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By:

Anil D. Salve

21 March 2026 at 8:11:09 pm

A Drought of Wisdom in an Ocean of Information

We live in an age where information is everywhere. With a single click, we can access news from across the world, thousands of opinions, countless videos and endless claims. Knowledge has never been so accessible. Yet, in this overwhelming flow of information, something increasingly scarce is discernment-the ability to distinguish what deserves our belief from what deserves our doubt. Information and knowledge are not the same. Reading, watching or hearing something does not automatically...

A Drought of Wisdom in an Ocean of Information

We live in an age where information is everywhere. With a single click, we can access news from across the world, thousands of opinions, countless videos and endless claims. Knowledge has never been so accessible. Yet, in this overwhelming flow of information, something increasingly scarce is discernment-the ability to distinguish what deserves our belief from what deserves our doubt. Information and knowledge are not the same. Reading, watching or hearing something does not automatically make it true. We need the ability to verify information, understand its context, recognise its purpose and only then form an opinion. In the digital age, this ability has become one of the most important forms of wisdom. Social media has transformed the way information travels. WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and other platforms have made communication faster, wider and more accessible. But the same speed that connects society can also overwhelm it. Information often reaches us before facts do. A headline is read before the full story. A short video is watched without knowing what happened before or after it. A photograph is circulated without its original context. A message arrives with the familiar words, “Forwarded as received,” and within minutes it may reach thousands of people. By the time the truth catches up, the rumour may already have done its work. The problem becomes even more serious when misinformation is deliberately created and circulated. Rumours may be planted not merely to mislead individuals but to divert public attention from an important issue, create suspicion, damage someone's reputation or push society towards a particular narrative. A distraction does not always need to be completely false. Sometimes a small piece of truth is mixed with exaggeration, selective facts or emotional language. The result can be more powerful than an outright lie because it appears believable. This is how narratives are manufactured. Social media platforms can become powerful tools in this process. A repeated claim begins to look familiar, and familiarity is often mistaken for truth. A provocative post attracts attention. Thousands of reactions create the impression that “everyone” believes it. One emotional video triggers another, comments intensify the mood, and before facts have an opportunity to speak, public sentiment may have already shifted. This is where mob psychology enters the picture. A society can move from calm to anger, suspicion to trust, or optimism to fear with surprising speed. People who would ordinarily think carefully may react differently when they see thousands of others expressing outrage, fear or hostility. The individual begins to follow the crowd, and the crowd begins to reinforce the individual. The danger is not limited to negative emotions. The same mechanism can also be used positively-to mobilise people for social causes, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, public awareness and community action. Technology itself is neither wise nor foolish. Its impact depends on how information is created, amplified and consumed. The greatest danger, therefore, is not that we have too much information. It is that we may lose the habit of thinking while consuming it. We are increasingly becoming consumers of information rather than creators of thought. Everyone has access to information today, but access does not necessarily mean understanding. The boundaries between a rumour and a report, an opinion and a fact, popularity and truth are becoming increasingly blurred. A post does not become true because thousands of people have liked it. A video does not become evidence merely because it has gone viral. An opinion does not become a fact because it is expressed confidently. An idea does not become correct simply because it confirms what we already believe. This last point deserves particular attention. We often accept information not because it is accurate, but because it is comfortable. We are naturally attracted to information that confirms our existing beliefs and suspicious of information that challenges them. In the digital world, this tendency can be amplified by algorithms that repeatedly expose us to content similar to what we have already watched, liked or shared. Gradually, we may find ourselves living inside an information bubble where we hear many voices-but mostly voices that agree with us. That is not diversity of information. It is an illusion of certainty. Discernment does not mean doubting everything. It means thinking before believing. It means asking simple but powerful questions: Who is saying this? What is the evidence? What is the context? What may be missing? Who benefits if I believe it? And have I heard the other side? These questions may take only a few seconds, but they can prevent hours, days or even years of misunderstanding. This responsibility is particularly important for the younger generation. Children today are growing up in an environment of unprecedented information exposure. They can encounter more information in a few hours than earlier generations might have encountered in weeks. Therefore, education cannot merely teach students how to collect, remember and reproduce information. It must teach them how to question, verify, analyse and interpret it. A student who can write the correct answer in an examination may be academically successful. But a student who knows how to ask the right question is better prepared for life. The classroom of the future must therefore produce not merely informed students, but thinking citizens. They must learn that forwarding a message is also a form of responsibility. Sharing a post is not an innocent act when it can affect someone's reputation, create public fear or influence social behaviour. The challenge becomes even greater in the age of Artificial Intelligence. AI can generate information, images, audio and video with extraordinary speed and sophistication. The distinction between what is real and what merely appears real may become increasingly difficult. In such a world, human judgment becomes more valuable, not less. Technology can produce an answer in seconds. It cannot automatically tell us whether that answer deserves our trust. Some answers require experience. Some require context. Many require the ability to think independently. We have more information, more technology and more connectivity than any previous generation. Yet our real challenge is to preserve something technology cannot manufacture for us: the capacity to think for ourselves. The ocean of information will only become larger. The question will no longer be, “How much information do we have?” The more important questions will be: What should we accept? What should we question? What should we verify? And what should we reject? No technology can completely answer these questions for us. No number of likes can substitute for evidence. No viral trend can replace judgment. No majority can turn misinformation into truth. That responsibility belongs to human beings. Information can tell us what happened. Discernment helps us understand what it means, why it happened, what may be missing from the story and how we should respond. Perhaps, therefore, the greatest educational challenge of our time is not to teach people how to find more information. They already know how to do that. The greater challenge is to teach them how to pause-to pause before believing, to pause before reacting, to pause before forwarding and to pause before joining the crowd. Because sometimes the most intelligent response to information is not an immediate reaction, but a moment of reflection. The ocean is already around us. It is growing deeper every day. What we need now is not more information to swim through it-but the wisdom to know which direction to take. (The writer is the Principal of Podar International School, Ausa, Latur. Views personal.)

