How Long Things Take

1. Presentation of Financial Secretary to one MPC meeting -- about three quarters of an hour
2. Presentation of one UK budget by Gordon Brown -- about forty-five minutes
3. Implementation of free education in Mauritius -- literally overnight
4. Creation of the world -- 7 days
5. Kurukshetra War -- 18 days
6. Creation of the American middle-class -- 7 years
7. 2005 economic reform in Mauritius -- 8-year poop and still waiting for Godot
8. Deactivation of Mauritian demographic bomb -- 10 years
9. Malawi following famine-creating policies courtesy of the World Bank -- 2 decades

Former Chief Justice Lallah Dead At 78

He had an interesting and busy international career including being selected as one of three eminent persons to assess existing material relating to the genocide in Cambodia and to recommend appropriate measures. Rajsoomer Lallah was also responsible for drafting the rules for the 1967 general elections. Here he is talking about Malawi failing to meet its human rights reporting obligations.

Pourquoi Ne Pas Apprecier La Roupie De 60%?

What We Can Learn From Malawi

I am writing this of course in connection with the conference that the World Bank will be organising this week to showcase how Sithanen is enn terrib. For sure most of these folks from Africa are coming to visit our beautiful island to get pampered from morning till evening. Wouldn't you?

Still, I wonder if Malawi has been invited. If it has then everybody should shut up and find out what happened when that country started to think by itself. You don't know. Or maybe you don't remember? That's not a problem. Hey, that's why we are here after all: to help you connect the right dots. Just click here to find out why you may get mad.

How Malawi Ended Extreme Poverty

Simply by ignoring the World Bank's decades-long advice about not subsidising fertilizers. The Bretton Woods institution according to a New York Times article had over 20 years "pushed Malawi to eliminate fertilizer subsidies entirely... its theory was that Malawi's farmers should shift to growing cash crops for exports and use the foreign exchange earnings to import food...". You don't get any crappier than this!

Similarly prices of vegetables in Mauritius could go down if government subsidised fertilizers according to Kreepalloo Sunghoon, Secretary of the Small Planters Association. Having basic market intelligence flow to these planters would also stabilise the cost and supply of vegetables to your kitchen. And improving seed quality will not hurt variety.

By the way, don't you want to know how much of the billion-rupee Food Security Fund announced in last year's budget has actually been spent? And how it has been spent?