Born again

A person’s birth year can be a sensitive issue these days, as the army chief demonstrated. Tarun Das, chief mentor of industry lobby Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is 73 years old but he surprised everyone listening to him at CII’s annual general meeting and national conference by saying the visibly younger Cabinet minister Praful Patel was born a day later than him. Then he quickly clarified that Patel’s birthday came 18 years after Das was born. Fifty-five-year-old Patel, who was briefly in shock at Das’ observation, started his speech by saying that he felt younger after he heard that his date of birth came 18 years after Das.