an insightful journalist with untarnished ethos, he provides a new one everyday on his self-titled Faux News program. Here is his new one reflecting his acumen on understanding of the health care systems in India and the US.

Mahabali, Ramayan, Aryans, and Dravidians

What if the story of Mahabali and Ramayan were narrating the same episode in ancient Indian history? Remember that the story of Mahabali shows up in Vamana Purana whereas Ramayana is one of the Itihaasas. It is not surprising that the same incident would inspire two different mythological texts during two different periods for two different purposes. However, I claim that they are referring to the same chapter in ancient Indian history, that of the victory of Indo-Aryans over Dravidians.

Hoysala construction techniques in Halebidu

Until recently my plans of seeing Halebidu seemed jinxed. I always started with the temple in Belur and by the time I was done with Belur it was too late to see Halebidu properly. I was told that Halebidu was much more impressive than Belur, but I hadn’t had a chance to see it well until a few days ago.

A few days ago I visited the ruins of the temples in Halebidu. It was quite a sight to behold. And this, despite the fact that the temple was, in fact, incomplete, and had been vandalized by the Muslim invaders first, and the British later. Much like Belur, each carving in the temple tells a story. Each carving or sculpture deserves its own post. So I won’t even attempt to describe my entire visit in this post. I might write up separate posts for select sculptures later, but for now, I’d like to focus on the techniques used by the Hoysalas to build the temples.