Happy 2014

Smile on your face, dollars in your pocket, peace in your heart, charity in your mind, fulfillment in job and company of adorable friends - wishing you all that and more in 2014..because you are very dear to me:):)

Recent Editorials

Here are some recent Editorials I wrote for The Gulf Today. (Posting for my records):

A huge leap for

UAE space plan

Thanks to its accomplishments in multifarious fields, the UAE is globally recognised as a role model for the entire region. Now, the country’s aeronautical engineers have taken the country’s feats to a much higher level with UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum launching the implementation phase for building KhalifaSat.

It is a very proud moment for the UAE as the KhalifaSat will be the first Arab-made satellite, catapulting the Arab region into a new era of space industry and competition in space sciences. The fact that an exclusive national team, comprising 45 Emirati engineers, is working on building the KhalifaSat is bound to boost the confidence of youth in the country and inspire them to achieve more.

Launching the project at the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST), Sheikh Mohammed has made it clear that KhalifaSat is a message to all Arabs that Arab ushering into the space era is neither out of reach nor impossible and the UAE will be a leader in this industry.

Established by the Dubai government in 2006, the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST) is part of a strategic initiative to inspire scientific innovation, technological advancement and to advance sustainable development in the UAE. EIAST is made up of a core team of UAE scientists and experts who are working to position the nation as a global leader in the field of science and technology through the development of new expertise and Intellectual Property.

The EIAST has seen milestones in its quest for scientific excellence - notably the launch and placing into orbit of Dubai Sat 1 in 2009, and the launch of Dubai Sat 2. It now has two fully-functioning satellites in orbit allowing the institution to take and process images from around the globe.

DubaiSat-1 has the capability to provide high resolution optical images of 2.5m panchromatic and 5m in multispectral bands, while in DubaiSat-2 this has been refined to offer an even more focused Ground Sampling Distance of 1m panchromatic and 4m in multispectral bands.

It is heartening to see Emirati youth composing the first Arab team to build a satellite and launch it into outer space in 2017. The country’s confidence in them, as Sheikh Mohammed rightly puts it, is boundless. The excellence of Emirati youth in space sciences, engineering and energy surely opens before the nation new huge development prospects for the first time.

Alleviate suffering

of the marginalised

In an interesting coincidence, while world leaders honoured Nelson Mandela as an unparalleled champion of human rights, the global community also marked the International Human Rights Day on Dec.10.

The United Nations observes the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in which the institution affirms that all human beings should enjoy certain unequivocal rights, including security of person, freedom of thought and education. On this day, the global community is called on to acknowledge contemporary human rights issues and achievements.

According to the International Labour Organisation, the most widespread demand of women and men is perhaps the opportunity to work in dignity. Some 20.9 million people were in forced labour during the period between 2002 and 2011, and there are still 168 million children in child labour, according to UN figures. In addition, 870 million workers and their families live in poverty on the $2 per day line, while about 400 million in extreme poverty.

While modern technologies help a great deal in highlighting human rights issues, they also have a flip side. As UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay puts it, the social media and other innovations to improve communications and information-sharing help magnify the voice of human rights defenders, shining a light on abuses and mobilising support for various causes in many parts of the world.

Unfortunately, they also facilitate human rights violations. The use of mass electronic surveillance and data collection, as well as the use of autonomous weapons systems known informally as “killer robots,” pose deeply troubling ethical and legal questions.

However, one can draw comfort from countries like the United Arab Emirates that attach great importance to human rights. The UAE has persistently initiated efforts to improve its laws and legislation and raise them to international standards. It now ranks first in the Arab world and 14th globally in an International Rights Index released by the International Network for Rights and Development based in Switzerland.

Around the world, there is a need for greater political will and resources to implement laws and standards designed to promote and protect the rights and dignity of all people.

Though the UN and several other NGOs are striving to do their best, there is clearly a long way to go. The international community should increase efforts to transform human rights from abstract promises to genuine improvement in the daily lives, especially among marginalised or excluded groups.

