Mohit Satyanand

The World Bank released it’s first Human Capital Index (HCI) on the 11th.

Our government was quick to reject the findings – presumably, in respect of the comments on India*.

The headline finding – “A child born in India today will be 44 percent as productive when she grows up as she could be if she enjoyed complete education and full health.”

But we already know much of this – for example, that we have more stunted children than all of sub-Saharan Africa.

Part of the motivation for the Swacch Bharat exercise came from the research regarding stunted chidren – the insight being that fecal-borne diseases led to stunted growth, rather than food shortage. Sanitation would be a key contributor to children achieving their full growth potential.

Rejecting the World Bank findings does nothing to improve the lot of these children.

Our government’s reaction to the HCI report mirrors the reaction of an earlier regime to our participation in the bi-annual PISA rating on education in 2009. The report showed our students at the bottom of the charts – we did beat Kyrgyzistan, though**. Lant Pritchett said, “The PISA 2009+ results, which are both official and are beyond gain-saying, are unspeakably bad.” Our bureaucrats and politicians muttered some stuff about the tests being inappropriately designed, and withdrew in a sulk.

But again, we already know how dysfunctional our school system is. The home-grown ASER tests have measured learning levels for over a decade now, and tell us that less than half our 5th grade children can read a 2nd grade text; less than half of 8th grade children can do a simple division. The 2016 ASER report underlined that “this situation has remained unchanged since 2009, when the Right to Education, or RTE, Act was passed by Parliament.”

Dismissing a report just because it was Not Made Here helps no one – it shows a deep-seated inferiority and refusal to deal with reality.

*http://databank.worldbank.org/data/download/hci/HCI_2pager_IND.pdf

** https://blog.theleapjournal.org/2012/01/first-pisa-results-for-india-end-of.html

On Friday, the RBI surprised our financial markets by holding the interest rate structure.

There was a broad-based consensus that the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the RBI would raise rates by 0.25% (25 bps). Some market watchers predicted a steeper hike, of 0.5%. Less than 20 % of economists surveyed before the MPC meet thought it would vote to hold rates. Yet, the committee took that decision, by an overwhelming majority of 5:1.

My effort here is not to opine whether the MPC took the right decision or not; both on the committee, and outside, there are highly qualified economists, armed with massive data sets, who do this kind of analysis full-time. I am, instead intrigued by how there can be such a sharp divide between economists on the panel, and those outside – 82% on the outside for a hike; 83% on the inside against it. Polar opposites.

Why would this have happened?

At this point, I can think of only one reason – the economists on the inside have access to data that those on the outside don’t have.

This cannot be about external conditions, which occupy so much of the economic news today – oil prices on the boil; our widening foreign exchange gap; the sliding rupee; surging interest rates in the US; reverse fund flow from emerging markets to global financial centres.

It can only be about Indian data sets. Our public data shows India is growing at 8.2% per annum. If this were the case, since imported inflation is a threat, it would make sense to raise interest rates pre-emptively. But supposing the economy is NOT growing at 8%, and domestic demand is under threat, then it might just make sense to hold back an interest rate hike.

Economy-watchers know that the new GDP series has several inconsistencies, but are not equipped with the data to understand exactly how wrong it is; the RBI, on the other hand, has much more insight into the current state of the economy, and the risks to growth.

To my mind, the RBI’s concern about the fragility of the Indian economy is the most logical explanation for its surprise decision to hold back a rate hike.

Earlier this year, my wife was invited to Brazil for a conference. When she said she would extend her trip to travel a bit, I was more than a little concerned by the prospect of her traveling alone in a country I associated with violence.

Travel Advisories from US and UK governments were not very cheery, but when we talked to friends who had been there, and mailed contacts in Brazil, the general consensus was, one needed to be careful, and aware of ‘No-Go’ areas.

Meanwhile I had looked at the numbers – Brazil has a homicide rate of almost 30 per 100,000 people per annum. India is just above 3. The global average is just above 6.

I can’t make sense of the numbers; the popular notion is that poverty, inequality and joblessnes bring violence.  Brazil and India have all three afflictions – both are poor, though India does worse in this regard; both are highly unequal, with Brazil worse off; jobs for the youth a common problem. Why does one nation have a homicide rate that is almost 10 times as high as the other?

I don’t have a clue, and welcome inputs. Global data suggests there is a geographical (and hence cultural) pattern. The Americas have a homicide rate of 16.3, with the Central American nation of El Salvador topping the charts at 80+. Africa comes next at 12.5. Europe, Oceania and South Asia, are all around 3, with some tiny nations like Liechtenstein and Nauru reporting zero homicides.

Yesterday, I got flagged down by traffic cops for steering my car across the yellow line in the middle of the road. I was bemused, because I don’t think any Delhi driver regards it as a traffic violation.

I pulled over, and lowered my window. The constable asked me whether I knew what I had done; I said yes. “That’s a fine of Rs. 1100”, he said, and asked for my driving licence. I handed it over, and while entering my name into his machine, he paused and said – “I was transferred to traffic duty 6 months ago, and you’re the only person I’ve met who admitted to making a mistake, without argument”.

That’s a crazy comment on our city, I thought – 2 minutes at a  traffic crossing, and you can document 10 traffic violations, but people do not want to be told they’re in the wrong.

“I’m glad you’re trying to enforce the yellow line”, I told the constable, and handed over 3 five-hundred rupee notes. “Wait,” he gestured with his palm.

