More Bits and Pieces...

1. That Indians abroad, especially engineers suffer from a condition known as Technofetishism or Technonationalism is easily noted.
Nations and individuals who suffer from it tend to believe that skills to decipher the most complex differential equations and write lengthy and complicated computer code arewhat matter most in a nation's progress.
Indulgence in self-praise as a group and ridiculing the natives' skills at arithmetic is a worser symptom of this malaise. An unassailable belief that these skills will take them to the summit of success is another.
While mathematical skills are very handy, I can't help thinking that the importance of these skills is overestimated, especially in the business world where a majority of these Indians want to make a mark.

My views remain a minority, especially in this bunch.

Luckily for me, there is some support from Amar Bhide's paper which argues that good managers are atleast as important science and engineering graduates and that America's venturesome consumers egged on by these managers are a strong reason for the nation's progress.
And good managers can come just as much from Anthropology, Psychology and English degrees as they can from Maths, Engineering and Science degrees.

2. A friday evening at Smollensky's in Canary Wharf saw me run into a bunch of affable Farsis who had lived in Sweden all their lives as their parents left behind the Mullahs.
And they had a similar story to tell - That you are nobody in Iran unless you are a doctor or an engineer.
And how people wondered how sitting behind a counter handing slips to customers pays so much in London, for bankers get paid nothing in Tehran!

3. Talking of Canary Wharf, that's where I spend most of my weekdays - courtesy of my first full time job- Lehman brothers, London

References:
1. Amar Bhide, Venturesome Consumption, Innovation and Globalisation, CESifo and Centre on Capitalism and Society Conference, July 21-22, Venice.
2. Technonationalism and Technofetishism by Ostry and Nelson, the Brookings Institution.
2. Economics Focus, The Economist, July 29- Aug 4 2006.