The top three batsmen scored 1, 1, 1. That was, maybe, like 10 minutes of bad cricket, but how does the minutes matters? What has time got to do with this?

The fall of wickets was as follows:

1-4 (Rohit Sharma, 1.3 ov), 2-5 (Virat Kohli, 2.4 ov), 3-5 (KL Rahul, 3.1 ov), 4-24 (Dinesh Karthik, 9.6 ov), 5-71 (Rishabh Pant, 22.5 ov), 6-92 (Hardik Pandya, 30.3 ov), 7-208 (Ravindra Jadeja, 47.5 ov), 8-216 (MS Dhoni, 48.3 ov), 9-217 (Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 48.6 ov), 10-221 (Yuzvendra Chahal, 49.3 ov)

This means your top six batsmen could not even put 100 runs on the board. I don’t know how long they took to troop back to the pavilion, but how does that matter?

What matters is that your top 6 batsmen played bad cricket when it mattered most.

Instead of admitting this, the captain makes it sound as if the fault lies in the format of the tournament. I guess he would prefer a league format in the semi-finals. And then maybe, a best of three format in the finals.

Champion sides are those that can raise their game when it matters. India clearly was not a champion side.

After clocking industry leading, double digit growth over almost fifteen years, this year the growth projection has been slashed to 4%.

What went wrong?

It is a long story, but the progress of the story is so crystal clear that its is startling in its clarity.

Its all started in Nov 2016, when a hedge fund which held $1.4 Billion worth of Cognizant stocks dictated to the board of Cognizant a set of actions that it (the board) should take to propel the Cognizant stock price up by over 50% in 12 months.

What Elliott demanded was a strategic change in direction. All through the years of its roaring success, Cognizant has held its margins lower than its Indian IT peers, and invested the difference in building stronger relationships with its customers. And this was the secret to the double digit, industry leading growth. Now, Elliott was demanding that Cognizant should push its margins up, since that would lead to an increase in share price.

In a rare misstep, the Cognizant management agreed with Elliott and implemented the steps that were dictated.

And the steps worked… for Elliott… within 18 months!

But these moves seem to have completely disrupted the goose that laid the golden egg:

Its anybody’s guess if and how Cognizant will recover from this mess. Some indications are already out:

This is a classic case of Wall Street messing around with companies without really understanding their business, and prioritizing short term results over long term growth and sustainability.

PS:

Even as Cognizant was implementing Elliott’s diktats, Infosys was smart enough the learn a lesson:

This was most certainly a brainchild of the prime minister and the Reserve Bank had little to do with it. This is confirmed by the fact that the RBI was totally caught on the wrong foot when it came to implementing it. The way I look at it is that the PM basically pulled the rug from under the feet of RBI and placed the RBI in an unenviable position. When Modi was elected PM, there were many t things I anticipated, but I never ever expected that he will go after the RBI, that too in this weird fashion.

The demonetisation achieved it primary purpose. All the money held in cash came into the banks. All untaxed money was flushed out of hiding and into bank accounts. They can now be taxed.

That said, the root of black money are politicians and bureaucrats. Neither of these groups have been penalised by demonetisation. In fact, all these culprits are very well known people and none of them have been touched. So much for demonetisation as an anti-corruption measure.

What surprised me was the realisation that not all untaxed money was with politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen. They seem to be many ordinary citizen who seem to hold their money as cash. It seems like many households we keeping a few lakhs in they almirahs which they had to reluctantly deposit in bank accounts. It is quite possible that this cash was post-tax and hence not black at all. It is just that people prefer to keep cash at home than keep it in the bank.

After demonetising high value currency notes (Rs. 500 and 1000), an even higher value note was brought into circulation (Rs. 2000). There seems to be no logic behind this at all. No explanation has been asked and none tendered. Such is India – the land beyond logic. Unless this Rs. 2000 notes too get demonetised in the near future, which this government is quite capable of doing.

What was the main motivation of this exercise?

• The RSS has always been an organisation that wants to “cleanse the rotten system that is ruining this country”. Modi being a lifelong pracharak, I would surmise this was his attempt at cleansing the system. It is quite likely that he was advised by some RSS think tank, but I am certain neither the RBI nor the NITI Aayog advised him on this matter.
• The RSS believes that people should learn to “sacrifice” for the greater good. People should put self-interest second and the nation’s interest first (the RSS is really socialist / communist in its belief system; it is certainly not capitalist). Taken to an extreme this leads to a complete loss of empathy (“I don’t care about your suffering because I am on to something much bigger than you – something called “nation”). Modi being a lifelong pracharak, exhibited this same lack of empathy. He was willing to take a pot-shot at untaxed money and collateral damage be damned.
• This is the BJP’s idea of “Big Bang reforms”. Most people look towards the annual budget for Big Bang reforms, but this government continues to serve up one tepid budget after another. Hence the excitement that surrounded the formation of the BJP govt was beginning to wane. To see the excitement going (i.e. to feed the news cycles) various macho actions have been attempted – impromptu visit to Nawaz Sharif’s granddaughter’s wedding, cross-border strikes into Myanmar and across the LOC and now demonetisation. The idea is to say “See how great we are. We do such bold things”.
• Modi realised his magic was beginning to wane and this was his way of reinforcing his image as a “decisive” PM.

