Mahant!

Via Zero Hedge

It’s easy to say what the Opposition parties including BJP and outsiders like IAC should do. However the real vignettes can be gained by looking inside the brains and machinery of Congress. Congress is currently crumbling under the huge load of self-inflicted shame. They perhaps thought they could buy off the veneer with stolen money or nobody will notice it. Unfortunately for them, people have noticed it. The sheer magnitude and frequency of them will make it hard to be forgotten in living memory. Congress has following pathways wherein they can survive into the future.  First , they should stop fighting. More they dig-in in their indefensible defense more it becomes irrelevant and unreliable. Their entire credibility will hinge on it. However, assuming some really big players are involved, Congress is unlikely to accept the defeat or guilt. More they try and defend the indefensible more they fail. Second , Congress should ensure that Opposition is not united. Congress is at its w...

There is one man I have developed a grudging admiration over past few weeks, its Arvind Kejriwal. I haven’t been around since biblical years but this definitely looks like a David against Gollaith. At the outset it seems like a futile exercise with no chance or possibility of winning. But this Kejirwal guy has been a pretty persistent nag. Guys who know me know how critical I have been on Anna’s campaign tactics. Kejriwal is following just the same methods. He is practically expecting the system to shoot itself so that it give way to new system. That is very optimistic to say the least. This guy has taken on the whole system with nothing but idealism. I don’t think he even has a tactic. Dharna, gherao etc are not tactics. What will it ever lead to? Go around the country there are hundreds of dharnas going on for months and years. Once the politicians are over the novelty factor the presence won’t even register with them. Davids emerge from such high odds. Davids are not created when sa...

Lots of books, blogs and players, especially in India, seem to think most markets are screwed, twisted and totally rigged. If you are among them then tell me something honestly, what else did you expect? A Macdonalds drive-by and pick your million market? The markets are twisted, and rigged. Live with it. It is now and will for ever be so. This is not a Charity ball. This is a war, and people will use every strategy there is and they can invent to take your money. Its a very hard job for a part-time trader kind, who without a doubt gets butchered everytime. And thats more certain if the person is under wrong influence and indisciplined. He may as well mail the investment cheques to charity. Calling people - the so called operators - crooks is plain ridiculous. Having met couple of them, I have found them to be exceptionally intelligent with far finer grasp of happenings than rest of us. They have made money, make money and survive in this vicious climes by pure stint of cunning and sma...

Guys who have followed me for sometime know I am bearish on stocks but not short. Thats a critical difference. You cannot take on the Central Banks and live rich to tell the tale. My cash positions are highest and for the longest duration that I know of. And yes, broker hates me.  The markets have been totally ridiculous off late. Ridiculous in terms of its move compared to the underlying macros and growth prospects. The levity is purely coming from the liquidity, on an ever drying basis. The fuel required for the drift down are all present - right from the incompetent government, to sagging corporate profits, to lower growth, to higher inflation, to low growth expectations on failed monsoons, sticky interest rates etc but nothing seems to dent the cloak of bulls. Markets have been stubbornly steady on lower volumes and participation. I am not sure why it should not stay that way for some more time. But there is one factor that scares the bears out of me. Everybody in the street is...

An old note sent to friends sometime back. An interesting note on Telegraph:which sums up like this Why is China a mnaufacturing country and not a knowledge economy? The reason is for a knowledge economy people have to be highly educated with the freedom of expression and debate for the knowledge netwroks to work. Chinese govt. is against any of these openess nor the willingness to foster the debate nor appreciate the diverse opinions /dissents. The conclusion is as long as China remains a closed-country with limited and monitored society the country would remain strictly in manufacturing and low-end knowledge domain. PS: A completely opposite situation that of India. PS2: If the recession hits China, they will have two options a) stick to manufacturing b) scale up to knowledge economy. The option b seems to be just around the corner with leadership change in few months.

This is in response to this news item:  India Considers $35 Billion Debt Revamp After Blackout Why the F is state utilities' loans being taken on the State government books? What assurances do the utilities give to assure the state governments that this sorry state will not repeat again? Is government even concerned enough to seek such an assurance? Or is it just a mindboggling scam of pushing the utitlities losses (read caused by political nexus) on to the heads of state taxpayers? “Restructuring their debt seems to be the only solution. Utilities will look to turn around, while banks will seek to minimize sacrifices.” This is absolutely crazy! "Seems to be the solution"? So, is this not going work for sure. Ofcourse its not going to work! "Utilities look to turn around" WTF is that! When do you think utilities will have the courage and conscience to turnaround!?? "Banks minimize sacrifices" So, you are basically bailing out the banks? Seems so! Now t...

