The Small Voice

According to the “ International Comparison Program” of 2005, which recently published its report, the largest contributor to the world GDP is US at 23%. Next comes china with 10%, Japan with 7%, whereas India stands fifth at 4%. This GDP contribution is PPP adjusted, which means that it takes into account the latest currency movement where the USD had depreciated against ALL the major currencies of the world, and the Indian Re appreciation wasn’t an isolated event. US Recession: the impact We believe, that with 23% and more than double of its nearest competitor (China), US is too important an engine for the world to go into recession. Approx. a quarter of China’s GDP comes out of exports, and more than half of the total exports, are to the US. This means, that any slowdown in the US may immediately impact the GDP and hence the GDP growth of China too, immediately, ceteris paribus. This is just one case, and other countries like India again owe a major portion of their GDP to ...

This common enough question ran a chill down the spine of innocent peasants, farmers, fisherman etc. of Sierra Leone when RUF’s (a foreign sponsored militia) matchet-wielding killers gave them a choice of getting their arms chopped off from the elbows or wrists. Their crime: allegedly participating in the country’s general elections. The Horror… Gruesome, yes but equally true. I did some reading on the so-called “civil war” (it was more like foreign sponsored coup resulting in anarchy and widespread banditry) that took place in the country for nearly a decade. Nearly 2 million died and countless maimed thus (for participating in the elections) as the child-teenage armies controlled by greedy pigs like Sanokh (tried, but died before sentence could be passed) and Charles Taylor (still being protected by US despite being held guilty by the UN council of perpetrating war crimes) ravaged the innocent populace of Sierra Leone. Marching on drugs and effective brainwashing, these...

One of the most beautiful creations is being brutally killed. Read below to know how. And also read what we can do to help. Excerpts from the site: “Shark finning is killing sharks every year at an alarming rate! It is estimated that 100 million sharks annually are killed for their fins alone. This practice is mainly for supplying shark fins for the so-called delicacy known as shark fin soup. Sharks that are caught and their fins cut off are not always dead when their bodies are thrown back into the sea. Without its fins the shark simply sinks to the bottom of the ocean where it dies. Such a horrible death for such a magnificent creature! How aweful it must be for these animals... to think that when their body hits the water again that they will be safe, only to realize that they can no longer swim, and end up dying in an ocean, which was just moments earlier their safe haven, and is now their doom. All of this killing for a bowl of soup! What if human foot soup sudde...

News: " Securities and Exchange Board of India proposal to tighten the rules for purchase of shares and bonds in Indian companies through the participatory notes. At present there are 34 nos. (14 in Mar'04) FIIs / Sub-accounts issue ODIs." The SEBI move was long overdue and it is in the interest of the country that the RBI, SEBI and the Finance Ministry acts in coordination, rather than serving their own briefs and ignoring the bigger picture. Comments against the move suggest that India was blessed with the capital inflow which many an economies would have given anything to secure. Hence, it is not in the interest to stop the inflow and rather, one should welcome it. Such a move, may well end in shooing away the investor projecting India as being too arrogant. Well, taking one at a time: “ India was blessed with the capital inflow …it is not in the interest to stop the inflow and rather, one should welcome it.” In an economy, there is an intrinsic value ...

MS Dhoni’s Indian team has done what no other Indian team has been able to do for the past two decades. And that too at a time when three of the best players India has ever produced, were not in the team. So what changed? Were the team limited by the Big three or has this lot got more talent and skill than all the teams put earlier. One feels that the answer lies more in the how this team has conducted itself rather than its collective skill set. No doubt, the smaller format of Twenty-20 gives chance to all, as the margin of error is wafer thin. However, what was different was that this time around the team was playing as a team rather than as a bunch of 11 super stars. Every time one player was faltering, there was another standing to take his place and deliver. When the experienced Agarkar was off color, the out of favor Irfan shouldered his burden. When Sehwag, failed, Gamhhir, his lesser known partner took it on him to guide the team to a respectable total. Ditto with D...

“A long, long time ago... I can still remember How that music used to make me smile. And I knew if I had my chance That I could make those people dance And, maybe, they’d be happy for a while.” Maybe not so long ago, we were in the BJP led coalition regime which had all but the very best of policies running for the corporate India . Thankfully, the saffron was stuffed where it belong to, in the puja rooms and the sadhus and politicians donned the reformist mantle, out to make the nation shine. Thus came the telecom reform (this time for the cell phone and the Reliance phone for the aam aadmi) and along with came a slew of well thought out guidelines, which till today, are the strong foundation for the sector to reach where it has today. We had the foreign money flowing in, thick and fast and suddenly, the sleepy, humdrum small towns woke up to improvements in the infrastructure drive. The trickle down effect hadn’t really started then, but the govt. from their New Delhi ...

The US slowdown looks imminent what with the leading indicators like the jobless claims as well as the housing rates all coming down not steadily. Right now, though one doesn’t question the Fed’s abilities and foresight, it seems quite unlikely that they will be able to do much to slow down or stop the slowing process. After all, Macro Economics rarely pays much respect to the Economists as well as the central Bankers. In a nutshell, if its is gonna slow down, it will slowdown and there aint pretty much you can do about it. However, with the anticipation and proper planning, you(the Fed) can only delay the inevitable or bring down to a soft landing with its policies and direction. So, in effect the only question is how bad the slowdown would be, how long it will last and whether the Fed is able to achieve some kind of a soft landing. The implications of the situation will have impact on the whole world, except isolated economies. India, today is quite a lot dependent or...