Reflections

 I am sometimes amazed at the quality of photographs that people take nowadays. Every day in Facebook one sees so many marvellous pictures and I do not even have an Instagram account, or at least I do not open it ever. This probably means that I miss seeing even more pictures that would probably vow me.                                 In the old pre social media days, we used to have to buy old copies of National Geographic or see the latest issues in the USIS library to see good photographs. Life magazine was another source of wonderful photographs; I still remember the superb pictures of the moon landing that are still green in my memory.   Some friends also used to take nice pictures. In the nineties, we used to crowd the illustrated lectures by my mountaineering friends who used to exhibit slides that reall...

It is now fairly clear that newspapers and other media outlets seem to be all so biased that it is difficult to give credence to their stories. They may not always be factually wrong, but the omissions and additions are always symptomatic of the political persuasions of the outlet concerned. I think that in such circumstances, it is best to try to make time to analyse the information that is, fortunately, fairly easily available   and try to make sense of it ourselves. I have decided that this is what I am going to do and I am sharing some information which is easily accessible in the internet which is quite interesting. I future times, I hope to make more nuanced analyses of the data that is out there. I thought that I would like to try and see the quality of the MPs that we elected in the least election held earlier this year. As we know, the TMC ( Trinamool Congress)   won 22, the BJP ( Bharatiya Janata Party) 18 and the INC ( Indian National Congress)   2 seats...

If you are born in Calcutta, you imbibe leftism with your mother’s milk. I am not talking about being communist; I mean you tend to be left leaning as one of our more stupid ministers characterized Abhijit Bannerjee. And the inevitable consequence of this is an antipathy to the United States of America. That is not to say that we do no rush there to study given half a chance. Neither is it that we do not acknowledge it achievements and its glamour.   It is just that we are not exactly fans of the US of A. If it plays or fights anybody else, we like it to lose; we were very pleased when they had to leave Vietnam with their tails between their legs. We were horrified about the Twin Towers but could easily see the point of view of the Muslim world, which was not so horrified. However just like anybody else, if anybody gave you a visa to stay there, nobody, not even rabid Naxals ever turned down the invitation. The faculty of Ivy League institutions is full of ex lefties from Ko...

John Archibald Venn (Source: Wikipedia) Recently, the British Prime Minister, referred memorably by Hugh Grant as the “over-promoted rubber bath toy”, allegedly used a Venn diagram in order to pick his ministers. Apparently, he tried to find the set of Tory MPs who were pro Brexit and also had some measure of competence. Rumour has it that he wound up with a null result. Anyway, this reminded me that we had been first introduced to Venn diagrams by Mr Pathrose, our mathematics teacher at Don Bosco School. Ancient civilisations which used mathematics out of intellectual curiosity or to solve practical problems invented the use of diagrams in mathematics. Hindus, Greeks, Chinese, Egyptians all used diagrams in mathematics, Leonardo da Vinci is often considered the person who really made them an art form in the fifteenth century. The use of numbers and categories gave rise to a necessity to categorise them and to represent their relationships. This was made possible by the Venn Dia...

One of my colleagues and I were selecting patients for the Final MBBS surgery examination which starts tomorrow. The Medical Officer led us to a gentleman who had been admitted for a repositioning of his nasogastric tube. As we talked to him to get his consent to participate in the examination, I noticed a booklet lying on his bedside table. I have the bad habit that I cannot pass by a book without having a look at it: and that is what I did. As I did so, the patient told me that he would like me to have it: it was a book that he had written. I was a little diffident but he was so earnest in his request that I accepted his gift with thanks. Mr Ho's Book  The little booklet is named Cancer, My Wake-up Call and the patient, who is the author ,is Mr James Oh. Mr Oh is an accountant by training and has had a very successful career as a financial and wealth creation expert and has been instrumental in managing several companies, one of which he helped to list in the stock mar...