360 days back...

Headline - About an year back, India voted 4 change; Change is visible, but when issues are systemic and deep rooted, it takes time; The broad direction is still hazy and fundamental "step change" plans are unclear.

A lot of my friends have asked me, I send a lot of memes on RaGa and AK67 but none Modi. In fact memes on AK67 have died out as well. Simply because both of them are down in the business and the noise has gone down. RaGa also has started to get his sleeves rolled up, but till a time the shi(f)ts in Congress are visible, memes will continue.

Year 1 Review: CAG has just published a view about our situation on military ammunition stock and the number of fighter jets is also under the minimum advised stock level (re. French deals). India's national security has been dealt in such a careless manner by previous rulers, Media should stop treating UPA with kids gloves (Coalition never would have stopped them on this count) Seriously don't know why SoGa or RaGa (MMS) have not been asked about this question on the above two highly important national concerns;

Sorry it seems like I digress, but this is a fundamental point to take note when we discuss/measure two government performances - the baseline has been so poor. Performance has to be compared against a baseline. Our media and various BJP spokespersons should set this when in a fortnight's time, every Indian Media team will be reviewing Year 1. The Y1 performance should be on a baseline on a key set of factors that is in the scope of Union government- If Media doesn't measure do it this way (I am sure none of the outlets would do), then people who read this should reflect on the baseline.

First my disappointments:

1. Indian PM talked about so many acronyms - where is the policy for skill development? This I remember was his main point - What is the direction and strategy on Skill development?

2. Indian PM recently spoke about democratic values to the Times - why doesn't he set-up something up a forum like NITI Aayog, where all Parties debate on policies regularly and use Parliament to rubber stamp on important policies? This is healthy for democracy but more importantly opposition's voices can be then managed pro-actively? - Handling of bills and opposition has been appalling

3.  To top it all, the messy handling of agriculture sector - the land-bill and how this whole sector has been dealt has frustrated me

I believe on an actionable strategy (In the last sixty years, Nehru & Vajpayee were the ones who showed a strategic and actionable shifts, Indira rode on Nehru's back). Overall and aspects of strategy has to be communicated, even if the government doesn't have a clue - The way hype was created before election, I expected a roadmap of strategic changes - Some changes are taking shape, however a comprehensive direction and policy/approach is missing and that would set the discourse in right direction.

With, the absence of thought leadership in previous 10 years, I was hoping to see some strategic shifts - The two areas with a bit clarity 1) in International policies, 2) "intent" in centre-state joint governance. Apart from these two, there is little clarity on many key topics.

So here you go this is what I am frustrated with BJP government and Modi.

Some positives to note: no scams till date, swift action on auctions (though on SC push), interesting policy debates on NJAC (see what has happened last week in Chennai HC), swift relief on international operations, setting the perception about India in international stage, no riots till date, no terrorist incidents (touch-wood), approach to NITI Aayog, even Nitish has started getting cosy with Modi, Mamta di is now on board smiling.

So all in all, it is not as scary as UPA and associated Media outlets have been projecting. To emphasise again, one needs to compare the government against the base line and also some of the scary thoughts that Media members like Guha, Shiv N etc. were projecting - nothing of that sort has happened.

1 Subtle but strong Voice P. Chidambaram has been writing about the Government and its actions regularly in Indian express since day 1 and has been putting up very good arguments - Except PC no sane or clear views from Congress.

Will I vote Modi again? - Yes (still no alternative from any National party)

NB1: A lot of us debate on multiple issues when we talk about Modi's governance, but we forget about what are Centre's responsibilities, where it ends and what are state's roles... This complicates the debates big time...

NB2: The comments and discussions that happen between UPA vs. NDA or Pappu vs. Feku is slowly edging into borderline riots in the internet arena... This is not safe, the Media should find a way to manage this... a lot of anonymous and false ID comments are twisting the debates into Hindu vs. non-Hindus - this is a very dangerous and alarming trend. It has to be Media, if Modi intervenes on this, a lot of us will say that the government is curbing Media freedom.

NB3: I have omitted a lot of areas of interesting happenings and issues - simply because it is just Year 1 and expecting changes all of the place in Y1 is too much. Let us wait till 2016, when RS strength would get shifted...

