दुविधा

अजीब मनोस्थिति है
कुछ कहना चाहता हूँ ।
हाथों में लेखनी है
कुछ लिखना चाहता हूँ ।
शब्द नहीं हैं, फिर भी
कुछ बयाँ करना चाहता हूँ ।
विचारों के भँवर से
बाहर निकलना चाहता हूँ ।
या फिर इसमें डूबकर
अन्दर समाना चाहता हूँ ।
अजीब मनोस्थिति है
कुछ कहना चाहता हूँ ।


थक गया मैं लड़ते - लड़ते, अब बस
हार मानना चाहता हूँ ।
मगर क्या यूँही बैठकर
सपने बुनना चाहता हूँ ।
पत्थरों के रास्ते अब
नहीं गुजरना चाहता हूँ ।
या घिस घिस कर अपनी
लीक छोड़ना चाहता हूँ ।
अजीब मनोस्थिति है
कुछ कहना चाहता हूँ ।


ख़म ठोंक ठेलकर, दम से अपने
पर्वत उखाड़ना चाहता हूँ ।
या उसकी तराई में बैठकर
दिग्भ्रमित होना चाहता हूँ ।
लक्ष्य की तलाश में, धूमकेतु बन
भ्रमण करना चाहता हूँ ।
या किसी कंचन रमणी संग
विस्मृत होना चाहता हूँ ।
अजीब मनोस्थिति है
कुछ कहना चाहता हूँ ।

INDIAN ECONOMY: FUNDAMENTALLY SOUND?

[Caution! Readers are strongly advised not to become judgmental about current economic situation based on this article, as I have deliberately avoided Buddha's middle path approach and relied on criticism.]

Tragedy of a liar is not that no one believes him/her, but the fact that the liar starts to believe his/her own words. This statement seems to be correct in the case of Indian government while dealing with the current economic situation. The number of times these politicians have talked about fundamentals of economy remaining strong that they actually have started to believe as a true fact. Are fundamentals of our economy really sound or is it an eyewash to boost the confidence of fellow Indians and investors outside? This is the question looming large at this juncture.

Indian economy is in shamble. GDP growth is at all time low (post 1991) ( first quarter of FY 2013-14 reported only 4.4% growth). Growth is sluggish but our PM is optimistic to achieve a growth rate of 5.5% to 6% by the end of this financial year. Reason being: "Fundamentals of Indian economy remains strong."

Another problem the country is facing right now is the Current Account Deficit (CAD). It is behaving like "SURSA OF RAMAYANA" ( who had the capability to expand her jaw/mouth, each time Hanuman expanded it's body). Whenever government intervenes to rein it, it further gets widened. Isn't the situation demanding policymakers to act like Hanuman ( who countered SURSA by shrinking his volume)?

Here comes the real issue. It is the falling value of rupee. Rupee seems to be enjoying the free ride under gravity. It is about to cross yet another psychological barrier of 70 ( currently hovering around 65- 68). Someone, out of sarcasm, tweeted "PROBLEM WITH RUPEE IS THAT IT IS NATIONAL CURRENCY. LOOK! WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR NATIONAL ANIMAL TIGER". I would further like to add in this about the fate of our national sport ( contrary to the fact that we had learned in our schools and G.K books, Ministry of Youth Affairs And Sports in a reply to an RTI query mentioned that India has not notified any national game). This crisis situation could have been turned into an advantageous one, had our export flourished ( although software industries are gaining a lot at this moment, stable currency is all that everyone wants). And they say our fundamentals remain strong.

Out of many solutions, the one on which our policymakers seem to have relied upon heavily is to liberalize the norms to bring more FDI, FIIs along with increased External Commercial Borrowings. In other word government is arming itself with tools to borrow more from different markets. And if this is true then shouldn't we conclude that government is following an old adage of Sanskrit which says "Rinam kritva ghritam peebet" ( eat butter, even if you have to borrow). All this is happening because of the illusion that our Fundamentals Remain Strong. Some critics call it POLICY PARALYSIS. I would rather call it "FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR" by which one blames the external factors overlooking the internal ones.

Inflation is another challenge which is presenting catch 22 situation in front of RBI. Whether to go for growth or to go for reining inflation is the million dollar question. So far RBI has done a commendable job (at least in maintaining it's independence); nevertheless, it has not been successful to achieve rupee stability.

Newly appointed RBI governer Mr. Rajan has said that "Our task today is to build a bridge to the future over the stormy waves produced by global financial markets." I would like to urge Mr. Rajan that the foundation of this bridge must not be laid upon wrong premises. It has rightly been said that crisis presents an opportunity. We must take a look at our fundamentals and address the concerns in an unbiased manner.

