The Urban Civil War

We hear about recent trends in urbanisation.  The rate of growth of people in major Indian cities has been more than what the administration had predicted.  This brings huge challenges to the existing infrastructure & resources in these cities.  The pushes & pulls finally starts to show in different ways, most of them are not very pleasing.  Take the incidents in Mumbai - people turning against north Indians.  These and other 'sons of soil' policies in other cities are not very pleasant & has the potential to bring India to a near civil war kind of situation.  And by that the growth stories of one of the most promising Asian economy is going to come to a stand still.  There may be a few countries in our immediate neighborhood who would be happy to see such a turn of events.  However it will be a serious blow to us & for the world at large.  With the kind of politics & administration that we have in the country now, it will be next to impossible to recover in a generation or two from such a position.

EconomicTimes Top 5 Picks Analysts Performance

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The stock markets are throwing up surprises everyday.  One thing is for sure that this is not a bull run.  The market is definitely heading south, however there are instances of up trend and everyone starts wishing the markets to continue the same up trend.

In the middle of all this there are plenty of analysts who are trying to guess the market direction and its mood.  You can find these analysts predictions in all business newspapers and websites.  There are even websites fully dedicated to making these predictions and claim to be making money for you.  Or are they just making money for themselves?

I'm not very financially well versed.  I try to read the articles and figure out what is right, what is wrong, when to invest and in which company.  However the innumerable analysts and their predictions makes it difficult to put my trust behind any one of them and follow them blindly.  In my effort to figure out who amongst the many have been able to make the 'right' analysis and who have had more hit rates, I couldn't find just a statistics.  There are many who claim they can predict the market, but no info about how many of them have correct.  I understand no one would be 100% accurate, but who have got it right the majority of the times?

I think since there is no such comparison data available, it will not give much incentive for these analysts to do a thorough analysis.  Not that most of them may not be doing that.  However I'm sure there would be some at least who would be gaming the people.

So I went about zeroing in on EconomicTimes newspaper.  It publishes "Top 5 Picks" of the day and "Mid Term" predictions from analysts.  I created a page where I plan to put in these predictions along with the analysts info.  I have a few scripts that would track the market and see if the stop loss was triggered or the target.  I just started this today and am not sure how the things will turn out.  I'll write an update is about a month's time to see how this experiment worked.

I'm skipping the "Mid Term" predictions as there is no stop loss mentioned only the target price.  My limited understanding is that it is not prudent to enter a stock without appropriate stop loss.

This is no longer maintained.

I would really appreciate if before you switch away from this page, if you could write a short or long comment about your experience as well.

Woman shocked & amused to find British PM David Cameron travelling in London Tube

"Excuse me, are you the Prime Minister?", a stunned 27-year-old Indian woman inquired from David Cameron, who chose to travel in a tube train during rush hour.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/nkZlX9

Human Rights of Traffic Cop & Road Users violated by Govt.

The fines & penalties for various traffic offences currently being levied in India were set in 1988.  These are very very low.  See this example below.

Traffic Fines as per Transport Act 1988, India

When petrol price is around Rs70 and inflation is close to 10%, what is the value of Rs100.  No one bothers to follow the rules.  The govt. by not revising these fines is making a mockery of the people and their lives.  And not just the lives of the road users but the lives of the traffic policemen who have to put up with the people, environment and the polluting vehicles all day long.  Most traffic policemen who man busy junctions are given a surgical mask to protect them from the dust & pollution.

The fines should be revised to at least by 10 times the present rates to be effective.  Again once revised, it may not be revised for another 10 years.  So much for Govt. efficiency.  Does 10 times the current rates seems excessive?  Well, this is not mandatory duty.  Once has to pay this only if one commits an offence.  However in our country the very next thing on everyone's mind would be corruption and bribe.  You would be thinking, well this is not going to bring any of those offences down, but only going to increase the "take home" of traffic policemen.  Thinking that these changes will not bear fruit because of corruption and doing nothing is not going to make things any better.  And the whole corruption angle has to be dealt in another blog.

If over-speeding fine were to be say, Rs2000.00 instead of the paltry Rs100.00, would that reduce more than half the accidents due to over-speeding?  I don't know, just taking a wild guess here.  If the fine for carrying goods more than allowed tonnage were say double the cost of the entire goods that is being carried, would most people try to carry goods more than the allowed tonnage.  This may not reduce accidents, but sure will prolong the life of our not to well maintained roads for may be another monsoon.

