when the mountains dance

The nature choice of devastation of two hilly states in successive years points something serious than what we are able to understand and grasp through our myopic prediction models, the tragedy even if measured at very conventional scale, goes into thousands of lives and thousands of crores of property and unmeasurable amount of  environmental assets.

              Pages have been written over why it happened and how it can be averted, so my wisdom is not going to add anything into these scholarly views, what i am really concerned that are we really prepared to withstand the onslaught of nature, what has happened in hills can happen in plains in slightly different form and given the sheer density in these areas the scale of damage will be unfathomable .

 In our daily lives we violate the pristine norms of nature so easily and unknowingly that it never occupies the space in our major societal concerns,we  dont ever feel guilty by throwing paper on road that finally chokes the drainage and causes the flood.

                what i mean is that all the mammoth problems are just summation of small mistakes committed over a period of time . the care for environment and to live by it norms should be deeply embedded into the cultural and societal way of living similar to what we teach our kids about other things.

Another silver lining is that the younger generation is getting more and more smart , you give them mobile and see how quickly they pick up its functions , similarly if we sansitise them regarding nature and environment they will surely come with their unique way of protecting and preserving environment.

The Cosmetic democracy

When grassroots democracy was proposed in this country, everybody thought it would be a new beginning altogether, and rightly so because in no other country so much of people running in lakhs were directly elected by the people and managed their own affairs, the democratic institutions found new expression inform of mukhiya, sarpanch, panchayat samiti, block pramukh, PACS, fishery institution, trade bodies etc apart from legislature at central and state level. The underlying foundation of these institutions efficiency was a believe that they will work on the principles of ‘enlightened self interest’ which means that in the pursuit of  their own self interest they will  promote the interest of the masses, thus arising at overall efficient for all solution. It was believed that if they are given the financial power of building a school in their own village, they will use the best material, knowing that collapse of the building will endanger their own children lives.

That seems to be quite a fairy world, but in reality thing started deviating from the ideal solution, as they were given financial power to build a school they started siphoning off money and send their kids to a private school, thus having no danger of getting them injured if building collapses, this is only an example which envelopes larger policy issue and core questions of sustainability of this model in the entirety. Let’s see why did it happen?

Democracy at very micro level created micro constituencies, since the level of education is low the entire exercise of winning votes and garnering supports stood on the single ground of how much benefits they could make available to these constituencies, another way of securing loyalty was caste line, which increasingly made one caste hostile to another in the same small unit of village, moreover people supporting the rivals can easily be identified and targeted in the micro constituencies, financial power in too much of hands created fractured decision making leading to waste of public money in many cases.

In celebrated scheme like MNREGA, mukhiya in collaboration with local officials increasingly favoured own people denying opportunity to all, chose site for public assets creation in favoured land and thus made money, what else explain the phenomenon of still continued migration from rural areas. A back of the envelope calculation suggests that a mukhiya spends nearly 8to 10 lakhs on an average in the panchayat election.

I am not against democracy, my contention is very simple, is giving premature financial power, the only way to strengthen democracy at grassroots level, shouldn’t we wait before there is actual capacity building.

The fool’s declaration

I am not a reactionist person generally, but the title page of the economist ‘the great declaration’ compels me to do so, it say that the great declaration means that emerging economies including India days of turbo charged growth rates are over and they will be no more in position to incash weakness of rich economies, they will no longer be able to catch up with the rich economies as fast as they did in 2000s.

First, the basics, which says that the growth rates cannot be kept ever rising and they are always prone to cyclic fluctuations, what India added in 2008 to its total output  is roughly equal to what it had added in 2012 in absolute terms, because in 2007 base was low while it was higher in 2011. The important thing is the fundamentals of the economy which comprises investments, savings, institutions, inflation etc. Compare to 2000s there is hardly any decline, and even if they are, it’s just marginal decline which primarily reflects the global conditions.

Second, BRIC countries grew not because rich were troubled, but because they embarked the path of conscious economy building, generating surpluses, reviving industries, instilling reforms, while rich countries did the opposite, so even if rich countries have realised their mistakes and started painful corrections it is no way going to block the growths of these countries because they already have huge pent up demand in form of underserved domestic consumer base.

Third, BRIC have undergone structural reforms in shadow of boom period by freeing sectors from government control, cutting administered prices etc, so the current slowdown is mainly because of the afterglow of these attempts and global slump conditions.

The only declaration that can be made about them is that they may not have the happy time in form of problem of riches in near future , but their inner capability and strength remains unchallenged.