Bye for now!

Mumbai T2: Why do we need to spend lavishly?

My friends in India are quite pleased about the way T2 has been done. Needless to say that Media are
excited about T2.

The Hindu: "The T2 terminal is touted to be larger than Singapore's Changi T3 (3.80 lakh sqm) and London's Heathrow T5 (3.53 lakh sqm)"

Ibnlive: "The four-storey glass marvel, whose design has been inspired by a dancing peacock"

NDTV: "The terminal boasts of tens of thousands of artifacts and paintings, housing arguably one the largest collections in the world at an airport."

Indiatoday: A three kilometer long 'art walk' titled 'Jaya He' has been built inside the T2. It displays Indian art pieces between the 8th century and 19th century

Is it actually worth it for a developing country like India? While we try and throw spanner into Mangalyaan type of space projects, actually these T2 type of wastages should be culled. This a classic example of just copying existing implementations, with no attention to what is actually required today and in future. Actually India has gone beyond aping the western world's model of airport building.Who defines that airports should be built in such a way? If the passengers can get in and out in a queue, receive their bags in time and fly out & in in-time then the purpose is well served.

I read on the net that people on average spend 4-10 hours on airport layovers. I also understand for Airbus a380  needs more landing space, but where is the need for a lavish layover when there is a billion people in the country who would need a lot more space in future.  There is an argument that if you are stuck in delays, then the layovers could be useful to spend your time. Seriously? I don't think this is a sound argument... if you are stuck because of delays, you may be keen to window-shop but would you go visit the art gallery? I think if you did, you might miss another flight and get further delayed.

Why is nobody thinking about alternate designs and building things suited to Indian context? In fact this should be the case for all countries. When the world is reeling in recession and billions are starving, Countries need to plan and build in a sustainable way. As internet and Kinect type of technologies are enabling virtual presence, business related travel might actually start to drop off over the next few years. Leisure and tourism might be the key travel reasons, Even if this is not the so - why overload airport infrastructure for very little returns? The maintenance cost over years is going to mount on the public. Am I the only one who is concerned about such extravagant, no-purpose layovers?

Let me clarify that I am not against building new terminals or expanding infrastructure, I only advocate for minimalistic and effective use of funds, acreage in such infrastructure projects. There is no point in competing with China or West on these projects. There are also additional indirect expenses like electricity utilisation, people and maintenance costs. This money could have pooled for building multiple bus-stands or local train stations.

Above all, not many would know that India's aviation policy under UPA-2, allegedly 200,000 seats a week has been magnanimously given to middle-east sector through Jet-Etihad deal (Ref: https://medium.com/p/ab752d0cf543). If this is the case, how will T2 operate successfully as a Hub?

Literally on a very bad foundation, a multi-story T2 has been built. Even if the above posture of Jet deal is a farce, still it begs the question - why should India lavishly spend on airports in a needless and meaningless race of sprawling airports? 

Tortoise and Hare - The Race Never Ends...

In a FB comment one of fellow FB-ians posted a frustrated note that "Can we outsource our country's governance to some other country ? Will there be takers ?" I read the blog and my view is this another blogger who has done a very basic piece of analysis and concluded that China has won the race and India will be end up second as opposed to Morgan Stanley's view that India will take lead by 2050's.

Surprisingly the blog article is from a regular writer (meant to say not a novice) - Steven Rattner, he led the Obama administration's auto task force, was one of the executives involved with payments under scrutiny in a probe of an alleged kickback scheme at New York state's pension fund, according to a person familiar with the matter. (Link, Link2). But this has got nothing to do with his write-up. I wanted to spice it up and found this allegation.

Anyway I responded to the FB post that The writer misses quite a lot of context and compares a banana and a jack-fruit (!). Like an under-grad student in an analyst intern role, he has blindly compared the statistics.

So why did I say that? Steven himself starts and finishes the blog about the choice of vehicle for development between both countries, In fact to make sure he doesn't get a kick from his elitist club, has dismissed Chinese autocratic regime and puts the disclaimer that he doesn't support it(!)

