The Vibe in India

The zeitgeist among the young in Mumbai and across the subcontinent:

I’d have liked to ask Mr. Gandhi what that means: “I am young.” I myself no longer have a clear idea. Perhaps it means being so disillusioned with life in modern India that, quite frankly, never mind the Congress’s election promise of eradicating poverty, I’d like him to buy me a Scotch and soda now. It may mean being so angry at the larger failure of the system, the physical failure — the potholed roads, the power shutdowns — that one’s anger can become utterly mute from its weight. And it may also mean being so bored by the failure of cultural originality — the absence of anything beyond Bollywood, and the fact that most of our contemporary art is shamelessly derivative of Western work — that the inertia of imagination can knock you out cold.

via Young, Restless and Indian – NYTimes.com.

Former American Embassy in Iran Attracts Pride and Dust – NYTimes.com

A symbol of the past US/Iranian impasses in relations, but maybe an institutionalization that could lead to a warmer future?

“Before that moment, it was the U.S. who dictated the history of nations,” said Mohammad Reza Soghigi, who guided the foreign reporters visiting the site. “After the takeover, it was Iran that dictated the history of the U.S.”

For Iranian hard-liners, the embassy compound is a symbol of the lasting power of the Islamic Revolution. But the atmosphere in Tehran has shifted since the reformist Hassan Rouhani replaced his hard-line predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as the country’s president. For many here, the embassy is a relic that is long past its sell-by date.

“All this stuff is old,” said Mehdi Zohari, a 31-year-old electrician and Basiji. “Maybe it’s time we forgot about all of this.”

via Former American Embassy in Iran Attracts Pride and Dust – NYTimes.com.

Perils in Philosophy of Austerity in the U.S. – NYTimes.com

The US proves resilient but at what long term cost? Is austerity the end of major GDP grown?

But few countries can match the speed with which the United States has embraced fiscal austerity. In 2013, the federal deficit shrank at its fastest pace in more than four decades, dropping to 3.9 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, from 6.8 percent the year before, according to the Congressional Budget Office.According to the International Monetary Fund, the general government deficit of the United States, which includes states and municipalities, will fall by about two-thirds as a share of G.D.P. from 2009 to 2014. Most of the decline will come from reductions in spending.Not even Britain has trimmed its budget as steeply. Only Greece, Ireland and Portugal — cornered into austerity by creditors in Berlin and in Brussels demanding a cleanup from past excesses — have shrunk government spending more sharply.Yet for all the cuts already in the bag, calls in Washington for further retrenchment remain strong. “None of us can be proud of the way we spend the money,” the Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn said the other day from the Senate floor.

via Perils in Philosophy of Austerity in the U.S. – NYTimes.com.