Our FPTP System Has a Built-in Recall Election

Kind of. But it happens only when there's a general election. Given that politicians can inflict significant damage to our economy or take totally unpatriotic and completely stupid decisions like privatising water a lot faster voters need to be able to boot them out of office anytime between two general elections. So our excellent FPTP system should be improved by equipping it with standard recall elections -- something which Lalit suggested in early 2014.

We also need referendum legislation so our elected governments can ask for our permission on matters of national interest. For example Lepep campaigned against the Metro Leger but it is now proceeding with essentially the same unnecessary project. It should have organised a referendum to ask for our green light first. Same thing for the idiotic idea of privatising the CWA. It's nowhere to be found in their electoral manifesto. We never voted for it. Lepep cannot go ahead with that project before asking us what we think. We are not children. As they found out in Barkly recently.

Of course you realise that party lists and double candidacies are totally incompatible with recall elections. These two contraptions prevent us from deciding which politicians -- some might be inclined to shoot others -- we want to keep out of parliament. It's like a football game without a red card. Or one where selected players show a brown card to the referee to stay on the pitch after being shown a red one. Not a bad idea to make a list of the parties who are in favour of double candidacies so we can avoid them like the plague. Plus there's a by-election soon. So let's start: Rezistans ek Alternativ, ...

Why India Missed The Industrial Revolution

A little bit of history doesn't hurt. Funny that some people here who had seen the declassified notes of the British PM Harold Wilson – just like anybody with an internet connection – seem to take them at face value. That is the independence of Mauritius was automatic and SSR loved to be called Premier. They seem to think that the Leader of the LP came to the negotiation table mostly unprepared. SSR and unprepared??? He also took his General Secretary to London even though that guy had lost his seat in the 1963 general elections. By 96 votes. Probably to cheer the latter up as he'd always wanted to go to Trafalgar Square.

RIP Sugar

It's heading there. Less than 1% of GDP now and declining further. It would already have been dead if so much good money had not been thrown after its bad situation. And if it was not for the completely silly policy of competitive depreciation. I heard Krepalloo Sunghoon mention that it costs Rs17,000 to produce one ton of sugar that now sell for less than Rs15,000. How much bigger would the loss be at the very reasonable rate of 25 rupees to a dollar? No wonder then that thousands of acres of sugar cane have been abandoned. But that's kind of natural. We can't pursue activities that are incompatible with the kind of money that is needed to live properly here. Unless if we want to allow modern forms of slavery like too many seasonal workers and God knows what else. Just like we use cars and buses to go to work. And not horses.

We should use the land under sugar cane to grow food and to create more productive opportunities for our unemployed youth. So that we move Mauritius forward.

How Mauritius Can Increase Its GDP By 50%

Remove all sugar cane and replace it with the kind of stuff we have on the other two-thirds of our land area. That would boost our GDP – and the per capita number as shown in the above chart – by almost half. And get us out of the middle-income group after being trapped there for almost three decades.

No, no, no you say. Sugar has a bright future. Really? Then let's raze all of our towns and grow sugar cane and shrink GDP by 98% or USD11.8bn. That would collapse our GDP per capita to $283 or a level close to that of South Sudan – a country which has been in civil war since 2013. We'd probably experience the same thing if we reverted back to being a mono crop. It'd take a less extreme scenario to have people in the streets. That's for sure. 

Collendavelloo Whisked Away After Making Insensitive Remarks

That was in Barkly on Monday when he said that opposing parties could eventually sit around a square, round or oblong table but that he preferred one which is karé karé. As the clip shows no one on his side found that funny. The residents of Barkly present at the meeting were not in a laughing mood either. It couldn't have been otherwise when we know that some of them had just been through the traumatising experience of seeing their houses demolished. For the Lepep tram which we don't really need.

It's not exactly the first time the Minister makes controversial statements. He's the same politician who wants to privatise the CWA because he doesn't like its hotline. 

World to Discover Steve Jobs Theater on September 12

When the Cupertino giant will launch the iPhone 8 and some other stuff. The Foster-designed building is huge: its circumference is bigger than the gigantic Pentagon and its diameter longer than the Knock Nevis.

All set for the tech juggernaut to make another dent in the Universe.