ECONOMICA

News of Castro’s death late last month—the revolutionary who had been the face of Cuba for a long time now—brought mixed feelings of grief and joy. Most Indian politicians mourned the loss of the Cuban icon. INDIA AND CUBA India was one of the first countries to recognise Fidel Castro's socialist government. That was just after the Cuban revolution in which, Castro and Che Guevara overthrew the government of then President Fulgencio Batista.                   There have been many important bilateral visits since the establishment of Cuban socialist government. The first visit was immediately after the Cuban Revolution. The then-Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru received Che Guevara in New Delhi. Nehru also met President Fidel Castro in New York at the NAM summit in 1960.   Narrating his experience, he said: “The first person who came to see me was ...

So one night since my exam was finally done, I had become a peruser of my own kind imbibing Agatha Christie in my imagination. (The start to this piece sounds like some narrator speaking with the brackets in an English Balbharti at the start of the drama. Ah. Yes, too much of drama in a very sophisticated way is involved ahead! )       Well that's when my mom squawked at the top of her enthusiasm that our elected PM Mr. Narendra Modi had banned all the ₹500 and ₹1000 legal tenders!         I would narrate truthfully that the first counter back was, "Is that even possible to conduct?" Well, as it happened in every house the next second, the television set switching on with a sudden rise in the TRP's of most of the news channels. Hah. Kidding.         After listening to Modi speaking about the discontinuation of certain denominations in the money cycle, I tried to analyse the advantages and disadvantages from different perspec...

Elon Musk: Aiming for Mars Neil deGrasse Tyson, in ‘Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey’, takes us on a voyage around the universe in a “ship of the imagination” a sleek looking ship with shiny chrome exteriors and a chair in the main cortex with a view to rival all others, as Tyson himself sits in the chair and peers out at the marvels of the universe. Space is the final frontier (high five to my fellow Trekkies out there), and for many, it is the destination of tomorrow. Who would have thought that we could be colonizing Mars within the next few years? Elon Musk has taken us closer to that dream than anybody else has and he is only getting started. Who is Elon Musk? Elon Musk is a 45 year old South Africa-born entrepreneur who is known today for having created Zip2 (and making over $300mn in its sale), PayPal (and making over $1.5bn in its sale), Tesla and SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies Corporation actually, but SpaceX sounds much better). He also happens to be the real...

Book rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ Just as we were coming to accept the fact that the journey of Harry Potter had come to an end with his son starting off at Hogwarts and that “ All was (finally) well ”, J.K. Rowling came up with another mind-blowing prophecy which was brought out in the form of a two-part stage play, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”. The script of this play, the first new Wizarding World story in almost a decade, was written by Jack Thorne, J.K. Rowling and John Tiffany and was published as the official eighth Harry Potter story.             The seven books by J.K. Rowling about Harry and his world have kept people of all ages mesmerized. In 1997, Rowling opened the doors to the Wizarding World, when she first introduced Harry to the muggle world.                         This story is different than ...

The third and final day of Arthotsav saw Mrs. Medha Dhapre preside over a noisy student Lok Sabha as the Madam Speaker of the session, for the two-hour mega event, Parliamentary Debate. Since most of the participants were winners of the previous competitions, it made for a highly competitive atmosphere. The Opposition made the audience sit up and take notice of the otherwise drab Goods and Services Tax (G.S.T) Bill, while the Ruling Parties answered with facts and witticisms to entertain the audience and subsequently win the Best Team Award. The Opposition, however, remained strong and undefeated on their stance—Sacchit Ramesh, leader of the Opposition, even went on to win the Best Debater Award, propelling his college the final push for the Best College Award! Congratulations Mithibaiites! In the closing ceremony, the volunteers caught a glimpse of the Fest founders, and got to hear their insights into the difficulties they faced getting it off the ground. They unanimously agreed t...

As Guntaas Kaur (our Lord and Supreme Commander) puts it, “When Arthotsav begins it’s like one continuous blur of activity right until it ends.” Truly, it felt like it was hardly the end of the first day as the sun dawned brightly on the second day of our fest. The fest began with a splendid performance by the college’s N.S.S chapter, with a play for the event Bandé Mataram. Volunteers and people from other colleges alike rushed to play the Game of Fire and Ice yet again, as we decided to put off saying goodbye to our beloved game by one more day. Three or four games were played before it was time for the next event—Your Word’s Worth It—to finally commence. Your Word’s Worth it turned out to be a pleasant surprise! Participants expecting a standard essay-writing competition were in for a shock, as the first round involved a game of charades. The words they guessed correctly would be the words they could write on in the essay, so it was a bit of a necessity for the mime to make sure ...

Our fifth-intercollegiate season of Arthotsav began with not a bang but a gentle thud as our chief guest Dr. Neeraj Hatekar from the University of Mumbai inaugurated the three-day fest with a prayer to the Almighty, along with the college’s Department of Economics. Speaking in front of a crowd of an eager 100-odd Economics students uniformed in a standard blue tee and badge, some adding their own touches here and there, he recounted his own experiences in the field and mentioned that our college had given him some of the best Masters students he had had the pleasure of working with. After that it was Anita ma’am and some of our own volunteers who spoke and motivated the already energized audience. The first event of the day—The Wolf of Dalal Street—seems to have set the pace for the rest of the day. With its loud atmosphere and the quickness at which shares rose and fell, it truly felt like the inner stockbroker in the participants had emerged. In the heat of the action the challe...