Futile to Compare India with the West

India is a $1.4 trillion economy with a per capita income of $1000 odd. We tend to forget this when we crib about the facilities that the Government provides when we (read: a thin slice of the population with exposure to the West) compare our health facilities, roads, schools and welfare systems with those of Western countries like England, Germany, France and US. They are all $25000 odd or more per capita income economies. India is still way too behind.

Similarly, we fret and fume about the abysmal state of democratic institutions and the corrupt and squabbling politicians. But we are again comparing ourselves with countries which have a history of 200 to 300 years of democratic institutions and almost 100% literacy and single languages. India is still about 67% literate, has a maddening mix of cultures and languages with caste and religion thrown on top – a nightmare for governance.

It is good to be discontented and only this discontent will lead to progress but we need to accept the truth and realities too.

Anna's Movement

My post on Facebook on Anna on 23 Aug

Hi ! Can't support the movement because I think the method and the solution are wrong.

-Using Gandhian symbolisms like fasting,going to Rajghat,call for azaadi etc. for an action that is not Gandhian is manipulative.Gandhi fasted to repent or touch the conscience not to force.

- Right or wrong,good or bad,I as an ordinary citizen,have chosen MPs to frame laws - they are accountable to us. Anna's team does not hv the right to force an act on the rest.

-Dangerous precedent - signal to many that with a cause and some noisy support, they can armtwist.Too risky for a country with diverse agendas.

-Another body(an army of inspectors -Nilekeni) with such powers in India will be a worse version of legislature/judiciary/executive - corrupt & ineffective.Does not address fundmental issues of transparency,too much power with Govt etc.Cure worse than malady.

-Need to go to top experts for curing the cancer of corruption not quacks. All sensible voices who understand law,history and society etc. are apprehensive - people like Pratap Bhanu Mehta,newspaper editors,Harish Salve,Nilekeni and many more.

- The system is terribly rotten but need the right method and right solution (decentralisation,transparency etc) for lasting change.

Guilty Till Proved Innocent

Arushi Talwar’s case illustrates the abysmal level of public discourse in India.

The incompetence of almost all the institutions is the source. The wild proliferation of media, both TV and press, has positively worsened matters. The media picks up any insinuation and innuendo and has a tendency to make it a headline. The public laps it up.

In the Arushi murder case, the cops have done a thoroughly shoddy investigation, done u-turns on their conclusions, changed completely or selectively the reporting of key evidences. The trial court judgement flies in the face of common sense. The headlines in our media have picked up some incredible allegations and already pronounced the Talwars guilty. They have floated various theories around justifying the gory character of the Talwars.

In this environment, Open and Tehelka have done a yeoman service by publishing a different point of view. Their items are sensible, fact-based and coherent. It seems that anyone who studies the case closely believes that the Talwars are not guilty.

However, the bigger question is if the Talwars are not guility, who takes the responsibility for ruining their lives and in fact, they have suffered a punishment of unprecedented calumny and slander impossible for any human being to bear. Is it the CBI with its ineptness, the UP police with its crooked ways or the media with its only intent to sell? What punishment do they get?

Who is Surprised ? Corruption is Everywhere.

There is suddenly a lot of hullabaloo recently about corruption. It is as if a very honest society suddenly discovered that its ministers and politicians were corrupt and the civil servants and army were not completely above board.

On the contrary, it is obvious to anyone who has some understanding of the country that corruption permeates every aspect of life. The constable lets you off by taking fifty rupees, the provident fund clerks want money to disclose your own balance, the income tax officer takes money to release your returns and some schools want money under the table for a child’s admission. The engineers take money from the contractors, the doctors demand money from patients in government hospitals and the bank manager expects to be bribed for approving a loan. The more powerful bureaucrats and politicians dispense favours from their discretionary powers and plunder the state happily knowing that nothing is going to happen to them. They want free passes if you are holding events, premium plots if you are selling land and petty cash if you want their signature.

This is now part of the work fabric of the Indian officialdom. Barring honourable exceptions everyone knows this. This is an open secret. Yet in the public theatre of day to day life, this is discussed only when somebody is foolish enough to be exposed. In fact the ones who get caught are either stupid or too greedy. The savvy operators keep amassing wealth merrily and not leaving any evidence behind.

The much bandied amount of 1.76 lacs cr is only a notional figure. The money actually exchanged in the 2G saga may be chicken-feed compared to the systematic everyday loot by the various state players.

