BIAL - thoughts

I sometimes wonder if we Indians are just pure lazy and careless or we really dont want to be progressive. Bangalore, host to IIMB, on of the top B-Schools in India, host to huge companies like Infosys and Wipro with the most talented planners and visionaries, is facing a tremendous lack of planning. The international airport is an example staring in our face of how careless and carefree we are. Come April and we will all be made fools and idiots. The government's planners are going to be mocking at us for our disinterest our own welfare. We see time and again that the projects are a result of a capacity crunch, be it metro, airport or flyovers and roads. Why is it that we get educated people up there if they can't foresee growth and make an initiative to plan the growth? This is so irritating! I wish the human kind perishes. We are not worth of our intelligence to plan, languages to communicate and science for good health. We are very greed and selfish to the point of disaster. As a friend of mine said, I wish kalki takes form soon!

The OFCs race begin, hope we see light soon!

The recent disruption in the internet services across Asia brought to focus the lack of infrastructure to avert disasters such as what occurred. The Atlantic is teaming OFCs connecting Europe to US with a huge amount of capacity going waste. The boom period plans of cabling companies got busted and they incurred huge losses. The positive side of the story is that the infrastructure exists to come up with applications taking advantage of the surplus availability. The developing countries are trying to catch up now since the hunger for bandwidth has shot up. Communication companies themselves are driving the installation and expansion.

There is a fear that this boom might come to an abrupt fall and affect the companies investing in this venture. This might indeed become true. However, I feel that this infrastructure might in the long run help innovation. Today people still tune applications to bandwidth constraints, reducing the rich features that could perhaps be provided. It's in the good will of innovating that we need to overcome the bandwidth hurdle. It may not kick off the first day or first year, but there will be time of boom soon and we should be prepared to ride the tide.

I knew it would happen!

We hear this so very often in out lives. Every time we encounter failure there are ample number of people who come up and live up to the expectation of saying "I knew it would fail!". An interesting way to look at this failure comment is to assume that the idea failed even before the release. To get people to say why they thought it failed. It might lead to exposure of some serious flaws and give ample time to fix it in a rational, well thought of manner. A better bet at success or an increase in all round pessimism? I would say the former. After all, we hire testers and the best one better be pessimistic!

I knew it would happen!

We hear this so very often in out lives. Every time we encounter failure there are ample number of people who come up and live up to the expectation of saying "I knew it would fail!". An interesting way to look at this failure comment is to assume that the idea failed even before the release. To get people to say why they thought it failed. It might lead to exposure of some serious flaws and give ample time to fix it in a rational, well thought of manner. A better bet at success or an increase in all round pessimism? I would say the former. After all, we hire testers and the best one better be pessimistic!

Asia, agricultural economies and starvation

The developing economies are facing the wrath of development perhaps. These economies are traditionally agricultural but rising demands in the city attract the rural populace to come in search of opportunies. The harsh reality hits home only later when they realise that food in the cities in not as easy to come by as in the rural areas.

The scarcity of food is also party due to the forgotten and abondened Green Revolution. In the crazy frenzy to become developed and educated, the governments seem to forget that food is a nessacity. To add to the voes are the recent environmental issues of drought and floods. I feel it is nessary for the asian nations atleast to define what they want to identify as development and work towards their definition. It's time we all question what does "Developed India
mean. Is it overflowing overcrowded cities, or villages and cities that provide ample opportunity to make either as career options and vehicles of growth.

Quality electronics, cars, cheap booze and communication giants

The consumer durables industry seems the have made higher profits this year despite a decrease in it's sales. The reason is quited to be high end product sales which come with high profit margins. Trigger for this, higher income groups are on the rise and consumer durables are seen as a lifestyle products. People are simple ready to buy higher end products even if it means they are paying substantially more than what it is worth. A good branding and marketing statergy.

