Yeh hai Mumbai meri jaan

Mumbai, Bombay as the britons call it or called it, the Financial Capital of India, and life in a Mumbai local train as explained by Shashank in a very witty and beautiful manner.
This one is really a hilarious outline of the deplorable conditions an average mumbaikar is in and the struggle that he has to go everyday to reach their destinations in a Mumbai metro. Something that can only be experienced and not be viewed.
http://shashank-saini.blogspot.com/2009/06/local-life.html

Manchester United Vs Liverpool | A tragedy at Old Trafford

Nothing can be as heart breaking for any soccer fan to see his team going down at home. Specially when it comes to Manchester United (www.manutd.com) which is arguably the best football club in the world, loss at home just doesn’t naturally to fans. With Premier League well in sights, it was just about time to take revenge from the title rivals Liverpool (www.liverpoolfc.tv) for the 2-1 loss inflicted by them at Anfield, with the match being at Old Trafford, the fortress of Manchester United, the loss was nowhere in picture at all. The huge 7 point lead with 2 games in hand before the match started was starting to look daunting as we were approaching the business end of 2008-09 season of the premier league. And with clean sweep in sight (Winning the FIFA Club World cup, still running in FA Cup, leaders in premier league and in final 8 in ECC) today’s match was just about clearing all doubts about title rivalry. But, unfortunately there are always ifs and buts in life.

So the match kicked off and the start was auspicious when Cristiano Ronaldo helped in taking a 1-0 lead inside the first 30 minutes as never before has MUFC (read Manchester United Football Club) lost a match at Old Trafford whenever Cristiano Ronaldo (FIFA world Footballer of the year) has scored at home (49 times). Today was just not the day. It was a splendid effort by Fernando Torres, or rather an idiotic effort by Nemanja Vidic at the Centre back which reminded us all of the Euro 2008 final at Vienna, where Fernando Torres scored a goal in a similar fashion. That split the game open and from then on, it was just Liverpool written all over it. ManU was missing the services of Berbatov, Giggs and Paul Scholes from the start, though all came in at 70th minute, but by then, Liverpool had already stamped their authority. A penalty conceded by Evra just before the half time had Steven Gerrard making sure that they go into the break with a lead, a very slender one but nevertheless soothing. After the break, Nemanja Vidic made sure that his off day contributes in every bit to the loss, got sent off and the Set Piece was converted into a splendid goal by Fabio Aurelio at 79th minute to put the result of the match beyond any doubt. After that a long ball by Reina got Liverpool their 4th goal at 89th minute, and here was MUFC, completely annihilated by the merseysiders and it turned out to be a no contest really.

Now that MU have a week long break to regroup, let’s see if this side is resilient enough to come back from such a result. There is no need to panic though, as there is still a 4 point lead with 1 more game to play, but there are still tough games to follow. We still have to lock horns with Arsenal and ManCity both at Old Trafford and these games could be very decisive in terms of who wins the Premiership. Liverpool was always a competitor this year, right from the start but they were loosing all their sheen this year and this result has come at the right time for them to launch an onslaught towards the final end of the league.

One more club that would be celebrating this loss of MU would but of course be Chelsea (www.chelseafc.com) as this loss of ManU keeps them in the hunt of premiership too.

Yes, I definitely want ManU to win the premiership, but all I can say right now is that it has become very exciting. Liverpool has really shown this week what a class act they are by defeating Real Madrid (4-0) and today 4-1.

Keep your fingers crossed all the MU fans out there.

U.S. Bailout package | Nothing will work

Unfortunately, we live in a world where the most prosperous nation of Sixties, United States of America, has more or less dominated the whole world economy, be it Europe, Asia through the last four to five decades. It always was a common joke in the investing community (people who invest in Stock markets of India) that if U.S. sneezes, India catches a cold. Now that the big daddy of them all, the U.S. is paralyzed, the picture is gloomy elsewhere. Economic development has come to a standstill, credit is squeezed and the whole world is paying for the Great American Greed. As things stand, every country and almost everybody having some interest in the economy looks at the U.S. with fingers crossed every day, for a magic wand that will take this world out of the grips of recession.

