The Jag!

Dawnlod Nu Liv Gratis Pu Konpran En Ta Zafer Mari Vit

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 19:50:02 +0000

Pu kumanse par palab ki pe fer depi 12 mwa lor kifer in kokin pansion vieyes. Apre, pu ki rezon system lasante piblik in krash. Nu osi met diyl Sagos dan perspektiv ki bizin. Ena osi en sapit lor reform elektoral. Antu 10 sapit pu met en ta linformasion dan lame sitwayin pu relev deba dan pei. En ta lekol kuyon pu ferme la. Nek gete u.

Meyer version (miltimedia) se lor u laparey Apple.

Version PDF.

Book Which Improves An Amazing Electoral System Published

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 06:08:00 +0000

The FPTP version that we use in Mauritius since 1967 has served us extremely well but during the past quarter of a century politicians have been trying to replace it with a mixed system which would be a complete disaster. The principal purpose of this book is to help prevent this calamity by critically looking at all the main electoral proposals since 2002.

It also provides more than a dozen vital criteria to evaluate any electoral system or proposition and will therefore put the debate on electoral reform on a firm footing. The book which can be pre-ordered right away refines an interesting solution, backed by a thorough analysis of electoral data, we presented in 2014. Happy reading!

Yen Statements That Don't Survive A Fact-Check

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 10:37:00 +0000

1. BRP eligibility at 60 years was an anomaly that had to be removed (2025). BRP is an important component of our welfare state which keeps 1/3 of Mauritians out of poverty. If you postpone the age people start getting it you will create a lot of poverty and hardship just like the 2012 HBS showed us voodoo economics had – an extra 22,000 people became poor over the preceding five years – and slow down the economy because a lot of these monies are used to buy essential things which keep the economy healthy not villas 99% Mauritians cannot afford.

2. It's shocking to see that we spend 90 billion rupees in the budget on social security while spending only 20 billion on education and health each and about 10 billion in other sectors (2025). Our economy at the end of 2024 was 2.3X times smaller than what Sithanen said it would grow to when he introduced his ruinous 15% flat tax in 2006 so it's not a big surprise that several of our budget items are a lot smaller than they ought to have been. Granted the BRP increased a bit too quickly during the last 10 years but if the economy had grown as Sithanen said it would with a very unfair share contribution from the wealthiest and we spent the same shares of GDP as the Seychelles then we should have spent 3.5X more on education than what we've budgeted in FY25/26 (Rs80.1 billion instead of 22.8 billion) and 5X more on health or 93.2 billion (instead of Rs18.5 billion).

3. With an ageing population and fewer young people to finance the system we will have to raise VAT to 30% and income tax to 50% or 60% (2025). If the BRP appears to be unsustainable it's because we never got the expected 8% growth rates from the 15% flat tax, actually clocking an average growth rate of only 3.3% between 2006 and 2024 (see Chart 2). This has caused a GDP shortfall of more than 6 trillion rupees at the end of 2024 and a revenue shortfall in the government till, by conservative standards, of 1.235 trillion rupees. The latter would have fuelled a mighty sovereign wealth fund which would have helped in making the BRP sustainable for the long term. Goodbye scare tactic!

Plus we don't have to raise VAT, top income tax rates can and should go all the way to 95% for monster dividends and we can impose a wealth tax to make those who suffered the most during the last twenty years of voodoo economics catch up.

4. Today we have three working people for each retiree, in 10 years it will be 2.5 and in forty perhaps 1. This will require younger people to pay three times more taxes (2025). It depends on how you govern the country. If, among other things, you have a sustainable tax structure, competitive energy prices and good overall governance you will not have to increase taxes threefold. Another scare tactic, eh?

5. A BRP of Rs5,500 today would have been reasonable and affordable (2025). Please do the groceries more often.

6. If the BRP was Rs5,500 people would have been more willing to wait an extra five years to start getting it (2025). Life for the many has become so expensive during the last 20 years that a Rs5,500 BRP would have thrown thousands more into poverty. Delaying it for five more years would have been very dramatic.

7. Pushing BRP eligibility to 65 is not only a good thing but we don't have any choice. We'll save 3 billion the first year, then 9 then 15. (2025). We have many choices, we can as starters do the most normal thing of keeping the fair-share contribution forever, freeze construction of Rs14 billion of totally unnecessary new roads over the next five years, impose a wealth tax and cut wastage. Putting an end to very abusive IPP contracts will also make the economy grow a lot faster which would give us even more options.

8. Mauritius must remain a reasonable tax jurisdiction, not like countries at 50%-60%. We used to have a 15% flat tax and this helped us (2025). A reasonable tax structure is one with high top tax rates. The 15% flat tax has deep-fried our economy. You should tell us how exactly it has helped us.

9. If we don't do the BRP reform we will not even be able to import rice or flour. We have to do this to make our economy healthy again (2025). We've been importing a lot of nonsense over the past 20 years and this had nothing to do with the BRP (as shown in Chart 3, the ratio of imports to exports between 1939 and 2005 has exceeded 1.5 only two times thanks to Alix/Carol and Claudette while it was over it in every single year since 2006). Throwing thousands of people into poverty by postponing BRP eligibility will make our economy anything but healthy. More scare tactics?

10. The BRP bomb has exploded (2025). Nope. You seem not to be able to tell the difference between a small firecracker and an atom bomb.

11. We have to be wary of the tax hikes. We shouldn't scare off taxpayers (2025). Mauritius has been suffering from a very serious brain drain problem during the last two decades, the second-worst in Africa according to a 2013 report, which was a period of an unfair tax structure. Clearly the 15% flat tax was no incentive for the highly-educated locals to stay back.

The Jag! Turns 20

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Sat, 13 Sep 2025 14:43:00 +0000

So Elisa who thought I was quite opinionated asked me a question: "Why don't you blog?". I asked what that was and she gave me a rundown and after some time followed it up with an email with links to two blogging services, wordpress and blogger. I preferred the latter and published my first post OTD twenty years ago.

At the time there was a new government in place, the finance minister had recently published a paper on his plans and at his request I had met him five days earlier. It was not exactly a meeting that generated good vibes.

Gid Pu Konpran Byin Revolt Sitwayin Kont Reform BRP

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 18:35:00 +0000

Tiena irzans?

ADC tiena plin lozasion pu dir lepep ki zot pu repus pansion vieyes a 65 an. Ala 11:

1. pandan 10 an ki zot ti dan karo kan

2. pandan kanpayn elektoral 2024 (sirtu port a port)

3. lor zot paz FB ek ban lezot rezo sosio

4. lor radio dernie 10 an

5. dan program eleksion MBC

6. dan manifest elektoral

7. dan State of the Economy

8. dan diskur program

9. dan konsiltasion pre-bidzeter

10. pandan kanpayn eleksion minisipal

11. par organiz ban tripartit pu diskit sa

Ankor TINA?

Si zot ti sezi en sa lokazion la zot ti pu dekuver omwin 7 alternativ a ras manze depi dan labus fitir pansioner.

1. Les fair-share contribution pu tultan e non pa zis pu 3 an parski fin truve kuma unfair flat tax 15% (FT15) ant 2006 ek 2024 fin rwin nu pei. Anplis si revin an mod unfair nu pu res mari pre ek junk status. E sa se san kont ban lezot brans kot zot pe asize e ki zot pe rod kupe (konsilte mo gid 2024 pu konpran risk katastrofik kup en sa ban gro brans la https://apple.co/3YduS3a).

2. Met ankor de braket tax ek/u en wealth tax. En dividen 1.2 milyar rupi pu 2 dimun bizin taxe a 95% e non pa a 0% kuma Sithanen (S) ti truv sa normal. Kav pey BRP pu en an pu 6,000 nuvo pansioner ar sa.

3. Friz sa 14 milyar rupi depans initil lor nuvo sime lor prosin 5 an (1,035km nuvo sime ant 2006 ek 2022 ti deza tro buku pu en period kot GDP fin grandi par selman 67%) e reget lezot item bidze. Pran sa kas la pu retap nu system lasante piblik kot fin ena 154 milyar rupi de su-depans.

4. Met fin a ban kontra IPP marday ki pe plis Morisyin e detrir nu konpetitivite ek ban randman aniel de plis ki 35% depi plis ki 20 banane lawsi san ki zot pran oken risk. Sa pu redinamiz lekonomi e konpans pu tarif Amerikin e ban rever posib ar AGOA. Assirvaden bizin updayt nu lor ban term ki fin renegosie 3 kontra IPP kin expire dernie 9 mwa.

5. Diminie gaspiyaz. Anu dir ena 10% gaspiyaz lor sa bidze 261 milyar rupi FY25/26 la. Si redwir gaspiyaz par 5% nu pu ekonomiz 1.3 milyar rupi ziska Zin 2026. 4.1 milyar ziska Zin 2028.

6. Met an plas ban lezot politik ki grosi GDP pli vit. Pa tigit zafer kav fer dan sa domen la.

7. Ti kav osi prezant bidze FY25/26 lafin Novam 2024 e 21 milyar rupi anplis ti pu fini rant dan lakes leta. Pey BRP a ban seki gayn 60 an prosin 12 mwa kut selman apepre 3 milyar rupi.

In anpes BRP krash?

Si partu dan Moris pe krash depi 2006 se prinsipalman akoz FT15 S e ban desizion kin pran pu kasyet ki li en pwazon pu Moris e non pa akoz BRP in sipozeman vin insutenab. Fin tuy nu kiltir sevings – ki osi en resor prinsipal pu lekonomi – ler an 2006 ti taxe lintere labank e elimin ban egzanpsion ki dimun ti servi pu mont zot ban plan finansier lor plizir deseni. En sel kut fin tir tusala, san diskision, san preavi, san grandfathering. Ti fer previzibilite pu mazorite Morisyin vin zero.

Ler sa ti arive dimun ti kumans defalke kas depi dan labank. Lerla Minis Finans ti fer en lapel a ban dimun pu azir... kom patriot pu zot pa tir zot kas e pey tax la. Sa fer nu rapel en zoli kotasion Mark Twain: "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it". Donk dapre S, de u trwa dimun ki partaz en dividen plis ki 1 milyar rupi fode pa pey oken tax lor la me en ta dimun pran depi so laklas mwayen ziska so pli mizer bizin peye tax lor ban som infiniman pli tipti. Se en ban rezon kifer li pa dan parlman depi 2010.

Li bon kone (tiart 2) par komie fin depanse an mwins dan de sekter pu konpran kuma partu pe puri depi 20 an. Anu konsider sekter edikatif ek lasante piblik e get dan kolon 8% krwasans ki ti lavites S ti dir nu lekonomi pu grosi ek so FT15. Bidze depans 3% GDP dan ledikasion e lor 19 an leta fin depans 185 milyar rupi an mwins dan sa sekter la. Si nu ti depans kuma Sesel (4.3% GDP an 2025) be sa sif la vin 266 milyar rupi. Mem ek 7% de krwasans mwayin nun depans ant 133 a 190 milyar rupi an mwins.

5.1% dan dernie kolon parski se lavites ki nun grosi ant 1968 ek 2005 ek en striktir taxasion sutenab malgre siklon mons, bom demografik, kriz petrolie e de resesion mondial an 7 an ziska 1982. Mem si nu ti grosi a sa to la depi 2006 mank ant 49 e 70 milyar rupi de depans leta dan sekter edikatif. Tiek ban sif pu lasante piblik.

Overol ti mank 1,235 milyar rupi dan lakes leta depi S ti met so FT15 e 6,176 milyar rupi (£100 milyar) an term GDP. Ek sa kalite krwasans la GDP ti pu 1,644 milyar rupi lafin 2024 e BRP ti pu reprezant 3.4% GDP e non pa 7.8%.

Be kifer in les partu

kontinie puri depi 2006?

Sinp, li dan lintere politisyin. Dan ka S ki ti ena ban lintere dan sekter ofsor met en FT15 se en diakpot e diminie persepsion ki Moris en paradi fiskal. In rod fer kwar ki se en desizion intelizan e siport sa ek ban FDI rekor ki nun gayne. Problem se ki 335 milyar rupi FDI ant 2006 ek 2024 la an mazorite zot ti spekilatif e par zot mem fin kree buku distorsion kuma ran pri later inaksesib a buku Morisyin. Si zot ti prodiktif to krwasans mwayin pa ti pu 3.3% (tiart 3) ki byin lwin ek target 8%. Li ti pu inpe pli elve me pa plis pu rezon swivan.