Car maker Chystler wants to cut down on the number of cars models it is producing. It wants to eliminate cars in it's portfolio that are very similar. This is a good move for providing better quality products without increasing the burden of maintaining a lot of similar cars. I think Bajaj did a good job here. Pulsar was the only model to maintain while many versions were released tailored to meet the increasing demands. A good strategy to increase the return on investments. The unfortunate part of this is that the resale value of the bike is very low. However, it's a great bike and people are not really looking at resale when they by it. Better quality is the keyword.

The liquor giant United spirits wants to restart the production of cheaper liquor. Karnataka government's ban on local liquor or toddy has increased the demand for cheap liquor and USL feels this is a good time to reintroduce it's earlier products. The other factor is the availability of molasses at cheaper prices. Instead of reintroduction, can the company club the above 2 strategies? Make the not so selling liquor brands cheaper and sell it still maintaining the "brand image" of a higher quality liquor? Also, the other end, hype the good selling ones a bit more and sell them at a better premium? The lesser stuff to maintain, the better needs to be understood.

Alcatel Lucent has suffered huge losses the past year. This is despite a merger of the 2 giants and a product portfolio reduction. It would perhaps be good to see the maintenance costs of it's various versions and overlapping products. Instead of making 5 networks elements each with 3 versions, may be a consolidated 2 network element providing the above functionality with options to customise it, and a single version to maintain, might, just might, reduce the tremendous opex these communication giants suffer. The companies have started facing losses due to competition and tight profit margins. Mergers help eliminate competitors (if you cant fight the enemy, befriend him!) but the profit margins are still an issue. Do the operations want to still take up the the maintenance costs when the customer is not willing to pay you for it? It just might be that they are drowning in their own greed to have all products in their portfolio?

India for duty free imports from Africa

It is unofficially announced that India would be allowing duty free imports from Africa. The current benefits of this decision are being questioned considering that the total imports from Africa constitute less than 7% of India's imports. The imports themselves are of commodities such as mineral oils which are currently taxed at around 2%. This is seen as a diplomatic move to help the Indian oil companies' interest to acquire equity stakes in oil blocks in Africa. Concern is expressed that India needs to help the African education and manufacturing industry by sharing knowledge and imparting skill sets to the African nations.

The downsides expressed in this article seem to neglect the fact that though the current imports are low, it might boost up in future. This move at this point in time would help in keeping the economic impacts low in future as this is already been factored in from a very early stage. It would also provide India a leverage to reach into the potential filled African continent, which is being looked at by many businesses as the place to expand operations in. I feel this is a good move and not just eyewash since for a nation of our size, writing off import taxes, even a small amount, would mean a significant burden on the nation's income sources. India being also able to leverage this policy to benefit its companies does not qualify a duty free trade treaty as a symbolic move. It is a positive move from the government and it must be welcomed. A greater hurdle might be in Indians' acceptance of a greater number of Africans' presence. After all we are a nation which is a market place for "fair and lovely" and "fair and handsome".

Dry weather: wheat imports seen increasing and France is keen on exporting!

This article, I have to admit, caught my attention. I was perhaps blissfully unaware that our country had to IMPORT wheat! Perhaps, I had assumed that a large nation with a predominantly agricultural economy had no need to import food grains.

India started importing wheat 2 years back. This was due to the population increase and also the increased standard of living creating a need for more wheat based products. The import was done in order to safeguard cultivation of other food grains like lentils and oil seeds. India may import more wheat this year than last year. Almost 68% more wheat is to be imported. The reason for this is the dry weather. The details in the article is quite confusing. It talks about how the wheat harvest this season might be lower due to dry weather and that Indian government might import more to keep sufficient emergency reserves. The subsequent part mentions that since the global price has been sky rocketing, the government might buy from the farmers instead paying them a premium. This would help get the reserves filled but how would it suffice the current demand for wheat? The article lacks clarity on this fact.

