Category: Uncategorized

Economy to grow 6 % ? Are we fooling ourselves !


Car sales in India slumped 25.7 percent in February, the biggest fall in more than 12 years and the fourth consecutive monthly slide, an industry body said on Monday, as sluggish economic growth continues to weigh on demand.

The industry is expected to see it first decline in annual sales in a decade as high interest rates and rising fuel costs in Asia’s third-largest economy put off buyers in a market that was once one of the world’s most promising.

Automakers sold 158,513 cars in India last month, data from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) showed. Car sales are down 4.6 percent for the first 11 months of the fiscal year ending in March, it said.

“There is no improvement in the market sentiment. People have more or less stopped discretionary purchases,” Sugato Sen, deputy director general of SIAM told Reuters.

“This has really impacted the bottom of the pyramid, people who buy the smaller cars,” he said, referring to the slowing economy that is expected to grow 5 percent, a decade low. “That is getting reflected in the numbers.”

http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/03/11/india-autos-cars-idINDEE92A04R20130311

Our Finance Minister is now doing road shows in Hong Kong, Japan etc to attract investors ….. If the Finance Minister of India has to take to road shows, Indian economy is entering a ‘No show’ time ……

This is what i have been writing for the past one year ……..Wake up call for our ‘Learned Handicapped’ Politicians, who are disconnected from the ground realities

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

http://www.commonmansblog.com

Budget 2013-14


I am not an economist , so in case, my predictions go wrong ( so far, i have not been wrong on a single occasion ), i do have an option to take refuge in my lack of educational qualifications in the Economic theory unlike the proficient doctors of economics do at PM’s office , Planning Commission & the Finance ministry …..

My belief is that in 2013-14;

1. This Government will struggle to revive growth

2. Inflation ‘might’ ( 50 % chances ) come down a bit , as consumption story of India will go down

3. Manufacturing sector will slow down

4. Fiscal deficit will increase, and might create a balance of payments problem , or the Government will open more avenues for FDI ( or bend to the demands of the industrialists )

5. Tax collections will go down

6. Divestment target will not be met under the current situation unless some more ‘targets’ are divested

7. India might face a ‘security threat’ before the next elections

8. Investor confidence cannot be revived due to ‘Governance deficit’ and ‘Scamful’ Government at the centre .

Also, you can expect this Government to come out with injecting ‘Oxytocin’ in the economy as mentioned in my earlier blog ….. but this will be a short-term story, and will further dent the strength of the economy

Overall, not a good omen for job seekers and this nation . Hopefully, this will be the last budget for Congress

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

http://www.commonmansblog.com

Auction of Spectrum fails


Auction of Spectrum fails

The attempt of the UPA Government to raise Rs. 40,000 cr via spectrum auction failed  . I had written in detail in October 2012 about the same …… The UPA’s failure is becoming so predictable now ………even for a layman like me !

Read in the link pasted above how the Government has killed the Telecom sector 

Making Delhi safer


Delhi has an area of 1483 Sq. kms and a population of 1.9 Crore, and there are 75169 police men including 5356 women cops . So how can Delhi be made safer ?

So there are 50.68 policemen for each square KM. To me, this appears to be a good number per Sq. km.

Delhi has 149 police stations .

So , if we need to make Delhi secure . We might not need to add more police force just focus on deployment .

There are 617 PCR vans , but out of them 74 are off duty or dysfunctional . So, effective number of PCR vans are 543 . So ,  one Van for every 2.4 KM ( 2.7 KM , if we take out the dysfunctional vans  ) …

So, in a real sense , the Delhi state is not insecure for want of more force , but needs a more ‘effective force’.. I believe, the police personnel are so grossly involved in ‘making money’ , and getting ‘lucrative postings’ and then trying to make good the investment  , that they are not interested in security of the residents in Delhi at all. They are just ‘reactive’ and not a ‘proactive’ police .

I would recommend cutting the police force by 50 % , and increasing the salaries by 50 %,  and getting tough on corruption within  the force would make the things change . Also, we need ‘surveillance’ for politicians and the Delhi police need not provide security to them ,  and their ‘party workers’ should safe guard their leaders and not the police force . Though , the police could train the party workers for the security duty .

Also, each police station should not be having more than 10 police personnel at any point in time including 2 female police personnel

Roping in civil police volunteers with proper back ground check will do the trick of proving more timely action .

Also, FIR’s should be recorded over SMS / online , to avoid the cases of police not registering FIR’s at all . The format for FIR should be available to the public with basis information

Time to think radical to bring about the change

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

www.commonmansblog.com

Financially, India is nearing a melt down


Indian rupee has depreciated more than 20 % against the dollar and nearly 50 % against the Chinese renminbi. Household savings , as a percentage of GDP , have plummeted to a 21 year low……..IIP numbers ,automobile sales & agriculture production are telling the sad story of how upper , middle and lower class are getting into this negative spiral 

Worse could happen , if Pakistan or China ups the military action seeing the financial problems of India ?

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

http://www.commonmansblog.com

Oxytocin injection and UPA’s financial policies make a perfect analogy


 Indian milkman uses oxytocin injection twice a day to extract milk from his cattle.

Greedy dairymen inject cattle with veterinary Oxytocin to produce more milk. It is used to force the cow to give milk even after severe beatings and stress. However, it destroys the cow’s reproductive system and she goes dry in just 3 years. She is then abandoned.

A substantial part of the oxytocin injected into the cow seeps into the milk. It is very harmful for humans who unwittingly are made to consume an artificially created hormone. Humans face all the harmful effects of this drug. Children are most susceptible to its effects (it is known to have caused imbalanced hearing and weak eyesight). Common symptoms are exhaustion and loss of energy. Expecting mothers should avoid milk that may have been adulterated with oxytocin because:

– Oxytocin increases the risk of post-partum hemorrhage

– Individual women may be hypersensitive to oxytocin and it can inhibit breastfeeding.

– Oxytocin seriously affects the growth of hormones, especially in females, because of which minor girls attain early puberty.

Oxytocin is also found in phenomenal proportions in beef and other meat. Over 75% of all beef are known to have high and dangerous level of oxytocin content.

The Government of India has acknowledged the negative effects of oxytocin and has declared it as a scheduled substance.

But why I am trying to teach you veterinary science?  You must know that FDI in retail, or selling the stakes in Public sector units ( PSU’s ), the one time sale of spectrum, reducing CRR & Chidambaram’s budget are nothing but a dose of ‘Oxytocin’ to our ‘Gau maa’ – Mother India.  We will, for sure, temporarily increase the GDP & show some growth in GDP, but the long-term impact would be painful to our economy. Hope good sense will prevail and we will find ‘sustainable models for rural income and consumption’ & focus on sustainable rural economic model to avoid an overdose of Oxytocin for our economy, which will kill it forever…

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

www.commonmansblog.com