World-Me-My viewpoint

With Bihar Assembly elections in the month of October and Prime Minister’s Visit to USA to attend UN General Assembly and meet CEOs of Silicon valley companies for investments in India, nothing much happened domestically. Many of the ministers of Ruling Party BJP are camping in Bihar for campaign with each of them camping there for at least 2-3 days and one Public Holiday in the middle of the week, this week can be taken as rather dull. As per the figures released by the Reserve Bank of India, Corporate India’s foreign borrowings increased by around 48% in the month of August 2015 compared to same month previous year. This is by both automatic approval route as well as External Commercial Borrowings. The borrowings in August 2016 stood at USD 750.76 Million in August 2015 compared to USD 507.40 Million in August 2014. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has notified norms that allow banks to upgrade credit facilities extended to borrowing entities upon a change in ownership, so long

As per the figures released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, India’s merchandise exports registered a decline of 20.66% in Dollar terms (decline of 15.22% in Rupee terms) during August 2015 compared to August 2014. Exports for the period April – August 2015 declined by 16.17% (10.94% in Rupee terms compared to the same period last year. Global economic slowdown is a major cause for this decline. Merchandise exports contribute to around 15% of country’s GDP. Compared to August 2014, exports of Rice (-21.26%, other cereals (-40.10%), Iron Ore (-29.75%), Engineering Goods (-24.23%), Petroleum products (-44.30%) contributed to the negative growth in merchandise exports in August 2015 while Pharmaceuticals (13.33%), Jute Products (57.07%), Handicrafts & handmade carpets (54.46%) and Tea (10.68%) registered a growth. Imports also registered a decline of 9.95% at USD 33.74 Billion in August 2015 compared to August 2014. The decline in Rupee terms is around 3.77%. The imports

Weekly round up of Indian Economy - Week ended 12th September 2015 Index of Industrial Production (IIP) for the month of July was released during this week. Industrial output recorded a growth of 4.2% during the month July. This growth was possible due to the growth in outputs of Manufacturing, Capital Goods and Consumer Durables segments. Trend in IIP during from January 2015 till July is as follows Please note that IIP for June was initially estimated at around 3.8% but was revised later to 4.4%. A look at the components of IIP indicates that except for Consumer non-durables every other segment showed a good growth over same month previous year. Manufacturing sector up 4.7% in July 2015 compared to 0.3% down in July 2014 Capital good sector up 10.6% in July compared to 3% down in July 2014 Consumer durables up 11.4% in July this year compared to 20.4% down same month last year Consumer non-durables down 4.6% in July 2015 compared to 5.2% up in July 2014. It is ex

Indian currency notes may need a new look as the people are looking at the same kind of currency notes for quite sometime now. Indian Rupee notes are of two categories. India uses notes of the following denominations 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1000. One Rupee (basic unit) is being issued by Government of India and bears the signature of the Finance Secretary. Rest of the notes are issued by Reserve Bank of India and carry the facsimile of the signature of its Governor.Of these the usage of coins in place of currency notes is more prevalent in case of those with denominations of Rs 1, 2 and 5. There is recent news items stating that the Government of India is thinking of reissuing the One Rupee currency notes which were last printed around 10-15 years back. The reverse and obverse images of the last one rupee note is as follows Similarly the Rs 2 note which is rare to find now a days appears as below If you look at these two notes the obverse side o

Two days back the Apex Court of the country gave a ruling that hence forth the Government Advertisements should only carry the photographs of Prime Minister or President or Chief Justice of India.  Government ads is a major source of income for media be it print or electronic media. Government issues hundreds of advertisements every day for various purposes like calling for tenders (for government works), showcasing their achievements, public interest advertisements (like the recent ones featuring actress Ms Vidya Balan  for construction of toilets) etc. An estimated Rs 700 Crores was spent by the current government in the past one year on ads can give an idea as to how much is the government spend and the kind of exposure the individuals gets out of this exercise. The ads for Tenders which are issued by individual departments does not carry any photographs. However the ads issued by government showcasing their achievements carry the photographs of the Prime Minister / Chief M

