COMFORTING THE AFFLICTED

A thought for today

Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and
not in the multiplicity and confusion of things

The United States And The Word

ISAAC NEWTON

End The Chaos

Best way forward now is to avoid any more

changes while remonetisation is underway

BI yesterday rolled back draconian changes introduced

earlier, where people who wanted to deposit old notes would
have to convince two bank officials that there was a satisfactory
reason for depositing their money. The move is welcome. But let this
be the last notification issued by it before the deadline for deposits
ends on December 30.
Repeated chopping and changing of rules have left not just customers but even bankers in a state of confusion. Such confusion, coupled
with the glacial pace of remonetisation, has led to a wide gulf between
official pronouncements and ground reality. An unfortunate fallout of
the demonetisation exercise is that it has eroded belief in the promises
of government as well as in the competence of RBI. For instance, Prime
Minister Narendra Modis initial speech announcing demonetisation
promised that daily limit for exchange
of old notes would be enhanced from
November 25. Instead, RBI banned
exchange of old notes from that date.
In the interim, finance minister
Arun Jaitley advised people to delay
their visits to banks to avoid queues
from building up, but subsequent
changes requiring an inquisition of
customers depositing money later in
the permitted cycle showed that arms of
state managing demonetisation were
not on the same page. The finance ministry has even publicly doubted
RBIs statistics on returned notes. Flip flops and poor coordination
have been accompanied by packages to promote a shift away from
cash. A transition to a less-cash economy will be a change for the better.
Policy measures to incentivise this transition will hasten the process.
But the package of measures announced so far suggest that they were
done in a hurry to meet secondary objectives of demonetisation.
At this juncture, it is best for government and RBI to allow
remonetisation to proceed without further changes. The focus now
should be on getting adequate currency into the banking system, to
restore normalcy to the economy that has been affected by the shock
therapy of withdrawing 86% of currency in circulation. The
forthcoming budget provides an opportunity to undo some of the
damage and also shift the focus to long-term economic reforms. It is
important to restore confidence in the economy. This can only come
about through carefully crafted and premeditated strategies. The
government must avoid acting on impulse, without thinking
through the consequences of its actions.

Trumpisms and Bushisms constitute the very essence of Americanisms

Chidanand.Rajghatta@timesgroup.com

Donald
Trumps
(perhaps) unintended
coining of a new word
unpresidented is
hardly unprecedented.
Considering some of
his predecessors have also added new
words and expressions to the English
language, philologists may have
misunderestimated (to borrow George
Bushs felicitous contribution) the US
President-elect. Or have they?
Notwithstanding his Ivy League
education, Trump has shown he is no
mug with neologisms, spoonerisms,
malapropisms and other lapsus linguae
that characterised the Bush innings in the
White House. From his patented yuge!
(for huge) to bigly (for big league), to
Im not unproud, (of his tweets trashing
a former Miss World), Trumpisms have
made a mild splash in Lingua Americana
modestly enriched by Bushisms.
American presidents going back
to its founding fathers have had a
reputation of being language mavens,
albeit underwritten by erudition that is
alien to Bush and Trump. Presidential
historians and lexicographers say
George Washington coined, among many
others, the expressions hatchet man
and out-of-the-way (for secluded), and
popularised the word indoors and
administration (for government).
Thomas Jefferson was a matchless
neologiser (someone who coins new
words) who fabricated belittle to
convey something less important by
verbising the word little. Among some
100-plus words he contributed were
Anglophobia and odometer. From
his days in Paris, he fashioned the word
pedicure to describe the care of feet,
toes and toenails. I am a friend to
neology. It is the only way to give to
language copiousness and euphony, he
wrote to John Adams.
Lincoln sweetened the language with
sugarcoat and FDR came up with iffy
to tactfully knock down Supreme Court
decisions with which he disagreed. It
was Theodore Roosevelt, forging terms
such as lunatic fringe and bully pulpit

