There is too much importance on paper qualifications. In the 4IR era, learning, relearning and applying the knowledge is critical. The keyword is application, and clear thinking is paramount for this act. All the data is available, how are we processing the data is the literacy of this paradigm, not knowing.

Interest, curiosity and grit with a vision is all that it takes to win.

My icons have been Polymath Medical Doctors such as Atul Gawade, Siddhartha Mukherjee and President Kim of the World Bank who is a physician-anthropologist. Siddhartha and Atul are writers par excellence and practising doctors.

As a biotechnology major, global health has been a passion as it is a critical aspect of Social Development.

I was able to work on Health Communication based advocacy at CARE under Prof Mohan @mjdutt in Singapore. I later led healthcare at a market intelligence firm in Delhi. I wrote up a paper on the myth of big data in healthcare then.

While eating my lunch, a restaurant staff came to me and asked where I am from in Bangla, and i answered for a matter of convenience, Kolkata. I understood that the person who asked me was from Bangladesh, and was asking me about Jorasanko, Netaji Subhash’s home, Jibananda Das as these were the topics from his school days, his youth. The interest in poetry was palpable and was quite disjointed from the surroundings where he worked. South Asia and the Bengali ethos is very much alive here in the GCC.

#migrantscholars

Faith is the residue of home we carry in our souls when we are earning dollars in the pardes, to feed mouths. From the Coolies in the Caribbean to Chettiars in Malaya, temples are vital to preserving the self.

Analysis is more than data points, it’s understanding the textures of a phenomenon leveraging imagination, critical thought and nifty risk communication without operating on spivak mode.

This Yemeni man was injured in the conflict in his country and is in town for medical treatment. There were quite a few of them soaking in the twilight sun in the evening outside their hotel. All of them without legs and amputated. We can sometimes see the cost of war in the neighbourhood, in person rather than on Al Jazeera. It was uncomfortable at the least.

A Good Samaritan told me ‘when countries fight, Oman helps’

This is Oman. Respect. 🇴🇲

DeMo was a watershed event in contemporary history, as millions were impacted and the nation was split in to two over the nationalists who thought it was a silver bullet and independent observers such as me who were against the shock doctrine madness that was DeMo. I covered the event from day zero till yesterday when it was definitely said by a RBI report that DeMo was a damp squib. From DeMo to the narrative spins such as Remonetisation by Jayant Sinha and Times Now to the case of shift goal posts from Black Money to Terrorism to standing in the serpentine lines in front of ATMs as National Duty, to Anand Mahindra calling it as a ‘Signalling Effect’ to Vijay Shekhar Sharma basking in its windfall, the technological society was the shangri la for Pragati.

 

The informal economy was crippled, millions lost jobs, family events were devastated, the personal lived experiences were mapped through my articles on Alochonaa (thanks to Dr Mubashar) and changethinker.com and media coverage in Forbes (Wade Shepard thank you) and the BBC. Big shocks to a complex economy fail if they do not have the right conditions for structural reform. The After DeMo (AD) era has been pretty Before DeMo. The delta is insignificant. Kudos for attempting the Big Bang reform though, however brashly thought over and delivered.

 

I have written a few thousand words over almost two years, which is my book project, although embedded in the larger realm of digital and looks through the lens of social change and sustainability. I was labelled many unkind epithets, during this process as I wrote and traveled independently over months all over the country cataloging these voices, drowned down by the hubris of epistocracy and nationalism sentiment. History however vindicates and public is never wrong. Yeh public hain, yeh sab jaanti hain.

Every few kilometres in the regions outside Muscat region there are petrol pumps aligned to a eatery and a Masjid. This configuration repeats pretty much everywhere.

#weekendhistorian

Remaking is happening

We live in an era of great churn

TUNA is not the name of a fish

Hunger and unemployment prevail

But are paranoid with narratives

Data is more important, than underground sewage networks

The stink is everywhere

Uncertainty is the term of the times

It’s not everyday, when you feature in a documentary (in the first few frames) on Ad Duqm in Oman by the incredible Wade Shepherd @wade_shepard , Author, Writer, Film Maker and Globe Trotter.

Thank you Wade for the solidarity and generosity.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iWKchegTdUY