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Issues with Nandan Nilekani in the Unique Identification Project

2009-09-15T09:24:00.009-04:00

I was reading through an interview by Nandan Nilekani, the Chairman of the ambitious Unique Identification Authority project by the Government of India. The objective is to provide a unique identification number (not a card) to every citizen of India, so delivery of government services would be efficient. Nothing like it, if it works.

While I expected the interview to be a normal one, I was shocked with lack of clarity in Nandan's answers. Here is the link to the interview.

“Unique ID will enable more effective public delivery”

Let me tell you why I found it shocking..

1. Nandan is too curt.

Nandan holds a position which is the equivalent of a Cabinet Minister. It was not a democratic way of selection and he has some sweeping rights to implement the project. Hence, Nandan needs to explain himself more unlike his Corporate days when he could afford to be curt. Through out the interview and in other interviews with the media, he doesn't seem to expand into his answers.

2. Lack of answers to pertinent questions on security, misuse, replication, etc.

Nandan never answers any of these questions in detail, while these are absolutely legitimate questions in a country like India. Absolutely crucial post-implementation also as it is a pubic system and there is bound to be vested interests or politicians who would like to take advantage of it. It is corruption served on a silver platter, if accessed inappropriately.

3. Nandan does not talk about how other smart card projects will be tied into the system

While he does talk about the source of his numbers (PAN, ration cards, etc), he does not talk about the huge investments the Central and State Govts are making in delivery of social services (RSBY, NREGS, etc) through smart cards already. Only if these systems are tied together in the beginning, can the cost remain low and efficiency high. We cant afford to operate 10 large parallel IT-based projects for a population of 1 billion.

4. Nandan uses the Govt as a gauntlet in certain instances -
"The Government has come to the conclusion that this project is stragetic and worth it. I have been invited to lead this project. I believe that it is viable and I will do my best to make it viable.")
He seems to already buy into the idea of this system rather than being the critical outsider so it would add more credibibility to the implementation. I am sure he is capable of doing more diligence into it, if his past is any example. Else, its a one-time investment of Rs.1.5 Lakh Crore Rupees over five years into something that 'could' not be as beneficial on ground.

Or maybe it will.

Nandan Nilekani will do a lot of things right and maybe way better than others, but doesn't mean he wont do some things wrong either. The media that is supposed to be critical about the whole project, has just made him a darling you cant ask tough questions to. Or they just dumb to understand the technicalities. The devil's in the details, afterall. Nobody would know better than Nandan, or atleast I hope so.

Vikram Akula's Response to WSJ's article on Microfinance in India, by Ketaki Gokhale

2009-08-22T14:50:00.001-04:00

Letter to The Wall Street Journal

Managing Editor
The Wall Street Journal
New York, NY

Dear Sir,

This is in regards to "A Global Surge in Tiny Loans Spurs Credit Bubble in a Slum" by Ketaki Gokhale on August 13, 2009.

We are deeply disappointed and shocked by this unbalanced and misleading portrayal of microfinance in India.

Ms. Gokhale reports that there is an over-indebtedness problem in one slum in one city in one state of India and goes on to assert that this indicates that there is a "credit crisis brewing in 'microfinance." Such a sweeping generalization based on anecdotal information from one neighborhood is absurd.

To the contrary, the data suggest a very different picture. Microfinance institutions in India, which serve 22 million clients, have consistent repayments rates of 95% and above—repayments that clients could not make if they were not generating regular income, given the weekly repayment schedule that most microfinance institutions follow.

In fact, the Microfinance Information Exchange (MIX), the Washington-based non-profit information platform, reports that the average repayment rate of leading MFIs in India—which have the lion's share of clients— is 98%. My own institution, SKS, which serves over 5 million clients spread across 70,000 villages and slums of India, has a 99% repayment rate. Meanwhile, our portfolio received a PR1+, the highest safety rating, from an independent external rating agency, for a debt instrument slated to list on the Indian stock exchange. The reporter did not even mention these high repayment rates or the fact that in tens of thousands of villages and slums across India, millions of microfinance customers are thriving and climbing steadily out of poverty—as shown by a number of independent studies.

It is surprising that such facts were deliberately excluded when talking about a "repayment revolt [that] has spread to other communitiesâ€¦and could reach further across India." In fact, this statement is attributed to an unnamed observer. Who is the observer? What is the data that is the basis of this assertion? And how does this data compare with industry data or at least the data of the market leaders, such as those reporting to the MIX?

The reporter goes on to say that "Shantytowns in Ramanagaram, India, like this one are getting 'carpet-bombed' with loans from microfinance firms." What other shantytowns are getting carpet-bombed? How many did the reporter visit? Where is the data or the study that suggest this is a widespread phenomenon—or even that it is more than an isolated occurrence? The reader should have a chance to arrive at a conclusion from facts not assertions from unnamed "observers" or anecdotes.

The one pair of researchers mentioned by the reporter is the team of Rajalaxmi Kamath and Arnab Mukherji. But their study, "Ramanagaram Financial Diaries" involves a sample of only 20 clients over a short 3 month period of time. Clearly, this brief snapshot cannot suggest anything about the broader universe of microfinance in India. In fact, the researchers themselves even qualify their findings, writing, "are MFIs 'dumping money on borrowers' or is there an insatiable hunger for credit which they are fulfilling? It will be difficult answering these questions given the scope of our pilot study." Moreover, it is worth noting that the study's major finding is that the "greatest proportion of the total borrowings during this period went into repaying other loans (informal loans â€“ moneylender, chit-funds, finance companies)." That is, according to the study, when clients are paying off other loans with microfinance borrowings, it is to primarily pay off high-interest moneylender, chit fund, and finance company loans—not to pay off microfinance loans, a fact conveniently omitted in Ms. Gokhale's article.

Granted, it is still problematic that the loans of these 20 clients are not being used for productive purposes, as is more common in microfinance. But if lower interest microfinance loans are used to pay down higher interest moneylender or chit fund loans, this is not necessarily a bad thing.

As to the question of why loans in this neighborhood were not being used for productive purposes, there are several inter-linked causes—from the impact of the recession on the silk industry (in which many clients in this locale were engaged) to Hindu-Muslim religious tensions (which today are common in the state of Karnataka, in which Ramanagaram is located) to patriarchal hostility towards lending to women to intimidation from politically-connected traditional loan sharks. Unfortunately, the reporter fails to even mention such issues.

Coming back to the question of what the data says about over-indebtedness and repayment issues, there are in fact more comprehensive studies than that of Kamath and Mukherji. Consider, for example, a study by Karuna Krishnaswamy that analyzes qualitative data as well as quantitative information from a data set of over 500,000 client loan and repayment records from seven MFIs in Andhra Pradesh, one of the states in India that has even more microfinance penetration than Karnataka. The key finding of this study is that multiple borrowers have an equal or lower arrears rate than their single borrowing peers in the same branches and lower than the average rate for the overall sample. Moreover, a majority of the multiple borrowers interviewed said they used their loans primarily for investment purposes, none reported repayment difficulties, and there was no other evidence that multiple borrowers are experiencing repayment problems.

Ms. Gokhale unfortunately did not take the time to look at such statistically robust studies but relied instead of the 20-client pilot study.

Worse yet, Ms. Gokhale draws a parallel between microfinance and the U.S. mortgage crisis. Yet she neglects to explain how different the process of microfinance is from that of mortgage approvals in the US; the reader is misled into believing that loans are disbursed willy-nilly. On the contrary, leading microfinance institutions like SKS follow a strict process to ensure loans can be comfortably re-paid.

We first require potential members to take three hours of financial literacy training and pass a test indicating they understand interest rates, loan installments, and other product features; we make small loans exclusively for income-generating activities, not for consumption; we lend only to women who borrow in interdependent groups of five and who are known to be more careful with their use of loans than men. SKS' rigorous process of approving loans is completely different from the lax system in the US for approving mortgages that led to the sub-prime crisis. Some microfinance institutions—particularly new entrants—may violate these norms. But to go from the exception to a sweeping generalization about the sector is at best unbalanced; at worst, downright irresponsible.

She also makes the claim that microfinance is similar to the US mortgage industry because "in India, microlenders' field officers are often paid on commissions, giving them financial incentive to issue more loans." Had the reporter checked with the vast majority of microfinance institutions in India, she would have found out that this is simply not true. At SKS, for example, we have no loan officer commissions for larger loan size. Even if some microfinance institutions in India incentivize their loan officers this way, isn't it incumbent on the reporter to mention that the majority—with the lion's share of clients—do not?

There are other glaring examples of amateurish imbalance in Ms. Gokhale's story. It is bizarre that the reporter quoted an investor in Luxembourg who comments about a "bubble" in microfinance in India, but whose fund focuses on regions other than India and "has no exposure to India." It raises the question as to why she did not reach out to any of the investments funds that participated in the 54 deals in India in the last 18 months, mentioned by the reporter herself.

The reporter also makes far-fetched leaps of logic. For example, she cites the fact that "average Indian household debt from microfinance lenders almost quintupled between 2004 and 2009, to about $135 from $27." She goes on to say that the industry is expected to grow another 20%, suggesting that this is worrisome. But she failed to find out that the reason for the quintupling of loans is that microfinance institutions deliberately start with small loans sizes and increase the loan size year-on-year as a borrower demonstrates her credit-worthiness each year. This gradual increase in loans is a substitute for the lack of a credit score among the poor—something that this neglected and largely undocumented segment do not have—and is a standard practice in the microfinance model pioneered by Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.

Moreover, even at $135, microfinance institutions are still lending well below the typical credit need of a poor household in India, which is $400 (based on survey data from an independent study commissioned by the government's Small Industries Development Bank of India). This data suggest that, on average, there is no over-lending issue for the sector.

In addition, the statement that microfinance institutions do not disclose their accounts is downright false. The microfinance institutions mentioned in the article, along with other large players such as SKS, disclose their financials to the MIX, the Washington-based non-profit, which posts this on its website. SKS also files its financials with India's Ministry of Corporate Affairs and it is available to the public on the Ministry's website.

Finally, the article implies that micro-lending to Muslims has stopped. This, Ms. Gokhale says is ironic because, for years, "Indian microlenders have touted themselves as bankers to the nation's impoverished minority Muslim community." First of all, microfinance in India has made no such claims. Moreover, the assertion that microlenders have stopped lending to Muslims is not consistent with the data. In reality, the sector serves a disproportionately larger segment of Muslims than in the general population because microfinance targets the poor—and Muslims are, as a group, more impoverished than the general population. For example, at the end of the fiscal year in March 2009, 18% of SKS clients were Muslim compared to the 13.4% of the general population that is Muslim.

In microfinance, there is a similarly disproportionately large representation for other impoverished groups, such as lower castes and other minorities. If the reporter had sought out the data, she would have realized this.

For all these reasons, Ms. Gokhale's article is a poor and irresponsible piece of journalism. We normally have high regard for The Wall Street Journal and have worked closely with and have great respect for other WSJ reporters. It is a shame that the esteemed journalistic standards normally found in your newspaper have been trampled upon with this story.

Regards,

Vikram Akula

An Anatomy of Asian Economic Woes – Questioning the Economist's assumption

2009-01-30T07:36:00.004-05:00

Article Link:
http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=13022067

Assumption
"Asia’s low rate of consumption and borrowing means that it has huge scope to make consumption the engine of growth over the next decade."

Really?
But should Asian economies, like India, make consumption the engine of growth? With how unregulated consumer spending (not Wall Street greed) has been the centre point of the recent recession (even questioning the merits of capitalism), is this a valid assumption for emerging markets with far little regulatory mechanism and much larger class and economic stratification? Are the economies strong enough to cushion the fall at times of crisis, and support such massive populations?

Why Yes?
Increased consumption definitely helps in generating more revenue for the government, increases competition, and fundamentally puts the consumer in the driving seat. The world revolves around the consumer, and so it’s all good. The governments can incent the end consumer at a time of crisis to spur growth in the economy, hoping it would lead to a domino effect (like Taiwan distributing spending vouchers to its citizens) leading to stabilization followed by a moderate or high-growth trajectory. Now, has it worked before, and will it work this time? I don’t know as I don’t have the facts.

Why No?
What are the perils of the government being overly betting on consumerism to drive growth? How has India fared with opening its markets since 1991, both positively and negatively? Has it been inclusive? Has consumer spending grown at the same rate in urban and rural pockets? What are the implications of such unequal growth on the social fabric (IT engineers with ever expanding wages to farmers depending on unpredictable rains)? Considering a very large unorganized sector in India, how does it play into this assumption derived by mere and incomplete statistics?

Thoughts
Consumerism pushed too hard creates a spending culture (with excess credit, etc) that could go unchecked, and ties a common man into the vicious cycle of consumer spending-economy-growth. With no cushion to fall back on (social security, etc), does the consumer make himself vulnerable to all the perils of an advanced economic system? Does consumer spending mean making a sustainable Rajastani weaver produce and consume more, and in turn tie him to the cycles of the financial world, something that is not part of his simple way of life as much?
Philosophical rant: The word ‘advanced’ is subjective. Is advancement purely a factor of technology and more power to consume, and being better plugged into the increasingly globalizing world? Or is it evolving as humans to live at peace with each other, and go to bed happier than the previous day?