n a move that will burden school students, the Central Board of

Secondary Education (CBSE) has approved the resumption of
compulsory Class X board examination from 2018. Accordingly,
from the coming academic year Class X students will see their overall performance being gauged through a combination of the board
exam which will have 80% weightage and internal assessment.
The Class X board exam had been made optional from 2011 after the
introduction of the continuous and comprehensive evaluation
system of year-round tests and grading to reduce pressure on
students. This was relevant since India has one of the
highest student suicide rates in the world.
However, stakeholders in school education
believe that making Class X board exam optional
has led to a fall in learning outcomes. But the
reality is that teachers were unqualified to
implement the sophisticated continuous and
comprehensive evaluation system. Bringing back
board exams is an easy way to abdicate responsibility and put the onus of learning on students. This will
only enhance stress for students and see an increase in dropouts.
If this werent enough, CBSE has also resolved to extend the
three-language formula up to Class X and wants the third language
which is studied in addition to English and Hindi to be strictly an
Indian language listed in schedule VIII of the Constitution. Apart
from the additional burden, the move would mean that students
seeking to learn a foreign language an option many private schools
offer would be forced to choose a subject like Sanskrit. This is
absurd given the globalised world we live in where learning a foreign language like Mandarin or German has practical utility. Taken
together, the CBSE decisions reflect once again the enormous
disconnect between educational administrators and ground reality.

among others, who was a linguistic

loose cannon (also his expression).
Around this time, American politics
also threw up many election-related
terms such as whistlestop, barnstorming
and stump speech, as maverick
candidates (after Samuel Maverick, a
Texas rancher who refused to brand
cattle like others did) travelled the
countryside in trains, making campaign
speeches on tree stumps (hence,
stumping) outside barns.
By the turn of the 20th century, the
US was getting over anti-British
sentiment. Shakespeare arguably the
greatest wordsmith in English history
was all the rage. Lincoln had the Complete Works of Shakespeare in his study in
the White House, and in early 1900s, it
was said American households typically
kept two books at home: the Bible and
Shakespeare.
Americans loved the Bard because
they saw in him a pioneer: an inventive
wordsmith who coined new words and
expressions 1,700 by one estimate all
the time. In fact, when the Folger
Shakespeare library was inaugurated in

Donald Trumps (perhaps)

unintended coining of a new
word unpresidented is
hardly unprecedented.
Philologists may have
misunderestimated (to
borrow George Bushs
felicitous contribution) the
US President-elect
Washington DC in 1932, it was said the
US capital had three great memorials
that stand out, in size, dignity and
beauty, conspicuous above the rest: the
memorials to Washington, Lincoln, and
Shakespeare.
Yep, not Thoreau or Twain, Shakespeare was the literary icon. There were
calls to bestow honorary US citizenship
on the Bard. Further down in history
Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton were all avid
Bardolators, frequently citing a man who
bedazzled America with new-fangled

Abhijnan Rej

The assassination of
the
Russian ambassador to Turkey,
Andrei Karlov,
in Ankara on
Monday caps an already-troublesome year for Turkey that saw an
unsuccessful coup and a spate of
high-intensity terrorist attacks.
The geopolitical ramifications of
Karlovs assassination and the
degree to which Russia would
seek concessions from Turkey as
compensation is not yet clear.
What is evident is that the
ebb and flow of Turkeys
trajectory in the recent years
closely parallel the three of the
greatest risks to the post-war
liberal international order.
These risks are the growing
fissure between Islamism and
the West in Europe and its
periphery, the rise of authoritarian leaders within ostensibly
democratic frameworks, and the
visible fragility of American
alliances and the security
architectures that sustain them.
Modern Turkey, as envisioned by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
after the collapse of the
Ottoman empire, was to be a
staunchly secular state. The
Turkish military saw to it that

Ataturks conception of the

state remained intact. Turkey
would become a frontline Western state in the American antiSoviet containment policy, as a
member of Nato and other
collective security mechanisms.
But Europe never fully
opened up to Turkey as one of its
own. Despite Bush Jrs exhortations that Turkey be admitted to
the European Union and
therefore serve as a model for
other Muslim-majority states
to emulate European powers
never warmed to this idea. This

Turkey seems to have

internalised, for the
moment, that Russia as
a temporary ally serves
its long-term calculations
better than America as
a permanent friend
was a cause of resentment
among many Turks.
With Recep Tayyip Erdogan
at helm, Turkeys flirtation with
Islamism began to acquire an
institutional character. Erdogan
imagined Turkeys role as a
buffer state between Europe and
West Asia as leverage to obtain
significant concessions from the

EU while, at the same time, playing the Sunni-Shia conflict for its
own geopolitical advantage. This
in turn, and much like Pakistan,
exposed Turkey to Islamist
violence on its own soil. Instead of
consolidating its image as a secular republic, Turkey today embodies a schizophrenic relationship
between Turkey as a nominal
ally of the West, and as a country
with a significant Islamist base.
When pundits talk about the
rise of illiberal democracies led
by
authoritarian
leaders,
Turkey is at the top of the list of
examples. What started out as a
fringe movement on the edge of
Europe in Hungary and Poland
now appears to be mainstream.
First PM, and then president,
Erdogan has cracked down on
the press and aligns his policy
priorities as a conservative

