Sunday Posts

In the middle of the ongoing economic chaos, many in India find solace in the hope that many manufacturing companies would now leave China and shift their factories to India. They enthusiastically share many stories about companies deciding to move out. While the COVID19 pandemic, still in its early stages in India, is stress-testing the Indian economy, India as the next global manufacturing hub is indeed the dream worth dreaming about. This is an old dream, however. This - 'Make in India' - was a campaign slogan in 2014 General Election. In fact, this has been the key economic strategy of the government of India, to elevate India into its next stage of economic development and reach the benefits of economic growth more widely than the service-led economy has achieved so far. It was presumed - then - that China had become too expensive for manufacturers and they would now move to cheaper locations, such as India. And, it was not wishful thinking: Manufacturers were indeed gradu...

Today I attended a seminar at Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment on India. The panel, which included Lord Meghnad Desai, the famous Economist from LSE, alongside Ian Gomes, Chairman of High Growth Markets division of KPMG, Ian McEvatt, Chairman of the Himalayan Fund and Eoin Treacy, Global Strategist from Fullermoney.com, was discussing whether the Indian growth story, faced with high inflation, slowing growth and political scandals, is more or less over.  This was a room full of bond traders and existing and potential investors, and the subject was whether investment in India is good value for money. The members of the panel were in agreement on certain issues. First, they all agreed that the Indian government's forecast of 8.4% GDP growth rate for next year is too optimistic, and it is likely to be in the range of 7 to 7.5%. Second, they were in agreement that India remains a good investment for the long term investor because of its strong domestic demand, a...

Science is the new dogma of our age. Of the industrial age. We have done brilliantly with science. We have battled nature and pushed the boundaries forward. We have changed the possibilities of human life, and also greatly extended it. All because of science, and the hundreds of thousands of people who have engaged in research and came up with answers hitherto unknown. We owe our existence, almost every minute of our life, to various scientific discoveries that led to this point. And, therefore, not reasonably, we believe in science. This faith is boundless, a dogma. Our world is based on simple principles: scientific is good, everything else is bad. In this setting, we must substitute our faith with science, because faith itself is non-scientific. So, we have Scientific Management, a set of processes and methods which can clock and chain human work. And, it is not just the bankers and businessmen who caught on the fad. We have Scientific Socialism, which dates back to the days of the ...

The West Bengal government, one run by the Communist Party of India [Marxist], is on its way out. Well, almost - they look almost as clueless as Gordon Brown. Their opponents, not exactly as smooth as David Cameron, are united and single-minded, and has the political momentum. Indeed, the West Bengal elections have one additional year compared to the British one, which is due by June 2010, but at the current state, one can't say whether the additional time at hand is an advantage or a liability. May be a liability, as everything is going wrong for the government. The administration has lost control over the party, and the latter is busy undoing whatever little credibility the government was trying to build by creating a momentum in terms of industrialization and job creation in the state. In the meantime, the opposition seems to be gaining brownie points just by watching the fun - by sitting in sidelines while Maoists take over a number of villages in the state and threaten the se...