It is election time!

So the dates are out! Largest democracy in the world will vote from 7th April-12th May (with results due on 16th May) to elect the new government. And it promises to be a nail-biter with both national parties; Congress as well as the BJP fighting for allies, dealing with internal party disputes, calling each other all kinds of names, and marketing their respective PM candidates through hoardings, banners, social media etc (perfect case study for learning integrated marketing communications)
Couple of things makes this election even more interesting. Firstly, the emergence of AAP which made a stylish debut in Delhi as BJP refused to form the government, Congress agreed to support the AAP government, and AAP accepted Congress’ support to form the government! It would have been a completely different ball game altogether had Delhi not happened. Secondly, the possibility of third front surfacing as the game changer (game spoiler for the national parties) and with as many as PM candidates as the number of parties, it will certainly add spice to the already spicy set-up! Variety is indeed the spice of life
Contest between two national parties Congress & BJP (UPA & NDA with their respective allies) plus two game changers (AAP & third front) is going to be like reading a suspense novel full of twists and turns. How boring it would be, if even ours was a two-party system! Diversity of our country with various interest groups and resultant existence of regional parties adds charm to the elections. Of course as an individual, one would prefer having fewer parties so that the possibility of one party getting a majority increases which leads to stable government. But hey, I like my food spicy!
Things that I am looking forward are AAP performance considering their meteoric rise, offbeat approach and attitude towards things in general. Also it will be interesting to see how and to what extent the Modi wave with a tremendous track record in Gujarat, large rallies and promising speeches converts into votes for BJP and how Rahul Gandhi's vision, discussions at school and college levels with a smaller audience, and long term outlook will translate to votes for his party.
Icing on the cake is the 'None of the above' option which is being introduced for the first time! Assuming a voter turnout of 55 percent, one would think the rest 45 percent weren't happy with any of candidates representing their constituency so there was no point voting for them. Going by that logic, there should be a higher turnout this time around as rather than sitting at home and saying no one is good, you can come out and convey the same by exercising your right to vote.  Considering the rate at which people are losing confidence in various political parties, NOTA Party i.e. 'None of the above' party may come out a winner!

Mission made possible

I know I am running as late as the central railway train during monsoons so far as expressing my views on Mangalyaan is concerned. I was planning to write this for a long time but somehow never got down to write it. In Nov, 2013 ISRO became the 4th agency in the world to accomplish this feat. One would have expected people to be extremely praiseworthy of the same, and most of them were. But as always, you also had a group of people explaining as to why it was a waste of money. I am sure everyone is entitled to his opinion but I fail to understand why we criticize achievements like these. Total cost of the project is around 450 cr. The number is huge but pales in comparison to our defense budget of around 2 lacs cr plus. In percentage terms, cost of this mission is approx 0.23% of the defense budget!
I agree, such comparisons are unfair as country’s security is of prime importance and budgeting for country’s defense is always on the priority list (however, how much money should be spent on ammunition has been the topic of many debates). Logic being that a belligerent but sane entity will not try to harm you if it sees you as someone who is loaded with latest ammunition and capable of striking back. One will only attack those who are not prepared for it. It is amazing how countries spend on ammunition to avoid wars which will necessitate its usage! Despite everyone knowing the dangers of weapons’ usage, they are forced to spend on it as some rogue entity may not think twice about the consequences before attacking someone. So defense spending is thus justified. A businessman also would prefer doing business/investing in a country which is safe and protected. One more reason why people do not mind spending more on defense is because they want to feel safe and eliminate the fear factor. However, when it comes to spending money missions such as Mangalyaan, lot of people look at it as wasting money as they do not see themselves getting benefited from it. These are the same people who wish their children to become engineers one day without realizing those very engineers will then dream of working on such missions in future!
Like good defense shows India’s military strength, missions such as these help showcase India’s intellectual power and it should be encouraged in every way possible. One may argue those 450 cr could have been utilized for some other purpose, but we should appreciate the fact that at least it is being utilized for the purpose for which it is allotted and not being siphoned off like we see elsewhere! One should also consider the benefits that will accrue to us and future generations due to missions like these and stop being so narrow minded. Investing in future is not a bad thing after all.

