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Showing posts from 2017

The Other India

I. Can we move beyond outrage? On the 17th of December 2012, India’s capital New Delhi woke up to news reports about the gang rape of a 23-year-old female physiotherapy intern. When details began emerging about the horrors she was put through the previous night at the hands of 5 men (including a minor), it sent the nation into shock. People were outraged both by the brutal nature of the crime and by the fact that 5 men were able to commit it in a moving bus on the roads of the national capital without getting caught. Despite being afforded the best medical care and battling the odds for almost two weeks Nirbhaya (fearless), as she had come to be called by the nation, succumbed to her injuries on the 29th of December 2012. Public anger after the Nirbhaya case forced the then government to take immediate action on multiple fronts. A Rs.100 crore (~ $15 million) fund was allotted towards infrastructural improvements such as installing CCTV cameras and for setting up an emergency hotline f

The Other India

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Photo Credits: Harish Tyagi /EPA /LANDOV I. Can we move beyond outrage? On the 17th of December 2012, India’s capital New Delhi woke up to news reports about the gang rape of a 23-year-old female physiotherapy intern. When details began emerging about the horrors she was put through the previous night at the hands of 5 men (including a minor), it sent the nation into shock. People were outraged both by the brutal nature of the crime and by the fact that 5 men were able to commit it in a moving bus on the roads of the national capital without getting caught. Despite being afforded the best medical care and battling the odds for almost two weeks Nirbhaya (fearless), as she had come to be called by the nation, succumbed to her injuries on the 29th of December 2012. Public anger after the Nirbhaya case forced the then government to take immediate action on multiple fronts. A Rs.100 crore (~ $15 million) fund was allotted towards infrastructural improvements such as installing CCTV

Poorna Swaraj: Why the roaring success of demonetization isn’t economics at all

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How many times out of 10 would you listen to a politician asking you to physically go to a bank to either deposit your cash or exchange it for new currency notes, failing which any currency you hold would not only be worthless but also illegal? Until exactly a year ago I would’ve, in arrogance, vehemently ruled out the possibility of anybody in India ever agreeing to such a seemingly absurd arrangement. What I’d severely under-estimated was the value of two things: 1) Narendra Modi’s reality distortion field and 2) the extraordinary spirit in our people to contribute to social good in our country. This post is about the latter because the former, with no disrespect, is merely a spark- not the fuel or the flame which will carry India into the 21st century and beyond. Demonetization’s success as a financial policy move has been the subject of intense debate between some of the leading economists around the world. But whether Narendra Modi and his government eliminated corruption, black m

Poorna Swaraj: Why the roaring success of demonetization isn’t economics at all

Image
How many times out of 10 would you listen to a politician asking you to physically go to a bank to either deposit your cash or exchange it for new currency notes, failing which any currency you hold would not only be worthless but also illegal? Until exactly a year ago I would’ve, in arrogance, vehemently ruled out the possibility of anybody in India ever agreeing to such a seemingly absurd arrangement. What I’d severely under-estimated was the value of two things: 1) Narendra Modi’s reality distortion field and 2) the extraordinary spirit in our people to contribute to social good in our country. This post is about the latter because the former, with no disrespect, is merely a spark- not the fuel or the flame which will carry India into the 21st century and beyond. Demonetization’s success as a financial policy move has been the subject of intense debate between some of the leading economists around the world. But whether Narendra Modi and his government eliminated corruption, b

The Nation Wants to Know

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A farrago of exasperated thoughts and disconnected rants about the enervating persona that is Arnab Goswami. (Originally published on my medium account )   "Exasperating farrago of distortions, misrepresentations and outright lies being broadcast by an unprincipled showman masquerading as a journalist"  -Dr. Shashi Tharoor For those who are unfamiliar with the mainstream TV media in India, the name Arnab Goswami isn’t one that might ring a bell. For the others, it is a name that sets off a series of bells attempting unsuccessfully to ring over the loud and resonating voice of the biggest showman on Indian television. In November 2016 when he resigned as the Editor-in-Chief of Times Now, arguably at the peak of its popularity, it left a lot of people wondering what he his next move would be. 6 months later, with the birth of RepublicTV, he clarified that beyond all doubt. Arnab had taken his wildly popular evening news show on Times Now called “News Hour” (named inappropriatel

The Nation Wants to Know

Image
A farrago of exasperated thoughts and disconnected rants about the enervating persona that is Arnab Goswami. (Originally published on my medium account ) "Exasperating farrago of distortions, misrepresentations and outright lies being broadcast by an unprincipled showman masquerading as a journalist"  -Dr. Shashi Tharoor For those who are unfamiliar with the mainstream TV media in India, the name Arnab Goswami isn’t one that might ring a bell. For the others, it is a name that sets off a series of bells attempting unsuccessfully to ring over the loud and resonating voice of the biggest showman on Indian television. In November 2016 when he resigned as the Editor-in-Chief of Times Now, arguably at the peak of its popularity, it left a lot of people wondering what he his next move would be. 6 months later, with the birth of RepublicTV, he clarified that beyond all doubt. Arnab had taken his wildly popular evening news show on Times Now called “News Hour” (named inappropria

Are Digital Technologies Making Politics Impossible?

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This article was originally written as part of my unfinished submission to the nine dots prize. Maybe next time I'll actually submit something.  “The internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn't understand, the largest experiment in anarchy we've ever had.” -Eric Schmidt, Co-Founder and CEO, Google.com In the year 1947 when John Bardeen and his team at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey were busy inventing the first transistor, Harry S Truman was on the campaign trail with almost every prediction indicating that he would be defeated by Republican Thomas E. Dewey in the elections that would be held the following year. Meanwhile, somewhere in Illinois, Hugh Rodham and Dorothy Howell were celebrating the birth of their first child, a baby girl they named Hillary Diane Rodham and nearly 7000 miles away, 300 million Indians were celebrating their hard-fought independence from over 200 years of British colonial rule. The invention of the transistor

Are Digital Technologies Making Politics Impossible?

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This article was originally written as part of my unfinished submission to the nine dots prize. Maybe next time I'll actually submit something.  “The internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn't understand, the largest experiment in anarchy we've ever had.” -Eric Schmidt, Co-Founder and CEO, Google.com In the year 1947 when John Bardeen and his team at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey were busy inventing the first transistor, Harry S Truman was on the campaign trail with almost every prediction indicating that he would be defeated by Republican Thomas E. Dewey in the elections that would be held the following year. Meanwhile, somewhere in Illinois, Hugh Rodham and Dorothy Howell were celebrating the birth of their first child, a baby girl they named Hillary Diane Rodham and nearly 7000 miles away, 300 million Indians were celebrating their hard-fought independence from over 200 years of British colonial rule. The invention of t