I think the Indian government should find a balance between opening up markets too soon too fast, and being over protectionist so it doesn’t hamper productivity. I do not care about 10% or 15% growth, but rather a modest yet inclusive and sustainable growth. If it has to come with a combination of consumer spending and restraint, so be it. We need policy makers with both brains and heart, not follow advice of economists who are masters in statistical wizardry and logical thinking guided by conventional wisdom.

Oh! Clearly, it’s the Economist, and they know it all. Haven’t we thought so before?

Viswanathan Anand wins 2008 World Chess Champion

2008-10-29T13:21:00.002-04:00

VISWANATHAN ANAND WINS 2008 WORLD CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP

Draws with Vladimir Kramnik in Game 11, winning the title with a margin of 6.5 to 4.5 points.

EEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAW!!

Fuel Hike– A solution at the pump?

2008-07-14T07:20:00.000-04:00

Many people around the world are (finally!!) coming to terms with the fact that fuel price hikes are here for good. Personally, am quite happy with that and think it would encourage car owners to think twice about driving around recklessly, and maybe think more about car pooling. However, am a bit concerned about the “aam admi” (common man) who uses public transport (bus, local trains, etc) or two wheelers. A price increase of even a few Rupees is quite a lot in his monthly budget, also given the inflation that’s going around. The government, for fear of popular backlash has resorted to very small hikes, thus leaving the government owned oil companies reeling under extreme losses while taking a personal tab to the tune of 1,80,000 crores a year at present fuel prices (http://www.pmindia.nic.in/speech/content.asp?id=687). That’s a huge amount considering India is a developing country and that money could be diverted to the social sectors.

It’s easy to be angry with the government and be a punk (which I don’t think is cool anymore!), but to think realistically would be the best way to go forward. Now, what would be a solution for the government to not fear a popular backlash while reducing the burden on the government exchequer?

I think the ideal way to go about would be to pressure the oil-producing countries to pump out more oil, or maybe put more checks around certain financial practices (hedging, etc), or maybe actively invest in green-friendly public transportation. I don’t find any of this realistic, atleast in the short term or given the geo-political or economic setup that exists in the larger scheme of things. Now, that leaves the government with very few choices. Looking into the entire distribution network and the consumption of fuel makes me think that the best place to start would be the fuel station. I think the oil companies could be a bit more creative about this. What if they price fuel differently for different segments of automobile users, or say design a pricing system that impacts different consumers differently?

The fuel stations could have different pricing slabs for say under 5 litres, between 5 and 10 and over 10 litres for private vehicles. Considering two wheeler users do not use as much fuel as private car users and also account for the majority of them at the fuel station, they are not as impacted by sudden global price surges. More importantly, this doesn’t affect their monthly budget while it helps to effect a change in the mind of the private car user. On the flip side, the government could stay popular among the “aam admi”, the exchequer could save a chunk of the Rs. 1, 80,000 crore annual tab and we can move closer to a more responsible green society.

It is so in the world that all the problems created by the minority are shared by the majority, including pollution, use of water, wastage, price hikes, etc. Maybe its time to turn around this unfair and unspoken rule of the world, and I think this is where the government could help. I am not aware of public-private-partnership (3Ps) or any of those fancy terms, but I think NGOs and policy think-tanks should be facilitators between the government and the people and not enforcers, similar to how the media should be. They could help the government frame policies that are friendlier to the majority while making the minority accountable for their actions as “polluters”. I am not saying the majority does not pollute at all, but given a choice the right way, they are open to change unlike the adamant and mindless minority. A good example would be the movement from “pay-and-use toilets” to the successful “use-toilet-get-money” setup by SCOPE Trichy and the local public authorities (http://www.scopetrichy.com/).

I feel good every time I ride in a CNG-friendly vehicle, but am also aware of how things have gotten difficult for the bus drivers in the nation’s capital (http://www.thehindu.com/2007/01/09/stories/2007010914920400.htm). As a student of engineering, I think it’s an efficiency problem in the evolution of better CNG systems, and could be rectified in time. Cycling and walking are options for short distances, still J

The majority, as I see it, seems to share the burden from the excesses of the minority while, ironically, the excess itself is never shared. This could be extrapolated to global problems, country to country.

Indian Premier Leageu: A Behavioral Case Study?

2008-06-01T10:40:00.002-04:00

The Indian Premier League (IPL), the shortest version of the game of cricket that exists has been hogging the Indian media space and also people’s minds for the last two months, if not more. The passion for cricket has grown manifold and has entered households during primetime by competing with Bollywood, reality shows and game shows. Ironically, the game show hosted by India’s biggest star Shahrukh Khan faded in comparison to his averagely performing yet profitable IPL team, the Kolkata Knight Riders. Bollywood in the last two months has been kicked into oblivion with all the attention turned towards the cheerleaders in IPL, the glam quotient in cricket stadiums, blockbuster entertainment, and most importantly the extremely high scoring format that is refreshing and fascinating at the same time. This is if one doesn’t count the controversies in the game itself, all of which received more attention than any single event in the recent past. These involve the controversies surrounding Shoaib Akhtar’s life ban by the Pakistan Cricket Board, the Harbhajan-Sreesanth slapping episode, racism against black cheerleaders, the outlandish comments of Vijay Mallya, the firing of Charu Sharma, the horrible performance of a well-balanced side like the Deccan Chargers, the dramatic exit of Mumbai in true Bollywood-style, and/or any other incident remotely related to IPL. The closest real news that mattered around this time that I can think of would probably be the Arushi murder case, the blasts in Rajasthan (of course with an IPL angle to it), Gujjar riots and the life term sentences against the Yadavs in the Katara murder case. Else, the media has completely submitted itself to the cricket frenzy fans of India although ironically, they were not happy with IPL’s media rules and had planned to boycott initially. However, the enigmatic CEO of IPL, Lalit Modi, got his way around the problem by successfully hijacking the media itself.

During the course of the last two months, I have been thoroughly fascinated with the new found professionalism of a sport in India, the team names, the brands and icons associated with them, advertising and aggressive marketing, the bidding and more importantly the reaction of fans to their favorite teams. I did, many a times, think about looking at this entire spectacle from a different perspective. Given my limited knowledge of the sport, statistics, the players, I turned my attention into the team selection process and how it relates to the people of a certain city and its vibe, owners and captaincy.

Mumbai Indians
The team representing the entertainment and business capital of India is owned by India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani and captained by India’s biggest cricket star, Sachin Tendulkar. The team had no lack of star power on the sidelines with most of Bollywood rooting for the Indians, but for the brand called Shah Rukh Khan who sucked a sizeable chunk to support his team in Kolkata. The team also is the most expensive standing to its owner’s reputation of doing everything big. The fans of the Indians are either the million fans of Tendulkar or the city of Mumbai, and that would squarely put their fan base much higher than any other team. Not many cities in India could boast of such love from far and wide. This team is the equivalent of the New York Knicks in the NBA, and quite coincidentally has just one star player and also missed out on making it to the knockout stage. The team would definitely break even next year with its superior location and fan base, however success would largely depend on more focus on the team and less dependence on Tendulkar. He has been largely successful in his own right at the national level, although most of his success rarely translated to success for the national team. The latest Bollywood equation seems to be many stars and maybe the Indians could test that strategy.

Kolkata Knight Riders
This team represents a lot of passion and aggression as is evident in the people of Kolkata for everything Kolkata and Bengali. And a cricket team representing Kolkata could possibly not have a captain other than Saurav Ganguly aka “Dada”. That would otherwise result in a strike by the Unions and a street play by one of the famous Bengali playwrights to highlight the injustice. And hence, that was one player that the owner could possibly not bid and came with the franchise. The presence of Dada automatically brought the entire state behind the team and along with the star power of Shah Rukh Khan, proved to be a deadly combination. Not to mention the controversy ridden Shoaib Akhtar who always brings humongous media coverage along with his controversies. This team, on paper, looked like the one to stop although it dint perform as well as expected, except for a few passionate appeals. However, as of now, it looks like the only team that would end up being profitable in its first season of existence. As they say in Bollywood, “Anything Shahrukh lays his hands on is a success”. I would think so too. His brand equity rose 30% or so during this period and he has stayed the most admired and passionate owner among his lot.

Delhi Daredevils
The Daredevils seem like a well balanced team on paper but for their weakness in making a case to the media due to lack of any media savvy players in their team. Their captain, Virendra Sehwag, is one of the least interesting persons on Planet Earth. The owners, I think, forget IPL is business at the end of the day and it was absolutely foolish not to have the ammunition to create buzz in the media capital of India. They did pretty well, and with their last minute surge made it to the semi-finals only to lose to Rajasthan, the strongest team in the fray. However, Delhites would be happy to have made it to the last four, only because Kolkata and Mumbai can not claim the same. In fact, I would even think at the end of the day, that’s all that mattered for their fans. As I see it, they had a short-sighted vision in terms of the game as a sport and as a business. It definitely needs a star for its future earnings potential. Until then, the Daredevils would only be liked and rooted for by their fans and local RJs. Even the majority Punjabis in Delhi would prefer the Mohali franchise.

Punjab Kings XI
A great team on paper and co-owned by Preity Zinta more so because of her rich and business savvy partner Ness Wadia. A passionate team with a very passionate fan base led by the very candid Yuvraj Singh, second-in-command in the national cricket team. It had three competitive Aussies who all played well and the recently mellowed down Sreesanth, a very good player to create buzz on- and off-field. This team was successful, had star performers, won some big games and even finished the last game by beating the Rajasthan Royals, the number one team. However, they just couldn’t keep the momentum going into the semi-finals, largely attributed to bad leadership and poor team effort. With the Kings’ elimination, a media darling exits although am secretly happy that I don’t have to see Preity Zinta in every frame and listen to her players’ overly praise of her as the most generous and darlingest owner.

Chennai Super Kings
This team owned by the India Cements group, a reputed business with deep roots to the game of cricket, understood the nuances of the format with respect to its part of the country. The owner, Srinivasan, is one of the most passionate cricket fans in the state and has been generous with his endowments in the past. The team, from the beginning, has been local-centric starting with its name. Super is one of the most widely used words in Chennai, say it be Superstar Rajinikanth or a simple question like “How was the movie?” that would elicit a response “Super!”. As ridiculous a name as it might be to people from outside the state, this word I am sure appeals to its regional fan base. The state of Tamil Nadu has been one with a history of leadership (usually people who migrated from another state) following and loyal supporters, be it movie stars who became Chief Ministers or again, the example of Superstar Rajnikanth. The Super Kings team sort of represents the same, with the captain of the national team Dhoni (from Jharkhand) playing the all too familar captain role for this young team. The other casts in this team is a good mix of local players and outsiders, thus paving the way for long-term team building with a regional touch. This team might probably be the only one with media icons (Vijay and Nayanthara) who are not known outside Tamil Nadu, again playing to the strong local sentiments. The team has been very successful, though it was shaky in between, and has reached the finals of the inaugural IPL event. Considering people down south (with the exception of Vijay Mallya who is from a different planet) are not flashy or flamboyant, the team players are probably the least recognized, although they pulled decent media attention thanks largely to Dhoni and their good performance on-field.

Rajasthan Royals
The Royals, an absolute underdog when the event started have been superbly consistent with their performance on-field. This team, owned by god knows who, has stuck to the stereotypical Marwadi trait of maximum returns on minimum investment. The shoe-string budget team Royals is captained and managed by Shane Warne, the only foreign-born captain among all the 8 teams. Even with a decent yet inexperienced cast on paper, they have proved that playing as a team and staying the course is all that matters. Also, with Warne’s incredible Aussie smartness, aggressiveness and adaptation of the game, the team has the odds stocked in its favor to win the DLF IPL cup. The team has performed really well and hence been successful in attracting decent media coverage although it lacks any recognizable star power to make heads turn. This is another team that could just about break-even in its first season. The Royals have been quite consistent and unaffected even with the blasts in Jaipur and the Gujjar riots in parts of the state, again highlighting Warne’s leadership qualities. A very non-exciting team but, nevertheless, number one when it comes down to business on-field.

Bangalore Royal Challengers
The only list where the Royal Challengers are in the top is the Fair Play table, tucked nicely between its southern neighbors Super Kings and Deccan Chargers. This team, owned by the I-am-too-flashy-for-my-own-good Vijay Mallya, has been a total wreck right from the beginning. Mallya, more recognizable than most of his team’s players, is the master of entertainment and IPL set the perfect platform for him to showcase his ability so people in rural Jharkhand would recognize him. However, he crossed the thin line between cricket and business, by firing his CEO and showing anguish at the captaincy of the best stroke player in Indian cricket, Rahul Dravid. He did all of this in the middle of the IPL spectacle thus receiving severe criticism from media and cricketing experts. His team however, has the stupidest name among all of the 8 teams and this could again be attributed to his lack of reading into the business of cricket.