E-junk piles up

massive challenge

Electronic and electrical gadgets that have reached the end of their life are expected to jump by a third in volume by 2017 posing major challenges for sorting and recycling. The scary scenario of “toxic wasteland,” mostly in the poorest countries, calls for top priority attention before it gets too late.

Startling details have been revealed by Solving the E-Waste Problem Initiative ((StEP), a partnership of UN organisations, grassroots groups and industry. By the end of 2017, the total annual volume from refrigerators, TVs, mobile phones, electronic toys, computers, screens and other electrical or electronic castoffs will reach 65.4 million tonnes, 33 per cent up on the end of 2012.

According to StEP, this amount "could fill a line of 40-tonne trucks end-to-end on a highway straddling three-quarters of the Equator. Last year, around 48.9 million tonnes of e-waste were produced, an average of seven kilogrammes for each of the seven billion people on the planet.

In 2012, China and the United States topped the world’s totals in market volume of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) and e-waste. China put the highest volume of EEE on the market in 2012 – 11.1 million tonnes, followed by the US at 10 million tonnes.

Those positions were reversed when it came to the total volume of e-waste generated per year, there being more products put on the market in the past in the US which are now likely to be retired. Here the US had the world’s highest figure of 9.4 million tonnes and China generated the second highest e-waste total of 7.3 million tonnes.

But not all is lost. Waste can be valuable if recycled. A study estimated that a million cellphones can yield 24 kilogramme of gold, 250 kilogramme of silver, 9 kilogramme of palladium and more than 9 tonnes of copper.

Among recommendations by experts to meet the challenge are creation of trade codes for used electronic products to enable better tracking and distinction of shipments, and open access to shipment-level trade data to enable accurate analyses of export flows.

It’s the poor nations that serve as e-waste dumping ground. The lack of comprehensive data has made it hard to grasp the full magnitude of the problem. Solving the E-waste issue fosters inclusive solutions-oriented dialogue, cooperation and consensus by providing a global platform for sharing information, knowledge and recommendations founded on expert scientific research and members’ experiences.

Inflation deflates

middle class hopes

Soaring food prices pose a huge challenge to many countries across the globe. It is mostly the middle and lower income groups that bear the brunt of the punch when price rises outpace increase in income.

In the world’s largest democracy, India, millions of families are part of an aspiring class, with at least a mobile phone, a television or a two-wheeler in their possession. However, as economic growth slows and inflation spikes, many families are forced to tighten their household budgets.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been under fire for presiding over one of the worst inflation episodes in the post-Independence India. The consumer prices have been rising at an average annual pace of 10 per cent over the last five years. Prices in November were 11.2 per cent higher than a year earlier. According to a survey of inflationary expectations by the Reserve Bank of India, Indian households expect consumer prices to rise another 13 per cent next year.

In Pakistan, the inflation rate was recorded at 10.90 per cent in November of 2013. The Muslim League Nawaz is wasting no time in executing a two-pronged counter-strategy of deflating rates of commodities as it braces for a Pakistan Tehreek-Insaf (PTI) "mammoth" anti-inflation rally set for Dec.22.

With the PTI vowing to amass 200,000 supporters for its rally to protest against price hikes, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has deployed all government and political machinery to dilute its impact. A committee to look into the matter has established a call centre and advertised a toll-free number where citizens can complain about price hikes in the city. Special magistrates have been appointed at wholesale markets to control rates of other commodities.

Many other countries are facing a similar predicament. For example, increasing prices of basic commodities in Egypt have led to more families falling into poverty. The prices of many foodstuffs, utilities, forms of transportation and items of clothing have almost doubled over the past two years.  According to the UN World Food Programme, even if poverty does not cause crime, it has led 13.7 million Egyptians, or 17 per cent of the population, to suffer from food insecurity.

To cut costs, many families are forced to look for challenging ways to balance the budget. Some stop eating out, while others shift to public transport instead of own vehicles. Many even reduce consumption of vegetables. People living off a fixed-income, such as retirees, see a decline in their purchasing power. As millions are at the receiving end when prices shoot up, it is the duty of governments to act with responsibility and initiate prompt corrective measures.

