Movin out...

So here I am, sitting in my new apartment on a warm Atlantan evening, typing my first blog since I sold my good old Imac back in Germany. WOW, it has been a long long long time since then. Infact, my last post was about Germany trying to win the world cup etc. I guess Germany's loss and my moving ro the USA with the Italy trip sandwitched in between sorta really pushed me aside from blogging. Anyway, I guess an update is in order:

SO we finally moved out of Germany, and a sad parting it was for us. Braunschweig, and its people had given me a lot in the last two and halfish years. My collegues at work, especially the ARTISANTS were probably the best collegues a guy could ask for, cool, helping, and at the same time resistive enough so that I would work hard. The project that I was blasting my head over (and blowing a lot of hot air) for the last two years finally took to the skies, ofcourse after a hell of lot of problems and bugs, but it flew finally, and it flew good, and in aerospace thats all that matters really! the rest is just a stack of papers.

I had made really a lot of cool friends back in Germany, I still havent quiet gotten over the fact that I wont be going to zeh very German PHYSIO gym anymore with Andreas, or no more crazy drunken parties with Joerg and the rest of the gang, or that there wont be any grilling evenings with Till, and most importantly no more crazy arguments with Preety. Its rather sad really, you move in to a different country, try to adjust yourselves to the custom and culture, learn a different langauge, try to make a living, and then you have to say goodbye and wrap up the whole thing. The only thing that does remain, are memories, and I made a heck of a lot of them....

Well,I am in Atlanta, Georgia, USA right now. PhDying at Gerogia tech, and its great too. I love the Atlantan weather, warm and cozy it is. Especially the fall evening, very sultry they are, just that little bit of haze around those skyscrapers, and that slowly fading Georgian warmth...

Über Italien fahren wir nach Berlin

And Germany makes it to the semis! We go crazy in princeton park and cant speak any more due to all the shouting (beer). Ironically the event at princetonpark is sponserd by Carlesberg, a Danish beer company. More plus hopefully some pics later! Right now off to watch the Italy Ukrain game!

Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi!

And Australia makes it to the "8th-finals" in the FIFA world cup by pulling an official draw against Croatia. Actually they shot a last goal in the last seconds, but it wasnt given, either because it was an offside or if the time was over I dont exactly know.

To call that game nail biting is to call the Alps amusing! It was a war on the field, both teams had to make it through to the 8ths, they knew their chances would be slim after the 8ths, but getting there was their target. Australia needed just to tie the game, while Croatia had to actually win the game. They fought till the end, it was a bloody war out there, with 3 red cards and innumerous fouls and yellows.

Cant wait to see Australia in action again on Monday.

All the details + videos here: http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/w/match/template.html?id=44&day=22&month=06&year=2006

Attrition and Quoatas

We cant get enough of them can we? Quoatas are hot topic nowadays. And in recent news, Infosys has taken the first step towards volountary action:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1669466.cms

They will get SC/ST engineers and train them in order to "compete on their own merit" and the center hopes that this move will allow the sc/st ppl to "remove the myth around meritocracy". And I hope it does.

And in related news, Cognizant voices its severe attrition fear. So do other companies in India in face of a talent crunch and global competiton.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1669723.cms

In such waters, its better to do what the smart ppl do and fish the not so smart fish out first. Tapping and SC/ST sector, providing them with training and having them working in the private sector will increase diversity of the workforce, provide talent specific trained employees, and might serve as an attrition buffer!

Fegen

Its the culture of a place that defines it, and truly puts a meaning behind the faces of the people. The Germans have a rather interesting way of celebrating the 30th birthday of an unmarried male.

The point of the whole excersize is to dress up the birthday bachelor in crowd attracting costumes, parade him right throug the city, and make him clean the stairs of the Rathaus(The city council house) untill a virgin maiden kisses him and relieves him from his pain. And ofcourse, maintain a high body alcohol level all through the endeavor.

Joerg (some of you know him from my marriage), just turned thirty this last week, and we did the whole works for him. Here are some photos of the day...

Joerg is a fellow aerospace engineer, a Tech alumni, a hobby pilot and a mega fan of Apple inc.. So this is what we dressed him up in...

You see Joerg here, with his brilliant flight cap and ray-ban sunnies on his newly acquired German engineered single propellor plane sporting a georgia tech Tshirt with name tag George P. Burdell and a chain with the new Apple ibook on it. The plane is complete with little wheels on his shoes. The passing of his brand new red plane is D-JSD, standing for Deutschland-Joerg Stefan Dittrich.

Here we see Joerg performing a well orchestred way point directed steady and level starboard turn:

Joerg also was the sole partcipant in the unofficial "Red-Bull" race around the old church near rathaus. Complete with manned obstacles which would move.
Joerg cleaning the stairs of rathau with his standard issue a/c cleaning brush no. 1. He had to drink atleas 4 straight shots of schnapps in order to be promoted on to the next level of Brush.
Being as interesting as he looked, and given the general lack of atleast adolescent virgins in Germany Joerg had to look for other options. Being as smart as he is, Joerg didnt have a problem in finding a very cute young virgin that would kiss him and relieve him of his mission. You see Joerg landed here and trying to convince the little woman to give him a peck on the cheek.
And succesfull he was. We followed up the Fegen with a nice little barbeque in the park.

