| | | Good morning! | | Given what I do, my day flows differently, but my friends in non-media jobs have been telling me for some time that, over the past two years: they're having more meetings; they're working longer; and they catch up with mail and other things they have missed during the day after dinner, or the first thing the following morning. In a recent newsletter in The Atlantic, Derek Thomson refers to a Microsoft study that found that the two "productivity peaks" displayed by knowledge workers (one before lunch and one a little after) have been replaced by three since the pandemic — with a third of workers showing a smaller spike of work late in the evening. This is not a good trend, Thomson writes. "Our late-night mini workdays are not just an expression of benign flexibility. They're also the consequence of inflexible managers filling the day with so many meetings that we have to add a worknight to do our job." Not surprisingly, some of my friends are also using this as an opportunity to redefine life, and work. It isn't quite like the Great Resignation the US (and Europe) saw in 2021 — which is itself coming under question now — but I do know of people who have chosen to cut back their work, and scale down their lives and lifestyles. As a household, we have been trying to do so too — and for good reason, climate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its sixth report this week and for the first time, detailed how lifestyle changes can help bring about large reductions in the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The chapters on urban systems, buildings and transport, are especially relevant. Here's a quick bird's-eye view of the report. The imminent horrors of the climate crisis were overwhelmed in the course of the week by the immediate horrors of Bucha, with the brutality of the Russian army in the Ukrainian city from which it has withdrawn provoking almost universal outrage, including from New Delhi, which has thus far been measured in its criticism of the Russian invasion. But in a week filled with otherwise depressing news, both about our present and our future, and my second brush with Covid-19, there was one bright spot — the current Australian women's cricket team. Sure, they won the World Cup, but that isn't the real measure of this team's greatness. Since the start of 2018, this is a team that has won 38 ODIs and lost only one (to India). It is also a team that has lost only 7 of the 48 T20s it has played in that period. Even by the high standards of the Australian women's cricket team, which has won 269 of the 341 ODIs played, the current team is an outlier. Did any of the men's teams, from any period of history (barring, perhaps, the West Indies at their peak), come close? Find out here (hint: we used a derivative of the ELO ratings used in Chess). | | THINK Among the bad news of the week were the political and economic crises in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, which have also become constitutional crises in both countries. Number Theory, our numbers column which runs almost every day in the premium section of hindustantimes.com and on most days in print (if only with a lag), sought to explain the crisis in our southern neighbour, one that seems to have been the result of a series of poor decisions (and exacerbated by some bad luck). Watch that space for a similar one on Pakistan soon. India's economy is in far better shape, although it faces significant challenges — especially on the inflation front. That's the reason the Friday decision of the Reserve Bank of India's Monetary Policy Committee was closely watched (here's a quick summary of the backdrop against which the committee met). As anticipated, the committee chose to keep the policy rate (and also its stance, which remains accommodative) unchanged — indicating that growth is still the primary concern, not inflation. One measure of an economy is poverty — as in, the number of poor people in a country. In the early years of this century, the definition of poverty and the number of poor in the country was the subject of a great debate. Now, after a lull, that debate seems to have been revived, with two papers, one published under the aegis of the World Bank, and the other, the International Monetary Fund. The second claims the government's free foodgrain programme ensured that the number of poor people stayed low (around 0.8% of the population) during the pandemic. But is that an accurate measure? | | THINK MORE The efficient delivery of welfare schemes such as the free foodgrain one are part reason for the continuing political dominance of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which celebrated its 42nd birthday this week. The party first started talking about beneficiaries ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections; it has since worked on reaching out to such beneficiaries; in the recent UP elections, much of the party's focus in later stages of the polls was on labharathis (beneficiaries). Welfarism found a mention in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech on the occasion on April 6, during which he emphasised that there is no difference between the party's political objectives and national interest. The BJP's ascent has been remarkable — it is the clear national hegemon and looks set to stay that for at least the foreseeable future. Two years after the BJP was founded, the late NT Rama Rao founded the Telugu Desam Party, once a regional powerhouse that played a lead role in two coalition governments at the Centre— the National Front and the United Front — although it is now fighting for relevance even in its home state, Andhra Pradesh. | | KNOW Did you know that the army has not conducted recruitment camps since the onset of the pandemic? And did you know that this has crushed the dreams of young people, mostly in rural India, training to make the cut? My colleague Rahul Singh drove through interior Haryana, a popular catchment area for the army, to understand their angst. | | LEARN For years, Paul Stamets (yes, the character in Star Trek Discovery is named after him, and for a reason) has been telling us that fungi are sentient and intelligent, and excellent natural engineers of ecosystems through mycelial networks (I have written about these in this newsletter previously). Now, it turns out, according to a computer scientist at the University of the West of England, Andrew Adamatzky, fungi can talk to each other too — and have a vocabulary of around 50 words, with their electrical activity behaving pretty much like trains of thought or sequences of words (and showing a pattern very similar to language). | | | | OUTSIDE The climate crisis and misinformation are the two really big problems of our times. A recent issue of Science magazine profiled Carl Bergstrom, a biologist who has been studying misinformation, and social media's role in it. "Bergstrom sees social media," the article says, "like many other things in life, through an evolutionary lens. The popular platforms exploit humanity's need for social validation and constant chatter, a product of our evolution, he says. He compares it to our craving for sugar, which was beneficial in an environment where sweetness was rare and signalled nutritious food, but can make us sick in a world where sugar is everywhere. Facebook exploits humans' thirst for contact, in his view, "like a Coca-Cola for the mind, allowing people to connect with others in larger numbers during a single day than they might have over a lifetime in humanity's past." | | WHAT I'M READING Arthur Brooks's From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life. Have you peaked? When did it happen? Have you done anything significant since? How can you find success, happiness, and purpose after you peak — because, you know, everyone does peak? Brooks's self-help book — I mentioned a piece he wrote on the same theme in The Atlantic in an edition of my newsletter a few months back — is, like many in the genre, likely accurate in its diagnosis, and not-so-specific in its recommendations, although it remains something that people in their late 40s and 50s must read. | | WHAT I'M LISTENING TO Another Japanese jazz release from 180g. This one is called Wajazz: Japanese Jazz Spectacle Vol 1. Curated by Yusuke Ogawa from the vaults of the Nippon Columbia company this is a great introduction to Japanese jazz, featuring some known names, but also several unknown ones. The music itself ranges from hard bop to more interpretative and contemplative jazz. My favourite? Jiro Inagaki and Soul Media's energetic "Do It!" | | Were you forwarded this email? Did you stumble upon it online? 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