Ler fin detrwir nu kiltir sevings e redwir depans esansiel masivman pu finans sa fasad de fiskalite lezer la be nun sibir en defisit sevings domestik de 2,287 milyar rupi lawsi si nu servi ban estimasion konservater. E kan fin met FT la lin fer buku plis kas vin disponib kom finansman politik pu ranpli kofor e valiz. Kuma nu truve dan tiart 3 mwayen krwasans zame in resi vin 8% e okontrer lin bese rapidman e li montrer nu ki kontrerman a seki guvernman pe dir depi Desam 2024 model ekonomik dernie 10 an se mem model ekonomik dernie 20 an.

Asterla anu get de deklarasion ki S ti fer kumansman kovid. Promie se le 15 Avril 2020 lor R+:

"E li bon ki mo dir u ki nu pe rant dan sa kriz la tre mal prepare finansierman e fiskalman. Parski nu defisit elve, nu det elve e nu pena ase lapud dan nu fizi pu nu tire."

Vre, me seki li pan dir se ki se so FT kin eklat nu depo minision. E ler nu get tiart 3 nu truve ki lafin 2019 ti mank 491 milyar rupi dan lakes leta parski krwasans mwayin ti selman 4.1% (li ti fini ariv 4.3% ler Ramgoolam perdi an 2014).

E selman 56 zur apre, le 10 Zin 2020 zis apre bidze lor TopFM:

"Lin [Padayachy] sanz en model ekonomik kin fer so prev pandan tre lontan dan nu pei."

La person pa pu dakor. To ti fek dir ki to model ekonomik fin fer nu mank lapud fizi. To ariv zis lamwatie to target e to apel sa fer so prev? E tu ban sif depi 2006 fin fose kan S ti tir sibsid diri/lafarin e fer zot reaparet dan kont STC. Plis pan regle oken problem nasional. Ler Ramgoolam pu gayn 80 an li pu vin PM ek pir bilan fatalite rutyer de an pli boner ki rekor SAJ. E si leta ti depans kumadir lekonomi ti grosi 5.1% par an be rasio det/GDP ti pu 134% lafin 2024. Li pa ti otan parski fin les partu puri.

Lin dir usi en lot non-sans:"Ban dimun aster pu pas zot legzistans olie travay, olie kree, olie antrepran, se kumayer zot pu evit pey 43% u 49% tax." Bizin organiz en vizit, avek u san per diem, pu li Lafrans, Langleter, Lalmayn e dan ban pei Skandinav pu gete kuma ban dimun laba pe pas zot legzistans.

Nu leta providans anpes 1/3 parmi nu tom dan lamizer. Ler S ti kumans atak li an 2006 sa ti fer en lot 22,000 Morisyin vin pov an 2012. Repus BRP a 65 an se en nuvo latak dan en bidze ki selon ban surs tre kredib Sithanen in prepare. Se pa en sirpriz. Tiena mem zafer dan so bidze 2006/07 e an 2008 nu ti gayn lalawa travay retrograd swivi de tantativ "user fees" an 2011. Si vremem so FT15 ti marse be Moris ti bizin swa ena Aaa, ki meyer reting Moody's u byin pre ar li. E ti pu kav tus BRP pli boner tu. Me vi ki se en pwazon (GDP lafin 2024 ti 2.3X pli tipti ki previ) nu pu res dan pins tan ki li la e mem ek kas Sagos zot pu konitine esey demantel leta providans e ler fafa pu rekane revin kuyon lepep avek sutyin media ek inpe idio itil. Problem pu zot se ki Morisyin byin eveye sa fwa la. E nu pa pu kile parski sufrans la reel kuma ka sa dimun ki pa ti truv kler ek en lizie e pan kav interes oken "carer" pu okip li pu 3,500 rupi par mwa alor lin... swisid li.

Apran en ta zafer inportan lor politik

ek lekonomi vit ek sa gid la.

Padayachy Statements That Don't Survive A Fact-Check

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 08:03:00 +0000

1. Mauritius is in an economic boom (2024). His justification in August 2025 is that we've clipped growth rates higher than 5% for the preceding three years. The only reason we've clipped these growth rates is, as the following chart pulled from WTVF shows, that the economy has been rebounding from the nearly 15% contraction caused by Covid in 2020. We should also note that Mauritius has been one of the last countries in the world to get back to its pre-Covid levels of activity.

Padayachy's average growth rate for 2020-24 as Minister is 1.6% which is the lowest of any government since independence while his share of the Sithanen toohrooh at the end of 2024 was 60%. Furthermore to assess the type of economic conditions of any period we should look at many indicators. One such indicator, the behaviour of our national currency tells another story. We could also look at the Rs154 billion of underinvestment in our public health sector since 2006.

2. What will government say when growth for 2025 turns out to be less than 2% (2025)? It would not be a big surprise because the economy has been by our potential and justification for an unfair and unsustainable tax structure which began with the Sithanen 15% flat tax since 2006 in an L-shaped growth recession for most of the time. We'd just be resuming our journey in the abyss.

3. I don't know how much money the Central Bank printed during Covid (2025). This is a standard statistic that a Minister of Finance watches because of its potential impact on economic activity and prices. So five years after it allegedly happened he still does not know? Hmm.

4. Our currency depreciated because of the impact of Covid-19 on tourism (2025). Covid definitely has had a big impact on the economy but the value of our currency would have been different with a better management of the economy in the preceding years. Also, he should tell us what happened to the rupee between 2015 and 2019 when tourist arrivals increased by over 30% from their 2014 level (he's been either a board member or First Deputy Governor of the BoM in this period).

5. Making it easier for workers who are helping to develop Mauritius to buy very expensive properties of Rs15 million which 100% of middle-class Mauritian can't buy will help our youth and women get back into the labour force (2022). So you're fuelling more real estate speculation and using a corresponding levy to supposedly create jobs for people and making it more difficult for them to buy real estate. Despite a severe brain-drain problem. Nice.

6. Sithanen not giving in on Bheenick clearance is what a Central Bank Governor is all about (2025). Sithanen has been an unmitigated disaster as Finance Minister and has confirmed through several of his statements that he is very incompetent and toxic. He has also come across as someone who doesn't like to be challenged. Someone intelligent and independent like Bheenick is obviously anathema to him. Besides it's not the first time that he's having problems understanding the Bank of Mauritius Act and challenging Ramgoolam's prerogatives. You may also want to check how I ranked eight FMs in 2023.

7. The Bank of Mauritius is an independent institution (2025). It is supposed to be and it felt like that when Bheenick was Governor. Not when Basant Roi was in charge or when Pravind Jugnauth used the Special Reserve Fund for fiscal policy. The current dispensation is definitely not independent with statement like this.

8. I learned from great Central Bank Governors like Basant Roi (2025). This could explain why our rupee has been tanking since 2014. And we got double-digit inflation in 2022.

Bérenger Statements That Don't Survive A Fact-Check

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 19:50:00 +0000

1. I'm the real father of the economic miracle (2019). Something Ramgoolam acknowledged in parliament a few weeks ago. The problem with this statement is that Bérenger was Finance Minister for only nine months as from June 1982 and alliance partners spent a lot of their time fighting each other which left very little time to hatch such a miracle. Plus Bérenger returned as FM between 2000 and 2003 during which time he presented not one but three budgets. We know what one of his colleagues had to say about the economy back then. And that there are problems with this notion of economic miracle.

2. Mauritius is the best managed country in the world (2003). That's what Bérenger repeated several times when he was PM. You need to wonder which yardsticks he was using to arrive at such a conclusion.

3. We want to make Mauritius a beacon in the region (2014). That was said after the dangerous LP/MMM alliance was sealed. That alliance was based on three crazy things: replace our excellent Westminster system with a semi-Presidential system, add a dose of PR to our battle-tested FPTP system and appoint Sithanen as FM. We've seen what happened between the PM and the President in 2012 and around the time Mauritius turned 50. The problems with PR are well-documented and we don't want them especially when better solutions are available. And what to say of having Sithanen as Minister of Finance again?

4. France Telecom is the real deal (2000). A statement made when FT was in the process of buying 40% of Mauritius Telecom. At that time FT was probably the most indebted company in the world. And it's not a secret that management practices at the French company were not exactly world-beating at that time.

5. The sugar industry is in mortal danger (2014). Sugar has been dead for a long time.

6. The rates of return on the IPP contracts are too high. 10% is good (2010). This was said after if was revealed that IPPs made annual returns in excess of 35% and that too without taking any risks. The process of determining a fair rate of return is well-established. Which risks does Bérenger think the 10% would be rewarding?

7. Mauritius is one of the rare countries to use the FPTP system (2023). Really?

8. Our FPTP electoral system is a curse (2023). The electoral system we have coupled with the BLS is the best electoral system in the world.

9. Ramgoolam has provoked the Tamil-Mauritians by sidelining Sithanen (2010). Tamil-Mauritians are aware that Sithanen fried the economy between 2005 and 2010 and is probably the biggest electoral liability ever. We saw what happened to his political career since then.

10. We need the Chagos money to get out of the mess the MSM has thrown Mauritius into (2024). Statement made to the BBC. Well, we'll be receiving these funds but government has nevertheless moved the eligibility for old age pension from 60 to 65 years. Bérenger clearly has no idea of the mess we've been in since 2006 and its cause.

11. We made the rich pay so we could do the maximum for the poor (2025). Implementing a fair-share contribution to return to a more sustainable tax structure like it was before Sithanen started killing the economy with his 15% flat tax for a maximum of three years is no maximum. You should at least keep it literally forever. And we know the kind of effect snatching old age pension from 60 to 65 year-olds will have. We've been there before.

12. For a democrat like me who's been fighting to deepen our democracy for many years, the electoral reform proposed by the MSM which restores the numerical advantage produced by the FPTP is revolting (2018). Restoring the numerical advantage of the FPTP shows that the MSM understands electoral reform better than the MMM and surprisingly the Labour Party but their proposal would create all kinds of serious problems. I have proposed a much better solution based on thinking and writing about this topic since 2005. We know what should be done to deepen our democracy.

13. Where will little Mauritius find Rs50 billion for an island terminal in five or ten years? (2026). By a conservative estimate, there was Rs1,235 billion of 2024 rupees of revenue missing in the government till with respect to the 8% growth that was promised by Sithanen with his 15% flat tax. That's more than 25X the investments needed in the island terminal if we're paying everything upfront. It's more than 25X because rupees of 2031 and 2036 are worth less in 2024. Plus we could have financed the project which would have required a far smaller initial amount. And let us not forget that Patrick Assirvaden told us back in 2010 that "little Mauritius" was likely to have pay IPPs more than Rs56 billion over a 20-year period.

14. There's not one country in the world which had a non-contributory old age pension like we had (2026). Google disagrees. It mentions New Zealand, Kiribati, Samoa, Namibia, Botswana, Bolivia and Argentina. Plus as we've demonstrated several times it's the unfair-share contribution aka 15% flat tax since 2006 which has been transforming Mauritius into a failed state which, by the way, is far worse than junk status.

15. The current political system doesn't encourage a greater participation of women in politics (2026). 11 years ago, when asked why it was important for him to have a gender-balanced cabinet, Justin Trudeau, PM of a country which has basically the same electoral system as us had this to say.

16. Women must be at the centre of electoral reform (2026). Bérenger wants to add 20 PR seats to our current electoral system and one of the excuses he has used is that there are not enough women in parliament. The problem with PR seats is that we could end up having 20 unelected ministers and among them an unelected PM. Mauritians adamantly wanting their PM as well as most of their ministers elected and therefore accountable, irrespective of their gender, to a constituency is one of the reasons that PR was rejected three times beginning in 1956.

We should also note that when Sachs published his report in 2002 there only 5.7% of MPs were women but three years later it had trebled to 17.1%. That number peaked to 20% in GE2019 and fell a little bit to 18.2% in GE2024. Which is to say that we made rapid progress but then plateaued. The main reason being of course that leadership of our main political parties have been too patriarchal. In GE2019 out of the 24 candidates Lalit fielded 11 or nearly 46% were women.

And it's not the only problem with PR.

Boost Your 2025 CFA® Prep Right Away

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 17:37:00 +0000

Download IA and QMLS on your Apple device and transform your CFA prep experience.

Ramgoolam Statements That Don't Survive A Fact-Check

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 15:37:00 +0000

1. Your shopping trolley was full when I was PM (2023 onwards). Depends for whom. Let's see what the data shows.

2. When we were in power we didn't allow pump prices to go as high as they did on world markets (2024). The APM indeed reduced the volatility in oil prices. But let's see what happened when they crashed during the Great Recession.

3. When SSR gave free (secondary) education (at least a million times since 2005). While SSR was the PM who made this announcement during the campaign for the general election of 1976, it was Kher Jagatsingh who suggested its insertion in the electoral manifesto and implemented it. KJ, a hardworker, had this to say about his stint at the Ministry of Education.

4. Every new born baby has Rs420,000 of debt on her head (2024). True but he's been saying that to imply that the current MSM government is ruining the country but he's not saying how much the debt has progressed on his watch as PM. Here's what we found for central government debt which is lower than total public debt number used above.