Chidambaram on reservations

Chidambaram interviewed over reservations

some quotes

"Among all the instruments available to us for affirmative action, the one that has proved most effective is reservation. The experience of Southern states tells us that. It all began in the state of Mysore, 75 years ago, in Tamil Nadu we have had reservation now for almost 60 years. Andhra Pradesh and Kerala have all had reservation and they have succeeded. Once you get a set of parents from the backward communities who are educated, then one finds the second generation child is able to compete more effectively with children of families, with 200 years of unbroken tradition of learning."

More musings on quota

I had some comments, and I realized that i had left my earlier reply unattended, so here are some more musing, I totally welcome your suggestions comments, as long as you think levelheadedly, and not with prejudice in your mind!

Ok, first of all there is huge misconceptions in the discussions regarding quoata, ppl are mixing everything, they are prejudiced and not looking out of the box.

Let me elaborate my position first. First of all, I am not living in India right now, so I have a sort of a more independent analysis of the whole thing, not being bugged by the day today problems of Indian life I am at a position to paint rosy pictures, as some of you have said. But then again on the other hand, since I have been away, and seen the rosy pictures of Europe, US, and Australia I am definatley in a position to compare the life here and over there, and recommend that on many accounts life in India is rather bloody better. Let me restate my stand:

1. Cheap labour: kaamwali, eating out, travel, hoteling, netcafe, plumber, garagewallah, home delivered vegetables are distant dreams in western countries.
2. Roads are better in western countries, not much you can do abou that but wait untill the infra projects are finished. But really, come on what did you expect, a whole make over of India in a week? We have had good developments in these years, comeon, thers the NH4, Delhi-Jaipur road, airport privatization, declaration of special vehicles for infra project.....
3. Power: Maharashtra has major power problems, but the govt is trying to work on it, plus thers the nuclear deal, not that it will bring much, but it atleast shows govts commitment.

Plus other thing, point being, India is developing, and currently its much cheaper than western countries. There are a hell of a lot of benifits in living in India.

The most imp point being, these things have nothing to do with quota row. Neither do the quality of quoata doctors/engineers/nurses has to do anything with allocation of quoata. You see, you need to think like the policy makers do, the problem of affirmating a low socioeconomic class of the society and the problem of ensuring that the result of the affirmative action are good (i.e. quality doctors, engineers etc) are two independent problems for them. Infact, the latter is more or less the problem of the education system, which is also under a revamp.

The govt imposes quoata on unis, unis take students, students dont pass, the govt doesnt make the unis pass the students! If the student is crappy, then he will be crappy all the way through, he wont get his first job in the private sector (atleast not yet) And even then, crappy students are good, many HR ppl prefer crappy students, because they can be made into loyal employees, Give them a job and a salary more than their worth, get them used to the good life and then hang a sword on their head of job loss! You got urselves a class A loyal worker. Stops attirtion, plus, a lot of jobs dont really need brains!

You see, the govt is just allocating quota, it is unfortunate that the quota ppl are still scoring less than the open class, why coz there is less competition. And thats exactly what the policy makers want to change, the competition in quota! The issue of giving quoata seats and the problem of making sure that the quota ppl themselves become competent are two different problems. We have to understand it. Quotas will become as competent as the open sector in the future, when more and more quota ppl start applying for jobs. In any case, the quotas are supposed to be in the proportion of the spread of population right! Well not really right now, but the courts are looking into that.

Plus some ppl mentioned something about bad infra, I dont understand what that has to do with the quota problem, tomorrow you will blame the excess rains on quotas!

Anyway, I was talking to an IIT prof the other day, and I asked him whats the deal with quota and how do they filter quota student, here is the algorithm he told me:

1. Set a cutoff lower than normal intake, say if the normal intake is at 90 of 100, then quota cutoff is 70
2. If the quota fills then good else set anather lower cutoff, say at 50 but do not admit those students directly to first year, rather have them go through one year refreshment course and make them sit an exam at the end, usually 50% of students make it through.

THe most imp thing is that these cutoffs are decided before the exam is set. The prof also said that many-a-times the qutoa seats are not filled at all. Hence the problem is not quota, but the proper implementation of it.

A lot of us are also confusing financial aid with affirmative action, and suggesting that quotas should be allocated on financial need. There are two problems with this argument, first of all, financial aid is a totally different problem and it should be handled independently of caste issues. Secondly, financial aid is NOT affirmative action, affirmative action is aimed at increaing the confidence of a treaded upon class of the society, while financial aid lends crutches of money. If you affirmate with financial aid you tend to run the risk of losing, why? because as soon as the benificiary are above the financial aid limit they dont get financial aid, hence that makes them lazy and makes them stay below the financial aid limit. Just like its right now in Germany with the jobless claims problem.

And finally, we seem to forget that we are living in a country where the majority need financial aid, then my dear friends, if seats were reserved on financial needs, there wont be any left for you and me!

