Yes we do! I randomly discovered this insight while reading Good Economics for Hard Times by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo (Nobel prize winners from last year). I have shared it in this blog.

The cheating insight comes from experiments done on humans - which I am thinking could become a series of its own - where I post small notes on human nature via experiments that I stumble upon in books that I read. ‘Learnings from Human Experiments’, is the series name that I have thought of.

Now that we are talking about cheating, let’s also talk about lying.

I have explained my point here. It’s amazing how even after four years, this is a subject that still needs debating!

I hope you agree with the case that I have put together in the blog. I also drew a simple chart to show why it was clear from the very beginning that demonetization was never supposed to work.

Talking about PM Modi, has any of you ever wondered if he is like Hitler?

I spent quite some time putting together this blog where I analyze this Hiterlism. If there is just one thing that you read from this newsletter, let this be it. I draw heavily from a very insightful book that I finished reading while I was being treated in the hospital - How Democracies Die.

Levitsky & Ziblatt (the authors) have analysed democracies across the globe to understand when a leader turns authoritarian, often leading to collapse of democracy. If you read my blog, you will learn about the four litmus tests that can help identify any authoritarian leader. How does PM Modi fair on those tests? You tell me.

Enough of my own writing. Here’s an important (and nicely done) story from the red light district of Mumbai. There are some nice photographs in there too. And as we are on the topic of photography, I have got something new to share. I finally put together a new picture story for my wedding photography site Shaadigrapher.com, after a gap of 3 years! This story is from the wedding that I shot in Kolkata last month, that left me Covid positive. But hey, the pictures are nice, aren’t they? :)

That’s it guys. Hope you had a great diwali. Mine went in self-isolation. Other than reading and writing, I have been editing a wedding film, doing some communications consulting, working on few corporate video ideas for two startups and trying to put together a short video from my time in a hospital Covid ward. See you next Sunday.