Power forces at work

It was Alvin Toffler’s book (not sure Future Shock or The Third Wave) which explained the changes taking place in the power structure over the last few years. It mentions how power changed its form from force: when people used weapons in ancient times to force others into doing things they did not want to like vacating their homelands, giving away their valuable things etc. Though, it will be naive to say that it used to happen only in ancient times as even today we have examples like Iraq war where the force is being used but the only difference being that this time it was done to protect the interests of people at large with international support (debate for another day).
Then came a time when the society became more civilized. So force as a form of power was replaced by a more civilized form i.e. money which could buy almost everything under the sun. And money as a form of power has been used consistently to serve political and commercial interests everywhere. Typical example would be what we see during elections when a cash-rich political party would give freebies to influence people’s opinion leading to shifting of power in their favor. Also we have seen how certain countries have been allegedly involved in financing civil wars and unrest in under developed countries to get control of their natural resources. Money in these cases has just acted as another form of weapon leading to conflicts, corruption which in turn has only created problems for common man. Then came the age of information which leveled the playing field to a certain extent where even an individual without much resource got an opportunity to wield power through mediums such as internet, TV etc. Earlier somebody who had money had power and now information became equivalent to power. It was this information that has helped unearth scams in the last few years in India and countries around the world. Easy access to market information has enabled the poor farmer to get a higher price for his produce in turn eliminating the intermediary’s role and the power that he wielded. Social networking sites have only helped the cause by acting as a platform for sharing information.
People who were under the impression that they could control others using force or money have come under serious threat due to the rise of information as a new force of power. But the old forces of power i.e. force and money is in no mood to let information replace them that easily. I was very surprised when I saw both forms of power i.e. force and money trying hard to control the newest form of power i.e. information in their own unique ways. Just read somewhere that Iran is sponsoring the censorship of internet before the elections considering the role played by internet and specifically the networking sites in Arab spring: this is force at work in modern times which not only leads to a bad name for someone wielding it, at the same time it begets strong reaction in the form of protests and demonstrations. Money as I said is a civilized way of doing things and the only difference between using money and force as power is that one is an armed robber and the other is a robber who wears suit. Money power manages to manipulate the image and hide the real intentions of people doing it. Recently we saw when Saudi price alwalled bin talal bought a decent stake in twitter which in turn may allow him to control the information exchange taking place online. May be that is not the objective behind the deal may be it is purely as an investment but the chances of that are very slim considering how twitter played its role during Arab spring. Iran and Prince are doing the same thing: they are trying to control information but one is using force and the other is using money. Control of information in any way should be stopped but everyone is busy criticizing only Iran as it is using force and nobody is saying a word about the Saudi price as it is being done under the garb of investment. And what is even more amazing is to see that all three forms of power i.e. force, money, information are trying hard to outsmart each other. Hopefully, information will come out a winner.

Free downloads: The money spinner!

