Our Poor Prime Minister

How does it feel to be henpecked and playing 2nd fiddle all the time? How does it feel when you are basically good and talented and you have muck around your family?

I feel our Prime Minister (PM) Manmohan Singh is in such a position. I think he is basically a decent man. I wonder how he feels everyday when he sees a new scam, each one bigger than the previous one, when he has to put up with people that he wouldn't touch with a barge pole.

It must be awful to see the series of scams from Commonwealth Games to 2G to Adarsh Housing Complex to Antrix to god knows what next. How does it feel to be confronted with a new one each day because of nincompoops around you, who neither have decency nor the sense to listen to better counsel? Don't you feel like cringing? Or just vanish?

Blogger

Blogger is lovely. But it has its own quirkiness. The stats provided by blogger while using chrome includes my own pageviews even if I set the option to No. Rather, I think the option can be set but it's set only for a session. But in Safari it works fine.

If I try to edit my profile from the blog page, i get an error message "We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request." with error code "bX-y67gro". This has been happening for the last 2 weeks or so. I can still go through the design and make changes. But it's strange.

Almost the whole of yesterday and a part of today my blog was inaccessible in Chennai. I tried to ping my blog. I couldn't. But i could edit the blogs, view stats etc. But if I clicked on "Don't track your own pageviews" the popup window did not bring up the two options. I couldn't view other blogs either. It was accessible in at least one other place in India. There was no access problem outside India. 

Hmm. Wonder what went wrong.

Twitter

I read this article 

(http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=ETNEW&BaseHref=ETBG/2011/02/11&PageLabel=1&EntityId=Ar00102&ViewMode=HTML&GZ=T) today which mentions that Twitter is valued at about $8 billion. I think its revenues are about a $100 million (http://en.mercopress.com/2010/12/21/in-less-than-a-year-twitter-s-value-has-soared-to-3.7-billion-usd). 

I wonder why someone would pay a price of 80 times its revenues. Mind you, we are not talking about earnings here. We are talking about a valuation of 80 X annual revenues.

What is the investor chasing? Where is the intrinsic value? The investor would make money only if he can unload his investment to another investor who is ready to pay an even more exorbitant amount. 

I wonder if the investors haven't gone crazy.

I Am In Business

I am in business. I have always wanted to be on my own. At last. I have a friend (Kiddo) who has a job and who is a also freelance photographer. I persuaded her to take up a job with me as my photographer. She would visit places and take pictures and show them to me.

She loves taking pictures and walking me through those pictures. We discuss the photos, where they were taken, when, why this particular angle and so on and so forth. It is something we both like. 

The only thing that had to be finalized was the pay package. She wanted to do it free. I refused. I said I had to make a living. She asked me WHY SHE should pay me. What a silly question. Do I have the time to go through so many photos and discuss each of them with her?. My time is valuable.

So we ironed out a package for me which was within her means.

I am in business..

India And Tourism And Other Things

India is becoming attractive by the day. Spain tourism board is spending money to get more Indians to travel to Spain

(http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-corporate/article1328191.ece).

And a Belgian and an Australian have taken it on themselves to market India as a tourist destination (http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-corporate/article1328188.ece). And why not? India has more of what Europe has to offer. And at vastly cheaper prices. And an experience that is truly unforgettable (uhhh at times unforgivable).

And IBM has said that it has 100,000 employees in India which is 25% of its global employee strength.

The Poet In Me

I had earlier written about my friend Jalani and the cooking disasters in the middle east (http://calmisc.blogspot.com/2009/08/cooking-disasters-in-middle-east.html). Three days back her mom left for India. And she as the temporary (fe)male head of the family has been given the additional portfolio of housework.

Of course the house is now in disarray. The cooking, washing, cleaning etc is not quite up to the usual mark.

She told me today that she had taken the day off and that her brother was sick and gone to see the doctor.

I was touched. I wrote a poem for her.

"

Haal kaisa hai janaab ka

Bhai gaya hai doc ke paas

Yunhi gaye kya oh oh oh

Pet mein dard hua ho ho ho

"

She loved it and I could hear her clapping her hands. I do feel good when I make someone happy. With due apologies to Majrooh Sultanpuri.

