 |
|
Partners in
progress Indian stand |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Bull run on share
markets
A puff of joy!
Dateline
London
Meet the world’s
brainiest people World economy’s
eggs all in US basket
|
|
Indian stand India
has every reason to feel proud of its impeccable nuclear non-proliferation record. This was articulated in the best possible manner by Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran on Monday in the course of a lecture in New Delhi on Tuesday. There could not be a better occasion to shed light on India’s conduct as a responsible nuclear power. Mr Saran’s arguments should be enough to understand why India voted for the controversial resolution sponsored by the UK, France and Germany —- at the behest of the US —- at the September 24 meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors meeting at Vienna. Those, including the Leftists and others within the country, who accuse India of playing its card under US pressure should revise their view, at least now. What India did at Vienna, in fact, amounted to making the best use of the opportunity provided by the Iranian nuclear issue to emphasise that India has been consistent in promoting the global cause of non-proliferation despite not being a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). When it came to taking a principled stand, it did not shirk from doing so. As the Foreign Secretary pointed out, India could not approve of a nuclear proliferation activity even if being carried on in the guise of “peaceful purposes”. Contrary to India’s track record, those who swear by non-proliferation day in and day out have been showing double standards in their conduct. The latest proof of this is their silence on Pakistan’s A. Q. Khan network, which has been found to have helped not only Iran but also certain other countries with weapon-grade technology and materials in exchange for commercial or political benefits. Why is there no drive to question the nuclear Khan to expose the activities of his Wal-Mart, as Mr Saran put it? Why is the move to interrogate only the Iranian scientists? India too has been a victim of such discriminatory policies in the past. It has been denied access to the latest nuclear power technologies, which have been supplied to China and others whose track record as a nuclear power cannot match that of India. The time has come to highlight India’s responsible role on the nuclear front. |
|
Vice always came at the door of necessity, not at the door of inclination.
— Daniel Defoe |
Bull run on share markets
Over
the past few months, share prices of well-known Indian companies have been rather volatile. Scrip values have been soaring and plummetting with a kind of rapidity witnessed rarely. The sensitive index (sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange — made up of 30 of the most actively traded stocks — has, of late, been careening in a manner that has surprised the most learned financial pundits in the country, not to mention Union Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram. Price fluctuations have been particularly pronounced since the sensex pierced the 8,000 mark on September 8. The index went over a level Mr Chidambaram once said would be a source of worry for him, although he subsequently started singing a different tune. Nineteen trading days after the sensex crossed the important psychological barrier, it touched an all-time high of 8,821 on October 5. Nine days later, the index was below 8,000. The current phase of volatility was preceded by an impressive bull run that had not been predicted by all but the most wildly optimistic punters. The extent of the sudden rise in the sensex may be gauged from the fact that it was at a level of 5,558 a year earlier (October 26, 2004) and as low as 2,828 two years before that (on October 28, 2002). It is hardly a secret that more often than not, stock market indices fail to reflect the fundamentals of the economy. The bourses are moved more by expectations, psychological factors, rumours and, above all, speculation than by hard facts, the reality on the ground. Many argue that speculation is the life-blood of the stock exchanges, but few adherents to this point of view will be able to distinguish what is “healthy” speculation from “unhealthy” market practices that have resulted in scandals. The same set of circumstances that are responsible one day for the market’s upswing are attributed the following day to explain why indices have fallen. To draw an analogy between a bourse and a gambling den would certainly not be inappropriate in today’s India. The fact is that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) are