Also the fines for offenses committed by autos, taxis, buses and other vehicles that carry passengers should be more than the 'normal' fines by a factor.  These vehicles are on the road most of the times.  Some drivers are plain stupid & some just feel too comfortable on the roads and start using them as race tracks.  They need to be reined in too.

Hoping for a change for the better India and its people.

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Is a certain IQ/Intelligence required to drive vehicles on road?

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You can't be a pilot unless you have a certain qualification and go through a bunch of exams.  You can't be a train / loco pilot unless you again go through a set of exams.  However come driving vehicles on road, there seems to be no qualification - especially in India.  There may be other countries in the world where the situation is similar to here in India.  Please excuse my ignorance here.

Now coming back to aircraft pilots case.  It is understandable why they should have the necessary certification.  You need to handle tons of instruments and it's enough you can read the numbers of those devices.  You also need to understand what they mean.  And in some cases even use what those instruments are telling you and take life saving actions.

What about loco pilots or those who operate ships?  I guess the complexity may be less compared to pilots but they do have manage a vehicle that is pretty big.

Now coming to drivers on road, they seem no qualification.  Kids start driving 2 wheelers on road.  The technical qualification exam or driving test is a sham.  I agree that the vehicle size may not be big, there are no hoards of instruments to handle.  However what the sheer number of vehicles?  What about the fact that pedestrians and bicycles share the road with these vehicles.  What about the different size of vehicles on the road?  Educational qualification may not be required.  However I'm sure some common sense training may be a good.  Also the time has come to makes those "driving tests" to make it more stringent.

Politicians & Conflict of Interest

The Sports Bill was put in front of the Indian cabinet to discuss.  No one had any doubt that it was not going to go down well with most ministers.  Read the news article here http://bit.ly/qkMqHo

The Sports Bill was going to be a game changer.  It was going to bring the all powerful BCCI under the RTI net and was also going to bring in lot of measures that seemed like common sense decisions.  However most of the sports authorities are run by ministers who are part of the cabinet.  And the bill was going to cut their wings or reduce their monopoly on the sports bodies.  Now how are they going to allow that.

When a bill or legislation is being discussed and drafted shouldn't the ministers and people whom it impacts to be kept away from it.  Here there is a serious conflict of interest.  Even though it is the cabinet ministers, if the law being discussed impacts them, they should be able to put forth their opinion but they should not have any say on passing the bill.

It should happen for other legislation as well.  The ministers keep raising their salary and benefits on a regular basis.  And at times many times over the current amounts.  Should they be allowed to determine what the benefits they should receive?

Indian Software Professional Dilema

Indian IT & ITES industry has grown over the years and now constitute a sizeable portion of the country's GDP.  This has changed the employement landscape in the country.  I wonder how many people currently working in this industry grew up wanting to be an IT professional.  Many would have had different dreams, doctor may be or engineer or military or even an artist.  However the lure of the lifestyle that this new profession provides and the ease of entry has made many leave their childhood career dreams and embrace this new today.

In my memory the first kind of jobs that came were Medical Transcription.  Call centres came second and then IT system support and the rest.  So what started this?  I guess for medical transcription it was the kind of work.  May the work was not very appealing to the folks abroad.  However if it had to be done, paying the people in the western world hourly rates would probably have made the entire exercise not very economically viable.  And this is where the English speaking and understanding Indians made their entry.

Over the years the kind of work has changed.  Indian IT companies have grown to become multi-national companies spread across the globe and even hiring local workers in the countries they are now based.  This has changed the IT market with increased competition.  However the people working in this industry are going through a lot of different emotions and thoughts.  Some are struggling to find their identity.  Some have left the search and have decided to go with the flow and see where the industry takes them.

The Indian IT professionals don't get paid the same as their western counterpart for the same work done.  The reason why the cost is low is the starting reason why the job has been given to Indian IT folks.  If the cost were the same then the job may not be outsourced and these Indian IT folks may not have a job at all.  However there are Indian IT folks who are better - more productive & efficient - than their western counterparts.  So shouldn't they get paid favorably?  This thin minority gets lost amongst the majority.  So what does this minority have to look forward to?  Shouldn't the IT industry players recognise this and set in motion practises to change this?  Wouldn't that break some of the people who are going with the flow to take notice make them change?  Wouldn't a more thinking & innovative Indian IT professionals be more productive for the country as a whole?