Automobiles
Rallying support
At an age when kids usually play with toy cars, Surjeet Singh was busy taking driving lessons in his father's Ambassador. His feet barely reached the accelerator pedal and he would be half-standing, with his father holding the steering wheel.
Consumer Notes
Clear the air, please
I was recently invited by the Consumer Association of Penang to study the problem of petroleum adulteration in Malaysia. One of the first things I noticed was the absence of air pollution in Malaysia due to automobiles. Even in areas where traffic
tends to congest, there is no emission-related pollution.
Corporate
Nothing like the tit-for-tat game
How do you elicit cooperation from a pugnacious colleague who keeps attacking you, or a subordinate who challenges your authority? How should India handle a habitual aggressor such as Pakistan? How do companies ensure that other companies don't cheat the
m? The answer is amazingly simple: Retaliate.
Natural managers
The Scottish philosopher, David Hume, believed that all knowledge was derived exclusively from experience and from the senses. Thus, if a child was born devoid of all senses -- no sight, touch, taste, hearing or smell -- and if this child were fed intrav
enously without his knowledge and kept alive for, say, 20 years, would this 20-year-old have a single thought in his head? Hume would say no and stop there. But Immanuel Kant went a step further and said that there exists knowledge independent of experie
nce and even of all impressions of the senses. Such knowledge is called `a priori' (prior to) and is distinguished from empirical knowledge that has its sources a posteriori, that is, in experience.
Miscellaneous
Linking crafts
There's a new shop in Chennai for the crafts. So what's so original about that in a city already full of them? Says P. Kumar, manager of SIPA Craftlink on Kodambakkam High Road, ``The prices here are fixed by the artisans themselves and the money goes di
rectly to them.''
Adivasi winner
The first CounterMedia Prize for Excellence in Journalism has gone to Dayamani Barla of Ranchi. Dayamani writes extensively on issues of the marginalised people of the Jharkhand region. An adivasi of the Munda community, Dayamani's reports in the Prabhat
Khabar daily (Ranchi and Jamshedpur) have created widespread sensitivity about the complex subjects dealt by her.
No longer at the heights
It was 7:30 a.m. on a cold summer morning in Darjeeling when I visited Toongsoong Road named after the most famous Sherpa of the last century, Tenzing Norgay. This road is also where the Sherpas and their families live in Darjeeling.
Learning and how!
Your article on Zen (June 5) was excellent. For most of us, a philosophy always remains a philosophy. The idea that Zen has a lot to do with work is itself quite an enlightening one. You have derived some very practical tips from some Zen maxims applicab
le to the world of work.
Telecommunications
First signs of animation
When we think about cartoons and other animated characters, it is usually western images that spring to mind. Could we ever create a Scooby Doo in India? Or a Garfield? In the huge, competitive marketplace of children's programming, could we ever find a
place in the international arena?
Travel & Places
The heart of Phoenix
Our knowledge of those other `Indians' in the Americas has always filtered down to us through films and occasional magazine or newspaper articles. Those who find their history intriguing will be interested to learn that most tour companies who take group
s to Phoenix in Arizona always include a visit to the Heard Museum in their itinerary. It is a wonderful place to learn about the Indians of North America as I discovered myself.
Steeped in history
Think Assam and the immediate connection is with that much- favoured beverage, that leafy concoction most of us can't do without -- yes, you guessed it -- tea! In this verdant green belt of undulating tea estates lie many sleepy little towns. Mere punctu
ations, really, similarities being thrown up approximately every 60 km from each other. But Sibsagar can't be classified as such. It's a historical footnote as I discovered.
