The whining of Corporate India

I recently came across open letters addressed by the Indian industry stalwarts to the government ruling the country. Well I agree the government is in a state of paralysis for quite sometime and have lost all hope with our political process. But having said that I just want to highlight that despite all the corruption scandals plaguing the present day Government we usually tend to overlook one major aspect. That the aspect we miss out is who propagates corruption in the first place?
We hear that so and so minister has been beneficiary of the scam but we forget the main player who benefits. It's the same corporates who earn the maximum from the corruption scandal. Its amazing that we always miss out on the root cause for the all the corruption scandals. Its the dirty underbelly of indian politics that corporates lobby hard, and pay kickbacks so that they can shore up their bottom-lines. I find it very strange that the corporates are giving a lesson in morality when they are neck deep in corruption. Its amazing that the bigger the corporate entity the bigger the bribes. Without naming the big guns I personally know as many of my known people are 'Government Servants' and they get LCD tv's , sponsored holidays, mobiles and other gadgets during festival time based on their rank in the government hierarchy and the value of gifts tend to go up when certain tenders get passed. And I can assure you the biggest corporate names indulge in these activities no matter how vehemently they might deny. Its very easy to preach but very difficult to practice. Greed is the biggest gift which capitalism has given all over the world.
I liked communism for the simple fact that it didn't have the concept of billionaires but sadly communism had its own drawbacks and it imploded in the face of greed.

The case for Higher growth..How do we power it??

I am reading all the doomsday stories about our economy. The growth has dropped to below 6%. Its the lowest in the past decade and all the allied stuff. I will warn you guys that I am not a economist by any stretch of imagination but then it gives me a detached perspective of analyzing the economy and all the news associated with it.

First for the last decade we have had the second fastest growing economy in the world and thats quite an achievement as I am made to believe. But what does it mean to you and me? To me things commodities are expensive, inspite of me getting a good salary I end up spending almost all of it just to live a decent life. And I wonder what happens to the people who earn significantly lower than me. In India we often refer to everyone who is educated and working as the middle class but is it so in reality? And as a percentage of population the poverty might have decreased but then when I look at the hard numbers its still higher than what it was in the last decade. I am surprised because I thought we were the economic powerhouse and were creating jobs like anything. In India sadly we don't have a data for the unemployment but I am sure the figure will be a shocking one. Indian economists love the numbers but then tend to forget the bad numbers. So despite the phenomenal growth poverty is rampant, slums are increasing in our urban centers and the welfare state which we thought we will become when we fought for independence is far from reality. So I believe economic growth or no growth we have screwed up our country big time. And lets not blame the politicians only we are equally to blame by our apathy and the race to earn more money to live a life of comfort.

Secondly we are all worried that the foreign financial rating institutions would downgrade our ratings. I am not a very big fan of FDI. Why?? Simply to say think abt it if we become an FDI intensive country imagine a scenario like the 2008 financial meltdown which would result in withdrawal of majority of the FDI from our economy and how our projects will be affected. That will send our economy into a tailspin. We were insulated from the financial crisis till now because our economy is majorly even now driven by domestic consumption. Yes given that I am not against FDI per se but in areas which have significantly high capital requirement and significantly low impact on economy like the airline industry.
I believe just due to the less globalisation of our economy we have been able to withstand the financial meltdown. We wouldn't want lots of FDI in the infrastructure and create a property bubble like it did in europe. Let the Indians work in the traditional way of saving and ourchasing. Easy credit only will increase the greed. And the greed of the big financial corps has to be financed by the taxpayer when the bubble bursts. So its not that bad as it looks. Cheers

Mirror mirror on the wal!! Who's gonna be the Indian president in the fall???

Its the time to choose the most ineffectual member of the government of India,The President. What does the Indian president do? Well his job is to sign Laws, Travel round the world, Maintain the wonderful house and the gardens and enjoy the best of Indian Hospitality. And yeah if he feels he can disagree with the government of the land but only disagree nothing more at the end its our parliament is the supreme body.

Sounds like paradise and a very good retirement option and still we have so many people fighting for the grandest retirement home.

Now lets see the curious case of Pranab Mukherjee. One of the most respected and astitute politician of our times. Poor fellow never got what he aspired for. He wanted to be the Prime minister when Indira Gandhi died but since Congress is the synonym for Gandhi he didn't stand a chance. And when a Gandhi didn't want to become the prime minister he must have been rubbing his palms in anticipation. But rather than the hot seat coming to him it goes to a bureaucrat turned pseudo politician Dr Manmohan singh (Drat Pranab Mukherjee should have done a PHD and got a doc in front of his name...It sounds so cool).  Well just when things were looking rosy and Pranab da had decided on a retirement home for himself and zeroed on the Rashtrapati bhawan the hurricane from bengal struck. Mamata di in her zeal for poribartan (This is a fictious character having no resemblance to any person living or dead And I am not a maoist don't put me in jain and no cartoons too) flexes her imaginary hercules' muscles and says no. Pranab da is very precious for bangla to retire-Yeah thats a guess of her reason to veto the candidature. I feel sorry for Pranab da and he must be wondering why him all the time?? What wrong has he done to be denied the fruits of his labour. He's respected across the political spectrum and termed as a efficient and wily leader then why does he always end up short. Maybe his biggest problem is he's a bengali.

I'll talk about the bengali thing some other time. Its kaun banega rashtrapati time and sadly we the people have no role to play. All hail the mela ala our great indian democracy. Let the fight begin...