There has been an interesting debate over the last few years as to whether the downloading or file sharing of movies/music on internet should be banned or not. The movie/music industry has been arguing that a lot of efforts, time and money go into the making of it so they should have all the right in the world to make money out of it and that they have not been able to exercise that right due to rampant downloading/file sharing that takes place online. On the other hand, there is a strong belief that there should not be any restrictions of such kind. Recently, the Dutch government passed a landmark judgment that such downloading of content is perfectly legal. The decision was a result of the study undertaken on behalf of the Dutch Ministries of Education, Economic Affairs, and Justice, which concluded that such file sharing adds to the social welfare and that it has an overall positive effect. Surprisingly, it also says that such ban restricts free flow of information and invades internet user's privacy. On the face of it one may feel that the industry will suffer huge losses as the direct revenue from the sales of original CD/DVDs will go down, though I believe this will benefit the industry as a whole.
Of late, we have seen a number of Hollywood celebrities flying down to India in order to promote their music/movies. Why this sudden influx of celebrities? It is because they have realized the potential of the Indian market (i.e. commercial potential). How did we become a potential market for them? It is because we have been exposed to their music/movies through internet. Same is the case in other countries as well. India is more attractive, of course, because even if a small percentage of population is interested in something, the absolute number is always going to be large considering our population. So these companies should realize that internet, on the contrary, has opened up new sources of revenue for them which did not exist earlier. Somebody who had seen Tom Cruise’s earlier movies on his/her computer (by downloading it from some free site) is now shelling out Rs.150 plus to watch him in multiplexes. We have seen Lady gaga promoting her album and getting interviewed by Shahrukh Khan in India. Paris Hilton also launched a product line here recently and these are just few examples. How frequently did this happen earlier? Not much.
Same is true for music as well. Fortunately, there are some artists who realize that the times are changing and they have used that knowledge to their advantage rather than making a fuss about it. Some local band in US had uploaded their music videos online and these videos were made available for downloading free of cost. People had an option to pay if they liked. How many people actually paid is still a mystery (as given a choice nobody would like to pay for something that is freely available) but one should look at the bigger picture. On one hand, a local band got a platform to reach out to a worldwide audience free of cost and on the other hand they get to mint money when they go for music concerts and the same people who had downloaded their videos for free will pay a huge sum to watch them perform live, provided of course they make some good music. So it is a question of sacrificing Rs. 10 in order to make Rs. 15. It is also a lesson for music companies that they cannot take people for granted. Earlier, the original CD costing Rs.60 is now available for Rs.30 and still these companies are making profits. Internet has acted as a great equalizer in this case as it has not only expanded the market for these companies but at the same time it has brought the cost down for the end-users.

Save the bill

As one would have expected the Lokpal bill has hit the dead end owing to dissonance between the ‘Anna team’ as they like to call it and the government, the biggest area of dissension being the proposal to bring Prime Minister & higher judiciary under the purview of the bill along with other demands. But let us not discuss the ‘delay’ part as it had to happen considering the consequences of implementation! What I want to highlight here is one of the USPs of the bill i.e. crowdsourcing: the fact that the bill is open to people’s opinion and that the suggestions of people are being incorporated in the bill ‘to the extent possible’. One may argue here that it is not crowdsourcing in real sense as it is drafted by a committee not people and that point is well taken but I am only referring to the 'editing part' for which the common people are being invited.
Something similar is happening in Iceland as well after the banking fiasco. The council is drafting clauses of the constitution and it is being uploaded on their website/Facebook for people’s opinion. This whole idea of taking vox populi into account while forming legislation has a downside to it I feel i.e. popular opinion tends to be loaded in favour of emotions rather than rationale and emotions can’t be the basis for any law. And also what I feel is most important when we talk about public opinion is ‘majority’. So it made me do some research on situation prevailing in Iceland which is experiencing something similar though it is the constitution that is being referred to people there compared to Lokpal bill in India. What I read on fastcompany.com was terribly disappointing. Of two thirds of Iceland's population (3.2 lacs) which is on Facebook an average post elicited 4 to 5 comments. I, then, checked on indiaagainstcorruption.org and found a total of 1817 comments on Lokpal bill, not a big number considering India’s population. You would find more comments when any wannabe celebrity changes his/her status on any networking site! At the same time I also admit to have not taken the pains to go to the site and comment on it like most of the others. This is because most of the people think their opinion will not have any impact and in the process we lose out, something that happens during election as well (though I must say that I have never missed out an opportunity to exercise my right to vote). So unless the situation improves in terms of more people contributing to the cause we will end up having a legislation by the committee members for the people instead of by the people for the people which is actually the objective behind it. It is practically impossible to reach out to everyone personally for their opinion; closest we can go is to have a national debate on it if possible (even that will only lead to chaos). So please go out or should I say please log on to the site and have your say for a better India.

