The last of the inspections.

Nope, I have not mistyped the name of that stupid 90s movie: The Last of the Mohicans. This week, we are indeed giving the last of our inspections. In Australia, renting tenants have to open up the premises for an inspection by the landlord or agent, once a quarter. Sometimes only twice a year. This is for the landlords to verify that there is no serious damage done on the premises, and everything still works. The lot has to be in a respectable condition, which means it has to be cleaned and furniture properly arranged; if the tenants want to continue staying. of course.

And this is a real headache. You don't want to be ousted out of the premises for leaving some grime on the kitchen counter, or if the flooring is damaged. The only way out of this perennial cycle of cleaning and torture is to stop renting completely.

And get your own place !

And so , back to the story. Hopefully, we will never have to give another inspection during our time here. Maybe for life. It was worth it, the struggle, cause this will be the last of the inspections.

We can now damage the floor.

The 2 hour, engineered marathon.

After being lost in international trade wars, and ongoing wars on borders, a different kind of news was trending this week. And that is a good thing. On October 12, a marathon runner from Kenya, Eliud Kipchoge, completed the marathon distance in under 2 hours.

At first, I didn't understand what the fuss was about. 2 hours seems like a lot of time to do some running. What is so big about finishing the distance; my being out of touch with most sports failed to inform me that it was considered impossible to complete a full marathon in that much time. Kipchoge achieved something impossible, he is the first person on the planet to have run a distance of more than 26 kms in under this 2 hour time limit. One hour and 59 minutes is fast in a way that’s difficult to comprehend. Despite the formidable distance, Kipchoge ripped through each mile of his run in about four and a half minutes.

Truly commendable. One for the record books.

Not quite. Mind blowing as it is, Kipchoge did not break the record for the fastest marathon completed. Because he did not run in a marathon. He ran in an marathon specially engineered for him. And the more you read about the actual race condition and its orchestration, the more it surprises.

Everything about this race was controlled, right down to the weather, and the pacing. This race was designed more to showcase how technology can (and has) help modern athletes achieve the impossible.

The planning that went into the event was a fantasy of perfectionism. The organizers scouted out a six-mile circuit along the Danube River in Vienna that was flat, straight, and close to sea level. Parts of the road were marked with the fastest possible route, and an electric car guided the runners by projecting its own disco-like laser in front of them to show the correct pace. The pacesetters, a murderers’ row of Olympians and other distance stars, ran seven-at-a-time in a wind-blocking formation devised by an expert of aerodynamics. There were 7 pacers at any point of time, and a total of 41 pacers ! Kipchoge himself came equipped with an updated, still-unreleased version of Nike’s controversial Vaporfly shoes, which, research appears to confirm, lower marathoners’ times. He had unfettered access to his favorite carbohydrate-rich drink, courtesy of a cyclist who rode alongside the group. The bottle was measured to ensure Kipchoge was under the right hydration. And the event’s start time was scheduled within an eight-day window to ensure the best possible weather. The whole thing was as close as you can get to a mobile marathon spa treatment.

But with great optimization comes great controversy. Looked at one way, the INEOS 1:59 Challenge is a straightforward testament to how money can buy anything, including a branded sub-two-hour marathon. And yet, and yet—the most compelling counterpoint to a cynical view of the performance is Eliud Kipchoge himself. Among a pack of mostly Kenyan runners who have recently pushed marathoning into a golden age, Kipchoge stands head and shoulders above the rest. He is the distance’s Michael Jordan, an era-defining and Kelly Clarkson–loving talent whose credentials—which include an Olympic gold medal and multiple big-city-marathon titles, on top of the official marathon world record—were secure.

After all the engineering, it still takes a human to do the impossible.

Baar Baar Dekho

Finally got around watching this movie on Prime. With a good story, and better intentions, its surprising how it completely missed its point. Neither of the leads can act, and the dialogue and background music is completely pointless. Despite this, it turns a nice story, blatantly ripping off home Hollywood products.

I specially loved the scenes set in the past and in the future. The Delhi of the nineties, and the Cambridge and London of 2040s. They went to the extreme of imagining what living in the future will look like. A kind of utopia, with automation and AI around, but not too much. The movie brings in Indian melodrama and Indian ideas to a modern family life.

I couldn't help noticing some of the scenes were shot at Cambridge, and the very place Newton and Hawkins walked !

They could have surely have done a better job with better actors, and a crisper screenplay. Then people would have definitely "Baar Baar Dekho"d it.

The public nuisance that is TikTok

There are, hundreds of thousands of people publicly embarrassing themselves on TikTok. In the mad race to gaining 'likes' and 'followers', it is amazing how many people are willing to be the laughing stock of the word.

It is actually pathetic. And in a way, sad.

Why are they doing this ? Is it for money ? Does the playform pay ?

I looked it up. The answer, it turns out, is a humongous NO.

The service itself makes money, by placing ads. But the poor actors/dancers/jokers on them, can only gain virtual hearts.

Unless they are able to get sponsorship from brands, or move their subscribers over to a paying platform like youtube, it is just virtual fan worship.

There are a few, a handful of creators on the site, who have some originality. Are able to approach a challenge in a new , or different way.

But most of them are just ape-shit copy cats. And not even very good copy cats. The site, and its actors are just public nuisance.

