How Sonia Gandhi Bought History...

Figure this

• The recently opened Bandra Worli Sea link has been renamed Rajiv Gandhi Setu


• The technology park at Chandigarh has been named after Rajiv Gandhi


• The newly opened IIM ,Shillong has been named Rajiv Gandhi IIM (none of other IIT/IIM's have been named after any other Indian dignitary)


• IIT kharagpur named its new school of intellectual proprietary law school as Rajiv Gandhi School Of Intellectual proprietary law


• More than 2 decades after the sensational reveleation of corruption in Rajiv's Cabinet the UPA govt gave a clean chit to Bofors CEO quatraochi


• There seems to be a hidden agenda at the south block to name every big thing coming up in India after the damned prime minister

Over the past 60 years of existence of Indian State,more than two thirds of the time the controlling power in India has belonged to the Nehru-Gandhi family.It was Nehru,Indira and Rajiv in the past and Sonia today.While the Nehru Gandhi failed to achieve anything sunstantial for the Indian people,over the years the dynastic control over the Indian state has led to many attempts to glorify the past.So while it was traditional during Indira's time to have institutions ,schemes and blah blah named after Nehru,Rajiv and Sanjay made a desperate attempt to glorify Indira,despite the fact that most people attribute Indira to be responsible for killing the ethos of Indian democracy,strengthening family rule and introducing suitcase politics in India.Fast forward 2009 and the current UPA govt ,puppet controlled by her higness Smt Sonia Gandhi seems to be all set to make an icon out of Rajiv. For one thing ,Indian public has a short memory,so stupid as these plans might sound they may infact work.So with Sonia having threads of all puppet ministers in her hands ,she seems to be all set to buy history for her dead husband and make him an icon responsible for the Indian growth story and technological transformation.

To bring out my argument ,let me pen down a bit of history.Rajiv GAndhi became teh prime minister of India when his dead mothers doffer won Congress the largest majority ever in Indian parliament.Congress won 411 seats in the Lok Sabha,meaning it had absolute power to introduce reforms and all changes that India so much needed.India was growing at the hindu rate of lowly 3-4% ,had a huge foreign excahnge deflicit and the economy was in complete shambles.There was geowing pressure from the World Bank and other foreign institutions to liberalise Indian economy,failing which India would face decreased aid and credit facilities.In this background when Rajiv became the prime minister with the image of Mr clean much was expected of him by the new junta.However it did not take him long to prove his worthlesness.Ministers were changed with ferocious velocity,top beuraucrats were the ones who were the top "chamchas" and reforms were undertaken with a half heart under tremendous pressure.As one of the beuraucrat quips under annonymity "Rajiv was very strict in mantaining distance with officers...".While the Rajiv Gandhi government functioned as usual,the outside clean image was broken when the then minister Mr VP Singh revealed how briefcase politics had become a core competence of the governmnet.Subsequently Rajivs name figured prominantly in the Bofors scam.Also significant wqas the Shah Bano case when Rajiv introduced a bill in parliament to reverse SC judgment allowing a muslim lady alimony on divorce.This was in regular congress tradition of Muslim appeasment to form a strong votebank.During Rajivs term as PM,the Indian rupee devalued from Rs12-Rs17 per dollar,the trade deflicit widened,governemnt became more inefficient.His tenure is best described in words of neutral UCLA SSC website

"Rajiv appears to have been singularly lacking in intellectual attainments, and his interventions in Parliamentary debates were notoriously prosaic and dull. His years in office cannot be described as having contributed in any healthy way to the political life of the nation"

While Rajiv's contribution ,and infact that of whole Nehru Gandhi family is debatable ,what puzzles one more is the fact that is our country so poor that we have to resort to Rajiv's name to name anything big coming up in our country.Perhaps the government views the contribution of Swaminathan-the father of Indian Green Revolution or Abdul Kalam or Ratan Tata as insignificant in front of those of Rajiv.(certainly they were significant,they didnt sell their souls,or killed democracy,or created fooled foreign policies).Clearly the South Block seems to be compromising the democratic ethos which our forefathers envisioned for us while writing the Indian Constitution.

Thus while Mrs Gandhi has a very direct relation to creation of the "rajiv" icon,in terms of personal satisfaction and future political career of Rahul Gandhi.Perhaps by making "Rajiv Gandhi" as the next "Sher Shah Suri" or "Akbar" of India Mrs gandhi not only wants to make the contribution of her family to the Indian context significant but also secure the future political career of the Gandhi Scion and her son Rahul.What better way to launch Rahul into prime-ministership than on the backdrop of Indian growth story so well "attributed" to his father Rajiv Gandhi.The Congress on the other hand seems to steadfastly support the move as it offers all gandhi chamchas an opputunity to appease "madam" and move up the heirchy..maybe a ministeral berth for all congressmen hav forgotten to even dream of being the PM one day.And what about the institutions ,that seem to accept the names with min of revolt,laying down the culminated brand value over the years.Well the feelings are best described in words of one HRD official "Sahab naam mein kya rakha hya..its easy to get fundings ones one attatches Rajivs name to the scheme"

So with Mrs Gandhi all set to re write history and name every major street,educational institution and achievment of the country after her husband..one million dollar question remains,"Will she succeed".Well in ancient India ,the kings and queens appointed biographers to write and glorify their era but yet history views them as they are supposed to be viewd.So Mrs Gandhi maybe you can buy some time,maybe a gnereal election but eventually you cant really imortalise someone who doesnt deserve to be.

The Political Sinner: 10 Similarities between MARKETS and GIRLS

The Political Sinner: 10 Similarities between MARKETS and GIRLS

10 Similarities between MARKETS and GIRLS

The previous few posts have been rather heavy and if I continue that way probably I would lose even the few faithful followers of my otherwise moronic blog :)..So just for gigs I created this post.Aall the meanings in this post are completely unintended and are just meant as an entertainer.
So here are the 10 similarities between girls and markets..the things most chased by all men

1)Both are unpredictable.You invested your life's savings when you were 100% sure markets would go up..the result you are penniless today.Just when you thought the girl liked you..she slapped you on your face and ran away with your best friend


2)Both rate high on sensitivity index.The Dow falls when Greenspan gets a cold,your gf starts crying when you forget where you first met.

3)Nobody figured out how both these things work.AIG and Lehman became bankrupt trying to figure out how derivatives worked...so many men have been slain in thieir quest to understand the FAIRER sex.


4)Both are influenced by hundreds of factors.The markets are affected by anything and everything.Try taking out a girl to buy out a pair of jeans and you will understand what I mean


5)Both are driven by emotions.Oil peaked this year when the supply was highest,she left me when I was at the altar

6)Both would make your blood pressure rise in the longer term.If you are not a girl theres no need for any explanation


7)Patience is the key for success in both markets and girls.Try being impatient and you'll be out of the markets in a few days and your girl will leave you in a few hours


8)Both can be interpreted in a million ways.A pause near the resistance zone is seen as a top by one analyst and consolidation by another.Her yes is seen as "no" by one boy and "yes" by another :)

9)Both have their own dark secrets-thousands of them.Insider trading and stock markets rule the roost in markets.Try asking the girl what she just talked about to her friend ...or your gf might know about your past,do you know about hers

AND THIS IS THE BEST


10)Both will leave you when you are broke.Market doesnt give you a chance to bet without money.Remember the girl who liked you but left you for that Harvard grad :)

REACTIONS BAR

Hi All
To all those returning readers I would like to thank you all for bearing with my long and oft boring posts :).To new readers I can only wish you luck for what is to follow.Beginning today 8th Dec,2009 I have activated the reactions toolbar.So whatever you feel about the posts ,please use the reaction checkbox at the bottom of each post to express your emotions.Annonymous comments are enabled :)..hoping to hear from all of you...feedback is the most imp too of improvement
Happy Blogging

