Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Dilemma : Whom to vote for ? So many parties ... yet none good enough

Folks election is round the corner so his humble self has been pondering on whom to vote for. In good old days rather younger days, one just walked in and voted with heart (read pity). Still paying a huge price for having supported Congress ..... ah wish I was wise in foresight and agreed to my good old dad. He always thought Chidambaram (Chidu) and Manmohan were good students of economics and at best average managers (and of course poor leaders).

List of omissions of Congress is huge. If they have shame, they should withdraw from these elections. Shame ... ah I know I am expecting a lot from them.

First grouse - all august institutions independence was compromised in true mai baap party style. The (mis)appointment galore is stark. I am extremely ashamed to have some Pratibha Patil as first citizen. Most Indians around me had not even known she existed till she was not pushed on us. Imagine first family of India having murder charges !!! Letting go of RBI governor YV Reddy - anyone who knows little economics will agree that he saved Indian economy from catastrophe. Imagine what would have happened had he heeded to Chidu. Next SEBI chairman, Damodaran - let go because he was not submissive. Promoting a tained Election Commissioner as Chief Election Commissioner.

Financial jugglery - the less said the better. Forget about mismanagement. If corporate honchos can be held responsible for dressing up balance sheet (and be jailed like Raju brothers), why not finance minister for doing the same to India's balance sheet. Imagine hiding over 2 lakh crore of debt under shady heading "off budget items". In boom time tax collections under various heads grew 40%. This is a once in a millenium phenomena (not century). We should have been a budget surplus state. But our wise men blew all the money up and in addition managed to accumalate humungous debt. Its like winning a lottery and blowing all of it on alcohol. I dont know how we will manage in an environment where there is reduction in tax collections.... hmmm ... raid raj ... on innocent tax payers who will be portrayed as evaders. The list is long so shall leave it here. Imagine Lalu yadav doing a better job than Chidu .... atleast on the face of it .

Nuclear deal. Ahem . I do not know if it is good or bad. But when Congress came to power, his humble self , submitted suggestions from 17 different fora (including postal) to remove all taxes on an electric car called Reva. This could remove our dependence on imported petrol. What does one hear next, taxes on petrol guzzlings cars get reduced. I also sent a letter with a vague address .... Manohar Panikker , Chief Minister of Goa .... and viola .... the car becomes sales tax free in Goa. I am not sure if it was already in offing but happened. Had chidu and manmohan given sufficient break to Reva, for all you know we could have a global automobile giant in country. Guess which country's tax breaks promote Reva the most ....... UK. Can you believe this ..... the money government spent subsidising fuel ..... would have bought 1 crore Revas (assuming Reva would have been priced the same inspite of high volumes) ..... and thats more than all cars put together on Indian roads today. Unlike lot of countries in West, India is blessed with Sun round the year. Why is Manmohan not staking his government to capitalise on it ? Why is wind energy being ignored ? Go after nuclear .... but after having tapped all our strengths.

Politics make strange bedfellows ..... could suddenly make outcaste samajwadi party ... beloved. Not thinking before buying votes ..... so much for value driven politics .... being led by ... err ... our youth political icon ..... rahul gandhi .

As for party with mai baap attitude ...... they feel neglected ... if their ministers are not crowded for favours like out of turn Gas connection etc. Imagine 7 years ago you could have off the shelf gas connection from any gas supplier in India. Today .... you need to slog your butt off (and of course bribe) to get a government gas connection.

My opinions above does not mean I support BJP. The good thing about them is that they gave us Abdul Kalam as president (hindutva party and muslim president ...!!!) , they gave us Damodaran etc and things like golden quadilateral. Still I aint gonna vote for them .... given what happened in Mangalore and then the way the a set of youngsters partying in outskirts of Bangalore was handled .... who wants talibanisation of Karnataka ?

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Luck By Chance

There is no industry as lucky as the Indian IT industry. I do not mean that the folks in the industry are not visionary or that they did not work hard. But luck had an important role to play. Lets take a case in point .....

Below average political leadership

Irresponsible and incompetent political leadership is the biggest boon for Indian IT industry. By doing Satyam like accounting jugglery GOI (government of India) has hidden huge deficits (losses) behind off budget items like oil bond, fertiliser bond etc. For Rajus to transfer fortune of Satyam to Maytas is sin but the leaders have conveniently transferred fortunes of ONGC to oil marketing companies.

When the Rajus could sin no more ..... they were jailed. When GOI could sin no more .... rather cover up their sins no more ...... Rupee fell from 40 to 50.

Rupee at 50 means growth of over 20% in revenue and 25% in profits for IT Industry assuming they do not get additional business this year.

The key for Indian IT is that Indian economy at any point of time be worse managed than US. This will ensure a favourable exchange rate.

Assuming Bush is once in a century phenomenon .... I mean you cant get worse than Bush ...... hail Chidambaram & Co.... may his party be in power as long as I am in IT industry.

Imagine having erstwhile Finance Minister , Jaswant Singh at helm for last 5 years. With all his prudence and sensibile approach which he demonstrated earlier, Indian economy would have been well managed implying dollar at 35 ... curtains for Indian IT ......kinda similar to whats happening to Japanese export economy (Sony included) courtsey stronger yen ..... hmmm all I can say is ..... lucky by chance ....err luck by chance.