The recent IIP numbers are in the downward trend. Analyst are citing these are temporary set backs, comparison to high base numbers (IIP data) from last year, and global slow down.
Crude has touched $135 and Indian basket is around $122. With OIL marketing companies making a loss of Rs16/- and Rs27/- per liter of petrol and diesel and Rs320/- (approx) per LPG cylinder, I wonder if there is any more stem left! BPCL and HPCL are talking of quota set of each individual oil distributor based on the sales last year.
There was a BRIC report sometime back, now people are talking about report by a Goldman Sachs analyst who predicted that crude will touch $200.
Government is doing well by artificially controlling the prices but this is not a permanent measure, they should be doing (I hope) more than this. They should explore various methods of transferring the crude burden partly to consumers who can afford it and at the same time not impacting the inflation. They have to selectively subsidize the core functions of economy from the crude burden but leave the affluent class (and the emerging middle class) to pay for their petrol bill. By core functions I mean transportation of industrial goods, power generations etc.
Rupee surged to all time high of around 39.5 w.r.t $ and it is back to 43.5, thanks to high crude import bill.
Indian agriculture growth statistics are not exciting, this coupled with shrinking land under irrigation, dismal condition of Indian farmers and unpredictable nature of monsoon only indicate that situation is going to get worse.
Though it is projected that the wheat production is set to increase but I am not really sure it would be able to satisfy the ever increasing need of growing economy. And what about wheat production for coming years! Do we have plan for that in the pipeline or we are just relying on the monsoons of those respective years.
Not only agriculture, other building blocks of economy, capital goods, power sector, inland transport and ports & harbor infrastructure, all of these need significant investments, I wonder how government will fund these requirements.
Recently there was a news that Thailand was planning a cartel of ‘Rice Exporting Nations’ and there was a huge cry among the international community. I feel the way OPEC is able to monopolize the Crude market; the day is not far where the other commodity producing nation will form the other sorts of cartel and the world will again move back to the barter system.
Friday, 23 May 2008
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
P.P.
Remember the term!!! What comes to your mind when you read this title?
This was very prevalent term in my childhood days. I have sympathy to this term that has lost its existence in the rapidly growing Indian economy. The changes in Indian lifestyle may not have been really significant but when it comes to this technology, it has been drastic. I am trying to steal some time before I start discussing about the term, just trying to give you sometime to start thinking in back of your mind about this term. If you are able to recollect, it’s great and if not, then this will provide more impact to the next paragraph where I have given some sort of tribute to this ‘not so frequently’ used term nowadays, and I have complete sympathy for it.
It used to be an acronym for non-personal phone number. The local language full-form used to be “Padosi Phone”. Now you realize how abandoned this term has become. With the increasing number of mobile phone connections day-by-day, still reducing tariffs and increasing competition in the market, everyone has a mobile,
Monday, 21 April 2008
Earth Day
Thanks to the autorickshaw strike, I took my vehicle to the office. Later I realized that today is earth day (thanks to google), and I thought I should have used public transport instead. It’s a separate story that all the public transport buses are overcrowded today, again because of auto-rickshaw strike.
I also started thinking am I doing something from my side to reduce my carbon footprint. ‘Carbon footprint’ a nice term coined by some nice people who care for the planet. But how many of us are actually aware of this. Rather how many of us actually bother about the same. I believe the time has come for all of us to move upwards, those who are aware should start bothering and those who are not aware should develop awareness.
I am not a environmentalist, but I can certainly recollect few of the past events that was lucky enough to have given coverage by media.
· There were non seasonal rain in some part of Delhi, TN (or Andra).
· India is facing huge shortage of food grains, should be worldwide problem
· There was a recent fight between two Indian states regarding setting of one water project
· Drought in Australia….. I mean Rice production (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/business/worldbusiness/17warm.html)
· And everyone know about melting of glaciers
· And many others that I am not probably aware of….
If you pull out some of your precious time and think about all these events together they indicate one and one thing – a global imbalance.