India has opted for a slow moving, let us call it a "bullock cart" to reach its destination, where as China took a "Maglev". By the very fact that two countries have taken two different mechanisms to deliver its objective, direct comparison is going to give a lopsided view. But still if you insist a comparison, leveling up those mechanisms and reviewing the outputs can help. So how do you level up?

I do these all time in my work when i review IT contracts, procurement, solutions etc. The mechanism can be different, but make sure the inputs to mechanisms that are in comparison are same. i.e. if you are comparing 3 different mechanisms, one should first make sure the inputs to those 3 mechanisms are same, if these are still same and one mechanism provides better result then there is a winner (May be). I would still investigate any hidden assumptions on the winning mechanism to understand why this is different. This basic science lab stuff.

Hence I say Steven's analysis is intern stuff! He is not calling out the inputs before comparing democracy and autocracy. First the context: Did both countries start development at the same time - answer NO! They lag by 15 years. The economic policies and financial management - are the same? i.e. the amount of investment that both countries deploy. Macro-economic situations for both countries may be similar, but by the time China had started its Phase 1 development, Bangladesh war had just finished in India's context, Also China had just screwed up India and not to forget the constant nonsense from the neighbor supported by China. (In fact Chin as it grows, keeps tripping India - bad sportsmanship in a race) The resources as inputs to the mechanism is something that can be contentious i.e. how much raw materials were available to both countries, human power, Industry knowledge, etc. In my view there are lots of lagging factors between the two countries; so with that, comparing these two models are going to be incredibly difficult and most likely are to be subjective. (Same with my blog)

Steven's blog has been reviewed by another blogger - (Fernando Salazar), this guy he adds a simple variant like education. This insight is better and informative in contrast to the bland statistics that Steven has put together. Steven calls himself an economist and God Bless USA. In any field and more particular to economics, when you review macro-models like China and India, it imperative to level the inputs and then get into a study.

But he has just put together measures like GDP, Inflation, Budget deficit etc. and these are current day figures and does not go pack to starting point to show the trace-ability. Reviewing such measures over a time period is a basic requirement to trace the nature of economic levers and this so-called economist has just used a point in time. Also, We all know how % can be misleading. To give an example using his own statistics, the 6% difference in Investment proportion between China and India is roughly $3000/person. That's a whopping big number! i.e China potentially invests $3T more than India. (assumption both countries have a ~1B people). Just as a side note - please look at this study and refer to slide 7. (Link to India start-up report)

Now to the title of this blog, In my view Development is a mirage. I myself have used the word USA is fully developed and i am happy to recall it. Growth always is a cycle of ups and downs. The question I often ask, why do you even need to be in a race? Why shouldn't India take its own time to grow? Another analogy: One could eat well and go to gym and build his/her body alternatively could buy a protein from H&B and pump weights to build quickly - we all know the disadvantages of the artificial growth. Hence I say development is a mirage. In fact Fernando, the Techie sums-up in his blog that "India is a peculiar mix of social democracy" I like his blog better than the so-called economist Steven. I meant to quote in FB that USA has reached its 'developed' country tag and it took them almost 250 years. So the US we say today was not the same as recently as in 1930 i.e. prior to the big depression.

Sometime the path is important for a few, sometimes the results are important for a few but the path is not. I am not suggesting that India has taken a noble path, but India's vehicle of growth is a long drawn one. In such a race, the Hare will always seem to run faster to a set distance, retard for a while, then run faster again, but the Tortoise will keep moving at its own pace, and the Race never Ends!

Post-Script: The writer fails miserably in his writing style as well. First the title that India is losing the race, then ends up saying India will be second... Also he does dilly dally between India's state of affairs in legal, corruption, summary execution and confuses throughout... He is unable to identify a clear state of difference between both countries, but ends up saying India is losing, however doesn't support the autocratic Chinese regime? Sorry Steven a shoddy write-up - change the ghost-blogger, this person is damaging your reputation!

சந்தைக்கு போலாமா ?

Many of my friends know my life began in Neyveli. People from Neyveli rarely have anything negative to talk about the township. I have been to many places in US, Europe and a few cities in India, but Neyveli has a special place. May be simply due to the fact, that it was my birth place...

