The Yoga Diaries
This is in response to Claire Cohen’s feature To Hell with Yoga, It's a Giant Con. Yoga does not really promise heaven, but it does help achieve mindfulness and harmony. Accordingly, most yoga lovers would be patiently understanding of Cohen’s failure to grasp the essence of yoga and appreciative of the wit with which she describes her experience.True yoga exponents would also empathise with her complaints about this ancient discipline having become a ‘multi-million pound industry’. Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently urged that yoga should not be turned into a commodity or a brand.
Ranjan Mathai, high commissioner of India to the UK, in The Sunday Telegraph
Not Uber Cool
How can ‘sharing economy’ enterprises like Uber be a “throwback to when villages used to share” and also generate Luddite protests? Perhaps it’s because Uber et al are not unleashing “new sources of economic activity”. Isn’t it simply another corporate finance initiative to transfer income streams away from regulated trades to big business?
Bryn Jones, University of Bath, in The Guardian
Villain Bonaparte
I beg to differ with the defence of Napoleon. Bentham observed that the quality of leadership is a multiplicative (not additive!) function of ability, virtue and energy. Napoleon’s energy and ability were superlative, but virtue nil. He cared only for France (and himself!), not for the French.
Jon Elster, New York City, in FT Weekend