Tubas and Test Tubes

Recently ran into this chapter from Thomas L. Friedman's book "The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century"

In this chapter he uses the Georgia tech model to education in describing the new type of engineers that are required for top notch jobs. He recognizes the need for broader thinking individuals, who have the capacity to realize the needs of a diverse class of communities into reality through technical experties comibned with the necessary communication and integration skills.

Some excrepts

Don't send me engineers who can be duplicated by computers, I am sending that work to India. Send me engineers who are adaptable, who can think across disciplines.

What the Georgia Tech model recognizes is that the world is increasingly going to be operating off the flat-world platform, with its tools for all kinds of horizontal collaboration

The full chapter is here:

http://www.gatech.edu/documents/excerpt_the-world-is-flat.pdf

Reply to the letter to the Prime Minister

I recently read this letter written to the PM over the quota rows by a student residing abroad:


http://chhokra.blogspot.com/2006/05/letter-to-prime-minister-manmohan.html

I object, and here is why:

Why kid yourself, even without reservations Indian universities dont match up in terms of research and infrastructure to good unis outside, especially in the US. IIT grad school especially, needs to change a lot. There is something wrong that goes much deeper than quota rows, I think it is high time to stop crying about who got what quotas and look for alternatives.

Plus, if everyone, including the opposition is supporting quotas, then we dont have much choice do we? and the other thing is we need to see if we are missing out on the big picture or not. Afterall, affirmative action is supposed to serve a purpose. The whole problem is not affirmative action, the problem is lack of quality institutes to cater for all the students. US, Germany, Australia have excess of seats, and we are dying for seats, that my friends is the problem, not affirmative action.

It is time to increase the number of quality institutions, either by privatizing (regulating and privatizing) or by simply continuing the export of Indian students abroad, and then luring them back with higher wages/benifits/cost of life. You can kid yourself as much as you want, but you know that living standards are far better in India in terms of services (kaamwaali, driver, plumber, dentist, medicine), hospitality( restaurants, going out, movies, travel), and consumer goods (food, clothing) and Indian salaries give high buying power for the qualified individual, much more than American or European salaries. The only thing you will miss is infrastructure, which is improving day by day in India. Plus you got over 10 airlines to choose from, so stop crying about bad roads. Clean roads, pollution, poppulation etc is not going to go away in a day due to removal of affirmative action, so its not relevant here.

I agree that Indian politicians are playing the affirmative action game to lure voters, but you cant really blame them, considering most of Indian society does consist of backward caste, higher caste have always been the minority. They play for power, its their job! Plus, it is important to bring the lower caste ppl up, yes there is a creamy layer in the cities, but that is a very small fraction of the lower caste.

I dont want to judge anyone, but for me it has become apparent that affirmative action is something we have to live with, The courts might decide that it is exorbitant, and reduce the quotas (highly unlikley) but they are not going to manage to abolish them. If the govt is saying that its going to increase seats, let them. Yes, it will be hard to transition to higher number of seats in a year, but in the long term it makes sense to have more high quality seats anyway.

Its really easy for a well brought up higher caste guy to pass judgments on the lower caste, and say: " oh that guy with reservations got in COEP with lesser marks than me", without realizing the whole big picture that unfolds behind. But I say that even if the quota system helps only 10% of the worst hit backward class to climb up the social ladder, its worth it, every bloody seat of it. True there is the creamy layer, but quoatas are a big factor in letting it become creamy.

Hence, it seems highly unlikely that we are going to be able to abolish affirmative action, atleast in our lifetime, so lets look for alternatives. What do you guys say?

The most attractive alternative right now is to enforce the proper following of caste quota, and ensure that those who really need affirmative action are getting it, and not the so called creamy layer who seems to relaxedly mooch off of the reservation system.

HCL+Apple

check this out: http://www.zeenews.com/articles.asp?rep=2&aid=298708&sid=ENV

Time to buy both HCL and Apple stocks I say, if this kicks off, we are in for a revolution. Just research on how Apple captured the European, American, and Australiasian markets. How quickly they pumped a near domination. And in India, they do not have ANY competition. This will be hot.

Whats in the run: Apple+HCL in selling:
Apple I-Pods
Apple Desktops
Apple Notebooks
Apple accesories
in INDIA.

HCL is to provide sales support and after sales service.

Watch out for: Just depends on how HCL manages to market the products and how fast they want to get going. A lack of competition might slow the initialization and realization process. Plus, the cost of Ipods still remains rather high, and the worst thing is that I-Tunes does not yet have an Indian store (But i heard something about one in the pipeline). If one wants to get music from overseas stores (dont know if its allowed) you gotta pay atleast Rs 50 a song!

Hope: The good news is content protection is less in India than in western countries, bolly music has nearly no copyright protection, and you can buy quality music from Airtel etc. Plus ripping MP3s is not that hard is it? PPl have been carrying around hard-drives everywhere anyway. And the most potent selling point is the prosumer cool image and brand value of Apple.


HCL-tech climed today on NSY, and is climbing on BSE right now!

A pity HCL infosys did not do as well on the stock makret last year! Even with their 5Bn Boeing contract, but still, you gotta wait on that atleast for a couple of years for that to kick in, The 787 hasnt left the design boards completly yet.