To elevate the confusion, the following article "France gears up for longterm supplies of wheat to India" states the following points. It mentions that India imported wheat last year from France. France seems to be producing abundant wheat, enough for it to export to both Europe and outside of Europe and is set to become a long term exporter to India. However, this year India may not import any wheat at all due to a bumper crop.

The 2 articles seem to give contradictory facts. This makes the import or no import a confusion.

However, a small point I noticed is the mention of the fact that "lifestyle changes are increasing the need for wheat based products". It is quite true. The unfortunate part is that wheat crops need a lot of water. Ragi, is amongst the few food crops that is very convenient to grow. It's health benefits are also an additional plus point. Surprisingly, very few people know of this food grain! It is time to introduce and educate people of this wonderful food grain.

Biofuel may hinder anti global-warming efforts

In a new study that was published in Science, the process of biofuel production is causing the release of CO2 gases. These gases are emitted when the natural habitat is cleared for growing these biofuel crops. The quantity released due to this cut down of the natural habitat is so huge that we need to use biofuel for considerable time, sometimes almost 400 years, to remove this carbon released. It is essential that research considers all the aspects before publishing a onesided research focusing on the advantage of biofuel. It is equally important that the governments consider the entire chain of production and it's effects before pushing for mandatory usage of biofuels.

The other huge disadvantage of biofuel currently is the source. Biofuels are formed from food crops like corn and sugarcane. This puts enormous pressure on the commodity prices of these crops as can be seen from the price rise of corn last year. In a situation where hunger is ravaging a huge population of earth, is it fair that we use food crops to run vehicles? I feel better research is required to convert waste into fuel than food into fuel.

new WHO report to offer a road map to fight tobacco use

The WHO published a report on the tobacco usage around the world. The latest statistics shows that the US and Canada's consumption has reduced. The developing countries with the increasing earning capacity of the youth and women are a lucrative market. The spokes persons from the top market brands seem to say that they are targeting the already smoking adult population with increased spending power to shift from local brands to the international brands. Of the total cigarettes consumed across countries, China outnumbered all other countries while India was at the 8th place. With this report published, it would be very important to see the counter measures taken by the governments of the nations that have a rising consumption levels. The Indian organisation for curbing tobacco usage is pushing for ban of smoking at any work place, including restaurants and pubs. It intends to prevent workers suffering from passive smoking due to the working environment. While it is a good move in my personal opinion, I seriously wonder if it will come true. Imagine a pub with a no-smoking banner! I think a good advertising campaign against smoking being cool or stylish would do much good and prevent more people taking to smoking.

A more pressing and important matter from my perspective is food contamination from pesticides and insecticides; portable water pollution and air pollution. We need more research and statistics in this matter. It's vital we take steps to curb this in order to have a future generation. This also concerns every human being than just a subset and therefore I feel it's all the more important to address these issues.

India's smallest firms hunger for credit

The argument of the article here is that the small and medium enterprises are not getting the required credit for them to scale up and increase their operations. The writer says that the government banks have reluctance to provide credit to small and medium enterprises as they find them too risky. This leads to other financial companies charging interest rates of almost 20%. The loan value is also reduced to about 30% of the collateral value. This, the writes feels, causes the SMEs to be slow in progressing and being a bottleneck to larger corporations which use them as suppliers. The government's move to cut interest rates by 25 basis points does not provide any relief to these sectors that have interest rates around 20%. The argument however lacks 1 point. why does the government banks feel this to be risky if the collateral is provided. How is the credit return and the statistics on the defaulters. Perhaps a high number of defaulter could be the reason for the risky feeling.

vocabulary
collateral - security given for a loan, additional, of a side line (cousin is a collateral relative)
discerning - perceive by vision, (perceive a ship in the horizon), judge or discriminate or distinguish (discerning the good from the bad)

ArcelorMittal hopes Brazil model will give India plans a boost

The article discusses AccelorMittal's plans to implement best practices and learnings in the setting up of 2 production units in India. It elaborates the current infrastructure of it's flagship production unit in Brazil and the best practices that it has implemented there. It discusses the costs and the returns from it's unit in Brazil. The focus is on usage of technology to lower the production cost and the time while improving efficiency and reducing environmental effects. The pro idea concepts here are being self sustained. Generation of own power from industrial byproducts and selling the excess power, mining of coal for the coal requirements and using of technology to reduce labor and shorten production time.

