Author: Atanu Dey

Economist.

Hi from Delhi

Ok, this is a personal post of the type what I had for breakfast yesterday. So if you aren’t interested in my personal life, consider yourself warned and don’t read any further.
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The National Rural Corruption Guarantee Scheme — Revisited

The National Rural Corruption Guarantee Scheme (NRCGS) was the title of a post from Nov 2007, one of a series of posts dealing with the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, starting with one in Nov 2004 on “Sir, won’t you buy this bridge and the Employment Guarantee Act?”
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Leaving on a jet plane

Today I make my way to Delhi for some days. And then on to Chennai. So I will be reporting from the capital of this great country. I have not been in Delhi for many many moons and I am looking forward to a very exciting visit.

Old Soldiers Never Die

Old soldiers never die,
Never die, never die,
Old soldiers never die
They just fade away.

Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji “Sam Bahadur” Jamshedji Manekshaw MC (April 3, 1914 – June 27, 2008)

Here’s a warm farewell to Sam Manekshaw from a little boy. And from a soldier to Sam Bahadur.

Godwin’s Law: An example

Having grown up in the age of the USENET, I am intimately familiar with Godwin’s Law. “As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.” The corollary to which has always been that whoever equates his opponent in a debate to Hitler or the Nazi, he has admitted that he has lost the argument. The thread or discussion has to be considered closed.
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When once destroyed can never be supplied

The title of this post is from Oliver Goldsmith’s poem, The Deserted Village (1770). It appears here:

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay:
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,
When once destroyed can never be supplied.

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The Numbers

Time to do the numbers. This blog has been publishing since September 2003, just a few months short of five years. During that time, it has accumulated over 1,100 posts, and people have commented over 7,000 times. Around 1.1 million pages have been viewed in the last three years, going by the numbers Sitemeter reports since September 2005.

Thanks you all for visiting. I hope it has not been a total waste of your time, and I trust that you have found something of interest here. Of course it has been fun for me. For otherwise I would not have persisted in writing. I have made some good friends through this blog whom I would not have known otherwise. I have made a few enemies as well but it is well worth the friends.
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Flight Information System

Here’s an idea. You are going to take a flight sometime in the afternoon. You SMS a particular well-known number. It reads, “Start flight S26641”. Immediately you get a response, “Welcome to updates on Jet Lite flight from Pune to Hyderabad. Estimated 20 minutes delay. ETD 1540 hours.”

Later, around 1 PM, you get another SMS “Jet Lite Pune to Hyderabad delayed 1 hr 20 minutes. ETD 1640.” You plan accordingly. Finally, just when you were about to leave home, another SMS arrives: “Jet Lite Pune to Hyderabad delayed 1 hr 40 minutes. ETD 1700 hours.”

You get to the airport around 1600 hours. You get an SMS at 16:30 saying “Jet Lite Pune to Hyderabad broading.” You proceed to the security and off you go. Once you pass through the boarding gate, the final SMS says, “Have a nice flight. End of transmissions.”
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