The bailout package announced by the Federal Reserve and finally passed by the U.S. Congress is one such effort to bring order into the broken financial system of that country. How-so-ever big it may seem in terms of billions ($787 bn), whatever it aims at, what appears is that it aims at just plugging the loopholes, that the American system has acquired over the years. AIG (the world’s largest insurer), Bear Sterns (one of the TOP 5 investment banks in America), Citigroup, GM, Ford, Chrysler all have received money from the U.S. government in forms of Aid as the U.S. government considers these companies too big to fall and the consequences huge. I would rather differ in the argument.

It’s alright for the U.S. government to rescue these companies to some extent as the thought that some order would be rescued in the Financial Markets around the world will be restored and investor confidence might be brought back again. But at what cost? Billions of dollars to rescue General Motors? Rather go ahead and buy cars from GM worth billions of dollars and distribute it freely amongst people of all the states. When did the Japanese competition started? Since 70s. What were these so called Big 3 of Detroit doing till now? Waiting for catastrophe to occur and then pull out the begging hats and go back to work again. 1979, Chrysler was rescued by the U.S. government with emergency loans and guarantees worth 4 bn $. Now, it wants government to help it out again. When will the whole world get a guarantee that such systems won’t propagate again? If we look at the way American government’s intentions of handing out the bailout package, the answer will be a very big NEVER. At one hand, these large corporate entities fly in their private jets to the Capitol hill (Washington D.C.) to demand taxpayer’s money as their birth right and on the second hand, Wall Street makes big noises when the CXOs (X includes E, F, I) when these companies are asked by the government to limit the pay of their executives.

I think America is just about promoting the systemic failure that led to the crisis and plunge of financial markets across the world. Alright, the year 2008 had only one Lehman Brothers, one AIG, one GM, one Ford, one Chrysler, but by bailing them out, who’s going to take the guarantee that next time around there’ll be none. No one will give that guarantee; in fact the system is being promoted. New AIGs and Lehman Brothers will crop up. There will be new Bear Sterns; new meril lynches to eat away into the taxpayer’s money any time they find their way of doing business was a bit inconvenient to themselves. We’ve already seen the Great American Greed consuming the big wigs of Enron, Salomon Brothers in the previous few decades, but the American Government instead of taking regulation into their hands is just playing out into the hands of the corporate bodies. This is what exactly is labelled as “Lemon Socialism” (source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_socialism). The U.S. government is trying to socialize the “lemons”, i.e., the worst performing industries, read AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns, and GM etc. Sooner or later, this list will become endless. Who doesn’t mind extra cash in days of crisis anyway?

“In September 2008, the US Senator from Vermont,Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders said regarding the bailout of the U.S. financial system: “This is the most extreme example that I can recall of socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor”.” (Source below)

http://sanders.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=303313

While the capitalists will still get to take the profits provided they are back to profiting ways again, the losses have been shared by the socialist American Government and the unfortunate tax payers of America, whose money is in the hands of the “Best Brains of the world”.

32% of Noble laureates are from America, including 42 noble prizes in “Economics” since 1969 (source below) and this is the same country which has slipped into an economic downturn three times in two decades.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-countries-have-received-the-most-nobel-prizes.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/nobel_laureates.htm

What America needs to find is a way that the system can be cleansed and the bailout package is certainly not the direction to go to.

But unfortunately, the administration has put up self constraints that are the most paradoxical for any government.

1. No nationalisation
2. No losses for bondholders
3. No more money from Congress

These three constraints are conflicting in nature and there is very little space to achieve equilibrium between the three.

Imagine, even after nationalization, who will run these companies. The management shakeup will be difficult for the administration. That is what has prompted Vikram Pandit, the CEO of Citigroup to ask the U.S. government to give him and his management a chance to continue to execute their powers.

http://m.economictimes.com/PDAET/articleshow/4191515.cms

This way, American system will continue to be dogged by the same style of management and techniques which have proved to be a failure. By saving a few companies, I am sure many more are going to be lost down the road.

I think if America is so desperate to invest public money, then why invest in old losers? Rather, try and bring up the new winners. Why not try to bring up new Googles, Intels, Microsofts of the world. Innovation can be a road ahead and who said that necessity is the mother of all inventions. The bailout package is trying to remove the necessity by putting a blanket on all the ill deeds committed by Corporate America.

“It is just reinforcing failure.”

http://www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/story/536158.html

So, we continue with fresh capital and old and failed systems. Let’s see when we come out of this recession and how long the new period would last. The odds would certainly be in favour of another recession if the systems are not overhauled.

