KJo is a very bright man who understands pop culture and the film business. Being a second generation film maker helps for sure, but he is a very hard working man, being on every reality tv show possible, while making movies. His autobiography is one I am waiting to read, as most of his Bollywood peers did not even clear high school. He is sharp and witty, when interviewed face to face, while Koffee with Karan is a pop culture product. 

Nirmala Sitharaman ji in NDTV’s Davos debate, equated Demonetisation with India’s Mars Mission. Cash is now backward, while payment wallets are the same as ISRO’s space exploration excellence. This is stretching the technocratic imagination a bit too far. Amitabh Kant ji’s verbose speak to back up the digital push did not cut any ice. Harvard Economist Ken Rogoff’s expression was priceless. The Indian delegation on the panel was certainly not the best as far as intellectual firepower. The SBI Chairwoman was least convincing. Sitharaman ji’s criticism of banking corruption in the wake of the notebandi crisis was sniggered away by Arundhati Bhattacharya. Not the most cohesive presentation on India’s most disruptive public policy innovation since 1991 on the world stage. Please send Jayant Sinha or Nandan Nilekani or the Davos Men to present India’s brand. Oh I forgot everyone important is tied up with regional polls. To be fair with the current administration, the Big Bang Innovation was something anticipated by the public since 2014. A large section of the working class although troubled is content at least because of a proactive measure, even as flawed as Demonetisation. A shopkeeper once mentioned that at least a step was taken, the last PM was on silent mode. The outcomes of the measure has been shifting but the political capital invested is huge. This is truly the audacity of hope.

At a Brookings India event on Climate Change and Air Pollution, where an environmental economist and bureaucrat is speaking. Basic Air Pollution 101 in sophistication speak. The audience is C Suite posh. The talk is about Business Models, the science is simplified. Interesting thoughts certainly. I am wondering where is the climate change scientist where, or the air quality modeller? The science is relegated to economics and public policy, although Climate Change is science based policy. The culture of conversations have to evolve. I thank the prestigious think tank to bring Climate Change on the table.

Activists on the left and artistes who are sensitive to sociopolitical causes, and bicker from attending cultural and literary festivals sponsored by corporate cash, often from the mining sector and Langigarh is prominent among them. The artist community has to realise that the biggest patrons of the arts including the written word have been funded by the new high royalty, which is the financial elite. The fear is often in between not doing the right kind of work due to the lack of material resources or the tendency of being coopted within neoliberal debates. We are all coopted in one way or the other. The point is in engaging with the mining firm to implement better ESG norms. Boycotting is one way, and not the only mechanism to bring about the right reform.

The conversations regarding data security are long over drawn, but with the JAM+Demonetisation combination, this lens is more relevant than ever. Public Policy will be more technology driven passing everyday, and the questions of ethics and transparency to citizenry have to brought up again and again. India is a country of unprecedented complexities and realities on the ground are infinitely complex to model the deficiencies. There is a rampant black market already in Aadhar numbers. No one talks about making government decision making transparent, including diluting RTI. Rather citizens as taxpayers are treated as criminals unless proven otherwise exemplified by the Bank officials question usual account holders wishing to deposit or withdraw their own resources. Technology is underwritten by value laden thinking, and assumptions behind technology need to be unpacked as a black box.

Delhi should understand the Marina Beach Protests. It was not long ago that the Ealem movement was active. Lutyens needs to be emphatic with Adayaar. The Spanish are not quelling their culture for adhering to the western animal rights narrative. Culture has been central to the Tamil identity however sub nationalist to the larger Indian Construct.

The intersectionalities of caste are as real in the Indian Start Up sector. The Baniya is as powerful as ever. The Agarwal, Bansal, Sangal, Sethia etc. Business models are pretty standard too, as the source of capital behind the thinking is the same. Some things are never ‘disrupted’ for all the chatter about disrupting the status quo. Man, disrupt the traditional cash castes.

Technocracy is a definite political imagination where outcomes dominate process, where pain of common people are trivial for the larger good. This also presumes that marginal communities are incapable of taking decisions for themselves. In short, the rule of the elite mandarins, and politics is performance. Technocracy is not a silver bullet for the divisive intersectionalities of everyday politics of life; caste, economic inequalities and race. Often on the ground execution needs buy in from communities of practice such as bankers in case of demonetisation. Demonetisation is reflective of this technocracy.

Even Swami Sampurnanand joked about Demonetisation in a short talk on Science and Swami Vivekananda at Hindol Sengupta’s ‘The Modern Monk’ in Delhi today (10-01-2017) that the impact of Demonetisation on Ascetic life, that people who used to donate 1000 rupees, do not even donate 100 now, as small daily expenses are covered by donations. The small saved up reserves are worthless where as the wealthy are not impacted. Demonetisation is a cross cutting lived experience phenomenon, from the saint to the sinner.