Only the poorest, most isolated and socially hated few, with no clansmen to speak for and whose cases activists won't find sexy enough to defend, will go to the gallows.

Said Shekhar Gupta, former editor-in-chief of The Indian Express, in his facebook post.

My take on the Yakub Memon case in this Facebook post. What's a noose for the shd be a noose for the gander https://t.co/cTO2ykY5Eo

— Shekhar Gupta (@ShekharGupta) July 26, 2015

Observer @gdjasuja
Tweets by @gdjasuja

The U.S. stock market could "easily" drop 20 percent to 40 percent

Marc Faber

Said : Marc Faber, a Swiss investor based in Thailand, reported CNBC recently. 

Faber is publisher of the Gloom Boom & Doom Report newsletter and is the director of Marc Faber Ltd which acts as an investment advisor and fund manager. His latest prediction : "The U.S. stock market could "easily" drop 20 percent to 40 percent."

In his latest blog posting, Faber advices that the safest place to be is precious metals and some cash.

"Faber has been predicting the meltdown of U.S. stocks for years, only to see the market climb higher." 

Faber is pessimistic about Asian economies and expects "no growth" from there as some countries are already in recession. According to Faber, the expansion in Europe is "anemic" and the situation in Greece is "basically Ponzi finance" that can't last. 

In his latest newsletter, Faber declares "Indochina — including Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos — is the most promising region for investment over the next 30 years."

In a democracy, if you are critical of the government, you have to express it. Sitting quietly and grumbling about it is not going to help. That’s not what democracy is for.

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen

Said : Nobel laureate Amartya Sen in an interview with Amrita Dutta published in The Indian Express of today.

Highlights of the interview are as under :

There is a strong gender preference, which is characteristic of India, much more so than we often recognise. If you compare India with Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, not to mention China, we come out worse in female life expectancy, female literacy, female schooling, female survival. The previous government did not do enough, but the present government is doing less than enough. 

"The positive thing about Modi, which I recognized even earlier, was that he was telling people: we can get things done. I admired it then, I admired it now. The problem begins with what it is that he wants to get done. I think he has a wrong understanding of economic development." 

1. You can think of development as a process with human beings at the centre, or you can see it as a process with financial and industrial leadership [at the centre]. He (Modi) definitely belongs to the latter [school of thought]. We pay no attention to that, as if the quality of human beings is not central to human development. If India was bad at that earlier, it’s worse at it now. 
2. On his decision to quit Nalanda University : 'The board wanted unanimously me to continue as chancellor, but the government’s advice was clear: under no circumstances. The Minister of External Affairs spoke clearly to the members of the board and said that Amartya Sen wasn’t acceptable. Some people wanted to continue the battle but I thought that would be a mistake." 
3. It was clear to me that even if my friends in the board were to win in keeping me as chancellor, I could not be an effective leader because I would have to fight the government all the time. But I decided to make it a public affair so that it would be difficult to put a Hindutva ideologue in charge at Nalanda. The government did not want it to be made public at all. They would have loved it if I had quietly slunk away, but that, I am afraid, I was not willing to do. If there’s one thing to learn from this, it is that in a democracy, if you are critical of the government, you have to express it. Sitting quietly and grumbling about it is not going to help. That’s not what democracy is for. 
4. What made me speak up at the time of the elections was my concern at the Hindutva elements in Modi’s agenda. You see that as an academic very much now, in the interference in the academic administration of the National Book Trust or at the Indian Council of Cultural Relations or the Indian Council of Historical Research. What happened at Nalanda is a relatively nicer story than either it first appeared and also compared with what is happening to other educational/cultural institutions like ICCR or NBT or ICHR or for that matter TIFR, as well as what might be happening to the IIMs if the bill goes through. 

"Silicon Valley is no longer just the place talented people move to; it's the place those people are moving from"

Glenn Kelman

Said : Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin, a leading real estate website, in a commentary on - Soaring housing costs forces talent to flee Silicon Valley - published in CNBC on 21 May 2015. 

According to Kelman, "IT folks are leaving Silicon Valley, mostly because they can't afford to stay. For the first time ever, the median price for a Silicon Valley home just exceeded $1 million. That's about double what it is in other tech cities, like Boston or Seattle, and triple what it is in aspiring technology hubs, like Portland, Denver or Austin."

