Prices of vegetables quoted in billions of Zimbabwe dollars

But Indians can breathe with equanimity and draw solace from the fact that India is not Zimbabwe. No, I am not referring to Robert Mugabe. Something more serious than that!

Read this Times of India News:

Zimbabwe to introduce 100 bn Dollar bank note

Central Bank Governor Says Inflation In The Nation Has Crossed 2.2 Million %

Harare: Zimbabwe’s central bank will introduce new higher-value 100 billion Zimbabwe dollar notes on Monday as part of a desperate fight against spiralling hyper inflation, the bank said.
Zimbabweans are suffering chronic shortages of meat, maize, fuel and other basic commodities due to the collapse of the once prosperous economy, which critics blame on president Robert Mugabe’s policies, including his violent seizure of white-owned farms.
Central bank governor Gideon Gono announced that inflation had surpassed 2.2 million %, though some economists put it much higher.
In a notice in the official Herald newspaper on Saturday, Gono said the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe would introduce 100 billion dollar special agro-cheques (notes), to help consumers who currently need to carry large wads of cash even for simple transactions.
“This new $100 billion special agro-cheque will go into circulation on Monday,” the notice said. The central bank has been printing higher denomination bank notes to keep pace with soaring prices. The most valuable bank note currently in circulation is worth Z$50 billion. Gono said he was also considering raising the amount of cash people could withdraw daily from their bank accounts.
The central bank has imposed a withdrawal limit of Z$100 billion, but this is only enough for two trips on an urban commuter bus or two loaves of bread — if one can find it. The Zimbabwe dollar, which had been officially pegged at 30,000 to the US dollar before exchange rules were relaxed recently, now trades at about 800 million to the greenback.
Besides struggling with shortages of basic goods and services, Zimbabweans also spend long hours in bank queues trying to withdraw their money. The central bank says the limits on cash withdrawals are designed to curtail a thriving black market in foreign exchange and basic commodities.
The worsening economy could add to pressure on the ruling ZANU-PF party to make concessions to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which has refused to recognise Mugabe’s overwhelming victory in a June 27 presidential runoff election.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the first round vote on March 29 but failed to get the absolute majority needed to avoid a second ballot.
Tsvangirai pulled out of that poll, citing violence by pro-Mugabe militia. Two weeks ago a German firm, Giesecke and Devrient, stopped deliveries of banknote paper to Zimbabwe following pressure from the German government amid international criticism of Mugabe’s widely condemned reelection. Gono said Zimbabwe had made alternative arrangements. REUTERS

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Thatz all, folks for now!

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Your uncle Jo may claim otherwise, but it is one thing at a time.

Want a proof? Look what happens when a driver indulges in sweet nothings over his mobile phone and you hold your heart in your sleeve and escape unhurt by the breadth of your hair.

Yessir. Humans aren’t as multi-functional as they would like to believe. I wish the eminent neuroscientist Dr. Vilayanur S.Ramachandran bears me out on this!

I read somewhere that laws that allow hands-free use of cell phones while driving will increase accidents.

Here is a first hand account (source forgotten):

Terror because this law will do nothing to curb the abuse of talking on the phone while driving, the main culprit behind accidents involving cell phone use in cars, and will in fact encourage fools to keep on talking while driving with the results like the one I witnessed this week on the one way street.

According to Dr. Marcel Just, at the time co-director for the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging in the psychology department at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh and his team said that when the brain is asked to divide its time between two high-level tasks, it gives each task less attention than if it had to do the tasks one at a time, according to Just.

There are now enough distractions to the person on the wheels - phone, children, pets, TVs, GPSs, radios, etc.

But listening to the radio or talking to passengers in the car is found to be not as hazardous as talking on a cell phone while driving. When you use a cell phone to talk to someone, you make a mental image of that person, such that in your mind they are in the car with you. Hence your brain cells are preoccupied with that mental imagery. And that puts even more mental load and focus on the conversation than on driving. Your mind is in effect absent on the road. But you are not so preoccupied while listening to a radio or talking to a person actually in the car.

Want to talk and continue to breathe? Pull over. Period.

Do not drink and drive. Ok. But do not think and drive either. It is more dangerous.

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It is reported that such “expressive writing” of journals as blogs actually improves memory and sleep. Human beings being social creatures, the urge to communicate is a predominant feeling. This has been highlighted in the movie, “Cast Away” in which the man who was stranded alone in a desert island after a plane crash, paints a face on a coconut shell and continuously keeps talking to it to keep him from turning the bend.

Read the rest of the report here.

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YouTube - Watch - video link

Photo source: Hindustan Times.

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Like them? There are many more of such creative stuff in this site. And his previous showcase of such cool business cards got over a million page views! :green:

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Source: “Going GNU“

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Two grilled or driving close to Priyanka’s motorcade

POLICE INTERROGATED two young men for over three hours when they accidentally drove close to the convoy of Priyanka Gandhi and her husband Robert Vadra near Safdarjung’s tomb early Sunday. One of the Personal Security Officers (PSO) made a call to the police that a white Santro car was “following them” and they anticipated threat from it. Police said when a PSO noticed that the white Santro (DL 9CG-0091) was following them from Delhi Haat and also overtook the security cavalcade near Safdarjung Tomb, the PSOs got into action, intercepted the car and forced it to a stop. The two men were handed over to the police. Priyanka Gandhi and Robert Vadra were on their way home when the incident occurred around I am. The PSOs questioned the two men thoroughly before handing them over to the police. The two men identified as Arun and Jayant were taken to Tughlak Road Police Station, where they were grilled for more than three hours. The two men live in Saket. Arun is a law student, while Jayant works for a private firm. No case has been registered. Police said it was routine questioning and they were released soon. The two men told the police they were on their way to India Gate and had no clue they were moving parallel with the Vadras and their security convoy.

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