5. I made a mistake of helping Pravind Jugnauth get elected in riding No.8 (2024). That's true but he had little choice because Sithanen had messed up so badly that had he not done that he might have be booted out of power in 2010. And before making it easier for PJ to return to parliament he also gave a second presidential term to SAJ, PJ's father.

6. We got into this alliance (with the MMM, ReA and ND) because we want to save the country (2024). Nope. He did that because he was unable to get elected in the last two general elections even though he changed ridings in GE2019. And he's 77 while Paul Bérenger is 79. Subron has been trying to get into parliament for 41 years.

7. Our team is a mixture of experience and youth (2024). In March 2023 he said that he'd like a fourth term as PM because he wanted to leave a political legacy. This implies that he didn't have one after three terms as PM which means that his experience in running the country is worth nothing.

8. Signing the electoral agreement with ReA is historic (2024). It's rather a betrayal of what the Labour Party stands for including being against proportional representation.

9. My return to riding No. 5 is like Ram's return to Ayodhya (2024). Lord Ram didn't return to Ayodhya after losing general elections in Ayodhya and Lanka.

10. We managed the Great Recession well (2023). Ramgoolam said that IMF Boss Christine Lagarde asked him whether there was no recession in Mauritius during her 2012 visit, a period during which several countries were still feeling the effects of the Great Recession. Ms. Lagarde probably staying at a posh location and eating stuff like lobster thermidor and foie gras while getting a nice tan might have overlook the fact that not all Mauritians were laughing all the way to the bank especially after their long-term savings plans had been destroyed by a toxic bean-counter.

We should note that points 1 and 2 above happened during that recession. Plus the economy had been so badly messed up that for the first time in the history of independent Mauritius an outgoing Finance Minister did not stand as a candidate. Five years later he lost after changing riding and in 2019 he lost again in a riding where he used to be very strong.

11. ReA is waging the same battle that the Labour Party fought in 1936 (2024). ReA want a dose of PR and have some very retrograde ideas. The LP has always been against PR and won two battles against it. The first one is in the 1956 Port-Louis by-election following the death of Guy Rozemont and the other one in the 1967 independence elections. We have a separate fact-check for one ReA guy.

Book That Makes Mauritian Voters Smart As Hell Published

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 11:26:00 +0000

It's available in several locations worldwide since yesterday. The Mauritian diaspora will be able to understand GE2024 and politics in their motherland and elsewhere like never before.

Analiz Vin Mezir Far Lalians Ptr/MMM

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Thu, 02 May 2024 10:13:00 +0000

Demokrasi, meritokrasi ek Law & Order

1. En vre reform elektoral avek omwin 1/3 fam kom kandida dan eleksion zeneral. Vre reform la se sirtu sa mari kuyonad azut en doz PR dan nu system FPTP ki meyer sistem elektoral dan lemond pu ras en mari zarm depi dan lame ban elekter ki permet zot avoy ninport ki manb lasanble national dan karo kan dan en eleksion zeneral. Li pu osi permet ninport ki dirizan parti/minis fer mari dominer ek lepep e kone ki ena fort sans li revin dan parlman e mem kom minis pu kontinie kraz lepep.

2. Eleksion Prezidan par en kolez elektoral. Nu pa bizin sa la. Sirtu pu le moman. Nu ti truve ki AGF ti fer an 2018. Mazin u si li ti ena plis puvwar.

3. En lalwa anti-transfiz ek en pu Freedom of Information (FIA). En lalwa anti-transfiz pa bon ditu parski ban parti politik de fwa vin pagla. Dan sa ban ka la depite bizin servi so lespri ankor plis ki dabitid e pran desizion ki bizin. Par egzanp PMSD ti byin fer kit guvernman MSM an 2016 pu bar prosecution commission. Ena zafer pa kav opoze. Ptr pa ti promet FIA an 2005 ler Navin ti ena 58 an? Wi, get seksion 2.2.8 dan manifest elektoral 2005 Une île Maurice Pour Tous. E purtan Navin fin PM 9 banane a swiv apartir sa lane la. Asterla li ena preske 77.

4. Ranforsman indepandans DPP dan konstitision. Nu diman nu mem ki sa ve dir kan nu ti truv indepandans labank Moris atake ant 2007 ek 2014. E kot travay plizir minister ti paret ranplase ek tu kalite fon. Si met drwa revok depite poltisyin pu mazin de fwa avan fer kuyonad.

5. Constitutional appointments committee. Ti fini dir sa dan 6 anagzman elektoral.

6. Amandman konstitisionel pu garanti eleksion minisipal e vilazwaz. Pa move. Me eski nu ankor bizin konsep minisipalite ek vilaz ubyin nu administre Moris kuma en sel vilaz/lavil?

7. Garantir indepandans MBC dan konstitision, aboli redevans Rs150 ek TV prive. Kisana ti fer li vin Rs150 pu nu get TV PyongYang? Ban radio deza ena zot Web TV.

8. Redon lapolis so prestiz ek so lindepandans e ranplasman NIU/SSS. Kuma pu fer sa? Met en gard sak interval lor si pa ki distans pu fer sayut PM. Sanzman non pa sanz fason opere.

Koripsion, ladrog ek organizasion lekurs

9. Ranplasman FCC par en zafer kuma serious fraud office angle. Ti ranplas ECO par ICAC non? Sa ti sanz kiksoz?

10. Ranplasman ADSU par en organizasion pliri-disipliner pu konbat trafik ek itilizasion ladrog. Ki lane kazino ti aparet dan tu kwin lari ek en minis de finans ti dir sa raport 1 milyar rupi an taks e li pa ti kone kot li pu gayn sa kalite kas la apre ki li ti bes corporate e income tax par 50%.

11. Relans lekurs, fer reviv San-de-Mars e reget Animal Welfare Act. Ti pu pli bon met en komision danket lor kuma nu pei fin glis ver en lanfer depi 2006.

Ekonomi, Zistis Sosial ek Lanvironman

Zistis sosial la se ranpli nu kadi sa non? Anu gete ki ti pe ariv ban kadi ant deziem e trwaziem manda Navin.

12. Met fin a depresiasion rupi e ogmant pansion vieyes otan ki kapav. Pu ki rezon ti sakrifie Bheenick an 2014 ki fin en nu ban meyer guverner labank? Ki Ptr/MMM ti pe dir ankor lor met pansion Rs5,000 an 2014?

13. Revizion fiskalite lor prodwi petrolie pu bes zot pri e reorganizasion CEB pu bes pri kuran. Bes pri lesans/diezel la li ti en zot 6 angazman. Ase komik. Navin ti gard pri lesans mari elve malgre zot pri ti krash an 2008 akoz flat tax Sithanen ti fini kumans kraz lekonomi Moris e met nu pei lor en lapant pu tom dan en move presipis. Kuma nun fini dir si li bes ban pri la li pu fer li pu en kurt dire apre li pu remont li ankor plis ase vit. Konsernan pri elektrisite nu byin rapel ki Assirvaden ti dir lor ban randman ki ban IPP ti pe fer ek ban kontra CEB san pran oken risk. Navin ti osi dir an 2007 ki li ti pu sanz so non si ban pri kuran abizif la pa bese. Seki bizin se en bon komision danket pu konpran tu ban detay e ki manier fin siyn sa kalite kontra abizif IPP la e kisana ti PM ler fin siyn zot.

14. Bes pri medikaman a traver inportasion paralel e vawcher. Konpetision pa en move lide osi lontan pena kolizion. Me politik fiskal favorizan ban nanti e ban aktivite imobliye spekilatif telman toksik e pe dire depi telman lane (18) ki sitiasion pa pu ameliore avan kumans remet lord ladan.

15. Transpor ek internet gratis e remet system 3 kredit. Kuma pu finans sa ban kado la? Return ver 3 kredit la bon me pa fin ena gran refleksion e aksion dan domen ledikasion ler Navin ti PM pandan 3 manda.

16. Abolision taks pu tu se ki tus mwins ki 1 milyon rupi par lane, lor ban pansion e ban seki ena ant 18-28 an. Navin pena oken leritaz politik apre 3 manda prinsipalman akoz flat tax ki lin mete kumansman so deziem manda. E la li pe rod bes taks ankor. En guvernman bizin kas pu opere. Li kler li pa pe rod revini pu fer kiksoz de bon pu Moris. Sinon en milyarder ki ena ant 18-28 an pa bizin pey inkom taks?

17. Pu pey anrezistreman zis ler aste loto nef. En lot ti kado pu kuyon lepep. Komie kilomet tiyo perse so guvernman ti sanze sak lane li ti PM?

18. Reorganizasion erport. Ki vin a u lespri ler u tan Navin koz erport? Investisman masif dan lagrikiltir, lapes ek lelvaz. Kas pena ki investissant masif zot pu fer? Ki trak rekord Navin dan sa ban domen la pandan 14 an li ti PM?

19. Konze maternite 1 lane ek konze manstrwel pu madam. Bon, inpe lamod sa la. Plizir parti pe dir sa.

20. Ran piblik land drainage plan e rasionaliz konstriksion drin. Li bon ran sa rapor la piblik me li paret pe dir sa zis akoz guvernman panvi ran li piblik.

Subron Statements That Don't Survive A Fact-Check

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Sun, 24 Mar 2024 13:04:00 +0000

1. We have reached the end of a cycle so we need a new constitution (2023 onwards). Bérenger and Ramgoolam have reached an advanced age and are way past the date they should have retired from active politics. Ramgoolam hasn't been looking healthy for quite some time – and he's been an unmitigated disaster as PM when he was – while Bérenger is seeing at least one ghost in Parliament. Subron is now a pensioner. Our constitution has not aged one bit though. It's still a national treasure that will serve us well for the next 100,000 years albeit with a few overdue additions. Subron seems to be confusing the cycles that a typical human goes through with our awesome constitution that was built to last many centuries. It's like the Hindu numerals, they have not gone out of fashion for the past 2,000 years. I don't know of anybody who wants their smartphone to run on Roman numerals.

2. Our FPTP system doesn't allow any new party to emerge (At least since 2010).

Not only is this assertion not true but our FPTP system has also got rid of several parties over the past 65 or more years. And kept good-for-nothing loudmouths out of parliament forever.

3. Our constitution is a big pile of rot (2023 onwards). We have a constitution to die for. It is the result of decades-long struggle and deep study by several extraordinary people including Renganaden Seeneevassen and Kher Jagatsingh. The latter was also the one moving around the constitutional expert offered by India to help us to keep him under the radar. Our constitution has played an important role in proving Meade wrong and building our reputation as The Great Little Country. The rot we're seeing is not because of our excellent constitution which hasn't changed that much since 1968 but due to the unsustainable Sithanen flat tax implemented as from 2006.

4. The BLS has institutionalised communalism (At least since 2011). At one point in our political history we decided to settle for it, I have understood, for a few general elections along with specially-delineated ridings because of the unwarranted fear spewed by a bunch of racists and possibly because of the failure of some politicians in understanding what is a good electoral system. It has served its purpose well without preventing voters from becoming increasingly sophisticated election after election and changing governments several times. Any dose of PR would have been disastrous for Mauritius compared to the outcomes we've experienced with the BLS including communally. There's nothing more communal than adding a dose of PR. We can listen to Justin Trudeau on why he's against adding any form of PR to Canada's excellent FPTP electoral system. And we don't need a dose of PR to remove the BLS as I've demonstrated since 2014.

5. It is not because our constitution has worked that we should keep it (2023 onwards). So what do we do, we get rid of things that have worked very well like our FPTP system and our constitution and keep those that have failed spectacularly like the flat tax and concreting agricultural land while Mauritians starve?

6. Only 20 PR MPs are needed for an electoral reform (2014 onwards). Our parliament is already too big. We have many MPs that don't have any track record. Why would we need 20 PR MPs after each general election when the results have varied significantly from 60-0 to 32-30. It doesn't make any sense. Plus this would throw governance out of the window.

7. We should add the names of Anna van Bengale and Anjalay Coopen in our constitution (As from 2023). Clearly Mr. Subron doesn't understand the difference between a constitution and history books. What's next, adding an old picture of his as a brand ambassador wannabe of a famous South-American doctor or holding a torch in Hendrik Fort?

8. I'm against the costing of electoral pledges (2023). The Sithanen flat tax of 15% has ruined Mauritius and now Ramgoolam wants 18-28 year-olds not to pay any income tax. Is this why Subron wants to join the LP/MMM/PMSD alliance? Should we also remove speedometers from cars and planes?

9. So where's the problem if sugar represents only 1% of GDP? (2012). That was his reply when I told him that it's way better for Mauritius to remove sugar cane, recycle workers from this industry and use the land for economic activities that are more commensurate with the cost of living here and aspirations of Mauritians.