I am going for hold on HCL infosys and buy on HCL tech, what do you reckon? And for those on the NSY, who havent bought Apple yet.........all I can say is wake up!, its not too late yet!

All this only if you want exposure to the bluechips this year, not a good idea given the sensex's jumpy behaviour, but still if you are in the long run, and agile on your feet (well keyboard+mouse) then go for it.

-All views personal, no inside information, only analysis, No obligation.

Girish

Welcome, to a decade of Aerospace...

NOTE: This blog was meant to be posted last year in March, however somehow it did not get posted! It was saved instead as a draft, I guess its time has come!

"The coming decade, will see the Indian aviation and aerospace sector grow as a global power.."
- Praful Patel, Minister of civil aviation, India.

And why not? Last year 8 new airlines took to sky, and are flying succesfully, with more than 70% occupany rate. Last year, the prices of an aircraft ticket started seriously competing with those of Railways, Last year, the Indian Airshow was the biggest and best ever in the history of southeast Asia rivaling with the world, last year Indian aviation companies ordered a total of more than 150 airliners overseas, it is said that they pretty much breathed a new life into aerospace. Indian orders combined with chinese orders, pulled some of the Boeing plants from the verge of mass layoffs and under capacity production!

The ground is laid, we are witnessing a new market taking off in India, and there are going to be HUGE opportunities, and huge risks!

Political Khichadi

Having Manmohan Singh take the prime ministership was probably one of the smartest descisions taken by Sonia in the wake of the last elections. Because other than that, the UPA goverment has proven to be too slow, bugged, and tied down by the left wing, weak in showing decisive reforms, and in general has not llived up to India's expectations.

In a boom like the one we are experiencing there is a strong need for the goverment to take decisions quickly and effectively so as to not hamper the pace of reforms. But the UPA has consistently faltered on this account. Take the case of airport privatization, or the issue of infrastructure growth, or the issue of the recent caste quota. The charm of Honble Mahmohan Singh itself seems fading due to this incomeptence. Granted, the UPA has launched and nurtured various reforms, no taking away credit from them, but to me it is obvious that the pace is slow, and jittery.

For weeks now, the goverment is unable to come up with neither a proper explanation of its moves on caste quota, nor a solid plan that kills all doubts. There is just too much left pressure. For a fast growing India, we have to make sure that the next time we go to polls, we make sure that we dont elect a khichadi of diagonally opposit political thoughts that is UPA.

Maybe, just maybe the foreign investor was looking at what Manmohan and his gang was upto, he noticed their utter incompetence in speeding up the airport reforms, their shaky position on the infra reforms, and most recently, the unpopular descision of invoking more caste quotas in a society where thousands of qualified and able students are denied admission due to their caste. And a steamed up industry which is already feeling the crunch of talent shortage. A commitment to diversity, that is not! It didnt seem like UPA would even allow India inc. to do what it is doing best, it is even trying to force caste system there. Maybe the FIIs thought about that, and showed their silent but violent agitation by crashing the SENSEX?

What do you think..... I think it was the one Indian dish that the Americans didnt like!

Chala thode hasuyaa, or some lame title like that...

Hi,

Manmohan Singh to Bush - We are sending Indians to the moon next year.

Bush - Wow! How Many?

Manmohan Singh - 100

25 - OBC

25 - SC

20 - ST

5 - Handicapped

5 - Sports Persons

5 - Terrorist Affected

5 - Kashmiri Migrants

9 - Politicians

and if possible

.
.
.
.

1 - Astronnaut

source:Unknown

Devil's advocate

http://in.news.yahoo.com/060521/211/64f42.html

Arjun Singh being asked to explain his stand by Karan Thapar....

The end of the barrel

As thought of, the markets stabilize at 10500 atleast for now. There is strong support around that level. Probably a good time to hunt for bargains....

The breather of the bull

Yo-Yo, that's the word that comes to mind when you look at the market's behaviour in the last week. There has been much written, and definatley much more spoken about the fall, the rise, and the crash. I am not going to repeat everything, nor am I going to predict anything about the near future, I am just going to use this entry as a tool to channelise and organize all the thoughts that I have:

Lets start with history, 2005 and early 2006 saw nearly a 70% rise in the market! A thing unheard of, nearly everyday was a new peak. What were the factors behind this boom?

1. The India shining story: Phrase started by the BJP in the last elections, the story had a lot of ground to it. India is shining, never before have we seen so many choices thrown upon the Indian consumer, and never before has the consumer had so much power to avail the choics. The biggest reason being the growing middle class popluation, fueled by IT, BPO, and the manufacturing sectors. A growing buying capacity indicated growth in the economy, rising profit levels of India inc. and hence strong market returns.
2. FII investment: Fuelled largely by the ultimate lack of any returns on debt investments overall in the developed world. The only place to get any returns was the stock market. The not so great condition of the European economy, and political unrest in other rising markets made India the obvious choice. Plus there were the returns and the tax benifits for the NRI.
3. The emergence of the common investor: With FD interest rates hardly equating the inflation rate, there was no wealth growth in the debt market. Excited by the India shining story and the natural tendency to follow the leaders (FII, HighNetWorth individuals etc) the common investor jumped in the market.
4. Funds ahoy: The logical outcome of 3 was the increased investment in Mutual Funds. With never before seen levels of investments the MFs went under high pressure to deliver.
   
