Rahul gives unsolicited advice

The Takshashila Institution taught us last weekend that the various types of government action can be roughly split into 8 categories. Let's look at the categories in the context of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Do Nothing The government can choose to do nothing about FOSS and leave it up to the various public and private entities to decide what each of them want to do with FOSS i.e. whether or not they want to integrate FOSS into their IT systems, how deeply integrated FOSS is in their IT systems, etc. For example, most big public and private players have Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software as part of their IT operations. And when deciding an ERP software to use, they can either choose to go with a provider like Oracle ERP , which isn't FOSS, or they can choose to go with a provider like ERPNext , which is FOSS and home-grown in India. It might sound like doing nothing would mean the government doesn't incur any costs. Alas, that isn't really the case....

If Graphic Novel is a new word for you, let's just say for simplicity that Graphic novel is a fancy word for a comic book. It's a dramatic oversimplification but for the moment, let's go with it. And if non-fiction is a new word for you, it just means the book contains a real-life story. For example, a biography is non-fiction because it describes what happened in real life. Comic books that contain real life stories. The last time I mentioned this to a friend, he was surprised that such things even exist "a comic book that is non-fiction"? He was an avid comic reader of DC and Marvel comic books, all of which are fictitious. So when he first heard "Non fiction graphic novel", he didn't even know what that looked like. I always had an interest in history but most of the history books that I came across or that were recommended to me felt impersonal. That's how I got into non-fiction graphic novels and over the past 5 years, I have immersed myself...

I have been all over the country during this past year. Starting in Ongole, Andhra Pradesh (AP), I spent a few months in Anantapur, AP. Then I spent a month in Solan, Himachal Pradesh (HP), a month in Chandigarh, India and a couple of weeks in Ralli, Kinnaur District, HP, These places can roughly be categorized as - Places where I had great internet access at home e.g. via fiber. Both in Ongole, AP and Anantapur, AP, I had fiber at home and these are probably Tier-III or Tier-IV towns in India. For context, they are both district headquarters (and if you don't know many Districts make up a State). This meant 50-100 Mbps speeds which cost ~1000 Rupees per month (~10-15 Dollars). These speeds mean me, my wife, my brother and my mother can all use one or more devices at the same time and no one has to deal with slow internet or buffered video playback. All of my work calls were crystal clear and I never had to worry about downgrading the video quality on my video calls t...

"Software hub"s are emerging in most countries. For example Bengaluru is widely considered to be the software hub of India. Hyderebad is a close runner up for the top spot. The number of people that recognize what "Silicon Valley" stands for grows every day. The concentration of human capital in these cities and regions is mind boggling. According to the 2011 census of India, the Bengaluru City population stood at 84,43,675 (8.4 million) . For comparison, this is higher than 15 States and Union Territories in India and higher than the 10 least populous States and Union Territories combined ! Similarly, the Hyderebad Urban population in 2011 was 39,43,323 (3.9 million) , higher than 14 States and Union Territories in India and higher than the 7 least populous States and Union Territories combined. And the cities have only gotten bigger in the past decade. Such concentration of human capital seems to have had a positive effect on the overall economic output of the cou...