Record Diwali Sales

Diwali has been traditionally a time of splurging for Indian consumers and companies look forward to this period.Last two years were subdued with the cloud of Lehman hanging over.This year the sun sparkled like never before.Most businesses have had a bumper time.There have been unprecedented sales of consumer durables,gold,cars,apparel and even DTH connections.A DTH company executive,I spoke to,revealed that they had signed up 40% more connections over last year in one month.Value retailers like Vishal and premium appliances both have never had it so good.The article below from ET gives an idea of the buoyancy sweeping the market.

Diwali retail sales rocket to new highs, up almost 80%KOLKATA|NEW DELHI: Retailers, carmakers, jewellers and other consumer goods and services companies have reported highest Diwali season sales, as consumers went on a buying spree across the country except in Punjab, where floods dampened demand.

Companies reported year-on-year growth ranging from 20-80% this season and remain confident that the high demand will last, with consumer confidence expected to stay high on the back of rising incomes, positive economic forecasts, booming stock market, rising asset prices and a good monsoon.

“Diwali sales were the best ever,” said Rakesh Biyani, CEO-retail at Future Group , India’s largest retailer, which recorded more than 20% rise in footfalls and a more than 25% jump in average bill size. “Good times are here to stay,” he added.

Retailers reported about 25% jump in average bill size, as demand for premium products such as flat-panel televisions, double-door refrigerators, fully-automatic washing machines, home theatres, branded gold and diamond jewellery, fashion apparel, imported gifts and branded furniture soared with consumers upgrading their household items.

“The fear mindset of consumers has completely vanished. Consumers have splurged like there’s no end,” said Sanjay Gupta, marketing head of Spencer’s Retail, which reported a 20% jump in average bill size.

The auto industry sold about 50,000 cars during the Dhanteras-Diwali week, driving almost 4-5 times growth in sales.
Maruti Suzuki , which sells every second car in the country, drained its entire inventory to dealers during Diwali.
“We estimate that more than 15,000 Maruti cars were delivered on Dhanteras day alone across the country,” said Shashank Srivastava , chief general manager-marketing, Maruti Suzuki.

The company sold a record 1.08 lakh cars in the domestic market in October and expects sales to be even better in November. The maddening customer rush was also seen at two-wheeler showrooms across the country. Market leader Hero Honda’s all three factories have been working overtime to meet the unprecedented demand as sales in October rose 43% to cross five lakh units in a month for the first time.

A Hero Honda spokesman said sales were better than despatches. “Our retail sales have already crossed the 5,50,000 mark during the period between the first day of Navratras and Diwali,” he said. “The festive period is still on, and we hope to add more numbers to this tally in the next few days,” he added.

The mood in the market is so bullish that despite a 24% jump in gold prices since last Diwali, leading jewellers reported anywhere between 40-80% growth in sales this year. “Growth has come from the medium-value items to the high-value categories,” said Mehul Choksi, CMD of Gitanjali Gems that owns D’damas, Nakshatra, Gili and Sangini brands. He said the company’s sales were 70-80% more than last year. Gitanjali has reported sales of around Rs 450-500 crore this festive season.

Other leading jewellers like Orra and Tanishq also clocked 40-50% growth in sales. Orra CEO Vijay Jain said apart from necklaces and bangles, solitaire sales have gone up dramatically by over 60%. Solitaires are more than one carat diamonds and in the Rs 3.5-5 lakh price bracket.

At Orra, average bill size went up by 26%, while Tanishq saw it growing by over 20%. “We have seen growth happening across all categories, particularly in diamonds,” said Bhuwan Gaurav, marketing head at Tanishq.

Typically, the festive season accounts for 20% of the annual sales for jewellers. In consumer durables, Korean duo of LG and Samsung, which hold the lion’s share of the market, recorded more than 40% rise in festive sales. So did leading Indian brands such as Godrej and Videocon.

“Sales were highest in October this year. Even smaller towns showed high demand for some of the premium product categories,” said Ravinder Zutshi, deputy MD of Samsung India . Steep fall in prices helped a spike in demand for premium items such as LCD and Plasma TV, Blu-ray disc players, camcorders and home theatres.

YV Verma, chief operating officer of LG Electronics India , said the only dampener was Punjab, which recently faced an adverse economic situation due to the floods. Punjab is among the richer states in the country, with high consumer demand, particularly in the festive season. This year, floods affected demand in the state.

The direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television sector too increased its subscriber addition by almost one-third this Diwali season, mainly due to a fierce price war and aggressive marketing by all the six companies and partly helped by a boom in television sales.