Sometimes I think as to why so many scams are coming out. There has to be some reason for this. It could not be that there were no scams in past or that media was so lackluster as to identify one.  The social changes like literacy, urbaisation and rapid disbursement of news via cable and social media had definitely had an impact. However still, why now? If you take stock market's analogy (or for that matter of economy by extension) most scams happen at the Top. When everything is going good and when the scamsters hope their scams can run some more and remain underground. But AFTER the top, the shifts in loyality and unability to paint more bright pictures of future creates huge risks for scamsters who are now vulnerable to any surfacing of evidences or conspiracies. This should envenutally lead to convictions and a general clean up of the system. IMO, these scams clearly represent the TOP in something. I am hard-pressed to believe that it is the economy. It is unlikely with such a ...

Elections are terrible creatures.  Elections push and pull, some legit and many illegitimately.  It’s usually the strongest power which wins, It doesn't matter what the manifesto or rally-talk is. Elections make rulers and the citizens the ruled ones. It is not citizens choosing a representative anymore as to having to choose who will rule them. Citizens decide who will crack the whip for next 4-5 years and whom are they going to obey. Democracy is a hollow concept. What makes democracy whole is the ethics and sense of public duty. When the politicians we choose to govern are uninterested in these values, the democracy descends into farce. Each is better on their own than having to live under the weight of combined wisdom. Elections are terrible for it shifts and polarize the opinions. And election years are more terrible than you can imagine. The whole series of manipulation, the conceptual hara-kiri, the freebies and threats, the success postures and the hidden whi...

In the mass psych article I deliberately didn’t include markets - the holy barometer of mass psychology! I could rant and rant on the markets rallying on lack of macros except that its a game of Keynesian beauty contest. But then again, why bother if it works!? May be that’s the stuff for some other post. Lets talk about Apple Computers, The stock is the most valuable company ever. That’s not an excuse to deride it after all every record is meant to be broken. The reason it deserves a look is because Apple is currently valued at more than the entire retail industry and semiconductor industry. Its few percent ups and downs create and extinguish market capitalization of several companies.  To put it in perspective, this one company alone is worth about one-third of the Indian GDP. If Apple were to be an Indian stock, it alone would comprise more than half of the trillion dollar Indian market cap. Apple Computers market cap is bigger than the GDP of Switzerland and all ...

Continued from Part 1 here The Herd The thing about mass psych is that it doesn't need a reason to exist but it exists.  We have been seeing these things that bring us all together in one swoop of headlines. Moving the attitudes and opinions with every passing moment. Collecting new people into the melee and discarding few. The wave gathers steam if new additions outnumber the dropouts, until finally dropouts re-evaluate only to join what they had discarded to form one final blow-off into these mass psych movements / events. For an observer, this begs the question as to what is triggering the COHESION of attitudes, thoughts, communities and human beings. What is that one factor binding the disparate, disconnected and I-couldn’t-care-less-about-you souls? It would seem impossible for these diverse people to experience the same events and back up the same thought-process without a binding factor. I don't claim I know that. But what is essential for such a thing to happen is that...

If you are watcher of mass psychology then past few weeks have been what may be called - very interesting times.  First a boring bit of intro to ease my way. Irrespective of what we believe, man and woman and their kind are pure herders. They flock. One leads the other and others follow the leaders and they are followed by more. Until, at some point they don't know why or what they are doing. It is madness of crowds and its delusions. So what’s interesting in past weeks? There were many. Here is a bits and pieces account of them. The Olympics If you are an Indian when was the last time you watched Athletics Olympics ? The scam-fested Commonwealth Games perhaps. Or going by its TRPs, none. When was the last time you say through awkward events of archery, shooting or wrestling - probably never? When was the last time your hope for Olympic gold medal was so close? Is it hard to remember? But for almost one full month, I have seen people turn to Olympics and go gung-ho about characters...

