My New Blog..

Please visit my other blog http://sushmitnath.wordpress.com
I post rather regularly there...

Economics Unplugged

*TRADITIONAL ECONOMICS*

You have two cows.

You sell one and buy a bull.

Your herd multiplies and the economy grows.

You retire on the income.

*INDIAN ECONOMICS *

You have two cows.

You worship them.

* PAKISTANI ECONOMICS*

You don't have any cows.

You claim that the Indian cows belong to you.

You ask the US for financial aid,

China for military aid,

Britain for warplanes,

Italy for machines,

Germany for technology,

France for submarines,

Switzerland for loans,

Russia for drugs and

Japan for equipment.

You buy the cows with all this and claim of exploitation by the world

*AMERICAN ECONOMICS*

You have two cows.

You sell one and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.

You profess surprise when the cow drops dead.

You put the blame on some nation with cows & naturally that nation will be a danger to mankind.

You wage a war to save the world and grab the cows.

* FRENCH ECONOMICS *

You have two cows.

You go on strike because you want three cows.

*GERMAN ECONOMICS *

You have two cows.

You re-engineer them so that they live for 100 years, eat once a month and milk themselves.

*BRITISH ECONOMICS *

You have two cows.

They are both mad.

*ITALIAN ECONOMICS*

You have two cows.

You don't know where they are.

You break for lunch.

*SWISS ECONOMICS *

You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you.

You charge others for storing them.

*JAPANESE ECONOMICS*

You have two cows.

You re-design them so that they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.

You then create cute cartoon cow images called Cowkimon and market them worldwide.

*CHINESE ECONOMICS *

You have two cows.

You have 300 people milking them.

You claim full employment, high bovine productivity and arrest anyone reporting the actual numbers.

*RUSSIAN ECONOMICS*

You have two cows.

You count them and learn you have five cows.

You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.

You count them again and learn you have 17 cows.

You give up counting and open another bottle of Vodka

My First Poem

Unknown, Am I?

I Am Unknown
I wonder if anybody knows me.
I hear the people talking.
I see the people whispering.
I want them to notice me.
I am unknown.

I pretend that I know them.
I feel lonely.
I touch their soul
I worry that I'll always be alone.
I cry tears of sadness.
I am unknown.

I understand their thoughts.
I say, "Notice me!".
I dream that someday I won't be alone
I try to make them notice me.
I hope someday they will.
I am unknown

Sushmit Nath

Copyright ©2006 Sushmit Nath

IGIDR , An Unknown Place

Let me take you to my institute, where I am currently pursuing my Masters in Economics from. The place is called Indira gandhi Institute of Development Research. This institute was established by the Reserve Bank of India in 1987 for purely research purposes. Over the years this place has produced an outstanding number of PhDs and MPhils. The MSc program is only four years old now and the second batch passed out this year with an average placement of 7.3 lacs.Yes, same as many IIMs. These facts surprised me as much as it did you. That makes it better than DSE will be the next question. I am not making any comparisons here as DSE has its own place among people who know what Masters in Economics and Research is all about. But what's most surprising is that during our grads we knew nothing about IGIDR. Does it have something to do with the fact that during our grads we only think in terms of IIMs and other corporate placements , and DSE also fits in this agenda as its Placement is just too good.I think that the fact that our teachers and seniors never encourage us towards reserach and higher studies in economics has something to do with it.
IGIDR takes only 17 people every year for its masters program and all from diverse backgrounds. We have students who've done Physics, B.Tech, an IIM graduate, an IITian, from Environmental Science and what not ,apart from Economics students of DU and CU.
IGIDR provides its students with the kind of Infrastructure one can't imagine. I was myself surprised to see what all they have in store for us. The fact that RBI spends 4 lacs on each one of us per annum may help explain that. We have one of India's best library [http://www.igidr.ac.in/lib/library.htm] (mind you, its not a tall claim) which, for example, has regular subscription to more than 500 journals from all over the world. We had a two hour orientation here to teach us how to use the library effectively. It basically has everything in economics under the Sun. Two hours is a long time. then we have this Computer Centre 24*7 which has all the big things in computing (kamadhenu.igidr.ac.in) . I won't explain much here as I was sleeping during the three hours orientation of how to use the IT resources. Plus the hostel and other accomodation facilities are better than most of the institutes in India.
The best thing about the institute is its research activity. The faculty here is amazing in terms of their experience and also the teaching method such that a 90 minutes class never seems banal. Also our classroom is too good, they say it was built for around 3 crores. I can believe that. Its damn good.
In the first week of our stay here we had the good luck of attending a lecture by noted Economist from Yale Univerrsity, Dr. T N Srinivasan and they say its a common feature here. I remember bunking my classes in DU to listen to Kasushik Basu, Stiglitz, Sen etc. and running around the campus for that. Its no big deal here.
This place boasts of outstanding corporate placements and its alumni are all very highly placed. IGIDR in say another 5 years is sure to be a big name. I'm lucky to be here and be a part of this change. I personally feel that more and more students should try and come to this place to do their masters and not be stuck with only two choices of DSE and JNU.

Nice Joke

A woman and a man are involved in a car accident; it’s a bad one. Both of their cars are totally demolished but amazingly neither of them are hurt.
After they crawl out of their cars, the woman says, “So you’re a man. That’s interesting. I’m a woman. Wow, just look at our cars! There’s nothing left, but we’re unhurt. This must be a sign from God that we should meet and be friends and live together in peace for the rest of our days”.
Flattered, the man replies, “Oh yes, I agree with you completely, this must be a sign from God!”
The woman continues, “and look at this, here’s another miracle. My car is completely demolished but this bottle of wine didn’t break. Surely God wants us to drink this wine and celebrate our good fortune.”
Then she hands the bottle to the man. The man nods his head in agreement, opens it and drinks half the bottle and then hands it back to the woman.
The woman takes the bottle and immediately puts the cap back on, and hands it back to the man.
The man asks, “Aren’t you having any?”
The woman replies, “No. I think I’ll just wait for the police…”