Santhai (சந்தை) in Tamil means a market place. Usually people can get groceries at small stores next to their houses and for veg they tend to go to Santhai. This market place has to be described... Imagine a huge vacant land probably a size of two football grounds. A part of this is marked off for two-wheeler parking (I mean bi-cycles) and a bit for motor-bikes and scooters. The rest of the ground is neatly plotted into long rows of shops.

A mile early, you would know that you are passing the Santhai zone, simply through an unusual traffic and people carrying a lot of veg/other products stuffed in wire-knit-bags. These wire-knit bags have a place in Neyveli's home-makers (aka) house-wives' life...They buy bundles of nylon made wire and knit to make them bags with all sorts of designs. As in any town, people borrow such bags, lose it and get into a bit of tiff. Anyway with people carrying big bags of veg in bicycle handlebars and balancing those bags and their plump home-makers sitting in the rear (career-seat) and shouting at their husbands for not driving carefully, you can make it out, that the markets must be nearer...

Usually when my Mom, Dad or Brother/Sister calls me for aide to a market visit, i try and come up with new excuses every time. Simply coz' it's long way from the house and not only that, they go around haggling and sometimes it becomes a scene, though i would never realise that every one around creates a scene, it is just not my family folks. But more importantly it takes ages to go and come back. Sometimes they would chose to take a bus to this market which is a lot worse than taking a bicycle or our infamous lambretta.  A - is our home and B is Thursday market, and the round black circle over in no-man's land is Sunday market. There are certain key differences in these market places (according to my mom and other Neyveli folks). However I never got to understand those key differences. It would be along the lines that in Sunday market the prices are high and in Thursday market you get better green veg and the unsaid reason being everyone goes over to Sunday market as it is a day off. But i guess everyone just did go to Thursday market, simply coz' of this unsaid secret rationale.

The farmers would 'directly' bring their produce and sell it off. I have learnt the dynamics of life through shopping in these market places... Things like even though you see tomatoes at the front of market entrance, one should not buy it as the first choice of veg, but buy it as the last choice and that too while returning. (That depends if you came last, you got only leftovers... there is a lesson too). One is not allowed to mix veg like root-veg/ripe-veg/leafy-veg/fruits. But its a joy to watch people buying these vegetables in an order and packing them in different bags. In the end, you get to drink a coconut sometimes or a bit of sugar-cane juice.

Those Sundays were challenging, but I did enjoy my 'Santhai' day-outs. When I grew into a teenager, I started volunteering (no big secret here...), I just became responsible. So once there was a situation, where my dad was to do his annual Shrartham (click on hyperlink on what Shrartham means) rites to his father... I chose to go with him and support as we would buy a lot of stuff and more importantly a lot of long-banana leaves to serve food. He suggested that I wear a drawer (Half-pants/shorts) and not come in a dhoti. But I wanted to show I am a grown-up man and not a teenager. So decided to ignore his advice and chose to go wearing a dhoti. Needless to say, we took our embarrassing lambretta scooter and it is the best 'device' to get a girl notice you... I mean riding a lambretta, not wearing a dhoti and driving a lambretta. So

Interestingly all through the row of shops, every 10 minutes I would stop, re-tie my dhoti and it became such a nuisance. When we had finished shopping fully, I was loaded in both hands and my dhoti started slipping. Needless to say my Dad smirked and gave me a look-u. I learnt another lesson.

I guess as every grown-up in my teenage use to say -Gone are those days where the milk sold for 3 anas and oil sold at 12 anas... I can safely repeat the history.... Gone are those days of Santhai and welcome Wal-Mart! An elected government for 65 years could not get rid of agents and middlemen, an elected government for 65 years could not get the best price for its farmers, an elected government for 65 years with no means to control proper agri-chain has decided to put its trust on private bodies that are meant as profit-only organisation, is self-proclaiming defeat and has prostrated in front of capitalism.