I wonder if it is worth it all, becoming the butt of jokes that is the internet, all to enjoy that 10 second hall of fame.

The Vices of Malayalis, and how the state lives on it

Came across a much needed, and nicely researched article on how the state of Kerala, India, feeds off the taxes paid by its poorest citizens. Keralites, you see, have a penchant for alcohol, and lotteries. And both of these are controlled largely by the state government. A third vice is finance instrument called chit-funds, a remnant of a once stronger economy. Some of the figures being reported in this article is truly scary; and its all debt !

Kerala’s is an interesting, if not curious, economy.  The cash-strapped state -- it has a debt ratio of over 30 per cent -- the highest and most deteriorating debt among all states since 2013 -- is keeping its finances alive through the vices of its people - heavy alcohol consumption and penchant for lottery tickets. The state government has the monopoly to sell alcohol, through the Kerala State Beverages Corporation or Bevco, while the ‘gambling-type’ addiction of buying lotteries of its people is fed through the Lotteries Department, which sells lakhs of lottery tickets on a daily basis. At over 8 litres per person per year, Kerala has alcohol consumption per person per year compared to the national average of 5.7 litres per person per year. The sales tax on alcohol has been going up from 20 per cent in 1960-61 to 210 per cent now.

As per the latest data, the income from the lottery for 2017-18 stands at Rs 9,034.16 crore while the revenue from liquor sales (state excise + sales tax) stood at Rs 12,937.09 crore in the same period. Add to this is the bumper sales during festivals like Onam. In the pre-Onam week alone, Bevco sold a whopping Rs 487 crore worth liquor while the lottery tickets offer eye-popping prize money of Rs 16 crore.

“The entire approach of the state government is flawed and regressive. To manage its coffers, Kerala Government is not only punishing the poorest but it is also encouraging them to buy an addictive product like lottery by selling dreams,” said Jose Sebastian, who teaches at the Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation.

“It’s no secret who’s consuming most liquor and who’s buying the lottery tickets. It’s mostly the poorest sections of society. Gujarat neither sells liquor or lottery, yet it is the top-performing state in the country,” he said.

According to a study by Sebastian, Kerala has a wide tax base covering various sections of people and different kinds of economic activities. This is not reflected in the revenue collection. “Virtually, the effective revenue base has been getting narrowed down to four items -- petroleum and petrol products, liquor of all kinds, motor vehicles and lottery,” he said.

“An unintended consequence of the evolution of Kerala’s revenue structure is that it places a disproportionately high burden on the poor and marginalised sections of society. They are the major consumers of liquor and lottery. The share of these two in SOR increased from 14.77 per cent in 1970-71 to 34.46 per cent in 2016-17. Motor vehicles like three-wheelers, pickup vans and taxis powered by petroleum products are the source of livelihood for many of this class,” he said.

V K Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist, Geojit Financial Services, said the LDF Government and its Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac have been adopting a policy of borrowing and continued borrowing to meet the day-to-day needs. “Hard decisions such as hiking education fees, concessions for students travel or the property tax, which have not been touched for several decades, are not taken as it will backfire politically,” he said.

Vijayakumar pointed out that property tax has not been hiked since 1995 while students continue to travel at nominal rates though they have no qualms in spending thousands on mobile bills or on autos/share cabs every month.

Another big consumption by the state is gold, but it now comes under the Goods and Services Tax. Recently, the Finance Minister lamented that the state government gets less than Rs 200 crore as tax from gold sales while under the scrapped Value Added Tax (VAT) regime it used to fetch Rs 750 crore. Kerala is the top consumer of the yellow metal and Isaac blamed lack of preparedness and absence of invoices for the ‘huge leakages’ in GST revenue. Economist K V Joseph pointed out that the tuition fees in government medical colleges are as low as Rs 25,000 while in private colleges it is Rs 5.5-6.5 lakh yearly.

“While lower-income bracket people and SC/ST category can be exempted from higher fees, the government should look at hiking fees for those from higher-income families,” he said. Joseph advocated similar hike in taxes from forestry and land/property registration and taxes.

Geojit’s Vijayakumar blamed the state government for spending recklessly when the state coffers are drying up. “The state’s debt is Rs 1.5 lakh crore. When the state is in deep debt, the government has spent Rs 5.90 crore on politically accommodating VS Achuthanandan in Kerala Administrative Reforms Commission. Our Public Service Commission has 21 members while Madhya Pradesh PSC has just four members and Gujarat seven. All these members are paid over Rs 1.5 lakh per month. The government would do well to cut its unnecessary expenditure first when the state is in deep financial crisis,” he said.

Will Finance Minister Isaac think out of the box to find new revenue models? Will he bite the bullet? No chance when the state is heading for an election season -- the byelections followed by the local body polls in 2020, and the Assembly polls in 2021.

Another addictive habit of Malayalees is joining money-saving scheme or chits or chitties, which combine the advantages of both investment and advance. No wonder, while most Kerala PSUs are loss-making or white elephants, the Kerala State Financial Enterprises or KSFE, which runs chitties of several sizes, is flourishing. Compared to unofficial chits run by individuals, which are illegal, the KSFE chits are risk-free safe haven for the public as the institution conducts only chitties fully governed by provisions of the Central Chit Fund Act 1982.