There are two types of people here: one who are smart enough to get the real picture from the ground and the second, who rely on somebody's painted image to make a percept. To simplify further, there are people who can think and there are people who need to be fed thoughts. Majority of the people are latter, and if you are a salaried, sinecure and safely ensconced person, a very high probability you are latter. The depths to which the society is crying for help leaves me aghast. Speechless, spellbound and angry. And helpless. There isn't much I can do sitting other than crib a little more about how bad things are becoming. But it is. Just because I am staring at it like a deer-at-headlights don’t means the facts change. I have never experienced such a hopeless situation as we now find ourselves in.  And what drives me mad, truly mad as hell, is that this is easily and quickly resolvable. All and only thing required is a WILL to do it. Alas alas, for the spineless conscienceless...

Millions have died while Manmohan Singh you have slept and fiddled. There have been a steady stream of anger and disgust that has often found its way to social media time and again. None of the vent, atleast intitally, was not to awaken you or to plead for your mercy. Later on, when I realised what an incorrible SOB you are, there is nothing much to plead and pray. But dear Manmohan stupid Singh, this time its personal. Over past few years I have seen friends and families suffer. Fortunately by God's Grace we always had a tomorrow to hope for. But Manmohan this time you have a victim. A good hard working gentle giant of a man, who has worked hard ever since I have known him from younger years to the last moment. The brave and cheerful, and always hopeful, he has fought the life is most courageous fashion. But Manmohan, your fiddling and nonsense, which has pulled the economy so much down, the poor guy died of a heart attack leaving behind a wife and two young daughters. He was my u...

I dont like to trade counter-trends. I just dont like. Its just me. People think I am being sissy and that I dont have guts to trade the market. If that is that, then that is that. i don't give a crap what the brokers think or advice. Everybody has a reason and a method of trading. This is mine.

What an awful day of trading. The volumes are close to nothing. Volatility is close to zero. Only move you see is the first half hour and the final half hour. Between these two periods you can trade in your sleep. The point of this rant is simply this: there are times to trade, there are times not to trade. These times are certainly the latter. This is the time to read up, to learn, catch up with friends, start new projects, to get ready for what ever is in store for future. No point in spoiling your life in front of a boring terminal.  Get out, enjoy your life. Sing n dance in the rain! When you come back you would have made more money and will make more money. How is that a bad trade?!!?!

This may sound controversial for many but I think Ramdev has more chances of being successful in the anti-corruption campaign than Anna Hazare. Nobody can take away the credit and impetus created by Anna Hazare, however Ramdev has something that Anna dint have - the reach and the means. Ramdev has been a familiar figure for many years now with his live Yoga classes. He has also used this platform to talk about several issues of social interest - not merely confined to corruption. He has dealt with lot of subjects from pollution, cultural changes, history, Ayurveda, food and of course health and more. The point is, Ramdev has a more holistic perspective in understanding and suggesting reforms than one-shot Anna Hazare. Also Ramdev has been at it for years now, everyday every morning, with repeats telecasts thus reaching out to people in their more impressionable suggestive times. Ramdev presents more serious threat to government and corrupt establishment than Anna Haz...

The economy is down, very very down and distrought. We can't do much about it. Ya we can start blogs to spend time ripping apart Manmohan into eternity but thats not going to achieve anything. What matters, at all times but especially when economy is down, is to get out and take risks in nice small chunks. You can't take a big chunk of risk, but take it in bits and pieces. Know when to stop, accept defeat and move on. Nobody is going to come help you out in your jobs or business. Its your life, you live it. So get out, think of something small but possible that you can do. And do it. More you hesistate more you slump.

I am happy that Bharti Airtel is taking a beating. Airtel some how aged into a monopoly much faster than tradtitional businesses. Their tariff plans are pure arrogance. The worst part is this arrogance is inbuilt into the system. Everything right from the Tariffs to Plans to Customer service reeks of this arrogance. I am happy that players like Docomo and Aircel are having some impact. Once a new stream of players come into the market I expect Airtel to loose the most subscribers, along with the dodgy BSNL. As a mis-managed ex-airtel customer of 9 years, I will have my final laugh. Ps: #Lesson: This is what happens when your customer is unhappy. The bugger goes and writes a blog post! LOL

Who would have thought a revolution would be possible in India? We were seeing the incredible revolution happening in Tahrir Square where youth in large numbers gathered and managed to kick out the corrupt regimes. The energy and beautiful symmetry of those people were sublimely co-ordinated, probably not by design but by the sheer necessity and tenacity of those protestors. Such a possibility, even remotely, to happen in India to over throw the government which had lost all its legitimacy to rule the citizens would be a dream. Who would have bet that we would come so close to realizing that dream. And all because of one man who until that day majority of Indians had never heard of. The Revolution The rise of Anna Hazare was a revolution. The energy and hope that gripped the nation was palpable. It was as if our redemption had been born out of the same tactics that had worked for our forefathers. And to be led by a man, simple and honest with no pretensions of himself or the lust for p...