10. A red line was crossed with the killing of Kistnen (2023). There have been a number of unsolved murders during the past 25 years and it is urgent and important that everything is done so that the affected families get closure, justice is served and Mauritians find out the truth. But how is that exactly the fault of our excellent constitution and the best electoral system in the world that is embedded in it?

11. It's not good that a party heads government for three consecutive terms (2024). It's something for voters and not Subron to decide. SAJ did four consecutive terms as PM between 1982 and 1995 (the first one, only 436 days long, was marred by in-fighting almost from day 1).

12. I'm against double candidacies (2012). Have a look at what is in ReA's 2014 electoral manifesto.

13. BLD (2020).

14. The MSM suffers from a democratic deficit (2024). While it's true that 62% didn't vote for the MSM-led alliance in 2019 we have to remember that our excellent FPTP electoral system doesn't put that much store by the vote share at the national level but rather focuses on each candidate's vote count at the constituency level and the party who has the most elected candidates forms government. Which puts pressure on party leaderships to field good candidates everywhere and avoid duds and other controversial candidates. For instance Rama Sithanen was sidelined in 2010 after he killed our savings culture, created structural problems and a massive amount of poverty while Showkutally Soodhun was not given a ticket in 2019 after he said that he would have shot XLD in parliament if his bodyguard had given him his revolver. Furthermore 67% and 79% didn't vote for the Labour Party and the MMM so should we also say that these opposition parties have a greater democratic deficit?

15. Alone ReA cannot win 3/4 of the seats [in the forthcoming general election.] (2024). This is a funny statement from a party that has fielded a total of 31 candidates in two general elections (2005 and 2014) and is yet to have its first candidate get its electoral deposit back (you need to score at least 10% for this to happen). Is there a pinch of megalomania at work here?

Sis Kolos Travayis Ki Pa Ti Pu Vot Pu Navin

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 20:00:00 +0000

Maurice Curé. Listwar Parti Travayis (Ptr) kumans ar li. En lorea kin al apran medsin langleter, kin develop en bon klientel parmi ban nanti kan lin returne an 1913 me ki pa ti ditu kontan, Selvon ek Teelock rakont nu, kot so pei ti ete. Li ti ena osi ban klian dan vilaz e sa fer li trakase move kalite pu lasante travayer ler li truv zot leta. An 1934 li dan Konsey Guvernmantal kot pu so promie diskur li deman reprezantasion travayer dan sa konsey la e rekonesans muvman sindikal. Sitiasion telman dan dife ki sis mwa pa gayn letan pase e ala li pe fer ban nuvo revandikasion: pansion vieyes e ameliorasion kondision ban travayer lindistri sikriyer.

Lagazet tret li de kominist e li perdi dan eleksion Zanvie 1936. Me li pa dekuraze u perdi letan. Mwa swivan, 88 banane zordi, le 23 Fevriye 1936 li organiz en miting dan San de Mars ansam ek Moutou, Sahadeo ek ankor pu fond pli gran parti dan listwar Moris. Ban miting e rasanbleman Ptr se ban seans pu edik ban gro laful dimun vit lor ban zafer estra inportan pu zot byinet e pu kre en vag progresis. Curé viktim telman represion ki li fayit e demisione depi Ptr an 1941. En lot kolos lamem pu pran labar.

Emmanuel Anquetil. En marin kin pas buku letan an Ostrali ek Langleter e kin konpran kuma sindikalism se en zarm pwisan ti en kolaborater Curé apre so retur Moris. Emmanuel usi ti truv ban kondision ban travayer telman dan bez ki lin servi so gran intelizans e so ban talan pu zot sor ameliore. Ban otorite kolonial ti pe per so ban kapasite organiz dimun alor zot fin deport li Rodrigues an 1938. Me lin revini ase vit e fin kontinie organiz dimun rapidman. Lin bril so lavi pu avansman so ban konpatriot. Mersi Emmanuel pu sa zoli fedartifis la. Anu dekuver kuma nu trwaziem kolos fin tini guvernay Ptr.

Guy Rozemont. Nu rapel sa Lider Parti Travayis la pu so mosion fer Promie Me vin en konze piblik pu selebre dinite ban travayer e rekonet zot gran rol dan kreasion larises dan Moris. Me Guy fin fer plin lezot zafer osi sinon pli inportan. Lin konbat pu amelior kondision ban travayer inklian don zot drwa de vot e elir zot ban reprezantan dan konsey lezislatif. Pa difisil konpran kifer travayer ti pe anvi gayn ban dimun ki pu fer kiksoz de fondamantal laba e amen developman konstitisionel ki bon pu zot e sitwayin an zeneral – se pa selman akoz ban kondision ki ti dan dife e ki ti fer krim kont limanite lor later Moris me se osi prinsip de baz amelior ban zafer tan ki ena lavi.

Seski nu lir usi pli u mwin dan Petals of Dust. Bi mosion Guy an Desam 1953 se byinsir transfer inpe puvwar Guverner a ban reprezantan popilasion. Apre se en memorandum ki zot avoy Lord Munster. Ban diskision kontinie dan Lond ek Moris ziska ki Sekreter Deta pu ban Koloni Lennox-Boyd pibliye so ban propozision. Li rekoman PR (Proportional Representation) pu anpes en swadizan dominasion Indu me sa Ptr absoliman e avek rezon pa dakor.

Chit Dukhira dan so liv Experiments in Democracy rapel nu ki Komite Egzekitif Ptr preside par Guy ti ekspilse so frer Philippe Rozemont apre ki li ti vot an faver sa propozision PR la. En tigit letan apre Guy desede e ena en eleksion parsiel dan Porlwi kot ban minorite an mazorite. En zoli plas pu nu zwen nu katriem kolos.

Renganaden Seeneevassen. Pa pran buku letan pu konpran ki li ti en dimun mari inportan pu Ptr e donk pu Moris. Pli tar mon lir Renga Is No More e sa fin fer mwa kon li plis. Sada Reddi rakont nu dan biografi Ringadoo ki Renga ek Edgar Millien ti ban prinsipal portparol dan muvman anti-PR ki Ptr ti lanse. E ki Renga ti kapitaliz lor so ban talan ansyin profeser pu explik en lodians dan Teat Porlwi lor tablo ek lakre ki ban implikasion PR. Mauritius Times li, ti lans so fame kanpayn Down With PR. Ptr fini par ranport sa parsiel Me 1956 la dan en landrwa, kot li bon rapel, minorite an mazorite e trwa mwa apre zot pran minisipalite Porlwi pu promie fwa. Sa ban viktwar la anter PR pur de bon e nu evantielman gayn FPTP (First-Past-The-Post) ki meyer system elektoral dan lemond. Zot fin pare pu sinkiem kolos?

Anekdot Guy Forget dan so obitier pu Renga dan Mauritius
Times lor en dezene organize par Lennox-Boyd an 1955.

Seewoosagur Ramgoolam. Pli gran PM ki Moris fin gayne. Malgre en lanfans byin difisil kot li ti perdi en lizie dan en fason dramatik. Lin persevere e lin transform li an en gran lider ki ti osi byin rize. En so ban pli gran realizasion se ban gran lekip dimun ki lin met dibut pu amen lindepandans, relev ban defi kaziman insirmontab ki pei ti pe fer fas an 1968 e develop Moris den fason estraordiner. Se en dimun ki ti konpran ki diob pli inportan en lider se rekritman talan. Anu zwen en so ban meyer rekritman e nu siziem kolos.

Kher Jagatsingh. Idol SSR, en fonksyoner kin kit servis sivil pu al ko-fond Mauritius Times laz 23 an. Depite avan li gayn 28 an, Sekreter Zeneral Ptr a 30 pu 21 an e Minis Lasante a 36, Minis Planing Ekonomik e Developman a 40. Politisyin dan Moris kin probableman plis voyaze e ti kon plis dimun inportan dan lemond. Buku dimun dan diferan parti dir se en ban politisyin kin fer plis pu Moris. Sirman akoz li en ban prinsipal arsitek nu leta providans. An 1956 li ti osi partisip dan kanpayn anti-PR.

Kuma Ban Kolos Ti Pu Truv Performans Navin

Si zot ti la zordi le 23 Fevriye 2024 dan meyer form zot lavi pu manz en bon but gato laniverser zot parti zot ti pu kontan truve ki FPTP tuzur meyer system elektoral dan lemond kin servi buku pei i konpri Moris mari byin. Zot ti pu sirman dir sa tigit dimun ki pankor konvinki ki depi Zanvie 2015 nun al vote dan eleksion zeneral 1 sel fwa alor ki Israel kot ena PR in al vote 6 fwa akoz instabilite perpetiel ki PR suvan zenere eleksion apre eleksion u Belzik ki usi servi PR ti pran 541 zur pu form en guvernman an 2011. Renga ek Kher ti pu mari kontan ki elekter Morisyin ti rezet PR en deziem fwa an 2014. Me ena buku zafer ki pa ti pu fer zot plezir e en bon parti ladan fin arive akoz Navin.

Zot ti pu sirman vot Ptr an 1995 e kontan retruv en PM ruz. Me zot ti pu sirman ena rezerv lor sertin kandida ki Navin ti swazir e vit truv so performans mari mediok. Tro buku rise puse steril san nanye arive. Zot ti pu soke ek seki li ti pe rod fer ek CWA e zot probableman pa ti pu inpresionie par fason kanpayn elektoral ki zot parti ti fer an 2000. Sandut zot ti pu rod konsey li me se pa sir ki li ti pu ekute. Parksi zot aksion pase byin dokumante donk si li ti anvi kontinie ek direksion ek nivo zot travay li pa ti pu inposib.

Zot ti pu revot li an 2005 me zot pa ti pu dakor ek en flat tax 15% pu plizir rezon evidan ek ban katastrof ki ti pe arive en deryer lot. Takse lintere e elimin ban egzanpsion kin tuy nu kiltir epargn, don kado 5 milyar rupi en lindistri kin mor depi lontan, siyn ban kontra abizif, zwe rulet ris ek sibsid SC/HSC, tir sibsid lor diri/lafarin pu ban rezon konpletman debil, ras dipin dan labus zanfan lekol e fer pri later determine par milioner etranze. Zot ti pu truv sa propagand ki MBC ti pe fer la infekt. SSR pa ti pu dakor ki atribie li tu zafer ki Ptr in fer. Renga posibleman ti pu rant en kes pu tialenj flat tax 15% la parksi nu ti pe pas de demokrasi a plutokrasi. Emmanuel, Guy e Maurice ti pu bros latet Navin e si li pa ti konpran mem zot ti pu lev pei kont li sirtu pu so ban lalwa travay. Par kont zot ti pu siport Bheenick pu so ekselan travay labank Moris.

Pa sir zot ti pu vot Navin an 2010. Pa ti pu drol si zot ti pu organiz so depar depi Ptr. Zot ti pu definitivman pa vot pu li an 2014 e an 2019. Ferm parlman pandan 9 mwa pu pon en papier lor reform elektoral ki preske en frer zimo propozision toksik Sithanen pa ti pu fer zot kontan ditu. Azut en doz PR dan nu system elektoral 58 an apre ki zot ti anter li dan Porlwi? Tu lezo dan zot lekor ti pu kont sa. Desizion Navin redon Sithanen de tiket apre se ki lin fer ant 2005 ek 2010 ti pu fer zot mari araze e pa drol si zot ti pu fer kanpayn kont li.

Eski zot ti pu vot pu Navin an 2024? Pena sime. E sirtu pa kan zot ti pu konpran kot Moris pu ete lafin lane (get tiart) e analiz ban angazman Ptr/MMM/PMSD. Zot ti pu dakor ar li ler li dir ki li pena oken leritaz politik apre 3 manda kom PM. Sa zot ti pu fini warn li depi 2005 mem ki sa pu arive ler zot get sa direksion ki li ti pran la. Zot pa ti pu vot Pravind non pli parski lin pli u mwin kontinie anfons Moris dan presipis. U Paul ki ti bizin fini kit MMM depi byin lontan parski li penan nanye de bon pu ofer Moris. Zot ti pu sandut truv sertin ban propozision Reform Party kuma drwa revok en depite e zir en afidavit pu ban angazman interesan.

Rezon prinsipal kifer det fin depas 500 milyar rupi e sitiasion pe kontinie puri de manier
eksponansiel se en striktir taksasion insutenab kin kumanse ek flat tax 15% Sithanen.

Referans

Dukhira, C., (2002), History of Mauritius. Experiments in Democracy.

Forget, G., (1958), Ce que fut l'homme. mauritiustimes.com. Aksede 15.2.24.

Jagatsingh, K., (1981), Petals of Dust.

