Sparsh

1- Smokers’ Corner: Real revolutions by Nadeem F. Paracha. 2- The Night Shastri Died And Other Stories by Kuldip Nayar. 3- Why Elites Fail by Christopher Hayes. 4- The real wealth of nations - The Economist 5- Children of the Taliban - PBS Frontline 6- The wedges between productivity and median compensation growth By Lawrence Mishel 7- 'A Perfect and Beautiful Machine': What Darwin's Theory of Evolution Reveals About Artificial Intelligence by Daniel C. Dennett. 8- Why so many communist philosophers? by Santiago Zabala 9- Destroying the commons by Noam Chomsky. 10 - Theories of Oppression and Another Dialogue of Cultures by Ashis Nandy Perspectives Jonathan Haidt: The moral roots of liberals and conservatives Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we're left, right or center. In this eye-opening talk, he pinpoints the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend...

1- Adam Savage: How simple ideas lead to scientific discoveries. 2- Larry Smith: Why you will fail to have a great career 3- Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability 4- Brené Brown: Listening to shame 5- Hans Rosling: Religions and babies 6- William Noel: Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes 7- Clay Shirky: Why SOPA is a bad idea 8- Bryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an injustice 9- Tony Robbins: Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better 10- Daniel Pink on the surprising science of motivation Quote of the Day : “As a teacher and a writer, I'm not interested in just producing books, and I'm not interested in just reproducing class after class of people who will get out, become successful, and take their obedient places in slots that society has prepared for them. What most of us must be involved in—whether we teach or write, make films, play music, act, whatever we do—has to not only make people feel good and inspired and at...

Derek Sivers: How to start a movement With help from some surprising footage, Derek Sivers explains how movements really get started. (Hint: it takes two.) A pioneer with courage has just to stand up and do it first :) TED Video There were five points that I came across in recent days. Each of them opened a new door of analysing the world and mine life in different manner. 1- One question recently bumped me off : Am I A Product Of The Institutions I Attended? I am caught in the web of traditional outlook of liberal, conservative, socialist, anarchist or even fascist. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That is the human nature emerges as a complex patterns out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Much of learning is not done in the confined environment of the institute. Institutes are just facilitator for providing suitable environment for the growth of an individual. But an institution should balance insanity and genius activity of the individ...

Salman Khan: Let's use video to reinvent education Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. [ TED Talk Link Here ] So, we can see here the advantage of the online availability of learning material. That will clearly break the monopoly of the universities as a center of  knowledge. 2- A paragraph in the Review of The Namesake by Roger Ebert attracted me lot : “The Namesake” tells a story that is the story of all immigrant groups in America: Parents of great daring arriving with dreams, children growing up in a way that makes them almost strangers, the old culture merging with the new. It has been said that all modern Russian literature came out of Gogol’s “Overcoat.” In the same way, all of us came out of the overcoat of this same immigrant experience. 3-  I liked the praise of Uttar Pradesh in the words of Nida Faz...

As a democratic revolution led by tech-empowered young people sweeps the Arab world, Wadah Khanfar, the head of Al Jazeera, shares a profoundly optimistic view of what's happening in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and beyond -- at this powerful moment when people realized they could step out of their houses and ask for change. As Director General of Al Jazeera, the only international TV network based in the developing world, Wadah Khanfar works to bring rare liberties like information, transparency and dissenting voices to repressive states and political hot-zones. TED LINK The counter-attack of people on the state is on and we all hail change in Middle East and Africa. As only words that comes in my mind are - Inquilab Zindabad ( a Hindi phrase which translates to "Long Live Revolution").

1- Why We Have More Sympathy for Baby Jessica Than for Darfur by Dan Ariely. VIDEO Focusing on the struggles of an individual appeals to our emotions and makes us care. As the numbers of people suffering get bigger, our cognition, calculation, and thoughtfulness are activated—and we care less ; A NGO on this concept is Rangde; 2- The danger of Being good : - The miracle of individual choice may be what is keeping us safe as a society. Some people just choose to be good, no matter what. This is the story of what happens to them 3- Freedom of speech and expression and the law of sedition in India : Text of keynote address delivered by Colin Gonsalves at the inauguration of Persistence Resistance 2011, New Delhi 4- Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright talks bluntly about politics and diplomacy, making the case that women's issues deserve a place at the center of foreign policy. Far from being a "soft" issue, she says, women's issues are often the very...

Ecologist Eric Berlow doesn't feel overwhelmed when faced with complex systems. He knows that more information can lead to a better, simpler solution. Illustrating the tips and tricks for breaking down big issues, he distills an overwhelming infographic on U.S. strategy in Afghanistan to a few elementary points. I agree with the talk as understanding big terms as 'development' and 'sustainablity' is like dealing with the complex system. I have myself reached this conclusion with the help of fluid dynamics. That might sound like an unconventional explanation for the readers. When you create any index or threshold level, it is like checking turbulence and laminar in the flow of fluid. Turbulence is flow characterized by recirculation, eddies, and apparent randomness. Flow in which turbulence is not exhibited is called laminar. And therefore many conditions should be included before making any empirical formula. This talk helps in understanding interconnectivity ...