With new DTH connections now costing less than Rs 1,000, some 14 lakh people took such connections in October, taking the total consumer base to three crore. “The sub-Rs 1,000 pricing led to breaking of psychological barriers for consumers,” said Salil Kapoor, COO at Dish TV , the market leader with some 8.8 million subscribers. In the first five days of November, the industry added another six lakh consumers.


(With inputs from Chanchal Pal Chauhan & Meenakshi Verma Ambwani)

Commonwealth Games 2010

CWG 2010 had its share of drama - bungled preparations,a redeeming opening,some excellent Indian performances and organised chaos that is typical of India.The media went from despair to euphoria and the usual target was Kalmadi.But 'Business Standard' possibly had the most balanced and objective take after the event.

Heads must roll

Games ended well, but all was not well. Business Standard / New Delhi October 18, 2010, 0:36 IST


India’s sportspersons have every reason to be proud of their performance at the 19th Commonwealth Games. While not too many world and Olympic records were broken, the impressive performance of Indian sportspersons, especially women, has done the nation proud. Kudos also to the organisers of the events and to Delhi police and security forces for their handling of security and traffic management. New Delhi was not the chaos many feared it would be. The opening and closing ceremonies were competently handled, even if the telecast was poor and the show failed to inspire, seeking merely to entertain. While the Games ended well, all was certainly not well with the organisation and those guilty of corruption, inefficiency and mismanagement should be punished. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did well not to waste time instituting a high-level enquiry by former Comptroller and Auditor General V K Shunglu. This is welcome activism on the part of the prime minister. Hopefully, it signals a new style. Dr Singh has been far too retiring in his ways in the first year of his second term. The nation would welcome a more assertive prime minister and a more energetic government.

To facilitate a fair enquiry, the ministers and officials whose role may come under scrutiny should be asked to step down till the enquiry is over. To begin with, Suresh Kalmadi should be asked to step down from all his current positions, including from the Indian Olympic Association. Whistleblower protection should be ensured to enable those in the know to depose before the commission of enquiry. The roll call of punishment must begin with former Union sports minister Mani Shankar Aiyar. He should be made to give up his seat in Parliament for the ignominy he has heaped on his government, his party and the country. Next, Union ministers M S Gill and Jaipal Reddy should resign from their present positions. Mr Gill’s improprieties, a former chief election commissioner joining a political party and becoming a minister, are many. His unacceptable behaviour towards sportspersons and his incompetent leadership at the ministry are adequate reasons for his retirement from public life. Mr Reddy too failed to deliver at the ministry of urban development. Then come three government functionaries — the Lt Governor of Delhi, the Union cabinet secretary and the principal secretary to the prime minister. All three failed in providing leadership even after they were specifically asked to step in and stem the rot and get things going. Most of the last-mile issues could have been avoided if these worthies had been more competent and provided better leadership in the six months preceding the Games. As for Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, the voters of Delhi will have to take a view at the appropriate time. She has argued that she was never empowered to be able to deliver. This is a fair defence. Delhi needs a clear line of command for it to function efficiently as a national Capital. The jury is out on her culpability. But all the other heads must roll.

The Crisis Knocking on Our Door

The Indian society is in a crisis – a deep and pervasive moral crisis. For a very religious country, where the average individual spends an hour in propitiating Gods or listening to assorted Gurus on good conduct, this would be funny if it were not so tragic.

The Indian society has three types of people. The bureaucratic, political and business establishment which indulges in unabashed loot of the exchequer and public resources is the first type. The second group is the self-absorbed who cocoon themselves in their own worlds and ignore everything outside .The last is the silent but frustrated sufferers -this is the group which may be seventy per cent of the population which bears the full brunt of exploitation and relative inequality widening away as the elite plunder or cynically manipulate rules and the law. This group lives on less than ten thousand rupees of monthly income for the household and in many cases does not have enough to eat or has very limited or no access to medical facilities or education. This group generates the Naxalites and the stone-throwers in Kashmir.

The corruption is not new but with the Government’s coffers being full from years of economic growth, the scale and the amounts being siphoned off are large. Land is another asset class which is up for grabs.

Pritish Nandy has written an impassioned piece about the psychological devastations that corruption can bring and Sudeshna Sen, in ET, writes about the prevalent social mood with acute insight.

A father who failed Pritish Nandy
14 September 2010, 10:51 AM IST

Parenthood is fascinating. You live through excitement, joy, guilt, worry, hope, concern in quick succession and before you know it your children have grown up into young adults who have a life of their own. That’s when you try to quietly assess how good you were as a father and whether you quite measured up to the standards your parents set.