Muslim. Much like other authoritarian leaders of our era, he also

enjoys significant support from
the Turkish people. The extent of
this became clear during the
failed coup this summer when
people took to the streets to foil it.
Erdogan has also publicly
challenged Turkeys long-term
commitment to Western-led
alliances. A couple of months
ago, he hinted at Turkey seeking
membership in the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO)
a Sino-Russian central Asian
security framework. In fact, Turkey seems to have internalised,
for the moment, that Russia as a
temporary ally serves its longterm calculations better than
America as a permanent friend.
This is why despite a serious
conflagration last November
when Turkey shot down a Russian

dilbert

Bachi Karkaria

bachi.karkaria@timesgroup.com
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/erratica

The writer is a Fellow at the

Observer Research Foundation

Your Name
Whats in a name?
Names, once they are in
common use, quickly become
mere sounds, their etymology
being buried, like so many of
the earth's marvels, beneath
the dust of habit.

A little blind girl gives

us all some light

erratica

fighter jet Erdogan has been

more than keen to make nice
with Putin. This is also why Turkey will, in all certainty, heavily
crack down on groups that it suspects to be behind Ambassador
Karlovs assassination while
publicly blaming US-based dissident Fethullah Gulen as the
culprit. It goes without saying
that given the diametrically opposite stances of Turkey and Russia
over Syria, this is a tightrope act.
Though Erdogan seems to be
using the possibility of a RussiaTurkey entente as a bargaining
chip to strike a deal with the
West shades of another
populist, Donald Trump, here
this has the potential to unnerve
the US. To wit, this would be the
first time, should Turkey indeed
join the SCO, that a Nato
member is also part of a pact
that has Natos greatest worry,
Vladimir Putin, as a leader.
Should countries like Turkey
exhibit wavering commitment to
the US-led security architecture,
this does not bode well for the
future of the architecture itself.
The canary in the coal mine
is Turkey. Its trajectory will
serve as the best indicator of the
future of the liberal world order
in the years to come.

Sacredspace

Small Miracles
Shirin was the Juliet to Farhad, the Persian Romeo. Our Shirins
story has taken a happy turn and is on course for an ever after
ending. Yet all the dice were loaded against her. She was born
blind and lost her mother when still a toddler. Her father was Zoroastrian and therefore a second-class citizen in the Ayatollahs
Iran. Like so many impoverished Iranis, he had travelled the
tortuous overland route to find a job and dignity in Mumbai. But the fire in his belly
became increasingly only that of hunger. He arrived at the Happy Home and School
for the Blind, and implored the Director to keep his precious little dokhtatr for a
few months while he went back to Iran to wind up his matters. Meher Banaji relented. But the father never returned. As Shirin blossomed, Mehers difficulties bloomed. The institution had only boys. Their voices changed; hers didnt. Her frame
changed; a bigger problem in a place where so much communication is by touch.
Meher had to find a way out for her ward, but the girl had no papers to endorse
her existence. Meher said, Please write about her. Thats when i met this 11-yearold, as angelic in her looks as in her attitude. It was difficult not to fear for someone
so accepting of her fate, and i found myself quoting Dylan
Thomass exhortation to his dying father. Do not go gentle into
that good night ... Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Surely,
shed have to be more demanding to survive in a brutish world?
But she didnt heed that advice. And Fate didnt need it. Shortly after, an
exultant Meher called to say that a well-off Parsi family, touched, had adopted
her. Next, i got a photograph of her at 16 in her first sari. Her prodigious musical
talents were discovered, and she began teaching the blind children of Happy
Home, and accompanying that beautiful choir dressed up singing carols every
Christmas at the Taj.
At this years annual exhibition of the schools exquisite glazed pottery and
mosaics, Meher introduced her as Dr Irani. Shirin, in gold jhumkas, spoke of
having done her PhD in Hyderabad on how the brain processes the nuances of
music. Independently, but still gently, she has gone out into the good light.
***
Alec Smart said: The rest of us have always known that North India
is foggy-headed.

words such as scuffle and swagger.