Sports and the Politics

Thousands of people have gathered inside a stadium of Rome to witness a thrilling fight. The fight is scheduled between two gladiators whose masters are well known for their rivalry. As the fight progresses, spectators start enjoying. Finally, one of the gladiators gets defeated and as per the tradition the winner waits for his master’s command. People in the stands are demanding clemency but the master orders to behead the defeated gladiator and thus he loses his life.
Again, thousands of people have gathered inside a stadium in India. But this time the mass assembled to witness a nail biting cricket match to be played between India and Pakistan. Among the viewers are the Prime ministers of both the countries. Match progresses and excitement reaches the peak and finally Pakistan gets defeated. After the match both the Prime ministers stated that it is the spirit of game which won and thanked to the players as well as people of both the countries.
Though above incidents are separated by hundreds of years on the time scale, there is a stark similarity between them. In both the events the politics had their role to play in sports, nevertheless, in a different manner. In one event politics made the defeated gladiator to lose his life, while in other it brought the people of two nations together.
Sports and politics are two different words but they are often intermingled. Since the era of early civilization politics has its say in the sports. The use of politics in sports is so frequent that it has evolved into a new word known as sports diplomacy.
Sports diplomacy is being used as a potent tool by which country’s national interests are promoted. Sentiments of people are attached to the sports. These sentiments are used as a strategic reaction by sports diplomacy. Sports, like war, are used as a tool to achieve political objectives. Due to this one is tempted to raise the question “how far is it justified?”
Those who support the idea of using politics in sports often claim that sports are not above the law. National interests are supreme and the sporting spirit should be kept within the ambit of national interests. Based upon this argument they justify the sacking of the coach of Iranian football team as he had wished a happy new year to his Israeli counterpart. Besides they also contend to change the law, as children are torn away from their environment and culture to join the business and glamour provided by sports.
But, during all these arguments they seem to have lost the meaning of the word “international integration”. In this globalised era where trade and commerce are being used to increase the people to people contact, to sort out differences and to achieve the spirit of “Vashudhaiva Kutumbakam” (whole earth is a family). In the prevailing scenario why one should not use the sports? Sports, if played in its true spirit, without the interference of politics, has an inherent capability to bridge the gap between nations and to arouse the sentiments in a positive manner.
By sacking the coach or not allowing the two countries to play against each other is against the spirit of the game. We are setting the bad precedents in which the people of the involved countries are the ultimate losers. They are missing a chance to feel the thrilling excitement that would have arisen, had the two nation played against each other. And who knows, in long run this sporting event may lead to a friendly nation.
We do not need a law to keep children away from the sports on the above mentioned ground. What we need is to let children learn the lessons of self esteem, harmony etc. which sports teaches to everyone.
Hence we need sports for the sports’ sake, where the people feel rejuvenated, where the determination to never give in and the team spirit are so palpable that the viewers are forced to learn these ideologies. This can be achieved only when politics has been kept out of sports. let us keep our debate alive, but separate. There is no need to entangle both.

FDI in Multi Brand Retail

The government of India is all set to give it's node to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in Multi Brand Retail. Proposal is to allow a 51% FDI in this sector. This was at the center of discussion from past few years due to deteriorating condition of farmers and also due problem being faced by consumers.
Before i proceed further I must mention the perspective scenario of FDI in this sector. The present FDI regime allows 51% foreign investment in single brand retail and 100% in wholesale cash and carry. ( source - The Hindu).

When i saw this news i kept on pondering over the term Multi brand retail. I asked one of my friend (who had completed his studies frm IIT Madras and did MBA from FMS and now preparing for civil services after amassing a huge assets.. dnt knw wat forcd him to go for civil services... of course i m talking bot u D.K.. Loser.. lol) and then i got the clarity of this term.

Multi Brand - Whenever a market is fragmented into different brands, a supplier/firm launches new brands of the same product which give strong competition to it's own existing brand.. The idea is to have greater overall share in the market by that firm/supplier. Rationale behind this is a fact that a firm having 5 brands out of 15 brands available in the market will capitalise more compared to the situation when it has only 1 brand out of 11 brands available. We can see this in so may cases.. In case of tooth paste one can see number of products launched by the same firm giving tough competition to it's own product.

Now getting back to 51% FDI in this sector....

Who all are the stakeholders in this... Of course itzz not that hard to answer.. Government , Foreign player who will invest, Domestic retailers, Farmers and ultimately consumers will be the stakeholder for this.( I will be focussing mainly on farmers..To tell the truth i cud think of only this much.. watever i read and was able to relate i jotted down here..)
Govt. has supported this by mentioning that it will help in providing dynamism and efficiency to the agricultural marketing system as there will be no dearth of money with foreign players and they will create post-harvest and cold-chain infrastructure nearer to the farmers' field.. These players will buy the agricultural produce at the door step and that will give benefit to farmers as it will weed out the intermediaries involved.Farmers will get good price for their produce. Perishable goods could be sold at time.. Once the infrastructure reaches at the door step of farmers, out of shear competition productivity will increase..Consumers will also get benefit as price will come down and quality available will be good.Quality of the perishables will improve due to better storage and handling..
Domestic retail sector will also reap the benefit as it will be more organised and with the collaboration of foreign players they will know the new technology involved and will be able to know the best global practises..

