"The earth is the earth
as a peasant sees it, the world is the world as a duchess sees it, and anyway a
duchess would be nothing if the earth was not there as the peasant sees
it."
—Gertrude Stein (American,
1874-1946)
Word for the day
Logrolling (n)
Cronyism or mutual
favoritism among writers, editors, or critics, as in the form of reciprocal
flattering reviews; back scratching.
Malice towards none
0.00011% of 1.3bn is 1430.
33% of demonetized currency is Rs4.50trn.
If with all restrictions,
1430 people could deposit Rs4.5trn in banks in 50days, then our system is
totally dysfunctional and I don't trust anyone.
First random thought this morning
The entire political establishment in the country seems divided in
two camps - those supporting DeMo and those opposing it.
Both camps are using their full might (supporters issuing multiple
full page advertisements in newspapers and hours of TV advertisements and those
opposing holding protest rallies and public meetings) to highlight their
viewpoints.
I have three questions - (1) How many common people are still
bogged down by Demo? (2) Why does BJP still want to keep the DeMo alive? (3)
Why Dr. Manmohan Singh is not retiring from active politics?
In search of black swans
Couple of weeks ago, I received a
message in my mail box from a friend who has keen interest in astrology. I read
the message with some passing interest and also forwarded (almost mechanically)
to few contacts who I thought might be interested in astrology.
The message read like this:
"Saturn is ready to move its
house once again from 26th October 2017. This is the last but the most
significant change of 2017, as Saturn moves from Scorpio to Sagittarius, where
it will be transiting for about 2 years & 3 months (till 24th January 2020)
bringing major changes in our life that are currently not imagined, planned or
on the anvil. Sagittarius is a strange sign for Saturn as it is an aggressive
sign full of fire, openness & impatience. All these traits are just the
opposite of the true nature of Saturn, which would ensure that changes in life
would come in due to changed circumstances and mostly out of reactions rather
than planned or pleasant coincidences of life!
Saturn in Sagittarius has a
strange history in our lives as well as the history of the world. If we review
the last time Saturn visited Sagittarius during 1987 to 1990, we had
experienced a sea of changes in our world. History is witness to the foundation
of the European Union in July 1987, end of Iran-Iraq war after 8 years, World
Wide Web (internet) invented by Tim Berners-Lee, Unification of Germany &
fall of the Berlin wall; Mikhail Gorbachov was given the Nobel peace prize
& Boris Yeltsin became the president of Russia & last but not the
least, Nelson Mandela was released. These developments initially during that
time seemed small & innocuous but have changed the shape of our lives over
the last 30 years.
The same cycle is seen again as
our life is ready to change once more. It’s time when we should keep an eye on
the modifications in our surroundings and be ready to accept and adapt."
I am no expert in astrology or
international affairs. No part of my formal education included study of
geo-politics, strategic affairs and international relations. I may therefore
not be competent enough to comment on these events. Nonetheless, as a out and
out commoner, I can feel that the extant Global Order is witnessing some
material changes and these are likely to impact my economic life at least. I
therefore need o
Some of these changes when seen in
isolation may look like local in nature. But if juxtaposed to the other events
that are taking place simultaneously in the other parts of the world, it is
difficult to deny their potentially larger impact.
Three decades back when the world
was ushering the big changes, India was still mostly a closed society (and
therefore a closed market & economy) which was just beginning to open up to
the world. The impact of global events was therefore mostly felt positively, as
those developments made it easier for us to enter the global mainstream and
integrate with the world economy. It no longer is the case. This time we shall
feel the tremors in full intensity and reap the fruits too....to continue
tomorrow
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