The DNA Survey

Charu is puzzled by the questions being asked in the DNA survey. For those who are puzzled, DNA is the new newspaper being launched in Mumbai. It stands for – get this – Daily News and Analysis. They are making much of the fact that we, i.e the readers will create the newspaper, presumably by answering their questions and telling them what kind of newspaper we want.

Now I am not the marketing guy (Charu is) but my understanding is that the “survey” is basically fake, more of a brand-building exercise. I mean, if I were launching a newspaper or any other consumer product, I would certainly do a lot of surveys and focus group discussions. But I wouldn’t create a hoopla about doing those surveys. I can think of many, many ways in which such hoopla can bias the results. So I am inclined to think that what they are doing is not the real survey. But then, to repeat, I am not the marketing guy.

Sanskrit Names

Amit Varma posts about Sanskrit names. As I remember it, one oddity of Sanskrit grammer is that gender is determined by the form of the word rather than the sex of the person. What I mean is, the first part of my name – Ravi is supposed to be pronounced with a short i at the end. That makes it male. But if my mom had named me Raveeee, then you’d have to address me as female, even though to the best of my knowledge I’ve been male all my life. And remember Sanskrit has a neutral gender too. One of the words for “wife” in Sanskrit is kalatram which, because of its form (ending in “um” ) is neuter. So if refer to your wife as kalatram, you’d have to point to her as “it”. (Actually, there is a word in for wife which is male – I don’t remember it)

More complications. How a noun ends in Sanskrit depends on the case. So if I am the object of a sentence (Amit shot Ravi) you’d have to call me Ravim (Amitaha shot Ravim.) In other words, google searches would become impossible in Sanskrit.

Ab tak ek sau unnis

Wow! As I read this, there are 119 comments on Yazad’s post about poverty and if Yazad’s blog weren’t acting up a bit, I suspect there would be more. Unfortunately, much of the debate seems to be centred on Amit and others trying to get Dilip to confess to something. I don’t see the point. The question is not what he believes in his heart, but what he conveys through his article. I must insist that we look only at what the article says and not at any subsequent clarifications that he gives at Yazad’s place. The reason is simple. An article on Rediff and the Hindu reaches lakhs of ill-informed readers who aren’t going to come over to Yazad’s place to get further education on the topic. They are going to leave with an “overwhelming impression” and it is that impression that I am concerned with.
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So many posts to do, so little time.

  1. I like it when my blog enables people to come to a consensus. I hope everyone is agreed that Chitra Singh is a horrible singer. Further discussions on this topic are welcome, but disagreement is not allowed as it will upset the consensus and hurt all our feelings.
    Also congrats to Sandeep on getting the answer.
  2. It is traditional for the words of great men to be twisted beyond recognition, but it is supposed to be done after their death. I am referring to Corrector of Maladies, who says that I “lampooned” (that is the current vogue word on TEL) Gurumurthy for saying pretty much the same thing I am saying now. Sorry, but just because posts from my old blog are offline you can’t go around twisting my words. GAWD sees everything and He found me a cache of that post. Read it and judge for yourself. I wasn’t criticising for saying anything wrong. I was claiming that he was saying two contradictory things, one of them right and the other wrong.
  3. On the other hand, the earlier comment by him reminds me that this is in fact a difficult case for market fundamentalists like me. This is a case where Government intervention may be justified, provided I see a valid way to make it work. That requires a post from me.
  4. Then there is this comment by 7*6, posing a set of questions. That will require another post from me. Sigh. But briefly about the first question – I might have the cause and effect wrong. (Collapse of China -> Fall of dollar or the other way round? I don’t know)
  5. I also want to do another post on the reforms and the poor. (Another Sigh.)
  6. In the meantime, visit Lakshmi’s blog and read her post on the contrast between India and the US. Very very good. I’ve long wanted to do a similar post. (Another Big Sigh.)

So will China collapse or not?

I say that within three years it will undergo a painful collapse. I may be wrong, but the logic of the Pascal’s wager dictates that I should make a money bet on China collapsing.

(The logic is as follows. If China does well or slows down without collapsing, then I will be just fine. But if China collapses, it will take the US down with it. As a cybercoolie, I will naturally be in trouble. So I might as well make some money out of the damn mess.)

Here is a piece examining the possible mechanism of such a collapse.

How the world will end

One of these days, China will collapse, taking the US down with it. What will we do then?
Let me explain the scenario I am thinking of.

When we export something, we get dollars in return. Most people think that it is a good thing. Not really. Dollars are good only if we can actually buy something with them. You can, of course postpone the buying. That is a good strategy if the economy of the US is growing so fast that tomorrow’s dollar will buy much, much more than today’s dollar. In that case, it is worth waiting.

Now, the dollar is not like any other currency.
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