Once I was watching discovery and I remember the episode focused on new buildings that are ecofriendly – they require less lights inside and are well lit by sunlight during the day, they recirculate the water used etc.
You already must be aware Honda is testing hydrogen powered car somewhere, tata has launched green batteries, two days back there was news that India’s largest private sector company was probably in talks with world largest fuel cell manufacturer to set up a plant in India….. so that means people are doing some stuff around cutting down emissions, partly because it gives huge publicity, partly it readies you for what can become a necessity in future and partly (I hope) morally as they have the right resources with them (capital, manpower, technology etc.)
At the same time I also believe time has come that we ourselves change our daily activities to an extent that we are able to reduce our own carbon footprint. How do we do that, I leave it to individuals.
I also started thinking am I doing something from my side to reduce my carbon footprint. ‘Carbon footprint’ a nice term coined by some nice people who care for the planet. But how many of us are actually aware of this. Rather how many of us actually bother about the same. I believe the time has come for all of us to move upwards, those who are aware should start bothering and those who are not aware should develop awareness.
I am not a environmentalist, but I can certainly recollect few of the past events that was lucky enough to have given coverage by media.
· There were non seasonal rain in some part of Delhi, TN (or Andra).
· India is facing huge shortage of food grains, should be worldwide problem
· There was a recent fight between two Indian states regarding setting of one water project
· Drought in Australia….. I mean Rice production (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/business/worldbusiness/17warm.html)
· And everyone know about melting of glaciers
· And many others that I am not probably aware of….
If you pull out some of your precious time and think about all these events together they indicate one and one thing – a global imbalance.
Once I was watching discovery and I remember the episode focused on new buildings that are ecofriendly – they require less lights inside and are well lit by sunlight during the day, they recirculate the water used etc.
You already must be aware Honda is testing hydrogen powered car somewhere, tata has launched green batteries, two days back there was news that India’s largest private sector company was probably in talks with world largest fuel cell manufacturer to set up a plant in India….. so that means people are doing some stuff around cutting down emissions, partly because it gives huge publicity, partly it readies you for what can become a necessity in future and partly (I hope) morally as they have the right resources with them (capital, manpower, technology etc.)
At the same time I also believe time has come that we ourselves change our daily activities to an extent that we are able to reduce our own carbon footprint. How do we do that, I leave it to individuals.
Wednesday, 9 April 2008
Cricket League
ICL has already completed few matches, IPL matches are schedule to start very shortly and I was once thinking that it can very easy for any influential person to do Match-Fixing in these kind of scenario.
Given the different stakeholder in international matches, different authorities, different cultures, different languages and different sentiments, even then if people are able to do match-fixing for international matches……… in national league its anyone’s game.
Anyway, I am not convinced that cricket league in India is focused on nurturing new talent…. I think it is a factory to generate cash.
Government should levy a tax on BCCI, and the amount should be used for development of other cash-deprived sports in India.
Given the different stakeholder in international matches, different authorities, different cultures, different languages and different sentiments, even then if people are able to do match-fixing for international matches……… in national league its anyone’s game.
Anyway, I am not convinced that cricket league in India is focused on nurturing new talent…. I think it is a factory to generate cash.
Government should levy a tax on BCCI, and the amount should be used for development of other cash-deprived sports in India.
Monday, 24 March 2008
A "Star-full" Sky
This is about my recent visit to my hometown in Rajasthan. With my limited vocabulary I am not able to find the right set of words to describe my feeling. I was not only visiting my hometown after eight long years, but also I was about to visit rather stay in the house that we built eight years ago and did not get a chance to really stay there. I was surprised to see a lot more of open spaces replaced by houses (Bungalows), many branded stores but the same cramped roads, thanks to a lot more of traffic.
Cutting the long story short, what I want to discuss here is the feeling when I looked at the sky in the night. To my surprise it was full of stars, can you believe it? May be, you can but I couldn’t. I am not very sure if it was very stupid of me, feeling extremely happy after looking at the “Star-full Sky” (A sky full of stars!).