entirely responsible for determining the current moods that prevail in the country’s stock markets. Nobody else apparently matters. Forget the small investor for whom everybody’s heart seems to be bleeding. Recent data compiled by the Reserve Bank of India indicate that a smaller proportion of household savings is going to equity markets than in the past. The legacy of the Harshad Mehta and Ketan Mehta scams of 1992 and 2001 respectively remains fresh in public memory, which is supposed to be notoriously short. Even those who run mutual funds, heads of large financial institutions or captains of the corporate sector seem to be watching from the sidelines as FIIs determine the sentiments that dominate the stock exchanges. That 700-plus FIIs registered with the market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, together operate over 1,500 sub-accounts. Studies have shown that there is “significant correlation” between the net inflows of funds through FIIs and the movement of major indices like the sensex and the 50-share Nifty of the National Stock Exchange. If one plots the net inflows of FIIs on a graph, its shape would closely resemble the movements of the sensex or the Nifty. Until not very long ago, FIIs would tend to act as a “herd” buying and selling together. However, in recent times, distinct groups of “bulls” and “bears” among FIIs have emerged and tussles between the two groups are an important reason why markets have been fluctuating madly as they have. An FII is an institution established or incorporated outside India that invests in securities in this country. A sub-account could include foreign corporate entities, institutions, individuals, funds or portfolios established outside the country (whether incorporated or not) on whose behalf investments are made by an FII. While FIIs have been allowed to invest in Indian securities from September 1992 onwards, the regulations governing their activities were notified by SEBI more than three years later, that is, in November 1995. The recent bull-run as well as boom phases in the past have been largely fuelled by FII purchases. As a bloc, FIIs reportedly hold in the region of 30 per cent of the equity capital of most of the top 50 Indian companies at present. Domestic financial institutions like the Unit Trust of India, which used to be the main mover and shaker of the stock markets till the early1990s are today playing a subservient role on the bourses. One estimate has it that the FIIs together control around 40 per cent of the total floating stock of shares in the country at present. Why are FIIs so keen on investing in India? At one level, there is a simple explanation. With India’s real rate of growth of gross domestic product expected to be around 7 per cent during the current financial year, this is one of the fastest growing countries in the world together with China. It would thus be logical for foreign investors to look towards India as a lucrative place to park their money. Though the shares of close to 10,000 companies are listed on India’s stock exchanges, the scrips of barely 1,000 firms are actively traded. Of these, just about 50 are considered blue-chips or prized attractions for investors. At present, there are online trading terminals in more than 450 cities and small towns scattered across the length and breadth of India. According to one report of SEBI, around one-fifth of the funds brought in by the FIIs could be “hot” money, if not illegal money, some of it belonging to Indians who brought it back to the country after the rupee strengthened vis-à-vis the US dollar. Such funds are recycled through the deployment of participatory notes that conceal the identity of the real holder of the funds. In recent weeks, SEBI has been making noises about the need to find out the origins of the money that has been invested in equity shares by FIIs. It is hardly a secret that certain company promoters have become adept at manipulating scrip prices with the help of particular FIIs. The December 2002 report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the securities scam mentions SEBI’s “suspicion” that certain Indian promoters had purchased shares in their own companies through PNs issued by FIIs. “This mechanism enables the holders to hide their identities and enables them to transact in Indian capital markets,” the report had stated. The last two bull phases in India’s bourses were followed by scandals. This time round, the market regulator has become wiser and regulations have become tighter. The Finance Ministry is certainly keen that history does not repeat itself the third time
round.