Kemlin, quoting PayScale.com, writes : "Silicon Valley engineers earn nearly 50 percent more than their Boston counterparts; in Seattle that difference is smaller, but still significant, at 12 percent. Nowhere is the pay difference large enough to offset the cost of housing."

According to Kemlin, Silicon Valley commercial rents are nearly double what they would be in Denver or Portland, and 50 percent higher than Austin or Seattle. For a 100-person office, the difference works out to be $400,000 a year. This is equivalent to about 2 percent of the total operating expenses in a typical software company which runs on 15 percent margins.

Readers' comments :

A reader 'Patriotoo' makes an interesing observation "Sadly, even Stanford has been corrupted by Silicon Valley, now just a trade school with students and faculty focused mostly on their widget startup or sitting on SV boards for faculty as well." "WA and OR already suffer for the earlier exodus of Californians to those states," noted another reader Don Iverson. Lacityterr remarked : "There is no more room in Silicon Valley and they are all moving down here to Los Angeles. Rents are skyrocketing in the city of LA. They are building housing like crazy in downtown. The entire west side of town has been taken over by the tech industry. In 10 years LA will be as unaffordable as the bay area. I am glad I bought my house when I did."

"The poor are most definitely not poor because the rich are rich. Nor are the rich undeserving"

Warren Buffet

Said : Warren Buffett - an American business magnate, investor and philanthropist, considered to be the most successful investor of the 20th century. 

In a commentary for The Wall Street Journal, he said : "The widening wealth gap is an "inevitable consequence of an advanced market-based economy. But it is a fact that in recent decades, our country's rising tide has not lifted the boats of the poor," reported CNBC.

The Screen Shot of 
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@WarrenBuffet

"The poor are most definitely not poor because the rich are rich. Nor are the rich undeserving"

Said : Warren Buffett http://bit.ly/1ikgz4X - an American business magnate, investor and philanthropist, considered to be the most successful investor of the 20th century. 

In a commentary for The Wall Street Journal, he said : "The widening wealth gap is an "inevitable consequence of an advanced market-based economy. But it is a fact that in recent decades, our country's rising tide has not lifted the boats of the poor," reported CNBC. http://cnb.cx/1Hz4T8q

An agreement is worth something only if you can make it expensive for the other side to violate it

Said : Arun Shourie in an interview with Rakesh Sinha, National Editor (News Operations) of The Indian Express (published in the May 4, 2015 edition) which claims to follow the Journalism of Courage.

The interview appears under the heading "Let’s not be in a hurry to resolve border dispute with China : Arun Shourie." Shourie has meticulously analyzed the current scenario of the Indo-China relations and highlighted the challenges facing the country in dealing with this Asian Tiger. He has advised to learn from the past mistakes of leaders like Pandit Nehru and also urged PM Modi to involve experts like General Raghavan and Shyam Saran who have spent years and years studying China, and its methods. "When you meet them (Indian experts), reflect carefully on views and assessments that are contrary to your instincts," he added.

Some of the other quotable quotes of Shourie from the Express News interview are reproduced below :

Pakistan is the immediate problem, China is the principal challenge in the long run — and in part Pakistan is a problem because of China. 

Indeed, China is facing many problems. But China’s problems are not going to solve ours: all they can do is that they may give us a little more time.  

China views India as a potential nuisance — one that must be kept busy in South Asia. And it has a willing instrument in Pakistan to do so.

Shourie's views can be useful but they just provide a kind of precautionary tool that may be used while dealing with the Chinese leaders. But when asked "So in your view what should the government be doing?," Shourie could hardly provide any meaningful answer which can be termed as something novel or even new.

At the end, I realized that although Shourie's analysis and observations are quite important and can be really useful but there is no reason to believe that PM Modi is ignorant about them and he is not seeking experts' opinion. We may not be knowing his list of advisers but I am sure he must be listening to them. He is a good listener but to expect him to take the ultimate final decision contrary to his instincts will rather be not only too much but also be impractical. The so called Experts, including Shourie, also form their opinions based on their instincts. 

Somehow, reading Shourie's views has strengthened my thinking that to analyse a difficult and complex situation may be quite easy or free of any faults but to deal with it may not be as easy as many experts think or advise. That's why leaders at the highest level eventually tend to postpone such issues. Perhaps Shourie also, therefore, as per the headline of his interview, rightly (consciously or unconsciously) advices "Let’s not be in a hurry to resolve border dispute with China." Is it not  because we have no other viable alternative?