Indiana Joneses & Other Reads

General Reads

• Calling all Indiana Joneses: Clue to Undiscovered Asokan Inscriptions (Telegraph India)
• What you need to know about India's missile defence shield. Read the comments also. (Dawn - yes, its a Pakistani newspaper)
• China's Cultural Revolution: No desire to dwell on the past (BBC)

Photo Gallery

• Inspire (NatGeo)

Controversial Read

• Reconciling three narratives about global growth (Bloomberg)

Anecdote

In a test match between Australia and West Indies, Ramnaresh Sarwan scored a superb century. In that innings, Glenn McGrath bowled an unplayable bouncer that zoomed past Sarwan’s face. McGrath went up to Sarwan and said, "How does Lara’s d%ck taste, mate?”. Sharp came the reply from Sarwan: ”Go and ask your wife.” 

Sunday Reads

General Reads

• AAPocracy and the cult of K (Open)
• Barbie challenges the 'White Saviour Complex' (BBC)
• What is 'May Day'? (CNN)
  

Photo Gallery

• Celebrity transformations (CNN)

Controversial Read

• Sanctifying the Mount (Jerusalem Post)

Anecdote

Those were the days in the beginning of the eighties when the world Cricket was dominated by the power packed West Indies Cricket Team and the subtlety packed England Cricket Team. Pakistan also played a major part in the domination but not with their skills in the game but with their poor standards in umpiring.

During one of those days, Imran Khan, the captain of the Pakistan Cricket team met Australian captain Allan Border in an informal meeting in Sydney. During a chat, Imran told Allan Border: “AB, give me Sunil Gavaskar and B. S. Chandrashekhar from India,we will beat Australia.”

In a shocking reply, Allan Border said: “Imran, just give me two umpires from Pakistan and we will beat the whole world.” Imran Khan was left speechless. Later, a furious Imran Khan complained to the Australian board. Under pressure from his board, Allan Border tendered apologies to Imran Khan and Pakistan Cricket Board.

Sunday Reads

This post comes after more than two months since the last post. 

General Reads

• Inside the Bubble: Aboard the Air Force One. (BBC)
• China's Mediterranean Odyssey (Diplomat)
• Increase your return on failure (Harvard BR)

Photo Gallery 

• Russia's Flourishing Capital (Der Spiegel)

Controversial Read

• All the People God Kills in the Bible (Vocativ)

Anecdote

"How's your wife and my kids?" asked Rod Marsh (Australia) from behind the stumps.

"The wife's fine," replied the England batsman, Ian Botham, "but the kids are retarded."

Sunday Reads + Anecdote

• The power of Wet Waste (NIE)

• The Tennis Files: Have top players been paid to lose? (BBC Magazine)

• Ash and Cash saga in Netaji files (Telegraph India)

• How close are we to creating Artificial Intelligence? (Aeon)

Sunday Bonus: What really happens at a Jallikattu - in pictures. (Swarajya)

Sunday Anecdote: 

In a county match in England, Greg Thomas was bowling to Viv Richards and getting a few to whizz past the bat. After Richards played and missed another one, Thomas said: "It's red, it's round. Now fucken hit it!". This obviously angered Richards who proceeded to hit the next ball out of the ground. Richards: "You know what it looks like now go and get it."

Sunday Reads

• The Unbearable Lightness of America's War against the Islamic State. (Foreign Policy)

• Five Key Decisions Made at Paris. (Bloomberg) Also read Has History been made at COP21 (Paris Talks)?

• What proportion of a CEO's Success is down to luck? (Pieria)

Oscar Wilde claimed he could discuss any subject at any time prepared or not. A companion once took him up on this claim, asking that he discourse on the subject of “The Queen”. 

Responded Wilde: “The queen is not a subject.”

Sunday Reads

Sunday Anecdote: In 1898, young Albert Einstein applied for admission to the Munich Technical Institute and was turned down. The young man, the Institute declared, "showed no promise" as a student. By 1905, he had formulated his special theory of relativity.

• Is China really scared of horror films? (BBC)

• How Islamic State takes its terror to the Web. (Der Spiegel)

• AAP denying Delhi the Janlokpal bill they deserve. (ET)

• An ecological disaster. (Telegraph India)

Saturday Infographic: Strange around the World

Source from here. Check out this collection of weird laws in India.

Sunday Reads - The Secret War & Defining Turkey

• The Secret War. (Wired) 

• Inside the [U.S.] NSA's ultra-secret China hacking group. (Foreign Policy)

• The contest to define Turkey. (AlJazeera)

• "I tried to be a star but it did not work for me." Interview with Irrfan Khan. (Indian Express)

One night in the House of Commons, Churchill, after imbibing a few drinks, stumbled into Bessie Braddock, a corpulent Labourite member from Liverpool. An angry Bessie straightened her clothes and addressed the British statesman.

"Winston," she roared. "You are drunk, and what’s more, you are disgustingly drunk."