We were a middle class family. My father taught in Hislop College, Nagpur and then moved to Kolkata. My mother wanted to support his meagre earnings and started teaching Bengali in La Martiniere. That’s how I studied there at a subsidised fee. Much of what I am today is what they taught me to be but it has taken me a long time to acknowledge it. Meanwhile, my father went away, where all fathers go, 32 years ago, strapped to a hospital bed in an unfamiliar city. It was a simple surgery but the doctor messed it up. I never got to say goodbye to him because he was in coma when I reached.

My mother, a fiercely independent woman, loved Kolkata and the tiny rented flat where she lived with my father. Circumstances forced her to come to Mumbai to become a reluctant member of my family. Though she died with her head on my lap at 92, I couldn’t say goodbye to her either because her mind had wandered away many years ago to where my father was. The doctor called it Alzheimer’s.

My children have grown up and though I never gave them enough time, I tried to pass on to them all I had learnt. I also taught them the little things I had picked up on the way: How to write, think, create, savour the joys of discovering new things every day and add them to your life. I taught them that habit is tiresome. Life is this great adventure where you experience different things every day. Some beautiful. Some dangerous. Some sad and disappointing. You learn from each. Their grounding was done by their mothers and, in one case, by my own mother. I only added the magic to it. Or so I would like to believe, like all fathers.

Parenthood was never a chore for me and I often argued with my wife because she thought so. After all, she washed the nappies. She saw them off to school. She helped with homework. She went to school concerts and she attended the parent teacher meets. She had good reason to complain. I had all the fun with them and, according to her, spoilt them silly. It was an unfair deal but life dealt it that way and we all went along. But now, after so many years, I feel I did it all wrong. Everything I taught my children has, in effect, handicapped them. It has made them inadequate to face the world they are in. Unfortunately I knew no better. But that does not absolve me from my sense of guilt.

Every day, as a new scam breaks out in sports, politics, business, healthcare, in the army or in education, I watch their disappointment. The nation I taught them to love, respect and defend as they would their own mother has become the biggest breeding ground for rogues, rascals, thieves and thugs. The cricket they were so passionate about is now run by betting syndicates. The city we once adored is now owned by builders, criminals, extortionists, and politicians who are often all three. My own achievements and awards look like an embarrassment today because most of these are now on sale. People we once looked down on for their lack of scruples are the new icons in a world where all art, music, sport, in fact all achievement is measured in terms of who earns how much, a fact that’s gleefully plastered across all media. And here, I brought up my children never to talk money because it’s in bad taste!

What we once shunned is now admired. What we once disapproved are now the ideals of a new society being built on the premise that whatever makes money is good. We are back to Gordon Gekko. He is the God we have rediscovered. Wealth is the new measure of a person’s place in society. Success is measured by earnings. India is rated by its GDP growth and how the stock market’s faring. This leaves behind 90% of Indians to fend for themselves in a world they were never trained to cope with. They can’t fudge marks to get into college. They can’t cheat people to get ahead on their jobs. They can’t fix deals to become rich and famous. They can’t even cope with the new morality because foolish, idealistic parents like you and I didn’t teach them what they needed to know to get by in today’s world. We have let them loose, with no survival skills, in a bazaar where everything’s up for sale, from mangroves to body parts. How do we blame our kids when they rebel against us?

Letters from London It’s broken society everywhere!
Sudeshna Sen Monday September 13, 2010, 09:49 AM

“ Madam yahan pe subko tension hai. Koi khush nahin hai,” my auto driver tells me voluntarily. A few weeks ago, when an old friend told me that Mumbai is gone down the drain, there’s too much anger and conflict, in a pub off Piccadilly, I put it down to the usual middle class whingeing.


Somehow, I’m beginning to believe him. Okay, so Mumbai ain’t India. I know that as well as Rahul Gandhi does. London ain’t Newcastle, either. However, it is held up as this shining example of the new, growing, wannabe global power that India wants to be, the story Indian corporates, politicians, dignitaries and I are always telling westerners. And okay, I’m here in the middle of the rains, everyone’s grumpy.


Still, as usual, it’s the cabbies and auto-wallahs who have their hand on the pulse of a place. I dunno what it’s like in Delhi or Bangalore, but if I had to identify a single strand that stands out on this visit, it’s that I see absolutely no sign, on the ground, among the rich or the poor or middle class of this alleged prosperity we write about. All I see is almost hysterical greed and ambition, frustration , and increasing polarisation between different sections of the population.