Thank god we are poor

                                              

India is a country where most of the people live life below the decent standards , and the is standard not European but very much modest Indian one, people of 1.3 billion scale produce 1.8 trillion dollars of income annually that on an average comes around 1500 dollars for average person in a year not even 6000 rs per month, and if you see the inequality you will have a different picture altogether , if artificial richness is imposed on the  people by way of mindless transfer payments that do not add any capacity building in the economy then results would we disastrous, take for the example case of stampede at Allahabad junction where score of people were killed, the reason, mammoth crowed that could not be managed by any means of transportation, the rails are overflowing and thank god no railways casualties are reported.

The simple point I want to bring home is that because of our poverty the mammoth population do not put pressure on the infrastructure to its proportionate scale otherwise it could have been complete chaos given the present state of infrastructure in our country, imagine the power situation! every power transmitters could have failed. What i mean here is not that it’s good that we are poor but rather somehow it is manageable for the economy that people are poor, the richness of Greeks broken their economy because Greek could not match the aspiration of its people.

It is very important that country grow riches before its people become rich and not vice versa so that it can meet the aspirations of people, i am afraid had it not been so, policy makers and administration would have hard time managing economic riots, due to low economic conditions virtually there is low aspiration level and low demand and that to mind biggest reason binding India together, differences are more on other lines than this crucial line.

There is always delicate balance between richness of people and economy and that must not be broken, pathetic poverty is unpardonable but stinky richness without proportion is also risky.

EURO, EUROPE, EUPHORIA

                                     

When economic union of Europe became monetary union, there were lot of euphoria around, almost everyone barring few exception saw the underlying dangers as well, there is classic rule which is as true in economics as it is in life, the rule is, bigger the gain , bigger the risk.

There were lot of gains to be realised and it was realised as well, Europe saw one of the biggest peace time expansion in recent time, adopting single currency reduced the transaction cost considerably, the risk and cost of exchange within the countries were almost disappeared, the flow of resources fastened, the public spending for welfare also called transfer payments scaled up across the Europe, 2000s were the best period, post war.

Literally speaking, this arrangement created the problem of moral hazard, which means, that smaller countries started overlooking the rules of game because they knew that bigger and powerful countries like Germany and France would never let the system fail, as they have bigger interest in the stability than others. So the unmindful expansion of public welfare expenditure to win votes led them to a situation where there debts were higher than their incomes, credit rating agencies quite falsely believed that wrongs of weaker can be masked by rights of stronger, they stopped looking them as individual nations, need to follow the rules, and rather there were seen as a block called European union.

Problem aggravated not only because their imprudent fiscal behaviour but thanks to financial crisis, their sources of fund flow, the banks, suddenly found themselves starving out of cash, and started looking for different avenues. To correct the problem these countries sought the debt restructuring (means changing the maturity, payment option and interest on borrowings) , support from multilateral agencies, and some of them went for expenditure cut that resulted in political chaos, all the four countries of pigs group saw their top political leaders leaving their post .

If a country has its own currency than most of the economic problems can be solved, for ex. Huge debt may lead to reduction in sovereign ratings that result into less inflow and more outflow of foreign exchange that again lead to depreciation of currency, making its exportable cheaper and importable costlier thus increasing countries competitiveness in world market further leading to generation of employment and income, but in this case of euro crisis, countries had common currency and they have no power over its adjustment, thus correction became all the more difficult.The fear of euro break or the great collapse became stronger, but now at this stage collapse of euro will have disastrous results both politically and economically, a silver lining has appeared in form of ESM the European stability mechanism, which guarantee to buy unlimited bonds or in other words guarantee to give unlimited loans to crisis countries, it might save them from fall, but real problem is not only of fund rather it’s about the way they conduct their economies. And at the end of the day these panic measures by strong countries in the block only confirm their cynical fiscal behavior and our worst fear, that stronger will not let weaker fall.

BOOK REVIEW OF ‘THA LAST LECTURE’ WRITTEN BY ‘RANDY PAUSCH’

                       First of all, it should be clear that Randy paush is not a professional writer, so this book could not be compared with any previous book, nor it can be judged on strict literature terms.

                    Randy pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University specialising in computer science, human computer interaction and designing. He had a rare pancreatic cancer, but he lost his battle to this disease in mid of 2008.

                  Randy had been a great mentor to his students and the name of book is specially chosen to serve a specific purpose. In fact, last lecture is a convention in universities, whenever any professor retires from his academic life he is supposed to say the final words or he is supposed to deliver his entire wisdom of academic life to his students, as Randy’s journey of life and academics was coming to an end, he wanted to reach to a larger audience, thus he chose the name ‘the last lecture’.

        The book has been divided in six parts the last lecture, achieving your childhood dreams, adventures and lessons, enabling the dreams of others, it’s about how to live life and finally the final remarks.