If left unregulated, in no time the entire economy will start felling the ill effect of this step. Some of which may be:
. Possible suffering of small family owned outlets
. With the money in hand the retail houses will have greater bargaining power and the farmers may not get good amount for their produce
. Farmers could be treated as their employees by the retail house and hence chance of exploitation.......

So govt. will have to keep an eye on this policy as this affects the entire agriculture sector which happens to be the backbone of Indian economy and it's ill effect can take us back to the era of colonialism.....

"You Can Take Charge Of Your Life"

Last night i was going through verses of "Bhagwad Gita",and suddenly i became philosophical.I slept early but my mind was refusing to take rest and was thinking continuously of something which i decided to post on my blog....

Whenever things do not happen according to the way we wanted,there is a temptation to name it as a destiny. We can always hear people saying - I am not destined to this, may be i am not so lucky to get this etc.But this is the way how we deal with failure, we are consoling ourselves. Whatever situation we are living in,to be human means that we can mould the situation in our own ways. Human beings are the one who can mould the every situation they are living in, but this is not happening today. Most people in the world are moulded by the situation around them. That is simply because they exist in the reaction to the situation they are placed in. They end up with questions only "why i was placed in this situation" ?

Everything that we know as "ourselves" is the accumulation. Body is accumulation of food. What we call "our mind" is an accumulation of impressions that we have gathered through five senses.....

What we accumulate can be ours it will never become we. What is "we" is yet to come into our experience, it is an unconscious state. we are not even 100% conscious of what we have accumulated. We are trying to live our life through what we have gathered, not through who we are.
Remember,
"All of us have the same inner capabilities, unfortunately never explored, never accessed"
(Ideas in last paragraph were from "The Times Of India" )

India in financial turmoil

The declining value of rupees, the losing points of Sensex, high inflation rate, slowdown in GDP, these all seem to bode evil to the entire Indian economy. In the current scenario the whole world is suffering from the so called “recession". Indian government has repeatedly announced that Indian economy has got very strong fundamentals and it will not be affected at large scale by this global downturn. But a deep sense of disparity is prevailing everyday and this is being reflected as Sensex is losing points day by day. AT the time i am writing this, Sensex is at 8701.07 , a level last seen in -------(In fact I don’t know , as this field has lured me very recently so i don’t have the records) .
Markets do fail often, but the governments intervene and try to solve the problem. Indian government is also trying hard to stabilize the market but still there is no sigh of relief in the market. The question is why?????

[Before i proceed i should tell you that i am not an economist. I am final yr. Btech student and these are not my original thoughts. These ideas are taken from the column written by Dr. Sengupta . i thought it would be better to know all these things those who missed that column]

The fault lies in the conventional approach of our government. But this time a different approach to the problem is required.

The RBI is trying hard to provide enough liquidity in the market. It has reduced the CRR rate and thus has released a huge amount of money which it had withdrawn few months ago to control the inflation rate. But injecting money alone will not increase bank lending unless borrower have the confidence in our economy to induce them to invest more. Also the bank lending money do not have confidence that borrower would be able to return it. So Overall the missing element is "Confidence". Investors do not have confidence in the sustainability of economy, as a result they have become skeptical and they are stopping investment in our economy. On the other hand lenders do not have confidence that they will get their money back. As a result liquidity provided by the RBI is trapped. It is not being used in investment expenditure and result is in front of us.
In such situation, the government has to take steps to increase the confidence in the system, and provide a stimulus to private investors. When private investors are reluctant government should initiate the public investment for stimulation. We have a large number of PSU's functioning well. If the public sector will start in infrastructure it will give a stimulus to private investors.
The money required for this can be provided by the government either by cutting some expenditure on other less important side or it can be generated openly by the government borrowing directly from reserve bank. The effect will be increase in liquidity along with the confidence.
Our fundamentals may be strong but the confidence is grossly eroded. So government should take strong measures to instill confidence among investors. This should be done quickly before the situation deteriorates further and gets out of hand.......

[Again I should remind you that these are not my ideas. ]

"V6"

1. vicarious - acting as substitute (vicarious feeling: when you substitute yourself as hero on the screen while watching movie)
2. vicissitude - change of fortune
3. victuals - food
4. vie - contend, compete
5. vigilant - watchful
6. vigor - active strength
7. vignette - picture ; short literary sketch
   
8. vilify - spread negative information about
9. vindicate - clear from blame; exonerate
   
10. vindictive - out of revenge