Hyderabad Deccan Chargers
This team has been the worst in terms of success on-field and off-field. The Deccan Chargers lost, lost more and they just made a habit of losing until they couldn’t lose anymore. It is appalling considering it is one of the more balanced teams in terms of bowling and batting, experienced players and captaincy. They were a team that lost hope very early in the season. I can’t stop but think there was a huge communication gap inside the team where nobody figured out their roles on-field. Considering I rarely saw them in media, I could safely say they do not have adequate star power either. In all, the Chargers could be sold to a more deserving city where the stands could be filled by people and not just chairs.

Cochin Coconuts
This is the name of my fantasy team. It is a work in progress and I do not like to divulge any details at this point of time. However, I have chosen Mamooty to be the youth icon of the team.

Why WB's 2-dollar definiton of poverty is STUPID?

2008-05-31T08:12:00.003-04:00

My two cents on the two dollar definition of poverty:
"Under two dollars a day definition of poverty is an affordability exercise for consumerism.

A broad comparison of PPP for the world is a bad measure and I completely agree with Reddy and Pagge's explanation. In fact, its even hard to define 'poor' in India, as its a relative measure. $2 can buy different things even within India. $2 roughly translates to Rs.80, which is a decent wage per day if you are a weaver in a village in Rajastan. However, this might not be the case if you live in Mumbai where your cost of living (basic roti-dal-chawal, housing, etc) is expensive. This in reality leaves the Mumbai auto driver a 'poorer' guy than the Rajastani weaver. However, if I were to use the $2 standard to measure poverty, both would be termed 'poor'. Am not sure if the Rajastani weaver would be too happy being termed 'poor' by the World Bank economists, while he has a house for himself and makes 'good enough' wage for decent living (just because his consumption of certain commodities by 'benchmark standards is low!)."

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References:
How Not to Count the Poor?
http://www.networkideas.org/feathm/may2002/ft21_Not_Count_Poor.htm

A Reply to Reddy and Pogge by Martin Ravallion
http://www.columbia.edu/~sr793/wbreply.pdf

A Reply to Ravallion
http://www.columbia.edu/~sr793/poggereddyreply.pdf

Is Globalization Working?
http://www.cceia.org/resources/journal/20_2/review_essay/5399.html/_res/id=sa_File1/20.2_Grewal.pdf

James's comment:
"poverty can only be defined by the exclusion of wealth.

under these metrics, the village weaver is not impoverished, but merely broke. while the bombay day laborer is impoverished by nature of his proximity to vast private wealth.

private wealth depends on the 'bottom of the pyramid.' Which is funny, because everyone and their mothers want to unlock value there, or empower the work force there -- but the bottom of the pyramid is the foundation! The vested interests in keeping them consuming at the same clip in which they earn will ensure that the idea of class mobility remains a very pretty little fantasy."

My comment:
"thanks James! income poverty (measured here) is only aspect. other indicators of poverty being, based on under-nutrition, infant mortality, access to health svcs, availability of skill jobs, etc. the latter are more realistic indicators and are universal. they can be benchmarked globally with relevance to proximity standards (% national gdp, quality of public hospitals, etc).

it is not right to even accept the WB's standard as a measure of global poverty because it is extremely hard to identify a reference bundle of commodities that must be commanded in order to avoid being poor (poverty inherently doesnt have a reference point). moreover, the equivalent ppp varies considerably depending on the reference bundle chosen. people in the BOP do not care as much about this bundle (movie tickets, etc) as they care about being healthy to do a skill based job and make enough to make ends meet (~ a middle class family above the poverty line)."

environment - socialist or capitalist?

2008-02-26T13:53:00.004-05:00

i had a thought provoking conversation with a friend of mine who believes in basic socialistic principles like public education and public health. i would consider myself as somebody who has capitalistic principles (or lack thereof) in my system and try to address social issues (education, health, etc) applying those principles. i look at things like efficiency, maximization of resources and even sometimes try to apply free market theory to them. however, i am also quite conscious about issues related to the environment, overuse of natural resources, etc. at this point of time i wonder if our environment, given a choice, would want us to be capitalistic or socialistic. a good part of my head tells me it would ideally prefer a socialistic system as it would be good for its longetivity. but let me see if i can dig deeper.

from an economic point of view, socialism refers to ownership by the state of both production and distribution. and capitalism refers to the system where the system of production and distribution should be left for the market to determine.

environment is quite broad of a subject, so lets take natural resources. finite and abundant. given the present outlook of, say, oil (peak oil phenomenon, rising oil prices, etc), we might think that conserving oil would be the best way to prolong our use of it. socialistic principles would guide us to minimize our dependance on a finite commodity like that, and share what we got equally. this would keep the prices affordable but wouldn't cut down our absolute use of it nor motivate us to find alternatives to it. a capitalistic system is heavily dependent on oil and hence, there is absolute need to have it at all cost. the system's productivity is directly related to the price of oil and availability. there isn't an option to reduce its usage as it affects productivity directly, resulting in failed businesses. since the growth of the economy in a capitalistic system is heavily dependent on it, there is also the need to access more of it by digging deeper into earth. given the fact that its finite and is only going to get more expensive, there is a strong need to find alternatives to replace oil as a driver. which is what many corporates are doing - they are
betting on more eco-friendly cars powered by batteries and fuel cells.

maybe i am biased towards capitalistic principles and try to address all issues with that lens. or maybe am not as aware of socialistic principles to address the same. or am just ignorant of other ways to deal with issues like these. at this point though, i am not sure. but i do see a capitalistic society needs oil the most for sustaining it and hence more inclined to find alternatives to replace it.

market and human sentiments: getting a gift on time or a bit late?

2008-02-18T01:45:00.006-05:00

one of the major theories in the market is the boom-bust cycle. the economy is doing well. stocks are rallying high. investors are making a lot of money. then the slowdown begins, with stocks taking a hit and investor confidence slowly and steadily eroding.thats usually when the central bank steps up its game to save investors - by either pumping in money into the market or cutting interest rates. this sustains confidence for a while, before the market again goes down. or sometimes, the slowdown is actually 'slowed down'. so what the central bank actually does is to 'sustain' the boom period for as long as it can before it goes out of its control.

now i would like to draw a parallel to our day-to-day lives. our birthday. a day when everybody around us makes us feel special. it includes the ultimate competition of people calling you at midnight to be the first to wish. and your close ones trying to make the entire day special and full of surprises (for the lucky few!!). then the day is over. u lived the best day of your life in a year and probably felt the most special. one, this day of yours appeals to everydbody - wife, kids, family, friends, colleagues, etc. unlike a mother's day or father's day. we could compare it to an absolute state of market boom. everybody is happy and in turn makes u feel happy and special. the next day you still feel a bit special, but not as much as the previous day! say some of your friends wished you a few days later (yeah! happens a lot i know), you feel a bit special that day. but nothing compares to the day of your birthday.

think about this scenario - your friends and family plan it in a way that they surprise you for a month after your birthday. like make it the 'birthday month of ravi' or something. it might dilute how special you might feel but still sustain some interest. even the constitutents (family, friends, etc) might not be as enthusiastic about your birthday. this is pretty much like the central bank cutting interest rates to sustain the economy or get it back to normal. it just wont help as long as people are not confident or enthusiastic about the economy. its in the mindset, not in the rate cuts, atleast not as much as many think! and its pretty normal for the market to act that way. afterall the market is guided by human emotions.

it opens a pandora box in my head...with a lot of questions.

why do we like surprises? what can we learn about relationships, from economic theory and market cycles? how do we encourage shopping behavior?

i will cover this the next time when am not blogging from work :-)

personally, i love my best gifts (the ones from the closest people) a bit late, thats if they choose to give me one :-)

female aggressiveness - less aggressive in 'making money by being overly aggressive'

2008-02-17T04:44:00.004-05:00

http://www.micromotives.com/2007/10/getting-in-touch-with-your-feminine-side/

a very interesting case study considering a hedge fund is the absolute example of alpha male overconfidence. my takeaway from such a cognitive study is a bit different from the bloggers'. my short analysis on why i think the trading performance actually improved with the female harmones.

"hedge funds are dominated by the aggressive male types. in such an environment, there is a constant void that gets bigger when u climb high up the ladder (from a junior trader to the showman). this void is the lack of women in the business that they can interact with or sort of share a different perspective. its the same case with ppl who put their money in hedge funds and people who do business with them...so its an almost-male dominated environment. now, when a man acts less aggressive and a bit more compassionate with his clients (like the junior trader Tong) or investors, there is automatic trust that builds around him and his portfolio, resulting in better trading performance."

we can kind of extrapolate this theory in dealing with aggressive markets where conventional wisdom says, the more aggressive you are the better your outcomes. it could be that cutting down on the aggressiveness and showing a more feminine side (=compassion) would actually result in the audience appreciating your stuff. am not saying women are 'soft' when i used the word compassion...its more like less aggressive in making money by being overly aggressive!!

Private sector jobs - religion and caste based discrimination

2008-02-12T00:49:00.000-05:00

The story that led to the analysis
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main36.asp?filename=cr241107not_quite.asp

I think we need reservation based on caste in India. Until the time when my maid's son and my neighbor's son would goto the same school, have access to the same information and have the same lifestyle without being intimidated, I would support reservation. I know reservation could be a two-edged sword (in some cases) and not the only thing that will make education/jobs equitable, but it definitely is the best way to get there. And if done efficiently with strong underlying research, it can change things around. I think it is being done for the most part with strong fundamental research, with a bit of politicization that is unavoidable.

Just consider the number of people who have access to quality education from 40 years ago, look at the schools which are diverse (still low considering economic backgrounds), diversity in jobs, etc and you would get a fair idea how we have 'progressed'.

I recommend this article and go on to support the casue of reservation in the private sector too.
http://www.india-seminar.com/2005/549/549%20sukhadeo%20thorat.htm
The author is Chairman of the University Grants Commission.

And about employers who choose people from a higher caste, you have to look at people up there who make those decisions in the private sector. They are part of the high caste mob who are as mindless as the rogue politician. Just that they wear a suit!! This study provides statistical merit to such an argument. At the end of the day, the responsibility of the government is make growth 'inclusive' given we still have gross bias, without our houses and our larger society. Let me reiterate the point that given the same opportunities under similar circumstances, caste or religion dont play a big part. However, that level platform has not been reached yet!!

I am from the so-called 'higher caste' but fortunately studied in a school in a small town with people from diverse backgrounds, and not in a school that picks only the brightest kids and spits out the brightest 10 years later!!

Medical tourism - Does private hospitals affect public health care in India?

2008-02-12T00:44:00.000-05:00

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5814.html

Q: How does growth in private hospitals affect public health care in India?

A: There is an assumption in the view often expressed in the media in India and Europe, for instance, that when private hospitals in India provide care to heart patients from England, the hospitals are somehow taking care away from poor people in India. The assumption seems to be that if medical tourism was banned, the doctors in question who were catering to wealthy patients would suddenly, as a practical matter, move to a village. It takes a different set of individuals, a different set of infrastructure circumstances to create that scenario. We need good scholarship to verify the idea that there is a potential substitution between caring for sick people from England and providing medication for malaria in an Indian village. I'm not aware of such analysis yet.

My guess is that the bulk of India's problem is primary health, and has nothing to do with tertiary care. And the primary health problem is not going to be addressed by a private hospital for the most part anyway. These are almost different industries. If someone analyzes the landscape and discovers that there is substitution between care, then there is a real public policy issue that needs to be debated.
---------

Some options for india:
1. govt step up primary health care
2. make PHC more lucrative for fresh doctors
3. mandate private hospitals that benefit from medical tourism to open up free clinics in rural places or provide quality free healthcare for the urban poor
4. an entirely different angle - make rural india attractive and economically more viable (by creating jobs and enabling reverse migration) so tier-2 hospitals would look at villages/towns for 'business' growth, considering urban area is crowded and more competitive for them

As a good friend of mine, a doctor and a primary health care consultant, put it
"I do not think this is a substitution phenomenon but a general failure of primary care worldwide." Bull's eye.

tata small car: cheap answers to big problems or cheap copies of worst habits?

2008-01-10T02:07:00.000-05:00

Tata Motor's launch of the small car (Nano from unconfirmed reports in the media) has caught the attention of the world with everybody throwing in an opinion whether its good or bad? This includes articles like the ones below..

http://digitaljourno.wordpress.com/2007/12/21/tatas-small-car-pachauri-vs-mashelkar/

http://www.nextbillion.net/newsroom/2008/01/04/dont-tax-the-tata-1-lakh-car-opinion

http://www.livemint.com/2007/11/05001246/Tata-small-car-could-usher-in.html

Being part of the young generation of Indians who can afford much more than the small car, I have the moral responsibility to join this debate. And when I start to think of it, I just cant seem to make up my mind. There is no one answer to the analysis. It even becomes a moral dilemma at one point to say that lower middle class Indians cannot drive a car that they can afford only because it affects the environment (while the present gas guzzling cars already do that!!).