5. Misc: Including the govts promise to invest more in infrastructure, rising pharma market, emergence of a retail market, burgeoning malls and cineplexes.

The result was an amazing growth of the SENSEX index. Equity MFs posting yearly gains of above 80%, and huge forex reserves. But there were some pecularities in the market. Think the MFs, they come in various flavours. The standard growth option based on a diverse portfolio and targeted towards risk minimization posted equal gains to options that were aggressive and aiming towards midcaps, and rising stocks. Now, a standard growth option should give you realistic returns of about 22% in a normal year, and aggressive options should give you above 60% in a phenomenal year like the last one (according to most financial advisors). Assuming ofcourse, potent fund strategy, and competent managment. But what do we see? Aggressive and midcap funds have given lower or atleast equal returns w.r.t. growth options. Alarm bells, it is logical that bigger a company the lower can its growth rate be. A smaller company punches a lot more growth potential due to its small size and efficiency. A risk adverse growth fund should be investing in bigger companies, and when these companies are posting as big rises in stock value as smaller companies which had the potential to make it big, there is something amiss. It becomes apparent that the valuation of stocks of those bigger companies were based not only on their balance sheets but also the investor mentality.

So why does a stock rise, the fundamental reason should be the growing confidence in the company, confidence that promises higher profit levels on the coming balance sheet, hence promise of larger dividents and increasing net worth of the company. However, the reason that is prominent in the market is a different falvour of the fundamental one: what the investor thiks of the company. FIIs came in, and invested in the bigcaps, why, because they could not afford to go through the painstaking evaluation and researc that goes along with picking the best emerging stocks. They are not local, so they lack local knowledg and local presence. They did hire consultants, but their main aim was to make big money, and not let the capital erode. Investing in emerging companies has its own risks, so they preffered the bigger ones. Result, high growth the stock value of the leading companies, luring the common investor towards them and resulting in high valuation of the Index. With even the most liberal indicators and a bit of common sense it is apparent that the current bull run rate is hard to sustain.

So, when the FIIs saw problems back home they decided that now is the time to book profits. Since their home markets are not performing, the only way to keep their investor happy is to post highest possible gains even in a dipping home ecomony, so sell stocks that have a high value somewhere else, and keep your investor happy. Hence the big drawout. And now the herd chain starts, the FIIs pulled money, the common investor got scared, and why shouldnt he, he has liablities, he might have had loans against his shares, he might have invested with a fixed amount of capital appreciation in his mind, so he too withdrew, cashed his profit and decided to wait. Stop losses got triggered, banks sold shares against which they had given loans, and the market slid.

But a rather logical thing followed, the MFs, although their NAVs went down (since the stocks that the NAVs were composed of went down) they kept on buying, buying selling and buying. That might explains the rises in the stock markets early in every trade day. Its logical that MFs usually tend to do their buying as early as possible, since they are the ones who are dedicated more than the common investor to get up and go to the market. Why, coz its their core buisness. Plus, even though the FIIs have been net sellers, they have not been complete offloaders, they have also bought stocks and hunted for bargains.

So how far have the market slidden, what does this mean for the DISCIPLINED common investor. If you had a portfolio started around begining 2005 and compromizing of 60% blue chips, 30% midcaps (medium risk) and 10% high risk stars you would see that you were still in the green. Even with todays stock prices, you would have posted atleast 25% profit. And 25% returns on your investment in one year, is exactly the thing a disciplined investor, with little amount of time to invest in the market should be aiming for. Speculation, riding the tides, market surfing and all that is not the cake for your common investor. Who is busy with something else in the day, observes the market for not more than 30mins in a day, and makes his descisions with a long term in the view.

But as a smart disciplined investor, you should have also had your stop losses rising in sync with the indexex, and when the shares fell from their seemingly stable peak, you would have came out with some cash in your hand. There is support for the market at 10000 level, and if you are smart you will buy back your shares (putting further stop loss that still keeps your profit level acceptable) and wait withthe cash you just made to see if the market falls even more. If it does, you would have reinvested some of the profit cash (keeping your predetermined profit levels aside and safe in the debt market) in shares that you thought were worth it.

In times like this, and a growing economy like India, it pays to be smart and disciplined.

But what about the future, will the stocks rise? Rise they will, because the economic fundamentals are in place, but how early and in what fashion.

1. The return of the FII?: Where else will they go? Brazil, mexico, russia etc are in political unrest, Europe is looking down, asia is bearish, and India promises growth.
   
2. Global outlook: DOW posted gains on firday, if this is the end of a correction in DOW it might be also the end of a correction in BSE. So back com the FIIs.
   
3. Strong economic fundamentals: Cheap labour, diverse labour, good talent pool are still there. Problems are seen though for sustaning growth rate, however India inc. has performed well in the past in managing these problems and entrepreneuring new solutions. So good economic fundamentals and growth rate of GDP of atleast 7% should be realistic.
   
