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Today's Chatpat: September 12th, 2023

1. Subash Nembang, the former Speaker of the House has passed away due to cardiac arrest this morning. The government has announced a public holiday for tomorrow and a state funeral for late Nembang as well. Nembang was a different breed of a politician, who came from a legal background and was soft-spoken and focused on compromises rather than confrontations when dealing with other political parties. Nembang's two sons are reported to be living abroad and will be back home by tomorrow for the funeral.

With due respect to Nembang and his family but the government's approach to declare national holiday and also provide state funeral to all politicians who belong to major political parties is not the right approach to honor anybody. Extra holidays do affect the already fragile economy and state funerals are just extra financial burden for the taxpayers.


2. The Foreign Minister, Mr. Saud left for America this morning. He just couldn't or didn't want to waste the already booked air tickets and hotel reservation and could not wait a day or two to stay back and attend Nembang's funeral. Our politicians attending foreign conferences, be it the UN or any other global conferences do not really have any impact and is a drain of the state treasury as they take along an entourage with them as if they are going on a free vacation.

3. Putin and Kim are meeting in Russia. The West is trying to figure out what these two fellows are up to. North Korea has promised to provide its home-made weapons whlle the Russians will figure out a way to help the North Koreans with oil, grains and vodka.

4. Shah Rukh Khan's Jawan is reported to be smashing box office records left and right in Bollywood. So far, it has grossed INR 300+ crores at the global box office. But do keep in mind that its budget exceed INR 300 crores and the distributors will have to wait and see if it grosses more than INR 1,000 crores at the box office to even recover their investment. The only winner in this is SRK's wife and her friends who are the producers of this movie. Digital, TV and music rights are expected to fetch an extra INR 500 crores.

5. Natural disasters are wrecking havoc around the world. Morocco is reeling under the recent earthquake and now Libya is facing another natural disaster as more than 2,000 people have already died and hundreds of thousands have been displaced due to the floods.

with best regards
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