WalMart in India, its official!

There have been rumours, there have been tiny little scout offices, and there have been market surveys, but today WalMart, the biggest retailer of them announced that it is ready for the Indian market.

WalMart will provide logistic and supply chain support to Bharati Enterprise ltd, its prospective partner in India. That means, over the next 8 years we should be seeing a whole new brand of retail shopping "departmental stores"/malls being introduced in India. If WalMart and Bharati work as aggressively as they did here in the US, we should be seeing slashed prices all the way through computers to scooters, specials galore and stiff competition to other nonexistent chains.

Or we could just see a lot of takeovers, of the independent retailing chains/shops. It would be safe to believe that Shoppers stop will survive.

The venture is Bharati's own, with walmart only providing logistic support.

WIll this mean death to the Indian ma and pa retail shops (Marwaris, variety shops, Tulshi baug style shops and what have you?) I think no, because

• Infrastructure in India favours the small and the nimble, not the large and the trying to be fast,
• People are lazy, most dont own cars, and would not be bothered to travel all the way to Walmart for month's groceries, unlike the business model here in US.
• The ma and pa stores have excellent relationship with customers, including home delivery and monthly credit systems.

So the smallies are safe for now, but the biggies, aka shoppers stop and the likes are going to face stiff competition. Although, it all depends on how fast Bharati moves!

The rise of the Indian aviation sector

"And to ye all" he said...,"for the nonexistent avid readers of this blog will remember, that it had been predicted that Air-Deccan stock might carefully rise, and lo and behold, risen it has. For this is the proof you need of my existence. " thus went the stock broker's ghost.

"But carefull", said he who had been present through the crash, "all it takes is one crash, metaphorical or otherwise".

The aerospace sector is in a boom, but profits are low, and growth is high, so costs are huge, would I hold on to my stock????? Well lets say this, Rs 110 could be a good bail out price in the current (hopefully long lived!*) bear run. (And rs 100 or below is definatley a jump in price)

Thus endeth the stupidity...



*Long live the corrective bear run, at inflation touching 6.5% all stocks could be ovepriced, plus one needs a break in point!

101 Ways to pressure India, way #32

Present politically correct statements that apply pressure through a quasi-independent spokesman, in a its-none-of-my-business-but.... way

e.g.
"There is an expectation among US companies, the public and the political class that we have helped India, and that US companies should get a favorable treatment,".. "But that's not the same thing as saying there was a negotiated quid pro quo,"

US Ambassador to India David Mulford told reporters on the eve of the air show.

Ofcourse this deals with the Nuke deal

And off we go

The first deal in the making

India to buy 40 SU30 MRF s from Russia, at around $40 Million each that comes to a whopping $1.6 Billion dollar deal! Hope we get some discount!

And whats more, this is not a part of the "Mother of All deals!"

SU30: High capblity, heavy weight, MRF. MRFs are capable of multi roled missions, such as air supremacy, target destruction, patrolling, reconnaisance, and plain old carpet bombing.


Is this a primer to the acquisition of 126 MRFs from a US based company???????? First make ze Russians happy and then shake hands with Uncle sam? Who is taking the bets, I bet its F16s and F18s. THe real question is, do I hope I am wrong!

"The mother of all defence deals!"

I am referring of course to the planned acquisition of about 126 Multi Role Fighters by the good old IAF. The Aero-India show is in full swing, airplanes are floating around and so is the money. Its going to be a HUGE deal, think at least $17-20 Million for a lighter version and above $40Million for a heavy version of MRFs.

Add to that the planned acquisition of AWACS, Missile defence systems, UAV systems, and other assorted goodies, its going to be an early Christmas for defence contractors in Bang-a-lore!

The real question is of course, what should India buy. Should it be the awesomely maneuverable yet not so modernly equipped Mig 29s, or the impeccably cool and unnecessarily heavy Sukhoi 37s? Or maybe the battle proven and superbly equipped, but comparatively sluggish to handle F16s and F18s? Eurofighters, though shouting its head off to glory, is not yet battle proven. So unless we have an awesome deal on that, I dont think its going to happen. As for the other smaller players, there is the issue of Technology transfer and lifecycle cost.