Going gaga over Gaga

Though I have heard and experienced that time changes everything, change of definition over a period of time is something that I had never expected. So it was nothing less than a shock to me when the CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America) awards were announced and Lady Gaga was chosen as the Fashion Icon! If one goes deep into deciphering the meaning of the word ‘icon’ one would realize that it refers to a person who embodies certain qualities that others would like to imbibe. It just beats my imagination as to how can Lady Gaga who dresses the way only she can, be adjudged as a fashion icon? Nobody can disagree that she is a crowd puller, can attract attention like nobody can and that the number of awards she has won for her music is more than the number of songs she has sung! She is one of the most successful celebrities around. But considering her outrageous dressing sense; I just fail to understand the logic behind this (though personally I am a big fan of her and believe she carries herself better than most of the celebrities). Not long ago she was selected as the winner of both the best dressed and worst dressed awards at the Shockwaves NME Awards. She was also declared Hollywood's biggest fashion victim in a poll conducted by WENN.com. And now she is in the same league as Kate Moss & Nicole Kidman who have won the same award earlier.
CFDA is a respected body and has been operating for a long time so there must be some reason why it went gaga over Lady Gaga! The arguments in her favour included her global popularity and the fact that everyone wants to see her no matter what see wears. In fact the reason why people wants see her all the time is, I guess, because they want to see what she is wearing! She has always been known for doing things in unconventional manner, here again we see her winning the award due to some unconventional reasons! How many girls would actually want to dress like her is another debate altogether (as an icon is someone people would like to imitate). But she is a winner all the way for changing the way we define fashion.

Consumption versus saving

I always thought of writing something about it but never did. But when I read this news yesterday I could not help but write this. According to The Telegraph, inflation destroyed savings worth $58 billion in UK in just one year! Why it happened? Average rate of interest earned by people on their savings account was about 1.6% and inflation was about 5.2%. Now compare that to what is happening in India: savings account rate is around 3.5% and the wholesale inflation rate hovers around 8.5-9%. And the extent to which WPI underestimates the actual inflation is a foregone conclusion now. Assuming the savings rate of 3.5% and inflation rate of 9% (on a conservative note as the actual rate is much higher than this considering the limitations of WPI), we see that Rs.100 deposited in a bank account become Rs.94.5 (Rs.100+3.5-9) by the end of the year.
This is not nuclear science and we all know it. Now if this situation persists for a longer period of time people start forming an opinion about the situation which basically leads to two kinds of actions. Some (those who like to live for the moment) may be inclined to think that despite savings if their money is getting eroded, they might as well spend it now which leads to even more inflation! So this not only leads to problems for economy as a whole but it creates more problems especially for those who decided to save as they have postponed their purchases, they are missing out on an opportunity to buy at current rates, and also they will see their savings account shrink for deciding to save! There are some who think the other way: they believe if anyways their money has to erode by the end of the year they might as well save some more money for future requirements. This in turn will lead to control the inflation to the extent they save which will benefit those who are buying at this stage (the live for the moment type)! Whichever way you consider, in such a situation those who decide to spend now benefit and those who decide to save lose. But those who save are immunizing themselves against any future emergency which is not possible if you decide to spend all that you have. So eventually it is a fight between those who live for the moment and those who live for the future.
Let us see what an overdose of either of these situations can lead to. If most of the people start spending their money like there is no tomorrow just to beat erosion in savings, we will be encountering even more inflationary situation in the future. Secondly, if all of them decide to save their money for the future it will lead to lesser demand, decrease in production accompanied by loss of jobs etc. So what is the solution? The answer is to strike the balance between present and future needs by doing some financial planning! If you have observed when we say ‘spending’ money we are talking about spending it on food, clothes etc. So the idea is to make sure that the ‘spending’ part has ‘planned investment’ as one of its components. What this will do is that it will take the money out from the savings account so you will not lose money due to inflation and also it will provide for your future needs so it takes care of future emergency as well. I admit, this is what all of us do and that this does not warrant a torture in the form of such a long and boring post but as we see there are lot of issues in the economy so I am sure there are some who are not doing what is mentioned and messing things up. This is post is dedicated to all of them! I also confess that this post could have been a one-liner but since I had some free time I thought of stretching that one-liner!