Everyone’s not just unhappy, they’re living in a state of permanent anger, angst and stress. The polarisation between the haves and have-nots is beginning to burst out of its seams. So this is anecdotal. But in just one week, I’ve heard of at least three cases of randomised violence and armed attacks in the streets of Mumbai, in broad daylight. And this used to be a place a woman could travel alone at midnight. I don’t have the crime statistics, but I bet they’re stratospheric.


There’s an epidemic of dengue, malaria, and god knows what else, diseases that were eradicated 20 years ago which is killing off both the rich and the poor without discrimination. Neither the public health authorities, nor the medical and healthcare system is able to cope in any way. More on that next time.


Customer services, something I always claimed was way better in India than in London, is deteriorating to, as someone told me, ‘third world levels like where you live’ . Take telecoms, an example we use globally to show off India’s homegrown business success. ‘India’s telecoms industry can show the world how to do business,’ we tell the world. Now, that bane of the developed world., “please hold on, your call is important to us” , that too in an American accent, has arrived here with a vengeance. I didn’t realise that there’s a shortage of people in India, so everything has to be automated to total incompetence.


The rip-off culture has arrived too. Whether its clothes, property, eating out, movies , or basics, the prices are off the wall, even by sterling standards. The value for money culture, which gave the world the concept of sachets, something we again tell western corporations to learn from us, has given way to outrageous pricing. After all somebody is willing to be ripped off to assuage their wannabe aspirations.


Kids, no wonder they keep killing themselves at exam time, are under inhuman pressure to compete, succeed, and then what? Live a life of even more stress.


In the business sector, I thought, people should be fine. After all, those delicious growth and profit rates, all those economic indicators. But no. Everyone I meet is frustrated to killing point, working 18-hour days, hating every minute of it, but unable to get off the corporate treadmill. Of being seen as ‘successful’ . In one era, we Indians had to struggle for basic survival. Now, everyone has to struggle even harder to live with alleged prosperity.


The worst thing is, nobody seems to care. When I ask these questions, it’s met with a shrug. The middle class has too many problems of its own to be bothered about the poor, the poor are getting angrier and desperate, the rich, as always, don’t care. For a while now, ‘feel-good’ has been the holy grail of media and establishment. It’s almost a national conspiracy, let’s ignore the warts and bad things, focus only on those glitzy nightclubs and idolise success. I live in a society at the other end of the rainbow, where success is looked on with deep suspicion. Where the perils of affluence have turned full circle and come back to bite those societies in the tail so badly, that David Cameron had to coin a concept for it. ‘Broken Britain,’ he called it. You can argue with him, but he’s right. British society is pretty much broken, socially and economically.


‘Broken society’ is the only word that comes to mind to describe what I see around me, already and not after half a century. Okay, inclusive growth is a buzzword, but most people think it happens somewhere to tribals in Orissa. It’s happening right here, in the mega-cities that are supposed to lead the charge that will make India a world superpower.


What, exactly, is the purpose of all this economic growth if people are going to die of primitive diseases, and struggle even harder than previous generations did to survive? No politician or government can fix it. They tried that option in Britain , and look where it got them. It’s high time we stopped blindly celebrating success, and paid attention to what’s happening to people’s lives, and our society.

Inflation and the Case for FDI in Retail

As the debate opens up again for FDI in retail, it is interesting to examine the contours of the issue.

As things go,only 51% investment is allowed in single brand retail and 100% is allowed in wholesale operations.Almost no one, not even the opponents of FDI have any argument against the economic benefits of FDI. The reasons are political. The ICRIER in its report had strongly and staunchly enunciated the benefits of FDI and the fact that it has had manageable adverse impacts in emerging countries. The reasons for opposition are political and it is good fodder for the press.

But the question is can any country manage without a large organized retail and can any emerging country do it without FDI?

The Government has woken up to the fact that inflation is a monster that can be tackled only by efficiency and productivity. With the world economy likely to remain vulnerable for some time, sustaining fiscal deficits is not the answer. The Indian interest rates are also high enough to make the economy uncompetitive. A key source of inflation in India is the wastages and inefficiencies between the farm and the fork.

The story of FDI in the world economy makes for some astonishing reading. The world annual GDP is around $67 tr and the total FDI in the world is $ 16 tr.USA has cumulative FDI of $ 2.3 tr and UK and France have more than $1 tr FDI. The FDI in China is close to 800bn and even Srilanka has $250bn. India’s cumulative aggregate FDI in all sectors is barely $150 bn and we keep raising enough hue and cry to ensure that each additional billion is fiercely resisted. The single brand FDI in retail till Sept 09 is barely $48mn.