On the one-end there is the rising economic power that India is and am proud to be part of the country which has been innovative by producing products for the masses (from the Re.1 shampoo satchets to technology enabled fisherman and so on). However, this is the first time I am at crossroads with this practice of 'inclusiveness'. Maybe because it is loggerheads with major and very real issues like environmental sustainability and global warming.

First of all, I have a lot of respect for somebody like Ratan Tata. He is just inspiration beyond mention. And he did what he thought was right - to expand his business while also considering the common man. This has been how the Tatas do their business - there is a lot of social responsibility, morality and patriotism in what they do. There is no questioning the righteousness of what the Tatas did and in no way matters to the issues on the discussion table. If they dint, some other manufacturer would have done it. And they already have, including Bajaj, Renault-Nissan et al.

The question is now thats its here, how do we deal with it? Or does the government even take a different outlook to this issue? How should the urban authorities of major cities deal with the new influx of four-wheelers on a mass-scale? Where do we draw the line in 'dealing' with this issue? Does the govt draft a policy to deal with similar problems in the future? And what would they possibly be? Here is my two cents...

The car should not be looked at as a single component. It should be looked at a 'luxury' good which has to be taxed based on its impact on the roads/environment/society/etc. The tax should be an equation of this impact. For example:-

Car tax = f (weight+pollution discharge+size+no. of cars/no. of adults in the household+neighborhood of owner)
...maybe am missing a few more components in this idealistic equation!!!

Now I would like to elaborate on the last two aspects of the equation:
# of cars/# of adults in a household - this would discourage wealthier families to minimize the purchase of cars just because they can afford it. it would help to rationalize the purchase and make it one of necessity. just take the instance of chennai and delhi that have huge differences in the way people think and make purchasing decisions. in chennai, most households have just one car and share it among the family. however, in delhi you have more motor cars per household. this could be attributed to cheaper car prices and longer distances to work also. but foremost, it is the mentality that affects a purchasing decision or lifestyle!! so its important for the government to consider this - so delhites (and likes) make rational decisions while purchasing four-wheelers and chennaites (and likes) dont get lured into the manufacturers' trap of low-interest cars/etc when there is an efficient transportation system that connects a good part of the city (MRTS). The same holds true for traffic congested urban metropolis like Mumbai, Bangalore, etc.

The second point I would like to discuss is quite controversial but I hope I can justify why it is important.
Neighborhood of owner - this might be something that might not seem important but I think it is. take the example of a lower middle class and an upper middle class family. the lower middle class right now owns one or two two-wheelers and have enough parking space in the neighborhood they live in. the houses have been built with two-wheeler parking in mind (how many ever years ago!!). well, say there are 100 families that live that way. now even if 40 families choose to make the decision to buy the 'dream car', we face serious problems - encroachment into others' private space, using up public roads to park, etc. this is an already prevelant situation in upper middle class neighborhoods in Delhi (where instances of neighbours fighting over parking space and even a shootout over the issue is common these days). people in the low income neighborhoods can now question the government and think its unfair on them but then reality is reality. many things in this materialistic world are guided by where you stand in the society - the school you choose for your kids, the neighborhood you live in, the restaurants you eat, the class system in airplanes, ticket prices in movie theatres, etc. well, this is another one. even if it comes at the cost of saying a higher earning person can pollute more than a lower earning person, yes thats how it should be because the higher earning person can 'offset' his luxury by paying higher taxes. BUT the government which takes this stand should also tax the higher earning person heavily to 'offset' for the environmental impact. and use the money to invest in clean and efficient urban transportation systems. there is no two ways about this!!!

lets get to the fundamental question of taxing at source - car manufacturers. well, its much simpler than addressing the customer side of the problem. however, it will only act as a restraint to the economy/competitiveness/etc. moreover, this problem can only be addressed by addressing people's mindsets, and this can be done by making them responsible monetarily. if its left to their choice, they would always pick the easy way out - hoping the neighbour would comply and he/she can stay away from issues!!!

also, congestion pricing like in london and nyc is an excellent way to address this problem. and there is obviously no questioning other solutions - better transportation system, eco-friendly fuels, etc. however, all thats gonna take quite a long time and much longer in a country like India. so the government has to address this issue with long-term sustainibiligy of the society in mind rather than succumbing to vested interests. i just hope common sense prevails over morality in how the government handles this case.

my dad has been with a leading indian automobile manufacturer for over 30 years now and personally for me, this is a moment of pride when an indian company has developed a quality and complete product indigenously. and the fact that it is for the masses from the Tata group is the cherry on the top. am a proud indian today and nobody is gonna take it away from me. not even thomas l friedman...

BOP Debate: CKP vs Karnani and the rest

2007-05-29T04:58:00.000-04:00

Aneel Karnani and CK Prahalad are both reputed Professors of Michigan's Stephen M. Ross School of Business. CKP is the author of the now very famous BOP theory.

Here are a few times he has had to explain himself since the study was published three years ago.
CKP's response to Aneel's controversial paper"Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: A Mirage" is here
CKP's interview in Fast Company

Also, Al Hammond's (Vice President for Innovation and Special Projects at the World Resources Institute) response to Aneel is here

Although intellectual wars are common in the academic world, the title for the paper chosen by Aneel is a cheap trick to gain attention and leverage upon that to push his idea (its obvious he doesnt command the same stature as CKP whose work was "fresh and real"). Although he does make a valid point, its more like biased television channels that pluck just a line or two from a whole speech and try to focus coverage on that. I think CKP presented a very convincing response to convey this message across subtly, while also substantiating the validity and relevance of his work.

I hate to take sides in these cases, but I think Aneel played a very cheap trick that reduces my respect for him. I would like to read his paper as it supposedly has a rich data set that can be used by businesses to implement emerging markets strategies quickly. Mmm...

Coarse Thinking and Persuasion

2007-02-20T15:25:00.000-05:00

A very interesting paper on "Coarse Thinking and Persuasion" by Sendhil Mullainathan et al. Such a treat to read./starting from the problem design and how its approached from different ways to present a thorough analysis.

Another paper I found very interesting is Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo's paper titled "The Economic Lives of the Poor"

Bonus: "An interview with Eugene Fama", considered the father of efficient market theory.

Undercover Economist

2007-02-18T01:10:00.000-05:00

"Undercover Economist" by Tim Harford. One of the best books I have read since "Freakanomics".

Tim Harford also writes in FT, Forbes, Slate, BBC and NYT. His column in the FT titled "Dear Economist" looks at everyday problems through the eyes of an economist. It is a lot of fun to read some of the problems and his solutions to those :-)

And here is a list of famous indiblogs

Too much choice affects decision making

2006-11-04T02:14:00.000-05:00

http://www.sss.ias.edu/publications/papers/econpaper71.pdf

always thought of this..but this paper explains it best :-)

Frenzied Excitement - Dr. Easo John

2006-07-07T03:38:00.000-04:00

http://www.indeconomist.com/30thjune06p1.htm

A two-part essay that describes, in detail, the world economy and India's current economic development.

Well, whats interesting is the fact that mainstream media (like NYT, ET, etc) are covering the irrational exuberance that is "India Shining". They are finally listening to the experienced Indian economists and policy makers and moving away from popular sentiment (again made popular by the government's intense marketing campaign at Davos, etc + the elite media coverage).

Google Paradox

2005-12-27T03:51:00.000-05:00

Homepage of Sergey Brin:
http://www-db.stanford.edu/~sergey/
Contact Address in his Stanford days..
Computer Science Dept.
Gates Bldg 4A Room 420
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305

Homepage of Larry Page:
http://www-db.stanford.edu/~page/
Department of Computer Science
Gates Building Room #360
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-2140

And these two went on to found Google and now compete with Mr. Gates's very own Microsoft!!

Environmental Heresies

2005-08-16T22:19:00.000-04:00

http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/05/issue/feature_earth.asp

Asymmetric Information/Information Asymmetry

2005-07-16T03:42:00.000-04:00

Here is what Wikipedia says about 'Information Asymmetry', and as the name suggests - uneven spread of relevant information among different market participants. It is mentioned by economists more often than anybody else (recently by Levitt in 'Freakanomics').

The seminal paper that introduced the concept of asymmetric information is Nobel Prize winning economist Kenneth Arrow's "Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care", 1963. One of the later papers that popularized this work is another Nobel Prize winning economist George Akerlof's 1970 paper titled "The Market for 'Lemons'". Other noted economists who have contributed immensely to this area include Joseph Stiglitz, Michael Spence, James Mirrlees and William Hickery.

Some interesting reads..
"The Economics of Information" by Joseph J. Stigler
"A Nobel Prize for Asymmetric Information: The Economic Contributions of George Akerlof, Michael Spence, and Joseph Stiglitz"by J. Barkley Rosser Jr. (References has a list of all the papers by these three economists in the area of asymmetric information)
"Why Good Guys are not Selected by girls: a view based on adverse selection" by Sebastien Walti
"Market for Lemons: What George Akerlof learnt from India?"

Remembering KARGIL

2005-07-14T19:26:00.000-04:00

Revisiting KARGIL after 6 years..

Duration: May 8 - July 14, 1999

Combatants : India and Pakistan
Victor: India

TRIBUTE TO THE HEROES

Related Links..
Global Security
US Navy's Center for Contemporary Conflict
RAND Corporation

Knowledge@W.P.Carey

2005-07-06T22:32:00.000-04:00

Another excellent edition of Knowledge @ W.P.Carey! Better than the HBS, Emory and Wharton ones for the same period..

The major story being the Sino U.S. New Market Economy Forum - The recent announcement that CNOOC Limited, the dominant producer of crude oil and natural gas offshore China, is seeking to acquire U.S.-based Unocal Corp. was the latest bold move to focus attention on the burgeoning Chinese economy. Last month, a group of scholars and business leaders gathered for the Sino U.S. New Market Economy Forum - Beijing, sponsored by Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management and the W. P. Carey School of Business to discuss the market mechanisms necessary for the global integration of the Chinese economy. W. P. Carey Professor and Nobel Laureate Edward C. Prescott set the stage with an exposition of his ideas on the nature of the barriers to creating wealth.
The following topics were covered..
'Free Trade is Key to China's Economic Potential' by Edward C. Prescott, 2004 Nobel Prize winning economist.
'China's Potential Hinges on Smart, Sustainable Growth'
'Chinese Firms Launch Effort to Become Global Players'
'A Little Chaos Can Be Good for Labor Markets'
'China Steps Up Pace in Reform of Capital Markets'

Other interesting reads from the July 6-Aug 1 issue include..
'Troubled Automaker Faces Fight for Its Life' - Yes, the GM story - a supply-chain analysis of health-care costs, production technologies and supplier relationships in GM North America.
'Corporate Culture as a Roadmap to Success' - An article on the breakthrough research conducted to definitively examine the process by which corporate culture affects financial performance. Also check an interesting discussion on corporate culture at tompeters.com about Philip Purcell's departure from Morgan Stanley.

Books:

2005-07-02T04:14:00.000-04:00

"Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else" by Hernando de Soto

"India Untouched: The Forgotten Face of Rural Poverty" by Abraham George

"India Unbound: The Social and Economic Revolution from Independence to the Global Information Age" by Gurcharan Das

Exit Tax - Emigration Tax for Non-Residents

2005-07-02T02:58:00.000-04:00

Financial Express:
'Migrating after IIT? Pay up, says WB'

IMF Staff Papers:
‘Are Immigrant Remittance Flows a Source of Capital for Development?’ by Ralph Chami, Connel Fullenkamp and Samir Jahjah

Economist:
'Outward bound' by Mihir Desai

Times of India:
'Remote Control Tax’ – Editorial Page (Mihir Desai and Jug Suraiya)
‘A Taxing Idea at the Right Time?’ by Jairam Ramesh

Foreign Affairs:
‘Borders Beyond Control’ by Jagdish Bhagwati

Research Paper:
'The Silicon Valley - Hsinchu Connection: Technical Communities and Industrial Upgrading' by Annalee Saxenian

Thesis Draft:
'Economic Impact of Return Migration of Highly Skilled I.T. Professionals from the United States of India' by Shinu Singh

Please check the comments under the title 'fullymubbed' on this topic in another blog..

Change This and 'Manifestos'

2005-06-22T01:31:00.000-04:00

"..Sometimes it seems as though our disagreements—over everything from politics to business to the designated hitter rule—are more serious and more divisive than ever before.
People are making emotional, knee-jerk decisions, then standing by them, sometimes fighting to the death to defend their position.
And yet, we’re optimists...
The problem lies in the media.
..Television demands a sound bite. A one hundred word letter to the editor is a long one. Radio has become a jingoistic wasteland, a series of thoughtless mantras, repeated over and over and designed to fit into a typical commute."

That's part of the 'manifesto' at CHANGE THIS - a new kind of media built in the summer of 2004 by Amit Gupta, Catherine Hickey, Noah Weiss, Phoebe Espiritu and Michelle Sriwongtong. The original idea behind Change This comes from Seth Godin.

For starters, a 'manifesto' is nothing but a PDF file - an argument, a reasoned, rational call to action, supported by logic and facts. Published manifestos can be read, downloaded and shared widely. New proposals for 'manifestos' can be submitted HERE and submitted PROPOSALS can be read and endorsed to be written.