|
A puff of joy! I found myself at the crossroads. In one hand, I held a pack of cigarettes and in the other was a box of de-addiction pills. The statutory warning at the bottom of the pack appeared bigger as I was contemplating abandoning my companion after two decades. Cigarettes had brought me close to many strangers. There were many with whom I had first shared a match and then went on to share a cigarette. Later, I had shared experiences of life with those strangers. I am yet to encounter one smoker who has refused another of this pleasure, no matter how much a cigarette cost. If there were no cigarettes to offer, one would share the one on one’s lips. Such is the brotherhood of smokers and I was walking out on it. People’s objections to our pastime and the state ban on smoking at public places had only brought the brotherhood closer. During work or while travelling in a train, we would gather outside the AC cabins and blow our hearts out in the alley. In college, where it all started, the roll of tobacco was our pillar of strength during those tension-filled nights before the exams. We vanquished sleep to study more by taking a few drags of tobacco smoke. In leisure, we would blow rings of smoke. Family, friends and even strangers objected to my smoke in their lungs on many an occasion. To my wife, I promised not to smoke in her presence. To friends, I promised to quit smoking in New Year, year after year. But I would automatically stop at the roadside as if mesmerised by the goodies spread out by the cigarette seller. But this time it was different! My doctor, in presence of my wife, recommended that I give up smoking after a terrible bout of coughing had left me and her sleepless for two nights. He even handed me a box of de-addiction pills free of cost. So I tried quitting with the help of those pills. My wife had no way of knowing how my experiments with quitting went. But soon, my wife discovered the box of pills gathering dust. She simply asked: “What did you quit-the cigarette or the pill? “The pills, of course!” The pill had proved to be a killjoy. It was to be had before the cigarette. The pill left a burning taste in the mouth thus making the cigarette smoke tasteless. As for me, I continue living as Dev Anand sang “Har fikr ko dhooen mein udata chala gaya (I have let every worry fly away with the
smoke).” |
Dateline London Mrs
Margaret Thatcher, who celebrated her 80th birthday earlier this month, was forced to resign as Britain’s longest-serving, post-war Prime Minister 15 years ago. She is still reviled and loved in equal measures. She led one of the most divisive and radical governments of the 20th century. Since her premiership, neither the country nor the politics, especially her Tory party, has ever been the same. Most political observers agree that she transformed the British politics and society. Her legacy, however, has been double-edged. According to a political commentator, she helped destroy her own party and its great governing tradition, ending the political hegemony it had enjoyed for 100 years. It was partly because she radically transformed the opposition Labour party (led by Neil Kinnock, John Smith and finally Tony Blair), forcing it to modernise. She thus removed the enemy against whom the Tory party had organised so long. When Blair was elected Prime Minister in 1997, Mrs Thatcher said Britain was safe in his hands. She was dead right. Blair has not only adopted her key policies, but in some respects he has been more thatcherite than Thatcher herself, especially in the way he aligned himself so closely to the US foreign policy, especially on Iraq. The Labour government has adopted Thatcher’s neoliberal political economic policies, emphasising liberalisation, globalisation, small government and privatisation of public services. It has retained the radical reform of the trade union laws and the re-nationalised industries. It has governed the party and the government in a more centralist manner than even Thatcher herself. Through a small coterie of advisers, sidelining the Cabinet, the Parliament and the party. It has even retained the Tory level of income tax. Government watchers, however, cannot ignore two main differences. The new Labour has accepted markets but with social justice and an active state. It has focussed on poverty alleviation, making an improvement in the delivery of education and health services as its key objective. Another big difference is the way the new Labour embarked upon far-reaching constitutional changes, which Thatcher did not even dream of. The Labour abolished hereditary peers and the House of Lords would have a Speaker. It also abolished the post of Lord Chancellor. Baroness from Banga Baroness Usha Prashar, who is at present First Civil Service Commissioner, has already been selected through an open competition for the post of Chairperson of the Judicial Appointments Commission. Her appointment by the Queen was announced a few days ago. Announcing the inaugural Judicial Appointments Commission chair, the Lord Chancellor said he was pleased that someone of the caliber of Baroness Prashar has been appointed to the commission, one of the cornerstones of the new relationship between judges and politicians. She will play a crucial role in shaping the body that will appoint judges in a fair and effective way. The judges must be independent of the government, he said. The launch of the new body will ensure that politicians will no longer be responsible for the selection of judges. That has to be good for public confidence in the judiciary. Baroness Prashar’s parents hailed from Punjab, her father came from Banga and her mother from Phagwara. They migrated to Kenya in the 1930s. Usha was born there. Later, she went to the UK with her parents and studied in the universities of Leeds and Glasgow. Her postgraduate degree was in social administration. According to a Leeds University citation at the time of honouring her with a degree of Doctor of Law honoris causa last year, “she is one of the most distinguished graduates of the university. She had been a catalyst for change in the fields of social policy, criminal justice, education, equality of opportunity and race relations.” The Baroness has a distinguished record of public service. She has been the First Civil Service Commissioner since 2000. Before that she was the Executive Chairman of the Parole Board for England and Wales. She also held the post of Director of the National Council of Voluntary organisations and Director of the Runnymede Trust. She is Chancellor of De Montford University, Chairman of the Royal Commonwealth Society and trustee of the BBC World Service Trust. She was made a life peer in 1999, where she sits as a crossbencher. Baroness Prashar is unassuming by nature. For a person who has held some of the most senior positions in public life, she keeps a low profile, away from the media glare. The book on Changing Times about the leading perspectives on the British civil service in the 21st century and its enduring values, which she brought out two months ago, needs to be read by public servants everywhere. She identified the core values of the civil service as integrity, honesty, impartiality, objectivity and progression based on merit as opposed to patronage. Some of the older Indian civil servants in India would no doubt love to see some, if not all of these qualities, in the Indian civil service today.
