Mint | Lessons on hyper-diversity from the people of Papua New Guinea

There are so many crises raging around the world that you can ask why I have chosen to bring the one in Papua New Guinea (PNG) to your attention this fortnight. So let me tell you the reason upfront: It is an example of why hyper-diverse societies can end up in deep trouble unless they develop the necessary social capital needed to govern themselves. The post-colonial state was carved out of an arbitrary chunk of the Melanesian archipelago (the region comprising the easternmost stretches of Indonesia and islands northeast of Australia). Its claim to fame is that it has the most diverse population on the planet, with over 850 languages and thousands of bands and tribes, in a population of over 10 million living in a country the size of Maharashtra and Gujarat combined. Read the full article here.

Mint | We need to build social capital for a better quality of urban life

Five years after Bengaluru’s Church Street received a facelift, it is struggling with dumped garbage, broken pavements, damaged street lights, brazen illegal parking and inadequate maintenance in general. It has been painful to observe this deterioration right outside my office. At this point, you are perhaps rolling your eyes and saying “what’s new?", since we all know about the corruption in local government, incompetence of city authorities and the ‘lack of civic sense’ among our people. Read the full article here.

Mint | Eating together could strengthen our national consciousness

You might not have noticed it, but it is extremely difficult to find a restaurant in India that can seat a dozen people around a single round table. If you have more than six diners, you have to ask the restaurant to join two or more tables to create a long rectangle. While this allows several colleagues or family members to technically sit at the same table, conversation and sharing of food is limited to groups of four or five people sitting next to each other. Compared to many East Asian countries where big round tables are commonplace in restaurants, communal dining in India mostly caters to rather small groups. Read the full article here.