Churchill, surveying Bessie, replied, "And might I say, Mrs. Braddock, you are ugly, and what’s more, disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow," Churchill added, "I shall be sober."

Sunday Reads - Karmic Cycle & Big Tobacco

• PNG's terrifying witchcraft killings. (TIME)
• The Bloodstained Karmic Cycle. (Outlook)
• Big Tobacco and its evil practices. (Economic Times)
• Asia's Last Frontier. (BBC) 

Napoleon was involved in conversation with a colonel of a Hungarian battalion who had been taken prisoner in Italy. The colonel mentioned he had fought in the army of Maria Theresa. "You must have a few years under your belt!" exclaimed Napoleon. "I'm sure I've lived sixty or seventy years," replied the colonel. "You mean to say," Napoleon continued, "you have not kept track of the years you have lived?"

The colonel promptly replied, "Sir, I always count my money, my shirts, and my horses - but as for my years, I know nobody who wants to steal them, and I shall surely never lose them."

Sunday Reads Late Edition

The Hindu

• Karzai's India gamble. (Foreign Policy)
• Will free homes solve Spain's eviction crisis? (BBC)
• A resurrection in Bangalore. (Economist)
• What's spooking global markets? (Financial Express)

The Hindu's Open Page has an interesting collection of anecdotes. Here's one:

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was another politician who regaled audiences with his humorous remarks. During an election meeting in Gujarat, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi told the gathering that she was a daughter of Uttar Pradesh and daughter-in-law of Gujarat and was seeking votes on that basis. Vajpayee later said Mrs. Gandhi had forgotten to say that she was also the mother-in-law of Italy. The audience had a hearty laugh and one journalist later wrote that this humorous remark of Vajpayee had brought the BJP a lot of votes.

Read the complete piece here. 

Sunday Video - TED versus Onion Talks!

Let's take a break from serious Sunday Readings.

You must have watched at least one TED video. In India, a lot of folks are holding their own desi versions of  the TED series.

I have found most TED talks uninteresting. And I found that I am not the only one who thinks like this! There are similar thinking guys at theOnion.com too!

I stumbled on this Onion Talks spoof video series. Trust me this one is hilarious. Go ahead!

7 Super Sunday Readings - The Best of Politics, Economics, & Ideas

Seven incisive articles for your Sunday reading!

• Letter from Guatemala. (LA Book Review). Here's an excerpt:

No female is safe from the violence: not little girls, not housewives, not foreigners. The elevated level of aggression against women is not a isolated phenomenon in Central America — El Salvador and Honduras, for example, also present alarming statistics — but nowhere in the region is it worse than in Guatemala, where U.S. Cold War foreign policy aided in establishing a devastating culture of violence that persists today. [...] In other words, simply being female is a dangerous liability throughout the country, and an increasingly fatal one. 

• Why don't Black Americans swim? Did the denial of access to pools in 1920s and 30s causing ripple effect to present day?  (BBC)  

• Q&A: The search for aliens. (Wired)

• 2G Mess: What is Kapil Sibal going to do? (First Post)

• How India can beat the oil crisis. (The Economic Times)

• The Economist's latest issue features a cover story on the military rise of China. Click here and here to read two brilliant articles. An excerpt:

China is investing heavily in “asymmetric capabilities” designed to blunt America’s once-overwhelming capacity to project power in the region. This “anti-access/area denial” approach includes thousands of accurate land-based ballistic and cruise missiles, modern jets with anti-ship missiles, a fleet of submarines (both conventionally and nuclear-powered), long-range radars and surveillance satellites, and cyber and space weapons intended to “blind” American forces. Most talked about is a new ballistic missile said to be able to put a manoeuvrable warhead onto the deck of an aircraft-carrier 2,700km (1,700 miles) out at sea.

--

A political anecdote for you. 

Two political candidates were having a hot debate. Finally one of them jumped up and yelled at the other: "What about the powerful interests that control you?" 

The other guy screamed back, "You leave my wife out of this." 

Dark Humour from North Korea

In a society where starvation and deprivation define life, humour is a distant idea. 

North Korea is one of the most repressive and closed societies on this planet. However, even in a morbid place like North Korea, humour helps people get through their darkest moments. 

Here's one for you:

Which is the greatest economic system?

Professor: “Comrade students, how many economic-political systems are there in the world?”

Student: “There are three such systems: The capitalist economic-political system, the North Korean socialist economic system, and the Chinese eclectic system.”

Professor: “Then, among these three systems, which one is the greatest?”

Student: “Well, it might be rather difficult to answer that question.”

Professor: “What kind of an answer is that? There is only one clear answer! Our style of socialist economic-political system is the greatest, as this is the system that’s destined to conquer the entire world and spur eternal economic development!”

Student: “Professor, that is great, indeed… But if our system takes over the world and all of the other countries and economic-political systems, then whom are we going to ask for food aid?”

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Find more North Korean dark humour on the Radio Free Asia. 

Weekend Cool Quotes

Cool collection of humourous stuff from Sompong Yusoontorn, via The Big Picture.


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