|
|
Meet the world’s brainiest people Michael
Walzer may be the world’s happiest philosopher. Tieless and wearing trainers, he seems so relaxed he could be in danger of falling apart. “When you come here you are completely free to do whatever you want for the rest of your life,” he says. “We are a small group of very privileged people. We have extraordinary freedom. Nobody is checking up on you. Nobody is judging the value of what you do. It is unimaginably wonderful.” Setting new standards for the rhetoric of job satisfaction, Dr Walzer, one of America’s most distinguished political thinkers, is sitting in his sun-flooded, book-lined, cosily cluttered office at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), the exalted intellectual sanctuary where he has laboured so contentedly for 25 years. “It’s a very liberating place,” he says. The institute, set in 500 acres of woodland in Princeton, New Jersey, is where eminent eggheads have pondered the Big Questions since the double-yolked Albert Einstein triumphantly arrived from Europe to be enthroned as the founding member of a priesthood of thinkers. It was conceived as “a paradise for scholars,” and is now celebrating its 75th anniversary as an intellectual powerhouse where some of the world’s most celebrated and accomplished brains — physicists, historians, anthropologists, philosophers, astronomers, sociologists — have gathered to contemplate the meaning and the order of things. They get paid around a quarter of a million dollars a year and serious, Rodinesque thinking is the only requirement. Meanwhile, the institute chef toils over his menus, the wine cellar is kept well stocked and tea is served every afternoon at three. There are 26 permanent professors, currently three of them women, in four schools — historical studies, mathematics, social science and the natural sciences — and 190 post-doctoral scholars from universities around the world are invited to visit for a year. But there are no students, no curricula, no lectures, no tutoring, no committees, no research programmes. Spared financial worries and the burdens of teaching, members of the faculty are free to follow their intellectual curiosity wherever it leads and for however long it takes. Enlightenment is the only mission. The faculty has been described as one of the most remarkable collections of minds on the planet — it currently includes the physicist Edward Witten, once nominated as “the cleverest man in the world” — and the institute’s crowded honour roll features the winners of 19 Nobel Prizes and 32 Fields Medals, the Nobel equivalent for mathematicians. But even in paradise strife lurks and the institute’s scholarly hush is sometimes roiled by the same grubby matters that beset lesser minds — intrigue, rivalry, gossip, personality clashes. “The academic world is full of egos,” says Professor Walzer. “We spend so much time alone that narcissism is one of the standard pathologies.” Around Harry’s Bar, adjoining the institute restaurant, excessive self-regard is known as the Einstein
Effect. — The Independent |
|
World economy’s eggs all in US basket Eggs
and baskets. We all know the story. We know that, ideally, we need to spread our risks a little. Placing all our bets on just one number on the roulette wheel that makes up economic life might — just might — bring untold rewards. More likely, though, we’ll end up in state of impoverishment. During this latest global recovery — the one that started following the Federal Reserve’s emergency interest rate cuts, in turn a response to the deflationary fears associated with the stock market crash — the world economy has increasingly placed its eggs in only one basket. That basket — or, perhaps, more aptly, that shopping trolley — is in the hands of the US consumer. Consider the facts: * In 2004, US consumers accounted for more than half of all of the increase in consumer spending recorded globally, even though the US economy accounts for a little less than 30 per cent of global economic activity. * The rise in current account surpluses in many parts of the world — whether it be the surpluses of oil-producing nations (Opec, Russia) or major manufacturing nations (China) — has, as its corollary, a rise in the