Minus 23%

As a predominantly agricultural country the obsession over the amount and quality of rains reaches fever pitch. States such as Gujarat, Rajasthan and U.P. are already thinking of drought status. If India has a drought then exports of rice, sugar, soya and cotton come down, heavily impacting global prices. You heard it here first.


Pranab Mukerjee, India's outgoing Finance Minister, tours the country drumming up support from political stakeholders for his Presidential bid. The 'campaign' basically consists drumming up the support of regional party bosses from all corners of India, his own Congress Party of course, as well as the Yadav family of U.P., the N.C.P. in Maharashtra and even Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal.

We spent much of the second half of July looking for new accommodation, given that our landlord seemed hell bent on pushing through a 30% rent increase. It seemed to fly in the face of economic reality, but what would we know? On the day that we were ready to sign the lease with our new find, a 2,500 sq ft apartment in a heritage building, the landlord announced that he was going to keep the rent as is.

So it's another year in now familiar surroundings: a post well finished apartment (it used to be well finished) with Monsoon exacerbated leaks in the bathrooms, overweight security guards and an unfinished apartment built in the same compound, blocking our view of the street.

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