India has a huge population which lives below the poverty line who endure great pains just to have two square meals a day. India also has a good number of people who fall in the categories of HNW Individuals, Upper class, Upper-middle class and lower middle class….of we can go on in dividing the demography of the country into various classes!! But basically it falls into two broad categories, people who pay taxes and are able to earn a decent living and people who are not able to do that.

The Govt. of India uses the tax money mainly to give provide for the politicians, either by salary which keeps on going high every year or by the various innovative methods of corruption these politicians come up with. Whatever little that remains, is used for the development of the country.

Some of the money mentioned is used to buy grains and other edible material from the farmers and give them at a concessional rate to the poor people. Well, at the first look it sure is a novel idea and act up as a balancing act.

But what happens when, the bought food is not sold to the poor but rots in the store of the country? The food prices for the people who can afford rises because a portion of the supply is removed and the poor are still left hungry.

Our spineless judiciary did take note of this and rightly directed the Govt of India to give them away for free to the poor.

What does our famed PM respond to this, that it will remove the incentive from the farmers to produce.

My question here is, will it ?? I believe the farmers will be interested in the money we give them in exchange of the grain and not what we do with the grain? So if the Govt of India is really worried about the incentive to farmers then it should give them a higher price for their goods. AND not create an artificial hike in the price by removing the supply, in the name of providing for the poor.

The whole fiasco just outlines how we are being duped by our so called Govt. of India!!

We as in both, the people who can afford and pay taxes and the people who cannot afford  two square meals a day!!

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The recently concluded so called 3G auction raked in huge chunks of money for the government. But is it really good for us? Ofcourse, the huge spectrum costs, along with the huge costs to roll out the network infrastructure will be passed on to the end customers, that would be us.

India, for long has had the lowest Telecom rates in the world. Many attribute it to the competition brought in by the government policies. Well I think it is not that straight forward.

The competition part is true, but it is not because of good government policies, partly yes but thats not the whole story. It also because the spectrum was sold at an exceptionally cheap price.  The new companies rolled out networks charged the user at around 50% of the calling charges of the already set in players, mainly to capture market share. Smaller companies which can survive on lesser margins started the price war. The end product, cheaper call rates for the users. In the meantime the hue and cry is over the media that Government of India licensed the spectrum at dead cheap price, and inturn lost a lot of money.

But then,

When did the Government of India became a Corporation?

Cheaper prices translate to cheaper call rates to user, which allows them to have bigger purchasing power in other places. So, the general public does benefit out of it and moreover, they get to decide how to spend it. This is instead of passing that money to GoI and then ends up in pockets of Politicians and other corruption black holes, which suck in money with no accountability.

I would prefer the present outcome of 2G spectrum. And moreover, I am quite skeptical how affordable the 3G technology would translate to us, compared even to the Broadband Wireless also known as 4G. I am quite hopeful, that we will have better rates in calls and broadband connection in the 4G spectrum.

Yes, the senior Ambani brother may have pulled out the Ace on everyone else and he may jump start the 4G revolution.

With all these thoughts, I have started to see the general Public of India as different from the Government of India, and I have begin to believe that our interest do not necessarily align. Govt. of India now seems just like any other corporation in the world, and one which does not have a very good management. Whats worse , it has tremendous power for its disposal.

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Is it related to me not posting more blogs here. Ofcourse,  blogging has been a good way of LBDN, but I hope it is not because of this reason. My brains ability to churn out thoughts has somehow reduced inspite of having few people who continuously pester me to post. Yes, the word ‘pester’ has be used!!! I think is more to do with the tools of the new social media, posting of one liners, also known as micro-blogging. As some of the connected people would have noticed that, when I was deprived of the Internet, I had resorted to these mediums to let go of my mental rants in few characters. Mostly on Twitter and few times on Facebook. My habit of Micro-blogging has left me feeling comfortable with unpursued thoughts. And now, I am able to churn out decent posts, reading which I can relate myself.

Although I have posted sub-quality posts many times in the past, I have refrained from them a lot more. And unlike some of the other blogs I read, I do not want  to post just for the sake of posting, and hence, I the huge gaps. Yes, like everyone else, I also suffer from mental black holes. Which suck every thought thrown to them and refuse to let out anything worthwhile. Infact, even crap is not coming to me know. So, I have resorted to being blank rather then type posts which are like…ummm… this one in nature!!!

Having said that, I will continue diluting blood in my body and end this here.

I hope I will no longer pretend to be awake while sleeping!!!

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I think more often than not, we tend to be optimists who are not rational. Are is it just propaganda to lift the feel good factor??

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Gujarat would allow online voting for the Municipal elections and are calling it e-voting. Is it the step in the right direction or simply just a move forward to rely more on technology. Read the Full news here.

Will online voting result in greater say of the public in handling of the affairs of the responsible body ?? There is still lot more to do!!

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Sorry India, it is going to be China.

But what we can salvage, giving our best shot, is the 2nd spot.

I don’t like the foreign policies of the US. I made that very evident in the post here.