Do Away with the IAS Exam

Yesterday evening,I had a chance to talk to my friends grandfather who served in The Indian Army during the Second World War.Our conversation drifted from one topic to another, until like most "argumentative Indians" ,we were discussing politics.And what followed was pure shock and disbelief,as twining his left mustache the old soul said "Beta jin logo ne angrezo ka zamana dekha hya ,woh aaj ka deskh dekh kar udas hote hya " ( those who have seen the British India,are just saddened at the plight of current Independent India")As I drove back home on thea cold December night,I thought about what the old man had just told me and eventually found him quite correct.
Independent India under the shroud of so called "democracy" ,is actually a nation of power hungry veterans,its a land where misuse is a rule rather than an exception.Its a jungle rule out here..."Survival Of The Fittest",...where your fitness is determined by your networking with the netas and babus.If we do a deep analysis ,none would be more responsible for the current crisis than the so called exclusive Indian IAS Officers.
The Indian Civil Services were started by the Britishers to select people from the Indo British Empire who could effectively implement policies framed in a foreign land.Over the years ,as with most Indian laws India adapted the system completely without realizing the need for changes that a dynamically changing democratic country like ours required.In addition the Indian Government over the years did away with various checks that the Britishers had put on their Civil officers to control the misuse of power,something that is so inherent in nature of all Indians.
Over the years ICS has been transformed to the IAS,the "bada sahib" and the "collector sahab" has transformed to "Indian Babu" and the motly "Ambassdors" of yester years have given to suave "lancers" but the "RED LIGHT" still lingers on .Despite the increasing temptations and ever increasing challenges that CIVIL SERVANTS have to face everyday the UPSC has changed little in the selection process of the top civil servants of the country.No wonder the UPSC and IAS Exam have failed the country.For every Sandhya Jain of RTI fame ,we have 100 corrupt Goswamis.With such a high faliure rate,clearly the process of filtering the candidates to top posts in India ,needs a major revamp.
Before I go on to out rightly criticizing the current selection process,let me analyze the principal requirements that an IAS officer must be endowed in today's challenging work environment.
1)High analytical skills and ability to come up with practical innovative solutions to meet challenging needs of Indian Sub Continent (rather than blindly copying standard western solutions)
2)Ability to keep an integrative moral and ethical standard under high performance and political pressures
3)Advanced knowledge of the particular field in which the IAS officer is supposed to deliver solutions
4)Ability to identify and respect the ground realities of Indian people and various supporting staff whose services are required to implement a particular solution
5)Ability to differentiate between social and commercial achievements of a particular task
6)Ability to implement a challenging solution while working in cross functional teams with people from different cultural backgrounds and people of different educational levels

The current IAS selection process is a three staged one.Beginning with a multiple choice preliminary paper which tests candidates on general studies and an optional subject (where most candidates take high scoring papers like psychology etc )followed by a main exam which tests candidates on two languages,a General studies paper and optional papers.The candidates who qualify the main exam then have to attend one interview.The candidates qualifying interview are allocated to various Civil Services on basis of combined scores of Main exam and Interview

A little thought on the above process and we can easily conclude that the process fails to test candidates on almost all of the above counts.While their is no stage (except a short interview) where candidates are tested on their analytical ability,what is worse is that candidates are tested on parameters which are useless.What is the need of testing candidates on optional subjects like psychology ,mathematics or history.I fail to see any significant role being played by knowledge of these subjects in performance of duties expected of a civil servant.Whats worse ,UPSC is known not even use the simple process of normalization while comparing performance in different optional subjects.(Is UPSC headed by fools or what..normalization is the basic of stats)To prove my point..would administrators like Sardar vallabh Bhai Patel or ancient strategists like Chanakya have been able it to make IAS .If not ,your system is flawed and needs to be revamped.Most aspirants point out that the flaws of written exam is made out by a rigorous final interview ,which is conducted by the who's who of modern India.I beg to differ on this.One interview can never successfully test candidate on multiple and challenging parameters on which a candidate is expected to deliever.Moreover IAS interviews are notorious to being conducted on the whims and fancies of panelists rather than a scientific selection procedure.Moreover most of the times the focus is more on testing the candidate on his knowledge rather than his approach to a problem,his creativity,his analytical ability and his moral integrity.
Most of the Western Counteries including our beloved UK ,that gifted us the Civil Examination system have done away with similar systems of selecting their civil servants.Among othe flaws already discussed above,the present system fails to allocate and use specialized knowledge of the candidates to specific domains.For eg a doctor can be made head of civil engineering dept and vice verse and then shifted to public reforms after a year.Most Western Countries now follow a competitive direct recruitment or Campus recruitment process.What do you think would be better recruiting IIT/IIM grads for running specific departments or babus selected from an old cracking system,the whole world has left behind.The top MNC's of the world recruit direct talent from our campuses and are certainly much more efficient than the "babu" system.So why is the government so shy to offering direct opportunities to our IIT/IIM grads who would love working with government but not waste few years of their lives preparing for a useless exam
So we need a revamp and we need it quick .Heres what I think should be done with the current system:
1)The openings at IAS level be filled in two ways and a specific ratio be mantained to the way in the use of following ways:
a)direct recruitment from premier Indian Campuses like IIT's,IIM,s,NIT and other premier universities (Planning Commission has already started recruiting from IIm's and IIt's)
b)The openings be filled by promotion of high caliber people already present in specific departments
2)Institute high growth accelerated programs for making the IAS service attractive.Establish quantitive performance matrices which be used for pay hikes,payment of variable pay and promotions through out the careers.Abolish the phenomena time bound promotions.In addition any IAS officers who fails to deli ever below a set standard be asked to leave the service
3)Recruitment be done as per requirements in specific departments.This MBA's be hired for heading administrative positions in districts while doctors be hired for administration in helathcare etc
4)A specific recruitment programme with tests on analytical ability,problem solving and psychometric be established to give chance to those candidate who are not studying in premier universities but have ability to deliver
5)A specific ratio be maintained for candidates selected through campuses and recruitment programmes

The above reforms might sound daring to some and foolish to others but they are really a need of the hour.In a competitive world which India hopes to dominate in near future if our "babus" continue to lurks in howlish circles of corruption ,greed and misuse of power,I have only one thing to say "GOD SAVE MY COUNTRY"..WAKE UP UPSC..perhaps somebody is listening

CAT 2009:the Farce Part2

CAT :anothe farce by IIM's Part 1 (http://thepoliticalsinner.blogspot.com/2009/07/online-catanother-farce-by-iims.html)

Nothing would give you more delight than seeing what you had predicted months ago turn into reality.But on this particular occasion when I see how CAT 2009 has really become a farce, a more useless exam than ever before ,I am saddend and wish things would have been different.Infact I am mortified,petrified,terrified by you-IIM's
Ok so CAT'09 is a farce.The reasons-I wont really waste time discussing them all.If you are really interested then google CAT 09 and view the first few posts on PAGALGUY (the beloved PG :) ) or any of the n forums we have on CAT in India.In a nutshell things as mundane and managable like technical glitches to statistical difficult tasks like mantaining same difficulty level across different exam slots have bothered the 200,000 plus candidates writing the CAT exam this year.
Now we are middle of a deep s**t and the stakes are high.Even if we assume the misgiving of prometric and IIM's have affected just 5% (I really doubt that no. though) of the total candidates,we would still be playing with careers of about 10,000 candidates across India---certainly not a small no.
So what should be done at this point of time?Many people are calling for a revert to the old pencil and paper CAT.while this is an easy option ,but moving back to the old pencil and paper CAT would rob it of the 100 improvements that IIM's could have done with the online version--ranging from making the test adaptive to doing psychometric analysis of the candidate as he takes the exam.In my view ordering an immediate re test or a revert back to the old system would be like taking one step forward and two steps backward.So here's what I think should be done to get out of this deep worm smelling s**t:

1)Allow the exam to be conducted and completed in the smoothest possible manner,ensuring all those who couldnt write the test get an oppurtunity to write the test again
2)After the test has been completed the IIM CAT committe should do a one way ANOVA analysis between the test slots and the CAT scores (the IIM CAT committee can decide to give lower weightage to questions which were repeated between slots and were easy )
3)The ANOVA results should be evaluated at 99.999% confidence interval to determine if their is a statistically significant difference between scores obtained by candidates in various slots
4)If a significant difference is seen in any of the slots then a DU PONT analysis should be done to ascertain the reason of the difference.The differencs that would concern the IIM CAT committe and candidates writing the test are :
a)Significant difference in aptitude level of candidates across the slots
b)Difference in the difficulty levels of the exam paper between any two slots
c)Avaliabilty of advanced information which helped candidates in a particular slot score more than candidates in other slots

THe DU PONT analysis can be conducted by number crunching the contribution of repeated questions across various slots.If the ANOVA analysis of scores obtained on repeated questions show no significant differences then (A) as the reason of difference can be rules out
If the tests were of similar difficulty level and candidates had same aptitude level then statistically contribution of difficult and easy questions in scores should be the same.This can again be determined by ANOVA,Z or chi distribution test of the score populations of diff and easy questions in different test slots
If the above is alos negative ,it would mean ( c) is the reason for diff in scores

5)If a is the reason then we can compare plain scores for giving out the initial shortlists
If b is the reason then normalization of scores would make the process fair
If c is the reason then,even at 99.999% confidence level we need to call for a RE TEST
While the statistical soln would not look applealing to many and be seen as complete moronic bull shit by others,I am of the view the methods are reliable to be used here.Alternatively IIMs might significantly increase the no. of initial shortlists.
Whatever it took one CAT to put IIM's at top of the world and it would take one CAT to put them back on Earth
Happy Blogging