We have Tirupurs and the Punjabs where with foreign investment the clothing and agriculture industry are controlled by different middlemen - the difference being its pocketed by a few individuals, whereas in erstwhile market, it was a shared livelihood. I am not against FDI, but not many know that FDI <51% has been there for years and has not resolved anything... (for many of our news-media, FDI and 51% still don't mean anything, they are just writing junk in the name of FDI - it bother me very much - am i the only one?) Siddarth Varadarajan with a leftist voice is a loner in the crowd like mine... I am yet to see some good arguments. But I want to build a 'Capitalism with Indian Characteristics' (Vasudeva Kutambakam)  and will write my thoughts in the next post... Jai Hind!

Mahathir is Mahawrong!

Sampling the comments for the article, I can very well see people will ignore what Mahathir said. But to emphasize, I wish our people/media reflect more on the positive aspects of Indian growth story and relax. I have often said to my friends that we (Union of India) are just 60 years old... Growth should be natural and democracy should evolve but not forced upon. 

India is like an elephant. An elephant's gestation period is 22 months (!) and goes on to leave for another 60 years. It has a gait similar to running but walks at a pace and can max to 45KM/H. Its proverbial to say "walk before you can run" yet its true! US of A took more than 250 years to where it is today.  I prefer not to emulate the US model of growth too. There should be an Indian way! Look how pathetic we have been in dealing with our North East states? I am ashamed that I did not know about Irom Sharmila until very recently. Look at the way we deal with Mullai Periyar dam? FDI in retail could be a shot in the arm, but in my view its not going to solve the fundamental infrastructure issues. There is no leadership or vision.

I digress, but the point is, let us grow in our own pace and let us ensure we grow together... 

On a different note, I see Venky at his best. I like the way he has constructed this article. Budding journos should learn from this article. Journalism changes too! especially in the web 2.0 media age, this apt for the modern day readers i.e. brings many issues (China Model, Malaysian issues, Indian context, devolved governance and more importantly disagreeing to Mahathir's idea)  through the article and attaches links to it, so a reader can get the crux quickly and browse the underlying articles in leisure. 

Moneycracy...

My previous post was about reforming the democratic governance with a capitalistic addition. India's charismatic Modi thinks in a similar line but challenges the congress lead coalition Indian government with his speech today in a different form "Modi has been playing political rhetoric again in recent days. At a function in Vadodara last week, he said Gujarat gives Rs 40,000 crore as taxes to the Centre and receives only 2.5 per cent of it in return. He asked the government to stop collecting taxes from Gujarat and also stop aid to the state." But the actual challenge is these sort of thoughts cannot be shoo-ed away.

Democracy a way forward?

Is democracy still a meaningful concept in the 21st Century? Thats my question. Most of the democratic governments, the voting numbers have gone done. The only other concepts of governance are dictatorship and communism. Clearly communism has failed. Dictatorship can never be the right answer. So that leaves us the option with democracy. I have not seen much thought leadership in the area of political governance that can promise a better structure that provides a better governance.

I am right now reading a book about 'Writing on the wall and the West in 21st Century'. This book delves into the history of chinese governance. I think thats much needed to find a good way of governance and making sure the world shares the risks, effects as a society together. I seriously think democracy is also loosing its sheen and in another 15-20 years, this concept will also be questioned like the communist concept.

The key point is people are loosing interest in governments and are working in a self-centered manner. So how can a governor provide a good rule, when the subjects aren't really bothered or why should he/she actually care to provide an impartial rule for such subjects. Recently a candidate in the US election has a different view of involving everyone into the senate and the view is if citizens aren't interested in law making, why should the state care about them? Its not a great idea but a start. When so many people involve in decision making, a decision can never be reached.

I have been thinking about this for long and an idea - may be this has its own pros/cons as every system would do. But its for the netizens to debate. The idea is every country should lay out some guidelines etc on State matters and devlove rest of powers to utmost the local council level and effectively all taxes should also go to the councils. e.g. In a local town of 1000 people, if 600 of them earn, their income taxes go to the local council which administers the town and they should be empowered to make all decisions except the State related one. I admit its similar to democracy, but devloving power can be the only way to bring the interest back. (I can see such flavours already existing in UK, France etc - but not fully implemented - the locals don't participate in council elections) Bring Money & Justice to local level which can put the interest back to people.

My knowledge in this area is limited, I encourage netizens to participate which will be a good start....