Manifestos by Tom Peters and Seth Godin are 'must' reads among other brilliant ones!

Privatisation of Public Services - I

2005-06-19T02:46:00.000-04:00

'Private and Public Interests in Water and Energy' by David Hall and Emanuele Lobina (both associated with PSIRU @ Univ of Greenwich) is based on empirical evidence from developed, transition and developing countries. It looks at how privatisation of water supply/sanitation and energy sectors may conflict with public interests in socio-economic, environmental and political dimensions. Presenting case studies from across these countries, the authors see a permanent possibility of conflict between the private and public interests as these privatised services are too vital both socially and economically, and hence too risky to rely on corporate self-regulation in a scenario where these countries lack effective capacity to regulate these corporations. The authors conclude that policy development in these countries should focus on building strong public sector institutions to provide these services rather than depending on corporate activity that is too risky.

Other research reports (in the areas of privatisation, public services and globalisation) from the PSIRU can be obtained here.

The Democracy Center has a compilation of the award-winning articles by Jim Schultz written from inside Bolivia during the country's now famous WATER REVOLT.

Books:

2005-06-17T23:29:00.000-04:00

"The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability" by Paul Hawken

"No Logo" by Naomi Klein

A Letter to Jairam Ramesh and his Reply

2005-06-17T04:09:00.000-04:00

Jairam Ramesh is a prominent figure in the Congress Party in India in which he has held several key positions in the past. He has also served in the Planning Commission, Ministry of Industry and other economic departments of the central government in various capacities. He is the architect of the National Common Minimum Program of the present government and was a key player in developing India's 1991 economic reforms. He graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering @ IIT-Bombay and later studied public management @ CMU and technology policy, economics, engineering and management for a year @ MIT.

My mail/request to Mr. Jairam Ramesh

"Mr. Ramesh,

I have admired you for a long time and more after I saw the "Commanding Heights" documentary that aired on PBS. However, I feel bad in a way that an American free media had to introduce us to the people behind the reforms in India. The men behind the whole documentary were economists and people profiled are from across the spectrum - politicians, economists, policy makers, etc. I would believe you have the knowledge and the connections to reach out to the people who have shaped India since its Independence.

It would be wonderful if you could take the initiative to work on a documentary to profile the whole economic/public policy process of India from the days of Independence to what it is now without any political affiliation of any sort. Although the PBS segment on India itself was very little compared to the length of the documentary, the segment dealt with the period after the reforms in 1990 and economic changes that followed - free markets, globalization, etc. Not many people in India (students mostly and I confidently would say MOST politicians) know about the first five year plan, the core economists that shaped the first economy after Independence, changes in the intermediate period, development and contributions of economists (Sen, Bhagwati, Manmohan Singh, K.N.Raj, Bimal Jalan, Rangarajan, etc.) in the 'unbundling' of India. I am sure there are so many budding economists in India and abroad who would be more than happy to devote their time and energy for this cause (including me although I am just an engineer with a strong interest in public policy and economics!!).

If this is a task that cannot be implemented soon, you must ATLEAST attempt to maintain a blog of some sort to share with us the operation of the government on a daily basis. There is absolutely no way for us (young people) to interact with politicians or policy makers of any sort and I would appreciate if people like you would take a more pro-active step to keep us 'informed'. "

Mr. Ramesh's prompt reply,

"many thanks for the nice words. your idea is a good one. it exists in bits and pieces but not in a consolidated manner (if interested read v.n. balasubrahmanyam's "conversations with indian economists")
do stay in touch. "

Let me reinforce the book in bold again -
"Conversations With Indian Economists" by V. N. Balasubramanyam.

India has a whole bunch of people with a wealth of knowledge and experience (retired RBI governors, former advisors to the central government, prominent reformers, etc) who remain a valuable source of reliable information of the past and present economic system. I think a concerned effort must be made to engage them in a dialogue in understanding the real problems faced rather than pointing fingers at politicians and policy makers!!

A complete netcast of the six hour Commanding Heights storyline that aired in three parts in PBS is available here. Also included are some essays in the same website.

Clarification from Prof Sendhil Mullainathan

2005-06-13T14:03:00.000-04:00

In one of my earlier post, I had quoted a very interesting study on discrimination in the US labor market.

I mailed one of the authors of the paper, Prof Mullainathan, for a clarification and the question I had was..

"By applying to 1300 REAL jobs posted in newspapers and adding 5000 NON-EXISTENT resumes to the job seekers pool during the period of study, do you think the study would have changed the hiring process of atleast a few jobs and thus affected the actual outcome/dynamics of those jobs for a few REAL applicants?'"

Prof Mullainathan replied,

"One of the things we did was to check with several HR managers before the study. We were worried that by giving one of our people an interview, we'd be crowding out a real interview. But they told us that there is actually a non-trivial percent of people who they try and call for an interview but cannot reach to schedule one. In these cases, they simply interview a few more people. As such, when they call one of our fake applicants and can't reach them, the next best candidate would simply get their chance at an interview. I think the distortions moreover are far more severe at the interview stage. At that stage, there is the potential for actually crowding out one real applicant, but we never send anyone in for a real interview."

I would like to THANK Prof Mullainathan for the clarification. More of his working papers can be obtained here.

Some good reads include..
"The Market for News" (with Andrew Shleifer), 2004
"Behavioral Economics" (with Richard Thaler), 2000

Neuroeconomics

2005-06-13T02:58:00.000-04:00

An article in The Economist published early this year is a good start.

Oft-quoted (in the blogosphere) blog maintained by Dr. Kevin McCabe, Professor of Economics and Law and Director of the Center for the Study of Neuroeconomics @ George Mason University.

Dr. Daniel Kahneman - 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize winning economist, Professor of Business Economics @ Caltech and pioneer and theorist of behavioral finance - and his primer on neuroeconomics.

Update on more reads to follow..

Why I am Not a Conservative - F.A.Hayek

2005-06-12T03:42:00.000-04:00

'Why I am Not a Conservative' is an excerpt from the book "In The Constitution of Liberty (1960)" by F. A. Hayek.

'Confessions of a Right-Wing Liberal' by Murray Rothbard is a good read too..

Pioneers of Education in India - A Tribute

2005-06-09T00:49:00.000-04:00

I found a very interesting link in UNESCO's Internation Bureau of Education website which had profiles on 100 famous educators-philosophers, statesmen, politicians, journalists, psychologists, poets, men of religion-drawn from many parts of the world. From this list, I picked NINE thinkers who I thought impacted education in India for good. These thinkers are listed below with a link to their profile on the IBE website.

MALCOM ADISESHIAH (1910-94) *reminded me of how my granddad used to narrate his association with Malcolm Adiseshiah back in his days*

RABINDRANATH TAGORE (1861-1941)

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA (1863-1902) *profile in French*

JIDDU KRISHNAMURTHI (1895-1986) *courtesy my granddad again*

J. P. NAIK (1907-1981)

SRI AUROBINDO (1872-1950)

MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI (1869-1948) *not many people in India are familiar with Gandhiji's contribution to education*

MARIA MONTESSORI (1870-1952) *although many would wonder her name in this list, I believe she had a great impact on education in India - partly evident in the number of Montessori schools*

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (1820-1910) *not born in India but she had a considerable impact on education in India too*

With all respect, I believe that there are other people in the list (and otherwise) who have had a direct or indirect impact on the education system in India.

Wage Insurance Program

2005-06-05T03:17:00.000-04:00

There are many instances when I have wondered what happens to workers who are displaced from their jobs by the effects of modern economic systems - globalization, free-trade, outsourcing, offshoring, innovation - while the economy gains overall. Although it is superficially mentioned in the media and elsewhere that the government takes responsibility in trying to compensate, re-train and re-employ the displaced workers, I have never understood the specifics.

Brookings Intitution's draft titled 'A Fairer Deal for America's Workers in a New Era of Outsourcing' (Lael Brainard, Robert E. Litan and Nicolas Warren) proposes a wage insurane program for workers displaced from their work permanently (in a market where offshoring accelerates the pace at which workers' investments in job-specific skills lose value). The authors feel that this scheme would aid in rapid reemployment and insure wages, and not just unemployment, in the present scenario. They also propose the program should be publicly mandated rather than being managed by private provisions.

From what I understood..

What is wage insurance?
Since the Great Depression, America has recognized the need for collective responsibility to help those who, through no fault of their own, may be thrown out of a job. Hence was formed the federally mandated unemployment insurance (UI), which replaces the displaced workers' previous wage for 26 weeks. Since 1962, the social contract has included special protections for those displaced by trade, including extended unemployment insurance and retraining benefits under the name of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA).

Problems with wage insurance programs?
Although both these are reformed on a regular basis, number of displaced workers who have really benefitted has been low primarily because of two factors:
a. problems with eligibility requirements for coverage,
b. effectiveness of the training program.

Performance in practice of different existing programs?
1. Earned Income Tax Credit program
++ higher labor participation among low-income workers
++ movement of several million households out of poverty
2. Targeted Jobs Tax Credit program
-- low participation rates among skilled labor due to stigma and reluctance to self-identify as member of targeted population
-- burdensome certifications and eligibility requirements
3. New Jobs Tax Credit program
4. Work Oppurtunity Tax Credit program
5. Welfare to Work Tax Credit program

A few notes..
- surge in public anxiety due to offshoring and loss of white-collar jobs
- America is going through a period where job creation is relatively low compared to job destruction
- there is a decline in the proportion of national income going to compensation of employees
- process of 'creative destruction': change should not just be tolerated but nurtured and firms should at some point pass the market shrink test (going out of business and destroying livelihoods of employees and owners)

Brookings Trade Forum 2005 is a good place to find papers on current research on the offshoring subject.

Scientism in Economics

2005-06-03T15:30:00.000-04:00

'One of the things that economics lost when it became a mathematical discipline was the ability to meet its own standards as a science.' - Alan Ebenstein (?!)

This is a quote that lingers in my head every time I read an economics paper that draws conclusions from mathematical analysis (although I love math and like to see the tabulated results personally!).

I first heard about the 'Post-Autistic Economics Movement' from my girlfriend who was presented with a copy of an article relating to it in her Econ class. The paper mentioned why economics students in three countries (France, UK, USA) are putting their professors on the defensive. The institutes referred to in the article are considered pillars of education in their respective countries and produce their future leaders. Some universities mentioned in the article where the PAE has a presence among the student body include Ecole Normale Superieure (France), Cambridge University, Oxford University (UK), Harvard University (USA) and Sydney University (Australia). It also refers to a slogan of the PAE movement in a Madrid campus that goes..'La economica es de gente, no de curves' - 'Economics is about people, not curves'.
One of the first papers I read that really highlighted the PAE movement and its growing influence was this one written in the Journal of Australian Political Economy by Edward Fullbrook.

Post-Autistic Economics (PAE) is a new, revisionist school of thought in economics that attempts to overcome the deficits in classical economics theory and teaching. Mainstream economics is branded 'autistic' due to
a. an oversimplistic world view
b. an excessive reliance on mathematics
c. a refusal to integrate with other discplines

The International Economy

2005-06-03T02:44:00.000-04:00

The International Economy is a quarterly magazine of international financial policy, economic trends and international trade. The articles are edited and read by people from a wide variety of professions (government, business, academia) across the globe, although I would prefer a few other experts in the Masthead list. Even though most articles are not accessible for free online, a few of them from the present and recent past issues are available.

Some of my favorite reads include..
'Is Continued Globalization of the World Economy Inevitable?' - A symposium of views from thirteen experts. Among my all-time favorite articles!
'India Rocks!'
'Fixing Wall Street'
'In Defense of Globalization'
'Japan’s Dying Market Economy'
'Think Tanks: Who's Hot'
'End of the World Scenario'
'The Great Friedman-Huntington Debate'
'How China is Eating Mexico's Lunch'
'Courting International Business'
'The Euro Three: Who'll Come out on Top?'
'Iraq's Currency Solution'
'Why Sanctions (Almost) Never Work'
'The Case for Globalization'
'Are the Emerging Markets Finally Decoupling from the United States?'
'The New US-European Detente'
'The Mexican Comeback'

Project Syndicate

2005-05-30T13:20:00.000-04:00

Project Syndicate is an international not-for-profit association of 235 newspapers from 111 countries. It provides a platform for readers to choose articles on topics ranging from economics and international affairs to science and philosophy. The commentaries are written by respected economists (Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, Bradford DeLong), novelists (Arundathi Roy, Nadime Gordimer), politicians (Kofi Annan, Gorbachev, Prince Hasan), academicians (Joseph Nye, Nina Kruschcheva), global strategists, activists and scientists from across the world. All articles are available in English, German, French, Spanish, Russian and Arabic.

Globalization Index

2005-05-24T18:27:00.000-04:00

An index that measures a country's global link based on various measures definitely sounds interesting. Thats exactly what the Globalization Index developed by AT Kearney/Foreign Policy magazine has been trying to present every year (since 2002) .