4. Rising expenses in India inc.: IT Salaries are rising, this might tip the balance sheet towards red, but the real story is with rising salaries the Indians are working harder than ever before. 10hr days are pretty much the norm, attrition is strong, indicating a growing demand for talent. Not many permenant jobs abroad for IT, indicating retaining or returning of foreign educated talent (at higher rates). Growth in training centers, indicating better skills in employees. HR ppl looking at less attrition prone sections of the educated class to enter IT, e.g. BSCs BAs etc. They are even willing to train them. All these point towards a growth phase when India inc tries to stabilize itself and ensures that sustainable growth can be achieved. This will cost money, so dont expect the next two years balance sheets to go very green in the IT sector. Stock value rise is still promising, but not as high as recent past. In a long term view go very bullish.
   
5. Rising consumer power: But on the other hand, increasing salaries, and widespread job market indicates growing consumer power. Emerging middle class, keen on spending in the consumer goods market. Sectors to look out for Fast moving consumer goods and durable consumer goods. Growth is obvious. But the sectoral market is diverse, profit levels are not even accross the sector. FMCG funds might be a good idea.
   
6. Energy market: ONGC, RELIANCE etc all investing in new projects, indicates reallocation of capital in milking cows that wont milk untill they come of age. So patience and long term is the view in the energy and power market. On the other hand, the demand is huge for energy, so there will be pressure to perform, expect slow growth this year.
   
7. Infra growth: The infra growth in the past two years has been dissapointing. The mixed UPA govt with a strong left wing is not able to make reforms at the pace it was expected to. This will continue atleast till the next election. But there is demand for improved infra, infra is hitting our economy and Manmohan and his gang know that. Hopefully slow but solid growth.
8. Airlines: They dont come recommended for the common investor, unless ofcourse you really know the business. Airline business is tricky, the growth will be tremendous (around 25%) but whether profits will rise is a question. There is a fare war, rising oil prices, and new entrants. All might last, but whether all will show profits is a question. Be aware of mergers. There is a requirement for airlines to market their business better, but right now they are in a capital acquisition phase (buying airliners, developing airports etc), once this is done there should be more spend on marketing and hence rise in profit. Go bullish but with a long term view.Deccan IPO, dont buy unless Deccan shows better profits. Jet, maybe a good buy next year. Within a couple of years expect TV ads for airlines and easier ticket buying systems. As soon as they are aired, go bullish.
9. Metals and oil (commodities): Hmm, hard to say, there is demand, but.... I am going to steer clear of this one, coz this is one of the markets where you need a helluva lot of inside info.
   
10. Index growth: Considering all this, the general sentiment this year should be of the bull, but a cautious one. The markets will rise, but not as fast as last year, one can hope for a stable growth, but indicators show that there will be some yo-yoing. Atleast everytime untill some other unforseen or ground braking factors jump in.

One thing is clear, you cannot expect a decent oldage income, and wealth generation with investment only in the debt market, you must expose yourselves to equity, atleat to MFs. Oh yeah, and btw, buy as much real estate as you can as fast as possible. Not to worry about the casual ups and downs in the real estate market, they should give in to a big upwards looking arrow down the track.

I must in the end draw a clichè conclusion, DISCIPLINE is the key to make your wealth grow in the Indian equity market, or for that matter any equity market. But as clichèd the conclusion is, unfortunatley it is not yet understood by you and me......

Bluff master

The movie. Its an ok movie, the plot is interesting, different and rather cool. Acting is decent, Abhishek has done good and so have the others. However the Doctor's character doesn't come out correctly. The pace is leisurely, for once Bollywood has resorted to under-stated style of cinematography. But the style gives a feeling of something missing, I don't think anything is, but its just that I have been conditioned to expect a more dishum-dishum style from bolly.

But the thing that really caught my interest and made me take the bother to write about it was the beautiful picturization of Mumbai. All through the film you can see aesthetic backdrops from Mumbai's local scenery. Green parks, tall skylines, immaculately designed homes/buildings, awesome cars, well dressed ppl. Its a relief to the eye after seeing the horrible images that WTO and other charitable institutes like to portray of India here in Europe. Who can blame them, poverty sells and gets them charity.

But still, for once here is a movie that I can give to my German friends and say: look, not all Indian movies have SrK in them, and India too has its share of urban beauty.

Monkey army

It is said that Rama recruited an army of monkeys to fight against Ravana( the demon). I am sure, however, that those monkeys, even with their bloated faces, hairy bodies, flowing tails and in general other monkey like features had infinitely more human sense, than the so calls shiv sainiks.

Every year, as the world draws Cupid paintings and the sale of chocolates and red roses shoot up, our modern day shiv sainiks pull their behinds out of Mumbais ex dance bars, keep aside their fancy foreign liqueur, stop stuffing their faces along road side chinese dhabas and go around town breaking and vandalizing for the sake of "preservation of Indian culture".

They say that valentine's day celebrations are against Indian culture and destroy the values and ethics of this country. What culture are they talking about? Isn't India the country that gave the world the Kamasutra, a country which defined the meaning of physical love on a spiritual basis, and a culture that worships a legend who while having the incredible wisdom of writing the Gita has also the incredible humanness of running behind women and stealing their clothes?

