India: Many Possibilities

India is a machine which is being set up. It will be ready soon to propel itself and the world into the next generation of living and existence.

The reason I say it's being set up, is because it's the young India and the growing youth population who are going to drive and take  the world forward. India currently has the highest growth rate in the world and although it's partly due to slowdown in China and the decrease in crude oil prices, it's not mere co-incidence that we are now the leader among the developing economies.

China's progress started in the 70's when the whole communist reform movement was triggered, whereas in India, we just started the growth process around 1991 with the NIP
(New Industrial Policy) was put in place.

They key challenge for India to capitalise its vast potential and young population can be summarised as per below:

 1. Targeted growth: Our growth should be targeted such that government policies and funding are directed towards industries and endeavours which yield the highest returns. Also, these industries should reflect the psyche, culture and strengths of India's diverse population

2. Ego : India can only succeed when along with the government, even our young population's mindset is towards helping each other, uplifting our fellow countrymen, respecting each other's privacy, culture and most importantly our fellow human being's dignity. Our possibilities are many, but mere demand and supply growth will not uplift our life and standard of living, it also requires change of mindset and positive looking culture.

3. Education reform: Our education leans too much on memorisation skills rather than application based skills. To solve this problem, our education system requires funding more on Teacher development rather than on syllabus refinement. Change the Teacher's mindset, they will take care of the rest.

4. Social Security: Our social security needs to be made robust, this will ensure that people don't accumulate too much money for contingency and future. If people are sure that the govt will take care of them when they fall ill or the economy fails, they won't endeavor to keep accumulating wealth. The greediness rate/ person would come down.  There is no room for greed when there are so many mouths to feed. It's hard for a country like India to build a robust social security programme, but when you expect the young to work for the country, you need to return the favor when they turn old.

5. Avoid all division: All kinds of people division should be avoided, except the economic division. That too, the economic division should be narrow. Caste, creed, color, race, veg/ non veg, biases on these basis will only make us weaker.

and many more...

Cosmic Questions

Very often the mind is boggled by the thoughts beyond the the comprehension of its capacities. Especially those around the formulas of the world leading to human existence, unfairness in the living and violence between sects.  Although thoughts around the formulas is worthless and does not lead to betterment in the race around survival, it is not something that the mind can completely ignore and at times when solace, serenity and loneliness engulfs it in its bosom, no amount of willingness can distract the mind to focus on worldly thoughts.

It is during one of these epoch the mind answered some of the most compelling questions by itself.

Karma accumulated in the previous birth, if believed in, dictates the environment of the present day birth. It includes family, its status, provided education, abilities accompanied by disabilities, the societal mood and the ability of the mind to master over the mind of others.

Karma in the process of accumulation in present birth can be balanced through offsetting deeds performed in the course of living. Until the soul is withered away, The extent of positive or negative balance at the point of separation of soul will dictate the features of next birth, and the quality of life spent would have been subject to the deeds performed and its resultant and deliberate actions leading to offset imbalances before formation of the situations to complete the balance. 

The Elitist Favoured Indian Banking System

Ever wondered why  the Indian banks pay you 8-9% on your domestic deposits (savings account) whereas when you take a education loan or a car loan you end up paying anywhere between 12-20%?

This has to do with the banking honchos nexus with the corporate lords. Today's senior bankers especially the heads of nationalized banks favor the corporate elite of India in their lending decisions even if it doesn't make the slightest of business sense. Take for example Mr. Vijay Mallya's extravagant entry into the aviation business, it was all over the news when it was launched in 2004 and he went to to such lengths to display extravagance and vulgarity that Mr. Mallya himself mentioned in a interview that he had spent much time in ensuring that the design of the attire of the airline air hostesses gave the perfect view when they bent to serve you your in-flight meal. Now at that time any common man who read the newspaper would believe that Mr. Mallya was foraying into the new business with his own money from his liquor empire. Unfortunately, as you would know today it is completely wrong. The aviation business was financed by the nationalized bank with the hard earned money deposited by the commoners of India. Banks like to finance businesses which involve significant amount of glamour floated by a well known corporate name and since most of the big financing decisions are taken by the big daddies of the  Banks (CEO's) there seems to be certain amount of Veto power yielded in overriding internal controls in lending decisions.

But, what has this to do with the interest rates? For that we need to understand the concept of spread. Spread is basically what the banks earn through lending and borrowing. Bank borrow money from us (Our deposits) and pay us around 8%, they lend the same money to people for car /personal loans and charge interest of 14%, so basically spread is the money which the banks make in this process (14-8=6%). So how can banks make 6% by exchanging money and still quarrel with RBI to increase charges on ATM withdrawals and call themselves crippled if they do not charge the savings bank account holders at every given opportunity? To understand this we need to comeback to the business of Kingfisher airlines as the spread which the banks earns goes into financing the unicorns which the elite come up with. Today, Kingfisher airlines has failed and owes nearly Rs. 5000 crores in Debt. The lending banks have not taken a single action to recover this money and by the looks of it, these debts if not all at least some portion of it will be written off. (Which obviously the banks will earn back through the spread).

RBI has no strict control measures to drive banks to recover debts in a timely manner and has left to the discretion of the banks to manage their lending/borrowing decisions. The flaw in the regulation around bad debts and lending by commercial banks is what is driving high interest rates when the common man borrows, and it is also the factor which enables the rich to squander.

This whole setup enables passing back the losses to the commoner and finance the rich on their lavish endeavors. This scenario yet again proves the old adage 'the common man never has a say'