Politics - The Opportunist Wins

I've rarely read such deft political articles ... Indian politics always throws up such interesting articles .

Quants, Stats & Financial Crisis

  One of the most insightful & mathematically meaningful articles that I've read about the mortgage meltdown.. http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-03/wp_quant?currentPage=all

Quoting Paul Wilmot from the article, 

    "The relationship between two assets can never be captured by a single scalar quantity," Wilmott says. For instance, consider the share prices of two sneaker manufacturers: When the market for sneakers is growing, both companies do well and the correlation between them is high. But when one company gets a lot of celebrity endorsements and starts stealing market share from the other, the stock prices diverge and the correlation between them turns negative. And when the nation morphs into a land of flip-flop-wearing couch potatoes, both companies decline and the correlation becomes positive again. It's impossible to sum up such a history in one correlation number, but CDOs were invariably sold on the premise that correlation was more of a constant than a variable." 

 --  Anybody who has read Taleb ( Fooled by randomness / The black swan )  too would find this article very much insightful . 

Deep inside the religious divide

 An interesting article about Qasab , India - Pak divide and much more ..

An Unusual Election

 No, this is not about general elections..Is about the impending elections at "The Firm".

What makes this unique is the insights into the electoral dynamics consisting of arguably the most 

talented and sensible electorate in the World ...  

 Good luck to the candidates :-)

Central Banks - A Historical Perspective

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=republic_of_the_central_banker

- A must read article for anyone interested in macro-economics.. It examines how central banks bacame the de-facto guardians of economy..

Computers & Kids -- Is the OLPC project really worth it ?

This is not a highly intellectual one...A layman's article explaining on whether computers really result in an increased level of learning among kids == > http://www.slate.com/id/2192798/?from=rss

Interview With Eric Schmidt

I wouldn't rate this interview top-class..But it essentially is a good read. Pretty good insights too
into the Search business ==> http://faz-community.faz.net/blogs/netzkonom/archive/2008/05/26/eric-schmidt.aspx