Some of the things I found interesting in the index are..
Non-predictive - Although the study assigns an index to the 62 countries (representing 85% of the world population) studied, it does not draw conclusions as to whether a high index is necessarily good or bad.
Complexity factor - The study recognizes the complexity in defining globalization as one index and states that although cultural trends could be included in this index, it is too complex and defies measurement.
Measures - Both economic and non-economic measures are included in calculating the index. The four dimensions(with their measures) highlighted in the rankings are (i) economic integration (trade+FDI), (ii) personal contact (telephone+travel+remittances and personal transfers), (iii) technological connectivity (internet users+internet hosts+secure servers), and (iv) political engagement (international organizations+U.N. peacekeeping+treaties+government transfers).
Weightage - Variables such as investment flows and technology are double weighted as they are considered important drivers of globalization and affect different dimensions of life (economic, cultural, political, social).
Correlation - Given the fact that the index doesn't necessarily reflect the goodness or badnesss, the correlation of the index scores with different measures provides an insight into more than just the broader trends. The fact that China and India (supposedly HOT now) are positioned at 54 and 61 respectively in the 2005 rankings is an example how this data should not be misinterpreted.

Mises Institute - Austrian Economics

2005-05-19T02:25:00.000-04:00

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, a Professor of Economics @UNLV, recently came under fire by his university's administration on the contentious 'academic freedom' issue! However, he is also a renowed Austrian school economist, a libertarian/anarcho-capitalist philosopher and the Editor of Journal of Libertarian Studies. He is also a student of the famous austrian economist Murray Rothbard, also a Professor of Economics @UNLV until his death in 1995. The writings of these two economists inspired me to explore Austrian economics and libertarian political theory. A good starting point in this endeavor was the Ludwig Mises Institute website - an invaluable resource of publications, biographies, research tools, etc.
Austiran school considers itself not as a field in economics that relies on mathematized models of the economy, but as an alternative way to look at it - more realistically and hence, socially scientific. Carl Menger's 'Principles of Economics' is considered the first formal publication for this school of thought and has since, influenced many thinkers. An important contribution later is Ludwig Von Mises's 'The Theory of Money and Credit' published in 1912 and his translated treatise 'Human Action' that followed. Mises is considered among the pioneers of free markets and along with F. A. Hayek, established the Austrian Institute for Business Cycle Research, and showed that the central bank is the source of the business cycle (Keynes later proved that the market itself is responsible for the business cycle). The first Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics was shared by F. A. Hayek in 1974 (a link to his wonderful short speech at the ceremony) for this work and hence, sparked an interest in Austrian economics and free markets, which is on a clear upswing at present.

A good way to keep in touch with the work done by the researchers @Mises is through the Daily Articles page that delivers one article every day in your mailbox upon registration.

Some of the my favorite reads from this endless resource include..
'A Libertarian Case for Free Immigration' by Walter Block
'What Information Overload Can Teach Us' by Gary Galles
'What is the "Dark Side" and Why Do Some People Choose It?' by Mark Thornton
'A Reluctant Purist: Bhagwati on Trade' by David Cotton
'On Ricardo and Free Trade' by Richard C. B. Johnsson
'Mises Vs Marx: The Battle Continues' by Joseph Stromberg
'Why Professors Hate the Market' by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Amartya Sen

2005-05-14T13:42:00.000-04:00

Amartya K Sen is a Nobel Memorial prize winning economist on the economics faculty @Harvard. He was educated in India and Cambridge and went on to become the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge later in his career (1998-2004). He has spent all of his life in academia teaching economics to students in India, England and the US. Professor Sen is considered, if not a pioneer, a strong force why 'welfare economics' has a special place among today's policy makers and people in the intellectual spectrum. He always worked to break the barrier between mathematized 'high theory' and 'real world' economics, and hence rightly acknowledged as the 'conscience-keeper' amongst economists.

Although he has published a vast amount of literature (some available here), below are some of his key contributions..

'Collective Choice and Social Welfare', 1970 - This book explores the study of collective choice not just within the realms of economics but with material from philosophy of ethics, theory of justice, political science, theory of state and theory of decision procedure. Although I couldn't find many reviews or critique of this book, there was a general acceptance of this work as a classic and a helpful tool to teach social choice theory.

'Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation', 1981 - This is one of Sen's best known works and develops on the social choice theory - a study of how individual preferences are aggregated to form a collective choice - developed by Kenneth Arrow, another Nobel Memorial Prize winner in Economics in 1972. Here is a review of the book by Arrow himself. From my simple understanding, Sen says that poverty or famine is not always associated with lack of food, but more so by the inequalities that exist in the dynamics of distribution. One of the key contributions that came out of this work is the entitlement approach', defined by Sen as 'the set of alternative commodity bundles that a person can command in a society using the totality of rights and oppurtunities that he or she faces'. 'Sen's Entitlement Approach: Critiques and Counter-Critiques' by Stephen Devereux is a balanced report on this approach, expressing the opinions of other economists along with his own. An interesting viewpoint from a non-economist on the same approach written by Nadine Gordinner, Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 1991, can be found here.
In the early 90s and after, Sen was instrumental in the formulation of the Human Development Report (published under the United Nations Development Program) and contributed extensively to the same.

'On Economic Inequality',1973 + 'Economic Inequality Reexamined', 1997 (with James Foster) - The basic issue that Sen tries explain is his first work and the expansion work later is that equality for one person may be inequality for another and hence, any claim to equality should consider the diversity of human beings and their characteristics.

'Development as Freedom', 1999 - Simply described in one review as a book that tries to explain development not by GDP but in terms of the real freedoms that people enjoy (Reminds me reading a TIME article that the King of Bhutan was more concerned with Gross National Happiness than with GDP!!). This book is considered an authentic account of an economist who is not part of the New Right that has dominated the study of economics for more than 20 years now. The essence of the book is the 'Capability Approach' - a broader definition of development that encompasses real freedom for people and their well-being - and the defintion of freedom as "the expansion of the 'capabilities' of people to lead the kind of lives they value - and have reason to value". In fact this theory and his earlier contributions to welfare economics raised flags amongst the intellectual spectrum (mostly American economists). In 'Collective Capabilites, Culture and Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom' by Peter Evans @Berkeley, the author sees 'hysteria' in people like Pollack(WSJ, 1998) due to Sen's very addressal of the 'muddlehead views of the established leftists' with precise 'clarity and logical elegance of his exposition'. The author also points out that Sen's 'capability approach' provides an invaluable foundation for those interested in pursuing development as freedom, and hence need to be built on (and not just admired). A review by Firoze Monji @Oxford briefly how Sen articulates his argument over conventional economics.

'Common Cultures', 2003 - An excellent one-on-one interview with Sen regarding clash of values between United States and Europe.

Some of his other work are in the areas of economic measurement, behavioral economics, economic methodology, socio-economic development among others.

How Much Information?

2005-05-13T02:27:00.000-04:00

New information created is either stored in four physical media - print, film, magnetic and optical - and seen or heard in four electronic channels - telephone, tv, radio and internet. An interesting study (2003), by a team of researchers from the School of Information Management and Systems @Berkeley, attempts to estimate the amount of information created each year.

I like to mention this project because all the information sources/channels that I can possibly think of are included in this study!!

US Labor Market Discrimination

2005-05-12T23:23:00.000-04:00

'Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination' by Marianne Bertrand (Professor of Econimics @Chicago) and Sendhil Mullainathan (Professor of Economics @Harvard) is a paper that gives a much needed (and practical) insight into the labor market discrimation in the US based on the applicant's race. Both these economists in collaboration (since their MIT days I suppose!!) have come up with several interesting papers.
In this particular paper, (statistical) results of labor market discrimation that are presented are based on fictious applicants with White-sounding names (Greg, Brad, Emily, etc.) and African American sounding names(Lekisha, Jamal, Jermaine, etc.). Realistic resumes are prepared for these fictitious names and they are sent to employers in four occupational categories: sales, administrative support, clerical services and customer services in two cities Boston and Chicago. The results are based on interpretation of data from average callback rates, returns to resume quality among others. From these results, the authors suggest that the race discrimation in the labor market in favor of White sounding names over African American sounding names may be a factor why African Americans fare poorly in the labor market. They also conclude that applicants with African American sounding names find it hard to overcome this hurdle in callbacks by improving their observable skills or credentials.
Some of the weaknesses of this study as the authors see it are - (i) outcome measure is crude, (ii) even though the names are chosen to be race salient, the employer didn't necessarily notice the names or the racial content and hence, the results might not be representative of an African American (iii) since newspaper job search is the only channel used in the study, if African Americans tend to find jobs through social networks, this results could be affected quantitatively.

However, by applying to 1300 REAL jobs posted in newspapers and adding 5000 NON-EXISTENT resumes during the period of study, maybe the study changed the hiring process of atleast a few jobs and thus affected the actual outcome of those jobs for a few REAL applicants!! I guess that would require a complete followup into the actual outcomes of the jobs, the mindset of the hiring authority in seeing a few extra (African American) resumes, etc. I wish the possibility for even one such event would be very low..

Ann Coulter

2005-05-11T00:48:00.000-04:00

Ann Coulter is the legal correspondent for Human Events and writes a popular syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate. She graduated with honors from Cornell University and later completed her J.D. from University of Michigan Law School. Her latest novel published in 2004 is 'How To Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)'.
Even though she is a regular on (mostly) conservative dominated media, I remember her as the writer who tops the list on Lyingponds.com for being most partisan in her writing (Krugman is on that list too). Trying to understand her stance, I started to read some of her articles (in her website and elsewhere) until I stumbled upon an article she wrote after the 9/11 attacks in a syndicated column that goes like this - "..we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity". Hence I STOP!!

2005 Doors to Diplomacy Award

2005-05-10T04:49:00.000-04:00

The US Dept of State announced its Doors to Diplomacy Award for 2005. [All the world is one http://www.effortsunited.com] and [Vaccinations for Nations - www.ndadoors.org] take away the award this year and each member of the participating teams is extended an invitation to Washington D.C. The first site was developed by a team of students from Ryan International School in Haryana, India while the second one by students from a school in Toledo, Ohio.

Note: What started as schools to serve the children of foreigners (diplomats, businesmen, etc) working in India, International Schools in India are more in number mainly attributed to the IT boom but still considered expensive ($4,437-$11,700 for tuition,etc + around $5,000 for boarding facilities) compared to an average Indian school education that would cost a fraction. These schools offer the IB (International Baccalaureate) curriculum offered by different boards (American, British, Canadian, etc) and usually have a good representation from different countries across the world, children of Non-Resident Indians and children of local parents who can afford the high fees. The high fees translates to superior facilities/infrastructure (some having golf courses of their own), and do not necessarily represent the average Indian school education academically or otherwise.

Thomas Friedman

2005-05-08T23:57:00.000-04:00

Thomas Friedman is the three time Pulitzer prize winning foreign affairs columnist at the New York Times. He has a master's degree in Modern Middle East Studies from Oxford University (on a Marshall scholarship) and later, worked with the NYT covering different issues in the Middle East. His book 'From Beirut to Jeruselam' received the National Book Award and the Overseas Press Club award in 1989 and was on the NYT bestseller for nearly 12 months. Since then, he has covered among other issues - Washington politics and international economics mainly - for NYT.
He presented a documentary 'Does Europe Hate Us?' on PBS and also appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Dennis Miller show among a variety of others. His way of expressing the 'Flat World' theory is interesting - envisioning the world as moving from size
Medium(Ver 1.0) --> Small (Ver 2.0) --> Tiny (Ver 3.0), something he though about when he was sleeping!!
Here is an interesting link exploring his weaker side (supposedly!!)

Paul Krugman

2005-05-08T22:28:00.000-04:00

Paul Krugman, with Ivy League credentials (if thats supposed to automatically give credit to one's work!!), is a Professor of Economics and International Affairs @Princeton. He is one of the founders of the new trade theory (which is about the consequences of increasing returns and imperfect competition for international trade) and the 1991 John Bates Clark Medal winner. He comes across as more of an in-the-face type of economist and is popular due to
his *understandable by laymen* op-ed column for the NYT.
To me - he is the short and fast-speaking economist who came on Jon Stewart's Daily Show, a student of Bhagwati @MIT, the person who defined Bushies' policy as '..they dont make policies to deal with problems. They use problems to justify things they wanted to do anyway', ex-Enron advisor, free trade proponent, and the pundit who ranks second overall in the total partisanship index in Lyinginponds.com.
Most of his articles can be found here.

The first two articles of his that I read are..

'Does Third World Growth Hurt First World Poverty?', 1994 - This article published in the HBR (the magazine I first subscribed when I landed in the States) asks a very fundamental question more appropriate to the politics behind the power struggle among the governments of developed and developing countries at present (keywords: offshoring, nuclear threat, technological skills, etc).

'Ricardo's Difficult Idea' - An article thats helped me understand the idea behind Ricardo's Law of Comparitive Advantage. This read basically aroused an interest in me to explore the pros n cons/ different adaptations/ etc of the Law.

