Penicillin for an economy in recession.

The dollar is falling, its might being challenged more so probably in the factories of China and the large swathe of Babus (software kind) that are produced in mediocre Indian universities than the deserts of Iraq or the rugged mountains of Afghanistan.

The Sub prime Crisis along with the high Oil prices makes economists give speculative theories of another depression. Well I think its bad, for everyone, depression is after all a dark word right, but I think its positive in some aspects.

First of all I do not believe it will in anyway be acute depression, simply because of the globalized nature of the economy, I mean can china afford the dollar to slip to levels where its export oriented economy would lose jobs? Can India allow the dollar to fall so much that its much touted rise of middle class in recent times goes burst and there happens a rise in communist literature seeking dreamy utopian welfare state? For me these are worst scenarios of a falling dollar, we need to keep India and China going for the sake of 40% world to be happier ;)

There is another side to the story though, what if Arab countries stop trading Oil in dollars? This is a perfect recipe for breaking the back of the dollar further. Let’s keep the discussion on Iran, Israel and Inventories for another blog.

In spite of the relatively negative background with which I started, I think the USA can take some positives out of this imminent depression, in my opinion, this economic depression, military fatalities, political turmoil is in some ways positive for USA and I believe its more of a penicillin for this country. USA did not become first world in a day right? It surely is first world due to large sacrifices by a large number of people who worked hard to make the American dream come true and build this great country. But after two years in this country I think it does need a vaccine, a small shock you can say, which would reignite its people the same fervor which made it first world.

This country has the immunity to take this problem of depression or recession as they call it in the right way, it has great Universities, but it needs to improve its schools may be, unlike India which has great schooling system, prepares you well for the university, but the university system fails its cadre in India, its below par, not funded enough and too much strangulated by the state. USA has great universities, but it constantly needs students from other countries to keep maintain its technological might; else what were H1 visas and green cards for??

Another good comparison would be telecom, in a so called 3rd world country like India you could call anywhere within the country for a minute for approximately 3 cents and pray how much does a call cost in USA which is a first world country? I think Indian telecom companies are doing healthy and the service isn’t bad either!!
The USA in short needed a small shock to wake it up form its current sleep of content and make it compete again with the rest of the world to be the most powerful, biggest and democratic country.

Mirror Truth is it?

A group of 4000 farmers (so called) with no shoes and worn out clothes were protesting on the dusty streets of Delhi and urging the GOVT of India to distribute some land to them, and this was picked up by the western media and even prominent indian dailies to potray as yet another sign of unbalanced growth and neo-capitalism in India.  Wondeful thought :)

I am not surprised by the western media, ots journalists are probably so used to potraying India has 3rd world that they love the scantily clad undernourished homeless pictures you can find in any damn indian town...well its just their job.

But I have a question, lets say the GOVT does give some land to the poor, I mean lets assume 2 acres each, and believe me an exaggerating, because you can not realistically give more than this much land to such a large group. Now these people get the land , so how do they sow seeds? They take loans from bank at some rate of interest and some would go to the local money lender, anyways this mean debt?? right?? Again, the average size of a family in india is 6 , so lets be realistiic here...can we make these guys self sufficient  by giving them 2 acres of land?? I mean is 2 acres of land , who knows of what amount of fertility, enough to feed 6 stomachs twice a day and save soem money for the dreams of house car and health?? No way, i do not belive this works at all. Half of them would sell it to some rich landlord in less then 3 months and the rest would go worser in debt! Land reforms in such small size are not the remedy. we need to push for community farming and even encourage coorporate farmimg. Thats the only way forward. Give a stake to the farmer in the land, but he need not just be doing farming all year round. We need to move people our of farming and give them opportunities else where. We can do it, considering we need lot of unskilled labour for the infrastructure india is putting up. Some training would help.

I think homeless and poor exist in all countries, east or west....well india has large numbers, but then if things were all rosy in usa, atleast someone should have told me that i could go to downtown detroit anytime without any fear, or say walk on the streets of Harlem in NY or chicago without concern.....

Lets hope we do not fall for the subsidy and socialist traps again!!

Worshipping False Gods : Comrades are wrong!

A few days ago i read a thought provoking Article by Mr. Swaminathan Ankilesar Aiyar and he put forth a theory that most conflicts in the current world are based on caste/ethnic problems rather than the differences between rich and poor.

