ENagar

Mayawati in almost all her speeches highlights the fact that Congress party failed to uplift many wretched dalits while ruling UP and India for over three decades. However it makes me wonder that already in 2007 this dalit leader was voted to power for the fourth time. So how much more time will it take before her actions will start showing results?

BSP is probably the only party which has grown to a national party from a regional party. Yet the party is little more than a vehicle to serve the wishes of her Leader Mayawati. In spite of all the tall claims. In this year general elections the 17 Dalit leaders that BSP has fielded belong only to the reserved seats (where she could not field any other candidate. I could not locate the party manifesto. However I won’t be surprised if like Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party, all the manifesto says is removing computers and bring India back to the Dark ages.

As of now, there is no evidence that Dalits in UP are doing better than in any other part of the country. At the moment the only results that I am seeing are the grand birthday and the public display of millions of dollars worth of public wealth amassed by her party leaders.

Big Bazaar has come up with a wonderful scheme. For a purchase of 1,000 INR, you can avail free 1kg onion and Potato for the next 52 weeks.
Even by the most conservative estimate, 52kg of onion and 52 kg on potato will be worth 1,500 INR.
However what makes the whole scheme interesting is how much this can change the buying pattern on indian consumers.
1. You need to visit the store every week. Which effectively means that you will not only make your monthly purchases, but also your weekly purchases there. Hence a shift from low margin commodities like groceries to higher margin perishable fruits and vegetables.
2. Wednesday, being in the middle of the week, is typically a lean day for retailers. Hence this attractive promotion offer would help them balance the crowd better (a customer who has already made his purchase on the weekday might not visit the store again on the weekend) Thereby enabling them to service more households without having to take the pains of visiting the store.
3. 52 weeks is a long enough time to permanently change the buying pattern of the customers.

Future group (its promoters) have launched a prepaid card (which also offers a cash discount of 5% on all sales). A consumer usually is in the hurry to consume the balance in a pre-paid card. Hence he/she effectively is expected to visit the store repeatedly. Also like credit cards, many people tend to spend more when there is an option of a cashless transaction.

I really feel that these 2 schemes are really innovative measures taken by this retail chain. They will not only increase the footfalls and billing but also change the consumer buying behavior completely.

Today’s newspaper is screaming about the news that IPL matches have to be shifted to South Africa or England because the safety of Indian players in this Indian event is at risk.

What message does the Indian Government want to communicate by saying that it cannot guarantee the safely of Indian nationals (who are not involved in any controversy) on Indian Soils?

You might call me anti-P Chidambram, but it looks like home minister has lost his mind.
When the Sensex was falling, he emphasized on the confidence building positive talks to raise the sentiments. In fact he did it so much that many people started wondering if he truly understood the gravity of the situation.
Now when he is in Home Ministry and people of India are desperately looking for a reason why they should feel safe, he is denying us one. Why is the GoI chickening out? Why can’t it guarantee the safety of Indian Nationals? Has it lost its spine?

This wonderful video from daily show does a much needed bashing of the CNBC channel and their reporting. I wish if someone could make a similar video bashing Indian News channels

I was reading this article about how Hindalco is hiding its loss due to acquisition of Novelis, how Tata hid its development charges for Indica using an innovative Securities Premium account.

Basically the asset is transferred to this account and depreciated without effecting the Profit and loss accounts. What is worse is that since Indian courts allow this scheme, more and more companies are taking the route and hiding the true shape of their balance sheet from the public.

i was reading the press release by A. K. Antony, India’s Defence Minister:
“India’s secret Nuclear submarine project is near completion”
My views WTF:
1. If it was a secret, then why on earth are you revealing its existence.
2. What benefit does India has to gain by acknowledging that it does not have a nuclear submarine. An incomplete submarine (which is scheduled to be completed by 2012) is equivalent to no submarine for next 4 years. So what does one mean by NEAR COMPLETION?
3. If one trusts DRDO’s capabilities then definitely this submarine would be 20 years behind schedule, would be costing 10 times more than estimate and the submarine would be so rickety that Indian navy would not like to risk manning those submarines.

I was reading this news about india borrowing an additional $518 million from World Bank. Now my question is:
1. Eternal debt has already led to Pakistani currency being rated as a junk currency. Indian currency has a BB rating and any additional debt would only force Moody’s or S&P to further lower it.

2. India already has a huge forex reserve (251 USD) why does india not use it? Anyways that cash is lying idle and not earning as much interest.

If India wants to play a bigger part in the global economy, it should help World bank and other international agencies help countries suffering from stagflation, and not borrow from this pool.

I could not stop laughing after reading this line

China stole a natural gas deal from right under India’s noses. It signed a 30-year natural gas supply agreement from a field in Myanmar in which India has a 25.5% stake.

Source

Similarly Swaminathan wrote a wonderful editorial explaining why a gas line from Iran is also infeasible.

So if India continues to mess up with the neighbors, is not able to import gas… I wonder what the energy future is for us? BTW India has the worst quality coal in the world. Most of which has over 50% ash (sillica) content which makes it unsuitable for most purposes except power plants. And newer and stricter environmental guidelines would stop us even from that purpose.

Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar has recently written a wonderful article listing out the 12 deadly sins Indians are committing and which will seriously jeopardize our future.