Reflections

CASHLESS!!!!! The newest mantra for the nation is this simple, soft and quiet little word – Cashless, that carries within itself a world of potent meaning, deep change, hopes, opportunities and stress… everywhere you turn around, you can see people on social media avowing it as the next great thing… while the naysayers are quick  to point out a series of objections and hindrances to this great new plan. THE NAY-SAYERS My take – both are right, both sides are spot-on; that said, there is a decided need to take a reality check for both sides. The nay-sayers first : they need to accept that digital payments are indeed getting to be the norm. You only have to visit the nearest multiplex window to see how many seats get booked through mobiles and other online methods to gauge the change that is sweeping the land. The need of the hour is to avoid making this is a matter of political affiliation, and view it as a sweeping change – one that is a logical extension to the...

TRUMPED! The title says it all : the whole world, it seems, has been trumped, or rather, to be accurate : Trumped. That capital “T” is rather important, you know. And thus it is that one of the most idiotic, amusing, divisive, unfathomable and surprisingly illogically logical elections comes to its conclusion, the swansong of what I can only call “ The Trumpection ”. For this wasn’t a normal event, this beloved “Trumpection”; it was an event unto itself, a roller coaster, amusing and hilarious event. {Sorry, my American friends, but from where I stand, it was, well, Hilarious!} I know that at least I looked up Trumpection at the end of a hard day for a barrel of laughs. I enjoyed it, and will certainly miss the entertainment provided by Trumpection! But, sadly, all good things must come to an end; there are only so many slices you can cut out of a Chocolate Cake, you know. My regular readers will by now have no doubt noted a marked shift from my normal analytical, factual, ...

UNDERSTANDING THE BAN – WHY IT ISNT ABOUT CORRUPTION ALONE MY THOUGHTS ON THE PEOPLE OF INDIA The Indian capacity for hero-worship at times surprises me; it is one thing to hero-worship without cause; this can be  easily dealt with by speaking facts. But it is quite another to hero-worship when a) the personality in question is very good at what he-she does; and b) the hero-worship has basis in facts, albeit incompletely understood. This was proven yet again, as there arose a deluge of praise – most of it deserved – on the 500/1000 note ban. That by itself is fine; but going through the comments frankly left me speechless, as I saw an amazing capacity to not think in the light of cold reason, but rather react in a classic response from a strong emotive viewpoint TACTICAL GENIUS That is critical; if responses arise from emotive regions of your brain, the capacity to fully analyse diminishes. And that was in full evidence yesterday, as people went ballistic, not ask...

SHE WALKS, SHE LEADS WOMEN WHO INSPIRED INDIA { Life stories of 24 women from 6 categories of life, from Business to Sports, from Entertainment to Media } By Gunjan Jain FIRST, THE ONLY BUT SMALL NEGATIVE This is a book of women who inspire India : and while it is perfectly permissible as well as logical & feasible that Ex-Indians can inspire Indians; my personal opinion is that we should not highlight the success stories of people who left India behind, and took other citizenship – not when  there are innumerable stories of local successes – many superbly chronicled in this book itself. And given the quality and research of this tome which is no less that monumental, I thought lets brush the irrelevant and the negative out of the way before getting to other more relevant and positive matters. And in that, my belief is that Indra Nooyi and Mira Nair {The latter lives in the USA, though her nationality status is not clear to me} do not belong among this ...