It is being now reported on Indian news channels that two earthquakes struck in quick succession in Nepal - China Border. One on Chinese side while the other happened on Nepalese side. The magnitude of the quake is around 7.4 on Richter scale.These were followed by after shocks of magnitude 5+. Tremors were felt in Northern and Eastern parts of India, mainly the national capital New Delhi. The tremors were also felt in Odisha (Orissa) and Bihar. It seems the Delhi Secretariat has been evacuated immediately. Around 80 people died in Nepal and 1100 injured in landslides. The epicentre of the earthquake is around 15 km from Mount Everest. It is good that Nepal closed the mountaineering activity immediately after the last earthquake around 15 days back.

Within days from the suspension of sentence of Mr Salman Khan, we witnessing one more controversial thing - Acquittal of J Jayalalitha, former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. This happened on appeal in a case where she was sentenced after 18 years of hearings in various courts (some of them were regular in Tamil Nadu itself and some special courts either constituted by Tamil Nadu Government or Supreme Court). The case is about assets disproportionate to the income of Jayalalitha and her associates (Sashikala, her son and some companies) by an amount of around Rs 66 Crores. In current days of where people talk about hundreds of Crores of rupees as loose change, the amount stated looks like a pittance. But remember around 18-20 years back this is a substantial amount. Even the much celebrated Bofors case involves a total amount of Rs 130 - 160 Crores only. A display of personal adoration which characterizes Tamil politics. In this picture people are pouring milk on the wall painting

It seems the laws are applied differently to celebrities, politicians and the common man (so called Aam Aadmi). It is true that the aam aadmi adores the celebrities and mob them whenever / wherever they appear in public. The celebrities get special status every where like special and quicker darshans in temples, quicker access to airports, railway stations (do they travel in trains?). This is witnessed by every one over the day in and day out. However, the aam aadmi is so tolerant of everything from bad roads, poor infrastructure, politicians renegading on their promises, running from pillar to post when they need some work to be done in government, they take this special treatment to the so called celebrities in their stride. However what pinches the most is the interpretation of laws properly and dispensation of justice accordingly for the celebrities very quickly. Of course it is the responsibility of Judiciary to dispense justice impartially and properly to all the citizens of

Last week Nepal experienced a major catastrophe in the form of an earthquake of the magnitude 7.9. The epicentre of the earthquake lay around 80 kms from the capital Kathmandu at a place called Pokhara. I remember this place Pokhara because some years back we saw the peak of Mount Everest from a hotel there through binoculars.  As per the latest reports more than 6000 people lost their lives. The capital city Kathmandu is completely devastated with many historical monuments and temples lay in shambles. With several after shocks of the magnitude 5 and above, the population is still forced to stay outdoors facing severe hardships. The earthquake has such a devastating effect that scientists say the city of Kathmandu shifted nearly 10 - 15 ft from its existing position. This is because the Himalayas lie on a earth fault line where the Indian plate is joined to Eurasian Plate (They are called tectonic plates by the scientists). The current Indian government headed by Mr Narendra M

Andhra Pradesh government has paid an amount of Rs 8 Crores towards interest on Overdraft facility utilised for 5 days from Reserve Bank of India (Central Bank). This happened due to a financial mismanagement / miscalculation by the government. The government released Rs 2067 Crores towards pending incentives for industrial units just 5 days prior to the closure of the financial year. It is understood that these dues are pending for over a decade. This is the news item which has come in the news papers yesterday. What is the motivation to release the entire amount of incentives at one go that too when they were outstanding for over a decade? Second thing is why is it necessary to release these funds at one go when the government is well aware that it does not have sufficient funds in its account in central bank? This is a surprising act by the government which is headed by an experienced Chief Minister, Mr Chandrababu Naidu. But a look at his previous rule, we find that his govern