Global action needed

to protect privacy

Protecting every single individual’s privacy is the hallmark of a civilised society. However, privacy has become one of the biggest challenges in this new electronic age.

Deeply concerned that electronic surveillance, interception of digital communications and collection of personal data may negatively impact human rights, even the United Nations General Assembly recently adopted a consensus resolution strongly backing the right to privacy. It has called on all countries to take measures to end activities that violate this fundamental “tenet of a democratic society.”

It is in this background that former US National Security Agency contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden’s warning of the dangers posed by loss of privacy in a message on Christmas Day assumes serious significance.

He has cautioned that a child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. “They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves, an unrecorded, unanalysed thought. And that's a problem because privacy matters, privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be."

Andrew Grove, co-founder and former CEO of Intel Corporation, shared his thoughts on Internet privacy in an interview in 2000: “At the heart of the Internet culture is a force that wants to find out everything about you. And once it has found out everything about you and two hundred million others, that's a very valuable asset, and people will be tempted to trade and do commerce with that asset. This was not the information that people were thinking of when they called this the information age.”

The UN assembly has weighed in on the issue, underscoring that the right to privacy is a human right and affirming, for the first time, that the same rights people have offline must also be protected online.

As Snowden puts it "We have sensors in our pockets that track us everywhere we go. Think about what this means for the privacy of the average person."

The matter is too serious to be ignored. It involves and affects every individual on earth. The right to privacy, the right to access to information and freedom of expression are closely linked. 

Surveillance without safeguards to protect the right to privacy risks impacting negatively on the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms. It is necessary for governments across the globe to make people confident that their private communications are not being unduly scrutinised by the State.

Film lines that pack a punch

There have been inspiring dialogues in films - Hollywood, Bollywood or Kollywood – that can pep up anyone who feels low.

I always admired the relaxed expression of Roger Moore as James Bond even in serious situations. In “For Your Eyes Only,” when all hopes are lost and the heroine exclaims, “I didn't think it would end like this,” Moore’s supercool reaction is, “We're not dead yet.”

“If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us,

do we not die?” Only Al Pacino can deliver such a punchy dialogue with such force as he did in “The Merchant of Venice.”

Bollywood’s evergreen Amitabh Bachchan is known for sharp dialogues, but the one I always remember is from “Deewar.”

Amitabh tells Sashi Kapoor, “Today I have a bungalow, car, lots of money.. what do you have?” and Kapoor’s outstanding reply: “I have my mother!”

 “Even if I come late, I'll be the latest,” is a punch-line from Tamil superstar Rajnikant in the film “Baba,” which children love to repeat on the streets of Tamil Nadu.

For those who feel depressed, “Batman Begins” has a line of comfort: “Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

And, for those looking for humour, it is Bond again in “Diamonds Are Forever.”

Plenty O'Toole: Hi, I'm Plenty.

James Bond:     But of course you are.

Plenty O'Toole: Plenty O'Toole.

James Bond:     Named after your father perhaps?
(PS: Sorry and Thanks Ankita for pointing out a mistake. I viewed the dialogue again and corrected this post)

Friend forever

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit, wrote Aristotle. How true!

I am not talking about the Gandhian era, but just three decades ago, no one in India ever dreamt of pressing a key on the computer to ask a relative or friend in America about the breakfast he or she had. To call up my brother in Mumbai, my father had to wait for hours in a Chennai post office for trunk call booking. Sustaining a long-distance friendship was a challenge as they were days of snail mail.

The fun concept, however, was Pen Pals. People made friends through handwritten letters on postal mail. Some magazines were famous for free Pen Pal ads. I also connected with a few, among whom I remember one vividly.

She was a pretty girl from Calcutta and I was working as a sub-editor in Mumbai. We discussed a lot of subjects. In a few months, we were such close friends that we exchanged decent photographs to know each other.

She tried to teach me Bengali language and I talked to her about the ever-lovable Mumbai city. Everything went well until one day I received an abrupt mail from her saying that she was getting married and that I should return the black and white photographs she had mailed.

A double whammy! She was getting married and she wanted some snaps back. My first worry was whether I had safely stored the photos. Mumbai rooms were so crammed that we often threw things away.

