What Am I

Kill the  market The general RoE for the power sector itself is around 15-25%. Not a great sign!! Rupee depreciation by almost 15% ... a big blow to the industry!! On top of that the huge interest rates... Heartbreak to the industry!! Now GOvt. plans for tripling the custom's duty .. Thats it, industry is dead!! ..  Guess its time to run to fixed deposits

If only we were honest, to ensure sanity we should have stuck to 100 cents. Most of the socialist states, have tried to tweak the 100 cents barrier by re-defining their own benchmarks to a lesser number of 55 cents or another value. Confused!!! I am referring to the definition of Poverty line. While the 100 cents itself isn't accurate, but it probably provides some consistency across the world.  But to ensure that the government in power boasts about the economic growth, most countries have come up with their own version of Poverty line. With the divide between rich and poor increasing by the day, it was obvious that the poverty line had to be increased to ensure that people who are not reaping the benefits can actually get access to the welfare schemes. But instead countries like India, rather political parties like Congress have re-defined the poverty line to 64 cents , thereby trying to ensure that the welfare schemes are addressed only to the "Real Poor", but not

This is one of the blogs that I wrote just after completing my MBA and never published it..Another example of how so much numbers make any article un-interesting..here is the one about my favorite topic..Power sector in India. The numbers are very interesting for any one concerned about the sector! Power sector reforms started off in 1991. But during the eighth 5 year plan the target for the power sector is scaled down from 48000 MW to 20,729 MW on the ground of resource constraints. And the actual became only 16,422 MW. The amendments are done to the existing Acts and Rules to woo the private and foreign companies to invest in this sector. The private companies are provided a 16% assured rate of return on their equity and a 0.7 % additional return for every 1% increase in the plant load factor over the 68.5% level. Foreign equity return will be in foreign currency and will be completely protected against foreign exchange rate fluctuations. Other concessions include an enhanced ra

I didn't know how to coin the term for this...you can help me with the right term after reading the blog During my childhood when high rise apartments weren't the norm and urbanization wasn't in vogue, lot of people would come across your street, perform and ask for alms..more than alms I'd say they were seeking money for the appreciation of their art. Some one would play a shehnai, some one would make a bull perform dance (referred to as gangireddu melam ) or there would be small drama etc.. At the end of all these acts people would contribute what ever amount they can, and the performers in turn would bless whoever has turned up.  In many cases, these performers themselves were considered divine and hence people would throng to see and give whatever they can. This helped many of these artists to survive and flourish in a few instances. They also brought the culture and folklore into limelight and ensured that traditional music thrived. But of late, how many time

Did you know that there is a term called as roadology, which means the study of the impact of roads on the areas through which it passes!! Anyways, the article is about "what should be the optimum amount of badness of the road to have a better impact on the society" Did you ever wonder, what is the good thing about Indian roads. They are bad and filled with pot holes in most cases, and hence what good they can offer. On the contrary, I'd say the roads are good because they are bad!! While I understand how a good road helps in commercial transformation of the society, I somehow think that bad roads will do more justice to India than good roads. I am actually referring to the interior roads and not the highways. The potential benefits to be accrued due to bad roads are: A bad road would mean that the vehicles travelling on that road will get depreciated faster, making people purchase a car earlier.  Because of bad road, the traffic slows leading to the potential f

I was going through the Europe debt crisis and came across the topic that "investors are scared" so many times and then I wondered who are these investors and how many are these investors who seem to determine the fate of the world economy. Effectively these select group of people are determining the fate of 6 billion people. If Gini index were to be made for the influence of people, then I am sure it would be almost close to zero... But, for dumb heads like me, who are these investors whose opinion seem to fluctuate every day. One day the sensex rises on the hope that the Greece debt bail out talks are holding up, and the second day they are scared to the extent that they dump all their shares. Is it so simple that the world economy takes a U-turn every second day? If I look back, the topic of recession appears because either the Dowzone index crashed or a group of investors think that something tragic is going to happen the very next moment. So, I was trying to identi