Typical of America, swagger has
now been sized down to swag to denote
stylish confidence, a quality that Bush
and Trump possess despite their obvious
lack of scholarship. Although Bushs
coinage of misunderestimated found
qualified praise, with some linguists
appreciating one compact word to
describe underestimating by mistake,
his periodic murder of grammar was
underscored by a query he once posed at
a school event: Rarely is the question
asked: Is our children learning? Trump
has chipped in with Somebody sitting
on their bed that weighs 400 pounds
while describing sedentary hackers.
President Obama himself is no great
shakes with neologisms despite his soaring oratory and literary flourish evident
in his two books. During his election
campaign, he startled Americans by sending out an email with the subject-line
Hey! Apparently, his digital team tested
18 different combinations of emails and
subject lines before concluding that the
casual, informal Hey! worked better
than any official and presidential greeting.
Hey! became his signature call.
Another time, Obama berated critics
of his healthcare bill for getting all
wee-weed up. Wordsmiths got their
knickers in a twist trying to decipher
this unheard of expression, forcing the
White House to clarify that bed wetting
would be the more consumer-friendly
version of wee-weed up.
The American love of language was
brought home starkly to me one evening
on InterState-90 when i was pulled over
by a cop, a term that originated in England
but was banned by the Brits because it
was seen as insulting to policemen.
When he had walked languidly over and
asked me for my registration, i told him
it was in my dicky. What is a dicky, sir?
he asked. The boot of the car, officer, i
responded. That still left him bemused.
The American word for dicky, aka
boot, is trunk. A lengthy discussion on
the discreet charms of the English language during which time i was hoping he
would forget my infraction did not save
me from the $150 ticket. He did not misunderestimate my honey-tongued spiel.

Turkey is the canary in the coal mine, forecasting

whether the West-led liberal order has a future

Heaping The Burden

CBSEs latest decisions represent a
backward step for school education

THE TIMES OF INDIA, NEW DELHI

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2016

AFFLICTING THE COMFORTABLE

Uday Deb

22

Salman Rushdie

Hi-Tech Christmas: The More Things Change

Janina Gomes

iving in a digital, electronic age,

Christmas the feast of the stable
in the wayside inn has become a
dazzling event, with show, extravaganza
and star-studded entertainment.
As human beings we have evolved,
we have split the atom, we are exploring
outer space and we get to see pictures of
the universe transmitted from tools we
send to outer space. At the touch of a
button, we are able to kick-start many
scientific experiments and evolve more
and more sophisticated tools of work,
entertainment and communication.
Todays lingo is all about e-social media!
Yet, we have not been able to fathom
the mystery that is life, the miracle
of a newborn child. Does every
Christmas that comes and goes not
say anything to us?
The more things change, the deeper
we enter into the eternal mystery that is

Christmas. The trivialities, the traditional

sweets, puddings and what you have may
also have changed. Some things do linger
on, though, like the mistletoe, the crib,
the advent candles, and the eats that
characterise different community celebrations. Christmas is perhaps also an
occasion when the family meets
and has a meal together, signifying the unity the festival brings.
The spirit of Christmas,
which is peace, inspires ceasefires at conflict zones, the
silencing of guns, the exchange
of a handshake with enemies,
the freezing of hostilities; but
these fragile peace efforts last at
the most for a few days and then
its back to square one.
Hi-tech Christmas celebrations should really be promoting the use
of technology to spread development to
find ways to prevent drought, bring up
water table levels, grow organic food,

evolve mechanisms to make life easier

for the disabled, develop mass transport
that is comfortable and affordable, create
housing complexes for the poor that
preserve their human dignity. Most
importantly, science should be at the
service of peace and harmony, creating
trust between different communities. These are not a days
work, but the goals of a lifetime.
The more things change, the
more we are challenged to meet
the big human problems of
today with understanding and
compassion. Christmas gives us
the reason why. Christ was born
to bring human dignity and
hope to all. Those who claim to
be his followers ought to take up
these challenges in right earnest. The physical and the spiritual are not
dichotomised; they are integral. The
more things change, the more layers of
meaning we will uncover at Christmas.

the

speaking
tree

Wherever we are, should we not be

doing all these things and much more?
We are a people of hope, so we can
become anchors of hope for others.
Nobody said the journey would be easy.
But the more hardships we overcome on
the way, the closer we come to the great
mystery of Christmas a festival that
never changes.
How wonderful it would be if the
festival inspires us to work to make a
difference in the lives of others! We may
say a positive word somewhere, give an
encouraging smile somewhere else, we
may better someones lot in life through
small gestures of help, we may give
support to a person who is lost. There is
much we can do, but will this Christmas
be the start of a new life for us and those
around us? Or will it be just a glitzy
grand event that will bring us shortlived pleasure without having experienced its true meaning and purpose?
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