Reddi, S.J., (2000), Sir V. Ringadoo, An Opportunity to Serve, Mahatma Gandhi Institute.

Selvon, S., (2018), A New Comprehensive History of Mauritius, Editions de l'Ocean Indien.

Teelock, V., (2009) Mauritian History. From its Beginnings to Modern Times. Mahatma Gandhi Institute.

Analiz Sis Angazman Lalians Ptr/MMM/PMSD

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 23:03:00 +0000

1. Pu redon parlman so let dor. Phokeer se pa Vaghjee me lor sa 35 ekspilsion an 2023 la ena plizir ladan kot lopozision fin rod sikan (e komie ladan inplik en tekewe?). Anu pa bliye usi ki Navin ti ferm parlman pandan 9 mwa pu prodir en dokiman lor reform elektoral kot li ti fer ban rekomandasion konpletman debil. Bon sa pa eton nu ler nu kon nivo Ramgoolam.

2. Abolision FCC. Ranplase par ki zafer? Manier sitiasion pu kontinie deteriore akoz politik fiskal e ekonomik pagla ki Ramgoolam ti kumanse an 2006 e fin kontinie ziska ler si kontinie kumsa mem ban guvernman ki pu vini pu kontinie met tu kalite lalwa libertisid ziska sa eklat dan zot figir evantielman.

3. Constitutional appointment authority. Depi lindepandans nun oper plito byin apart kelke ka ase toxik. Donk pa en bel zafer. Se sirtu akoz 2-3 politisyin ki nu retruv nu dan sa sitiasion la. Ramgoolam in poz 7 fwa ek en tiket Ptr zis akoz lin don limem sa ban tiket la. Ek drwa revok depite (recall election) zot pu tike avan fer kuyonad.

4. Ogmantasion pansion lao Rs13,500. Nu nek ena get refleksion Ptr/MMM lor pansion an 2014 pu konpran ki se an angazman konpletman dezespere (zot ti dir pa kav pey Rs5,000 – selman kofor bizin deborde ek $ ek pasti). Navin pu gayn 77 an e Paul 79 byinto. Navin dan karo kan depi 9 an e Bérenger pe perdi tu eleksion zeneral depi 2000.

5. Eliminasion income tax pu ban seki ena 18-28 an. Pei deza pena kas pu fonksion kuma bizin depi 2005 asterla pwal fer en parti dimun pa pey income tax? Se totalman iresponsab. Akoz lin met taksasion lor en trazektwar insutenab ki Ramgoolam so bilan mari katastrofik. Se en angazman toxik parski ek sa nu pu truv zot pe depresie rupi ubyin redwir leta providans e pa regle oken problem pei uswa kontinie al tal lame pu tu zafer ek tu pei: pisin (Emirates Airlines, USD6m), batiman lakur siprem (Len), ENT (Len), lopital kanser (Arabi Saudit, USD25m), vedet kos gard (Zapon Rs100m), lapis aterisaz Agalega (Len), tram (Len), kamion salte (Lasin), ekipman medikal (Zapon, Rs242m), ekonomi ble (Rs1.6m), apre inondasion Belal (anbasader dan Golf Persik rakonte ki PM ti dir li rod donasion), pran lon ek AFD (zis an 2020 ti pran en lon Rs13.5 milyar, en lot €200m an Desam 2023), Labank Mondial (par milyar), vaksin kovid kado (Lafrans/Lamerik), social housing project (Arabi Saudit, USD50m) etc. Se en angazman ban inkapab.

6. Zot pu bes pri prodwi petrolie de manier sibstansiel. Kav me selman pu en ti lepok. Lerla zot pu remont li buku plis ankor amwin rekumans ras dipin dan labus zanfan lekol, takse lintere, NRPT e bondie kone ki lezot politik vanpir pu kraz lepep Moris ankor. Sitiasion telman pe puri depi 2006 akoz vudu ekonomix ki ler pri petrol ti efondre an 2008 pri laponp pa ti bes kuma bizin. Asterla an 2024 zafer buku pli pa bon donk pri laponp pa pu rekonekte ek so nivo mondial.

Konklizion: Lalians Ptr/MMM/PMSD breyn-ded e zot 6 anagazman gomon pu kontinie anfons Moris dan presipis e sitiasion pu kontinie puri partu. Se sertenman pa sa ban kolos Ptr la ki ti pu vot pu zot.

General Secretaries of the Labour Party

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 18:56:00 +0000

When Kalyanee Juggoo resigned as General Secretary (GS) of the Labour Party recently Arvin Boolell wondered whether with her 13 years in that post she hadn't been the longest-serving. I knew she did not. Indeed as Chart 1 shows, Kher Jagatsingh had been GS between 1961 and 1982 or for around 21 years. Furthermore, a quick Google search revealed that Kalyanee had served since 2013 so that she had been in that position for about 9 years.

Chart 1. Kalyanee cannot be the longest-serving GS.

But given that the greatest party of the land is also at 86 years the oldest it is possible that there had been at least one GS that was there for a longer period than Kher in the two large red boxes with question marks. However some more search, see Chart 2, ruled out anybody serving longer than Kher – I cannot use KJ here for an obvious reason – after his stint because there have been quite a few between him and Kalyanee in that post for shorter a period than the latter except maybe Joseph Tsang Mang Kin whose Wikipedia entry gives contradictory information and explains the absence of his name in the charts.

Chart 2. No one served longer than Kher after him.

But Kher might still not be the longest-serving GS because although it was a wonderful blessing for the LP that he got the job for its Silver Jubilee there are still these 25 years. All it would take for him to keep the first spot would be for the second GS to have been appointed in the WWII year of 1941. This of course assumes that the post existed at that time. Maybe it did. Maybe it didn't. It shouldn't be too difficult to find out.

Kher Jagatsingh organised the Labour Party like clockwork.

Of course what matters most is not staying in a post for the longest time but having the greatest impact. And when it comes to impact we have to remember that it is widely acknowledged that Mr. Jagatsingh has left oversized shoes in each one of the Ministries that he was appointed to despite not having been there the longest in at least one of them. We should also note that Ms. Juggoo is the only woman so far in this tally and as of now the second longest-serving GS of the LP.

Gentle Elephant Already Back On the Podium

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Sun, 14 Aug 2022 18:30:00 +0000

One-fifth of

Humanity Freed

It's Friday 15 August 1947 and a huge crowd is watching Nehru raise the national flag of independent India at the Red Fort in Delhi for the first time. The subcontinent had been freed only hours before and the chief architect of this mammoth task was greeted just minutes ago with the loudest of roars. Almost. Gandhi is not in the Indian capital. He's in Calcutta hundreds of kilometres away after having accepted to serve as human shield for an infinite number of Muslims.

Attenborough's

1982 Masterpiece

Gandhi is thrown off a first class train wagon in South Africa. He returns to India. Negotiates with the British. Organises peaceful strikes. I see Nehru. The massacre at Jallianwala Bagh. They snatch independence but the country is split into two nations as Jinnah wanted a separate and pure land for Muslims. A huge exchange of population follows as Hindustan Muslims leave India for Pakistan while Hindus do the opposite journey. They clash. Gandhi is shot by Godse. There's so much happening in this movie and I register only a tiny fraction.

Reading Freedom At

Midnight A First Time

Many years later I read Collins and Lapierre's extraordinary book and was surprised to learn that the population exchange was not complete. Tens of millions of Muslims did not leave India. Pakistan was initially a two-part country and that the second part was one I had known for many years under a different name from my school atlas. But perhaps the most shocking information is that Jinnah, its Quaid-i-Azam, ate pork. Skipped Friday prayers. Drank alcohol. Smoke and spoke so little Urdu that he had to speak in English when announcing to the Indian population that he had secured partition.

So much for the guy who insisted that a 400-million-strong nation be amputated because according to him Hindus and Muslims were so different that they needed separate dominions. It's not the first time power is a bigger aphrodisiac than religion. The other thing that caught my attention were the details about the maharajahs. Including those of the Nizam of Hyderabad, the richest man in the world at the time. But just like with the movie I missed plenty of things because there's so much stuff in that great book. Not having yet gone to India did not help. How do you process all the places beyond let's say Bombay, Delhi, Amritsar, Calcutta, Kashmir and a few others? While there are informative maps and well captioned pictures in F@M it's still a huge challenge.

What is This Country?

I eventually visited Hindustan. It didn't take very long to be knocked out by the sheer scale of this nation. If you thought Freedom At Midnight was tough to digest just imagine you are checking out Jama Masjid in Old Delhi and still sizing up the iconic mosque when you see a very familiar site between many of its pillars looking at you: the Red Fort. It's overwhelming to see so many impressive landmarks so close to one other. It's true we had sensed that proximity but the map in the brand new and already dog-eared Lonely Planet is not the territory. And you can never be prepared for this kind of dimensionality. No. So we don't go up the minaret and instead ask Scotty to beam us to the Lal Qila hoping to catch a glimpse of Gandhi. But not before smiling at the thought of one Mark Twain quote.

Summing Up India

Not an easy task because of its complexity and very long history. It's a slower process than for other countries. So it's a perpetual updating with new perspectives provided by fresh knowledge and impressions like when I was listening to a fellow citizen talk about his experience travelling around India during his fairly long studies there – we're probably looking at the mid-1970s here. His eyes lit up with fond memories remembering this city and that city, this experience and that experience. The nice feeling of just being there. I'm enjoying the listen. And then he summarised a trip to neighbouring Pakistan with one sentence: Not easy that country! Isn't that just another biased Indo-Mauritian being way too proud about the country of his ancestors? Actually that much-appreciated person is probably a Muslim. I didn't ask. It doesn't matter. He may well be a Zen master. He's just a kind person. And his ancestors are most likely from Bharat too.

It's not the Jama Masjid but only its largest darwaza.

Getting Answers

To Old Questions

I once came across a long list of the major accomplishments of India. You know the one that says she invented the number system we use, yoga, the zero, etc. I was familiar with most of them but there's one that I found very unlikely. It was attributed to Hu Shih, an academic from China, who mentioned some kind of cultural conquest and domination of the Middle Kingdom that lasted for a very long time. I obviously doubted its veracity because of Shaolin Kung Fu, Confucius, acupuncture, the invention of paper, printing press and so many others. But then I read the excellent Tao of Physics by Capra, an eye-opening book on eastern thought that explained how Buddhism spread in China because it had answers to questions Confucius did not. Followed by landing on the absolutely delicious interaction between Bodhidharma and Emperor Wu and why the former taught modern martial arts to monks at the Shaolin Temple.

1947 Partition of Bengal

Not the First One

Watching Satyajit Ray's documentary on Rabindranath Tagore a few weeks back taught me how the Bengali poet responded to Lord Curzon's plan of dividing the province along religious lines to slow down the Indian independence movement. He wrote patriot songs against it and led the singing protests in the streets of Calcutta. When the plan was implemented in October 1905 he asked every Hindu to tie a rakhi to his Muslim brother's arm. Six years later the partition was undone.

I knew next to nothing about Tagore until recently. Now that I'm a fan he's on my radar. Maybe I will start with that conversation he had with Einstein or the one with Heisenberg where what the latter thought were crazy ideas in physics turned out to be pretty ordinary in Indian thought. This is a lot like quantum scientists telling the Dalai Lama that their discipline had been practiced in India for more than 2,000 years.

Bustling India on its way to the top again.

Nehru's Discovery of India

Read two-thirds of the abridged version of this amazing book 7-8 years ago and read most of the remaining pages recently to understand India a bit better for the big day. I skipped "The Six Systems of Philosophy" section again for the same reason I didn't read it the first time. I'm not exactly into unifying strands of physics. Or adding to the Vedas on the banks of the Indus. But I should have read it for Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav #250. Doordarshan also made a great documentary series directed by Shyam Benegal, Bharat Ek Khoj, based on the book. Don't bother checking the cast – it's excellent, trust me. Just watch the 53-episode drama and be dazzled by 5,000 years of history.

No Tagore in 1947

He died in 1941. But there's Gandhi risking his life again to save an ocean of lives. India's partition has claimed between 200,000 and 2 million lives – some say the bloodiest fortnight in human history – but it would have been a lot more had Mountbatten's one-man boundary force in Bengal not produced a miracle. Unfortunately neither Gandhi or Tagore would be there when trouble would be brewing again in the region twenty-four years later in what appeared to be a new version of Jinnah's two-nation theory. Someone else perfect for the job would though.

Forget Iron Lady,

Meet Woman of Steel

When she was back from one of her trips to India in the last quarter of the twentieth century my mum told me there was something very different about that country that time. A lot more order. People getting onto trains in a more disciplined manner and not the usual chaos. And not only at train stations. It was the same kind of order that had given Tagore pause years earlier when he was visiting the girls' dormitory at Santiniketan and arrived at Indira Gandhi's spot.

