"Every church is a
stone on the grave of a god-man: it does not want him to rise up again under
any circumstances."
—Friedrich Nietzsche
(German, 1844-1900)
Word for the day
Ululate (v)
To lament loudly and
shrilly.
To howl, as a dog or a wolf;
hoot, as an owl.
Malice towards none
People like Karun Nair are
not sure, whether they will find place in Indian cricket squad anytime soon.
And we are still discussing Yuvraj Singh.
First random thought this morning
The tragic events like
Gorakhpur hospital tragedy and the Wednesday night theft in the Delhi-Mumbai
Rajdhani, may sure make a good sequence in Hindi movies. Bollywood may want to
thank the authorities for this
In the meantime, I must rework my maths for evaluating
government's performance.
I am considering to raising the discount factor I apply to
government claims of delivery substantially.
Monekeyman, a Witch and GST
In September 1995, the miraculous
milk drinking Ganesha brought the country to standstill. Millions of people
queued in front of temples to offer milk to Ganesha idols. The event attracted
attention of global media and scientific community also. After discussing and
debating for many days, the issues was buried as unresolved.
Six years later, a mysterious
monkey man started terrorizing the people of Delhi. For many nights, people in
many localities could not sleep. Unconfirmed reports of monkey man appearing
subsequently in other cities also emerged. An investigation was launched. But
the case remained unresolved. Later, the incidence was used in 2009 Hindi movie
"Delhi-6".
Last month, many incidence of
attack by a hair cutting Witch in NCR region appeared in media. The Witch would
cut braids of sleeping women in night.
The latest incidence was a matter
of discussion amongst the common people, gathered to celebrate the birth of
Lord Krishna. The difference this time was that almost everyone, from
illiterate old farmers to local pundits, was making fun of the
"rumors". Even old village women were seen cracking jokes about it.
No one appeared to be believing an iota in these incidence.
This is a significant change in
the mindset of the society, in my view.
The second interesting thing was
discussions on GST. A group comprising small traders, shop keepers, and small
time contractors, enjoying lunch at banks of Yamuna was seen intensely debating
the impact of GST. As I could feel, most of the arguments were based on
inadequate information, misinformation, and prejudices. To most of them GST was
no different than the mystery monkey man or the hair cutting Witch, that is out
to catch them off guard and destroy their businesses.
This in my view is failure of
government in adequately guiding people about GST and its implications for them.
The positive thing is that the current gloom in the sentiments could be
somewhat based on the misinformation rather than the actual impact of GST.
The third interesting discussion
was about real estate. Many people from nearby towns were of the firm view that
the prices of their properties are going to crash by 50% in next couple of
years.
On enquiry, they suggested that
the fall in prices of their property (own house or shop) may not have a
material impact of their spending habits or expenditure plans. But it was
certainly seen as an obstacle in their future investment and expansion plans.
A deeper inquiry suggested that it
may not be GST or RERA that is bothering the real estate market in smaller
towns and unplanned colonies of large cities, especially in North India. This
is mostly about changing landscape of urban plans and preferences of
people......More on this in a later post.
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