So , Mr Marx is proved wrong that when a population gets frustrated with the continuous show off capital by the "Spoiled RICH" , the fight spills to the streets and the examples are below for analysis . Lets look at worlds biggest genocides and their reasons :

• Jerusalem : Holiest of holy lands claimed by Muslims, Christians and Jews. In spite of the daily show on TV of poor Palestinians blowing themselves up and fighting the might of US and Israel, its altogether a conflict based on religion. Blame the Mosses,Christ and Mohammad Combine for this one please!
• Kashmir: The heaven on earth as described by the Mughal Emperor Jehangir, has seen more blood flow down the sutlez and vyas than water. Two countries have fough 4 wars for this heaven and there has been continuous insurgency for the past 20 yrs, but still inspite of all this Kashmir is one of the richest states of india and one of the biggest problem India faces. Comrade Guevara has no role here, lets blame the mullahs and the pundits!
• Darfur,Ethiopia,Rwanda no where is the Keynesian economics responsible for genocides, its the ethnic differences in the tribes not money which results in the clashes. Comrade Stalin's iron fisted rule wont solve this problem. May be some tribal warlord of africa needs to be blamed for this!
• Northern Ireland : Well this has seen very less action in recent past, but then the IRA doesn't fight for a social revolution, its a part of the Catholic Vs Protestant equation, not about rich or poor.
• The Liberation tigers of Tamil Elam, the undisputed terrorists kings before Alqaida charmed the western world are also fighting for a social equality and creation of a separate Tamil state from Srilanka rather than for any economic upliftment of poor. Lets blame the Sinhalese for the atrocities and comrade Mao's atheism wont help here , well the Mullah,mosses, jesus,ram combine has no role here for a change :P
• All insurgencies in North Eastern India are for ethnic reasons, Most of the issues in NW provionce of pakistan and baluchistan are related to nationalism and tribal conflicts.
• All the aboev revolutions in the current world are sponsored by rich educated people, coz the poor neither have the money or patience to get involved in any of the above activities.

So, time for Mao,Joseph,Che,Lenin and Marx to rewrite The Communist Manifesto as The CasteManifesto. :):)

Reservation Debate

Below is my mail to Prof Yogendra Yadav of DU..i really appreciate the conversations we have.


Hi Sir,

I would like to touch upon this subject we have been discussing again, in the the aftermath of the court's descision.

I have mixed feelings with the judgement of the Honourable Supreme Court, on one hand am happy that i
t has simulated a chance to discuss the effectiveness of reservations,
questioned the validity of the data used to distribute the previlages and
also held that these can not be continued for ever and people can not be allowed to clamour and compete to be be labelled backkword.
But i am also feeling ashamed that the judiciary has to cross its limits to show light to the Legislature and the Executive. The continious inability of the legislature as well as the executive to bring in a coordinated and effective process to alieveate the prevailing situations is the real reason i think.

I went back to the question as to why people like me oppose reservations, well i think most of us do not object to them PER SE ...... we are not totally against any kind of social justice but the following should be considered:
One form of extremism does not justify another form of extremism, i mean an allegation that Bhramins have held the socirty to rule for hundreds of years as an argument does not give the rest of the castes to repeat the same mistakes.
I find the observations by Mt chandrbhan very inetresting that the so called OBC's are more responsible for the repression of SC and ST's. This aspect should also be debated and taken into consideration.
and finally I DO SUPPORT THE SOCIAL INDEX based affirmative action, which should take into consideration other parameters apart form caste , such as economic condition, the accesibility of education, rural and urban phenomenons etc.
W eprobably need a middle path on this, as its not right that the political parties tread teh path to vote bank politics and the real needy still remains largely untouched by reform process.
I oppose this reservation still in its current format, but i support the format suggested by Prof Deshpande and you.
But i still do not understand why your voices are not so loud agianst the current format. I appreciate that you have proposed a different index based format as opposed to the current one.
I do not intend to argue, i belibe you and I have had a very nice subjective discussion on the above topic .....and I remain grateful to you for taking time to reply to my mails.

Cheers
Kartik

Aee Naiii Cholbe ...Bhuddada!!! Ekla Chalo.