In one of his books Lee Kuan Yew says that Ms. Gandhi was the toughest woman PM he had met in his life. She had a "steel in her that would match any Kremlin leader". This might explain part of the very warm rapport she had with USSR supremo Mr. Breznhev and the signing of the relevant treaty to see a friendly fleet from Vladivostok slide near the Bay of Bengal to help end the Bangladesh Genocide in 1971 which claimed three million lives. Another interesting story in that conflict is how Sehmat Khan, an Indian spy from Kashmir, helped sink an enemy submarine that was on a very strategic mission in the same bay with the intelligence gathered from her embedded position in current-day Pakistan. We also need to salute Missile Man and People's President Abdul Kalam who made his motherland safer while he was around and also left good ideas behind which have been implemented after his death.

Steel partly made in Santiniketan: lines
from Gitanjali in the study of Indira Gandhi.

The Next 75

It's now Thursday 15 August 2097. India climbed the last step of the economic podium three decades earlier resuming the position she had held for so long. The Cheetahs are thriving, thank you for asking. The 15th Dalai Lama, a woman, is giving a lecture near Mount Kailash on a famous Shantideva chapter to a sea of people while the Tiranga floats in the background. As it does in Peshawar, Quetta and Gwadar.

Quote of Jinnah is from Freedom at Midnight, the book by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins, the one of Hu Shih is from wikipedia and several other sources from the internet while that of Sehmat Khan is from the movie Raazi.

Faith is A Hypothesis, That’s Why It’s Tested

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 08:38:00 +0000

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.

Mark Twain

It's the beginning of the pandemic and I land on a 2016 video where the great Indian actor Irrfan Khan is debating with some clerics a few statements that had sparked a little bit of controversy. I am watching this after founding out he had just died. It was public knowledge that he had cancer, had gone for treatment overseas but it was still a surprise to learn of his demise because I was under the impression that he had defeated it.

In the discussion, the Paan Singh Tomar actor was essentially saying that one should not accept any religion blindly but check which parts make sense, test them and that he didn't need anyone to explain the Koran to him. One of the clerics wouldn't have any of this while two others were not only more supportive of the leading man in Maqbool but appeared fairly mesmerised. And probably regretted that Richard Parker wasn't in the studio. At one point Irrfan quotes a dialogue from Life of Pi, the movie based on Yann Martel's award-winning book.

I Doubt Therefore I Am

Doubt is indeed very important but not only for testing your religion. It's useful in every field. And it's basically why you mange risk. You're not sure about everything so you hedge to an acceptable level and update your beliefs as time goes by. Through better analysis and new information. Think Bayes' rule. What Irrfan told us is not very different from the conclusion reached by one of his fellow citizens, Mahatma Gandhi, almost 90 years earlier. Namely that we need to understand that faiths are true but have errors. These mistakes could arise for example because specific parts have been designed for a particular time period and are not relevant anymore. Plus we humans have so many imperfections and are prone to interpretation errors.

This is What I Found.

What Do You Think?

This better way of thinking is itself consistent with what Buddha recommended more than 2,500 years ago after making the most of the substantial tectonic dividend India had been enjoying for eons. Indeed the enlightened one encouraged everyone to carefully examine what he found instead of accepting his statements like parrots. Parrots? I just googled up the IQ of parrots. Looks like they are far more intelligent than several politicians so let me rephrase the last part as "instead of accepting his statements at face value". Face value? Wonder what percentage of people understand these words. Let's make the sentence more accessible and settle for blindly.

Advice Taken

Which is exactly what plenty of his followers have done for centuries. Chief among them were the monks at Nalanda including one Nagarjuna, often considered as a second Buddha. They and those that have come after have analysed his observations for so long that they've come up with all kinds of useful criteria to examine every part of their teachings. Like impressive tools to avoid logical inconsistencies but more importantly to move towards compassion for all sentient beings. In the process they have confirmed parts of the insights received over the previous couple of millennia as true while not being so sure about others.

25 centuries later and one Dalai Lama often reminds us that he starts his day meditating on two things: emptiness and bodhicitta (awakening to be compassionate). He was also unambiguous as to what Buddhism must do with the parts that were disproved by science.

Not every collider has a big carbon footprint.

More Than Just Errors

You also need to examine how much time you mindlessly spend on religion because across the ages beliefs have been used extensively to distract, subdue and control people and to harbour animosity if not hatred against others who have different viewpoints. These have been unsurprisingly pretty bad and bloody objectives. Add to this the many cases of paedophilia recorded in organised religions and you wonder what purpose these middlemen between you and God serve. Something Kabir had already warned us about more than five centuries ago.

And then last October we found through the CIASE report that these mental disorders among French clerics is at an entirely more massive scale than we had imagined. It's good that other countries are doing a similar exercise. After all we recently learned that Pope Francis had to implore forgiveness from the First Nations of Canada particularly for the evils perpetrated in the residential school system. So you don't want to spend too much time on religion otherwise you won’t have enough to understand what is happening around you, to your community and country which is far more important.

Dalai Lama is Going

Somewhere Else

The Dalai Lama liked to tease his buddy Desmond Tutu that they would be going to different places after they died. The Archbishop would be enjoying splendid weather for a very long time while #14 would never get bored. Tutu would typically respond that the unfriendly weather his counterpart would get would not last forever thanks to reincarnation. It is always refreshing to hear gems of people like them talk lightly about religion like that. And now thanks to technology we can hear that directly. We don't have to rely on a friend or move to a place of worship to find out. This gets us faster to the truth as far less misunderstandings are possible. Which explains why organised religions are currently under tremendous pressure.

Meet Designer Religions

It's clear that after the death of distance we are in the middle of a substantial reduction in human ignorance through self-discovery. There's simply too much codified knowledge for this not to happen. People will keep on combining practices and religions. Zen with Islam. Sufism with Buddhism. With yoga and breathing à la Thich Nhat Hanh and what not. It will not necessarily have to be scripture-based but it will definitely be more fact-based. And this will lead us to practice something more important than religion and that too on a very large scale: kindness.

The quote of Mahatma Gandhi is from the Abridged version of Jawaharal Nehru's book, The Discovery of India, the quote of the Buddha is from a lecture of the Dalai Lama on his official YouTube channel, the one of the Dalai Lama is from dalailama.com, Jomo Kenyatta's is from the internet, the quote from Desmond Tutu is from bbc.com while the final quote from Irrfan is from the 2016 YouTube video.

3 Sputnik Products Government Should Buy Right Away

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 20:18:00 +0000

Numero Uno. The brand new Sputnik Nasal Vaccine. Both as a booster and as a 2-dose regimen. We know for a fact that different vaccines not only don’t have the same effectiveness in keeping us away from hospitals and the morgue but they are also not terribly good at preventing infection and transmission. As Israel found out even after a fourth dose of Pfizer. That’s because we have no soldiers to prevent Covid-19 from living rent-free in our noses and spreading around. But as the diagram shows – pulled from Sputnik’s Twitter handle along with the pic of how it is administered – a nasal vaccine changes all that by building a wall of immunity at the top of our airways. It would also make our vaccination campaigns a lot more efficient and provide most Mauritians with a better immune response through heterologous boosting. Plus as it’s a spray no needles are involved.

The Sputnik nasal spray offers a higher level of protection against Covid-19 by building a wall of immunity at the entry point of the virus.

Administration of the Sputnik nasal vaccine

is straightforward. No needles are used.

Dezyem. The Sputnik Light vaccine. As a booster or a standalone jab. As 36,956 Mauritians have already had at least the first dose of Sputnik V (which in fact is the Sputnik Light shot) it makes a lot of sense to offer them the option of continuing with the same excellent vaccine. According to Gamaleya, its maker, the Sputnik booster is supposed to last 12 months. This compares favourably with the 3 to 6 months the Pfizer booster will offer protection. Surely the authorities are not planning to jab the population with a 6th dose of a vaccine designed for the Wuhan strain that’s not exactly dominant now by this December?

Third. Sputnik-M jab for adolescents (12-17). It’s a 2-dose vaccine just like Sputnik V except that its concentration is 5X lower. Buying the Sputnik-M vaccine would be consistent with the recent decision of government to add a non-mRNA vaccine like Novavax to its list of approved vaccines.

There are issues with mRNA

vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna.

Government Should Update Its Vaccine

Strategy With Official Data It Has Published

It appears that government hasn’t been buying vaccines for quite some time relying totally on shipments that are mufta instead. This has caused a 100% dependence on mRNA vaccines. A very risky decision while it kept collecting Rs2 on each litre of petroleum products and as the Covid-19 death toll approaches 2,500. It is way better off checking our local experience with vaccines so far and adjusting the vaccine strategy accordingly. Especially two facts. One is that unlike the other jabs (see chart) nobody who had done the Sputnik vaccine had died from Covid as of November 7, 2021 – these numbers need to be updated via a parliamentary question ASAP. Two, as we learned last week from our National Assembly, Sputnik had the lowest rate of side effects of four vaccines used in Mauritius.

If government doesn’t want to buy these Sputnik products – the best vaccine against death and side effects according to its own data and confirmed elsewhere – because it has spent too many billions of our national reserves uselessly or hasn’t heard of long Covid yet then maybe it should give citizens who have already been vaccinated with or view the Russian jabs as among the best in the world the option of paying for it. And make it widely available.

Finally, given that Pfizer has now made several billions of dollars of profit there’s no need for a consent form as if its vaccine is faulty it should be held accountable. Incidentally that’s the reason why Moderna and Pfizer were not approved by Indian authorities.

Nobody had died from Covid-19 after being jabbed by the Sputnik vaccine as of beginning of last November. This is consistent with what several other countries have found: Sputnik offers the best protection against death from Covid-19.

Sputnik had the lowest rate of side effects

in Mauritius confirming what has been

observed in a number of countries.

This is a lot higher than the official figure that government doesn’t publish in Mauritius

but sends to the WHO.

The Sputnik nasal spray should help us keep long Covid and hospitalisation to a minimum accelerating a return to normality.

Meet the WUT

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 07:13:00 +0000

That’s how people will call the Sir Harold Walter Urban Terminal if the VUT is renamed to honour the memory of one of our land’s finest but completely forgotten sons – SHW built our first and some say still our best motorway which also makes him associated with our transportation network. It’s true he was a pillar of the Labour Party (pictured above with a famous colleague) and we don’t have a Labour PM right now. But we know what happened when we last had one. He actively tried to rewrite the history of the LP and of Mauritius, placing a sycophant at the head of the MBC with a contract that had even a “clause de conscience”. And two of the three Presidents he nominated were not personalities from the oldest political party of Mauritius.

Pravind Jugnauth has everything to gain in making this move. He would rise in stature as a head of government and reap quite a bit of sympathy from hundreds of floating and not-so-floating voters. These are always handy in any election. Besides if I’m not mistaken SHW was the lawyer of SAJ at one time.

We definitely don’t want to have Victoria in the name of that terminal. That too for several reasons. We’ve been an independent country since 1968 and a Republic for 30 years. Plus Queen Victoria was the monarch on whose watch at least two famines occurred in India. One such famine is the Great Famine of 1876-1878 during which between 5.6 million and 9.6 million Indians lost their lives – shipping a record amount of wheat to England during that famine didn’t exactly help (Wikipedia). That’s a lot of people. Without blue eyes.

Most of that range exceeds the 6 million of Jews who are assumed to have died in the hands of Nazis of Germany in WWII. Add the one million who died during the Indian Famine of 1896-97 and we’re definitely talking of someone who was the head of state of a colonial power with more blood on her hands than the little guy with a famous moustache. By this yardstick calling it HUT would be a big improvement.

Furthermore just imagine how embarrassed we’ll look when movies on these famines à la Kashmir Files come out as they inevitably will in a few years. Speaking of embarrassment isn’t it wonderful that we now have a national bird which is alive? Which means we can now think of redesigning our totally irrelevant Coat of Arms.

Finally, we don’t want a statue for the victims of Covid-19 in Souillac. We want it in one of our busiest spots. We’ll be spoilt for choice once we pull down those associated with slavery.

Vaccination Status Can’t Ignore Jab Longevity and Performance

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Fri, 21 Jan 2022 09:44:00 +0000

While it was good strategy to have several vaccines in Mauritius last year there’s quite a bit of local data available now to narrow down our choices until better and in some cases more classic ones become available or Covid morphs into an endemic. More information is also coming from the jab manufacturers themselves.

For example, Gamaleya, which makes the mix-and-match 2-dose Sputnik V vaccine has recommended its booster jab (Sputnik Light) 6 months after the first vaccine regimen and an annual dose thereafter. This compares very favourably with the 3-month cycle that seems to be the destination with mRNA shots like Pfizer.