The following extract from a GOI site mentions retail along with gambling and lottery where FDI is not allowed.

The extant policy does not permit FDI in the following cases:

i. Gambling and betting
ii. Lottery Business
iii. Atomic Energy
iv. Retail Trading
v. Agricultural or plantation activities of Agriculture (excluding Floriculture, Horticulture, Development of Seeds, Animal Husbandry, Pisiculture and Cultivation of Vegetables, Mushrooms etc., under controlled conditions and services related to agro and allied sectors) and Plantations (other than Tea Plantations)

For a 20% slice of the $450bn total retail market, we need to invest $15 to $20 bn and it is in the country’s interest to allow this for unleashing a cascading effect on the retail sector, inflation management and the economy.

Roots of Denial

In a recent discussion on TV after Mamata’s triumph in the municipal elections, the Trinamool spokesman Deerk O’Brien kept on saying to several points the CPM spokesman raised that the communist were living in denial. We see denial every time when seemingly intelligent people refuse to see the truth. The latest scientific studies suggest that denial has its origins in power play and emotions.

1. Most denialists deny anything that they cannot see. Their vested interest survive because of this denial. For example, the society has denied global warming (as long as it did not see it directly),keeps denying evolution and earlier denied harmful effects of smoking. These denials serve to perpetuate the old mindsets preserving established interests.

2. Most denials are based on emotions and anecdotal evidence. So there is no rational study or assessment of evidence but the mere occurrence of event is touted as causality. Human beings also tend to react to emotions and thus it is fertile ground to deny the truth if it happens to elicit the right emotions. We also tend to feel safe in the stability of regular thinking.

3. Most denialists also suffer from ‘paranoid personality disorders’ with anger, intolerance and a sense of disproportionate self-importance. Their distorted sense of reality brooks no opposition.
However denials in the face of evidence extract terrible prices. Bengal is a classic example where the party doctrines have not changed and a once proud and prosperous state has gone into serious decline blighting the lives of millions. The denial of the hazards of smoking destroyed millions of lives again. It was first proved in 1951 that smoking can cause cancer and only in the 1990s, it became part of the mainstream thought.

Artificial Life

Dr. Craig Venter, Dr.Hamilton and their team have achieved something which will profoundly alter human life. This is arguably one of the most important milestones ever in human history. They have created a piece of DNA with about 1000 genes with laboratory chemicals. This is artificial, conceived through a computer programme and this organism can replicate on its own.

There is exciting research in biology happening in several other laboratories and this breakthrough will only accelerate the process of creating synthetic living organisms. A day when artificial large animals can be created may not be very far. This also challenges our conventional notions of life and religion.


The experiments on recreating ‘Big Bang’ in Geneva are also likely to unravel the mysteries about the origins of the universe. That will be another giant step for science and make our understanding and interpretation of life more complete.


But the most fascinating thing in this is the fact that Man, a product of evolution, has reached a stage where it is able to understand the complexity behind its own creation and will be soon able to replicate its own evolution in some way !

Lessons from HDFC and Bharti for Retailers

The beleaguered retail sector in India needs to look no further than the story of mobile telephony and housing finance for inspiration. India’s retail sector is still listless and its people frightened even after several industries have revived and the economy sizzles back to a 8.5% plus growth rate.

HDFC started in 1977-78 when the concept of housing finance was well-established in western countries but barely understood in India. It found it difficult to raise funds, had a disastrous IPO and lost money for a few years. The share quoted below the offer price for a long time. But it stayed on in the game and slowly the tide turned, first due to the underlying demand and then the liberalization in the financial sector. Today, it has a balance sheet size of more than two lac crores with its housing finance, mutual funds, insurance and banking businesses.

Bharti had difficult initial years, there were losses but it persisted. In just more than a decade of being in the game, it is a true success. It is highly profitable, a top employer, large and now setting out with global ambitions. Out of the twenty-five players who entered telecom, only three have survived.

Both these companies focused on a simple formula for success in new industries – vision, people and continuous learning. Survival in the new sectors also needs robust strategic thinking by the promoters or the top management.

The retail players can look at these giants and use the lessons effectively.

Great Stories in Time 100

The ‘Time 100’ for all its American slant and shortcomings always manages to showcase some extraordinary people. The current list has legends like Oprah, Bill Clinton, Obama, Jobs and Elton John who have exercised enormous influence on millions.