In the first part, he explains how he got motivated to deliver the last lecture at Carnegie Mellon University, how difficult and strange it was, to sum up all life experiences in just one presentation for a person whose life had been so eventful. Finally he leaves the massage in this section, what if you ought to fight something you fear most in life, he called it ’elephant in the room’. That way giving a massage that ‘be prepared for the worst at any moment in life’.

In the second part ‘ achieving your childhood dreams’ he narrates life experiences and wishes of a child whom he was, which eventually came true in one form or another form, just by sustained persistence. If one keeps that attitude of not letting the thrust die then literally ‘wall will walk to the thirsty.

 The third part deals with ‘adventures and lesson learned’ in this section he shares his life adventures and how each time he drew lessons from them,  romancing with brick wall and pouring soda on backseat are ultimate heir raising chapters to read on.

Enabling dreams of other is yet another chapter; it shows how individual capacity can be used as fuel for empowering other’s dream, and that, to my mind is the real massage. The purpose of being born is not entirely serving the self or self indulgence, it is much larger, you may not physically or tangibly help others but surely, one can be partner in the realisation of other’s dream. ‘You cannot pay back for good thing done to you by others, so you got to pay it forward, sums up this chapter.

In the last two parts, with the help of personal life events, very small and tiny things that happen daily to us has been explained in very effective way, $ 1,00,000 salt and pepper shaker, no job is beneath you, dream of my children are the most touching chapters of these part.

At one level, some might say that the book is written by one’s life personal experiences that has been generalised for mankind, these experiences may be too subjective to be used for others. But in defence, it can be said that happenings may be subjective but massages are surely not. Almost every part of human behaviour has been touched in very unique way in this book, Randy has written this book not to prove his literal skills but the sheer urge to leave a meaning legacy, after his death.

 The audience of this book is universal, but, specially, it has been designed for those who are about to begin their life after the college. If number of copies sold is any way to judge the popularity and impact then this book has huge fan following and deeper impact as it has already sold more than 6 million copies worldwide.

This book is not only a book but a complete chronicle; it is something that should be made compulsory in academics, least of all in training institute. Do not read this book because a dying person has written this, but read this book because we all have to die someday!

DECODING P.D.S.

Nearly 56000 crore was spend on food subsidies in 2011-12, the objective is surely to provide the most intensive food security network across the country, we must understand that the procurement, storage, transportation expenses are paid by the central government, while identification of poor (BPL,APL) and distribution through fair price shop is done by the state government.

Generally a bar coded coupon is given to the beneficiary, over which quantity of food grain (rice and wheat, 10 and 15 kg) and subsidised price that has to be paid by the beneficiary , is also written on the coupon. Technically, dealer should charge that written amount and supply written quantity of food grain but it never happens anywhere in India, and that is a bitter fact.

How does it starts, let me begin it from bottom to top, when a beneficiary goes to the shop he is being supplied only 80% of the printed quantity but he is charged the full printed amount on the coupon, and if dealer is honest then only he will get this supply regularly every month, then why doesn’t he revolt, because dealer is a muscleman he can simply deny any one to supply the grain. Dealer’s excuse for this act------ he gets less quantity from the SFC (state food corp. Warehouse from where he lifts the supply), what actually happens is that in SFC the gunny bags is also weighted along with the food grains, and every bag does not necessarily contain the standard 50 k.g. in the best possible case the average is 45 kg per bag while dealer has to assume and pay for 50 k.g in each bag.

Dealer is given lifting order for the same quantity which he has distributed last month, now dealer creates the fake records and secure more supply, out of this secured supply some 25% is never actually lifted by dealer from the SFC rather he sells there itself on little less than market price, this is the same 25% that he makes cut at the time of distribution, plus some of the coupon holders never turn up to claim the food grains so he saves this quantity as well. Dealer is not alone in this nexus, the SFC secures grains from FCI on weight without bag basis, means 50 quintal may be 110 bags, but FCI always assumes every bag contains 50 kg when it supplies to dealers. Now SFC saves lot of bags, these bags are sold in the underground  market to wholesaler, grain dealers and in mandis, the transporters have active role to play in this as they move the trucks from here to there. The FCI knows all this but they also have some interest in this play and they take their own share. At every stage supervisory structure chooses to close the eyes as they have their own share in this whole game.

Well , I am not blaming or saying that this is what exactly happens everywhere, modes may be different, but then if we have to look the whole system, we will find that over the years system has improved a lot and from the siphoning off of 50-60% it has reduced to 15%-20%, well this is no excuse, but we have consider the mammoth scale at which it operates , sheer number of people it involves, and the deep importance it holds for the food security.  What’s needed is not the complete overhaul but the gradual improvement, because no alternate system is practical on ground at least for the time being