Gold’s Real Role: Survival, Not Returns

Writer: Sayli Gadakh
Sayli Gadakh
Jan 6
3 min read

Gold, especially in the Indian context, should not be evaluated as an investment. It should be understood as a financial insurance policy embedded in the household balance sheet.

As a chartered accountant, one of the most common questions I am asked by clients is, “How much return does gold give compared to equity or mutual funds?” My response often surprises them.


Gold, especially in the Indian context, should not be evaluated primarily as an investment. It should be understood as a financial insurance policy embedded in the household balance sheet.


This distinction is critical because when gold is judged by the same yardsticks as equity or real estate—CAGR, alpha, inflation-beating returns—it is bound to disappoint. But when evaluated through the lens of risk management, liquidity, and capital preservation, gold performs a role that no other asset class can replicate.


Gold and Wealth Survival

From a professional accounting perspective, wealth creation and wealth protection are two separate objectives. Equity, business assets, and real estate are designed for wealth creation. Gold, historically and practically, is designed for wealth survival.


In financial statements, insurance premiums are treated as expenses, not investments. Yet no rational person evaluates insurance by asking how much profit it generated. The value of insurance lies in its availability during stress, not its performance during normal times. Gold functions in exactly the same manner for Indian households.


During periods of economic stress—job loss, medical emergencies, business downturns, or systemic crises—gold has consistently proven to be immediately liquid, widely acceptable, and value-retentive. As a CA, I have seen numerous cases where clients could not liquidate equity due to market crashes, could not sell property due to a lack of buyers, and could not access loans due to poor cash flows. Gold, however, remained accessible.


Liquidity Beyond Financial Systems

One of gold’s most underestimated advantages is its extra-institutional liquidity. Unlike shares, mutual funds, or bonds, gold does not require a functioning financial system to unlock value. It does not depend on market hours, counterparties, or digital infrastructure.


Gold can be pledged or sold without a credit score, proof of income, or documentation delays. This is particularly important in India, where a large segment of the population is self-employed, informally employed, or cash-flow dependent. For such households, gold acts as a parallel financial safety net. From a CA’s lens, this liquidity is not just convenience—it is risk mitigation.


Currency-Agnostic Asset

Another critical reason gold should be treated as financial insurance is its currency neutrality. Fiat currencies are subject to inflation, monetary policy, fiscal stress, and geopolitical events. Gold, on the other hand, has preserved purchasing power across centuries, countries, and regimes.


When inflation erodes savings, currencies weaken, or confidence in financial institutions declines, gold tends to retain relative value. This is why central banks worldwide continue to hold gold as part of their reserves. If gold is relevant at a sovereign level, dismissing it at a household level is financially short-sighted.


Expecting Growth from Gold

Many investors make the mistake of allocating to gold with the expectation that it should outperform equity. This leads to dissatisfaction and poor asset allocation decisions. As a professional advisor, I believe gold’s role is not to maximise returns but to stabilise the portfolio during extreme events.


In portfolio construction, gold functions as a shock absorber. It reduces volatility, cushions downside risk, and provides optional liquidity when other assets fail. From a balance-sheet perspective, gold improves the risk-adjusted quality of household wealth.


This is precisely why gold allocation should be strategic, not emotional. Over-allocating to gold hampers long-term growth, while under-allocating exposes families to financial fragility.


Gold in the Indian Socio-Financial Context

India’s relationship with gold is not merely cultural; it is deeply financial. Gold bridges the gap between formal finance and informal reality. It provides dignity in distress, autonomy in emergencies, and security in uncertainty.


As a CA, I have observed that families with even modest gold holdings often navigate crises better than families with higher paper wealth but no liquid fallback. Gold may not show impressive returns in spreadsheets, but it shows remarkable resilience in real life.


Right Question to Ask

The correct question is not “How much return will gold give?” The correct question is, “If everything else fails, how long can my family survive financially?” Gold answers that question silently.


In an era marked by volatile markets, rising healthcare costs, job insecurity, and economic uncertainty, treating gold merely as an underperforming investment is a conceptual error. It is not meant to race; it is meant to stand firm when others fall.


From a chartered accountant’s standpoint, gold deserves a place not in the return-seeking portion of a portfolio, but in the risk-protection core. When viewed this way, gold stops being an emotional purchase and becomes a rational financial safeguard.


(The writer is a Chartered Accountant based in Thane. Views personal.)


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