Free expression of natural love for the sake of its spirituality has never been a taboo in the old Indian culture, only after the arrival of Muslims and middle eastern/medival western mentalities has the Indian culture has begun to hide the woman and scandalized any affection towards her. So the shiv sainiks, who apparently love hindutva and want to hold up for it, seem to have forgotten the basic morale and value of Hindutva: CHANGE WITH THE TIME!

If some people sell some stuff and make money on selling out the Cupid, what's their problem? Not only are they affecting the love struck youth but also degrading the economy and going against the Indian constitution which gives any of its citizens the freedom of chice in believing whatever fancies them. It is shocking that in a republican democracy such self appointed morale police actually exist and are tolerated by the public. These are nothing but mornoic petty criminals.

The only thing I can gather by this shiv sainik barrage against expressing love is that these people having never thought of women as anything but objects of physical desire, do not understand the spirituality of loving a woman.

I for one, am never going to vote for Bal Thackerey and his gang of monkeys again. Raj Thackrey on the other hand seems to have formed a more sensible party, a party that chooses to express its apathy towards the valentines day in a more peacefull manner.

These shiv sainiks are degrading and bringing shame to Shivaji's name much more than any scandals that Lain might like to picture the Chatrapati in.

Airports Privatized

WOooooooooooooooooooooooHOooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The Indian government has finally demonstrated its commitment to taking strong steps towards privatization. Amid phenomenal protest from the AAI baabus the government has decided to go ahead with the plans of privatizing the Mumbai and Delhi international airports.

So what's happening:

• 1. New Delhi: GMR Fraport has bagged the deal for modernization and running of the airport. They were initially not the best bidder, however due to their demonstrated ability to build, maintain and manage airports they were offered a chance for rebidding.
• 2. Mumbai: GVP-Airports south Africa have bagged the deal. Since Fraport chose to go for the New Delhi airport.

Reliance was left hapless as both the deals slipped from their hands, and they have started crying about loud and threatening to take legal action saying their bids were not properly considered. It was quiet obvious from the beginning though that Fraport will bag atleast one deal, since they were technically the most experienced and efficient.

Gone are the days of sleazy airport workers, smelly terminals, nonexistent duty free shopping, rude customs officers, and dodgy checkin officers. We can look forward to some good stuff from both these consortia. I have been to the Frankfurt airport (managed by Fraport), Europe's second largest airport, it is an amazing example of German efficiency how they have managed to keep the airport working so efficiently even with unplanned expansions and increasing traffic.

I hope they repeat the performance in India.

PS: Interesting point: The UPA goverment for sure will tout the deal to show their commitment to a modern India. But lest we forget, the actual plan to modernize the airports and privatize them was kicked off by the BJP goverment early last year!

Defining Irony

A rather disturbing incidence took place yesterday at the Srinagar airport. A Sahara airlines plane literally bumped into an Air India plane after getting the clearance to land on the same runway by apparantly overworked ATC (Air traffic control) tower. The passengers were lucky survive, a midrunway collision with the landing plane more than 250km/h would have surely resulted in total annihilation.

The incidence points out the dire need of modernization at Indian airports, but what is apparantly more interesting is the take on the incidence by the Indian express. Check out the wording:

"Hundreds of passengers had a close shave today, when two planes—a Sahara Airliner and an Air India plane, carrying Haj pilgrims—grazed each other at the Srinagar airport."

Frolicking around with words on an incidence that might have costed the lives of nearly 300 passengers.....

A new definition of Irony that is.

The full report is on:

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=86912

India vs China

As sleazy as the heading may sound, this one is going to be about economy again.

The biggest buzz on US, and European media is about the India vs China issue, an issue that the media has invented for itself. It is rather peculiar of modern civilization that whenever they see two comparable entities trying to succeed they assume that they would be competing each other. Although both the countries are talking about symbiotic growth, and both do have extremely specific strengths and weaknesses, it is pretty apparent that they are aiming for the same stake in the market through different approaches. In other words, competing.

On one side we have China, a juggernaut with forced efficiency, little opposing forces and hence concentrated strength to one and only one goal. MONEY. They have the cheap labor, industries, infrastructure, and most importantly the power to make the laborers work in any condition.

On the other hand we have India, a multifaceted, diverse, fused, contradicting mix of cultures, peoples and views who all want to have a say. The only problem is, they want to have it at the same time, resulting obviously in clamor and apparent chaos. Indeed, this is the first impression of many foreigners have of India. The delicate balance of forces and the fact that not everyone agrees on one point, or even has a point are things that Indians have taken forgranted for the last 50 years. The knack of always thinking locally but being aware of the big picture is infact the main reason why today's Indian thinks on global terms, acts on global terms and competes on global terms . So our apparent weakness has turned to our strength!

It has made us adopt a foreign language, a language of our previous oppressors whom we so enthusiastically kicked out. Logic would dictate that we overthrow their customs and language, but it is our diversity and the ability to think in the bigger picture that we retained the gift of global perspectives that the British gave us.