I started blogging in 2004/5 and continued to do so actively until about 2007-08. I got busy and among other things just lost interest. Then Twitter happened. Joined Twitter on the Christmas holidays of 2008. Within few months I had about 1300 or so followers and following about 700+. It was just fun and pure trash. There is nothing from these episodes that I learnt or did something wonderful. Yes, being in touch with people from across the world itself was very exciting. The charm din't last long. I was looking at the wrong numbers, the follower count. I dint learn anything because the timeline was so fast and a big distraction. Killing that account was one of the best thing that I did. About 6 months later I registered a new account. My purpose is very simple to know and learn from great people on net. I honestly don't know how many people are following me, or what was its highest number or how many people unfollowed. IMO followers never add any value unless they are wo...

1998: I opened my first email account - Yahoo! 2004: I got stead internet connection at workplace. Rocked it! - Google! 2007-08: Geetham.net - helped me calm down and become more balanced. 2008: Twitter - have never looked back since

A Perspective I have NEVER EVER understood how can these Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) like IOC make such terrible losses. For a public sector company to loose $4billion - Rs22,450Crs - on a quarter - of TAXPAYER's money is absolutely terrible. Simply put, for the 110 Crore citizens of India, IOC just lost Rs204 for each and everyone of us! Thats Rs250 crores per day!! I agree there is a lot of subsidy burden on the company and that is something that has to be unfortunately socialised. Fine. But what makes you sure that all of the above losses are purely based on subsidies? Is it possible that their procurement programs are not efficient? Or is it possible that they can increase production efficiency in their refineries? Or is it possible that there are thefts, spliiage and loss of their inventories?  How is it that their biggest ever loss comes at a time when oil is heading down? Agreed, they may have booked it forward. So does that mean going by the lower oil prices in current q...

Whats a rave party? I have never been to one. Though I expect every party I give or attend to be a rave party. There was a time when “rave” meant “frolick”. I don’t know when it became equivalent to “Original Sin deux” Question really is this: when does a party become “rave”? Where are the boundaries? Who decides these boundaries? Can a 5 year old’s birthday party become rave if they become too happy? Oh WTH, do you know why a dog chases its own tail?

The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) has made it mandatory for those belonging to various faiths other than Hinduism to sign a declaration form before entering the hill temple, stating that they have faith in the presiding deity, Lord Venkateswara. The Hindu Not going to spoil my evening by ranting about it suffice to say that I don't know what lunatic assumptions and arguments went into forming this policy. So much for Vasaudaiva Kutumbakam!

There are million things that can be said on how to be successful. A million more formula in popular self-help on how to get there. My only one sentence summary to all those (and very good books) is this: Do what you love! Nothing mind boggling there. If you do what you love, you will love what you do. Its as simple as that! So, stop listening to others, your friends, your cousins, your neighbor aunty and ask the most important person - yourself. And go for it. You will find it tough, you will always have the Universe behind you, with you and helping you. Go against the purpose of why Universe put you here, you may get a lot but something will always be missing - the Universe in your heart.

Today is Krishna Janmasthami and I wish you all a wonderful day. Of the infinite attributes and infinite names probably one of my most favorite is the name "Damodhara." It means "The One who let him be bound". This is an excellent example of how easily accessible God is to all of us. How wonderfully merciful when we reach out to Him. How wonderfully obedient to us! Do you want Lord Krishna in your arms tonight or closed in a fist? You have it! He is the most wonderful Damodhara of all! He is always there, just that in our daily humdrum life we kinda never notice Him. I guess, we live too much in our heads. The Universe in your fist! We have it, only if we have had eyes to see it. So, if you call your God out today, you will find Him next beside you, inside you and everywhere around. All you have to do is call out to Damodhara. Wonderful day to you! And See the Universe in a grain of sand! :)