Can anyone guess as to which state opposes Industrialisation........yeps.....guessed it right its Bengal and who wants it Industrialised ......this one is tough cause the left supporting Industrialisation is like Young GUYS giving up booze and girls :)

Bengal was once more Industrialised than Malaysia, and the came the CPI/M , elite Delhi university educated, scotch drinking bhadralok communists. They put in place a system on Sickle and Hammer and well all growth was cut by the Sickle and all Capital Hammered...whats left is a dirty Howrah famous for Sonagachi ..the biggest brothel in India.
Anyhow, the fortune of wheel turned and Salvation was attained by the Marxist chief Minister Buddhadeb ......and he wanted rapid industrialisation. But then this is India ...if one takes 30 Yrs to make people used to Sickle and Hammer, how does he expect to repeal the same in 3 months.
Aee Naiii Cholbe ...Bhuddada!!! Ekla Chalo!!! :)

Protectionism in a Flat World - Indian Paradox

Such is India, that every day I see a paradox somewhere and reassure myself that diversity can exist in unity and destruction does in some way lead to creation .....

• Any guess as to who wants to oppose OUTSOURCING of jobs in India ........HOLY COW ....the Bank Employees!!! I am stumped, India is a country which steals about 65% of all outsourced white collar jobs and well if am right, about 20% of the engineers produced by India would have a parent working in some public sector Bank in India ....well i know that this is the so called upper and lower middle class (Fringe UMC..la Arjun Singh) and most of them have utilised their foresight and money as an investment on their making India's engineers ......who in turn snatch jobs all around and mint Dollars...and now ...the same parents are opposing outsourcing of the Bank Jobs to private companies ......Protectionism in a Flat World :)

Is indian growth story for real!!!

I read a lot of newspaper online ...well one of the reasons i had a lesser FFF ( Female Fan Following) :)

Recently, it seems my interest with Indian economics is growing too, weird for someone of my kind, I used to be live am a romantic :)

Reading the views of the left,right, centre right, centre left, liberal ..so on and so forth these days, has thrown a real question ...."Is the Indian Growth Story for Real"???

I think yes, actually Yes is the answer and probably we are going the right way albeit a bit slow , too slow probably but well may be that's also a boon in disguise.

Lets not compare ourselves to Norway for we are too big in size and dimension..

Not the USA coz, we are a lot younger and evolving yet ..

Not China coz we are far more DEMOCRATIC

Not Indonesia coz we are far more Secular

Not the UK coz we are less Imperial

Not the South Americans, coz we are not a Soccer or Cofee Economy :)

Not the Arabs, coz we have more method to our madness :P

Not the French, coz we are less confused..

Not the Germans coz we are lazier

Not the Japs coz we are less disciplined

NOt the Koreans coz we are less liberal economy

We are India, We are different we need out own time and sense:)

My Name - Demistified!!

I thought i would start my first Blog by -- Demistifying my name!!

Yah, i have to do this coz am tired with all the explaining i have to do everytime :) so its simple now, next time someone wants to knwo what my FULL name is , i ll give this blog URL. haha

My name is Ayalasomayajula Kartikey ...ooops!! sorry this is what my parents thought it ll look like actually. I am a south indian hence, the "Ayalasomayajula" part was meant to be my last name and "kartikey" was meant to be the first name.

Background for those interested is that "Ayala" means Five in sanskrit i suppose and "Somayajula" is someone who has performed five yagnas. So, seems like someone in my blood line performed 5 yagnas....!!!! I dunno if it helped India though :P


Thanks Dad!! for not putting the hateful "h" in my name........please guys ...i dnt like my first name with the customary SOUTH INDIAN "H"....

Anyway, i was brought up in Bhubaneswar, hence the Udiya Public there couldnt understand the significance of such a complicated name, so in High School, ....SADLY my last name was broken into two parts with some additional manioulations to the above name :)

So, this is what my name became after High School :

Last Name: Ayalh
Middle Name: Somayajula
First Name: Kartik

I decided to live with it, as in India its a pain in the right places to get your name changed and I thought may be industrialisation and liberalisation would make sure there are no more contours added to my name.

But, well When was India considered simple, Its strange, and hence, in north India people write their last names "Last" and First names "First", and south has to do its opposite ... I never could actually find out the advantages of this practice....

anyway this compounded my agony with the name and some BABU in the passport Office decided to give a twist and interchange my first and middle names ....SO i had a new name ...

First Name: Somayajula
Middle Name: Kartikay
Last Name: Ayalh

I dunno who uses which part of it though ...all my freinds call me "Kartik" yessss simple Kar+Tik and there is no damn "H" also :)))))

but i do find it weird when someone calles me SOMAYAJULA, i dont recognise myself, might take time to get used to it :)