Best Links

Leaders Or Followers

The 20th century B schools and the management gurus have always focused on the need to identify and nurture quality leadership.Leadership has become a buzz word in todays world.Every B school,every corporate house and every damn country is focused on creating quality leaders for tomorrow.
However in the process of creating leaders ,changing our education system and trying to assimilate creativity and independence in each of the citizen aren't we going to run into a problem of plenty soon.A recent recruiter at my college campus remarked:
"Its becoming increasing difficult to the new age generation.Everyone is a leader...who's a team member....people are expecting to lead global team within a span of 2yrs...we are seriously looking for followers now"
The situation is not hard to see.With the increasing dominance of capitalism across the globe and the aspirations which it so characterizes becoming part of the gen next ...we are in a problem of excess of quality leadership.
There are plenty of examples all around.Look at the political scene..parties like BJP are sinking to new lows not because they dont have quality leaders but becasue they dont have quality followers.If there is one most important think which distinguishes BJP and congress today..it is the willingness of the Congressmen to be led by the Nehru-Gandhi family.On a wider spectrum politics is becoming a dirty gane because everyone wants to lead...corporate boardrooms are increasingly becoming battleground for prestigious positions.
So what is the solution to come out of this problem.Do we simply start killing everything we did to create this breed of new generation leaders or can we ensure a system that produces just the optimum number of leaders.
Well one of the basic problems that has resulted in such a wide interest in leadership positions is the disproportionate benefits associated with leadership.CEO's make more money in a day than most workers would make in a full year...state heads have more power,and perks than simple implementers..leadership is taking a greater portion of the ie than it rightly deserves.For one,the success of any organization depends on its ability to excellently execute each of its core function.A leader is responsible for coordinating and strategist these functions.The function no doubt is important but arent we just overvaluing them.Shouldn't the importance of function be same as execution of othe key organizational function.A typical MBA grad earns in multiples of researchers salary whose technology drives the compnay.Can we allow the situation to continue.We already lost our best brains to leadership...things need to change.
There is a serious need to revalue leadership or we might find our ship sinking as the BJP is finding its....

Cliched Altruism

Yesterday evening as I returned to my hostel room,a person with long beard and wearing a khaki shirt came to my room.As he opened the door and I saw him holding a printed booklet with pink slips in his hand ,I knew what it was all about.Its Diwali time and numerous NGO's ,student bodies around Kharagpur,infact across India are scuttling to celebrate the festival of lights with down trodden,the less fortunate and numerous other phrases used.At this point of year suddenly everybody starts recognising society is not equal...its about inequalities,unfairness,poverty and hunger.As they say
"Life is the left ass of a black woment...neither fair nor right"
And everybody wants to play a part in it..small maybe by donating,by atleast giving the joy of festival of lights with the lesser fortunate sections of society.No this is not a post where I ask you all to do this,quite the contrary,I beg to differ and I am not ashamed of it.I feel all this activity of celebrating diwali with downtrodden,donating clothes etc is nothing more than a cliche,an economically and socially useless activity,done with nothing more than a sole aim of showcasing or advertisng your human side.Infact celebrating Diwali like this when you say astute the whole year around is quite similar to a political party distributing free sarees on an election day.Busy exectives the whole year around plot how to snatch jobs from workers,how to pollute the enviornment and by donating in such causes are they trying to buy their soul from God or what?
Let me pen down the reasons why I find this astute activity of celebrating Diwali with poor etc nothing more than double standards and a socially disastorous activtity
The purpose of any social activity in the society should be to reduce the boundaries,the narowing down of rich poor gap.I dont see how Diwali celebrations achieve this.Giving sweets to a child one day only to leave him begging the other day for a square meal is the worst form of torture you can do.Its dehumanising...infact your donating,or go out to celebrate diwali is nothing more than a picnic for you that satisfies your soul..you are not that bad.Yes if anything all those person who do these activities do it forthemselves and not for the damned society.
The money spent on such activities could be easily diverted on other better activities that creates sustainable solutions ..for example donating books to local school libraries,arranging evening classes,initiating microfinancing schemes to creates sustainable employment .Infact the focus of all social activities in our country should be on education and poverty allevation through encouraging small and mid size enterprised.This will help in reducing unemploymemnt,increasing awarness and ultimately reducing the poor section of our country
I guess but we would continue donating for such useless celebrations,I did too because it makes us socially acceptable,participation in such activities whether delievering any results or not looks a tad good on our CV,helps corporate their so called CSR activities and make it a marketing gimic and ultimately its about a concept called cliched "altruism"..the new buzz word

Corruption Gandhi and The Congress

On 30th Of January,1948 when Mahatma Gandhi was going to say his evening prayers,a so called terrorist Nathuram Godse fell to Mahatmas feet,picked himself up and shot bullets in the old mans chest.Mahatmas last words were "Hey Ram".Today as India and the world celebrate 140th birth anniversary of the man who lived to dignify truth ,poor and down trodden,we wonder what would he be saying had he been alive.I am pretty sure he would still say "Hey Ram".Mahatma wanted India to be free of not only the British but the evils that had trodded her for centuries-hunger,poverty,unemployment,caste etc.However more than 60 years after Independence ,we have hardly achieved any of the great mans dreams.This 2nd October Congress decided to give the ultimate honour to Mahatma by naming its flagship NREGA scheme after gandhi.
Had mahatma been alive he wouldn't only have refused to be associated with NREGA but would have been saddened how a scheme intended to achieve the twin aims of development rural infrastructure and reducing rural unemployment failed at the faint hearts of Indian babus and bastard politicians.A recent investigation in the NREGA scheme revealed the following startling facts:
1)40% NREGA funds are siphoned
2)The corruption is so deep that some districts show old projects as new ones to release funds-talk about Indians being uncreative
3)Most NREGA workers get less than half of their promised salaries that also more than two months late
Clearly NREGA has been a failure.When a social scheme of the scale of NREGA was to be implemented in India-corruption was but expected,but this has however gone beyond the domains of ordinary.The Congress government played a masterstroke on the backdrop of the newly released reports by naming the scheme after Mahatma Gandhi.After all Congress ,the very party Mahatma hoped would lift India out of its problems in its current avtar is nothing more than a power hungry family raised business that has creating perceptions ,one of its core strengths.And yes it might get votes for naming scheme after Bapu or convincing people it is the only party who understands the so called "aam aadmi".(in Congress dictionary aam aadmi probably means the aam babus ,the aam politicians,the aam Mamtas and the aam Rahuls).However is this what will fulfil the dream of Bapu to make India a country of equals,a country which lived in its villages,managed by its own people who were self less or at least honest.
Maybe all of bapus values cannot be followed in the present time period but we can at least try to be more honest and design schemes which reach the masses.The NREGA scheme has flaws in its basic designs,It needs to be revamped and relaunched.
There is no denying of the fact that India needs serious infrastructure investment in Rural sector but unlike NREGA providing infrastructure shouldn't be coupled with providing minimum employment.Ins ted the panchayts and local admnistrators should work to chalk out an action plan for providing sustainable growth and employment to people .While NREGA would last till the scheme an action focused plan would contribute to the overall economic and social growth of nation..
Besides the funding should not be directly by the government ,as the system is inefficient and leads to high leakages.Instead it should be in the form of micro financing small businesses ,providing soft loans to panchayts and infrastructure development on BOT basis.The district administrators ,penchants should have their KRA's clearly defined and their promotions and further commitment of fresh capital should be based on measured growth in social and economic indicators.Also direct government spending if any should be on research,providing quality primary education and promoting fresh ideas and businesses in rural area.The motive should be to promote small businesses which act as feeder to large companies or which have the potential to become big (like Amul or other cooperatives) and thus provide sustainable creation of employment.At this point I remember a famous quote
"Feed a poor man and he is hungry the next day..teach him to fish and you feed him forever"
Clearly our focus should be on the latter part of quotation.World over policies like subsidies,free electricity have failed what is succeeded is direct involvement of govt. in development programs with active local participation and reduced bureaucratic hurdles.
If the above were implemented our netas wont really have to worry so much on creating perceptions ..votes would insted be flowing in ballot boxes...wish Mahatma was there to guide our poor souls..at least his principles are.