Seeing my startled look, my senior colleague, who is now in Singapore, asked me the reason.

When I explained he had a hearty laugh and coolly said, “Send whatever photograph you still have and mention, “’let’s part as good friends.’”

I did. And, she thanked me.

We parted as good friends.

Thanks to memory, that friend remains a friend forever.

Perfume attack

Naïve actions of some stupid people land others in a mess.
My friend was engrossed in his work when a colleague took out a low-priced body spray from his bag and splashed all over. Most of the perfume splattered on my friend’s face. There was not even as much of a “sorry” from the misbehaving employee.
My friend just joked, “Next time use an original branded perfume.”
I was once sitting on the floor at home and reading a newspaper when a guest asked for talcum powder. I showed him the dressing table and went back to reading when it started raining powder all over my head, newspaper and the floor.
To add insult to injury, the guest gave some solid knocks on my head “to clear the powder.”
Idiosyncrasies of some people, including my brother, never end. An elderly relative visited home and sat on the sofa when my brother, a yoga trainer, began stretching his legs in different directions.
The elderly man tried to dodge and almost got kicked on the face (unintentionally, of course) before he escaped to another room.

Another award for us

• Here's another award from famous blogger and super friend Sepo (http://snehabhatsepo.blogspot.ae). Sharing this wonderful award with every visitor and precious friends here.

Editorials-The Gulf Today

Here are some Editorials I wrote for The Gulf Today (Posted for my records):

Dubai does it again

with EXPOnential feats

“We, in the UAE, have no such word as ‘impossible’; it does not exist in our lexicon,” famously said UAE Vice-President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum once. Now the UAE has proved his words true.

Dazzling Dubai entered the Expo 2020 bid late, but emerged as the latest winner with its EXPOnential growth model, based on a cluster of values, including rapid development, innovation, quality lifestyle for national citizens/expatriates and cultural diversity. 

The great official support manifested in the directives of UAE President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the persistent follow-up from Sheikh Mohammed are the most important drives behind this major accomplishment. 

From the enduring tranquillity of the desert to the lively bustle of the souk, this Arab metropolis offers a kaleidoscope of attractions. Biggest, tallest, largest, longest, Dubai has it all. 

Expo 2020 is the world's largest and most prestigious exhibition, and Dubai is bringing the event, for the very first time, to the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. 

With the theme "Connecting Minds, Creating the Future," the mega event is expected to attract over 25 million visitors and will be a celebration of innovative partnerships for global progress. 

Expo 2020 will inject more than AED140 billion in Dubai's GDP. It will enhance Dubai's trade and support its tourism development strategy targeting 20 million tourists and tripling tourism contribution in the emirate's economy by 2020. Around 277,000 new job opportunities are likely in Dubai over the next seven years. 

There is a huge post-event advantage too. The total investment in the infrastructure related to Expo 2020 is estimated at AED25 billion. Some of these facilities are permanent and will be utilised for other purposes after the event. 

The proposed period for the exhibition is from October 2020 to April 2021. During that season of the year, Dubai usually has pleasant weather. 

When it comes to organising international events, the Emirate has the required expertise having hosted World Bank meetings, International Monetary Fund meetings, Dubai Film Festival and Dubai World Cup, to mention just a few. 

On the logistics front too, the Dubai has a definite advantage. Approximately, one third of the world's population are only four hours away from Dubai by air, and 66 per cent of the world's population can land in Dubai airport in eight hours flights. 

The UAE is the closest to the exhibition values with its cultural diversity that gathers over 200 nationalities living and working in perfect harmony in a safe environment without any discrimination. 

The great news from Paris makes the message abundantly clear: The Expo victory asserts UAE's competency to lead development in the region with its world-class infrastructure, highly efficient logistics, modern legislative and regulatory frameworks and a clear vision for the future.

Food is not

meant for trash

A report by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap) this week has noted that the average UK household throws away the equivalent of six meals every week, costing almost £60 (approx Dhs400) a month. It is hard to digest the fact that some people can be so insensible, especially when the United Nations says that approximately 870 million people in the world do not eat enough to be healthy. It means that one in every eight people on earth goes to bed hungry each night. 