We have been flying the Russian makes for a while now. They are good, reliable, super fast, agile, and extremely maneuverable aircraft. But at the same time, their avionics capabilities are a wee bit limited. That's not to say that putting excessive amount of computer screens displaying a helluva lot of info is the sure shot way of winning a dog fight, or even striking a bogey. But still, avionics go a long way in first strike missions. Awesome avionics capabilities should be on the radar of IAF anyway, if they want to survive in a net-centric battlefield.

The American makes are new to us, though rather sluggish compared to the Russian makes, they do come equipped with all sorts of gadgets that you could imagine. The most important part though, is that the avionics research in the US is a "very" current and active field. Being an IT based country, we sure want a piece of that pie. Under these circumstances scratching the self proclaimed Big Brother's back is not such a bad idea.

And Big Brother does need a back scratching, though bustling with economic prosperity in the defence sector, a deal of 126 Fighters could totally put the US defence industry in a vertical ascent mode. Not to say it will bring the fighter building arms of Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and a host of other suppliers out of the red.

But the key to the whole deal is going to lie in the following set of words: "Technology Transfer". Who is willing to give us the licence to manufacture the fighters in India, and a guarantee that all spare parts will be available even in the event of war. Well, Big Brother is reluctant to jump on that bandwagon. US is secretive about its defence program, it does not like to give out plans, and definitely likes to keep the final card under its control. If they do give us the green of tech transf. it will be HISTORY! A new chapter for Indian Aerospace industry. Well face it, Russia is not doing that well, and US is pouring bucket loads of money through proper channels in India. Plus we already have the licences for the Russian makes. The only question that remains is: do we want to go ahead and grab the Americans at the cost of upsetting Russia?

One final though, maybe we could just stick with the Russian makes, pressure them into selling us complete tech rights, and develop our own avionics and mission systems suite??


But then again, the threat to the nation is not current,

GURU

A great movie, hats off to Maniratnam and Rehmaan. The first score (Maiyya Maryem by Rehmaan is mind blowing. Though inspired from middle eastern (I think Turkish or Kurtish) folk music, the transition to Hindi and the mixing of the music is just impeccable, not to mention the awesome lyrics penned by none other than Gulzar. Although I was not that impressed by some of the other scores, except for ofcourse the Title score "Gurubhai". Shreya Ghosal's Barso re is refreshing too. The 'nandi' (music in the begining of a song which is repeated at regular intervals thereafter) of Ey Hairathe Aashiquee sets a nice tone to the movie.

The movie has nice pace, no unnecessary stops, except for that stupid song when Guru and his wife have kids. That song is an absolute waste of time. Aishwarya has tried her best to give a decent performance. It seems like she has even put on some weight just to look more Gujurati. But Abhishek on the other hand, surpasses all expectations. His last few movies have been excellent, I just hope he keeps it up! Madhavan and the babe from Lage Raho Munnabhai do a good job too.

But the real winner is MITHUN, I couldn't even recognize him for the first few minutes, and that is the mark of an masterfull performance, on the screen he is just Manik Dasgupta, not Mithun!

Well, what did I take from the movie? Inspiration, confidence, and hope. And thats just what the director wanted to portray, and boy he does it with perfection. Goosebumps are commonplace. I am not going to discuss the plot and all that here, because I think the way the movie unfolds is close to perfect. Despite the declaration at the begining of the movie that this movie is not based on any real characters, the movie is definatley inspired from the life of Dhirubhai Ambani.

The movie starts with around 3 minutes of gratifications to all corporate sponsors, a lot of succesful companies in that list. Well why do I think that is worth a mention, because this movie is about Business, and it means Buisness right from the start!

I am definatley recommending this movie! Its an absolute masterpiece!

The return of the Blogger

Hey everyone,

I am back to blogging. These last few months have been very taxing, and I have been extremly busy with the transition from DLR to Georgia Tech. For those of you who dont know, I have now moved to Atlanta US, for pursuing a PhD in Aerospace engineering at Georgia tech.

Well, what can I say, Georgia Tech is a hard school, there is a lot of work and the expectations are rather high. Combine that with my inceasent tendency to inertness and you have my excuse for not blogging for the last 3-4 months.

Well, anyway I am back now, and hopefully back with a bang!

Cheers!

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