Of Sibals and IITs

As I scrolled through the front page of todays TOI with my eyes half open and myself still in half slurry sleep ,one headline was enough to get me wide awake.Our respected and most talented babus at the Ministry Of Human Resources and Development have done it yet again,the MHRD has decided to stop the funding for labs,infra setup ,sponsoring faculties to present their research at international forums and sponsoring national and international seminars.The news might just be the last nail in the coffin of public higher education system in India.
India specially successfully congress governments have prided themselves on the Nehruvian vision of setting up higher education institutions of excellence like the IIT's and IIM's.The main building of IIT Kharagpur has an old marble slab with the wordings of Pandit Nehru inscribed on it "Here in the place of that Hijli Detention Camp stands the fine monument of India, representing India's urges, India's future in the making. This picture seems to me symbolical of the changes that are coming to India."
And now 50 years hence a government run by his own party decided to end it all and the reasons.Well the MHRD argues that all the above are merely "operating expenses" and "wasteful"(you mean like providing the contingent of our babus and netas luxury tickets to see the world every year..Mr Sibal we take your point)and its necessary to remove them to improve "efficiency"(oh really wouldn't one think improving efficiency would be frst reducing your motley percentages in the contracts ministry doles out but no we are foolish morons...aam aadmi)
Stupid as the reasons are even worse would be the consequences.To understand the consequences first let us see the problems facing all IITs and IIMs today.With opening up of economy and global MNC's recognising the talent of IIT and IIM grads with ever inflating pay checks it has been so difficult for these institutions to maintain the minimum student faculty ratio.Add to it the fact that Mr Arjun Singh had a foolish idea of implemention 27% OBC quota with no decreasae in general seats and the picture becomes so grim.World over the best universities work hard to mantain a minimum level of student faculty ratio...typically abot 4:1 for research universities (which the IITs and IIMs hope to become rather than just a world class provider of quality education programs)and to mantaun these level the faculties are provided with best facilities including those which MHRD terms "inefficiencies" and "operating" expenses.
If the MHRD indeed goes on to implement these proposals we would not only have fewer than ever bright students deciding to take up a career in academics but even most faculty members at these institutes deciding to look for better prospects abroad or to private institutes across the country.As a student at IIT Kgp I know the passion that drives all faculty members at Kgp...it certainly goes beyond pay checks but then even they are humans and you cant just go on treating the people who played such an important role in building this "new India" for us as second rated citizens.
The MHRD proposes increases an increase in tuition fees to fund the expenses related to seminars,library etc.Well let me point out the ineffectivness of the above:
1)A typical MBA and engineering course in a private institute with facilities nt even comparable to IITs costs about 6 lacs/2 lacs ...hw many ppl can afford this..has the govt forgotten we are a knowledge driven economy requiring increased and better quality graduates.....unlike developed countries we can hardly afford to decrease the penetration levels of higher education
2)we got in the IT bandwagon by mistake but other countries are catching up...losing our technical edge would be the biggest folly our govt would ever make
3)India grew at an avg rate of about 7% pa ..with such increased growth shouldn't we have govt spending more on higher education ..where are all the funds going?on stupid wage increases to babus and the most inefficient govt. employees across the country
4)We are competitive today because of our low cost advantage but most countries lose this edge within about 15-20 years...only a strong technological and research capability can keep us going...its time to prepare for future rather than blindly following west.Even US despite its cost disadvantage continues to remain at forefront of world economies because its the provider of latest technology in the world.
5)In the new era we would need new technology for industry but space exploration,strategic defense...if govt. calls research and academic expenses wastage...hw will it survive..also some of the most breath taking research in world took place by accidents in universities in programs which were "deemed failures" not in specialised research institutes like CSIO or DRDO...research is an investment nt an expense

So all those bureaucrats sitting in their comfy offices in south block ..wake up..if you cant do any good for the country at least don't spoil what already is good
Happy Blogging

Nuke troubles

A startling reveleation by a ex DRDO scientist at an international conference have had Indians doubting about what they were so proud of ...the belief that their nation was among the few that developed and tested its nuclear arsenal and assosciated delievery systems itself.When shantaram rose to the dias and said "“I stand by what I said (that the thermonuclear test at Pokhran-II was a ‘fizzle’). I won’t say anything more before the dust settles down.”:..people started doubting not only bastards called Indian politicians but the hithertho respected personalities like Abdul Kalam and scientists like R Chidambaram.
The Indian Nuclear tests have been in spate of controversy ever since they were conducted in May 1998.While the Indian scientists claimed that they exploded devices with combined yield of 60Ktonnes.Their american counterparts claim that India couldnt have got a yield more than 20KT .And the chief suspect among all the three exploded devices is a thermonuclear device which was claimed to have a yield of 45kt.
Internationally thermonuclear technology is one of the most advanced and difficult to master and most nations including China,US and Russia have had to conduct several tests before they were satisfied with the servicabilty,design and employbilty of their devices.India on the other hand claims it sucessfuly exploded the thermonuclear device in the first test itself
Looking at the above facts and the history of DRDO to land itself in failed projects we cannot but doubt the verfy claims which form the basis of our having a credible minimum nuclear deterrent and aour ability to strike back in case of a nuclear war.Thus if the claims are indeed false,it means their lies deep imolication for Indian security and we need to rethink many policies we are carrying on with.
For beginning we are surrounded by nuclear armed nations which can be expected to use the first strike approach in case of a confrontation.An inability to strike back would massively undermine indian security and its ability to protect the borders from confrontation and hold a strong hand at international bargaining tables.
Secondly we are in a time which wouyld define which counteries would rule the world for the next century.We have already lost enough ground to China and internationally are considered a distant second or third among the counteries that could end US Hegemony.A country with untested nuclear warheads and inabilty to carry forward nuke strike s internationally only weakens our case.Even if the tests were succesful we are still far behind.China developed ICBM's with capabilty to strike at any point in the world long time back,Indian ICBM project is still gathering dust in some file at South block and to it the probabilty of "fuzzed" out thermo nuclear devices lying in our arsenal ...yo ho we are out of race already and probbaly the international powers know about it already,.Thats why we dont have the kind of international clout that we deserve.
All the above reasons make a compelling ase for going on with Pokhran 3.Time has come that India ...for so long the sleeping tiger to rise and show the world its capable of but we need to do this with our deeds rather than words.Action needs to be take to improve our crippling defence services.
It is high time that we stop dancing to the tune of western nations and start doing whats right for us.A series of nuclear tests and moving our nuclear fuel from scarcely avaliable Uranium to tritium would go a long way to strengthning our nuclear detternce if not attack capabilty.heres what I propose:
1)Change the policy framework to make India an attack capable rather than a minimum detterent nation.
2)Permit the private sectoe to enter the defence sector.Some of the most advanced warheads and millitary equipment have been developed by private companies.We must accept the fact that DRDO has failed the nation.It took them more than 25 years to develop dhruv and then also we dont have our own engine or electronics in it....private sector is far more efficient than public sectors and we have numerous examples for the same
3)Set up a time bound plan to me the armed services equipped with the latest weapon system
4)Modrernise and invest heavily on setting up spy agencies.The intelligence faliure has lead tp numerous terrorist attacks and millitary operations like Kargil etc.We need to modrernise our spy services.Remember it was FBI intelligence which helped US negotiate the Cuban missile crisis and it was again superority of western intelligence that made them victors of cold war
5)Shift pur focus from a pakistan centered nation and start competing with China ,US and other western powers.We should be comparing ourselves with the most lethal armed forces of the world and not a nation which is on a brink of being declared a "failed" state
Time has come that we wake up from our slumber sleep and immediatetly over haul our millitary capabilities or we would lose the 21st century just as we lost the 20th century
Happy Blogging

Rebalance 2011

In the latest issue of Harvard Business Review,the editorial board discuss the fall of wall street and its implications on the world politics and power.So much has been said about recession and economics in last one year that people have made all types of assumptions about what lies in store for them in future....poverty,hunger,homelessness etc.Yet the direction of our future is unclear and mired in mystery.
Lets try to analyse what lies in store both politically and economically for the world.

First before moving ahead lets try and think why we are here.For one we all know the world economy was structurally flawed.Nations were living way off their means.Counteries like US,Italy,Uk had typical deflicits about 80-100% of their GDP's.In laymans terms this means that a business spends equal to what he sells in a day (mark the differnce,its sells and not earns)Such grossly over leveraged economies are bound to collapse because of lack of any meaningful contribution to the world production of goods and services.The second reason for current crisis were the grossly overleveraged banks.Historically the leverage ratios for banks are about 4-15% but if you decode the balance sheets of major US banks they were leveraged to the tunes of 30 to mind boggling 134% in september 2009.When you bet in the market,you are sure to be wiped out if you are not big enough to hold your positions.No surrise we had the class of investment banks being wiped out from our dictionary :)
So these were the two major reasons for our current crisis.Now what lies in store for us.HBR talks of two situations of 2011 could be like.In both the prominent feature is that US economy still reels under the thaws of recession,the economy in shambles with a large fiscal deflicit and unemployment.However the most important point that the HBR brings out (and which I agree :))is the probable fall of the greenback along with the growing power of CHINA.If we look the currrent crisis is quite similar to the one that haunted the world in 1929.The recent surge in stock markets seem to allay the fear that recession is coming to an end.However fundamentally we are just seeing the pace of worsening slowing down.The US and European are still in contraction mode contracting by 1 and 3 percentage points respectively.Considering their size this is a significant figure.
In a world where the limitness of the resources is highlighted everyday,with commodities rallying even in trends of decreasing consumer demand,a structurally fawed economy where one country uses its money printing power to give its citizens a high standard of living on the expense of world is bound to fail.Sooner or later we are bound to see China overtake US as not only the leading economy but political and military power as well.
China due to its symbiatic relation with teh US has not tried to openly oppose the continuation of greenback as the international currency but then China's political and military ambitions are widely known and sooner or later it would try to impose the yuan or IMF SDR as int currency.In wake of above a global rebalance of power is inevitable..so when obama comes up for re election in 2011....American elections might nt be so important an affair in world politics
Happy Blogging

Budget 2009

http://indiabudget.nic.in/ub2009-10/bh/bh1.pdf
"The best plans of men are bound to fail at the last moment"The Indian Budget 2009 was no exception.As Mr Mukherjee read the budget the stock markets fell like a pack of cards.For record the BSE sensex tumbled by 900 points and NIFTY pulled down by 250 points.Meanwhile the analysts and business people tried to reassure the public that the budget was good and had the ingredients to take the economy back on track.However if markets are taken as a leading indicator of future performance of the eco0nomy..clearly Mr Mukherjee has been given a thumbs down ..

