10 More Reasons why Mauritius IS the Best Managed Country in the World

No. 10. We are very aware that the last Mega-Tsunami occurred next door (Reunion Island) some 4,000 years ago.

No. 9. It’s OK to learn about cyclones on TV or Radio – it’s definitely not to learn about deadly Tsunamis from CNN.

No. 8. The SIDS conference took place as initially planned between August 30th and September 3rd 2004.

No. 7. The first three (militant?) budgets of the current government were unfortunately not understood by many because the presentations were not subtitled.

No. 6. Smart ideas and vision replaced by hollow statements such as “mood ek ambiance extraaaaaaaaaordinaire”.

No. 5. Meritocracy has been replaced by something way better – Mediocracy.

No. 4. Stray dogs are helping as much as they can with takeoffs and landings at Plaisance Airport.

No. 3. Traffic towards Port-Louis was wonderfully fluid (especially if you don’t have a TV/DVD in your car) on the first day of the SIDS conference. It’s however a mystery to many why school resumption was postponed by a whole week.

No. 2. “Riot panne fer pu donne biberon”. Ok fine. What about changing diapers?

And the No. 1 reason why Mauritius is the best managed country in the world is

No. 1. According to an unconfirmed report the endangered species have suggested that the controversial highway go through the nonsense hub (a recently renovated building in Port-Louis) instead. It has not yet been determined what percentage of these species are fanatics.

This was actually written in January 2005 which was a mere couple of weeks after the deadly South Asian Tsunami. You can forget about this fact if you want to feel as if you just ate funny mushrooms. Click the "Best managed country in the world" label for more context.

Paedophilia Cuts Across All Income Groups

Judging the Overall Quality of A Country's Policies

A shortcut is to chart the value of its currency over a couple of decades. And if we compare the latter to the level of exports -- let's say for Mauritius and Singapore -- we get an indication of the strength of the local entrepreneurial fibre. Of course we can use our good old policy matrix. Or have a look at the land use. Or the type of bets that are made and at what cost. Traffic congestion is also a pretty good indicator (Istanbul has the world's worst traffic). And how can we forget fiscal policy?

So I guess we can gauge the DNA of a country pretty fast, eh?

Will Fassbender Make A Good Steve Jobs?

Because the Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle has picked him for the iBio-based movie which comes out on October 9. Mr. Fassbender might be a good actor but he doesn't look like the Californian hi-tech swami. At all. When I was watching the trailer I thought Boyle might as well have picked Arnold Schwarzenegger. Which was one of the choices on gizmodo.

I would personally have picked Noah Wyle -- he did a pretty good job playing Steve before -- or Keanu Reeves. An edgy actor like Bale would have been good too but he backed down. Daniel Day-Lewis would have been a great choice.

3 Icons Die in Their Nineties

The first one is Patrick Macnee who played the suave character of John Steed in The Avengers which aired for the first time in the early 1960s. And was very popular in Mauritius in the 1970s. Mr. Macnee passed away on June 25 in California at 93.

Our second icon is none other than -- please watch with a fog light, garlic or a cross coz u never know -- Count Dracula aka Christopher Lee. Man, did he look scary on TV! Mr. Lee who also played Saruman -- and was told to consider playing 007 -- in the Lord of the Rings died on June 7th at 93 too.

Finally our last nonagenerian is Edmond Malinvaud a household name for anyone who has done a fair bit of econometrics. His magnum opus, Methodes statistiques de l'econometrie, was not the easiest book to read but many considered the time spent mastering at least a few parts of it a valuable investment. That was especially true when the book came out in the 1960s. Mr. Malinvaud whom I had the good fortune of meeting passed away on March 7 at 91.

From Paris, Rawat Gives His Side of the Story

What Will Municipal Voters Do?

Vote for the MMM because Lepep ended up with about 10 MPs more than what was necessary? Or stick with Lepep based on what they've achieved in the first five months of their mandate? The plus points are mostly the increase in pension payments and fully subsidising the SC/HSC exams. The appointment of Ms. Fakim as head of state is definitely a history-making event but that doesn't really change the lot of the victims of the neocons.

The main negatives are the significant depreciation of our rupee while the BOM supposedly waited for the budget to set the tone, the joke of the Finance Minister claiming that his bland budget was a no-tax one, not passing on the collapse of oil prices and of course the BAI affair. The latter has embroiled Government into a thick cloud of confusion and suspicion that is not going away any time soon. Indeed the BAI saga is so far looking more like a political vendetta than a ponzi scheme. That's especially evident when you consider the kind of help our Governments have dished out to hubris-infected companies in the past. There have also been surprising statements by the President of the Bar Council and many are not happy with how the biometric ID project has evolved.

We'll find out on Monday how voters weighed the facts.

A Woman At Le Reduit, Finally

Tomorrow Ameena Gurib-Fakim will make history by ending a long streak of male Presidents. Ramgoolam of course had three chances of putting a woman as head of state. But he didn't. Maybe it's because he was too busy turning our vibrant democracy into a plutocracy. Maybe he was suffering from a really bad case of kotomilitis. 