Book: Freakanomics

2005-05-06T02:41:00.000-04:00

Freakanomics - A book written by Steven D. Levitt and co-authored by Stephen J. Dubner. Steven Levitt is a Professor of Economics @Chicago and the 2003 John Bates Clark Medal winner of the American Economics Association. I found many reviews about this book, however the one line that really impressed me was this - 'If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work'. Looks interesting on the outset..
This blog would add to the already huge publicity (extensively provided by the authors themselves) for the book!! Personally, would like to get hold of a copy of the book as soon as it is off-the-hold in atleast one of the libraries, and I am talking about multiple-copies in multiple-libraries across the city!

Avinash Dixit

2005-05-05T23:26:00.000-04:00

Avinash Dixit is a John J. F. Sherrerd '52 University Professor of Economics at Princeton University. He was recently inducted to the US Academy of Sciences. He was a student of Nobel prize winning economist Paul Samuelson @MIT.

A recent read that interested me is a comment by Dixit on Samuelson's paper titled 'Where Ricardo and Mill Rebut and Confirm Arguments of Mainstream Economists Supporting Globalization' (also discussed directly by Arvind Panagariya)..

'Samuelson Says Nothing About Trade Policy' (with Gene Grossman) - Even though the authors agree with the logical possibility of the theoritical proposition of Samuleson's paper, they question the policy implications!!

Professor Dixit's interests span the areas of microeconomic theory, game theory, international trade, industrial organization, growth and development theories, public economics, political economy, and the new institutional economics. I would like to read more of his work before I can write anything!

Gimme (ANOTHER) Five!

2005-05-05T06:59:00.000-04:00

a special date on the calendar - 05/05/05
also my birthday..5*5!

C.K. Prahalad

2005-05-05T06:07:00.000-04:00

CKP is a Professor of Business Administration at the University of Michigan's Ross Business School. He specializes in corporate strategy and the role and value addition of top management in large diversified, multinational corporations. He, along with Gary Hamel, coined the term ' CORE COMPETENCE'. One of the first management gurus whose work I read..and, helped inspire me in a lot of ways!!

Some of his oft-quoted work..

'The Fortune At The Bottom Of The Pyramid', 2004
#1 Biz Book of 2004 at Amazon.com, Fast Company, The Economist
The Fortune At The Bottom Of The Pyramid advocates that the world’s most exciting, fastest-growing market is where you would least expect it: at the bottom of the pyramid. Collectively, the world’s billions of poor people have immense entrepreneurial capabilities and buying power. Companies have a genuine opportunity to commit their energy and resources to help the disadvantaged of the world, and Prahalad shows how it is being done – profitably.

'The Future of Competition', 2004 (with Venkat Ramaswamy)
#Voted as one of the best business books of the year by BusinessWeek and Strategy+Business

'The New Frontier of Experience Innovation', 2003 -
#SMR-PWC award for the best paper

'The End of Corporate Imperialism', 1998 (with Kenneth Lieberthal)
#Harvard Business Review's McKinsey Prize for best paper

'Weak Signals vs. Strong Paradigms', 1995
# 1997 ANBAR Electronic Citation of Excellence

'Competing for the Future', 1994 (with Gary Hamel)
#Best Selling Business Book of the Year in 1994
#Printed in fourteen languages

'The Role of Core Competencies in the Corporation', 1993
#1994 Maurice Holland Award as the Best Paper published in Research Technology Management

'The Core Competence of the Corporation', 1990 (with Gary Hamel)
#Harvard Business Review's McKinsey Prize for best paper
#Most Reprinted essay on the HBR

'Strategic Intent', 1989 (with Gary Hamel)
#Harvard Business Review's McKinsey Prize for best paper

'The Dominant Logic: A New Linkage between Diversity and Performance', 1986 (with Richard Bettis)
#Best Article published in the Strategic Management Journal for the period 1980-88.

Housing bubble - Diagnostic tool??

2005-05-05T05:33:00.000-04:00

'The Anatomy of a Housing Bubble' by Grace Wong, Asst Professor of Real Estate Management@ Wharton, is a work in progress. The author makes an effort to provide a way to spot future real estate bubbles in time to introduce corrective measure before the damage takes its toll.
The author discounts the relevance of macro-economic fundamentals and movements in the underlying market in (fully) justifying the dramatic price upswing, and hence, explores the non-fundamental price component. She takes the specific case of the the Hong Kong housing market which saw an increase in prices of 50% between 1995 and 1997, followed by a decrease of 57% between 1997 and 2002 (percentages adjusted to inflation). She considers Hong Kong to be a suitable setting to draw lessons for markets elsewhere in the world (my uneducated guess: markets in the developed world!!) and predicts the study to act as a diagnostic tool to track movements ONLY DURING the price upswing and not after.
All I can imagine is a futuristic visual diagnostic tool that can predict housing bubbles (different colors for different levels of speculation)...and later a similar tool to encompass bubbles that are worth exploring!!!

The Muddles Over Outsourcing

2005-05-05T05:13:00.000-04:00

'The Muddles Over Outsourcing' is a policy paper by three world famous trade theorists/economists Jagdish Bhagwati, Arvind Panagariya and T.N.Srinivasan, partly in refute to Paul Samulson's earlier paper. The three pro-globalization authors start by reinforcing the definition of outsourcing as the services trade at arm's length that does not require geographical proximity as defined by WTO and widely accepted by its members. They go ahead by stating that outsourcing is similar to conventional trade in that the former raises no new analytical issues or quantitatively different results. They end the essay on a optimistic note hoping to dispel some of the fear of outsouring, but also a cautious one - 'Fear has big eyes. It also has deaf ears'.

Arvind Panagariya

2005-05-05T04:18:00.000-04:00

Arvind Panagriya is the Jagdish Bhagwati Professor of Indian Political Economy and Professor of Economics at Columbia University. He has been the Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank in the past.

Some of his papers that I found interesting include..

'Agricultural Liberalization and the Developing Countries: Debunking the Fallacies' - A public policy paper that debunks six major fallacies that arise due to agricultural liberalization. The author says that such fallacies were initially based on allegations by World Bank leadership and anti-globalization NGOs who hold the view that developed-country subsidies and protection hurt the poorest countries, agricultural liberalization was mostly a developed-country problem, and that they act as the principal barrier to the development of poorer countries.
Even though am not familiar with the technicalities of the paper and some of the theory discussed, I found the paper interesting in other ways. The author rejects the views of the anti-globalization (agriculture) movement by systematically breaking down the problem and then supporting his theory with necessary evidence (factual, logical, etc.) and then making concluding remarks by saying how such anti-globalization movement can affect the poorer countries and result in lost oppurtunity later. From what looked like more of a defensive start..it ended up aggresive!!

'Why the Recent Samuelson Article is NOT about Offshore Outsourcing' - A clarification (sort of refute) of Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Sameulson's paper. The author clearly differentiates the right from the wrong with all due respect to Samuelson and some of the results in his paper. Ultimately, the author concludes the paper is NOT about offshore outsourcing as it might lead the reader of Samuelson's paper to think.

India-Israel-United States Axis

2005-05-05T04:03:00.000-04:00

An article by Vivek H. Dehejia, a past student of Bhagwati@ Columbia..

http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=8146

- An axis drawn without considering the basic secular fabric of India!!

All I can see from this 'axis of good' is the potential to look like this..

(Indian Hindu majority + American Catholic majority + Israeli Jews)
VS
Islam

Paul A. Samuelson

2005-05-05T03:15:00.000-04:00

Paul A. Samuelson is a Nobel Memorial prize (1970) winning economist and Professor of Economics at the Massachusettes Institute of Technology. He is also a very highly regarded teacher and researcher.

A recent read includes..

'Where Ricardo and Mill Rebut and Confirm Arguments of Mainstream Economists Supporting Globalization' , 2004 - The author takes a direct shot at the pro-globalization economists including Alan Greenspan, Jagdish Bhagwati, Douglas Irwin and Gregory Mankiw. He refutes the basic argument that "the gains of the American winners are big and more than enough to compensate for the losers" and considers the same as untrue.
Even though this paper has stirred an already hot debate, it has been considered UNIMPORTANT or IRRELEVANT (more eloquently) by leading trade economists and policy makers. And who exactly are these people? Here..
Jagdish Bhagwati: "Paul and I disagree only on the realistic aspects of this...The Samuelson model yields net economic losses only when foreign nations are closing the innovation gap with the United States. But we can change the terms of trade by moving up the technology ladder. The U.S. is a reasonably flexible, dynamic, innovative society. That's why I'm optimistic."
Douglas Irwin (as quoted in his mail to Daniel Denzer) : "[Samuelson’s paper] doesn't have much to do with outsourcing. If a foreign country experiences technological progress in a home country's export industry, it can deteriorate the terms of trade of the home country and make it worse off (not vis a vis autarky, but its previous trade situation). We've know this since the U of C's great Harry Johnson pointed it out in the 1950s…. Pretty thin stuff."
Arvind Panagariya..
I would like to come back sometime and write about more of Samuelson's contributions, that include..
'Foundations of Economic Analysis', 1947
'Economics: An Introductory Analysis', 1948
'Theory of Reveled Preferences', 1938, 1947
'Non-substitutions Theorem', 1951

All I can think of about the above quoted work of Samuelson and the response from the intellectual spectrum is a quote from Alfred Marshall, "Students of social science, must fear popular approval: Evil is with them when all men speak well of them". Though I see this logic applies to all economists, not many seem to accept they might be wrong!!

Jagdish Bhagwati

2005-05-05T02:19:00.000-04:00

Jagdish Bhagwati is an University Professor at Columbia's Economics Dept. His homepage is http://www.columbia.edu/~jb38/. I wish he gets the much deserved Nobel Prize in Economics for his contributions in the field of international trade. One of the more important positions that he holds is that of the Director of NBER.

Some of his articles/papers that I read include..

'Bush's Immigration Blunder', Sep 2001 - a 3 page writeup criticizing US Prez GW Bush's (then) proposed GUESTWORKER program for Mexicans who wish to work in the States. He states that the motive behind such a program is purely political and hence, leaves a non-Mexican immigrant discriminated (given the fact that America belongs to immigrants who arrived from different parts of the world and contributed to what it is today!!).
In the 2004 State of the Union Address, Bush stated, '...I propose a new temporary-worker program to match willing foreign workers with willing employers when no Americans can be found to fill the job. This reform will be good for our economy, because employers will find needed workers in an honest and orderly system. A temporary-worker program will help protect our homeland, allowing border patrol and law enforcement to focus on true threats to our national security."

'Trade and Poverty in the Poor Countries', May 2002 - The authors take up the issue of trade and its impact on poverty in poor countries. They give supporting numbers to show increasing growth and declining poverty levels among developing economies that integrated with the world economy, citing examples of India, China, Vietnam and Uganda. Thus, they eliminate the many critics of free trade(and FDI) who see the heavy hand of globalization casting an evil spell on the poor of the poor countries.

'In Defense of Globalization', 2004 -
The riot-torn meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999 was only the most dramatic sign of the intensely passionate debate now raging over globalization, which critics blame for everything from child labor to environmental degradation, cultural homogenization, and a host of other ills afflicting poorer nations. Now Jagdish Bhagwati, the internationally renowned economist known equally for the clarity of his arguments and the sharpness of his pen, takes on the critics, revealing that globalization, when properly governed, is in fact the most powerful force for social good in the world today. Drawing on his unparalleled knowledge of international economics, Bhagwati explains why the "gotcha" examples of the critics are often not as they seem, and that in fact globalization often alleviates many of the problems for which it has been blamed. For instance, when globalization leads to greater general prosperity in an underdeveloped nation, it quickly reduces child labor and increases literacy (when parents have sufficient income, they send their children to school, not work). The author describes how globalization helps the cause of women around the world and he shows how economic growth, when coupled with the appropriate environmental safeguards, does not necessarily increase pollution. And to counter the charge that globalization leads to cultural hegemony, to a bland "McWorld," Bhagwati points to the example of Salman Rushdie, a writer who blends Bombay slang and impeccable English in novels touched by magic realism borrowed from South American writers. Globalization leads not to cultural white bread but to a spicy hybrid of cultures. With the wit and wisdom for which he is renowned, Bhagwati convincingly shows that globalization is part of the solution, not part of the problem. Anyone who wants to understand what's at stake in the globalization wars must read In Defense of Globalization. (Source:Amazon).
Even when most of the reviews by the media and fellow economists applauded this book, a critical review by Daniel Drezner @Chicago says that although this book is an useful tool to defend globalization, it does very little to persuade anti-globalization activists. Drezner also suggests that Bhagwati is confusing in his views about the government's role in a globalizing economy and 'fatally flawed' in defining globalization in different business cycles. A sharp rebuttal by Bhagwati in the Times is a good follow-up.

'Religion in Public Space', 2005 - A very logical breakdown of simple related history and practices..and yet another shout-out for equality (in law) from Bhagwati!!

'Truth About Trade', 2005 - He makes a clarification by separating the wheat (legitimate concerns about WTO's workings) from the chaff (mistaken rejections of the advantages of freer trade).