My opinions:
I think this is a step forward to progress. Companies are caught in the net to deliver and perform and the major hindrance to it is labor and technology. Also, being self sufficient in raw materials helps in making a strong foundation. In this case, the company is safe from power cost fluctuations and is also making a small profit from it's investments. The downside is that the job opportunities reduce and more skilled labor is required. This can be seen as a indicator for the government to improvise on the education, in promoting the idea of having 2 children well educated than to have 10 uneducated and slogging and affecting the country's growth.

vocabulary
grapple - to hold fast or seize. To engage in a close hand fight. To try to overcome or deal with.
flagship - the main vessel, the best or biggest liner by an operator, the most important of a group
proposition - plan proposed for acceptance. Subject for discussion
collateral - security given for a loan, of a side line, additional
envisage - visualise (en- in, visage - face)

Study undercuts diabetes theory

The crux of the article is that the entrenched hypothesis of close to normal blood sugar level preventing heart diseases might be undercut by the recently conducted study. It describes the dogma in the field of diabetes. It publishes the findings of a new study that might prove that such vigilance over blood sugar levels might increase the risk of heart disease. The strong point in favor of the new idea is the findings of the study. however, the argument has a weak side to it. There is a possibility that there was some adverse effect due to the sudden drop of blood sugar. It is also possible that the drugs might have had other effects than just effect on the treated ailment.

vocabulary
Undercut - cut away a part to leave things hanging, weaken or destroy the impact or effectiveness. Reduce competition by selling cheaper than the competitor.
Dogma - a settled or established opinion or belief. religious code that is believed to be true without proof
Quandary - a state of perplexity or uncertainty
Entrench - to create a trench. to fix securely or firmly.

3 finalists for sebi chairmanship

The current chairman of the Indian capital market regulator, SEBI - Damodaran - is set to retire. There are 3 people who seem to be finalised to take his position. The article gives an insight into the background of these 3 finalists. It also mentions that there is a possibility that a last minute candidate might emerge. The NSDL chairman, Bhave was not considered due to ongoing saga between NSDL and SEBI.

vocabulary
Incumbent - person holding the office currently, imposing or obligatory.
Saga - long detailed story.
Stint - restrict or limit. Duration or period doing something. (stutzen -restrict or curtail)

A stumble, not a fall

The primary idea of the article is that the Indian economy is slowing down but is resilient to come back to recover faster. The title does not give an idea about the focus point of the article. I think, "Indian economy stumbles, doesn't fall" is more apt. The writer gives example of how the growth is reduced to 8.7% this year, the lowest in 3 years. If the US goes into recession, we could see the growth fall further to 8% this year. Despite consumer spending having become slower, the investments are still going strong. This would keep the economy growing. India being an emerging market with strong fundamentals, it would be a quicker re-bounce.

vocabulary
Resilience - property to bounce back from a distorted or stretched state. ability to recover from misfortune or illness. (re- back, salire - jump)
Persists - continue in the same state, endure or last tenaciously, insistent in a statement, question or answer. (per- thoroughly, sistere-stand still)
Tenaciously - holding steady fast, clinging, adhesive, or together.
Recession - act of withdrawing, returning to former state. Slowdown in economic growth.

wired wireless!

I finally managed to set up the adsl modem at home to give me a nice secure wireless connection to surf the net. It's so cool, no more attached to the wires and table business. I can happily sit in my garden and blog, surf and have a good time. :-)

Thanks to wiki pages, it made a lot of things so so convenient! No calls to the BSNL office and the endless wait and all that! I am glad we have stepped into the information sharing era. It is easy to find and retrieve it aswell! Way to go people!