So what was all the hysteria about the budget and is it all that bad?Lets analyse point by point.First lets review the prologue i.e the market and business expectations out of the budget.

As i had pointed out in one of my earlier posts the UPA winning an absolute majority was a historic moment for India..for it Indicated that we could put the reforms back on track..with no Marxists or Jaylalitas of the day playing the spoilsport.As a result with Manmohan leading the government ..the business people and markets had started expecting another revolutionary budget like that of 1990's when Indian economy took its first step towards free market capitalism.This time around markets expected a visionary budget which would put India in another orbit all together.SOme key expectatios were:

• Govt to launch schemes to make India a technological capital of world
• Govt to dilute its stake in PSU Banks
  
• Removing FDI Cap in many sectors
• Direct Stimulus packages for industry in form of massive tax and excise waivers
• Refinancing of PSU Banks to improve the liquidity situation in the markets
• PPP and direct entry of private players in sectors like railways,defence,nuclear power etc
• Increased focus on education both primary and higher
• Steps to increase agricultural productivity and boost rural demand

If you red the budget highlights (included in the link at beginning of the post) we would see that the budget failed in most of the above market expectations and hence the thumbs down by the markets.

However we go for outright criticism of the budget let us see whta Mr Mukherjee has tried to do.The world economy clearly is still in turmoir..things have started improving but not improved yet.The business enviornment needs a kind of stimulus top put it back on track.now there are mainly two ways of doing this:

• Refinance your banks like US to decrease interest rates and flood the markets with money which would increase the incentive for producers and hence lead to job creations and economic reviveal
• Direct spending by government in key infrastructure and other areas to stimulate direct growth

So from the above two which one is better..The answer is ..both..depending on your econmic strengtha nd fiscal performance a combination of both could do wonders for any country.However bare in mind..you need to have the numbers on your side to win the game.If you read the budget draft ..clearly Mr Mukherjee has gone for the second option.He has tried to kill two birds with one bow..solve the socio economic problems of India by increased expenditure on schemes like gramin sadak yojna and bharat nirman etc and at the same time create enough business fro India Inc.

Therfore on the surface the budget looks to be on track..then why such a thumbs down by india Inc.Well to understand thsi lets take a closer look on the budget highlights:

• Mr Mukherjee has clearly forgotten the urgent need for increased expenditure that India needs on infra needs.The onloy blue lining is refinancing of current PPP projects to ensure they are not abandoned.There has not been any major infra announcements like the golden quadrilateral by NDA govt etc
• The budget is focussed more on socio economic upliftment.While this is good but the increased spending on schemes NREGA is not favourable as these schemes are highly inefficient with large leakages.In many cases we have workers not being paid for months together.thus aim of increased spending on socio economic schemes as an aid to economic upliftment stand vanquished
• There is no provision of govt exiting from PSU banks.As a result the liquiduty situation may to continue to remain tight.However the point is arguable and hence we may not take this as a strong red mark in budget
• The budget estimates a fiscal deflicit of 6.85 of GDP as estiamted in budget plan 2009 is too high for any standard.This is mainly due to extravagant spending by govt. on socio economic schemes.To finance these schemes Mr Mukherjee is opting for govt borrwing.This may lead to tightening liquiduty situation in the market with banks investing major chunk of the money in Govt bonds rather tahn lending it to publisc.This is clearly a recipie for disaster which would reduce consumer spending and investments in public sector.As Prem shankar Jha points out in ET "this is a clear recipie for stagflation"

The numbers are clearly no9t in Mr Mukherjee's favour .With a fiscal deflicit of 6.8% and a stranded economy.India might not be attraction of FDI's anymorly.No more FII's sold stocks worth more than 1 lac crore on budget day.The only chance where this budgedt might be able to achieve its objectives is when FDI's take a positive look on India and govt resorts to borrowing from international markets reather than borrowing from domestic makets.Leaving enough liquiduty for domestic industry.

However borrowing from foreign lands is a hazard as we would have to pay interests in precious foreign currency..leaving little room for technological,industrial and natural resource aquisition abroad.however if we are able to put industry back on track we may be able to get additional loans to achieve the above stated facts.

So the budget may have disappointed many of us but you never know..markets always play the dice..if Mr Mukherjee is able to pull this out by foreign borrowing and efficient implementation of socio economic and infra schemse..this might be the revolutionary budget we were looking for

Happy Blogging :)

Awsome July

Over the past few months writing on this blog has been an excellent experience..it has given me a chance to route out my thoughts and processes...I have shared on this blog what I may not have in person with many people...and above all I have enjoyed each moment that I spent writing and reading this blog..(ofcourse I dont think those who read it have the same opinion).Anyways to make the blog more regular I am committing myself to write on the following topics during this month:

1)Indian Budget :A complete ANalysis

2)Cat Season 2009

3)The Clash of the titans

You would notice that there are no more articles related to trading...well I have thought about it for some time and finally decided to amntain two blogs..YES :) I am creating a new blog exclusively related to my tradings..i would be writing on it daily ...to share with you my trades,experience and mistakes..will update u on the same

Happy Blogging :)

Online CAT..another farce by IIMs

Hello everyone..its July and for many budding managers the CAT season has just begun.With more than 2 lakh candidates writing the CAT last year ,it is by far the most difficult,thou8gh not exactly the toughest MBA exam in the world.So with IIMs deciding to take their pet CAT online this year..wat does it mean for an average MBA aspirant and does online cat do what any entrance exam is supposed to do...pick up the good apples from the rotten ones?Lets analyse it all belkow :)

As per the latest notification avaliable on IIM websites..all we know is CAT wont be an adaptive test,neither would the dates be flexible and above all..u wont be able to take the test more than once...so for all of you who were hoping that maybe this year the sentence "it was not my day" would be heard less were just guessing wrong

So IIM's as per their elitist and chauvnist attitude clearly dont want to recognise the fallacies that exist in their entrance structure.With a skewed demand supply ration and a probabilty factor of 0.995 working against any candidate taking the exam ..i would bet there is more luck involved in belling the CAT than trading derivatives or winning a raffel ticket.

Let us first analyse the reasons which put online tests in front seat when compared to written tests:
Easy regulation:Yes boy when the paper says 2 hours thats all you would get nothing more nothing less

Adaptive Test:So maybe you would runh out of luck ..maybe

Secrecy:Yeah no more press leakages and no more need of 5 different set of question papers

multiple Papers: question paper generating programs can generate any no. of papers of same difficulty level from a fixed question paper

And now lets see the disadvantages:
Infrastructure: Oops how will you arrange for 2.3 lac computers

Cost:Yeah those bastards increased the CAF fees to rs 1400 :(..and promise that more is in store

Computer Literacy:Now did Dhirubhai AMbani knew computers when he established reliance..why do iims think all prospective maagers must be computer geeks when they enter IIMs

Inequality:Yeah what if your computer hangs between the test...with kind of infrastructure we have in India..anything is possible :(

So looking at above reasons the only advantage i see of IIMs moving on to the online version of CAT is that they would be able to control leakages more efficiently..which mean incident like repeating CAT in 2003 would be history..Besides that IIMs have failed to move on with aspirations of most candidates..many of whom are frustated because they cant get into IIms because luck has started playing too big a role in CAT ....with RC's DI questions and quant questions of varying difficulties distributed throughout the paper..choosing questions has become more of a play of dice than talent..Seriously its high time that we move on to an adaptive test format in which the computer adjust the difficulty level of paper according to candidates performance to keep the "luck" factor at minimum.

Besides this CAT needs to ove beyond an IQ based paper.Research has shown that a high IQ does not really guarantee a good manager..what is mopre important is a healthy mix of EQ and IQ to become a good manager..CAT has been sticking to the IQ base for a long time now..and "change" is way of life..so before the demand supply ration moves against the IIM's ..its high time they show some leadership and bring innovation in CAT.

