Compassion for humanity is the need of the hour.

These days, every time I open facebook I see a lot of hatred towards Israel most of it is from my Muslim brethren on facebook. I can certainly understand their feeling if it is about the loss of innocent lives, but it more about loss of innocent lives of Muslims. I dont see them condemning the acts of violence of the Boko haram terrorists or the Jihadis in Iraq. Innocents are innocents everywhere, be it the people in Gaza or in Israel or the Nigerian girls who got kidnapped by Boko haram or the Yazidi religious minority who are being forced out of their homelands and mascaraed by the Jihadis or the poor Muslim and Hindu brothers and sisters who lost their lives or those of loved ones in the  Moradabad, Muzaffarnagar and Vadodara riots... or the Tamils and Sinhalese who lost their lives in the three decade long civil war in Sri Lanka. Compassion should  not be based on religious affiliation but based on Humanity. My great granddad, a high school English teacher, was one of the survivors of the bloody Mapla lahala in Angadipuram. During the Mapala lahala hundreds of Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam or killed and or looted. My great granddad fled to Kozhikode from Angadipuram overnight, thanks to the tip off and assistance from a kindhearted and truly courageous Muslim student of his. Taking sides is easy, each side has justice to ask for and justifications to offer... It is compassion to Humanity that matters ultimately. This is why we respect people like Oskar Schindler and Nelson Mandela... they cared for humanity more than they did for any particular side of humanity.

War on terror and the decoupling of USD and gold prices

A friend of mine shared the historical prices (in INR) of gold in the last 50 years. It got me thinking what caused the steep rise in Gold prices in the last decade. This is in no way meant to be a well thought of analysis... I am just bored this weekend and I took it upon me to see if there is some useful trend.

I noticed that for the most part since Indian independence 10USD worth of rupees invariably fetched 1gram of gold in India. But since 2002, the price of gold seems to have been decoupled from that of USD.  The good news is since 2013 there seems to be a reversal of this trend... Between late 2001 and early 2002 the US begins its war on terror and by late 2013 US has withdrawn its troop significantly from Afghanistan and Iraq. Could this be the factor that drove the decoupling? I have prepared this chart to illustrate this trend. Check it out.

Gold is part and parcel of Indian culture... People have lamented about the price of gold over the years. Due to the heavy demand for gold and heavy import duties, smuggling was rampant in the 70s and 80s. When import duties were relaxed it sure did reduce smuggling, but the price of gold in India was still very closely linked to the price of dollar... import duties didn't seem to have much of an impact. So I think the RBI's recent restriction on duty free gold imports will hardly have an effect... Lets just hope that the US doesn't go into another war :)