India has a million problems right from the smallest scale to the Himalayan. I will try and touch upon these problems at some points of time. I can be very sentimental about Agriculture and the misery being faced by our rural population. But today I just want to point to one little snippet from morning papers:: Life has been brought to a virtual standstill in Chawadal village in Haveri district by the truant monsoon. Manjunath Soorvagi (35), who would have normally sown maize and cotton in his five acres of unirrigated land by early June, only sowed in late July this year. “ I could not have delayed sowing any longer because the Bt cotton seeds that I had would have turned sterile, ” he says The Hindu Now think about it, seriously, would drive your car if you knew brakes were not working? Would you sow the seeds if you know what you are sowing is a futile exercise? Farmers like Manjunath are not exceptional nor are they idiots. They are perfectly rational people trying to make a living...

Ok, if you ask me what really was the last straw that made me write, the answer is … Last few weeks has been horrible for everybody – in India, across world, across my street, my friends, my neighbours, my family and me. Thanks to God’s Grace, we have been very well managed by God’s mercy. Among the things that graced this seemingly interminable occasion has been the event of molesters. Just in case if you have forgotten, a girl was molested in Guwahati and group of girls in Mangalore. I must admit it rankled me a lot. The scenes that were replayed time and again on tellys were very disturbing. And thankfully, the media has sensibility to censor the faces of unfortunate victims. I must say, these two events finally took me out of the slumber to start doing something, even if it is just ranting interminably online. There are several perspectives from which you can see these two events. One is from “girls provoked men” to “men-dominated society” to “parties should be banned” to “parents ...

Ok for the first crapshoot of the blog. Since it is the Olympics season, let me start with it. First of all I must salute all the wonderful men and women who have made to the Olympic stage. I mean it and I respect them a lot. Win or loose, in my books they are better than 99.99% of other population with a TV-remote. As you might have guessed it, my rant is totally about sports today. There are many perspectives on how the current situation in India can be viewed. And like all else, we will be taking many sides as we continue writing. But for now, let me just concentrate on just one thing: cricket. Now since Criciket is not a Olympic sport, why talk about it? The only reason is, cricket is the main reason why we are an absmal performer in Olympic or athletic sports. Entire India is a slave to cricket, a rather stupid game, supposed to be a gentleman’s game. But I have not come across one instance where cricket insipired somebody to reform their life. Cricket never stretched beyond itsel...

We don’t spoon feed you. We don’t give you all the perspectives there is to be given. Well, we don’t even care if you understand what we want to convey but every post will have something to be convey with a brief back ground and a even a briefer message. If you get it! Awesome! Let us know. If you disagree, rant against us. We respect your disagreement just as much as we do respect ours. We are opinionated, not stubborn. We like and stick to views given the present information that surrounds us. If you can bring out more info to alter our perceptions, and we request you to do so, we will definitely follow you and credit you. And if you think we are being cranky and getting slackly or indulgent, please give us a good kick in the butt.

The first thing that any one of us has to do when we are trying to do something important is – to do it well. The reason most people fail to do it well is simply because they always have the other eye on some kind of scoreboard to see if they scored. IMO that’s a complete disaster when what you want to do is sufficiently important that you will want to do it anyway – scoreboard or no scoreboard. The reason I bring this up is because there are no scoreboards why I write this blog. There are no pre-defined or likeable end results. This blog is not to reform anybody nor is to it score some points for any ideology. In other words, I don’t give a damn as what you want to do; feel free to do it, after all its your life and my best wishes for you. This effort is designed to be a good-natured heavenly-intentioned stating of the opinions. We have no pretensions – absolutely nothing – that we will change the world. We are of firm belief that nothing will change this world, and nothing will come ...

Ok, time to tackle the big question. No its not about literacy, economy, health or castesism or whatever nonsense of the problems that prevails and besets this country. It the fundamental one that every one of us have asked and I now ask here. What the hell should I do? And before you think I will pontificate on anything, let me make it very clear – I don’t know. I got nothing, guys! So I will spare you the details and stick to why I even (started) to write a blog about this. Point 1 and only point. This is not out of love or respect of you guys. (I love you all, btw. No reason to hate you unless you can comment on why I should hate you J ). The reason I write these (or plan to write) is only one thing – out of sheer sheer frustration of how miserable the conditions are for the majority of the people. How miserable the conditions remain despite such lavish lifestyles of few. I will try and put across my thoughts as and when I think I need a verbal vomit to ease the congestion in my che...