"The story of philosophy" - Spinoza
A remarkable man, grounded first in religious books, but still influenced by reason, leading a life excommunicated but not abandoning his pursuit of philosophy. Some links to explore his life and works:

Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Baruch Spinoza at the Stanford Enyclopedia of Philosophy

The Spinoza Net. All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare. Comprehensive website on Spinoza

The Spinoza Study completely downloadable website

Great Books Index - Spinoza

A dedication to Spinoza's insights Joseph B. Yesselman's home page

Studia Spinoziana

Spinoza's psychological theory at the Stanford Enyclopedia of Philosophy

'Bennett on Spinoza's Philosophical Psychotherapy' a paper by Olli Koistinen

'Are Spinozistic ideas Cartesian judgments?' a paper by Timo Kajamies

"The story of philosophy" - Francis Bacon
Jumping straight to the pre-Renaissance master politician and thinker, Sir Francis Bacon. Links:

A biography of Sir Francis Bacon by Max Patrick

Mystery of Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The Works of Sir Francis Bacon

Great Books Index - Francis Bacon

Selected works of Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon's Essays

Sir Francis Bacon's New Advancement of Learning

'The New Atlantis' by Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon Research Trust

Essays on Sir Francis Bacon

"The story of philosophy" - Aristotle
The next in line is the great Aristotle. A wealth of information resources on the Web exist about him. Here are a few:

Aristotle - an overview at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Aristotle on the Philosophy Pages with good links

The philosophy of Aristotle with downloadable zip files of his complete works

Great Books Index - Aristotle

Aristotle and Aristotelianism at non-contradiction.com

Aristotle's political philosophy page with excellent links

'Politics' by Aristotle at the Internet Classics Archive

Aristotle's political theory at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

'Nicomachean Ethics' by Aristotle at the Internet Classics Archive

Aristotle's rhetoric - completely downloadable website

Aristotle's logic at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

"The story of philosophy" - Plato
Moving on to the broad-shouldered student of Socrates - Plato. Here are interesting websites/pages on him and his works:

Biographical

Plato's life, plus many good links

Christopher's Athens - Of Plato

His works & philosophy

Science and Human Values - Plato - at the Rochester Institute of Technology

Works by Plato - the Internet Classics Archives

Plato and his Dialogues

Plato's Republic

Great Books Index - Plato

Plato's life and works, with commentary

Literature on Plato at A Slice of Philosophy

Plato as mathematician

Miscellaneous

Journal of the International Society of Plato

My views on sdburman.net
I had emailed two pieces of feedback to this excellent website on S.D.Burman, http://sdburman.net, and the creators/maintainers of the site (H.Q.Chowdhury, Maajid Maqbool and Ritu Chandra) have kindly put them up on the site.

The first piece was as a feedback to Ritu's article on 'Piyaa tose nainaa laage re...'. Find it in the section 'Burmanda ka Pitara'.

The second was as feedback to Shri Chowdhury's article on the relationship between Manna Dey and S.D.Burman. Find it in the section Feature of the Month

"The story of philosophy" - Socrates
Starting with the great Sophist. Here are a few interesting places to visit on the Web on Socrates:

Biographical:

Socrates - Brief discussion on his life and works, with good links.

The life of Socrates - Another brief account of Socrates' life.

The Trial of Socrates

The apology of Socrates

Philosophy

The Last Days of Socrates - Educational site designed to help philosophy students read the Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and the death scene from the Phaedo.

Socrates: Philosophy's martyr - A page containing the review of a book on Socrates. The section at the bottom, 'Socrates on the Web' gives excellent links.

Confucius and Socrates - The Teaching of Wisdom - A complete book on these two philosophers, written by Sanderson Beck, available online.

"Who was Socrates?" by Alban Dewes Winspear, with Tom Silverberg

"Let us philosophize" by D.R.Khashaba

Socrates' Last Error - a contrarian view saying Socrates' justification of his acceptance of the death penalty handed out to him was erroneous

Miscellaneous

Project Gutenberg edition of "Socrates", the play by Voltaire

Socrates quotes on The Quotation Page

The Socrates Argument Clinic - Test your knowledge/wits on this page.