Lastly IIms have been established with public money and therfore they need to ensure equal oppurtunity to all sections of society.With rising need of rural infrastructure and rural based industries ..IIMs need to ensure that candiadates from rural sector are bred into modern managers so they cna bring development to the parts of country that need it the most.Online cat just puts all such candidates ..a distant second...and strengthens the preception that corporate carrers and enterprenuersip is only for city boys and girls...cmon nothing could be farther from truth..infact by making CAT an online exam..IIMs are just denying some ppl their fundamental right to equality

Lastly I would just like to say leadership is all about vision ..and ability to see beyond the horizon..by copying others or refusing to keep your whiums and fancies silent..you are not the leader but the "doomed " one

Are the bulls back in action

Since the fatefull Feburary..markets have continued to rally with incrediblt the strength..what began as a bear market rally has shown parlleled by only that of Bull market..it has broken up all the barriers as a bullet flying past thin glass panes...even the bearishst of analysts who professed on the cnbc's and other business channels of the day ..that the rally is nothing more than skeptical of what they are speaking.
The basic rule of a trader who is trading in the markets is that you never argue with the price..for the price is the price and the momentum of the market is the place where you place your bets on..anybody who bets against his horses or thinks he can get better of the markets by detecting tops or bottoms is sucessful in only losing..so even if the macroeconomic picture doesnt look so rosy..even if I said in my earlier posts that this time around economy would have to revive frst and stok market later..even for the wildes reason any sucker could give you..i would just say this BULLS seem to be back :)

Dance Of Democracy or Dynastic Politics

So we have just concluded the biggest democratic exercise in the world.Yes the Indian General Electoins 2009 have come to an end with the results announced this weekend..an appropriate time for me to return to blogging.Before we move on to analyze Elections 2009 and its implications for India let me point out some statistics for the massive just concluded exercise:

714 million eligible voters

60% average turnout

6700 candidates for 542 seats

Looking at the above facts we can all appreciate the massive exercise that these elections were and their smooth conducts is just another piece of evidence regarding the strength of Indian democracy....and this is where the rosy parts over..Now lets analyse the results of elections 2009..

If you are an Indian citizen chances are you must be dipped in the hysteria that the media or the Congress mouthpieces have created all over the country.Congress has given one of its best performance in decades..crossing the 200 seat mark after a long time...and yes the Indian stock markets and whos who of India Inc gave it a thumbs up with a 2000 point rally at BSE Sensex...for many believe that the end of so called coalation era will bring in more stability and faster reforms back in the country..and yes they couldnt be more right..For whoever comes to power between BJP or Congress.,one thing is clear ..the governance and politics would be much better and professional than the government run at pity of castists or so called followers of Marx and Lenin.(PS:I am a big fan of communism but our leaders just dont understand whats it all about)

So a government with almost absolute majority with one of worlds best economist heading it..so far so good .But as I had mentioned in one of my earlier posts,these elections will determine whether we can succesfully tide over current global crisis and if we would become a world leader and superpower in this century.

To achieve all above we certainly need a party with absolute majority butalso we need men with capability and ideology to achieve it and looking around Congress is certainly not the party to do so.Congress certainly has some excellent politicians who can feel the pulse of people and bring forth the issues that can garner tha maximum votes..but thats it..they lack the conviction ,capabilty and dedication to resolve those issues.Infact looking historicaly Congress has always been a party that has been able to mobalize the masses ..project a friendly face but do nothing more...Lal Bahadur Shastri spoke of "kisan"(peasant) and "jawan"(soldier) but didnt do anything..Indira Gandhi was able to create a preception of people friendly party with slogans like "Garibi Hatao" etc but is responsible for more than quarters today's problems from suitcase caste politics..and more than anything she killed the very essence of Indian Democracy by making Congress something which could be willed as a Nehru Gandhi asset..Congress had tonnes of capable people ..yet rajiv had to become the PM because he had that Gandhi name with him and similarly when Congress began losing ground to BJP..Mrs Gandhi had to come and bring back the Congress into a single piece and now we are talking of Rahul Gandhi as the most capable person present in India to lead the country..Really its a pity with toones of IIT..IIM passouts..brilliants of bright college grads..and dedicated youth so burning with desire to reform the country and lead it into the new millenium..a billion plus people could only find Rahul Gandhi...i question his very capability of becoming a cabinet minister..let alone leading the country....Yes,the only qualification he has is that he seems to be member of Nehru Gandhi family.The problem with us Indians is that we have become so used to being ruled ..first by Moghuls..then Bristishers and now Gandhis ..that we just cant appreciate the idea of democracy or perhaps the fact that we have the power to govern our selves....we always look for an icon ..to satiate our desires to live in the era of yore and have smbdy lead us and make our lives miserable...

So we are back to dynasty politics and it might take us ages before we get out of it..No I am not exagerating..look around you ..Sri Lanka blah blah..there are tonnes of examples.

Besides dynastic politics what other things make Congress a bad choice?Well leaders..years of infighting and being led by a single family has left congress without any leaders..it has a lot of "chamchas" who wont dare to call Mrs Gandhi anything else than Madam even in their dreams..people who desire to enjoy power and everything that comes with it by chanting the names of Gandhi scion and his mother like vedic hymns...When I look arounf I hardly find any person capable of matching the NDA leaders..people of callibre like Jaitley or Arun Shourie ..Narendra Modi..Sushma Swaraj..Murli Maohar Joshi...the list is just endless..

Thirdly in this transition times we need a leader capable of taking strong decisions ..not a person capable of buying time..Dr Manmohan Singh..with all due respect to him is certainly an economist par excellence and a much better human being but does all that make a good prime miinster..Were Roosevalt or Churchills excellent academicains or Nobel scholars..no the job doesnt require that ..we need a person with nerves of steel and backing his own decision and no I am not referring to Mr Advani..hes no better than Dr Singh..Yes I am referring to Mr Modi..killer..castist..dats wat all of you are saying..maybe you are correct but look at Gujrat and the development he has been able to do there..the charisma he has been able to create among the youth..hes certainly the best capable person of leading India..anyways I'll discuss all this in my next post.

Fourthly lets see at Congress' performance during the past 5 years and compare it with NDA govt earlier.Remember both had to deal with nusicance of colation members..but while one was led by the charismatic Vajpayee the other by one of the "chamchas" of nehru gandhi family..the so called rubber stamp..While NDA sucessfully won Kargil ..was able to implement golden quadrilateral project..went ahead with tax reforms and bring resolution of Indo CHina and Indo Pak matters closer and sucessfuly foster the relations in BRIC countries ..the only notable achievment of Congress was the right to Information Act...besides that it was able to put fwd a lot of schemes to plese the popular masses to reaffirm their belief that Congress is "aam admi" party but BJP is "lala party"..Congress is Secular but BJP communist...yes it strategised well and is reaping the awards but preceptions are hardly true..the teorists have the preception that they are doing Islam good by killing infidels..but is that true.

So clearly looking at above..I really cant understand what the cheer is all about,Are all Indians just puppets of Congress Mouthpieces showing rahul as the new age youth leader or Indo Nuclear deal as the historic moment...Politics is all about preceptoin and nobody understands it better than congress..they can play cheap politics and killd democracy ..use article 383 when they like and appoint a president who can never be anything more than a rubber stamp..

Trading Crude

Hmm so the bulls are still going sharp..we have had one of the major rallies that stil shows no sign of stopping..atleast till now.Among all the commmodities crude has shown the maximum movement and is a traders delight.So wats my take on crude.Well crude crossed the psychological barrier of $50/bbl and has sustained above this level.This is a very bullish sign.The 100 day ema STANDS AT $53/bbl and this provides a strong resistance.We tried to unsucessfully make the crossove and if the rally in equities subsides on Monday crude might well be below $50.So at this point I would be watching the external markets along with Euro for taking positional trades in crude.A major rally in equities would signal continuance of bullishness in markets.And once crude crosses $53.25 i am bullish on it with a profit taking level of atleast $2.On the macroecnomic sides the continuance of mixed data fails to provide any signal.US recession seems to be deepening but increase in UK housing rates provide mixed signals.With summers appoaching there would be decreasde in heating oil requirments and until we see strong macro economic data coming ,bears hold the hammer.The MAy-June crude spread is widening signalling lack of liquidity in the market still persists.I'll be watching gulf barge basis to see if there any freight reduction to go short in this spread.So crude like always is going to be volatile but still if markets open down on monday i would be short at current levels with stop loss of $0.50 ie above$53.25
Happy trading

Resurgence.....

The past week has seen resurgeince in world markets.The World Market Indiex has progressed the most in the past 10 years,with both equity and commodity markets rallyiong with incredible strength.Part of the reason of this strong rally is of course short covering ...but is the rally that we are seeing just a bearish short covering one or have we seen the worst and the present rally signals the end of world economic crisis.

