The Road Ahead From Here.......

Daily, while returning from office, I see some children or some elderly person or some underprivileged fellow on Bangalore roads, trying hard to earn their livelihood through begging. Some of them are capable enough to earn but most of them are really underprivileged and cursed to do the activity. On the other hand, it is the same city where you will not get a movie ticket of INR 1000/- (!!!!!) on weekends. Two extremes of life....and these extremes are persistent everywhere in India. The great Indian Development Story is going on and it has pushed many from Lower Middle Class to Upper Middle Class.......sounds good and it's true. Many are reaping the fruits of booming share market, high IT and Management salaries, increasing organized retail chains....but.....a big pause is after this. Most of the development effected only to educated middle class. Some low profile jobs have also been created but they are really not enough to combat with increasing inflation. Gap between rich and poor is still widening. Wealth is being generated but still not being shared or invested through proper channels. The money, which goes to inflated school fees or inflated movie tickets, does not add to nations growth or wealth sharing. The rise in school fees and grain prices has been steeper than the rise in salaries and it is again widening gap between rich and poor. Access of quality education to lower middle and middle class is still a dream. It is education only, which has added most to Great Indian Development Saga, but it gradually getting inaccessible now to lower middle class. Without quality education, it would be very difficult to continue this development story.

The next point of concern is decreasing trend to accept agriculture as profession. With increasing grain and vegetable prices, the highly paid executives are also looking their salary as meager one. With decreasing agricultural land, this trend is only going to be stronger and stronger. Agriculture sector is still seeing not more than 3% rise whereas Service Sector increasing faster compare to this. This trend is alarming. Having best agriculture land in form of Ganges Plane, the decrement of agriculture is only adding to our woes. Service Sector growth is a dependent growth; whereas Agriculture growth will create an independence. We must pay attention to agriculture otherwise in this globalized era, we will become more dependent only. We are still dependent on Monsoon for our agriculture, which is getting more and more unpredictable; courtesy to global warming.

Clearly, somewhere we are lacking in vision of wealth sharing and adding to future growth. I don't think that it is justifiable to spend 1000/- Rs. to watch a movie in a country which still has more than 42% population below the international poverty line of $1.25 a day.

Let me make it clear that I am not advocating communism here; because somewhere down the line, it discourages wealth creator to create wealth due to fear of sharing it with non-eligible persons. It would be a better idea to self realize the importance of money and where it should be invested (not spend). Money is getting costlier day by day and with decreasing value of 100/- Rs. note, we have to think, what economy we are going to give to our coming generations. Because it is quite possible that they won't see a 200% rise in their salaries but the same rise (or even more) is quite likely in education, food prices, medical facilities and energy sources. It is high time when we should behave more responsibly in spending. As a developing nation, we have a better role model in form of USA, which slipped into Great Depression and Great Recession only because of irresponsible spending. Please keep in mind that USA has no hostile neighbor (except Cuba, which virtually presents no threat now) and India has to deal with China and Pakistan both.

10 Upcoming Bubbles

I just read the arcticle - 10 Bubbles In The Making, Business Insider (http://www.businessinsider.com/bubbles-in-the-making-2009-9). Below rae my views on that-

As economy is slowly reviving and all of are seeing rays of hope, there are few points on which we need to be cautious about. This article is very good insight or an alert of what can lead us to next Great Recession or even Great Depression .

As a personal note, we can draw below points from this article (I am mentioning what I have analyzed after reading the article)-

Gold bubble: For last 7 years, gold is rising continuously and in last 2.5 years, it has risen more than 100%. This made me curious to check the historical prices of Gold(http://goldprice.org/gold-price-history.html) and you will be astonished to know that today’s prices of Gold are almost same as of 1980 prices and Gold Prices have been almost constant from 1984 to 2003-04 (20 years!!!!). Since in India, we see Gold as holding option more than return generating option, we must make a note of this. A long term holding of gold with stable price can turn up in stagnation of money. Moreover it is very necessary to get rid of gold before prices reduce to half. So it is right time to plan investment strategy. But keep in mind, in Indian scenario, Gold is only option which you can redeem at any time with safe prices.

Education bubble: This is also a very good point, mentioned in the article. Think before taking any education loan (especially for MBA from less reputed foreign institutions). Tuition fees in US colleges are going to collapse (http://www.businessinsider.com/college-tuition-prices-are-about-to-collapse-violently-2009-9), and seems to be very true because of the pace with which we are drawing loans for abroad degrees. I think it would always be a better option if we hold for few years before jumping. We can use the next few years for our profile building, which is very much necessary to get admission in top notch institute (sometimes more than an excellent GMAT score). Certainly a loan of 25-30 lakhs can stop all your career progress if you have family responsibilities. As an IT professional, I think it is better to make cash reserve through onsite or other options before plunging into loan. After having a secure cash reserve we can take loans and repay it easily because a higher degree will always give an added advantage and fast growth trajectory.

