An email from my father yesterday forced me to consider how my relationship with him has evolved as a result of changing technologies over the past few years. Having lived outside of India for the last 9 years, I have tried various modes of communication to stay in touch with my parents back home…when I [...]

On a trip to Las Vegas in the height of summer in late June this year, I was struck by the interesting “slot machine literacy” I saw everywhere. In the cool, air-conditioned halls where players sat obsessively dumping hopeful coins into slot machines, these glamorous, lit up signs are designed to attract a big following. [...]

News from the BLC recording studio: two major projects completed this summer: One is the transfer of over 200 analog tapes of VEDIC SANSKRIT chants – recorded in the field in India – to digital files. The other is the digitization of master tape recordings of speakers representing endangered California Indian languages. Archiving these languages [...]

Today, the day marking the 61st anniversary of Indian independence from British rule, I came upon an article entitled “India lingers lovingly over British past.” Another one in a long line of alarmist articles that surfaces every so often, bemoaning the fact that under the globalizing onslaught of English, languages indigenous to India are [...]

    I’ve noticed that whenever my parents and I go anywhere from a vacation in another state to a grocery store trip, I feel responsible for teaching them the correct etiquette for dealing with Americans.  I say “dealing with” because my parents were never allowed to “be” Americans in their countryside cities and bible-belt homes.  [...]

As a young’n, I hated reading and writing. I mean, I liked reading fun books, but I never did too well writing about them or any other subject matter, and since I lacked in one, I started to hate them both. Writing is a soft science, and my parents never approved of soft [...]

A cursory look at the literacy rate in Zimbabwe gives a very impressive picture about the Southern African country. According to the United  Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Zimbabwe has the highest literacy rate on the entire continent. 91% of the population is literate (94%males and 88% females). The results even get better [...]