Politics

The recent happenings in the political world in India, the UK and elsewhere remind me of this quote.

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Plassey and the Indian banker:

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JAGAT SETH The battle of Plassey was fought on 23 rd June 1757. It is one of the most significant battles in Indian history, as it led to the eclipse of Muslim power in India and the establishment of the British Empire in the subcontinent. One of the most famous Indian bankers of all time is Jagat Seth, who conspired against Siraj-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Bengal, in the Battle of Plassey. That gave the East India Company its first decisive victory in India and eventually helped establish its rule over the entire subcontinent. Various travellers of that time wrote about Jagat Seth's enormous wealth (one traveller described him as "the greatest banker in the known world"). The name Jagat Seth itself means banker to the world. The house of Jagat Seth came to achieve a reputation akin to that of the Rothschilds. According to some sources, the British economy in the 1720s was less than Jagat Seth’s' wealth. He had assets worth approximately 1000 billion pounds or more...
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Harmanpreet Singh

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  Harmanpreet Singh will be remembered as one of India's greatest ever hockey players. He is now 12th on the  list of goal scorers in international hockey, with 205 goals. For India, he is 3rd, behind Dhyan Chand (570) and  Balbir Singh Sr (246). India got only 2 penalty corners throughout the Asia Cup final against China.  Harmanpreet could not convert either. But he was instrumental in setting up the winner. He executed a beautiful solo run down the left flank right upto the Chinese baseline,  and passed to Jugraj. Thus he acted as  a forward during that move, foregoing his role of deep defender. It was a moment of 'total hockey' in keeping with  'total football' popularized by Netherlands in the 1970s.
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Kurt Gödel

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The life of Kurt Gödel: Considered along with Aristotle to be one of the most significant logicians in history, Gödel had an immense effect upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the 20th century,  Kurt Friedrich Gödel (1906–1978) was born on April 28th in Brünn, Moravia, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, now part of the Czech Republic.  Gödel was neither Czech nor Jewish. Although his parents had been born in Brünn, they were very much part of a German community. However, Gödel considered himself always Austrian in  exile in Czechoslovakia. Just before the outbreak of the second world war, Gödel moved permanently to the USA, where he worked at Princeton University.  Hungarian mathematician  John von Neumann (1903–1957) once wrote that Kurt Gödel was “absolutely irreplaceable” and “in a class by himself”. Describing his 1931 proof of Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, von Neumann called the achievement as  "Singular and monumental — indeed it ...
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