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My Column 16-03-2025

My column 16-03-2025

Shashank Purandare


Belated holi wishes to all my readers! Hope you had colourful festivities with all the sweets in the world!

It seems nothing chages in our world. Trump is going about doing his irrational things. Or is there a method in his maddness? Time will tell. It is destabilising the economy of the world for sure! There is a fear that USA may go into recession. If that happens, will it have cascading effect on the world at large?

Or is it an idea to short the US share market and reap rewards when it rises again? Who knows? Trump's corruption is well documented.

Even though our share market has fallen, economy seems to be doing well. Inflation has gone down. It would be easy to control the prices if one can get rid of the middleman, the broker, the dalals. But since they in turn distribute the spoils to the politicians, this is not happening.

Religious tourism has taken firm roots in India. Good for the economy, though. Now you can visit Prayagraj, Varansi, Ayodhya, 365 days a week. Spend lavish money on transport and hotels and fill the empty coffers of the government.

It is estimated that 10% of the people in the world have 90% percent of the wealth in the world. So forget about equitable distribution of wealth to everyone. Not going to happen. Thankfully, through sheer hardwork, the number of middle class is swelling in India. Most of my readers are part of it. Our fathers were poor with a few exceptions and we are really proud of what we were able to achieve through hard work.

I was invited to inagurate science exhibitions in couple of schools in Thane. The main theme was green energy and waste management. Some robotic experiments were also on display. These days students in six-seventh class are learning coding and python which has replaced good old Basic. In 1979, when I was doing DERE, IC 741 was hidden in a package and we only connected circuits using the pin connections which were brought out. Now they have laptops and mobiles are more powerful than the computers I uesd in my early TIFR days.

The flow of students to marathi medium schools is dwindlling. Good teachers are hard to come by. I had my schooling in marathi medium but never thought and felt that it was a handicap. On the other hand, the students learning in english medium schools are missing out on basic marathi and hence do not follow the rich marathi literature. The parents also care less about this. A very sad state indeed!

The school boards are deliberately distorting the Indian history. The present government is also not paying any attention to this.

One of the opposition leader recently justified glorifying Mughal history by saying that if Mughals were not around, there would have been No Shivaji!! there would be no Ram without Ravan. I would like to point out that the world war two was heaped on the world by Hitler and the Nazzis. Do you see any signs of the Nazzis or Hitler in Germany today??

There is a joke going around these days. Indradev, sitting in heaven, is worried. He is thinking, where am I going to accommadate all these people who have purified themselves by washing their sins in Prayagraj and are now going to make a beeline to heaven? He can request Mhada and Cidco to accommodate them since there flats are going unsold. Better still, rope in Ambanis, Adanis, Lodhas etc., who provide heavenlike amneties in their complexes. He can also borrow the slogan from LIC by paying royalty, Jindagi ke saath bhi, jindagi ke baad bhi. (In life and after life too!)

Shashank Purandare 16/03/2025