There may be multiple reasons for that. May be people in Bombay do not get the sufficient share of their sky-window to look at the stars. Or they do not just get the time to stare at the sky. OR they can not just find stars in the sky because of the pollution that Mumbai has and by the evening the atmosphere is covered under a thick layer of pollution that even if you want, you can not find a star. You can only see the moon because that is too bright as compared to the stars. The reason can be any or all of them.
After recuperating from the sudden feeling of joy, I realized that even the sky at that time was not really the sky I had seen eight years back at the same place. So may be the pollution factor is still there in this small city which in fact is one of the emerging industrial cities in Rajasthan.
Does that mean after that the visible number of stars are going to reduce with the time and only the more bright ones will be able to sustain the attack of pollution? Is goes by saying – it’s a cut-throat competition only the bright candidates will be able to manage it in the long run. If you are not bright, you can not be sight(ed).
Does it further mean that the stars in the sky will one day become countable? No longer will it be used as an example of countless by a poet, no longer it can puzzle a child trying to count the stars…… Just No Longer!
I desperately wanted to act like poet not because I love to, but because it is always the poet who pen down the unimaginable and in case this happen I wanted to capture the same.
Who knows that in the years to come “star-full” will become a frequently used metaphor.
Cutting the long story short, what I want to discuss here is the feeling when I looked at the sky in the night. To my surprise it was full of stars, can you believe it? May be, you can but I couldn’t. I am not very sure if it was very stupid of me, feeling extremely happy after looking at the “Star-full Sky” (A sky full of stars!).
There may be multiple reasons for that. May be people in Bombay do not get the sufficient share of their sky-window to look at the stars. Or they do not just get the time to stare at the sky. OR they can not just find stars in the sky because of the pollution that Mumbai has and by the evening the atmosphere is covered under a thick layer of pollution that even if you want, you can not find a star. You can only see the moon because that is too bright as compared to the stars. The reason can be any or all of them.
After recuperating from the sudden feeling of joy, I realized that even the sky at that time was not really the sky I had seen eight years back at the same place. So may be the pollution factor is still there in this small city which in fact is one of the emerging industrial cities in Rajasthan.
Does that mean after that the visible number of stars are going to reduce with the time and only the more bright ones will be able to sustain the attack of pollution? Is goes by saying – it’s a cut-throat competition only the bright candidates will be able to manage it in the long run. If you are not bright, you can not be sight(ed).
Does it further mean that the stars in the sky will one day become countable? No longer will it be used as an example of countless by a poet, no longer it can puzzle a child trying to count the stars…… Just No Longer!
I desperately wanted to act like poet not because I love to, but because it is always the poet who pen down the unimaginable and in case this happen I wanted to capture the same.
Who knows that in the years to come “star-full” will become a frequently used metaphor.
Monday, 24 September 2007
Twenty20
One day I was chatting with my friends and someone pointed out that we (India) stand nowhere in soccer. Someone else made a point that cricket is not as famous as soccer, for e.g. there are around 200 countries having soccer teams but only around 20 countries playing cricket. Someone also said that cricket was once included in Asian games but again dropped after that. What can be the reasons of cricket not making it to the masses?
I will not be presenting any facts in this blog to support the reasons I have thought of. So before you comment that the blog is not factually supported , I want to tell you that I do not (generally can not) remember the important historical events/facts that will help the cause called ‘cricket’.
Well I know cricket was invented in England (I hope I am correct here). The other big nations playing cricket is India, Pakistan, Australia, Sri Lanka, New Zealand Bangladesh etc. All these nations were once the colonies of British Empire, so you can sense the origin of this game in these countries. But then why it did not spread like soccer?
I can think of the reason as the game time rather ‘play time’. It takes a complete day to end a single match of cricket as compared to soccer that takes max 2 hours. We know it was only the test match format with which cricket came into existence. Over the period of years people saw ODI coming into play. The ODIs also started with 60 over per innings, gradually it decreased to 50. Now we are seeing the Twenty20 format reducing the complete play time to 3 hours. So the format of the game is gradually shifting towards what people want rather what people can afford. ‘Afford’ here I mean, not in terms of money but in terms of time. Do we have enough of time to watch a game of cricket a complete day, probably we (the cricket playing nations) have but can we think that people in a country (which do not play cricket) will push for a game that takes a complete day to end. I think no!.