Agrarian Distress and Indian Economy

Where our agriculture is heading is a direct result of what we as a country have done so far. The simplest and the most obvious reason for this is because we all have chosen to neglect the class the agriculturists of our country represents. Since the all important phase of liberalization came into existence in 1991-92 by our current Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, the polity of our country has totally focussed itself on the hypothetical and notional growth engine of our economy, the Stock Markets. If there’s turbulence in our stock markets for an hour, the finance minister comes out in open and tries to pacify the markets and all of our media gets focussed there. However, the reports of farmer suicides in Vidarbha region, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the Tsunamis of the world are not even considered precarious. We have forgotten to take care of the people who need it the most. There are charities of course for the grief stricken people of course, like the loan waivers, and the reconstruction of villages after Tsunami, the Gujarat earthquake, but most of the time, why do we need dying people to be reported on a very wide scale media to realize that these are the people who are in real need of attention and efforts.

All the time in the past 5 years, if we tune in to any TV channel, we’re constantly bombarded with news only about the performance of our stock exchanges and India growth, fundamentally strong economy etc. and 4-5 people sitting there analyzing all the time about how strong we are as an economy. Unfortunately, every one fears to peep into the dark side of it.

Sample this. Sometime last year, while working for a Multi National Corporation in Bangalore, I received an e-mail from the Human Resources department asking all Day shift employees not to report to office for the next day. Reason, the Supreme Court was to deliver its verdict on Kaveri Water division between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and there were apprehensions about the wide spread riots in the whole of Karnataka should Karnataka loose the case and the lives of employees were considered to be at risk by the HR department of many corporations. Why were our people fighting for water? I mean the stock exchanges were doing very well, and there were no recessionary times, the job market was booming and the CXOs (X includes E, I , F) were earning as much as they could and flying business classes. There simply should have been no reason as to why our people across the two states were fighting for water. Unfortunately, if we have a closer look at it, the first time this division of water thing came up way back in early nineties, the worst case of rioting ever in the history of Karnataka was because of Kaveri Water dispute with Tamil Nadu. Why so? Why have so many people died and so much bloodshed for the sake of water of a river in the next “Tiger Economy” or the next “Asian Giant”? It’s because the lives of the farmers irrigating their land out of that river is at stake.

Also, the division of Kaveri water did not change the way the Cokes and Pepsis of the world did business in India. A Rs 6000 odd crore (http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/kitnon-alcoholic-beverages-market-in-india/07/21/342572/) soft drinks market of the world simply is not ready to accept the fact that the cold drinks we consume are depleting resources of our own farmers. We’ve forgotten to respect the way people live in our country. Although we show courtesy in the form of loan waivers and collecting money and clothes when they die, we are totally oblivious to how they are living and coping up with it. Very unfortunate for a country where economy was predominantly agrarian.

In fact we live in such extra ordinary times where our billionaire film stars (read Amitabh Bachhan and his farm land acquisition in Barabanki (UP)) have occupied farm land stating themselves as farmers. This can’t be labelled as unfortunate as well. This has something to do with the total loss of respect for our farmers and the way they are living.

True that the Bengal Famine can be classified as “Britons at work” but the agriculture sector of our country today and the figures that we looked at in the class are also a result of “PRAGMATIC” attitude towards agriculture. Who’s at the work now and who is at the helm of affairs? Our own people. The very own Coke and Pepsi drinking people I believe. And that is what has spelt dooms day for our farming sector.

Take PDS, considered to be one of the finest poverty alleviating systems of our country. It neither reached to all corners of the BPL families and whenever it reached, it was inadequate (http://www.blonnet.com/businessline/2001/08/13/stories/041303mg.htm).

Clearly, nothing works in our country because no one wants to make it run OR perhaps no one wants to look at the darker side of our export oriented growth.

I would also like to point out that farm loan waiver schemes will not help the systemic failure of agriculture and farming sector of our country. Promoting private players (be it corporate farming, be it export orientation of food, be it futures trading) to accumulate wealth out of the sector which ought to benefit the masses is never going to help.

The government is not ready to invest in development of the sector and instead, is trying to create a free market system for a sector that is not matured at all. The Global food crisis of 2008 did not help the cause of Indian farming at all. Couple it up with the total dependency on monsoons. And the Prime Minister goes on record to say that with the help of America, we can create another green revolution. Perhaps he is asking us to be dependent on “Western disturbances” as well.