The title literally means "what a pitiable life". I wrote this in anguish about the rampant corruption. I could express it better in my native language telugu, and hence the blog below..(The translation is at the end of the blog) ఎంత తింటారు రా. విసుగు రాలేదా? జనాలని దోచుకుని దోచుకుని...చచ్చిపోతున్నారు రా జనాలు అక్కడ...ఏమి సాధించారు రా.. ఒక కోటి, పది కోట్లు, వంద కోట్లు, వెయ్యి కోట్లు సరిపోలేదా.. లక్షల కోట్లు కావాలా.. అది కూడా కష్టపడి సంపాదించడం కాదు.. పక్క వాడి డబ్బులని దోచుకోవడం...ఎందుకు రా ఈ బతుకులు  తప్పు చేసాను అని అనిపించదా? సిగ్గు, మానం మర్యాద చచ్చిపోయాయా మీలో?  ఏం చేసుకుంటారు రా అన్ని డబ్బులు...వున్నాయి అని బయటపెట్టుకోలేరు..కాబట్టి ఆనందించలేరు... మరి ఆ డబ్బులు ఉంది ఏం లాభం రా.. అలాంటప్పుడు ఎందుకు రా అంత దోచుకోవడం..  ఎవరో అన్నారు...ఒక కోటి తరువాత ఎన్ని కోట్లు సంపాదించినా ఒకటే అని... మరి ఆ ముక్క మీకు అర్ధం కాదా?  ఇంత డబ్బులు తిని మీకు ఇంకా నిద్ర ఎలా పడుతోంది రా. మీ బుర్ర కూడా చచ్చిపోయిందా..పాపం పుణ్యం అనే వ్యత్యాసం అర్ధం కావట్లేదా? ఎందుకు రా మీ బత

The title of the blog is inspited by the famous caption "ham do, hamaare do" (We two, ours two), thereby asking people to have only two kids. But who determines how many kids should a couple have. While there are lot of factors that influence the decision, it is primarily the couple which has the last laugh in it. But what if the state interefers in the decision making process. What if the state tells me how many kids should I have? Instead of encouraging me to have less number of kids, if the state legalizes or dictates the number of kids that a couple can have, isn't it a gross violation of the privacy and the way a couple behave? Why am I having this discussion? Because of the proposed new bill in Kerala state proposing to impose a punishment on a person opting for more than 2 children. While the intention to control population growth is correct, a legal punishment doesn't seem to be the right choice. The next time, the state may also dictate that it is

While I composed this article long back and never published..the blasts again have reminded of this. WTF...this is the first thought that comes across, when I see any sensitive news issue. My blood boils, I feel like doing something, and then again another WTF. In the midst of all these WTFs all that I end up is boil over and over again. The frustration of the inability to do anything, my laziness everything drves me mad to the extent of doing something crazy...which is NOT doing anything...another WTF. All of us..almost the 600 million Indians end up doing one thing..saying WTF..and doing nothing about it. So many things..information overload or basic information we end up doing nothing about any event. People die, rivers get polluted, women raped, more blasts...and all that we end up doing is give an exasperated WTF. The only action that we do is give a pause to the total situation, say WTF..and then move on..sleep, wake up to go to the brothel, and if things go well join another bro

While I have my opinion about it being good or bad, Supreme court in its latest decree has ordered that Salwa Judum is illegal. Infact in 2009 itself Supreme court gave its verdict of usage of arms in Salwa Judum is illegal. But it apparently has not stopped the state from supporting the cause. How many of us really came across this news about this latest Supreme court order, which was given couple of days ago. Hardly any news channel covered it (Except Hindu). Even NDTV, one of the most read online Indian news portal  mentioned that the verdict may hamper any anit-maoist efforts. Don't we understand the impact of this judgement. For the past 5 years Salwa Judum has been proclaimed as the first line of defence against the "ill-willed" Maoists. It has been stated as an initiative by the tribals against the oppression of maoist. Highly surprising, when the biggest oppressor has been the state and not the non-state elements. This first line of defence has been a major deterr

While we are pondering about how to manage our floods within city, China is setting up/set up various projects across the Yellow River and digitally monitoring the flood level, pollution, sedimentation and other aspects across the total river and ensuring that the flow of water is uniform or atleast as per the expectation. The level of automation and digitization has apparently allowed better flow through the Yellow River, and nowadays the Yellow River is called as the digital River!! But, China in its ambition to control vast resources and in due course control nature may yield results un fathomed ever. Through its South-North water transmission corridor, it is planning to tap into the precious waters of the Tibetan Peninsula ( In 2008, I wrote a blog stating China's ambition to Tibet's waters..!!! ). The scale of the project leaves too many questions un-answered. I was just wondering about the planning that has to go into executing projects of this scale. a) As I mentioned ea

An engineering marvel is created. Well thought about, well planned, well designed, well executed...well??? It cost $24 bn to build the World’s largest Hydro power project - The Three Gorges Dam by China. It was completed well before the schedule. It provides 18400 MW of electricity which is unfathomable by many other Hydro power projects. Its back waters created a reservoir of water which is as big as UK in length. Now, the flip side..It displaced half a million population and thounsads of towns. The weight of the water stored in the reservoir is only adding to the woes of the land slides, tremors in and around the area. The river is getting more and more polluted since the 1.3 mile long concrete barrier diverted the migration of fish which otherwise would have preserved the sanctity of water in the river. Topping the charts are the facts that Central China, where the project is located is reeling under 50 year drought and that two of Southern China’s largest lakes have almost dried