It also features the Brazilian President Lula, who started working after fifth grade to support his family, worked as a shoeshine boy, lost part of his finger in a factory accident and then at 25 watched his wife Maria and child die during pregnancy. Now he steers Brazil to a new high. Judge Sonia Sotomayor was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at 8, lost her factory worker father at 9 and with her trail blazing work has now been nominated to the US Supreme Court as an associate justice, the third woman in history and the first Latin American.

Fifty years ago, nobody gave Singapore a chance to survive and almost single-handedly, Lee Kuan Yew has transformed it to a leading city-state. Kissinger calls him the finest strategist in the world.

Elon Musk, 38 and born in South African is in the Da Vinci mould. He has designed and/or founded PayPal, Tesla (electric cars), and Space X (now with a contract for NASA’s outer space transport) and is the largest provider of solar power systems in the US. Truly, extraordinary.

With nine in the list, the Indians seem over -represented. Chetan Bhagat is a curious choice. Some like Namperumalsamy and Sanjit Roy, despite sterling work, are yet to be widely acknowledged in India. Manmohan Singh, Amartya Sen and Tendulkar continue to shine.

Indian Tamasha League(ITL)

Periodically, the Indian public is treated to some sumptuous plays in the theatre of its public life. The stage is the media. There is a new and exciting play in town.

It is called IPL. It is a definite blockbuster. The story is fast-paced and interesting with dramatic twists. The dramatis personae are a motley lot. There is a suave minister with an attractive lover. There is someone with a doubtful background who has managed to create an extraordinary brand but with opaque deals. There is the ruling party, its ally and the assorted opposition.

The opening salvoes in the play were fired on twitter and then there is a slanging match between the opponents. The other players like the opposition, the Government enter the arena quickly after three days and all hell breaks loose. The first protagonist is sacrificed and his erstwhile camp commences a barrage of attacks against the second protagonist. The play is now in full swing with the IT department, the Enforcement Directorate, BCCI, Shilpa Shetty, Poorna Patel and key actors from the Government. The end is unclear but the story holds attention.

This has been spectacular entertainment for the public with heated debates; TV channels have seen higher TRPs. The mix of sleaze, money, glamour, fights, intrigues has been a heady cocktail of a plotline.

We have seen many plays like before –Bofors, Madhu Koda, Jayalalitha etc but IPL is the hit of the year. And like all good plays this will also see high billings and leave some psychological impact on the public.

But we have to remember that it is a play and nothing else. Nothing will change or happen.

Hockey in India

The World cup Hockey has given a great fillip to the sport in India. The average sports lover discovered that Hockey is alive and can be exciting. The slightly more evolved sports fan got an opportunity to see truly outstanding Hockey.

The threats by Al Qaida were psychological deterrents in the early part of the tournament. But as the tournament progressed, we saw enthusiasm picking up and the crowds in the stadium were as vociferous as possible even when India was not playing. For some inexplicable reason,Germany was a particular favourite of the crowd. In the stadium, I heard ecstatic cries of ‘Deutschland’ whenever Germany touched the ball in their matches.

The Australians were fast and skilful. The Germans displayed tremendous organization. The Brits were the surprise package. The Dutch showed power and excellent long-range passing Hockey.

The Indians played Hockey with excellent dribbling in patches. But the lack of consistency and weak technical skills did not enable them to progress to the last four. Nevertheless it was a creditable performance from the Indians.

The kids enjoyed it thoroughly and for once Hockey and not Man U became the topic of conversation for most kids. The newspapers devoted two pages everyday to the matches but on 12th when IPL started, and the tournament had reached the climax with the last four stages, I found Hockey relegated to a barely noticeable part of the sports page.

The Second Half of Life

The excessive length of life is a phenomenon of the last hundred years. In the early twentieth century, the life expectancy of an American was around 45 years. In 2007, it was 78 years. The life expectancy of the average Japanese is 82.6 years. Today, only a handful of African countries beset by poor health services and AIDS have life expectancies of below 50.

This throws up peculiar challenges for human beings. The concept of retirement at 58 was developed when life expectancies were around 65 to 70.Now many people are left with a substantial part of their life after retirement.

Many lose their bearings once they stop working and deteriorate both physically and mentally. Indians turn to spirituality. But this is not the answer.

It was Drucker who explained that after even two decades of doing the same work, many retire on the job,much earlier than the official retirement age. With empty nests and no satisfaction from work they also find their lives meaningless. But there are people who plan their second lives.They are in a minority and will become role-models and leaders.