Ever since her mom left, I have made it a habit it to tell her the details of what I had for lunch and dinner (my mom is a great cook, by the way). Just so that she can have good food vicariously.

Despite all this, Jalani puts me down often. She has an attitude. She is arrogant and keeps taunting me about my finance, my job etc. She is perennially hungry and eats anything that she can lay her hands on.

I said to her:

"

Tumhare pas dhan hai daulat hai, job bhi

Mere pas MAAAA hai (aur unke haath ka banaya hua khana)

Hum dono ke beech mein jo deewar hai

USKO KHANA MAT

"
With due apologies to Salim Javed.

I feel relieved now.

Spend More Time Undoing Than Doing

Indians are getting more obese by the day. Considering how frequently we are caught with our hands inside inside the cookie jar, we must be spending most of our time in the vicinity of the jar. 

The latest cookie jar episode is about the ISRO spectrum scandal (http://in.news.yahoo.com/bigger-than-2g--cag-suspects-scam-in-s-band-allocation.html). This seems to be of the order of $40 billion. We Indians have really come of age. We don't seem to be interested unless the size is big enough. Till about a few years back a million dollars seemed to be HUGE money to us.

What was really heartwarming, when I read the editorial on this issue in the Hindu today, was that the CAG (Indian Government's Auditing department) had done a pretty diligent job last year on this ISRO issue.

While I don't know the details of what CAG did, it's lovely to see some government department in India being reliable. One hardly sees reliability, trustworthiness these days in anything related to government.

The Devas group, which is the party that is accused to have benefited from this deal, issued a hot denial of any wrong doing couple of days back. And the government is seriously looking at repudiating the contract with the group. 

And the government is looking at repudiating the contracts on 2G. 

What more will the government repudiate? If we spend more time on undoing things than on doing things, how can we go forward? What is the learning from all this?


Where is the Elliot Ness and his gang of untouchables in India? Will we ever have them?

Two Faces

Its official now. Mr MK (the chief minister around here) has denied that he has anything to do with Sun TV or Kalaignar TV or 2G or even anything to do with his children or his wife.

What I love about him (and others like him) is the way he shows empathy. The statement "God is in the happy smile of a poor man" is often said around here. And he has arranged for color TV's to be sold for about $60 each and rice to be sold at 4 cents a kg. And land given free. All to poor people.

Now the question is: whose land did he give? Who paid for the subsidy of rice and TV. Did he pay out of his pocket?

He is alleged to have been deeply involved in kickbacks of various kinds amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. The recent scam is the telecom 2G that he and his family are rumored to be involved in.

Its interesting to see a ruthless mind and heart with a facade of an angelic face.

I am reminded of a scene in the novel Godfather by Mario Puzo. Michael's wife asks him if he did have his own sister's husband murdered. Michael denies it firmly while at the same time his people are out on his explicit instruction to murder Tattaglia and other family heads.

I wonder if our man isn't doing the same. Who Knows.

Laughter And Crying

A friend sent me this. I loved it.

"

A wise man once sat in the audience & cracked a joke. 

All laughed like crazy. After a moment he cracked the same joke again and a little less people laughed this time. 

He cracked the same joke again & again, When there was no laughter in the crowd, he smiled and said 

"When u can't laugh on the same joke again and again, then why do u keep crying over the same thing over and over again."

"

Strange Family

I was getting sick reading about rapes across the country. A woman was raped in a train and then pushed out of the train in Kerala, she died subsequently. And a few women raped daily in Delhi/Ghaziabad etc. It was getting monotonous.

And this (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Woman-kills-brother-for-cash-father-helps-her-hide-crime/articleshow/7440141.cms) came as a breath of fresh air. A woman is married to A, has an affair with B, hires B's brother C to kill her brother D. C was initially hired by A to murder the woman. The woman falls in love with both B and C. 

Pretty mindtwisting. Everyone having an affair with everyone else / wanting to or being hired to murder someone else. Strange family.

Men Have Commitment Phobias

Every time I come across a cliche, I think of reasons why it may not be true. And when I hear someone disprove a cliche, I get excited. And so it was when I came across an article (link doesn't work now) that said men commit faster than women.