With the Sputnik solution we’d be doing at most two more doses over the 18 months following the time we’d stopped being fully vaccinated. Stick with Pfizer and we could be looking at six or more extra doses before parliament is dissolved. We certainly don’t want that many additional boosters. And this for at least two reasons. We’ve all read the warning of the European drug regulator on how a fourth dose could overload our immune system. Do we even want to wonder about the very serious public health problems that could be waiting for us with an eighth dose from a technology that’s relatively new? Plus imagine the current mess at vaccination centres being multiplied by six over the next year-and-a-half.

There has also been the logical recommendation that the level of antibodies irrespective of how they ended up in the body – through infection or vaccination – is a much better yardstick to determine freedom of movement than settling for a uniform but unfortunately discriminatory vaccine-only-based metric. This has become all the more easier for a middle-income country like us to do after the WHO signed a non-exclusive licence agreement with the Spanish National Research Council for a Covid-19 serological tool last November.

So yes, our jab portfolio should be trimmed but in mindful ways. That definitely does not include putting all of our vaccine strategy in the mRNA basket which would also be a pity given that Modern Portfolio Theory turns 70 in a few weeks. The more so that no cases of Mauritians who took these Russian shots and died because of Covid have been reported so far – which is consistent with the mammoth Hungarian study that concluded that Sputnik V was the best of 5 vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Sinopharm were the other four) when it came to preventing deaths and the second best to avoid infections. The political risks of screwing up this too are not non-negligible for Pravind Jugnauth either and pretty untimely as he completes his fifth year as PM on January 22.

P.S. There’s also a brand new study done at the Spallanzani Institute (Italy) which was published on Thursday that shows that Sputnik does a much better job in dealing with Omicron than Pfizer. Here’s a screenshot from Gamaleya’s Twitter handle.

Guy Who Left Behind At Least Three Pairs of Oversized Shoes is 90

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Thu, 22 Jul 2021 20:00:00 +0000

Kher Jagatsingh who was born nine decades ago today left a massive legacy. We look rather briefly at some of his accomplishments and offer clues as to how he managed to do so much so fast.

He left a job in the colonial civil service to co-found The Mauritius Times at 23 (see timeline). That’s a pretty daring move if done today. Just imagine in those days. But the voracious and curious reader that he was obviously had other plans and a big part of these was to serve his country to the best of his abilities.

These initially took the form of a series of battles in his weekly to retaliate against all forms of injustice and to steer national debates in a direction that was good for Mauritius. One such battle was the “Down With PR” campaign so that Mauritius ended up with a far superior electoral system, the FPTP system.

KJ was quickly noticed by that team-builder extraordinaire, one SSR, and he was soon standing as an LP candidate in the general elections of 1959 to taste his first electoral victory. SSR must have been quite impressed by his protégé to have the 28-year old as Secretary-General in such defining times two years later.

After an electoral setback in 1963 he returned to parliament after the oh-so important 1967 independence elections and was sworn in as Minister of Health. That was a crucial time to be in charge of that Ministry. The demographic bomb – a topic he wrote extensively on – was being defused. And going through his speeches in that period – a good example is when the SSRNH was inaugurated in August 1969 – leaves us with the unmistaken impression of someone who thought very deeply about public health.

His next stop was a five-year stint at the Ministry of Economic Planning & Development ending in 1976. KJ again used his beginner’s mind to look at economic development and pioneered a new approach, launched the much talked about RDP and in the process, we learnt from Manou Bheenick’s excellent 1999 Memorial Lecture, transformed the ministry into a superministry.

World Bank President Robert McNamara
and KJ shared the view that bean-counting
has little to do with development.

The Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs was KJ’s final cabinet position. Everybody knows who implemented LP’s 1976 electoral pledge for Free Secondary Education. What may be lesser known is who put it in the manifesto.

The then 45-year old considered it his biggest challenge yet. Many schools were built, the MIE produced schoolbooks that were more suitable for the 10-year old nation and several components of the education sector were integrated into a coherent whole to help push Mauritius to greater heights.

Widely considered as the best Education Minister Mauritius has had, his hard work in that capacity has been acknowledged by many players in the sector and his interesting ideas are still being looked at.

His excellent work has been recognised by many.

Kher Jagatsingh has lived a very meaningful life. He took on the mighty, educated the masses and strengthened the Labour Party with his off the charts organisational skills, charm and intelligence before delivering solid performances in three different ministries at junctions that were crucial in the history of a young nation. A non-negligible part of this impressive track record can be traced back to the fact that he and his biggest fan, the great leader of the LP, happened to be on the same wavelength on most national issues. These included progressive and sustainable taxation, the FPTP system, the importance of a good welfare state and the necessity of building great teams so as to be in the best possible position to handle difficult problems.

But a lot of his success came from working on himself, travelling extensively, meeting the great men and women of his time (Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Chou-En Lai and l’Abbé Pierre during a 17-month 1950s trip), not letting too much schooling get in the way of a first-rate education (a precious perspective in these times of disrupted schooling), putting in long hours and staying very humble and empty.

Keeping the fan base happy.

SKJ with his comrade-in-arms and fellow pillar of
the Labour Party, Sir Harold Walter (on the right),
in the VIP Lounge at Plaisance Airport.

Petals of Dust which gives us a good
idea of how much KJ loved his fellow
compatriots was published in 1981.

Dis Plas Kot Bizin Komisyon Danket

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Sun, 04 Jul 2021 04:41:00 +0000

Byin bizin komisyon danket dan sa ban plas swivan la parski sa fin kut nu estra ser kom pei ek ena ladan fin mem fer nu koste ek fayit. Bizin komisyon danket pu nu sosyete konpran kin arive ek ki nu met ban zafer an plas pu ki zame sa pa arive ankor. Dayer Ptr ti propoz en Economic Offenders Act dan so manifest electoral pu eleksyon zeneral 2019.

1. Linpak flat tax 15% Sithanen lor sitiasyon mari katastrofik dan ki Moris retruv li. Dapre se ki ti pe dir dan kanpayn elektoral 2005 ek apre (li pu zener en krwasans 8%) GDP Moris pu 2020 ti bizin 914 milyar rupi. Tiena COVID-19 an 2020 non? Pena problem anu pran prozeksyon GDP pu 2019, 837 milyar rupi, pu kav tir COVID dan diskisyon. GDP aktyel pu 2019 ti 498 milyar rupi. Donk zis pu 2019 mank 339 milyar prodiksyon domestik (pu gayn en lide, pandemi fin kut nu 100 milyar rupi GDP an 2020). Ant 2006 ek 2019 ti mank 1,780 milyar rupi GDP u 312 fwa sa 5.7 milyar ki fek pey Betamax la. U preske 18 fwa seki pandemi fin kut nu an 2020. Ava bon osi kone kisana in profit plis sa striktir taksasyon insutenab la ek ban lezot desizyon insanse.

2. Kifer sevings fin ekrule dan Moris kumsa ek an plis zame li fin refer? Zame fin ariv sa dernye swasant an malgre ki plizir gro siklon in deza kraz nu lekonomi ek nun travers dan de sok petrolye. Sevings se meyer indikasyon rezilians en lekonomi ek en ingredian esansyel kreasyon larises. Ala en perspektiv istorik https://youtu.be/YrGd0kKcOZI.

3. Linpak ban kontra IPP lor Moris (kalite ler, lanvironman, konpetitivite, stratezi, etc). Navin Ramgoolam ti truv zot abizif ek an Novam 2007 li ti dir ban morisyin ki sa pa kav kontinye ek ki li ti pu sanz so non si li ti pu les sa ban kontra la kontinye abiz lepep. Mem lepok Paul Berenger usi ti truv ban randman ki ban IPP ti pe fer ek sa ban kontra la tro elve ek ti propoz en randman 10%. Kav sa si ti tro elve. Resaman Ramgoolam fin kalifye kontra Betamax de ‘an bon e di form’. Li a kav vin fer nu konpran kuma tu sa ban kontra IPP la diferan ek parey. Berenger usi kav vin eksplike.

4. Pert ejing Air Mauritius. Zame nun kone kin vreman pase. Purtan MK in perdi buku kas. Par milyar. Par kont ti tan buku deklarasyon sirprenan. Komisyon danket ava ekler nu. Li kav usi dir nu kifer nu konpayni aviasyon otan dan difikilte zordi ek egzamin ban dezisyon kuma Air Corridor ek asa avion.

5. Pert ejing STC. Byin drol sa parski STC ti ena en Automatic Pricing Mechanism a lepok e donk li pa ti ena pu fer ejing. Bizin kon tu ban detay lor la i konpri ki kalite kontra finansye ti servi. 4.7 milyar rupi ti perdi ladan.

6. Leta nu system sante piblik. Avan Covid-19 pasyan dializ ti pe pas buku mizer. Apre plizir fin desede resaman. Ena en komisyon danket lor la me ena plizir lot problem ki revin a la sirfas konstaman. Li pu bon konpran byin parski nun truv rol mari inportan ki nu system sante piblik fin zwe pu gard nu vivan dan pandemi ek pu konpran kifer otan pasyan ankor bizin al swiv tretman deor. Ti bizin osi kone ki ban politisyin u zot fami ki ena kik lintere dan ban system sante prive pu evalye ban konfli dintere reel u potansyel.

7. Leta nu lanvironman (i konpri kalite ler nu respire). Bizin konpran ki fin ariv nu lanvironman depi lindepandans. Pe kup montayn, tuy sovsuri par milye, kup en ta estra zoli pye, prodir tro buku dese ek nu fin vin mari vilnerab sak fwa gayn de gut lapli.

8. Tentativ privatizasyon CWA ek CHC. Bizin rant an detay ladan. Bizin ran piblik rapor labank mondyal lor sekter dilo pu lepep konpran kifer ti pe rod don kontra afermaz en konpayni prive. Bizin kone komye kas konpayni la ti pu gayne sak fwa lapli tonbe. Ek kone kifer in les sa zafer la dren nu ban lenerzi nasyonal pandan otan letan. Mem zafer pu CHCL.

9. Lev pake reste. Bizin kone ki egzateman ti arive an fevriye 2007 ler minis finans ti pe rod fer santaz ar promye minis akoz nominasyon guverner labank Moris. Eski nu pei ti rul san minis finans pandan plizir zur ki en zafer ki pa sipoze arive?

10. Inplikasyon proze politik lalyans Ptr/MMM an 2014. Ek sirtu ki bizin fer pu elimin/redwir sa kalite risk la.

World Bank Not Shutting Down Yet, Publishes Another Sloppy Report Instead

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 13:16:00 +0000

The Country Economic Memorandum (CEM) for Mauritius that came out recently is typical of the dumb reports that the World Bank (WB) dishes out non-stop. Skimming through it immediately brings back to mind Lee Kuan Yew’s famous observation:

What Harry Said

About the WB

“The World Bank report’s conclusion are part of the culture of America and, by extension, of international institutions. It had to present its findings in a bland and universalizable way, which I find unsatisfying because it doesn’t grapple with the real problems. It makes the hopeful assumption that all men are equal, that people all over the world are the same. They are not.”

The WB is a controversial institution that should be closed for the good of humanity as it has messed up several countries. Or at least converted into a food court where falafel can become a reality with a good enough circular migration programme. Take Indonesia for instance. Sebastian Mallaby reports on page 190 of his excellent The World’s Banker – trade unionists and other progressive voices in Mauritius should definitely grab a copy – that the first thing that James Wolfensohn, the WB President at the time of a 1998 trip to Indonesia, told Dennis de Tray, its country director, was “You’ve really [expletive deleted] this country up”.

What the World Bank

is Particularly Good At

Definitely creating famine. Like in Malawi. Google up one 2007 New York Times article (Ending Famine, Simply by Ignoring the Experts) and you’ll find out about another big poop nicely summed up by Jeffrey Sachs as “the donors took away the role of government and the disasters mounted”. The CEM wants to do that too. It has “priority actions that could be launched immediately under the FY21/22 budget to kickstart the process”. That’s interfering with our sovereignty if you ask me and it’s serious enough to get the local WB office closed down. It’s a lot worse than the episode with the WHO representative at the beginning of the year. The other thing is that we’ve been told that the CEM has been crafted by 20 experts. Experts in what? Massive Economic Poop? Thanks, but no thanks. Been there, done that with Bretton-Woods Ali (Mansoor) who told Mauritius back in 2006 after getting the job of Financial Secretary from his university buddy and toxic bean-counter that he would be adapting the practices of the WB that have worked elsewhere to our country.

