Education Reform: Signs of Hope #7 Take it easy - Urstruly is an involuntary immigrant.

Memento Mori #7 Yup christians bury their dead with the hope that they will be resurrected when Jesus returns.

Memento Mori #5 What do you understand #2 to mean by afterlife?

Village of Women I really liked this story. It has a nice rhythm to it and it`s well told.
I get the feeling that the reference to Dard-Nag is to an actual place with a mythical history? If so, the writer is taking off from it to imagine another mythical place in the south that was equally devoid of men, and the appearance of a man after a long time arouses its inhabitants to sexual violence, and then to a transformation once their sexual appetites are sated.
Interesting concept.

Memento Mori #2 Any culture or civilization that buries its dead does believe in an afterlife.

Absent in the Spring BJ kumar - you certainly possess the talent to write and this was an explosive event that lends itself in the right hands to become a powerful story. There are intimations of good writing here and there but it also has the flavor of a children`s story, especially the part about the lady, the soldier and the politician. The ending, which I cannot fully grasp, not knowing the language, appears to be good.
I wish the detractors would be specific in their critique rather than indulge in oblique accusations.

Is “Strings” a Dud Theory? #29 Dear sir, as someone who made an ``irrelevant`` comment, and as a practicing scientist, may I say that this essay falls under the category scientific gossip. I am not faulting you per se as you have at least managed to string together a bunch of quotations which is a lot more than what I can claim to have contributed on Chowk, but the nature of your intended audience is not clear. Merely stating a ``buzz concept`` and discussing who said what about it is bound to appeal neither to the scientifically minded, since it doesn`t offer anything much, nor the lay person who doesn`t understand what the hullaballoo is all about.
It was time pass for you to write this and it was time pass for us to engage in silly banter. BJ Kumar, on the other hand, graced your board with something very original and witty. For his ``irrelevant comments`` you should be thankful.
Salams

What Ails the BPO Industry in Pakistan? #229 Good for her she isn`t playing the victim card. If you are offended by what you see as racism then hold up your own placards of protest. Don`t expect her to act on your behalf.

What Ails the BPO Industry in Pakistan? #230 Yeah and she should have burned down a few KFCs in the process. You`re so damned predictable.

What Ails the BPO Industry in Pakistan? I hope zeemax is not reflecting paki establishment thinking. A poor country waiting for the right opportunity and wanting to pick and choose is unrealistic and is like waiting for ocean tides to stop before getting into the water.
I don`t understand the delineating between service sector and manufacturing sector jobs. In terms of acquiring intellectual property, service sector is probably the best way to go in the short term. That said, innovation will thrive in any sector under the right conditions. The US has farmed out manufacturing and increasing service sector jobs but it remains unquestionably the most innovative nation in technology.
Manufacturing offers certain spill over advantages. If you have a factory producing a certain component, a simple retooling would get you into a slightly different market segment. Besides, there`s always a huge internal market that you can cater to. Service sector jobs tend to be less universal in this way.
The asian tigers showed that the existing model was not the only way to improve the national economy. The lesson if anything is that there isn`t a set way to move up. If the west innovated first and manufactured next, the asian tigers and especially Korea showed that you could do it backwards with equal felicity.
Poor countries should grab whatever opportunity is presented to them.

Is “Strings” a Dud Theory? #12 bjkumar
Your post made it worth visiting this board. You have a way with words.

What Ails the BPO Industry in Pakistan? #226 Typical bania behavior. Where`s her honor? :)

What Ails the BPO Industry in Pakistan? Interesting discussion - i have a slightly different perspective, as a customer. The people i have outsourced to in madras have a lot of native intelligence and are creative (i happen to know that they are products of ordinary, private engineering colleges) and hard working - but the code they write comes with little or no documentation and where such exists, it is almost indecipherable. They also seem unfamiliar with logic diagrams and such and rely almost exclusively on verbal communication. The positives outweigh the negatives so far. Oh, and there is cost saving as well.

Imposter Syndrome and Emotional Concavity I think a lot of it is culturally learned and the rest is harmonal.

Last Gasp of the Imperial Misadventure zeemax, newspaper reports say americans are working to stop the mehdi army death squads and are apparently having some success. There has been a drop in the number of torture-cum-murder victims recently. There also has been ``ethnic`` cleansing of shia and sunni areas of Baghdad by sunni & shia militias, respectively, and the americans are supposedly trying to stop & reverse that. They are under a lot of pressure from the saudis and egyptians on one side and their puppet government on the other side so the net effect (one hopes) is some neutrality on the part of the americans.
Given Bush`s track record, it`s hard to believe he can do anything constructive anywhere but I do hope that good sense prevails and the Iraqis will get back to something resembling a normal life. It`s american responsibility to reconstruct Iraqi civil society.

Last Gasp of the Imperial Misadventure I have very mixed feelings about the US staying on in Iraq. Were they to leave, the sunnis will be run over and/or the country will be partitioned. Like it or not, americans are the only neutral party there now and they also bear COMPLETE responsibility for the catastrophe there.