The point I am trying to make here is Twenty20 is here to stay and as it stays it will make the cricket a new fever not only in the cricket playing nations but also in other countries as well in the time to come. I guess this year Asian games have already included this format in their games list. Let us see how long this 20-20 fever takes to become a full endemic disease.
I will not be presenting any facts in this blog to support the reasons I have thought of. So before you comment that the blog is not factually supported , I want to tell you that I do not (generally can not) remember the important historical events/facts that will help the cause called ‘cricket’.
Well I know cricket was invented in England (I hope I am correct here). The other big nations playing cricket is India, Pakistan, Australia, Sri Lanka, New Zealand Bangladesh etc. All these nations were once the colonies of British Empire, so you can sense the origin of this game in these countries. But then why it did not spread like soccer?
I can think of the reason as the game time rather ‘play time’. It takes a complete day to end a single match of cricket as compared to soccer that takes max 2 hours. We know it was only the test match format with which cricket came into existence. Over the period of years people saw ODI coming into play. The ODIs also started with 60 over per innings, gradually it decreased to 50. Now we are seeing the Twenty20 format reducing the complete play time to 3 hours. So the format of the game is gradually shifting towards what people want rather what people can afford. ‘Afford’ here I mean, not in terms of money but in terms of time. Do we have enough of time to watch a game of cricket a complete day, probably we (the cricket playing nations) have but can we think that people in a country (which do not play cricket) will push for a game that takes a complete day to end. I think no!.
The point I am trying to make here is Twenty20 is here to stay and as it stays it will make the cricket a new fever not only in the cricket playing nations but also in other countries as well in the time to come. I guess this year Asian games have already included this format in their games list. Let us see how long this 20-20 fever takes to become a full endemic disease.
Monday, 2 July 2007
Fun but flawed
This is regarding a TV ad, so if you don’t get time to watch TV then this blog will not be interesting to you. Fevicol, has been very innovative in bringing up TV Ads and I find those Ads very funny, anyway the Ads are able to get the viewer’s attention.
The specific Ad I am talking about is the one where two aliens, standing on their spaceship, land over a village. They then announce that they will make everything fly in the air. Some four hose arms then come out of the spaceship and dig into the ground. Slowly everything seems to be flying like there was no gravity at all. And this everything involves cow, men, household equipment, radio etc. Then one of the flying man grabs a flying Fevicol can and pour the fevicol into a well. Suddenly, everything that was flying comes down to earth; finally gravity takes over the alien force. Well, that is the complete Ad and a very good one, I will say.
There is one more thing to laugh in the Ad, logically; you see a flaw in the Ad. Let us assume that the aliens can make everything fly and let us assume that the Fevicol is a excellent Glue that can even undermine the alien forces. However, if everything is flying up in the sky, how can someone pour “DOWN” the glue into a well, what made the glue come down towards earth.
The next time you see this Ad, smile for a different reason!!!
The specific Ad I am talking about is the one where two aliens, standing on their spaceship, land over a village. They then announce that they will make everything fly in the air. Some four hose arms then come out of the spaceship and dig into the ground. Slowly everything seems to be flying like there was no gravity at all. And this everything involves cow, men, household equipment, radio etc. Then one of the flying man grabs a flying Fevicol can and pour the fevicol into a well. Suddenly, everything that was flying comes down to earth; finally gravity takes over the alien force. Well, that is the complete Ad and a very good one, I will say.
There is one more thing to laugh in the Ad, logically; you see a flaw in the Ad. Let us assume that the aliens can make everything fly and let us assume that the Fevicol is a excellent Glue that can even undermine the alien forces. However, if everything is flying up in the sky, how can someone pour “DOWN” the glue into a well, what made the glue come down towards earth.
The next time you see this Ad, smile for a different reason!!!
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