A note from Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyer (http://www.countercurrents.org/aiyar030507.htm) on the same situation explains why we’re so considerate on spending 648 Crores on rural India and at the same time we are spending Rs 7000 Crores on Commonwealth games.

Is MS Dhoni fit for Test Cricket

Well, tons of questions are raised when Yuvraj Singh flops in one test match. Last time he scored a duck in the infamous Sydney test and since then has failed to impress the selectors for a permanent spot in the test team. But nobody asks the same question about M.S. Dhoni. Unfortunately, i don’t remember one single make or break innings since his match saving innings in the Lords test against England last summer when we were there under Rahul Dravid’s captaincy. I think time is ripe enough to critically evaluate the role of M.S. Dhoni in the Indian Test Team. Is he a wicket keeper who can bat or a batter who can keep wickets. I don’t think so he has been able to justify even one of the options. He dropped Michael Hussey on 1 and he went to score 146 and when he himself came out to bat, scored mere 9 runs of 51 balls and seemed least interested in batting. Merely being the One day team captain or a T20 captain should not guarantee a place in the test side. It’s just the wrong selection ethic. To be very frank he doesn’t deserve a place in the test team considering that he has completely forgotten why he was hired for. He has hired because he was a good wicket keeper and an aggressive batsman. Now, if he has lost his aggression in the limited overs format of the game, that might well be justified considering that he is the captain of the side, but when it comes to test cricket, we have the brilliance of four batsmen to take the responsibility baton and the fifth fab is our captain. What is his role then in test team. Same for which he was hired. Keep wickets and be an aggressive batsman. But as of now, he is not doing justice to any one of them. I still feel we can stick to Dinesh Karthick for a while till he realizes his own faults, considering the fact that Indian Cricketers realize their faults only after getting dropped for a series or two. And the fate of M.S. Dhoni must be the same if we want the same cricketer back. Unfortunately Gary Kirsten says MSD is ready to lead the test side. I’d rather say he’s not even ready to be the test cricketer as things stand. One might say that it’s too early to predict but then we can not keep risking a spot which literally becomes a free hand for the Ozzies to deal with. They are the toughest side to beat in Test cricket not for the reason that they are tough cricketers, but because we are weak. And our weakness displays in our team selections. Let’s see how the series pans out. I obviously want India to win but I would still be critical of MSD throughout the series for the kind of cricket he is trying to play. If Harbhajan Singh can consistently bat better than Dhoni then probably Dhoni can be demoted to Number 10 in batting even if we do not want to drop him.

Manchester United popularity in India | Ryan Giggs knows it

"You see it when we go abroad in pre-season, you appreciate how popular United is. We have fans in India, China, South America. That popularity is a result of our history.” Ryan Giggs

How true is he?

The link here to the official website of the greatest football club in the world – Manchester United : http://www.manutd.com/default.sps?pagegid={F9E570E6-407E-44BC-800F-4A3110258114}&newsid=6617542&page=1

Google Chrome | Google turns on screws on Microsoft

Finally, Google Chrome made a debut on my laptop. It was more of serendipity than a direct download link which fails to install because of a proxy problem (may be). So, I just went into the error details in the event viewer and got the download link from administrative tools of my pc and voila, I was able to download the installer for Google Chrome (about 7.32 MB in size). The installer did not even take a minute and also imported all the settings from internet explorer, regarding Connection settings, favorites etc. And impressive it was with the looks until I got pissed off with the functionalities that it possessed. It’s still in a very nascent stage and the main problem is it cannot resolve/render a web page, until you yourself append a www. before you start typing the actual address. That means to open economist.com, I’ll have to explicitly write www.economist.com which really was annoying. Moreover, I could not open my bank website from Google Chrome and other websites as well. Probably, it can not handle any exceptions on a web page and thus does not render it at all, unlike the internet explorer, which is able to digest all the errors and still render a page.

I feel Google Chrome has a lot of way to go before it comes anywhere close to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. But this can be treated as a big big threat to Microsoft, whose desktop software operation space has been vied as a monopoly till now and is being invaded and at web, Microsoft is no where. It’s a classic corporate warfare, but with the kind of innovations to bring users closer to the two organizations un earthing every day, I believe, people, and especially netizens stand to benefit from this competition.