Remember, being in junior classes and studying those flash cards learning new words, new adjectives. It taught us the difference between beautiful and ugly by portraying a white person as beautiful and a black person as ugly. That was just a beginning and we never realized how this affected our minds. Some of us might remember the protests against racism and police brutality in the late 1960s, the outrage of African Americans has a sad and sickening familiarity. It is sad because yet another black man was killed by the police officer although he was not resisting arrest, even if had he been resisting, the officers had no write to apply lethal force to an unarmed person. We do not have to look back for examples of racism. We can see it now with disgusting awful frequency. Watching the video of George Floyd being murdered in broad daylight by a police officer, made me sick. It scared me and made me think our humanity has come to an end. It’s just an example of disgrace on humanity. People are protesting against it and Donald trump is touting them as thugs and threatening to send the National Guard.

I am not in favor of violence. I am not saying that burning buildings or destroying public property is correct, all I am saying is justice is not on their side. There is  no second thought to the fact that,  some things have changed in major, a black man was elected as president twice, yet so many things remained unchanged; segregated neighborhoods and schools, disparate treatment and a lot more to that.  We should not do this, we can be better than this. We should not tolerate it just for the sake of being a part of this so called liberal society. No race is superior to another. BLACK LIVES MATTER, Colin K. was right. Why does being black makes you a thug? Why are people teaching us that the color of your skin determines your value in this world? Racism is a virus, deeply rooted, systematically that exist in some form or another, is rampant in our society today.

Being angry at this lately, spreading awareness through social media, showing how devastated you are from this whole incident does not make you any less of a racist if you still joke around, judging people on their skin color in your real life. Symbolic statements and gestures matter a lot but they do not change injustice. We need to change in enforcement.

We have had plenty of reasons to be ashamed of a large portion of the human species (because there are always exceptions, not all people are bad). The color of our blood is red; it is not white or black. There is no difference it is just the darkness in our minds.

With the passing of several months since its sudden arrival it is by now clear that COVID-19 has dealt a devastating blow to the global economy. But global economy is not a monolithic structure. It is an aggregate of many national and regional economies. The virus, it is widely believed, has originated in China which after boasting of impressive growth rate is now nervous about its decline. But China is not alone in this situation. There has been a steep fall in economic activities around the world. There are large scale lockdowns and quarantined spaces. The Governments in different parts of the world are trying to provide stimulus packages and incentivise production process to cope with the adverse economic situation.

But not everyone is optimistic. World Trade Organization (WTO) economists argue that the decline will likely exceed the trade slump brought on by the global financial crisis of 2008‑09. “The unavoidable declines in trade and output will have painful consequences for households and businesses, on top of the human suffering caused by the disease itself”, mentioned the WTO Director-General, Roberto Azevêdo in a press release on 20 April, 2020. He also warned that the world trade is expected to fall between 13% and 32% in 2020 as the COVID 19 pandemic disrupts normal economic activity and life around the world.

There are scholars like Stephen Rosh, economics professor at Yale University, who is rather doubtful about the success of such measures, at least in near future. He does not think much about the effectiveness of the adopted fiscal and monetary policies. While one may indulge in debate about Rosh’s opinion it is important to point out that we are confronted globally with an unpleasant economic scenario. Not only China, worse affected will be developing economies like India, China’s neighbour, whose economy in the pre-pandemic period was being considered to be ‘rising’. Even the advanced economies like that of the USA are not immune from the pandemic effect on economy. In a sense, COVID-19 is a ‘great equaliser’. It spares none, no matter how robust the economy is.

The issue is not to panic or not to give up. The fight must go on against the dreadful virus not only in epidemiological and biotechnological terms but also in economic terms. The global economic fight, however, cannot be waged only at the level of individual economies. The national economies must fight from their own locations but should also establish and sustain proper networking in this endeavour with other economies. The synergistic effort pays. For instance, one of the worst affected domains of the economic onslaught of the pandemic, the share markets, according to The New York Times faced the ‘tornado like head wing’. But a positive development is that after initial rout, stock markets are rebounding. It provides a lesson: that the countries must come together to fight the virus rather than trying to shed each other’s blood, economically speaking. Morgan Stanley’s Chief Global Economist, Chetan Ahya, has recently in an interview mentioned that he doesn’t think that the virus shock would fundamentally challenge the growth cycle. The word ‘fundamentally’ is very important. The underlying logic is that the global economy periodically has weathered a number of shocks but still has managed to experience growth. 