Was reading the book "Anthem"...Ayn Rand's first novel and her first narration of her philosophy of Objectivism. While Objectivism as a philosophy sounds really great and I would want to emulate it, the execution of the same across the society may not prove effective in the present situation. It sounds very utopian. Her novels have been more than an inspration to me. But at the same time I like the various ideologies in Communism and that of Regulated Capitalism. Did you ever wonder which ideology suits the present world? Hence I thought of comparing various philosophies proposed by certain great personnel. Name Duration Profession Pre-dominant Philosophy Karl Marx 1818-1883 Philosopher Communism Keyne 1883-1946 Economist Regulated Capitalism Ayn Rand 1905-1982 Author Objecti

In this particular blog, I do not know what stand should I take. The industry ( first cat ) or the normal junta in the society ( second cat ). While at one hand there is salwa judem which more or less is intended at the demise of the tribal culture and their rights, on the other hand we have industrialists who are forced to shell out so much money and are still not guaranteed of the benefits that they can reap. Let me start on a pro-capitalistic tone. Power plant developers have seen their worst nightmares come true in the last year. While they are banging their heads about how to overcome the fuel crisis to run the power plants, Govt. is running amuck with the licenses given to them. Billions of dollars worth of investments are lying idle or the progress is halted becuase Govt. has taken back the licenses that are earier given to the developers. On top of that Govt. wants 10% of the energy generated from power plants at free of cost to Govt. What nonsense!! If this is not sufficie

I was travelling across some areas of Telangana region to assess the energy demand and the propensity of the consumers to switch to gas...I actually took this journey to get an idea on how is the situaion beyond the city limits.. I was happy to know that atleast till a stretch of almost 100 kms away from the main city, things are actually not that bad...there are very good roads, power lines are laid out to the interiors and no where did my mobile stop receiving signals...these are acheivements that I was surprised and indeed felt happy... and now the critic in me is back to the fora.. In an area which is some 50 kms from the city, there were lot of autos plying back and forth between two small towns...we wanted to check how many autos were there and that would be they be interested to convert to CNG based systems... I inquired with some autowallas about the same and I was shocked to know that within a distance of 30 kms, there are close to 1000 autos plying every day...!!!

One person killed in Jaitapur case...and so the total count of people killed in police firing protesting against the power plants has reached 4 in the last one year..and the number of protests huge.. Though the apparent reasons from each place, the protests hang on the same principle that no one wants a power plant in their premises.. If no one wants to have a power plant near their premises, then where should a plant be kept... Recently another power plant's public hearing got disturbed because people complained that a 240 MW imported coal based power plant will cause cancer to them and hence they do not want the power plant. Why don't people say that we do not want power and energy. Because that alone can stop the crisis.. Moreover, I was wondering what is the role of the police in these power plants and why are the firing upon citizens whom they are supposed to protect...and even the police are as ignorant and as intelligent as the normal public is...so, don't they

Everywhere we see, we come across this word "reforms". Manmohan singh is going slow on Reforms China has revamped its reforms Wisconsin state cut down the perks to Govt. employees as a process of reforms. Pakistan is against reforms Greece has re-invented its reforms strategy. Economies both well-developed, developing and under-developed are going ahead with reforms. What exactly is Reform? What is the end goal...? Is it to encourage capitalism? Or is it to encourage freedom? Or is it to just change the status quo ? Or does it simply mean implementing free market where every one is allowed to act for self benefit with no concern about others? Or is it to reduce the flab of Govt.? Many reforms as I have seen encourage capitalism...take any example, that seems to be the case. So, can I assume that reforms intend only capitalism? If that were to be the case, then much of the societies will crumble in these reforms...because stand alone capitalis

why does a state with 8 crores population require 15 linguistic news channels over and above the hindi and english news channels.. it is only causing furore and not helping any purpose... Meida place a very responsible role...but the channels in AP are the ones who are creating all the ruccus... we have more than 15 news channels in Telugu...individual parties, castes and people have individual news channels conveying messages which cause more harm than any justice.. there is no regulatory body for any of this.. I don't understand why are they not being curbed... if I hit a  person, the channel owned by me justifies my act and the other channel creates agitation... what society are we living in... mass communications which is such a potent weapon is mishandled to the fullest in Andhra Pradesh. no curbs on internet is required in India yet, since it is a communication channel which people choose to use, unlike news channels in television which have huge impact... there hav