Blue Peepal

It was going to be my first bus ride in over seven years. A ride of five hours to a very revered temple in Odisha, starting at 5am from Bhubaneshwar. There was an air of excitement and anticipation as I was yearning to visit the temple for a long time and the journey by bus, added to the mood. Waking up early was never among my choicest ways to start the day, and I pulled my half-asleep body to the bathroom. My dad’s repeated reminders to start early so that I could find a seat in a right bus interjected the gushes of water from the shower. A right bus had 2-by-2 (rows of two seats separated by the aisle) reclining seats, had fewer stoppages and reached on time, or with predictable delay. My father had packed my bag with few apples, a cookie pack and a water-bottle. I did not bother to pick a book or my brother’s i-pod, and decided to spend the ten hours including the return journey, unencumbered. A short ride in my father’s scooter and I was seated in one of the right buses to...

I got started on this article sometime in last week of January (2012). A combination of factors delayed the completion, lending it some seasoning and a chance to project my views in the backdrop of certain global and local events. To cite a few key events – Sensex moved up a 1000 points (3.46%), while retracting to a modest 1.46% gain (27 th Jan - 6 th April), Congress lost their ‘prince’ly campaign to the Samajwadi Party in decisive UP, further losing their control on the house and a weakened coalition taking away the dexterity to make meaningful reforms. Among global events – US is showing more, if not credible signs of recovery, Euro debt and austerity issues are making less of headlines and a mix of Middle East flash points have oil prices boiling, that has potential to shave the early gains in world recovery. The View: I was recently reading an article by Stephen S. Roach (Faculty Member at Yale Univ. & Non-Executive Chairman, Morgan Stanley Asia) where he discu...

Indian Democracy in the 70s  History is like shadows, sometimes they are behind us and sometimes they are right in front of us, but never far from us. If we are indeed part of a connected whole, then our present is a linear or, non-linear by-product of our past. Opportune to add the disclaimer that we read in investment products – “past performance is not a guarantee of future results”, but past performance does provide the data points to assess the turn of events in the present and some contours into the future. Well, this small prologue was a mood-builder to the content I cover in a much abridged form in the script below. It is a discovery into the political fabric. 1 Politics, which was for me a delirious cocktail of tainted individuals (with sparingly few exceptions in the mass) and rusted bureaucracy – needed a redefinition.   The genesis to this quest lies in the Lokpal movement, which has created a social churn unseen in scale, for decades now in Ind...

The whole nation of Greece stood up in protest, when confronted with the prospect of austerity measures from the Government in response to the debt crises. The parts of the world where austerity was considered as a bitter pill, have refused to see it in the eye, either politically or, practically. Talk about slowdown and you can add another few wrinkles to central bankers, economists, companies and less weathered individuals. I contrast the above with a situation that ticked me to thinking about slowdown in a positive way. My son of three and three quarters years was jumping on the sofa wildly and later jumped on to the floor and was too much for my TV glued eyes. I softly admonished “slowdown, slowdown…” It just lit on me, why wasn’t I stressed about slowing him down and began to believe that I was doing this in “his interest”. By imposing him to slowdown, I was perhaps stopping him from hurting himself, losing control or may be just to prevent him from getting overly exhausted. I...

Given the mountain of literature on Greece & European debt crisis, I think another article may just add to the litter than light some hope. Hence, instead of going through the crisis and the reasons that led to it, I will instead focus on the risk management and steps to resuscitate the situation. Firstly, if EU wishes to remain as a single unit then it must instill discipline among the disparate economies. It needs to manage the interests of the stronger members, while putting competitive framework for weaker economies. If the unity of countries wishes to enjoy a common currency, then must adhere to certain economic framework. The architecture which brought the countries together may need some review periodically, to assess the situation of the partners to continue their existence in the zone. There will be political & economic issues unique to each country, with various degrees of debt issuances, trading surplus/deficit, unemployment and need for monetary flexibility. A Ge...