Overall, this was a childish and immature exercise carried out on a grand national stage, affecting a billion people. The real culprits are unaffected and collateral damage has been widespread (ranging all the way from minor inconvenience to loss of livelihood).

Consider the following Tamil verse by Udumalai Narayana Kavi:

“ஆவணி ரோஹிணியில் அஷ்டமியிலே
அஷ்டஜாம நேரத்திலே அவதரித்தோனே”

which translates to:

“The one who was born in the midnight hour of Āvaņi-Rohiņi-Ashtami”.

This verse was part of a much larger Bharathanatyam sequence (“Parkkadal Alaimele”) from the 1960 Tamil film Raja Desingu performed by Padmini. 

This verse pertains to the birth of Krishna which is celebrated as Janmäshtami. This year, all Hindu Panchangas fixed Aug 28th as Janmäshtami day. Here’s why:

This exactly matches what is described in the verse!

The astronomical zodiac is defined by IAU (International Astronomical Union). The sidereal zodiac is the one used by the Hindu astronomical system and corresponds pretty much to the IAU definition except:

• Only the constellations that lie on the ecliptic are considered
• Constellations are equal-width along the ecliptic whereas IAU constellations do not have uniform width along the ecliptic
• Hence, only 12 constellations are defined as opposed to IAU definitions which includes a thirteenth (Ophiuchus) between Scorpio and Sagittarius.
• ζ Pisceum is used as the starting point whereas IAU’s First Point of Aries is slightly offset from ζ Pisceum, as can be seen in the above figure.

I have explained all this in an earlier post.

The tropical zodiac is identical to the sidereal zodiac on all respects except for the starting point. It uses the Sun’s position at Vernal Equinox as the First Point of Aries. Due to the precession of the equinoxes this point keeps falling back (wrt to the sidereal zodiac) by approximately 1º every 70 years. As a result of this, today two zodiacs are offset significantly and the First Point of Aries is well inside sidereal Pisces, as can be seen in the above figure. This zodiac is best suited for defining seasons (the seasons are predominantly decided by the Sun’s position with respect to the equator and the two tropics). Even in the Hindu system, which defines six seasons of two Rashis each, should be read with respect to this tropical zodiac to produce seasons that best match today’s reality. I have discussed this in greater detail in my monograph on the Hindu calendar.

The following animation shows the Orloj in action:

This animation illustrates all of the above using an Orloj Simulator available at www.orloj.eu. Keeping the hour at 12 Noon, this animation steps through 365 days starting from March 20 (Vernal Equinox). Three movements vie for our attention:

The zodiac ring rotates clockwise under the sun, i.e. the sun moves anti-clockwise around the zodiac and comes back to its starting position (the First Point of Aries) at the end of 365 days.

The moon too rotates anti-clockwise across the zodiac rapidly. The color of the moon transitions between full white (full moon) and full black (new moon) thus indicating the phases of the moon.

The Sun moves up and down the hour hand (which is stationary at 12 noon). Its movement is limited by the Tropic of Cancer (the golden ring encircling the Roman Numerals) and the Tropic of Capricorn (the golden ring encircling the globe in the center). It transits the equator (the golden ring in-between the other two) twice a year. This movement is of course nothing but the Uttarayana and Dakshinaya of the Hindu Calendar.

The Sun is between the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer; this means the Sun is over the northern hemisphere, i.e. it is either Summer or Fall in Prague (you need some context to fix which is the correct season; if the Sun is getting closer to the Equator day after day, then the season is Fall else Summer)

This further implies the following:

• When  the Sun is positioned over the Tropic of Cancer, Summer Solstice occurs; Summer ends and Autumn begins.
• When the Sun comes over the Tropic of Capricorn, Winter Solstice occurs; Winter ends and Spring begins.
• When the Sun is over the Equator, there are two possibilities. If it is moving towards the Tropic of Cancer, Venal Equinox has occurred and Summer has started. If it is moving towards the Tropic of Capricorn, Autumnal Equinox has occurred and Winter has begun.

Due to the way the hour “Hand” is constructed, the Sun will never come directly over the Tropic of Cancer and will stop slightly short. The same effect cascades to the Equator and the Tropic of Capricorn, i.e. when the Sun if over the Equator, the Orloj will show it slightly below the Equator.