  Last week saw the announcement of discovery of the body of Malli Mastan Babu, one of India's top mountaineer. He is unique in a way that very few of the Indian mountaineers were solo climbers and he is one of them. He has the distinction of conquering the summits of the tallest peaks in each of the 7 continents in 2006 in a short span of 172 days and made to the Guinness Book of World Records. Apart from this he has several achievements like, In 2007, he accomplished through trekking and climbing a high-altitude traverse of the four major Hindu dhams of Uttarakhand. During the same year, he had run 8 full Marathons and 3 half marathons in 13 days, spanning 10 Indian States. In 2008, he completed a 75 day High altitude trek from the Mt. Everest region to Kanchenjunga, climbing all the high passes between them, covering a total of approximately 1100km of Himalayan terrain.   He was an alumnus of IIT and a motivational speaker. He lost his life after summitin

During the last one week there were 2-3 news items which show how the heads of governments are splurging the public money. Chief Minister of the State of Telangana wants to spend government money to fulfill the vows made to several gods  There was a news item in the local news papers stating that the Chief Minister of Telangana Mr K Chandrasekhara Rao and his cabinet took a decision to spend an amount of Rs 10 Crores to fulfill various vows made by their party to various gods during the Telangana movement prior to formation of the state. These vows were made to several gods including Lord Balaji, Kanakadurgamma of Vijayawada, Lord Lakshmi Narasimha of Yadagiri gutta, Chadar at Ajmer Dargah etc.  It is a common thing among Indians (possibly among people of some other countries also) to make vows to the gods and invoke gods at the time of difficulty and one needs to fulfill them once the issue is resolved. However, it is height of madness and splurge to utilize p

American president Barak Obama has concluded his visit to India as a guest for the Republic Day. It might be termed as a great coup by Mr Modi when the American president agreed for and visited us. However during his speech, he advised / sermonised that India can develop further if we are not splintered on religious lines. There is nothing wrong for someone to tell some good words. However, this sounds more like a snub to the politics of the associated organisations of the ruling party like RSS. Do we need this kind of sermonising from head of a foreign nation?

Yesterday I saw a good public awareness ad by Government of India on listening music through headphones on roads. Thre is a animated character called Chintu who is very fond of music and always listens through headphones wherever he is. One day he puts on his headphones and start walking on the road. He could not hear the horn of the approaching vehicle and meets with a fatality. The ad was concise but the message is clear. Nowadays many would have observed that people put on the headphones and start listening to music the moment they get out of their house. This does not stop when they cross the roads, get on or off the buses / trains. The people walk and act like Zombies and does not even respond normally. In my childhood, whenever I listened to radio (cricket commentary) for more than an hour my mother used to shout at me stating that continuously listening to such loud sounds from a close range impairs hearing. She was a semi-literate and told this out of common sense. I wonder w

In an article today in an Indian News paper "Business Standard" there is a caution that the current celebrations about low crude prices may not be there for long. The link for the article is given below http://www.business-standard.com/article/markets/four-reasons-why-the-latest-crude-oil-price-crash-may-not-be-sustainable-115010800845_1.html According to the article, the crude prices have come down because of Raising US Shale Oil Production Insistence of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) to continue production to maintain its market share Slump in demand from major importers However this continued reduction may not be sustainable in the long run as according to the author, a price below USD 60 is not beneficial to the US Companies into production of Shale oil due to costing. A second factor is the shrinkage of oil revenues of major oil producing countries like Russia (Oil accounts for nearly 45% of budgeted revenues) and Venezuela. This may

We entered into 2015 yesterday after completing one more year with many twists and turns like a Bollywood Potboiler. On the new year eve I was watching a discussion in Television discussion and heard a impromptu ode to the time in his native language. I will try to translate the same below Time is omnipresent and ever flowing Time is Challenge (throws up challenges) Time provides solutions Time hurts – Time heals Time flows – Time stops (for the dead) Time kills – Time creates Time creates Chimera – Time makes them real I hope I made justice to the original (of course I added one or two lines of my own). Like many in the world I also made some resolutions / wish list for the New Year. To reduce my waistline by atleast 1.5 inches by end of 2015. Keep my finances in a better shape in the new year. This is what I wish for my country Hope better sense prevail in the country and political parties Hope the country become Swachh