Arvind's Newsletter

Happy Deepawali to all readers and their loved ones

1.India pips China; has maximum number of universities featured in QS World University Rankings: Asia

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, continues to retain its top ranking in India, with China retaining its top-most position in QS World University Rankings: Asia 2024. However, India has surpassed China in the number of ranked universities.

With 148 featured universities, “India is now the most represented higher education system” in QS World University Rankings: Asia. This shows 37 new entries from India compared to last year’s report, which is significantly more than only seven new entries from China (mainland). The UK-based ranking agency, QS Quacquarelli Symonds declared its Asia ranking for the year 2024.

2.Woman with a Watch: Picasso masterpiece of 'golden muse' sells for £113m

A 1932 Pablo Picasso masterpiece has sold for $139m (£113m), the second highest price ever achieved for the artist, according to Sotheby's.

Femme a la Montre (Woman with a Watch) also becomes the most valuable work sold at auction this year. It depicts Marie-Therese Walter, the French model who was also a lover of the Spanish artist, and the subject of many of his paintings.

3.The Intelligent Failure that Led to the Discovery of Psychological Safety

Amy Edmondson, a professor of Leadership at Harvard Business School, who is best known for her pioneering work on “psychological safety” has written a new book, “Right kind of Wrong, the science of failing well”, which is on my bookshelf and next on my reading list. It has also been recently shortlisted by Financial Times for the business book of 2023.

Here is brief synopsis of the book from the Financial Times and later an article by Amy on her book from Behavioral Scientist. Worthwhile read.

“We used to think of failure as a problem, to be avoided at all costs. Now, we’re often told that failure is desirable - that we must ‘fail fast, fail often’. The trouble is, neither approach distinguishes the good failures from the bad. As a result, we miss the opportunity to fail well.

Here, Amy Edmondson - the world’s most influential organisational psychologist - reveals how we get failure wrong, and how to get it right. She draws on a lifetime’s research into the science of ‘psychological safety’ to show that the most successful cultures are those in which you can fail openly, without your mistakes being held against you. She introduces the three archetypes of failure - simple, complex and intelligent - and explains how to harness the revolutionary potential of the good ones (and eliminate the bad). And she tells vivid stories ranging from the history of open heart surgery to the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster, all to ask a simple, provocative question: What if it is only by learning to fail that we can hope to truly succeed?”

4.This has been a year when we had some great movies like Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which had to be enjoyed on the big screen. Another movie I am looking forward to is Ridley Scott’s Napoleon which is to be released in the next 2 weeks. Here is article from the New Yorker -Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” Complex, by Michael Schulman followed by a trailer of the movie.

5.The best films of 2023, as chosen by The Economist

“Anatomy of a Fall”

A man is found dead in the snow outside his Alpine chalet. Did he jump from the attic window, or was he pushed by his wife? The winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Justine Triet’s courtroom drama is both a gripping whodunnit and an unsparing examination of the sexual and professional rivalries within a marriage.

The Boy and the Heron”

Hayao Miyazaki, a co-founder of Studio Ghibli, has said that this will be his final film—and what a swansong it is. A cryptic, cosmic fairy tale about letting go of the past, “The Boy and the Heron” is comparable to several of Mr Miyazaki’s previous visionary masterpieces.

“The Creator”

One of the few recent science-fiction blockbusters not to be based on a superhero comic or film franchise, this impressively gritty war epic stars John David Washington as a soldier in the battle between humans and robots. Artificial intelligence is Hollywood’s current favourite villain, as “m3gan” and the latest “Mission: Impossible” instalment showed.

“Anatomy of a Fall”

A man is found dead in the snow outside his Alpine chalet. Did he jump from the attic window, or was he pushed by his wife? The winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Justine Triet’s courtroom drama is both a gripping whodunnit and an unsparing examination of the sexual and professional rivalries within a marriage.

The Boy and the Heron”

Hayao Miyazaki, a co-founder of Studio Ghibli, has said that this will be his final film—and what a swansong it is. A cryptic, cosmic fairy tale about letting go of the past, “The Boy and the Heron” is comparable to several of Mr Miyazaki’s previous visionary masterpieces.

“The Creator”

One of the few recent science-fiction blockbusters not to be based on a superhero comic or film franchise, this impressively gritty war epic stars John David Washington as a soldier in the battle between humans and robots. Artificial intelligence is Hollywood’s current favourite villain, as “m3gan” and the latest “Mission: Impossible” instalment showed.

“The Holdovers”

In 1970 a grouchy history teacher (Paul Giamatti) is forced to spend the Christmas holiday in a boarding school with an unruly student (Dominic Sessa) and a bereaved cook (Da’Vine Joy Randolph). Reuniting the director and the star of “Sideways”, a hit film of 2004, this humane, hilarious comedy already feels like a festive classic.

“Holy Spider”

A dogged journalist (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) investigates the case of a serial killer who is murdering prostitutes in the Iranian city of Mashhad, only to find that many of the city’s residents support the killer. Ali Abbasi’s dark thriller may be an excoriating critique of Iran, but it’s relevant to populist politics in the West, too.

“How To Have Sex”

A heart-wrenching coming-of-age drama about three British schoolgirls on a hedonistic package holiday in Crete. Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce) seems to be having the time of her life, but Molly Manning Walker, the writer-director, uncovers the vulnerability beneath the teenage bravado.

“Killers of the Flower Moon”

Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio co-star in his devastating true-crime saga from Martin Scorsese. Mr De Niro is the land-grabbing cattle baron who has dozens of Osage people murdered in Oklahoma in the 1920s. Mr DiCaprio is the low-life who poisons his Osage wife (Lily Gladstone).

“Maestro”

Bradley Cooper was chastised for sporting a prosthetic nose in his biopic of Leonard Bernstein, but “Maestro”, which he also co-wrote and directed, is rich, sensitive and sympathetic, and Mr Cooper brings irresistible verve and pathos to the lead role. Carey Mulligan sparkles even brighter as Felicia Montealegre, Bernstein’s loyal but conflicted wife.

“Oppenheimer”

A complex, upsetting, technically magnificent biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy). Christopher Nolan skips between several different time periods to examine the politics behind the Manhattan Project, and asks what kind of person would build a weapon that could destroy the world.

“Past Lives”

A 12-year-old girl moves with her family from Korea to Canada, leaving behind her childhood sweetheart. Twenty-four years later, they meet again in New York. Celine Song’s bittersweet tale muses on fate, ambition, and everything that is gained and lost by moving to a new country.

“Poor Things”

In Yorgos Lanthimos’s wildly inventive adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s satirical novel, a woman (Emma Stone) is brought back from the dead by a mad scientist (Willem Dafoe) with no memory of her previous life. On an uproarious whirlwind tour of fin de siècle Europe, she learns about society’s conventions and shatters them all.

“The Taste of Things”

The foodie film to end all foodie films? Much of “The Taste of Things” consists of mouth-watering French feasts being prepared, slowly and carefully, in an idyllic 19th-century kitchen. As a side dish, there is a tender middle-aged romance between a brilliant chef (Benoît Magimel) and his faithful cook (Juliette Binoche).

“Reality”

The true story of a young whistleblower, Reality Winner (Sydney Sweeney), who was questioned in her home by fbi agents in 2017. Every line of dialogue is drawn from recordings made at the time, so Tina Satter’s drama has the naturalism of a documentary and the tension of a thriller.

“The Zone of Interest”

An extraordinary triumph from Jonathan Glazer, this film dramatises the domestic routine of Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), the commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp. He and his family bustle around with their servants, ignoring the industrialised mass murder being committed just over their garden wall.