Jaipur Literature Festival in January 2017, had a high-powered panel on titled ‘The Theater of Demonetisation’ as a creative act; as a work of creation. Polyglot Sanjeev Sanyal called the demonetization event as a leap into the dark. The theory has little to say, other than that there will be pain. The empirical perspective calls it unprecedented, without any faint clue. The Singapore example was stated again, the shock treatment was a signal to change behavior; ‘shock the system in to a new space’. While Social Scientist Shiv Vishwanathan explores a different metaphor- that of a B grade Bollywood movie, which is badly scripted. It is a failure of story telling, the good professor quipped.

The collapse of organised retail in shopping malls, to e-commerce and digitalisation of finance should not be equated to online learning and the awaited deprioritization of physical university education in the fourth industrial revolution. A section can move to MOOCs, but cannot totally substitute physical seminar style classes. They are a complimentary asset, not the main journey of structured learning. The platformization of education is not that disruptive. These need the empathy of a teacher and the physicality of space.

Spoke to a very experienced environmental impact assessment expert who said, it is better to spend tax payer money on Environmental Management Plan implementation than on the clearance process. This is according to me a serious indictment of the environmental governance process where there is no follow up on the measures written in the report.