US current account deficit. If there’s a savings glut in the surplus nations — as Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers would have us believe — its recessionary effects are only being absolved through excessive US consumer borrowing. * Within the US economy, companies have maintained their cautious post-bubble spending, for the most part preferring to save: the recovery in demand in recent years owes a lot more to the consumer, fuelled by gains in the housing market. The household saving rate has recently moved into negative territory, a sure sign that the world economy is increasingly dependent on an overly-mortgaged US consumer. So if evidence starts to mount that the US consumer might be in a little bit of trouble, as Ian Morris, HSBC’s New York-based economist is currently suggesting, we all need to sit up and take note. A US consumer slowdown won’t just hit the US economy: it will also have a nasty impact on the world more generally. The biggest single risk to US consumer spending lies with the growth rate of US household incomes. For many years, US household incomes have grown relatively strongly, helped by the productivity miracle that seemed to suggest that the US could have its cake today, eat it today, and then have an even bigger cake tomorrow. More recently, though, productivity growth has slowed and, perhaps more importantly, labour has failed to maintain its share of the rewards that stem from productivity improvements. Time seems to be running out for US consumers: not enough income gains, not enough stock market gains and, in the future, not enough real estate gains. So why are households still spending? I suspect part of the answer lies in the difference between expectations and (subsequent) reality. It makes sense for consumers to borrow to fund current spending if, for example, they believe that oil and gasoline prices will come back down again. So long as people link higher oil prices to “temporary” phenomena — such as Iraq and Katrina — they might believe that the hit to their incomes is only temporary. It also makes sense for consumers to borrow if, unlike Alan Greenspan, they simply extrapolate recent house price gains into the future. — The Independent |
|
From the pages of Divorce by candle
If the marriage yoke rests uncomfortably upon a Burmese couple, a divorce may be quickly and inexpensively obtained, with a bit of excitement thrown in gratis. Husband and wife agreeing that life apart would present greater charms, the wife goes out and purchases two small candles made especially for such occasions. These candles are exactly of the same size, but each has some distinguishing mark, one being intended to represent the man, the other the woman. At exactly the same moment the candles are lighted, and the unhappy couple anxiously watch them burn. When one candle goes out, the divorce is complete; but with one condition — the owner of the candle which has gone out must at once leave the house with nothing but the clothes worn at the moment. The other party remains in possession of the house and all therein. |
A Hindu believes that a spiritually awakened master, or Satguru, is essential to know the Transcendent Absolute, as are personal discipline, good conduct, purification, pilgrimage, self-inquiry and meditation. — Book of quotations on Hinduism The essence of success is that it is never necessary to think of a new idea oneself. It is far better to wait until somebody else does it, and then to copy him in every detail, except his mistakes. — Book of quotations on Success It is not easy to compose music in the middle of a bazaar. It is not easy to write a verse in the midst of a cavalry charge. It is not easy to contemplate about the distractions of life. So learn to value quite
moments. — Book of quotations on Hinduism The only success worth one’s power, was success in the line of one’s idiosyncrasy. What was talent but the art of being completely whatever one happened to be? — Book of quotations on Success You call him Eshwar, some call him Allah, some simply God. But we all have to acknowledge
that it is he who made us for greater things: to love and be loved.
— Mother Teresa |
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