US is the biggest bully I know. Primarily because it is the biggest economy in the world because it is the biggest market in the world. This agian is due to the fact that it has built a very good infrastructure, it has employment and lot of other things. To do this, you need money. The money came from the govt. Which is massively in Debt. But it is still a power house. Why??

The World’s currency for trade is the US Dollar, which is printed [pun??] by US. This is a very shallow argument, but if you read more, you will find out why it is the most important factor. My explaining this here would take up huge space and we will deviate from my the main interest of this post.

For any country to be the [bigger] super power than US, it needs to convert the world’s currency from US Dollar to either its own, which will make it far more easier for that particular country to rise but would be generally unacceptable to others, or to something more neutral.

If it becomes something more neutral, than many and not one will have a fair chance of making it to the Top. In this case, the biggest chance is of China. I don’t see India coming anywhere close.

Why China??

• China has the biggest Foreign Reserve, a big chunk in USD. Dumping the USD will cause more damage to US then China.
• China has vast reserves of Raw Material and is hoarding them also by importing them
• China has a very big manufacturing facilities.
• China has huge internal Demand and equally huge Supply chains for its economy to sustain on it own.
• China has the military muscle to ward of any attempts to suppress its sovereignty.
• China has a spine !!!

(Now do you see Why not India??)

What China lacks, is primarily the support of First World Countries, which can be offset by the huge support it can garner from the African nations. And that majority of the world looks at it from suspicion. (Indo-China war & alleged China’s support to Pakistan) for once makes China a not very favourable option for India.

India itself lacks the support of the world, primarily because India has never come across as a country which has a Spine. i.e. we do not stand up for our friends and hence it makes very difficult for anyone to actually rely on us !! [sad]

India also has huge internal problems with people only waiting for a small chance in order to stomp upon eachother, and our apparent lack of concern of the common good of the community as a whole and keeping our me-first attitude.

Chinese Yuan!!

Why China cannot have its own currency [chinese yuan] as the world’s currency. Because, chinese yuan is cheaper than its value undervalued. This allows to have a huge trade surplus [and also is funding the current hoarding of world's raw materials] effectively avoiding itself in being in a position similar to what US is in currently.

That is why China proposed a neutral currency in one of the G-20 economic talks post recession for

1. it will be easier for the world to buy a neutral currency argument than the chinese yuan for a common currency

2. retaining yuan to be relatively unaffected by the world trade and its control firmly with the Chinese government.

Why something like Euro will not work.

Euro was the first  step in this direction. What failed was, in order for the world to buy euro, the economy backing it had to be sufficiently big enough. In doing so, they had to include smaller countries which did not have a very sound economic state.

Enter US and Recession, euro is on its way down.

What makes sense is, for BRIC to have a common currency for international trade, and try Iran and Venezuela to endorse it. This will not offset the US in a big way. Because US has fairly huge control over the world Oil price with its own reserves, Iraq’s oil reserves under its control and Saudi Arabia being its close ally.But it sure will be the step in the right direction for the next super power.

Why BRIC?

• China and India are the two world’s biggest market. No matter which way you look at them, they are. Brazil is the fourth. (PS: for those who can correlate the incident years back in my college, Population turing to be positive factor here)
• China, India and Russia have fairly good technological base to develop. I am not sure of Brazil, hence I am not commenting on it (Though India has pathetic investments in R&D for its size)
• Above all, BRIC are the fastest growing economies in the world and are fairly sound. India’s Financial policies are very sound, no matter whoever tells you what. On top of that, the present big economies (read the US, Japan and Europe) are not going to come our out of recession anytime soon.

So what is our next step ??? You tell me …!!

Random Links which may be useful for further read

Rupe-India Report : This is a fairly old report. I read the complete report from the link on the left side of the column. This particular page highlights many things.

Balance Sheet Recession : The basis of what Balance sheet recession is, and in support of the above report and probably the reason why the recession is not going to be over anytime soon. Also, the argument for people who tell japan worry about its debt.

China’s Foreign Reserve : By far the biggest foreign reserve in the world

India’s Foreign Reserve : In comparison, India’s foreign Reserve.

UPDATE

IMF loan to Greece : Blog by Swaminathan Aiyar on the money meant for third world countries is going to Euro countries

Besides these links, which are fresh in my mind, you can search the internet for following

• China Hoarding World’s Raw Materials
• BRIC Economy Size
• Failure of Euro as a currency

What I lack is objective thinking, but I compensate it with abundance of day dreaming.

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The author (Phillip Pullman) defends the controversial title of his book. But in doing so, he puts a very clear indication on Freedom and Choices pertaining to it. Clearly distinguishing where the freedom of a group stops over the freedom of  an individual.

Quoting it below

“No one has the right to live without being shocked.

“No one has the right to spend their lives without being offended.

“Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. If they have to open it and read it, they don’t have to like it. And if you read it and dislike it, you don’t have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book, you can do all those things but there your rights stop.

“No one has the right to stop the writing of this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, sold or bought or read.”

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The file starts moving again…and alas…I am at the floor I wanted to be on !!!

The order is really Maddening !!

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