The waste costs the UK £12.5 billion a year, despite a major drive to reduce the problem. The equivalent of 24 million slices of bread, 5.8 million potatoes and 5.9 million glasses of milk are thrown away every day, while the equivalent of 86 million whole chickens are discarded every year. 

Households in the UK have cut avoidable food waste by 21 per cent since 2007, saving consumers almost £13 billion, but the rate of reduction has slowed in recent years and 4.2 million tonnes is still thrown out which could have been eaten. Almost half of this food goes straight from fridges or cupboards to the bin without making it to the dinner plate. 

The per capita consumer waste is around 100 kilogrammes in Europe and North America per year. In Africa, it is less than 10 kilogrammes a year per person. According to UN officials, if food loss and waste can be reduced to zero it would give additional food to feed two billion people. Most food loss takes place in post-production, harvesting, transportation and storage. In developing countries, food waste is mainly related to inadequate infrastructure, while in more developed countries it is largely a problem in the marketing and consumption stages.

There are some countries that take this issue seriously. For example, Germany has taken the lead in fighting food waste in Europe, with the government launching a "Too

good for the trash" campaign last year. The country is also a pioneer in "food-sharing," using the Internet to distribute produce recovered from store rubbish while still in good condition. Innovative and sincere measures by institutions and individuals, besides government and private agencies, are needed to cut global food loss and waste, which in turn can help fight global hunger. Every individual on earth has a role to play in reducing food waste. Shirking responsibility on this aspect will only imply that such individuals are selfish and do not care about the society at large.

Cut emissions or

pay the price

“It is time to go the extra mile in cutting emissions.” That’s the resounding message emanating from Poland where thousands of delegates from nations and environment organisations around the world have opened two weeks of United Nations climate talks meant to lay the groundwork for a new pact to fight global warming. 

UN climate chief Christiana Figueres told the opening session that there was a need to guarantee greater climate security for the generations to come. 

The United Nations Climate Change Conference comes amid a slew of warnings about potentially disastrous warming unless humankind changes its atmosphere-polluting, fossil-fuel-burning ways. The UN has set a target of limiting warming to two degrees Celsius over pre-Industrial Revolution levels. 

The world seeks to reach that goal by curbing emissions of invisible, heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels that provide the backbone of the world's energy supply today. This requires a costly switch to cleaner and more efficient energy, which helps to explain why the UN negotiations have not been easy. 

Talks on climate change have been hampered for decades by disagreements between wealthy and poor countries -- most notably the United States and China, the world's biggest polluters - over how to implement measures to slow climate change. Though the stakes are high, no specific targets have been set for this 19th round of the annual talks.

 Last week, the UN Environment Programme warned the chances of meeting the two-degree goal were swiftly diminishing, while the World Meteorological Organisation said atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases hit a new record high in 2012. 

In September, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted global surface temperatures could climb on average by as much as 4.8 C (8.6 F) this century -- a recipe for catastrophic heatwaves, floods, droughts and sea-level rise. 

Rich economies have yet to show how they intend to meet a pledge, made in 2009, to muster $100 billion per year from 2020. Environmentalists have repeatedly called for proactive steps from the developed world. Rich countries should provide the necessary funding and technology so that the world can address the climate change challenge. 

Mankind is to blame for changes to the climate. The fact is that we are the first human beings to ever breathe air with 400 parts per million CO2. The delegates taking part in the Poland conference should exert maximum efforts for a positive result, as the issue they are tackling is a  deadly challenge for humanity.

Disability does not

mean inability

Across the world, persons with disabilities face physical, social, economic and attitudinal barriers that exclude them from participating fully and effectively as equal members of society. What most people forget is that over one billion people, or approximately 15 per cent of the world’s population, live with some form of disability.

Dec.3 marked the International Day of Persons with Disabilities and there have been calls around the globe to remove barriers that affect the inclusion and participation of persons with disabilities in society.

It is known that persons with disabilities are disproportionately represented among the world’s poorest and lack equal access to basic resources, such as education, employment, healthcare and social and legal support systems, as well as have a higher rate of mortality.