There are few more bubbles, which have been mentioned here, but personally I think, we can invest our time and money in few of those. Like-

China Bubble: No doubt China will replace very soon Japan as second largest economy in world. It is always good to invest time in learning Mandarin. At least, for next 15 years, I don’t think this China bubble will burst provided there should not be any Sino-India war.

Green bubble: Same thought applies here also. All the countries are pouring money now in green and clean energy. If IT was the buzzword of passing decade, GREEN is going to be a buzzword of coming decade. In my opinion, it is worthy to invest time and money in acquiring Green Skills, whether those are Technology Related or Arts related.

Two stories of same day.....

While reading newspaper today, two headings were there, which gave a knock in my mind. One was obvious because it had taken almost three full pages in newspaper - "Delhi High Court made Article 377 of Constitution almost negligent and provided LGBTs a protection from police and other moral brigade's harassment." I am not a die hard fan of this decision and maintain that humans should not cross their limits regarding interference with nature. But it is really good to see that people are now open to such discussions in their drawing rooms or on dining tables among masses, which were used to be a close room or bedroom discussions between couple only. This is definitely a sign of more mature society and increasing literacy rate, Department of Social Welfare and Bollywood movies has played a prominent role in this. Whether we should legalize same gender consensual sex or not, it is a topic of debate and I think that this debate has just started with the decision of Delhi High Court.

The second topic, which drew my attention today was a small piece of news, which had taken almost 2% of a single page in a small corner. The news was generated by this years' Economic Survey of India's report and it mentioned that-" 60% of Indian population still lives only on Rs. 20 per day." This was a shock to see and I was bound to think that could a society, in which 60% people are not able to get proper nutritious food daily, be able to stand up and debate over a hyper sensitive issue of LGBTs rights ???????? It is big question mark. I cannot be conclusive here but it seems to me that we have grown up towards some issues but still shunning the more sensitive issues like poverty and malnutrition.

Now we are discussing the issues of Gay Rights at our dining table but I think hardly we discuss poverty at the same stage. Rs. 20 is the amount, which has been spent by most of us in daily phone calls. India is growing and with almost 35% of tele penetration, we are boasting among the telecom biggies. But again --" 60% of Indian population still lives only on Rs. 20 per day." made me think that somewhere, something is wrong. 1/3 of India's population has BMI below 18.5 which is a sign of malnutrition. We still produce half of the underwight babies of world and anamea is such a common disease in our females as cough and cold.Where are we lagging - In resources......in government policies......in implementation stratigies .......or somewhere else ???????

It is a point to ponder.......government is still spending a big chunk of budget in poverty eradication programes and providing resources but still results are not expected........implementation strategies might be faulty but its onus is not all up to government. Somewhere we, as a citizen, are giving a cold shoulder to this topic.We are still not relating this issue with our coming generations but we are forgetting that the image of country will only empower and push our next generation to next stage.

We, as a developed society, must have to give our part to remove poverty. This does not mean that we should start charity but entrepreneurship with an eye to poverty eradication can do the trick. Youth should come with ideas of entrepreneurship, which can generate employment in long run.Government should also add society in his effort to reduce poverty.

Unless poverty and malnutrition becomes a pan Indian problem and we all put our collective efforts to remove it, we will not be able to put a honest debate over the issues like LGBTs right. These are very sensitive issues which requires a free state of mind and participation of bigger part of society.So...come, stand up and help others to stand for a next stage of society revolution.

Marriage of Technology and Humanities

In my childhood days, when I started taking the studies seriously, a clear difference had been described between social sciences and pure sciences. It had been a common perception that students of Mathematics and Physics possess greater intelligence than their counterparts in social sciences. If a student didn't get good marks in Maths or Physics; it used to be a very shameful thing for him/her.

But now, as we see in our surroundings, pure sciences and social sciences have been coupled tightly. Sociology is deriving science and science is deriving sociology. The technological revolution of this decade and last decade has caused a paradigm shift in social equations. The biggest AVATAAR of technology of last decade, cellular communication, is now giving the new definitions of sociology. It has not only facilitated seamless communication among us but also has a larger say in our relationships now. Gone are the days when relationships used to build up after 10 or 15 meetings and people tried to judge other, based on his/her behavior in personal appearance. Now all kinds of relationships are making over digital lines. The emotions are being transmitted and received in binary forms. And rest other information regarding a person's behavior are being captured by his/her Facebook or Orkut profile.I also know one incident that a prospective groom was rejected because he had mentioned himself as "Social Drinker" in Orkut profile !!!!!...... Facebook and Orkut have become synonymous with personal interaction and Web 2.o and other emerging Web Technologies are playing technology part here. See....how technology and sociology are mingled now. Now, there is no other option but to include "Social Relationships over Digital Media" as a chapter in Sociology, Computer Science and Communication books.