Much of information about the global economy remains cloudy. Not everything can be expected to be clear. But let us understand that if different countries unite to fight the ravages caused by ‘the common enemy’ there is a recovery possible. One agrees that there is stiff competition among the economies of the world for the twin pursuit of wealth and power. One also understands that ‘mercy, and ‘charity’ are not the norms of economic competition. But the pandemic has sent us an implicit signal: the national economies should indulge in ‘minimal cooperation’ among themselves at this stage to revive intense competition. When everybody is talking about ‘social distancing’ in this case it has to be ‘economic proximity’.

This message is from Sri M.P. Bezbaruah, IAS (R) , 1964 batch alumnus of Cotton College, who was in very important positions in India and abroad.

Dear Shri Chatterjee,
Thank you for introducing Cotton College, my alma mater with history and facts. Cotton College brings back sweet memories of times so long ago!
And how time flies. Only the other day I had attended the Centenary celebration of the college. Everything about Cotton College –the Sudmerson Hall, the Principal’s
Residence, the now demolished Administrative Block— has illustrious history. When Harvard University, also my Alma Mater, celebrated its 350 years in 1986
it had fireworks emblazoning its logo in the sky. Time magazine wrote -Harvard can afford to do that because it rightly belongs there.
I had written that Cotton College also can write its glorious history in the educational sky of India.
regards,
Bezbaruah

An ambitious person you ask; the word is associated mostly with an extreme desire to succeed. That being said, the person would go any length any height for the sake of his goal. He couldn’t care less about anything other than the goal. Social life, relationships, people, money are either mere steps or obstacles for an ambitious person. The Goal is the keyword here.

Passion is more of an emotional term. You might not be talented for some art but your passion can turn you into a master. The aura of something so strong that you can’t help but zone out into your own world. A passionate person cares more about personal emotional fulfillment rather than the outcome. Inner happiness/Emotional fulfillment is the keyword here.

There’s something deeper than ‘being good at what you do’ that’s so magnetising — it’s being passionate about what you do.

And I’m not talking about people who scribble ‘self-motivated’ or ‘driven’ on their CVs in the self-proclaimed Skills section. Neither am I referring to the ideology behind the quote I once had the misfortune of seeing an Instagram celebrity post: “I don’t love rich men; I love ambitious men and ambitious men are never poor.” I mean, seriously. Lastly, this kinda passion doesn’t manifest itself in inefficient workaholism. In fact, I’d proffer that passionate people work smart, not hard. Which brings me to my point:

Being passionate makes you good at what you do. Passion for something drives you to delve deeper into its inner workings, and to build on the work of past pioneers for the advancement of that field. It’s a rabid hunger that growls ‘how?’ ‘why?’ and ‘why not?’ until one day that teacher, tiler or tradesman, through passion, perfection and sheer persistence, finds themselves at the top of their game.

…and getting better makes you more confident, which is the bee’s knees in attractive forces. Not to be confused with arrogance; this confidence stems from knowing that there’s a conference room, operating theatre, or some specific context where no one can pull the wool over your eyes. And that bubbles over into other areas of your life — you start speaking with authority, standing straight and all those other superhero characteristics.

As we learn more about our passions, we learn more about ourselves and life, and what could be more beautiful?

Passionate people are rarely bored, or boring. Opening your mind to new knowledge is all-consuming. You’re always discovering something or solving mysteries. The best foundation blocks for conversation and consequently relationships are people with something new and interesting to say. And when they speak, the passion ignites a fire so powerful that it draws you in and warms you from the inside out.

Passionate people challenge you to be more and to do more. It’s invigorating spending time with people who are unapologetically pursuing their passions. When you’re around them, your hangups dissolve and you think, even if just for a moment, that you too can be anything you want to be. This kinda passion is infectious.

Find your passion.
Feed it.
Flourish.

A LETTER TO THE PASSIONATE ONES!

You have spent countless nights awake , being stronger than your excuses. You believed you could, so you did. There were things you wouldn’t get over. Some things that stung you so hard ,they had set you back where you started, and you got hurt, and hurt and hurt, but you also rose from it. Its never an easy decision to make, and its never easy to accept that you might be walking down a path that will involve risks and new unknowns, but you continued. You Glow!!

Life dragged you, but you knew, it’s going to launch you into something great, and you never gave up. Just like every hard thing in you life,  you’ve made it through this too. You decided to choose guts over fear. You handled yourself at your worst. Now, here you are! Independent, compassionate. You got this!

Its mesmerizing to think about you struggling, being restless and afraid, still buckling up the next day to face the hurdles. You threw yourself into work. You got through all the problems getting up each day and putting one foot in front of the other. You adapted and survived no matter how hard it got. You shaped your own reality. You are incredible!