The UN General Assembly in the recent years has repeatedly emphasised that the genuine achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and other internationally agreed development goals, requires the inclusion and integration of the rights, and well-being, as well as the perspective of persons with disabilities in development efforts at national, regional and international levels.

Interestingly, the United Nations has now launched an Accessibility Centre at its New York Headquarters, as part of ongoing efforts to enable the full participation of persons with disabilities in the work of the organisation. The new centre, which was made possible by contributions from the Republic of Korea, will provide cutting-edge tools for the visually and hearing impaired to access documents and participate in meetings, as well as charging stations for electronic wheelchairs.

The Accessibility Centre will enable persons with disabilities to participate in the inter-governmental processes, and reinforce the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which entered into force in 2008.

As of October this year, 158 countries have ratified the Convention, which asserts the rights of people with disabilities to education, health, work, adequate living conditions, freedom of movement, freedom from exploitation and equal recognition before the law for persons with disabilities.

Disability has remained largely invisible in the mainstream development agenda of most countries. The significance of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities should be taken seriously and not just as another token initiative. Efforts should be intensified to assist those who live with some form of disability reap the benefits of development and fully participate in society. A more accessible world for the disabled people where they live without any stigma should be the ultimate goal.

Need to tame the

‘sweet killer’

Nov.14 (Thursday) passed off as just another day with most people not realising that it also marked the “World Diabetes Day” coinciding with the birthday of Frederick Banting, who along with Charles Best, was instrumental in the discovery of insulin in 1922, a life-saving treatment for diabetes patients.

Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces. Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood sugar. Hyperglycaemia, or raised blood sugar, is a common effect of uncontrolled diabetes and leads to serious damage to many of the body's systems.

The number of people estimated to be living with the disease has now risen to a new record of 382 million this year. The vast majority have type 2 diabetes - the kind linked to obesity and lack of exercise - and the epidemic is spreading as more people in the developing world adopt Western, urban lifestyles.

The latest estimate from the International Diabetes Federation is equivalent to a global prevalence rate of 8.4 per cent of the adult population and compares to 371 million cases in 2012. By 2035, the organisation predicts the number of cases will have soared by 55 per cent to 592 million.

The disease poses a challenge to countries across the globe. China, India and the United States top the list for the most cases of diabetes per country; around 24.4 million Americans had the disease in 2013. But islands in the Pacific have the most alarming rates of prevalence. The Middle East and North Africa currently have the highest rates of adult diabetes prevalence compared to other world regions.

Over time, diabetes can damage the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys, and nerves. It increases the risk of heart disease and stroke.

But not all is lost. The good news is that diabetes is imminently treatable, with cheap generic drugs that are available, and with lifestyle change. Simple lifestyle measures can be effective in preventing or delaying the onset of type 2 diabetes.

The battle to protect people from diabetes and its disabling, life-threatening complications should be intensified. A robust strategy involving all parts of society should be evolved to improve diets and promote healthier lifestyles. The health sector and government authorities should not be caught napping, but take this startling revelation by a World Health Organisation official seriously: “One dies every 10 seconds from diabetes.”

The pleasure of grumbling

“You waste so much time on the social media,” my friend expressed his concern.

“I enjoy being part of the virtual world,” I replied.

He continued, “Many people write trivial stuff. One wrote how he was enjoying an ice-cream and another mentioned she was cooking. There was a woman who complained about her toothache for four consecutive days. I know a man who only writes ‘Good morning and take care’ every day.”

“But there are lots of positive things,” I countered.

“Like what?”

“I have connected with several worthy friends worldwide and get updates about their wellbeing. People have managed to get employment through social media. Birthday, wedding or sad news – we get to hear everything about our near ones instantly. There is healthy debate on almost all subjects,” I elaborated. 

He refused to give up.

“I am also fed up of abbreviations. I saw people writing “HBD” for happy birthday. Do you think they are so hard-pressed for time?”

I did not want to convince him any more.

“With so many complaints, have you decided to boycott the social media?”

“Am I mad?” he almost slapped me. “I love grumbling.”