Inconsistencies and Contradictions

I have read some comments which are critical of world of a village depicted in Amazon series 'Panchayat'. (I am yet to complete 2nd season as of writing this.) Even if I have liked the series so far, I do not disagree with these criticisms. It is indeed a simplification that takes out certain necessary nuances because it wants to tell a story and any story cannot have all nuances. For example, Panchayat is somewhat unabashed about whole informal institution of female Pradhan being a puppet while her husband being one calling shots. Rather than mocking such arrangements, easy way to get pats on the back, Panchayat takes them as given and goes ahead. This is a step ahead than typical caricature of villages as a place where everything fails or everything is inherently meaningful.  Panchayat is essentially a show for an urban Indian whose rural connection is severed, perhaps few generations before. The key difference Panchayat has is that there is no unambiguous nostalgia or lament...

 AC local ticker rates have been slashed. Economic argument for right type of price decrease is as follows. Prices are to be lowered when it is expected that it will lead to higher demand (since now prices are cheaper than earlier) which leads to considerable rise in revenue but not so much rise in costs. In economic jargon, demand should be elastic (so as it rises when prices are cut) while costs are increasing returns to scale (a lumpsum fixed cost up to certain level). Once we consider this, we can see why Railways lowered the prices of AC locals. The intuition of price reduction is understandable. Running an AC local costs certain fixed amount to the railway unless air-conditioning inside the train is precisely adjusted as per the number of passengers. (Though I am not sure whether that will have huge implication on cost.) Adding few more extra passengers will not change the cost much (some extra wear and tear is to be added to the cost, but that is not very significant rise ...

 It’s hot. It is unbearably hot during day, and it is hot even when it is not the day. It is an understatement. It is the hottest summer in the memory that I can gather credibly in mind. But I doubt the memory. I think maybe it is because I am getting older, and hence grumpier. But newspapers too are saying so, about this summer being a brutal one in last so and so years, with heatwave that doesn’t seem to recede. But we know news are about being sensational these days, and not necessarily factual. Maybe they have not really checked the data which is there (means which is yet there). So, I checked it, to see whether this summer is especially scorching, to foretell whether all the summers to come will be similar, or this is just the odd hotter one. From the little systematic evidence that I can find on internet (along with realization that systematic historical weather information, even at aggregate level is hard to find except here ), I can infer that Mumbai is perhaps hotter tha...