And a decision well made I say!

btw. NY time's interesting take on India's presence at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/26/business/worldbusiness/26india.html

I like the last paragraph, free Ipods with Indian music on, if you needed proof on Indian entrepreneurship look no further...

Airports India, Good news...

BTW, to avoid suspense the self appointed special panel of ministers have declared that airports will be privatized and they will select a bidder in the next two days. Hallelujah the system does work!

Now for the background fundaas,
So, since new airlines are springing up and the aviation sector is booming like there is no tomorrow (Air India ordered 68 brand new Boeing planes, and this is an airline that had no new plane till last year! other airlines went crazy too, it was almost ludicrous at a point, my German friends were asking me if I was going to set up an Airline too, hmmm maybe.......). The airlines and the investors were obviously not happy with the current pathetic (ill)condition of our airports and the government decided to pull up its sleeves and modernize the airports.

Manmohan Singh's government and Praful Patel decided that airports had to be privatized to allow for foreign investment and some efficiency. So bids were invited from eligible investors. However, the leftist supporting wing in the coalition started crying about privatization, and were supported by airport baabus who were afraid of loosing their cushy jobs and the "incentives" that they would get in it, slowing down the process and at a point even threatening to grind it to a halt, staging strikes and everything. It was while following the news that I was so frustrated, the decision was delayed twice, big players like Singapore Changi airport commission withdrew, Sridharan and his gang of bureaucrats advised a re-bidding while the communist wing and airport employees association were staging dharanas and strikes all the time. It looked like the end of the tunnel was leading to a darker pit. And hence the frustrated blog entry......

Well anyway, it is all good now, a decision will be made, airports will be privatized and efficiency will restore. For once I am sure that atleast after a couple of years I won't have to bear sneering remarks from foreigners about the shanty condition of Indian airports while I am abroad, and a bright shiny revamped terminal will welcome me home......

Dream on I say!

ps. for the interested reader this news link covers the whole issue quiet concisely:
http://www.btimes.com.my/Current_News/BT/Wednesday/Corporate/BT546313.txt/Article/

Errata, or correction to post:
The plans to privatize airports were actually kicked off by the BJP (NDA) goverment early last year, the UPA goverment is doing a great job in navigating them though...

Airports India

The state of the affairs is simply unacceptable, I am totally convinced. As I walked into the Mumbai airport's international hanger run by Air India last year, I was embrassed to be an Indian. The sleazy, greedy eyed airport officials, in faded blue unclean uniforms were bugging foreigners, desis (especially ladies travelling alone) to "hire" their services in order to get some excess baggage through, or jump a queue. In other words, they were offering illegal services, and the police didnt seem to give a rat's behind. Then there were other idiot officials pretending to give unwanted help to foreigners and begging for tips in return. It was so disgusting that I was ashamed of being an Indian. This has to stop, and that is for sure.

The ideal way would have been for the Aiports Authority of India (AAI) to strap their shoes and get rid of this nuisance already. But seeing as they have not been able to curb it, the only other way is to get a profit motivated private firm in charge in order to clean up the bull that's lying around and get affairs in order.

So, the next time you see a demonstration of indian airport workers opposing privatization, dont't fool yourself in thinking that every single one of them is an honest to heart worker who only cares about the community and the poor. Half the place is full of sleazy, corrupt baabus who need a kick on their lazy buttocks to clear their heads. People that we Indians have been so accustomed to around in other state run offices.

Privatization will surely mean a few job cuts in order to INCREASE efficiency at airports, which are already seriously over-manned with officials standing around looking like dumb lamposts all day and biding their time by resorting to corruption. But if the result is a fresh, clean, and efficient airport, which is not only a bliss for the desi traveller but a great first impression on the foreign visitor; then its worth it!

Its a growing economy anyway, if you have the skills you will find a job.

AI

You cannot know perfectly the past, you cannot perfectly predict the future, and you hardly understand the present... then what should be the truth?

Maybe the truth lies in your want to understand. Maybe it is the fact that we try to understand and know our world is what makes us different, I mean isn't that intelligent afterall. But I think the strogest connotation of intalligence is not only the understanding or perception, rather it is the ability to change the environemnt to serve the required purpose. The purpose can be something simple, e.g. it is too cold, cold must be avoided, build a shelter and generate heat to warm the shelter. This process indicated a simple chain of events and rationale that may define intelligent interference with the environement. The logical outcome is that the intelligent being will use his perceptory skills to study the environemnt, use his logical skills to learn about the environment and then employ the resources at his hand to creatively alter the evironment to suite his needs, i.e. build a shelter. It would also be appropriate to say that the being will try to optimize its results.

However, environment is a very deceptive word, the evironment is as rigid as it can be fictious, because your interaction with the evironement are limited by your perception, and your ability to change the environemnt is limited by your resources. Then, learning and trying to change the environemnts should also indicate changes in understanding of the environemnt and one's capablity and the desire of the intelligent being to be optimal.

So, why 22.847297049248

So....now this is the first entry of this blog, I would really really like it to be something meaningfull and interesting and something that really states the purpose of this blog.


Ahh welll, such is life... right!