To answer the question we need to analyse the analyse the reasons for our falling into the situation.It doesnt require an einstine to figure out that one of the major reasons of this economic slump was the high indebtness of major economies around the world which were crippled with the burst of the housing bubble that was hithertho financing the relatively high standards of living in developed counteries.This fact was coupled by the fact that most developed counteries had stop becoming major producers of goods and services and their economies remained boyant on debt,and strong technological base.The recession is infact the answer of economic cycle to rebalance the equations and allow for the paridgm shift in world power and economy.

A close analysis at past recessions shows that almost all recessions start with tightness in liquidity conditoins and deepen with decreasing consumer confidence which leads to decreased initiative to produce and thus a viscious circle which only stops when we achieve bargain prices in goods and services that makes it almost irresistable to keep money in bank accounts.

Therfore if we are coming out of recession the leading indicators that we should look at are:

1)Decreased Bond Yields

2)Increased Retail Sales world over

3)Increased consumer confidence

4)decrease in job losses or creation of jobs

Lets see how what these indicators suggest in the present scenario.With the FED's announcement of pumping about 1 trillion dollars in the bond markets have responded in a mixed manner with bond yields falling but not as much as the FED targeted

Next we have seen a mixed bag of data in retail sales while US saw a sudden jump in retails ASIAN economies particularly Japan still report -ve nos.Infact the increased retail sales in US may just be a temporary phenomena with all economies across the world still reeling under pressure

Above all we still remain bearish on job losses and consumer confidence but things are improving

So the leading indicators give us a mixed picture with no definate stand.Therfore let us probe the matter a bit deeper.Fundamentally if we are to come out of the mess its important that money be avaliable for the businesses to run their operations and for people to buy goods.THe FED might pump as much money as it wants in economy but it wiuld be useless as long as it continues to come back to it via way of bond investments by banks insted of being disbusrsed to public and business.In this respect we are still far behind,while the US seems to be doing a good job by asking and taking steps for banks to disburse more ECB hasnt taken any such steps.

Secondly we cant come out of this recession till theres a marked improvement in consumer confidence which will happen only if there is decrease in job losses.You could have loans at 0% in market but nobody will take them until they are sure of continuing their jobs which can be made possible by increased capital expenditure by governments and decreased corporate taxes etc.

So far we are not really seeing any improvement in any of the above with only gradual improvement.If Obama succeeds in persuading banks to lend more we might see the first rays of revival in ecomnomy by mid June and prevent further deepening of recession but until then we are still in recession and would move to depression if nothing is done either by way of channelising funds or direct expenditure on infra,power,technology etc by government and as far as markets are concerned ..they wont revive until conditions are bullish :)

Dance of Democracy 2

So we are racing ahead in time.As elections are coming closer.we see the dance party stronger..the lions ,tigers and mice are all coming out of their hiding places to dance to the tunes of power.Shame is becoming shameless and power more addictful than ever.

The week so far has shown that we might be on a way of a strong hung assembly and at the mercy of the Mayawatis and Sharad Pawars of the day.Strange thing about India is we have leaders but no body to lead..every person thinks he is capable of leading the nation..nobody wants to be a follower.Following is just so much out of fashion.PEople like Sharad power are already affirming their long known desire of becoming the PM and playing the king maker should the need so arise

So we have seen all sorts of drama in this musical till now.A gandhi scion trying to follow his fathers footsteps and invoking hindu wrath for muslims and then in typical bollywood style accusing tapes to be doctored.We saw the old dance for power when Sharad YAdav invoked the MArath CM thinng..and ofcourse howcan we forget the power plays going on everywhere....congress was known to fall to lowest level possible to grab power but gues what "the party with difference" is no different now...for the first time perhaops  the party of indifference..its aligning itself with every possible coalation to grab power.For the first time perhaps BJP would be fighting elections without an ideological framework to satisfy the whims of an old guard who can lift the weights in a gym to shw that he is "youthful" and can lead the country in 21st century.

So as we see we are almost complete with the backstage preperation of this drama..tickets have ben allocated..bookies made candidates...infighting started..price of MP's decided and soon we would have the real thing started ..so keep following this column to know more abt this greatest drama enacted evcery five years on earth......for fact is much more stranger than fiction....

Happy electioning :)

Dance Of Democracy-1

Its March and we are just a breath away from the biggest democratic exercise in the world-the Indian General Election.More than 700 million voters would exercise their right to franchise in this general election to choose a government that would sail the country out of murky global waters in the next 5 years.These could well be the historic elections that would define the destiny of many of those who are reading this blog.We are in times of change and how effective leadership we choose at this point would determine our future for the next century.With US gradually slipping into depressin I find more similarity in this time with the time of WW 2 when Britain was finally overthrown as the world leader by US.So can India or China do what US did about 60 years ago..time will tell.

Important as they are,the dance of democracy has already started.We are living in an era of crony politics where everything from election comissoins to voters can be bought or sold.The appointment of Naveen Chawla as the CEC for admnistering the current elections is nothing more than the murder of our democratic ideals and rape of the indian polity and constitution.Sure enough Congress has never hidden its contempt for democracy.It has shrouded itself in dynastic politics for a long time.Names are given more importance than talent.Right from election of Indira to rajiv and then entry of Sonia ..congress has mocked at the Indian voter.The emergency..and frequent use of president's rule by congress for petty political gains has already put us atleast 50 years back..and now Congress does another low by appointing a pro Congress officer to rig General Elections 2009 in its favour.Were 50 years of rule not enough for the Gandhi-Nehru family that they had to do this to offer a perfect platform for their scion--Rahul.

The problem is not that Naveen chawla..who has been in controversy for being pro congress throughout his career,could rig the elections but the fact that such an election could set a bad precedent for future with governments manipulting ,the once prestigious and neutral election comssion for electoral gains.The results could be disastorous..with eventual weakening of democratic ideals.Infact Election comission was one of the last bapstons in which Indian public entrusted their faith after faliure of judicial and executive systems of the state.If seeing judges being bribed on national television was not enough we now have an open manipulation of election comssion.

Logic defies the fact that why did the government decide to continue with Chawla after the majopr opposition party as wella s the current CEC raised hue and cry over his neutrality .Even if we give Chawla the ebnefit of doubt ,still the indian eections are worth much more than the career of a beuraucrate shrouded in controversy.

Well as I said the dance of democracy has started..and still much more awaits us.Faxt is stranger than fiction and you see this no better than here..welcome to Indian Democracy.Politicians,criminals,industrialists,moey bags,government officials have all started dancing to the tune of power..nay they are intoxicated..the question can the Indian public despite all odds see this dance/and deliver a government which not only uphoalds our moral and democratic ideals but would be able to not only pull us but the word out of the murky waters where we sail now.If we cant ,we dont ahve any right to crib as we always do..

The Followup to short it

Markets are getting deadlier and for those who can mantain the neutrality between both sides of market there is abundance of money to be looted.Yes I mean neutrality between the long and short sides of the market.So we have broken 2600 in NIFTY.As mentioned earlier 2600 wasn't expected to give much resistance and it didnt.

So we are finally going down with full steam,even the rate cuts failed to halt the downward spike.So where are we headed,thats the million dollar question everybody's asking.And the answer is we dont know..and u dont need to know that in order to earn ur bread and butter in markets.We just need to be with the major trend which is indeed downwards...but its easier said than done..shorting shares near lows..most public wud rather think of buying ...and thats why most people lose in markets.

Anyway as far as my calculations go based on 1929 model,I feel we cant have the bottoming out of market until DOW hits 5800..and after that we might consolidate around 2800-3000 levels ..but then markets exaggerate for a longer time than sanity would let us believe.

For tomorrows trading we could expect some short covering by the shorts who had initiated new position this week but overall the bearish forces seem so strong that I dont think it would impact markets in a major manner.So if you have the guts I still feel u have time to enter and make new shorts.....

Happy Trading

Short it....

