Mahant!

Raghuram Rajan's bold move of hiking the repo rates at his first policy announcement is very laudable.  It shows that there is no discontinuity in the policy apparatus at RBI. There is definitely a good tone to the RBI now which was worked out in last days of Subba Rao, and came out as 'big bang' reforms in the first speech of Rajan. This move though bold and unpopular must be highly commended for its judgment and foresight. It was the need of the hour; else common man would have sunk much deeper into the mess. Though repo rate hike will be downright bad for most of the corporate and borrowers in general, and also restrict growth, RBI was correct in focusing on runaway inflation and possibility of sharper spikes in inflation. * India Inc which is righteously furious should not be angry at the RBI, which had donned the role of a knight, but at the government which has been incapable to doing anything in terms of 'big bang' moves despite the entire country and its bu...

Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come - Victor Hugo With Fuksihima going from bad to worse, nuclear energy is unfortunately being held captive. Energy requirements have to be met with nuclear energy, there is no other way out. And it can be safer and much cheaper, thanks to Thorium. Recently, there was a curious piece on that stated an additional 1.25million tonnes of Thorium ore deposits were found in past three years. The total Indian deposits now stand at 11.93MT.   [Note: the new paper article is most likely to be wrong. The addition is likely to be 1,25,000tonnes of 0.125MT. This is because the present known reserves of India is little less than 900,000tonnes or 0.9MT] India has the highest Thorium reserves in the world. Though the Thorium-based reactors were talked about since 1970s and lots of progress made in by Indian science, it never got the place it deserved in Indian policy making.  The turning point for was when India eagerness for UN Securi...

There are two definite messages in this RBI / Telegraph chart. 1. India has forever been in the deficit but quite extraordinarily India had trade surpluses for about three years. Only three years since 1981 to present. What was different in those three years? It was rule of Vajpayee government which took over at the crossroads from the prosperous-90s to shattering dotcom bust. It was the period of biggest wealth destruction in stock markets, and that of Kargil war. If you look back, the government especially the Finance Ministry was very disciplined. Despite announcing mega projects like Golden quadrilateral and Swarna Ganga, and financing the war and military buildup on the borders, all the time of the devastating downturn in IT, tourism, airlines and associated industries; the last acknowledge global recession - the government did very well. 2, The second fact that is striking is that sometime in 2006 - 2007, government totally lost control of its trade balances. It seems like the mu...

RBI was ready. Here is a concept paper they talk of possible steps in events of large flows. Most of these they are implementing one by one. An interesting read into the mind of RBI.

   (click to enlarge)   Background: Yesterday, going through my old research reports I found my old report on Evolution of Computer and Computation", a report I had made a part of a particular high-level high-profile research. It was under wraps, and promptly forgotten - until I found it yesterday. I don't remember much but I do remember this one took weeks and weeks of collecting data from n-number of sources, cross-checking and authenticating each data point with as many data sources as possible. It was a tough one to do and highly acclaimed one. Unfortunately, I do not have the biblio of sources with me. The Excel file with the data (and perhaps biblio too) is locked and unfortunately, password is completely forgotten. I will update the raw data if I can access it.

A lot has been written and debated about Food Security Bill [FSB], here is my small and hopefully non-controversial take on it.  Why FSB? We got to first try understand, whats the motivations of this bill? Apart from the aspect of the timing, the bill is an harbinger of hope to eradicate hunger and starvation, which unfortunately for India even after six decades of independence, is a stark reality. The Bill will help provide subsidised food to about 2/3rds of the Indian population.  Its a lofty commendable goal but a wrong one. Not only is it wrong from the perspective of further weakening the resolve to completely and sustainably eradicate poverty, but it perpetuates the evils that a subsidised socialist state carries. And what most supporters seem to forget is simply the fact, attacking the symptioms will not cure the cause of the desease.  Attacking the symptoms FSB's very core of the reasoning is so errant and its extistence so lopsided, it doesn't even tackle the cor...

  Source: Nat Geo