Woh fit tho India fit – Kaun? Woh.
International Yoga Day has been observed on June 21 every year, after the United Nations adopted India’s proposal in 2014, just a month after the current ruling dispensation took office in India. They ensured that the touching of feet is now an internationally accepted ritual and a big healthy business which can spawn other businesses and bring the smile back to the mandarins at North Block (not AIIMS) without Dant Kanti!
International Yoga Day was celebrated on Thursday this week. Mysuru was shortlisted for the celebrations but, the Ayush Ministry bent backwards to ensure that the PM bent forward in Dehradun. Maybe because the political party that owns the ministry came out second best in Karnataka, the state in which Mysuru is located. Of course, the coincidence is pure and bereft of speculation.
Yoga is beautiful because it is ancient yet modern, said PM Modi at the celebratory event – He was metaphorically describing the nation, its leaders and its governance systems I assume… correctly I hope, else it would be making an ass of you and me (assume), which otherwise is the prerogative of… I leave it to you to speculate.
Even Yoga cannot help you stretch your imagination to the level of contemplating a PDP-BJP alliance. But, for advocates and practitioners of yoga perhaps, it is easy… until the muscles begin to strain. Though they spelt the word ‘national’ differently from the start, they tried for three years to refer to the same dictionary for a number of word spellings and definitions – Force, Terror, AFSPA, Pakistan, Hurriyat, separatists, interlocutors, Hindutva, Pandits, Homeland, Article 370 and 35A, Stone Pelters, ISI and even Rape, and they found that they always came up with different spellings and definitions for the same word. There were only two words they found spelt the same way for the partners – Development and Jobs, and neither is possible when the dictionary is on fire and a national election is looming.
And so, the BJP pulled out – Why govern with an unwilling partner when one can govern alone as one pleases through a governor and display the muscular 56’ chest ala Salman Bhai, which hitherto they had to keep covered, partially at least… When one has it, one must flaunt it; mustn’t one? Coalitions and alliances are a compulsion they have had to endure in the interests of the party. Otherwise, they believe in going it alone much like their leader… in the interest of the nation of course.
Portions of the media say the last straw for the national party was the killing of a soldier in the Indian Army with the name of a former emperor, a name they hated but now say they love. Let’s put this transformation down to the efforts of the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI).
Aurangzeb, the emperor was hated, but his namesake, a soldier in the Indian Army is loved – especially after his untimely death at the hands of terrorists. Rifleman Aurangzeb was kidnapped and killed by terrorists in Pulwama, Kashmir on June 14 when he was on his way home for Eid. Reports say Aurangzeb had planned to present his younger brother with a mobile and a car on Eid. To fulfil the dream of the martyr, Jaipur residents are depositing money in the account of Aurangzeb’s elder brother Khalid Qureshi in the form of Eidi so that he can buy the gifts promised by his late brother – A noble gesture indeed and one to be lauded.
Elsewhere in the country, when IT raids confiscate black money, the victims blame the rats. And in fact, the rats are being rewarded now for reporting even the possible incidence of black money, especially among their bete-noirés. But despite (or because of) Swaccha Bharat, the rats were hungry and feasted on Rs. 12.38 Lakhs of currency notes at an ATM of the State Bank of India in Tinsukia district in Assam. The Amma and Indira Canteens are far down south else, they may have spared the currency! Apparently, this was the consequence of DeMo 2. Prakash Sonowal, Tinsukia’s additional superintendent of police, said the bank, in its complaint had stated that the ATM was not functional for about 12 days. “It was not dispensing cash,” he said.
Google has 1.17 billion users – that means around 16% of the earth’s population, which is 7 Billion. If you have used it even once – and you definitely cannot use it just once – it knows when you eat, what you eat, when you crap and perhaps what you crap too. It knows your likes and dislikes, your fantasies and fetishes and everything in between. One thing it may not know about you is when you were or are likely to conceive, though if it has that information it may be able to predict when and how you were or will be born.
Now, it can predict with 95% accuracy when you will die… Provided you are an inpatient in a hospital – The Company’s Medical Brain team is using a new type of artificial intelligence algorithm to make predictions about the likelihood of death among hospital patients. In one case study, the Medical Brain algorithm gave a woman with metastatic breast cancer a 19.9 per cent chance of dying in the hospital by crunching 175,639 data points from her medical records. Now, what does this mean for you? It means that you can put your legal affairs in order well in advance by distributing your property to those you think deserve it and then watch yourself die. And others will watch with you, some gladly, some sadly – They will know the time and place and make advance flight bookings. Can Google, like Shashi Tharoor be charged with abetment of suicide? – They are after all using an algorithm to place ‘abet’ on your death!
Last word
Quartz India highlighted the voluntary departure of Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian from Team Modi, thus: “Team Modi loses another star economist”. Before joining the Modi government, Subramanian was the Dennis Weatherstone senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. Now, he is headed back to the US, even though Trump says he would rather manage without Indians. If all our nation’s brains are in the US, from Rajan to Subramanian to Pichai to Nooyi and a million others, what are we left with? Take a guess.
But, let’s not mope for what’s done and dusted – Let’s look back and humour ourselves even as we look ahead to an enjoyable weekend, and a great week ahead.
The author can be contacted at brian@newskarntaka.com