The second life can be of social entrepreneurship, advisory roles or community service -essentially a passion or purposeful work . But the prerequisite to a second life is starting early and taking the small, initial steps around 35.

Management Skills and Indians

In a recent alumni meet of the engineering college that I studied in(NIT, Rourkela),we had organized a talks by alumni and external speakers. The gathering was given a jolt by Anand Pillai of HCL ( a brilliant speaker) who spoke on talent transformation.

First, his earnest call to make the degrees come with an expiry date made everyone sit up. I agree with him. Peter Drucker had a point to make on this – he said that knowledge is different from other resources because it dissipates and becomes irrelevant soon. The turbulent times that we live in ensure that the really important knowledge becomes outdated faster with rapid advances in understanding .So degrees received twenty to thirty years are probably useless from a current relevance point of view. We see this in our organizations when very senior people talk in a language that nobody else understands.

Second, Anand also mentioned that a recent Gartner research has shown major drawbacks in the Indian technical and managerial talent emanating from our cultural and educational conditioning. The top rated management skills for transformational leadership are initiative, decision-making efficiency (not accuracy) and willingness to take appropriate risks. Indians have high technical skills but register the highest gaps in the most-desired leadership skills.

Regional Poetry in India - Sparkling

The regional poetry In India is sparkling with talent and some of the sharpest voices are from women.They are breaking barriers. They speak with irony,insight and courage. Here are samples from two of them – both young and original.

Salma/Tamil
When I pull him close
And fondly nuzzle his hair,
He flinches from the touch Of my breasts and moves away
Forgetting that they had once
Processed my blood to feed his hunger
When I reach with my hand
To run my fingers through his hair —Tendrils upright like reeds on a riverbank —He pushes it away, and moves on.

Sunanda Das/Orissa/Oriya
How is it possible ?
Everything smells of your body.
Detergents have no use.
However so much as I scrub,
The odour remains.
What do I do?
How do I escape ?
I am not able to lift
My little finger.
I can do nothing
Except lie down with eyes closed
And long for that fragrance.

Organised Retail Is Getting Back

Organised retail is getting its bearings back. The astronomical rentals are down. The frenetic increases in wages are a thing of the past. The supply chain and its evils/blessings are the focus of many retailers.

Many new entrants are close to store breakeven. The mall operators are more careful in planning and design. Most important of all, the customers have slowly and imperceptibly started realizing the value of modern retail – clean dealings, convenience and a good environment to shop. The problems of the store staff apathy remain but like in evolution, the customers have begun adapting to this.

Arvind Singhal published an interesting article two weeks back in Business Standard. The malls in Saket in South Delhi have taken away customers from South Ex and GK1-just last year amongst the priciest markets in the world. The productivity in these south Delhi traditional markets is down by close to fifty per cent. It was virtually impossible to imagine this and no retailer in his senses would have dared to predict that it will happen so soon. The malls have managed to do it with the right value proposition and delivery.

Even if things are still perceived as bad, I think twenty to thirty per cent growth for more two years in a row have also made things dramatically different.

Billions of Stars and Us

There are an estimated 140 billions of galaxies, many of them bigger than the Milky way. Each galaxy has probably hundred to four hundred billion stars. The Earth happens to be one planet in one ordinary star. The earth has millions of creatures. And the universe has been in existence for about 13.7 billion years.

Yet we think we are important. We think we have been specially created by an omniscient and omnipotent God who has sent us to this world with a special sense of purpose. He also keeps an eye on all our actions and thoughts and more interestingly he has a special interest in our kitchens and what we eat on specific days. He cares if we violate the customs defined in some old text. He cares if do not bathe and enter his abode: the temple. He loves fruits and sweets and is indifferent to vegetables.

Organised religion is curious to say the least.

Biases

Like most other races, Indians have plenty of biases. We have biases against people from other religions – it is very rare to meet a Hindu who is completely open and does not see Muslims with some bit of suspicion. Many of us treat people from North East as strangers. The white-skinned have always tended to see the dark complexioned as inferior. In many parts of the country, there are caste discriminations. There are stereotypes about communities, gender and age.

That is why it is so silly to see cases filed against Emran Hashmi for saying that he has been refused houses because he is a Muslim. It is completely hypocritical to profess otherwise. He has just stated the truth he has experienced. Many of us know that such instances are common.

We need to confront the ugly realities of our society and eliminate them rather than hide behind legal and political obfuscation.