Driving Public Finances

Over a Cliff is Another Core WB Skill

This essentially took the form of an extreme version of trickle-down economics that was supposed to generate GDP growth rates that would oscillate around 8% by slashing already-low corporate and top income tax rates to 15% flat. As expected we never got 8% growth in any of the last 14 years ending in 2019 which is before COVID-19 started creating trouble. In fact and as the chart shows we didn’t even get 7% or 6% in that period (the average being barely above 4%). No wonder then that 67-year-old Sithanen has been out of parliament for 11 of these 14 years (79%) and that too because we didn’t have recall elections back in 2006 (we unfortunately still don’t and PJ would make his first serious bit of history by adding them to our constitution).

Good At Killing Savings Too

We know what happened to our savings after bank interest was taxed, double-digit inflation was created and our rupee was rapidly depreciated in the first few years of Paglanomics. According to recent and conservative calculations the savings missing between 2006 and 2019 exceed 1 trillion rupees.* That’s a million million rupees. Speaking about a trillion rupees did you know that according to Sithanen/Mansoor trickle-down policy our GDP was supposed to cross that threshold by the end of this year? Without COVID-19 national output would have been around Rs557 billion. In other words there would have been a GDP shortfall of nearly half-a-trillion rupees for one year. And it would have got worse every year as long as we stood on the wrong side of compounding. All of this obviously makes the job of our Finance Minister really simple.

Padayachy’s Easy Decisions

Bring back corporate taxes to at least 30% which is roughly where they were before bean-counters started messing up Mauritius really badly with their economic snake-oil (aka WB best practices). So that we defuse the debt bomb and government doesn’t sit on its hands (while keeping busy with unnecessary distractions like the annoyance law and the ICTA proposal) and ruin the country along with its world-famous environment. Introduce a wealth tax. Very large dividends of several hundreds of millions of rupees should be taxed at 95%. End the wealth-destroying depreciation of our national currency and the corresponding bean-counting with the SRF. Solve real problems. There are quite a few of them. Don’t confuse wastage with GDP/revenue shortfall. By the way, there’s wastage in the private sector too. Or screw-ups with reforms. And...

Solidarity Never a

Substitute For Sustainability

When tax rates were 70% public finances were sustainable and we built a decent welfare state. Still there was plenty of social work that was going on because we were a left-for-dead country and the economic seas of the 1970s were quite choppy. These were done in an era with no social media. Plenty is still being done away from spotlights. But the current tax structure is simply not sustainable. No amount of solidarity can make up for that. Unless an expensive villa, a bundle of hard currencies, an optional dialysis machine, cleaner air, upward social mobility, a respect for nature plus a million of other things is delivered along with each food pack. There was already Rs1.8 trillion of GDP missing between 2006 and 2019. It’s way better for the 10% richest households (and for everybody else) to get 27.8% of a larger cake like in 1991/2 than 31.2% of the smallest of cakes that’s incompatible with nature like in 2012. Which is why in 2011 wealthy French saw their dreams come true: pay more taxes. Wealthy Germans had asked for the same thing two years earlier.

Jagatsingh, S., Budget 2021/22, Republic of Mauritius, Analyst Report, forthcoming.

Padayachy is Two Budgets Late

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Sun, 29 Mar 2020 11:55:00 +0000

He should have presented one early in January to put back corporate and personal tax rates on a sustainable and progressive path – raise maximum personal rates to 40% or more and the corresponding numbers for corporates not below 30% – because fourteen years of trickle-down economics were about to send our economy crashing into a wall. As chart 1 shows GDP for 2020 was expected to reach Rs530 billion before Covid-19 appeared on the scene instead of the Rs918 billion needed to keep the regressive tax code. That’s a shortfall of Rs388 billion. 2021 was supposed to be the year our GDP crosses the Rs1 trillion mark. That was not going to happen and our economic output would have still fell short of that milestone by a lot even in 2024. In fact the gaps between the two variables would have kept on increasing with GDP in 2024 less than half where the Sithanen flat tax had promised to bring it.

Rs78bn of Government Revenue

Missing in 2020, Rs89bn in 2021

These shortfalls can be translated into missing government revenue once we pick a reasonable number for the latter expressed as a percentage of GDP. Let’s be conservative and pick 20% - the actual budget estimate for 2020 is 23%. As chart 2 shows there was going to be Rs78bn of revenue missing in the government coffers this year if tax rates were not brought back to sustainable levels (the figure for 2019 is Rs67bn). This amount which is roughly 15% of our pre-Covid-19 2020 GDP could have been used to take our public health system to a whole new level. After it was seriously patched up. Weren’t we recently reminded by the President of the Renal Disease Patients Association that there are on average three dialysis machines in each dialysis centre that’s not operational?

A Second Budget in March

Then this month he would have presented a massive supplementary one to deal with the Covid-19 problem. A bit like what Singapore did. Instead Padayachy wasted precious time by putting the dumb and controversial Doing Business rankings (DB) on a higher pedestal. For sure he cannot talk about average growth rates of the past five years – the sole purpose of bringing tax rates to 15% was to get 8% growth rates but which we never did in any of these years – as they have been the lowest of the past thirty-five years. The snag is that as chart 3 shows changes in our DB are uncorrelated with our economic growth. And do we need to even bother calculating its correlation with the conditions in which several of our public medical staff are working to keep us safe from the pandemic?

How to Make Saying No to Drugs Easier

noreply@blogger.com (Sanjay Jagatsingh) — Mon, 30 Dec 2019 13:38:00 +0000

I’ve never abused alcohol. I’ve never done drugs.

I don’t smoke. And I exercise.

Halle Berry revealing her biggest beauty secret

on Entertainment Tonight, 2010.

The best policy on drugs for yourself is no first-use.

Mark Rutte, Dutch Prime Minister,

to high-school students in Ottawa, Canada, 2018

Looking at the experience of one famous scientist with mind-altering substances will provide important clues.

Meet Richard Alpert,

Anxious Harvard Professor

A psychologist born in 1931 who considered himself to be very mediocre but was driven enough to land an assistant-professorship at Harvard in 1958, be very successful by any objective measure and who started collecting things which included antiques, a sailboat and a Cessna 172 plane. But Alpert (RA) feels his life is too empty because it lacks enough meaning and the concepts he had learned and was now teaching didn't free him from his neurosis. Trying marijuana a few years earlier thanks to his first patient and in an irregular fashion after that didn't help either. Neither did spending $26,000 and five years in psychoanalysis. Or drinking heavily.

Enter Timothy Leary, Disruptor

RA bumps into Leary (TL) at a nearby research centre where the latter had been hired after making quite an impression on the centre's director in Italy. They become drinking buddies and a couple of years later decide to travel south with the first stop in Mexico. Tim gets there first and eventually tries nine Tionanactyl, the Magic Mushrooms of Mexico, and tells his friend that the six-hour experience is a bigger eye-opener than his fifteen years as a shrink. Their plan is scrapped after TL realises that traveling inside his mind would be far more interesting.

Flesh of the Gods Synthesised

A few months later RA is invited by Leary to try 10mg of psilocybin, a synthetic of the Magic Mushroom crafted by Sandoz, and soon enough he sees the different layers of his ego flash in front of him one after the other not unlike what people who've had near-death experiences have reported. His body then disappears bit by bit. He starts to panic as he thinks he's dying because nothing in his upbringing has prepared him for this. But he notices that his awareness is still there witnessing everything with eerie calmness even though the body is gone. They take some psilocybin again weekly a few more times and also give it to a wide range of healthy people asking them to fill a survey at the end. Patterns start emerging highlighting the importance of set and setting (expectation and environment) in conditioning the reactions to the drug. But the main problem is that these new states of consciousness don’t last for more than a few hours.

Shifting to LSD

And Taking it More Often

RA then tried LSD, a more powerful hallucinogen, after TL had sampled it. He even took doses every four hours – about 2,400 micrograms every day – for three weeks with five other people. This allowed them to plateau at a very high level but they were frustrated to come down a few days after they stopped taking the drug. At around the same time they were introduced to relevant eastern spiritual literature. A 2,500-year old book, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, stood out. It had been used for centuries by Lamas to help go through the 49 days between death and reincarnation by describing them and surprisingly these turned out to be extremely accurate accounts of their drug trips. This prompted RA to think about going to India to find out one of the guys who knew what these other forms of awareness were. Even though TL and a few other people who were experimenting with psychedelics had done that but hadn’t returned with all the crucial answers.

Not As Good

As Meditation

Alpert eventually tags along with a guy he had walked through some LSD trips and who was off finding holy men in the east. Their journey began by looking for Sufis in Teheran, found one but didn't feel anything. They then headed to Afghanistan, that Graveyard of Empires, then to India visiting Benares and Kashmir but they were still searching although one holy man they had given LSD told them that it was 'good, but not as good as meditation'. The despair had become huge – RD had even stopped taking LSD so as not to make it any worse – and they were now in a restaurant in Kathmandu on their way to Japan when a guy, Bhagwan Dass (BD), walks in and sits at their table. As he feels that guy 'knows' he follows him back to India and eventually meets BD's Guru, Maharaji Neem Karoli Baba (NKB).

Where's the Medicine?

NKB is somewhere between a devotee of Hanuman and the deity himself. The American quickly understands that the Guru basically has a copy of his life and thoughts in his head. So for example when RA thinks of asking him about LSD, some hours later a messenger brings him to Maharaji. The saint eventually gets Alpert to open his bottle of LSD and put three 305-microgram pills – a very big dose – into his palm before swallowing them. But RA is stunned that NKB has no reaction whatsoever for the whole day. That's because the guy has no ego so there are no layers to decompose.

The Training Can Start

Our psychologist then gets a solid training in different strands of yoga, goes back to the United States, returns to India and soon becomes Ram Dass (RD) or servant of God. A few years later, in 1971, he publishes Be Here Now (BHN), an iconic book which chronicles his personal transformation, contains a guide to yoga and meditation as well as an interesting list of references. We're now in 1972 and a teenager who had started smoking marijuana regularly two years earlier will soon be heading to the expensive Reed College, a private university that was on Leary's college tour to popularise the use of LSD in spiritual discovery succinctly captured by the famous mantra "turn on, tune in, drop out".

Steve Jobs said this profound book transformed him.

More Meditation Than Acid

That teenager is Steve Jobs (SJ) and soon after arriving at Reed, as Issacson tells us in the iBio, he befriends Daniel Kottke after discovering that Be Here Now had had a profound effect on both of them and that they dropped acid (take LSD). Jobs and Kottke share more books on eastern spirituality – these will later play a large role in informing the sleek design of Apple products – and set up a meditation room where they appear to be implementing recommendations from BHN. They ingest LSD there but not as often as they meditate.

Copying Ram Dass

A couple of years later when SJ is at Atari he organises a trip to India to find his guru and get enlightened essentially repeating the journey of Ram Dass. He goes to several interesting spots including Manali and Nainatal where NKB used to hang out. Unfortunately for Jobs the saint had left his body a few months before his arrival but he gets the opportunity to visit Haridwar right in the middle of the Kumbh Mela. In all SJ spent seven months in India. That's long enough for her to figure out what to do with him. In 2015 Kottke was asked if Jobs took psychedelics after Apple was launched. He replied in the negative saying SJ focused all of his energy on making his company successful.

Iceland Rolls Back

Substance Abuse

An interesting article in The Atlantic informs us that in 1998 42% of teenagers in Iceland aged 15 and 16 had been drunk the month before, 23% lit up cigarettes every day and 17% had tried cannabis. That was besides being among the heaviest teen drinkers in Europe. Thanks to adapting ground-breaking research by Harvey Milkman from Denver, Colorado the island nation was able within two decades to cut these numbers to 5%, 3% and 7%. How did they achieve so much so fast? By drilling good and frequently-updated data from questionnaires put to their teenagers that led the authorities to design after-school classes of music, art, hip hop and martial arts. This provided healthy stress-coping mechanisms to the surveyed to prove that life was fun. Parents were brought into the loop via some ingenious ways as time spent with them was along with frequency of organised activities participated per week two crucial factors that determined whether a teenager had one or more unhealthy habits.

Mauritius Can Too

We should note that marijuana served as a gateway drug for both Ram Dass and Steve Jobs. LSD and other drugs amplify your senses which means highs are higher than in a normal and drug-free life but lows are lower as sketched in the chart. Lows can be fatal for substance abusers – Whitney Houston (WH), Chester Bennington (CB) and Robin Williams (RW) to name just three. Meditation and yoga can provide interesting highs without the dangerous lows at very little or no cost. Introducing them in schools as early as possible will solve problems now and later especially if they are accompanied by a drastic toning down of rote-learning – a fuel for substance abuse – and interesting after-class activities that hook our teens on healthy journeys.

References

1. Be Here Now, Ram Dass, 1971.

2. Steve Jobs, Walter Issacson, 2011.

3. Dying To Know: Ram Dass & Timothy Leary, documentary, 2014.

4. How Iceland Got Teens to Say No to Drugs, The Atlantic, January 19, 2017.