The above solstice and equinox observations can be made in another, easier fashion – using the zodiac dial. Since the tropic zodiac starts with Vernal Equinox, the following annotated snapshot illustrates the position of the Sun on the Zodiac dial on the equinoctial and solstitial days:

Note that these four positions are highlighted by two crossbars across the zodiac dial making the sign of a cross.

The Orloj models sunrise-unequal hours-sunset as well the four solstitial and equinoctial points by moving the disc of the Sun up and down the hour hand. This movement models the movement of the Sun between the two tropics, which of course causes the lengthening and shortening of day and night thus varying sunrise and sunset times. A perfect example of killing two birds in one stone!

If you are interested in the science behind the construction of the Orloj, check here.

Though the hour “hand” is pointing to VI, the Sun is positioned on the line demarcating the first unequal hour, hence it is one unequal hour after sunrise.

It is now easy to understand that the time when the Sun rises above/sets below the horizon must be the time of sunrise / sunset respectively. The following simulation snapshot shows the time of sunrise at Prague on the 25th Jul:

Summer Sunrise

The Sun is beginning to peep over the horizon at Prague at close to 4:30 AM (4:22 AM to be exact, as shown by the simulator). A quick check on the internet shows 5:22 AM as the sunrise time at Prague. The discrepancy is due to daylight saving time which the ancients who built this clock did not account for.

Since this clock does not have a minute hand it is of course not possible to read 4:22 accurately; based on the position of the hour “hand”, one can only read this, at best, as “sunrise is around 4:30 AM”. Also, it is visually difficult to determine when the Sun is beginning to “peep over” the horizon! Hence, the accuracy of these time readings is, of course, quite limited.

Further, the saffron area labeled “Aurora” demarcates dawn which is rather large in Summer, as it should be.

To understand this ingenious arrangement even better, let us look at sunrise in winter, i.e. six months later on the 25 Jan, 2014:

Winter sunrise

The clock now shows sunrise close to 8 AM (7:46 AM to be exact, as shown buy the simulator, which corresponds with my internet reference, since there is no daylight saving time in effect in winter). Also note that the dawn (Aurora) is much smaller now (though it is covered by the central disc which is a Polar projection of the Earth). Observe that there is a saffron are which runs right through the “night” indicating there are days when twilight merges with dawn without an intervening night!

Sunset works in a similar fashion – when the golden disk of the Sun goes completely below the horizon, the Sun is deemed to have set and twilight starts. It is worth noting that the Orloj keeps rotating the outermost Arabic numerals dial in such a way that 24 coincides with the time of Sunset, thus implementing the Italian hours.

The saffron colored area below the horizon represents dawn (aurora) and twilight (crepusculum) on the left and right sides of the dial respectively. The horizon itself is marked as ortus (rising) and occasus (setting).

Given the zodiac corresponds to seasons, it is possible to use the Orloj to read the seasons too. I will cover that in my next post.

An amazingly ingenious astronomical clock, this Prague Astronomical Clock (Orloj in the Czech language) shows

• the hour
• unequal hours in Prague (i.e. daylight hours divided into 12 equal parts; they are unequal across seasons) and consequenty the sunrise and sunset times
• the zodical position of the sun
• the position of the sun vis a vis the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn and the equator (and consequently the solstitial and equinoctial positions)
• the zodiacal position of the Moon
• the phase of the Moon

Of course it requires some training to read all this right. I bought an iPhone app that simulates the Orloj in order to study it in more detail. Here is my annotated guide to the Orloj:

I have not annotated the outermost Arabic numerals (they are not very useful; they represent a timescale, called Italian time, which starts a day from Sunset!) and the small yellow star which helps read sidereal time with respect to vernal equinox (right, something so obscure cannot be very useful).

Now we can read the Orloj snapshot shown above as follows:

• The hour is easy enough to read as 6 AM (the Roman numerals on the edge which the hour “hand’ points to; the Arabic numerals use a different starting point – sunset is the start of a new day! These are called the Italian hours).
• The Sun is still in Cancer but will move into Leo in the near future (the Sun moves anti-clockwise on the zodiac dial and completes one revolution in a year).
• The Moon is just inside Aquarius soon to move into Pisces (the Moon too moves anticlockwise on the zodiac dial, but completes one revolution in slightly less than a month).
• The Moon is close to Full (which is all one can say by looking at this clock; one needs some context to understand that, in actuality, it was the second day after Full Moon. The farther it is from its opposition to the Sun, the easier it is to determine if it is waxing or waning).

While all this is interesting enough, what is mind-boggling is the series of time measure that are modeled by the position of the disc of the Sun. More on that in my next post.