Just a blip.

"The world is witnessing revolts against life and politics as usual. "A youth revolt against political parties in Nepal," "Indonesia is paralysed by protests after legislators voted themselves a housing allowance ten times the minimum wage" and "France is rocked by a 'Block Everything' revolt against President Macron."  Student protests overthrew governments in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. "Yet stock markets globally are booming. They seem to believe that we are witnessing a blip...and not much will change," wrote Swaminathan Aiyar. Nothing will change because people have no power. Politicians and top civil servants can continue their lavish lifestyles with hikes in their allowances every few months (ET), protected by Z plus security (wikipedia) provided by the state, while ordinary people working up to 2,000 hours per year (BBC) find it hard to manage on wages of Rs 1.2 million per year after taxes, rent and expenses (FE). Secondly the government has control of police and armed forces and does not hesitate to use them to protect themselves. At least 32 protesters were killed in Nepal and over 200 injured in clashes with police till 5 days ago (BBC) and at least 10 people have died in Indonesia after protests erupted over the death of a delivery driver run over by a police vehicle (BBC). In 2017, at least 38 people were killed and over 200 injured when police were issued orders of "shoot at sight" after Gurmeet Ram Rahim was sentenced to 20 years in prison for raping two women in 2002. Reuters. In the US, the stock markets are driven by huge companies with global reach, such as the Magnificent Seven with market capitalization in trillions of dollars. At present they include Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Broadcom. Investopedia. Tesla dropped out after its market capitalization fell to $1.04 trillion due to a collapse in sales in Europe following CEO Elon Musks support of President Donald Trump's policies and competition from cheaper Chinese cars (Reuters). "China's stock market is on a tear supported by state money and big institutions, and analysts say the absence of retail investor euphoria suggests the rally has legs even as the economic recovery struggles to gather pace." Reuters. These are the two biggest economies in the world. In India, as fixed returns lagged inflation, "more investors move away from traditional bank deposits to capitalise on India's growth story, domestic institutional investors (DIIs) - primarily powered by mutual funds - have emerged as dominant players." "The domestic inflows have helped cushion the Indian stock market from foreign investor outflows, thereby reducing the overall impact on market stability." Mint. Protests like the French Revolution based on the slogan of 'Liberty, equality and fraternity' which resulted in the end of monarchy (Britannica) and in permanent democracy are not possible in India because India does not have one predominant language and culture. India has been divided linguistically and each state government is motivated by its own survival. Thus, the BJP, with 240 out of 543 seats in the Lok Sabha (wikipedia), is ruling the nation because of support from TDP (16 seats) in Andhra Pradesh and the JDU (12 seats), plus a mishmash of smaller parties (wikipedia). Self interest overrides national interest. However, not all revolutions involve stone throwing and live bullets. The Industrial Revolution, starting in Britain in 1760, completely changed the world (Britannica) and shifted the balance of power decisively to Western countries. Protests are just a blip despite so many deaths. Shows how insignificant citizens are. Shoot and boot.