It isn't that I don't like our behavior to be modeled and predictable. I do. (A cliche is basically a model of our behavior or of how life is). But I don't like wrong modeling. What I am really curious about is: do really men commit faster than women? Is this data in the link correct ? And applicable across countries? 

Gender and Caste

I love our chief minister. I read this today

(http://news.oneindia.in/2011/02/03/dmkbacks-raja-to-the-hilt-karuna-plays-castecard-aid0126.html).

I have seen Indian women bring gender into a non-gender based discussion. I used to wonder whenever this happened. It's called the "Brahmastra" - the ultimate weapon. I consider this to be an extremely cheap tactic to bring an irrelevant point while discussing an issue.

Now, our man has brought up the caste issue. A very close parallel to the storyline in the movie "Mudhalvan" which I mentioned in an earlier blog (http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2011/02/our-parties.html).

This is a lovely way of side stepping the billion plus dollars that would have changed hands as kickback. The guy is amazing.

Won't it be nice to nail the people involved that benefited from the 2G telecom scam? But considering how fast we acted on Bofors, I doubt if we will see the persons bought to justice in the next 20 years.

Our Parties

Today I read in the newspapers that Mr Raja, ex-telecom minister of India, was arrested by the CBI. And that the congress and Mr Karunanidhi have been silent on the issue while Ms Jayalalitha and other opposition parties are claiming that this should have happened earlier.

While I do hear that Karunanidhi and his cronies do not touch any project unless there is a quarter billion (US) dollar cut for themselves, was the other lady any better when she was in power?

Why are we stuck like this? We have a state (Tamil Nadu) where there are mainly two political parties and each party seems substantially worse than the other. (And this is about the same across the country).

Why cant we have clean men who would shudder at the thought of stealing money, accepting bribes, being unfair, speaking nonsense?

What causes us people to vote for these parties? Don't we have the moral courage to say "we don't want people who are unclean?"

Why do we need them in the first place? Like Dagny told her brother Jim, can't we tell these people "we don't need you"?


Are there not such people in India? Isn't there an "Arjun" of Mudhalvan fame (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudhalvan)?


Will an "Arjun" ever stumble into our politics? Would he have the wherewithal to fight the goons that exist? Will India go through an "Egypt" phase of catharsis?


There is too much money floating around which can buy anything and quell any "disturbance". There is too much acceptance of shoddiness in our psyche. There is too little pride in ourselves.


Where do we go from here?


I wonder what would happen if we were to ask a private company like the Tata's or Larsen and Toubro to run India on a BOT (build, operate and transfer) mode?

Tennis Tournament - Lower Cash Awards For Women Players

I was watching the Australian Open with my mom, when she suddenly quoted some magazine where some women tennis players had complained of a lower award amount paid out to women players than to men. 

My mom commented that it was only appropriate that women get lesser than men because they also play fewer sets. Women's matches are played best of 3 while men's matches are best of 5 sets.

I hmmmed and haawed and said that that may not be the primary reason. I explained to her.

Australian Open is another business venture. They organize the tournament, they pay out the prizes. Their income is from ticket sales and TV broadcasting rights. (This explanation is a little simplistic but probably adequate.)

Now where does the majority of revenue come from? Do people like watching women's matches more or men's? Either at the venue (which results in ticket sales) or on TV (which results in more advertisement revenue), I think people would prefer to watch a men's tennis match to a women's. And that I explained is the primary reason that the award being higher for men's champion than a woman's champion.

The Other Toilet

A friend sent me this (http://www.funnyfunnyjokes.org/2011/02/14/conversation-in-the-toilet-extremely-funny/). And I loved it.

India Today - Fuel Mafia Gang Burns A Man, Yeshwant Sonawane At Malegaon

A good man was burnt to death in the state of Maharashtra because he stood in the way of illegal trafficking of kerosine (a liquid fuel used for cooking, very similar to the fuel used in jet planes). Seems like this is a $2billion illegal industry (http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOICH/2011/01/27&PageLabel=1&EntityId=Ar00100&ViewMode=HTML&GZ=T). The government subsidizes kerosine, so that poor people can buy it cheaply. 