But women still have to grab the following important posts:

1. Prime Minister
2. Minister of Finance
3. Chief Justice
4. Commissioner of Police
5. Commander (SMF)
6. Governor, Bank of Mauritius
7. Postmaster General
8. Financial Secretary (doesn't matter if she's from another planet)
9. Electoral Commissioner
10. Leadership of major political parties
11. Chief Executive Officer of our largest corporations

Go Women! Go!

Read The Manou Bheenick Affidavit Here

Two Beautiful Minds Die in Taxi Crash

Probably because they were not wearing seat belts. The first beautiful mind is John Nash, Jr. whose breakthroughs in game theory earned him a Nobel while his work with partial differential equations was rewarded by nothing less than the prestigious Abel Prize only a few days ago. The other beautiful mind is his wife Alicia who cared for him long enough until he emerged from a very long encounter with schizophrenia.

Kozelidir Quiz [1]

The above chart shows the weight of sugar in our economy over the last 39 years. Can you identify the three events?

The Rawats Hit Back

With Laina Rawat asking the commercial division of the Supreme Court to restrain the two receivers of Bramer Bank, Andre Bonieux and Mushtaq Oosman, in a number of ways. She claims the Bank of Mauritius acted in a way which is contrary to its own statutory obligations, natural justice and basic management principles. Ms. Rawat also believes that the receivers have a conflict of interest and are therefore not in a position to carry out their duties as per the law.

On his side Basant Roi has called the revocation of Bramer Bank's license on April 2 our Lehman moment. He obviously doesn't know what he's talking about.

Meet Indian Funnyman Kapil Sharma

Ramgoolam Granted Bail, A Second Time

But only after spending two nights at the Moka Detention Centre. Which now bring his total to three. And probably three too many. The ruling of the magistrate is quite interesting. As it may be -- if you're like me --  the first one from the BRC (Bail and Remand Court) you're reading. And because it hints at our excellent constitution.

Gerrard Leaves Anfield Today

After fulfilling childhood dream of playing for Liverpool just once more than 700 times. He won 9 major pieces of silver including one completely crazy Champions League final in Istanbul in 2005. In a farewell press conference this week he said that one of his other great matches would have to be that time he scored a hat-trick against Everton. The biggest regret is of course not winning the League. Another huge goal is the cracker against Olympiakos which made Istanbul possible.

Thank you for the emotions Stevie G. And good luck!

A Faugoo Committee Reviewing LP Constitution

I was kind of puzzled when I heard this the first time a few months ago. Because of the dangerous mess another Faugoo Committee had recommended. Plus we know what voters thought of all of that. I mean tampering with an excellent constitution. I haven't seen the constitution of the Labour Party yet but I suspect it deserves a lot of respect and shouldn't be subjected to sloppy work.

Should the State Buy the Tamarin Salt Pans?

Because Mauritians have a strong emotional connection with them? Maybe. We have to decide how much we want these 40 or so acres to keep on eliciting those special feelings in us. Each time we see them. Maybe 10 acres are enough to keep our souls happy. Maybe not. Just like we have to reflect on the quality of the decision to use so much coal on an island with one of the world's best air quality. Not very smart for the poster child of sustainability, eh? It's like running a central bank like a tabazi. While the owners of the salt pans have every right to find ways of optimising their assets we have to realise that in Mauritius our land use is not exactly world-beating. Maybe we got carried away with the toxic mantra of 'grot' at all costs?

It's never too late to do good though. Let's immediately liberalise the importation of sugar to help make it easier for us as a country to preserve important parts of our souls. We've been there before with La Vallee de Ferney. 10 years ago. Let's do it again!

IMF Doesn't Trust Own Currency Valuations

As has been reported by the institution's Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) before. So if the currency models of the IMF have been found wanting I don't see how the Minister of Finance can use them to justify the sneaky double-digit depreciation orchestrated by the BoM. Here's a backgrounder to see clearer.

IMO 2015 Starts July 10 in Chiang Mai

And ends a day later in the beautiful northern Thai city. IMO is the International Mathematical Olympiad which is an annual event -- it began in 1959 with 7 countries -- where high school students find out how they measure up by answering two sets of questions. More than a 100 countries participated in last year's edition which was held in Cape Town. And won by China. Which won it 13 times in the last 16 years -- it came second in the other three years. Mauritius has yet to participate in its first IMO. Unlike Tunisia and South Africa which have gone to 23 of them.

Participating in an IMO is quite straightforward. It's high time we get into this. And see if we can do better than a 56th place. 

BoM Revokes Licence of Bramer Bank

Cites seriously impaired capital, conducting business which is detrimental to depositors and systemic risk and inability to show it can fix its liquidity and capital problems. The Prime Minster also held a press conference about an hour ago where he announced that his government has uncovered a huge Ponzi scheme in excess of Rs25 billions and has consequently acted quickly as Bramer Bank and BAI Co. were going to crash. Two conservators of BAI Co have been appointed while one newsgroup mentions that arrests on departure and on arrival have been lodged.