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Showing posts from June, 2023

India fifth largest economy in the world? IMF's per capita data say something else

  Forbes India, an obvious subsidiary of Forbes, one of America's top business magazines, has clubbed India among pop 10 largest economies in the world in 2023, with India being the fifth largest. I was a little surprised when I read this. However, as a read through the  news story , my apprehensions appeared to be correct. First let me quote from the story itself. It says, "The United States of America, China, Japan, Germany, and India are the largest economies in the world in 2023, as per their GDP data. GDP serves as a key metric for assessing the magnitude of a nation's economy." It even describes the methodology of its calculation: "The conventional approach for gauging a country's GDP involves the expenditure method, wherein the total is derived by aggregating expenditure on fresh consumer goods, new investments, government outlays, and the net value of exports." It praises India in following words: "India's economy boasts diversity and sw

Why I think some Modi haters are parochial: They identify anything bad with Gujarat

Manu's statue in Rajasthan High Court premises Controversy has broken out around a Gujarat High Court judge asking the father of a pregnant teenage girl to read Manusmriti if he cares to find out when a girl gets pregnant. He said, the ancient treatise approvingly says that a girl can get pregnant at the age of 17, plus or minus a few months. Surely a very odd comment; however, some of the enthusiastic social media people -- mainly Modi haters -- made it an occasion to blame Gujarat for it. Identifying Gujarat with Modi is nothing new among some left-of-centre activists, even academics. Anything bad emanates from Gujarat, they seek to suggest. Often words like "Gujjus" are derogatorily used to criticise Gujarat. These people go so far as to say, this is the impact of eating dhoklas, surely a tasty Gujarati dish. Being a Gujarati myself, I think, such comments are parochial in nature. No doubt, some of the worst post-Independence communal riots took place in Gujarat -- in

It is? Modi perspires four times a day to ensure face glow? But why he loved ACs?

A former Gujarat government official recently shared a tweet   by Subramaniam Swamy where a video shows Prime Minister Narendra Modi telling school children in his hometown Vadnagar that their face would glow if they perspire four times a day. He suggested his face was glowing exactly because of this reason. I have no idea whether facial glow is linked with how many times you perspire in a day, but what I know is, Modi would profusely avoid any perspiration when he was Gujarat chief minister. Thus, in 2006, Modi undertook a fast in support of the Narmada project, which he said the Centre was not supporting. The fast, it was declared, lasted for about 51 hours. I don't recall which month it was, but to avoid perspiration, he got installed air conditions in the open, just next to the spot where he and his colleagues were undertaking fast for the Narmada dam. When some enterprising journalists tried watching the ACs, they were manhandled -- for it would show his fast in poor light. S