“Insaaniyat ka javaab insaaniyat se karna padegaa”.

(Civility must be reciprocated by civility).

He busied himself with his machine, and then looked up – ” I’ve issued a ticket for driving without your seat-belt. That’ll be a hundred rupees.”

Here was a completely different comment on our city, one you don’t hear often – an uncivil populace, and a charming, sensitive man in uniform.

“Even if the rupee falls to 80, it will not be a concern, providing all other currencies depreciate”, our Economic Affairs Secretary was quoted as saying, earlier this week, on the front page of the Mint.

The logic is pure Alice in Wonderland – if all other currencies depreciate, then what exactly does the rupee depreciate against? One commentator explained – “he’s transposing the dollar against the rest of the world”. She was probably right. And maybe the honorable secretary had mentioned that elsewhere. If so, then the Mint editors took the quote out of context.

This morning, the Vice Chairman of Niti Ayog, Rajiv Kumar, was quoted, in the same paper, as saying,

“The rupee rose by about 17% during the last three years. Since the beginning of this year, rupee has declined 9.8%. So it has recovered. It is coming back to natural value”.

This is a staggering statement, for many reasons:

1. The math – if something rises 17%, then drops 10%, it ends up 5% higher. But the rupee is at it’s lowest against the dollar. If the dollar is the benchmark here – which it typically is, this defies logic.
2. If the rupee has declined, how exactly has it ‘recovered’? Recovery usually suggests rising, not falling.
3. What is the ‘natural value’ of a currency?

Again, in response to my tweets, a  commentator tried to add context – namely that Mr. Kumar was talking in the context of REER (Real Effective Exchange Rate). That may well be the case, but even read like that, it makes the math illogical. And it definitely puts the Mint editors in the dock, again, for printing an excerpt out of context.

Careless comments typically appear when people are in a hurry. Why are our senior-most economic bureaucrats in a hurry? It doesn’t behove the custodians of a large rapidly growing economy. And it certainly doesn’t behove the custodians of a responsible newspaper, to rush half-baked statements to press.

Mohit Satyanand

I am that pesky Uncle whose car blocks a motorcycle heading the wrong way up a one-way street, and asks the driver what he thinks he’s doing.

I’m also that elitist idiot who once rapped on a lady’s car window, and handed her a Subway sandwich wrapper she just tossed, saying, “Madam, you left something behind.”

When I was not a silver-haired senior citizen, I would often get “Who the @#* do you think you are?” in words, or body language. Now, it’s more, “Don’t waste my time, move on.”

Sometimes, it’s more hopeful. Recently, on my cycle, I caught up with a motor-cyclist who swerved across two lanes, crashed one red-light, but was forced by traffic to wait at the next. I smiled at him, and asked him how much time he’d saved by the last manouver. “Not much”. he acknowledged.

And even if he had, I persisted, what would he have done with the time. He had the grace to consider that a valid question. “True”. And actually went to say, ” I won’t do that again.”

I’m not idealistic enough to believe that I modified someone’s behaviour that morning; but I got through.

I once read that traffic in Italy – long renowned for it’s unruliness – began to tip into the lane of European civility when it became socially unacceptable to drive with extreme selfishness. In Delhi, where I live, the blatant disregard of driving rules is worsening; I don’t see the traffic police responding in any meaningful manner.

As long as I have the energy, I will continue to be that pesky Uncle. But the years have taught me that you have a much better chance of getting through when you engage with civility and decency, rather than anger. And humor is the best recipe.

Once, tired at the end of a long day commuting by metro, I stood in front of the seats reserved for senior citizens and the disabled. The two young men occupying the seats pretended not to have noticed me. Loudly, I asked, “Which one of you is a senior citizen, and which one disabled?”

One scooted into the next carriage. The other looked around, saw another white haired-gent, and asked him resignedly, “Would you want to be sitting, too?”

I think we have a responsibility to engage with our fellow citizens, to make ours a more respectful, orderly society. But, if we want to succeed, we too, need to engage with respect.

Yesterday, a cousin sent me a triumphant WhatsApp message from Munich, a city he has made his own: “Munich named world’s most livable city, again!”

The top city ranking was awarded by Monocle Films, which does an annual ranking of the world’s 25 top cities. Mercer, a global consultancy firm, ranks Munich at Number 4.

No.1 or No.4, Munich’s a gorgeous city, with great museums, a vibrant student life across 16 universities, beer, and above all, the English garden. With 78 kilometers of paths, this is one of the world’s largest urban parks. The Isar river runs through it, and a quirk in the topography creates a standing wave that challenges surfers in body suits. 10 minutes downstream, an artificial island hosts a Japanese tea house. Some of the garden’s architectural features are somewhat kitschy, but the feature that caught my liberal soul was this signboard posted at the top end of a meadow reserved for nude sun-bathers

I translate loosely:

LAWN FOR NUDE SUNBATHERS

• Nude sunbathing is permitted in the meadow within the horse track
• It doesn’t need saying that dogs in this area must be on a short leash
• Please don’t disturb the peace of sunbathers here – many other lawns within the garden are at your disposal
• Football and other ballgames are not permitted

Please regard this freedom as a special expression of a liberal and tolerant society

For this one sign board, and the worldview it represents, I hereby nominate Munich as the most tolerant city I have ever visited.