Plus Ultra

In one of his lectures, Francis Fukuyuma summed up “Asian values” ( as popularized by leaders like Lee Kuan Yew) as “a system in which peop...

A friend visiting Chennai expressed surprise that many restaurants here continued to serve snacks in stainless steel plates and coffee in st...

Every argument between a diehard devotee of Satya Sai Baba and a non-believer will end with the former saying, “Whether you believe in his p...

Kwame Anthony Appiah, a philosophy professor at Princeton University, in his article in the Washington Times on the subject of “What will f...

After Bin laden was eliminated, I heard a US media person (sorry, I didn’t note his name, but trust me, I heard him) say that it was a clear...

Once, during my school days (many decades back), a dreaded Science teacher was asked to stand in for a History teacher who was absent on tha...

In his book, “Mother Tongue ", Bill Bryson explains the difficulty of designing a typewriter to type out Chinese letters: Since every...

Jason Kottke links to a video of a wooden box with a flip switch. Once the switch is on, a bent rod pops out of the box and switches it off...

In an article in Science 2.0 that dealt with White dwarfs, Neutrons and Neutrinos, there is the inevitable reference to Dr Subrahmanyam Cha...

The British had a meticulous system of ‘examining’ their officers returning from India and collecting evidence. These were  elaborate sessio...

A news report says: Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi today said Home Minister P Chidambaram's remark that Election Commission (...

In his column in Mint, Salil Tripathi writes: ..what drew many to his (Sai Baba’s) fold were two central claims: that he was divine, and t...

Would you like to take a vacation that will not cost you anything, yet will rejuvenate your spirits? I found out how this could be done, af...

An opinion piece in the Open Page of The Hindu today is critical of the World Cup victory celebrations, or any celebrations for that matter...

If public figure A criticizes another public figure B on issues involving morality or ethics, or takes a strong position on any matter, A im...

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction published in the year 1847, by Charles Ollier, describes the cotton wealth of India and...

In one of his essays in his book, “Thinking of Answers”, A.C.Grayling writes on the ban on smoking and its effect on movie-making: Here is...

The 2011 Census, currently underway in India, is likely to come up with a population figure exceeding 1.2 billion. If it keeps growing at t...

Daughter: This classmate of mine pisses me off completely…. Me: Hello, would you like to modify that sentence? Daughter: Ok, this class...

In April 2010, newspapers reported that the Prime Minister was enumerated for Census. Yesterday was the turn of the Vice President to get...