"The story of philosophy"
This is the book I am reading currently. Written in an engaging style by Will Durant, it leads the reader from Socrates to Bertrand Russell and John Dewey. Western philosophy is arranged around the most important/influential figures in this book. It makes for fascinating reading. The lives of most of these extraordinary men have been extraordinary. Enough historical context is made so that one can understand not only what the philosophy of a particular philosopher was, but also why he might have evolved such views.
The book became a bestseller when it was first published in 1926, and it's easy to see why. Its conscious aim of trying to reach philosophy to the layman is the basis of its style, and, judging from the response, the aim has certainly been fulfilled.
So while I am reading this book, I will post interesting links on the Web available for the major philosophers mentioned in the book.

Formulae?
Politicians use the term 'formula' to describe a scheme wherein each party seems to achieve its selfish objective. Note that they only 'seem' to be achieving their own selfish ends through such a scheme, whether they actually achieve it is always doubtful.
But could someone find a worse misnomer? When one thinks of a 'formula' in terms of science, one thinks of an eternal truth. But a political formula is neither eternal nor true.

The Flyover saga: follow-up
Just a follow-up to the 31 Oct. post on the Great Silk Board Flyover (GSBF for short :)), right from the day after it opened to the public, our bus driver has been avoiding it like the plague. Of course, what he is really avoiding is the Bommanahalli logjam, and not the flyover per se.

In the morning, take the old HSR Layout route, now mostly empty. In the evening, go through the hinterland behind Bommanahalli and touch Outer Ring Road directly.

The flyover is dead; Long live the flyover!
"On the wonderful occasion of the opening of the Central Silk Board junction flyover to the public, let us hear from a typical commuter on Hosur Road how effective it has been so far:

Q. How do you feel, now that the flyover is finally ready and you can use it?

A. On top of the world! I mean on top of Hosur Road!

Q. How do you commute on Hosur Road? What vehicle do you use?

A. I travel by company transport, a Swaraj Mazda mini-bus.

Q. What route did the bus take when the flyover was being constructed?

A. In the morning, emerging from Koramangala 1st Block and the Sarjapur Road, it used to take the Outer Ring Road and enter the HSR Layout. We plodded through the road connecting HSR to Hosur Road near Bommanahalli, which used to take at least 15 minutes. And finally reached the office at 8.50 am on an average. In the evening, we endured the peak Hosur Road traffic at 7.30 pm and either waited in an unending queue at the Silk Board signal, or took a circuitous route through BTM Layout and Madivala. The earliest I reached Koramangala was at 8.05 pm, taking 35 minutes.

Q. Hmm..quite a bad situation to be going through every day..

A. Well, not as bad as driving yourself, I guess.

Q. True, true. So, you used the flyover in the evening yesterday. How much earlier did you reach Koramangala?

A. I reached 10 minutes later.

Q. What? How so?

A. The flyover has eased congestion at the Silk Board junction. The junction looks wonderful now. But yesterday, we had mini-traffic jams before the flyover (in Bommanahalli), and after the flyover, at the Madivala Masjid.

Q. Oh..too bad. How about the morning commute today? How much earlier did you reach office today?

A. I reached 5 minutes later than the time I used to reach during the months when the flyover was being constructed.

Q. What? Not again? What was it this time?

A. Well, people are still using internal HSR Layout roads, and the traffic build-up at Bommanahalli was great. When I went, it extended nearly to the foot of the flyover (from B'halli!) And I was told that later it extended onto the flyover itself!

Q. So you mean you have not benefited by the construction of the flyover?

A. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

So, you see, the picture around the Silk Board junction flyover, which was opened after a delay of a month-odd from the scheduled September date, is not all rosy. "

Well, perhaps I am being too cynical and too hasty to write an obituary of the flyover, but both commutes mentioned above were irritating, to say the least.