"We routinely confuse celebrity for authority." - NY Times

— Patrick Meier (@PatrickMeier) August 2, 2015

"When Donald Trump entered the race on June 16, skeptics thought he would struggle to make the debate stage at all. Instead, he will be its focal point, not only because of his braggadocio but because he is leading in many national polls."

Niall Stanage

Said : Niall Stanage, Associate Editor at The Hill, in his post analysing the rules of the first Republican presidential debate to be held on August 6 in Cleveland on Fox News cable network. 10 of the 17 candidates will be selected for the main 9 p.m. debate. The positioning of the candidates on the stage is supposed to be one of the favourable factors because contenders at the center generally benefit at the expense of those confined to its edges.

Veteran Republican strategist Charlie Black, who served as senior political adviser to Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) 2008 presidential campaign was quoted as saying : “If [Trump] or anybody else violates the rules, it will hurt them. I’ve been focus-grouping these things for many years and people don’t like it when you keep breaking the rules." 

According to Charlie, Donald Trump has been going over the time limit.

Narendra Modi's Love for Shri Narendra Modi

I just got the above post of Narendra Modi on my FB TL. Verified. Found it was an old one but correct.

How to Tackle Terrorism? Listen mind-blowing audio speech of Shri Narendra Modi. Visit Breezy Audio Section of http://narendramodi.in/

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 31, 2009

'In economics, like elsewhere, the questions rarely change. The answers keep changing"

Source

Said : Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan while inaugurating the Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics (MDAE) in Mumbai on July 27, 2015 in presence of chairperson of MDAE, Lord Meghnad Desai, reported the Times of India under the title "RBI under 'enormous pressure' to cover up NPA: Rajan."

"Declaring an NPA is primarily an issue of cleaning up accounting. The market fully understands what is truly non-performing. Moreover, it gives the wrong incentives, as by avoiding NPAs it merely postpones the problem. There is confused understanding of this problem," TOI reported Rajan as saying.

Dr. Rajan stressed the need for a good understanding of the fundamentals of economics, such as price theory, general equilibrium which is the hardest concept to understand. According to him lot of policy-making is done without an understanding of general equilibrium which is a key contribution that an economist can make to the dialog. "The kind of economics we need is based on rigorous fundamentals - blood, sweat, tears, and toil. In economics, like elsewhere, the questions rarely change. The answers keep changing," said Rajan as per the TOI report.

LiveMint, on the other hand, reported that the move to strip Raghuram Rajan of control over India rates is faceing backlash as, already, two officials in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration have distanced themselves from a draft bill that would give the government control over a proposed interest-rate setting panel. 

"The kind of economics we need is based on rigorous fundamentals - blood, sweat, tears, and toil. In economics, like elsewhere, the questions rarely change. The answers keep changing" 

The Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics has been established as an institution of excellence to provide graduate students with the academic rigor and applied skills to meet the needs of a dynamic and globalized workplace. The programs have substantial input and participation by top-ranking corporates to improve the employability of young. The Academy offers 11-month Post graduate Program in Economics and Finance.

The above statement of Dr Rajan with respect to the NPAs has not got the required media attention due to Dr Kalam's untimely death which is occupying most of the social media's space today. But it is going to be a hot topic on Twitter very soon. Some have already started commenting.....

1/- for RT on July28: RBI is the last left untouched from institutionalized corruption by Sonia & Modi but, how long? http://t.co/NesnBGhCC3

— Kiran Kumar (@Yr_Conscience) July 28, 2015

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.