The moment there is subsidy, we know what happens. We have a mafia in cahoots with the public distribution system, with the police. Assuming kerosine costs Rs 30/liter in the general market and it's sold at a subsidized rate of Rs 12/liter ($1=Rs45 approx), the mafia ensures that

• The subsidized kerosine (any subsidized product, kerosine in this case) is not sold to the people.
• It is sold at say Rs28/liter in the black market. This gives them a profit of Rs 16/liter with the cost at Rs12/liter. A more than 100% profit. Imagine how many 1000's of liters are involved and hence the scale of operation is $2b (as quoted by the article).
• The mafia oils the government machinery concerned to ensure that the business proceeds smoothly. Where the machinery cannot be oiled (as in the case of the Additional Collector, Yeshwant Sonawane) it is dismantled/disposed of.

Why does this happen? How do a bunch of unethical people get away with this? Why does this happen? How do we curb it? Well for one, I had mentioned earlier http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2011/01/capitalism-at-its-best.html. Just about everything can be purchased in India from kerosine to governments.

The next: whenever there is a subsidy (anything being sold at less than market price, admission given to some people because of their special status: they are poor, black, blonde etc), there will be a black market.

Coming back, what do we foresee about this man burning incident. Well nothing. So much kerosine, petrol/gasoline is burnt in this country. And in USA and in Europe and China. One man being burnt hardly makes any difference to the overall ozone layer.

And who gains by solving this problem of cracking down on the fuel mafia? There lies the answer.

And if you thought that all collectors and graduates of IAS (Indian Administrative Service) were good men, well here is something
(http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOICH/2011/01/27&PageLabel=8&EntityId=Ar00800&ViewMode=HTML&GZ=T). A husband and wife team has worked diligently to amass wealth (illegally as it's alleged).

Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

I happened to watch a scene in a movie today which portrayed the incident of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre where about a 1000 (estimates vary) unharmed Indians were shot dead by the British
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre) about 90 years back. Well, this is old news, but I wanted to know a little more about what happened, why etc.

While reading the Wiki entry above, I was appalled by the insensitive comments by the queen and her husband.

What kind of animals would do what these people did? Were they any different from the Nazis?

And mind you, they were guests here in India. They came to India in the 17th century to carry out trade.

A few years back I read a book about Congo and how Belgium raped the country. Most countries that are generally considered now to be civilized especially those in western Europe seem to have perpetrated atrocities in the past.

Does one rape/murder/plunder just because the other person is black/brown/green etc? Some people leave a bad taste in the mouth when they visit our house.

Australian Open Match

These days I am forced to watch tennis on TV as I had mentioned earlier

(http://Calmisc.blogspot.com/2011/01/generation-gap.html).

I was watching the match today between Rafael Nadal (Ranked #1) and another person, who I learned later was David Ferrer (Ranked $7). 

While I had caught a few minutes of earlier matches in the Australian Open, this match today between the two Spaniards was exceptional. Far better than the earlier ones. Nadal didn't seem to be in his best form. He looked sick. 

I have not seen such a lovely match as this one today. Ferrer was accurate in his shots and the rallies were fantastic. As I write, Ferrer is winning 2 sets to 1 and seems to be on his way to winning the match. Wowowowow.

And I could see tears in Nadal's eyes. Hmmm. Awful to see a man cry.

Stock Market And Great EPS Expectations

Today I read this excellent article http://blog.investraction.com/2011/01/senseless-sensex-eps-projections-and.html (this is dated Jan 4 2011). Seems like my earlier sentiment (http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2011/01/pe-ratio-for-stock-market-index.html) about the market was right.

Predictions as well statements about current EPS and/or PE data by knowledgeable people seem to be often misleading. I wish it was otherwise.

Sensex AT 20k By Dec 2011 (added in Sep 2011)

As per this article (http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/markets/article2450553.ece), Sensex is expected to reach about 19-20k up front the current 16k levels. 

Quite a tall achievement if that happens. Almost similar to Flipkart's financial projections http://calmisc.blogspot.com/2011/09/amazoning-growth-for-flipkart-india.html.

Let's see where we are are in 3 months.

Why Indians Are Disliked Abroad

I read this one and I loved it. http://www.funtoosh.com/jokes/indian_jokes/506