So all the confirmations that we were looking for have come.The fall of Dow today by 200 points gives me just the weekness I was looking for.The ugly days of range play and bottoming are over and for NIFTY traders the tape is shouting..short me.We are very close to 2600 and I have this strong feel that it wont offer any strong resistance from here on.
So there a strong bear run and the stocks that look weakest would offer the least resistance.My take is to trade on NIFTY puts and chota NIFTY if you dont have any shorts till now.RIL,looks weak and midcaps will fall the most because most blue chips will start trading at low prices and offer excellent valuations.
So we are once again in a bear run and one thing to remember in a bear run is to remain bearish always.So hold your positions tight till market starts loosing steam and I am looking atleast another 1000 pts fall on DOW before I strt booking profits.Why 1000pts? Well we are in a depression...history repeats and it shows no better than on Wall Street.Obama is doing the same mistakes that American Presidents did in the past.Protectionism,traiffs etc all this will put the economy deep in recession and so can now easily compare the stock market movements during 1929 depression and that of now.
During 1929 the DoW fell by about 89% of its peak..considering the same the markets should touch abot 4800..taking some measures like injection of liquidity we can expect DOW to show some resistance at 5800.Another indicator I am looking at is historical grain prices..but I am still working on that and would keep you updated as soon as I complete..if anybody has historical data regarding wheat prices during 1929-1933 please maile me @trehan.sumeet1@gmail.com

So till that time hyappy trading...:)

Trading The Nifty

As I promised this blog is just not going to be about pilitics and economics alone,infact I am gong to write here whatever comes to my mind.(I am sorry if any reader is disappointed by my not sticking to a particular topic ,but then this is the beauty of "The Other Way")

Anyways lets get to the point..Dows breaking again after yesterdays of about 270 points and is running back to 1997 lows as I write this blog.Obama has clearly appointed the markets with not making any concrete announcements.Indecision is worse than decison and markets who better to teach you that the markets.To me if Dow doesnt manage to pull back today,it is nothing more than the tape shouting to short the NIFTY.Indian markets have stood firm till now but when everythings falling it would be difficult for markets to hold the head high.

The evaluations look fantastic at this time,with many companies being undervalued..this might be the right time to enter the markets if you have a longer term prespective atleast 2 years ,but then the job of a speculator is different than that of an investor,who is concerned mainly with ensuring a constant return on his monies while a speculator want to earn quicker profit by following the trends of the market.So far this is concerned ,NIFTY is looking very weak if it breaks the 2600 level.Therfore if NIFTy breaks 2600 we might see the last downside of this bear run...the last exaggeration which is so characterstics of bulls and bear cycles.Yes markets exaggerate,but for a speculator no price is too high to buy and no low too sell
At the same time if NIFTY returns back from these levels and breaks 2800 tomm. I would take it as a confirmation of bottoming out of the market.At the macro economic level,the interest rates seem to be softening and a good agricultural output might be able to stimulate demand but for rest nothing is too positive.Bewre the bottoming out of market does not indicate that the bull run has started.For there would be large consolidation phase when markets would remain range bound and only when macro ecomo,ic fundamentals improve and their is "money" to be diverted in the markets that a bull phase would actually start.Meanwhile either play in range or stay outside..Happy trading

Shoba De and Economics

This Sunday morning as I picked up my copy of TOI ..after a cursory glance at the front and business pages(like hinid news channels their are only select newspapers which produce journalism worth mentioning today)and then turned to my faviourite page..the editorial.For all its flaws I admired TOI for its edits with some of best and most respected Indian personalities writing in it.And guess what TOI disappointed me even on this front..for what I saw on the page was nothing more than a hilarious joke on the intelligence of TOI readers...Shoba De,the self proclaimed socialite and author,whose works include nothing more than sex and relationships had decided to give "gyan" to Indian junta on interim budget and current economic crisis.
After muttering some thoughts ,I proceeded to read the article..and guess what Ms De didnt disappoint me.What followed was a foolish writeup on interim budget with sexist statements and double meanings to entertain the reader.
Consider "and Mr Mukherjee failed to pull it up .......and tried to show he can do it again.."
I think if TOI needed someone to comment on interim budget ,it shouldnt have been facing such a crisis call that it had to resort to Ms De.
Anyways I am not against her style of writing but the opinions,the are naive and foolish.She talks about money not doled out in budget,how can it be ,in a democratic setup it would be foolish to tie the new government with policies of old.For it would be difficult and expensive for any new government to take away the tax sops or do a U turn in public policy and if it doesnt that might just be against a public mandate..and to top it up all foreign investors fear any U turns in policy..such actions just push down the markets (remember how markets reacted when UPA -Left combine were to assume power in 2004..fearing a U turns in reforms initiated by NDA regime).Infact Ms De I think that UPA had done a brilliant job by fine balancing the fiscal need s of the country and at the same time mantaining the status quo and respecting our democratic iderals
So next time TOI needs a budgetry write up..it might invite Mr Bachan or Mr Rushdie..after all TOI readers are naive and foolish ready to be led up ...atleast this is how TOI feels

"the other way"

All right so I have finally made a blog and forced many of my friends to read it (yeah no body has read it till date of his own free will).I have got some terrible feedback and probably I wont like to write it over here...for I dont want to scare the pretty souls who have come here with "great expectations".Anyways one question thats constantly being asked is why "the other way"

Well to be honest I am not a person who likes to move with the flow,I have my own reasons and take a stand based on what my reasons say and not what the popular stand is.So u might just find me advocating reservation (ofcourse after I am done with all my admission process..:) )or saying socialism is better than free markets (if that statement moves the markets down and I am well short of it )and blah blah blah....Anyways jokes apart,whenever I tried writing for so called neutral magazines and newspapers my articles and letters were trimmed down ,content sacrificed at the altar of editorial predjudice.,...so here i present to the world my mouthpiece which is completely uncensored and highly predjudiced...i would try to use this forum to speak my heart out and show to the world the other side of coin (nay coins) ,try to force you to think (if you are not foolish like me) beyond the conventional....and so i present to you "the other way" a blog with a lot of contrarian calls (fools join me,intelligent shun me)....so happy blogging..happy reading

The Farce called MNC's

"BIG IS BETTER" thats what they used to say..nay they still say.Ever since we stopped believing in Gandhian principles of small scale industeries as a tool of poverty alleviation,we as a nation have been trying to furiously be a nation of MNC's..the american way.We have tried it all..provided trade protectionalism and become a model of inefficiency for the world.Then we went for the so called reforms(were they?)in 1990's but India still continues to grapple with the same problems of low rates of poverty alleviation and continues to be a nation of have and havenot's

The current financial turmoil provides an oppurtunity in darkness to take remedial steps that would have been considered franatical and sucidal to say the least just a few months ago.For the first time we can ask ourselves that at this crossroad should we as a nation continue to promote the MNC culture insted of investing in small scale industeries and agriculture which are considered a much better way of employment generation and wealth distribution.

Some economists argue that big industeries help the growth of the nation by providing a means of using distributed wealth over the mass of population and creating employment,infrastructure and standards of efficiency unthinkable otherwise.

While the above might be true to some extent but overtime the advantages of the so called big corporations become their biggest drawbacks.Consider efficeincy for example..i can remember talking with my manager at TATA MOTORS how the process of buying a simple lathe machine costs the company about twice of any small scale company..u had to go through set channels..so called systems and then inevitably their is payout to company officials (yes corruption is not limited to governments alone and not to Indian companies alone...this is the hard truth).If big corporations were so efficient why would "outsourcing" have become the buzzword today??

Yes I know what all of you would be thinking till now..if their would be no MNC's who could take all those big infrastructure projects and what about all the R&D these companies do.Well, let me spill you a secret,if we had no MNC's we wouldnt have required all that infrastructure.Its like the proverbial viscious circle whose solutions are the problems.Consider for example the massive money put in by private corporatoins in retail and reality sectors.If we had a good enough agriculture and small scale industrial set-up there wouldnt have been the problem of massive urbanisation and assosciated enviornmental damage that is plaguing our world today.Insted we would have an equi-developmental model implemented with relatively little difference between urban and rural incomes..something all counteries are trying to develop...and the benefits...social stabilty,lower crime and increased development..can our MNC culture beat that??

Another point of ten raised in favour of big corporations is that MNC's help in channelising money towards R&D efforts and they help in utilizing the natural efficiencies of a country (outsourcing in India?or manufacturing in China?>)to maximum extent possible.Nothing could be further from truth...the biggest inventions of our times have been the result of direct or indirect government programs.The internet was invented at CERN,a research program funded by European nations,the atomic power was discovered by US government sponsored programs,the latesttechnologies GPS,supercomputing have all been developed at government funded research institutes or universities across the world.Infact the MNC's have been only been successful in goppling up the massive research subsidies doled out by governments and exploiting the developed technologies..which in the long rin has only led to environmental and social destruction (remember children working at NIKE factories in China or Coke selling pesticide laced soft drinks in India or companies selling GM seeds eventually trying to control food chain)

No, i am not a jehadi,advocating dissolution of all these MNC's rather I am just asking to relook our equations in a bid to ensure that these giants do not become so large that they sink in the whole financial ,social and economic system with them just like a black hole sinks under its own weight.Infact if we were to do some detailed analysi the graph of corporation size and social growth would be in the shape of an inverted parabola with the peak at about medium sized industeries.

So what do we do now..first of all trim all the big companies so that any future faliure of one organisation wont lead to faliure of the whole system.Second develop a model which encourages youth to embark on enterprenural ventures rather than seeking fat pay packages.Statistically this could lead to increased job creation and wealth distribution,something for which the state exists.Third the government needs to spend heavily on research and have a better patent regime to support these industeries..

Ah ll this and we may just hope that another economic depressoin wont happen..atleast in our lifetiem