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IWOTY 2017
By Gopinath
Mavinkurve
It is again that time
of the year when Dictionaries and
Language watch organisations announce the Word of the Year (WOTY). The choice is supposed to be reflective of
the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of the past year, but also possess lasting
potential to be a word of socio-cultural significance.
The Oxford Dictionaries WOTY
2017 is “Youthquake”, which it
defines as ‘a significant cultural, political, or social change arising
from the actions or influence of young people’. Although it sounds like a new word to most of
us, the word was coined in 1965, when emerging from a post-war period of
tumultuous change, Diana Vreeland, editor-in-chief of Vogue,
declared the year of the youthquake.
Merriam Webster Dictionary has
announced “Feminism” to be the WOTY
2017. Although the rising influence of
youth has been witnessed in India too, and the wave of feminism touched our
social lives in our country, would we choose some other word that reflects the
ethos, mood and preoccupation of Indians in the year gone by?
“Aadhar” is a worthy contender for the
IWOTY 2017. Although it has been
metamorphosing from the “unique identification” card to the “direct benefit
transfer instrument” for government payments and later to a perceived
“surveillance mechanism” to identify tax evasion, the card now plans to touch
the lives of the haves, the have-nots and the minimally-existent non-entities
struggling for identities alike. If one
can break the rule here, how about a question as IWOTY 2017 instead? The question in point being:
“Have
you linked your Aadhar?”
Another word that caught the
youngster’s attention and perhaps changed
their financial habits this year
is SIP – an acronym for Systematic
Investment Plan. The financial
awareness campaigns by the Mutual Fund (MF) industry to inculcate the habit of
investing regularly and spreading across good times and bad have resulted in a
surge in SIPs. For the first time, the equity markets witnessed domestic fund
flows of magnitudes which were hitherto seen only from Foreign Institutional
Investors. Certainly a good habit to
have for young earners, if done wisely and consistently over a long period of
time. Needless to say the investment
flow into Equity MFs has been a result of the current low interest rates
prevailing on fixed income instruments. SIP hai to sahi hai!
All through the year, that “Mitron”-evoked announcement made in
November last year was the talk of the town, gullies, public gardens, pantries,
buses, trains and chai corners across
the country – Demonetization or more popularly, “Notebandi” is being
talked about with the same wonderment
even to this day. While, the
what-hit-us feeling is yet to wear off for some, one cannot deny that it is the
only worthy contender for the IWOTY 2017.
Notebandi it is, i guess.
(Unless you have Aadhar ideas)