Sociologist must be thinking about the new pattern of relationships, which are becoming large due to faster communication media,so that they can describe it better; and Web Developers and Designers are trying to get into the mind of sociologists, so that they can get a more clear pattern of social relationships to map with.The world is shrinking very fast and all the streams, which used to be separate earlier, are now integrating.The walls among them are collapsing very fast. It would be even better if we could realize the importance of sociology and human behavior in climate change. I am leaving this to readers, to figure out this relationship in their own context......

The Great INDIAN Election

This is the season of election in INDIA. We INDIANS are going to elect our next representative for five years(I hope so). This is a high time in INDIA of various kinds of debate. There are debates of Young vs. Old, Upper Castes vs. Dalit and many more; few are relevant and few are here just for elections. Meanwhile, day before yesterday, I saw the manifesto of Samajwaadi Party.......it left me astonished. Samaajwadi Party, which was started with the ideals of Jai Parkash Narayan, is now making mockery of the name of JP. It was a great shocker for me. Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav is opposing English education as well as Computerisation in India.According to him, Computerisation is giving rise to unemployment in India and the education of English is giving an edge to the students belong to opulent portion of society. First I would like to take up the subject of the Computerisation in India. Memories of some newspapers headlines of late eighties and early nineties are still in my mind when the Left were opposing the computerisation in India and the argument was the same as Mr. Yadav......And now, S/W sector is providing direct employment to more than 1.7 million people in India and the indirect number would be up to 4 to 5 times of that. All the newly emerging metros of India are attributed to this growth. The states, which have not participated in this great S/W boom saga of India, are now lagging behind in progress chart. UP and Bihar are burning example of that (I would like to mention here that NOIDA is more a part of NCR than UP).It is necessary to give proper attentions to other sectors also but no one can deny the role of S/W in the development of country and rise of GDP in last decade. I am not very much clear about the intentions about Mr. Yadav behind this manifesto, but I think this is only use of the policies of the British to let the people unaware and use them in your own way.That is why our politicians, whose own children get educated in topmost schools of country and world, want to make rest of the country deprive of that.

I have a question on this. How long we will tolerate this kind of politics ????? Few states of our country have only become a battleground of caste and religion based politics. Leaders (???) never asked for vote on the name of progress but only for the name of caste. The most dominating statistics is the number of voters of a specific caste or religion. And using the manifesto like we saw two days back, they only want to make the people fool so that our common man can never see the world outside his scope.


I feel pity of myself only because we are the only people who have given them a chance to make a fool of us. At the time of elections, we used to forget everything but our caste or religion, which is definitely not going to give us fruits of development in next five years. Now it is not only our duty but also a necessity for our survival to come out of this otherwise we will become fool for coming several years by those, whose children have been educated in foreign universities and they are stopping us to learn even one foreign language and barring us to use computers through which we can see the world..........

A Tale of Two Cities......

In 2006, it was my first interaction (or I can say that first interaction with different mindset; not as a tourism) with a HITECH Town of India. India's growth is tremendous and these are the cities, which are boasting on that. It was NOIDA.....in fact IT IS NOIDA.....New Okhla Industrial Development Authority.........a suburb of New Delhi....(New Delhi is also getting NEW DAILY...), situated in UP...or in NCR. I think it more belongs to NCR.I was; and I am; a boy from a city which is almost stopped. I completed my education from Allahabad, which is one of the prominent student centers of INDIA and one of most pious Hindu place. It is one of the oldest cities of world and basks on its glorious past.

It was an awesome experience for me to see NOIDA, which was a small town few decades back but now, everyone can see the pace of development there.

It all resulted in a great Indian Migration towards these newly developed cities. Information Technology has changed the demography of India. People from all over the country are now moving towards these towns, malls are there in each and every locality and no wonder, we are finding our Manhattan and New Jersy in Gurgaon and NOIDA like cities.

But all this is giving rise to another social problem. We have looked consistently towards the migration of great Indian minds towards west, but we are, somehow, shunning the internal migration. Now everyone wants to, or I can say is bound to come towards these cities, then what about those small towns. Those towns are consistently lagging in progress chart. India has now only one flagship industry- IT, which has made few towns of India as Real State Gold Mines, but what about others? This social and economic imbalance between North Karnataka and South Karnatka, Vidarbha and west Maharashtra, Eastern and Western UP, Kolkatta and rest of Bengal, North and South Andhra is very much visible to all of us. It is not only attributed to the boom of IT industry in those town but certainly, this single sided flow of money has added many feathers in this cap.

There is a desperate need of money flow in reverse direction also.The youth of those areas is only charmed or bound to come in other direction. We will have to create opportunities in those underprivileged areas otherwise with the rise of GDP of India and Software revenue, the rise in numbers of suicide of farmers will become unstoppable.....and raising incidents of regionalism is another indicator of intolerance of local people towards migrant.........

Time has come to think about it....