Editor,
There has been much debate about when the old decade ends and when the new one begins? Some say the old decade had ended on December 31, 2019, and the start of the new one began on January 1, 2020. A lot of conundrum is seen on this matter. For others, the new decade doesn’t start until January 1, 2021; the old one concluding on December 31, 2020.
Now the question that arises is – who is correct or who is at fault here?
As we think about New Year resolutions, here’s one we should all make together and that is to resolve that decades begin with the year ending in the numeral 1 and finish with a 0. For a decade to begin, we must start with the year ending with 1 (2021) and finish with 10, or so far as chronology is concerned, a year ending in 0 (2030). For example, January 1, 2001, opened the 21st century and the start of the new millennium, just as the year 1 A.D. marked the beginning of the Christian era. Of course, many of us will remember the euphoric celebrations that were touched off at midnight on December 31, 1999. But was that a year too soon? Yes!
And if at the stroke of midnight on December 31, 2019 you thought you were celebrating the start of a new decade, guess again. As was the case 20 years ago, you’ll be one year early, for the new decade will actually start in the year 2021.
A calendrical confusion arises here: If you want to criticize anybody for this confusion, you can blame two men – Dionysius Exiguus, also known in some reference works as “Dennis the Short,” and the Northumbrian monk Bede, also known as the “Venerable Bede.” Dionysius was born in what we now call Romania around the year 470 and was the first to suggest counting the passage of the years from the date of the birth of Jesus Christ; the beginning of the anno Domini (which means “Year of Our Lord” in Latin) era, or A.D.
According to the contemporary historians of the time, Jesus was born on the 28th year of the reign of the Roman Emperor, Caesar Augustus. There is, however, considerable confusion about exactly when Augustus’ reign began, so the year Dionysius called 1 A.D. was not accurately placed in history; in fact, most religious scholars now think that Jesus might actually have been born several years earlier. When Dionysius finished his computations, he figured that the year Christ was living in was 525 A.D. But he never bothered to number the years prior to Christ’s birth. We had to wait until 731 A.D. when the Venerable Bede popularized the anno Domini era in Anglo-Saxon England and extended the counting of years before the birth of Christ – the “B.C. era.”
Taking the elevator analogy as an example if you were to go into an elevator located in the lobby and wanted to go 10-flights up, you would actually end up on the ninth floor (if you were to assume the lobby as the “zero” floor). But if you assume the lobby as the “first” floor and went 10-flights up, you would end up on the tenth floor. In essence therefore, on our calendars, 2021 is the equivalent of a “first-floor lobby,” and after going up ten flights (or years), we’ll arrive at the tenth floor. Or in this case, the year 2030—when that decade ends. Unfortunately, Bede did not account for the year zero in his calculations. So 1 A.D. was immediately preceded not by a 0, but by 1 B.C.
As we are nearing the end of 2020, we hope and pray that 2021 will be a new decade or the beginning of a new era with positivity and optimism and let 2020 pass away taking all that was unpropitious and grim along with it, and cheers to a Whole New Year 2021 and a New Decade.
Yours etc.,
Dr Chanmiki Ezra Laloo
Via Email
Meghalaya’s financial crunch
Editor,
Mr Charles Pyngrope’s suggestion that the fiscal crisis of Meghalaya which shows a shortfall of nearly Rs 800 crore needs an all-party discussion is timely and mature. Mr Pyngrope has suggested that the state take the help of economic experts to help it identify potential areas for raising revenue. He also suggested an economic think tank of sorts to provide a sense of direction to the Government. Mr Pyngrope has perhaps forgotten that Meghalaya had created the Meghalaya Economic Development Council which was legislated by the state legislature at the time when Mr Salseng Marak was the CM. It was precisely to help the state develop and economic roadmap that the MEDC was created and its composition was such that there would be political consensus insofar as the economy of the state was concerned.
The MEDC was supposed to include economic experts both from within and outside the state; politicians from the ruling and opposition and civil society members to provide inputs from the ground. The MEDC is now a defunct institution and has been a sort of dumping ground for politicians who have no idea what the Council was created for. Hence the suggestion to create a similar body is an exercise in futility. The state is getting deeper and deeper into debt with borrowings from international institutions. How long can the state sustain this profligacy? Meanwhile those in the government are getting richer by the day. One wonders where the money comes from when the state is in a financial crisis.
Yours etc;,
Jameson Nongkhlaw,
Via email