Gandhiji's Talisman

2005-05-02T02:46:00.000-04:00

I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test:
RECALL THE FACE OF THE POOREST AND THE WEAKEST MAN WHOM YOU MAY HAVE SEEN AND ASK YOURSELF IF THE STEP YOU CONTEMPLATE IS GOING TO BE OF ANY USE TO HIM.
Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to Swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?
Then you will find your doubts and your self melting away.

this n that..

2005-04-26T05:22:00.000-04:00

"..given a choice between an animal and a human life, what would be your pick?".
this: declared "ANIMAL". cannot empathize with human suffering as much as with animals. underlying reason - because animals don't have a choice, humans create the troubles for them. people suffer because their fellow humans do it to them. subsequent argument - root for the underdog (animal) because the overdog (human) sets the rules and hence, its never an equal fight. even if it is one man making a mistake by inflicting pain on an animal, humans outta take collective responsibility. and hence, so.
that: humans have been distinct since the time they moved out of the forest and started thinking. might be good or bad but humans are individually distinct. so are animals. isn't it a benefit of doubt for the animals just bcos humans can think and have a sixth sense while animals cant. and thinking otherwise, faulted only bcos of the fact that human race is the overdog (and that status after fighting with the chimps and competing with the lion in the forest for millions of years and evolving 'smarter'!!). also the very basis of 'this' is classification as humans and animals. 'that' wonders!!

less is more..

2005-03-26T05:20:00.000-05:00

nature holds the answers to our questions in every aspect we seek one..

last straw

2005-02-18T19:10:00.000-05:00

if you think technology is everything in America..all u did was pick just one straw out of a huge stack!free speech..freedom to express self..list goes on for me to explore!!

Power of BHAG

2005-02-17T18:35:00.000-05:00

BHAG - Big Hairy Audacious Goals (Jim Collins)
Bad BHAGs are set with bravado; good BHAGs are set with understanding

PI coincidence

2005-02-07T20:34:00.000-05:00

"life of pi" by yann martel - a man booker prize winning book about the 227-day survival story of a god-loving sixteen year old in a zoo in india's pondicherry with a 450-pound royal bengal tiger named richard parker!

here is the coincidence

name of the boy = PI
number of days = 227 or 22/7 = PI in maths

just.

AUDACITY OF HOPE

2005-02-06T04:27:00.000-05:00

"..It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. The audacity of hope!.."

- Barack Obama

INDIA>>IT>>INFOSYS>>NARAYANAMURTHY..

2005-02-06T04:22:00.000-05:00

B2B© - Blog2Blog

not from any other management guru!! this time from TOMPETERS.COM

IT JUST COULD BE …

It just could be … WORLD’S COOLEST COMPANY. Full disclosure: They paid my way to Japan. But I am not, by nature, an endorser of my speaking Clients. As one colleague, Nancy Austin (co-author of A Passion for Excellence), said in print, “Tom almost takes pains to trash those who pay him, so acute is his sense of integrity.” Thanks, Nancy! So when I say I’m besmitten with Infosys, I’ll promise you it ain’t no paid endorsement. I guess you could call them exhibit #1, pro or con, of off-shoring. Infosys is Bangalore-based, and do quite a bit of their work near homeport. But make no mistake, they’re winning top-of-the-market work because they are good and aim stratospherically high, not because they are cheap! In fact, the hook for me is their audacious vision for leading the revolution in IS/IT—and the Talent they’re amassing from around the world to pull it off. Infosys aims to do no less than generate revolutionary approaches that turn whole industries upside down. They are not only not limiting themselves to mundane IS chores, they are not limiting themselves at all—they are ready, willing, and able to take on an IBM or Accenture as strategic enterprise masterminds, as well as effective implementers of complex enterprise-system activities. They have won every international quality award you can name, and I am eagerly looking forward to visiting their Bangalore campus next month (on my own dime) when I accompany my wife, Susan Sargent, on her semi-annual sourcing trip to India. (She’ll do textiles, I’ll play at bits and bytes.) Wherever they operate, Infosys is accumulating a talent pool to die for; for example droves of U.S. and European top-school grads, including MBAs, are signing up to do a tour in Bangalore for a quarter or less of what they could earn elsewhere. If the firm can contend for “best there is,” and I believe it can, a lot of the reason is Chairman Narayana Murthy. The softspoken but far seeing boss, like his company, has won every conceivable Best Boss/Entrepreneur/Businessman in Asia award. Why not “Best in World,” I’d ask. He is a true business visionary—both in terms of the impact he insists Infosys can have on the world and the humanity of the enterprise he has created. It takes but a few minutes in his presence for even an old (!) and well-traveled (!) hand like me to feel I’ve had a near once-in-a-lifetime exposure to a special person. And to the amazement of an/this American, his humility runs as deep as his accomplishments run tall. Hey, check Infosys out! (Start with the annual report, available at Infosys.com.)

NOT YOUR ORDINARY VISION …

Consider extract from the chairman’s letter in the Infosys annual report, describing the company’s Global Delivery Model, these days featuring strategic consulting: “By making the Global Delivery Model both legitimate and mainstream, we have brought the battle to our territory. That is, after all, the purpose of strategy. We have become the leaders and incumbents [IBM, Accenture, etc.—TP] are followers, forever playing catch up. Every company now needs to articulate an India strategy. … However, creating a new business innovation is not enough for rules to be changed. The innovation must impact clients, competitors, investors and society. We have seen all this in spades. Clients have embraced the model and are demanding it in even greater measure. The acuteness of their circumstance, coupled with the capability and value of our solution, has made the choice not a choice. Competitors have been dragged kicking and screaming to replicate what we do. They face trauma and disruption, but the game has changed forever. Investors have grasped that this is not a passing fancy, but a potential restructuring of the way the world operates and how value will be created in the future. …” Brash? Absolutely! But oh so much better than 100 … or 1,000 … corporate value statements that begin, “We aim to create value for our stakeholders …” Infosys does aim to enrich its stakeholders, but to do so not by pocketing the leavings from a few efficiency improvements, rather from Changing the World! Amen … for the audacity. (Hint: I’d not bet against them! See you in Bangalore!)

viewpoints..

2005-01-20T04:04:00.000-05:00

"We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building -- say what you want about it, it's not cowardly." - Bill Maher, Politically Incorrect

untimely they say. but it is all bout the timing!
amorally moral.
'harsh' reality.
pragmatic.
freedom of speech.
active thinking.
politically incorrect.liberally(libertarianly!!) right.

mathematics all around ?

2004-11-14T08:55:00.000-05:00

was wondering why scientists model every little thing in the world using mathematical equations and associate a natural phenomenon to existing theories in mathematics!!

is there a branch in theoretical science which describes the universe, the brain and all things around in a non-mathematical form?
..browsed around to see if such a theory exists and if so, is it being studied?

i came across an interview with Stephen Wolfram(bio) in the 'new scientist' (interview)..a total eye-opener!

just followed up a little more to see what other scientists have to say about wolfram's theory..came across an article(link) by Ray Kurzweil (bio)..basically a review of Wolfram's book 'A New Kind Of Science'.

i think i got atleast a partial answer to the question i started with and a couple of books in my wish cart -
Marvin Minsky's 'The Society of Mind' (review)
Stephen Wolfram's 'A New Kind Of Science' (review)

love for the game or money ?

2004-11-12T19:05:00.000-05:00

"...What, wasn't there some of the other kids, what'd we give 'em? What? Cars? Tractors? Gave a kid a TRACTOR? Another kid we gave a HOUSE. Didn't we give him a house? You know, BAGS OF CASH, I don't know what we gave these kids...You know, they asked for things, we gave it to 'em. I mean, you guys asked me to win, and I gave that to you! Right? And the Alumni are all jerking off over this win, which is the only time the Alumni ever jerk off, right? It's when we win. 'Cause this ain't about education! It ain't much about winning, and it sure as hell ain't much about basketball! It's about MONEY! JUST GODDAMNED MONEY! That's what it's about...

..someplace, someplace in America right now, there's some 10 year old kid. He's out there on that playground, and he's playin', he's dribbling between his legs, he's goin' left, he's goin' right, he's already above the rim, he's stuffin' it home. You know what's gonna happen to this kid? Five minutes from now, he's gonna be surrounded by agents, corporate sponsors and coaches. Y'know, people like me. Just drooling over this kid because he holds our future employment in his hands. I mean, that's what we've made this game. That's what we've done. Y'know, the best coaching job I ever did, that wasn't tonight. It was last season. Y'know, when we were 14 and 50 and we had a losing season. But goddamnit, those kids, they gave me their HEARTS! They gave me everything they had! They played up to the MAXIMUM of their ability! They gave it EVERYTHING!.."

from the book 'The Best Players Money Can Buy' by Ron Shelton (inspired the movie 'Blue Chips')

what if time pauses for a brief period ?

2004-11-10T06:45:00.000-05:00

the concept of time is well-defined.discrete to say.
..helps us to organize our lives by being the reference point of all our activities.

interesting to think bout living with no concept of time for a brief period of time. i do sense chaos all around for sure but very less for the human individual!

maybe the 'world' will collapse in utter chaos but the human individual would evolve out of it like he adapted the first time the concept of time was introduced!maybe..or maybe not..

why still me ?

2004-11-03T05:58:00.000-05:00

ok.looks like bush is gonna win the election today.but guess wat the funny part is..

the states that support bush are mostly the farmlands of america and also the least inhabited ones(like texas, louisiana, new mexico, alabama, etc.). the ones that support the challenger kerry are comparitively denser and more economically contributing states(california, new york, new jersey, massachusetts, illinois). these states have most of the big cities in america, home to some of the biggest business establishments and also have a lot of tall buildings (if they are still considered targets!). so they are a natural target for terrorists who plan to attack inside america(if they go by their wise and sound consideration of economic symbol, population/sq mile, tall blgs, etc).

the people who didn't want the war supported kerry but he loses the election! so the people who voted for 'no-war' are still the targets for any attack. maybe, thats why they are asking "WHY STILL ME?". somebody explain this to Osama!

some people pay a price for other's choices.. and more often than not, you are at the receiving end!

why do people disagree ?

2004-11-01T06:24:00.000-05:00

when two people disagree, each one thinks he/she is right. however, only one of them is right and the other one is wrong. there is a possibility that both of them could be wrong but such a possibility is 'invalid' in their minds, because they wouldn't argue seriously in the first place if they thought both of them are wrong! if they still do, then that is disagreeing to agree to disagree which is very much an agreement.

hence the disagreement continues..even long after the arguement is over. so, respect an arguement and you would atleast end up agreeing disagreement at the end of it! or pick the least common (but yet) solution - dont argue.

i think the human species has not fully evolved to agree to agree..and if such a scenario occurs, what next? do we still remain humans or call ourselves another name to feel superior compared to 'humans', like we feel about other animals now as 'humans'!

human mind: better if tamed or wild ?

2004-10-28T06:40:00.000-04:00

human society is a complicated one with loads of issues,emotions and problems. the individual that makes this complicated system is more complex than the system itself. he has an unwritten set of rules that he has to follow from the day he is born. he is told what is right and what is wrong and is surrounded by a set of individuals who live by the 'rulebook', just to fit into this society. the ones who realize (at a later stage) that they dont want to live by the rulebook do the opposite of what the majority does. no distinction here between the majority and the minority.

..in the whole process of survival, we are missing something. the individual really doesn't explore the world with his true senses, emotions and instincts with which he is born. he explores the world with a programmed brain - which clearly sees the distinction between good and bad, right and wrong, good smell and bad smell, and every other thing as a logical decision making process. he never has a chance to see things his way! he is TAMED.

on the other hand, the same individual growing up in the wild would do things intuitively because he was not instructed to do something in a certain fashion. he maybe called WILD but lives a simpler life with all his senses realized.

signing off a day of realization with a strong desire to explore the wilder side..

hard or simple ?

2004-10-26T15:07:00.000-04:00

it is simple to keep it not hard while it is harder to keep it not simple

OR

keep it simple.

wats ur pick?

call girl's blog ?

2004-10-26T08:30:00.000-04:00

mercredi 15 septembre
Sundown is the start of Rosh......the time has come for me to go.

.....don't ever turn down pleasure because you were afraid of what other people might say.
// posted by belle @ 9:52 AM

http://belledejour-uk.blogspot.com/

war or peace ?

2004-10-26T08:27:00.000-04:00

i was fascinated with wars at 12.
not now.
not the blood.
not the separation.
not really!

game in suit ?

2004-10-26T08:23:00.000-04:00

C.R.I.C.K.E.T

..can be played wearing suits and there is a good chance that ( ) still might not get dirty!

secret writing ?

2004-10-26T04:36:00.000-04:00

A technique by which an author asserts conventional conclusions but makes strong arguments for heresy ....as described by Leo Strauss in Persecution and the Art of Writing.

very interesting observation..

?

2004-10-26T04:31:00.000-04:00

will i update this blog regularly? how bout an unscientific poll on this one for a start?

who am i ?

2004-10-26T04:25:00.000-04:00

teAm cAptain
fridAy All StArs
6 on 6 indoor soccer