Thursday, January 15, 2009

Disaster is waiting...be aware!!!


Indian corporate world has been shaken miserably with the unfolding of the Satyam misgovernment case.This has set inquires by government over the bank accounts of other major business houses in India. Let me tell you what Raju did recently is being done all around the corporate world but only thing is Satyam was involved in multiple frauds and due to this investors lost all his confidence on Satyam.

If these inquiries are carried on properly then be sure of big big defaulters ahead. And the bigger than the biggest is also among one of them,Mr. Mukesh Ambani. Recently he acquired more shares of RIL and his share in RIL rose to 49.03%. Now in last two years he has bought shares of his own company worth $12 Billion(Rs.570 billion). From where did he get this much money??? It certainly came from RIL only through some channels which were disclosed to SEBI but nobody said anything because of the respect which is attached with the name AMBANI.
If we look at the recent earnings of Mukesh Ambani we will find that he never earned anything near to 12 billion to buy these many shares of RIL.
Mr. Ambani has received only Rs. 500 million (USD 11 million) as salary
and commission from RIL, and dividend of Rs. 750 million (USD 16
million) from his shareholding in RIL in past 2 years.
It is the investors money that is being used to buy back the shares of RIL by Mr. Ambani, same that happened in the case of Satyam Computers.
Things doesn't seem to be going well for Indian Corporate giants.We hope Mukesh Ambani would not be next Raju or this will ruin the image of India's honchos which were very recently considered to be the poster boys of new vibrant India.

Indian Media:Irresponsible yet most effective

deccan

Media is supposed to be the mirror of the society. It builds the consensus of a nation over which that nation grows and develops in its culture, dynamism and intellect. But in recent years Indian Television media has put forward such a agnostic picture of themselves that I fail to understand the reason for those channels being aired and concept of media seems to be in doldrums. Democratic system of Indian Republic gave birth to a free and independent media but media has very recently downgraded itself to a new version and its not media, its Entertania(Entertainment+Media).INDIA'S FREE AND INDEPENDENT ENTERTANIA.

Recently I was in Noida discussing about Indian Media with a businessman named Sajeev Mathur. He told me about a incident which happened recently in Noida. He said that in a house in nearby sector there lived a family of three. Husband and Wife ,aging around 40, with their niece.There was some quarrel between this girl and her local guardian who were the people with whom she was living in Noida. Girl went to police station and filed a complaint against her local guardian charging the man, who was living there, of molestation and attempt to rape.This news some how reached to media people. They made their own judgement and showed the story on TV and declared those local guardians as convicts while police was yet to take action.Now these husband and wife,they were so ashamed and there ego so much hurt that they both committed suicide.Later, after police investigation it was found that husband wife were not the culprits rather it was the girl who used to go around with a boy and when guardians tried to resist her she used to get angry and often quarrel with them and one day she decided to take revenge.So she reported fake molestation charges to police.The two innocent died because they could not bear the desolate from the society. None of the media person ever came up for any kind of apology, showing height of irr esponsibleness. I was shocked after hearing this news. But now a days these shocks have become so common that every time you open a news channel they are ever ready to serve you with some new kind of shock. Mumbai terror attacks showed entirely new face of media. Media reporters are great actors too. They were posing themselves as they are more close to terrorist than the policemen who were fighting there. One of the reporter was lying on the floor and reporting in that posture only, while a policeman was standing beside them comfortably and a news reporter from some foreign news agency was reporting with all ease while standing. More respectful journalist like Barkha Dutt was pretending herself ,which was very easy for someone to understand, that those crocodile tears are not for the nation but for the TRP which is the first and last thing which matters the most to these media..

News channels have become combo pack channels containing a bit of other entertainment channels and these stuffs have nothing to do with any kind of news. These ENTERTANIA channels have done something to the viewers. They have divided them into two groups, one running away from such media and other group enjoying it. People in real search of news are moving towards more contemporary news style like online contents and blogs. But the thing of concern is that the media today is reeling under identity crisis...people have forgotten the role of media in shaping up the society and they think media channels to be a great time pass with every news being a breaking news.         

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Bailout word itself is depressing...it wont bring back the lost sentiments


World is rotating at its axis and economic world is rotating over bailout packages. Axis and bailout has analogy here, there subjects would end if they seize to exist. Americans have now become afraid of this word. Every time a bailout is announced it sends a signal to the world that there are another new defaulters in the market and this brings down the sentiments of the consumers further.
This is not the case in countries like India where bailout is being taken in good spirits. There is a reason for this difference in the way same word is being used today. When a bailout is announced in India its basically a economic stimulus package not the bailout like that in America where bailout is being given to save the big defaulters. Bailout of bankers like AIG,Citi and others had brought a depressing effect over the people. I am telling this story because in this grim situation US government should try to improve the sentiments of consumers more than anything else. Until the consumer spending kicks off again nothing is going to happen. Just bailing out the defaulters wont work.US is already reeling with the worst economic deficit in history totaling to staggering $1 Trillion which is almost equal to the entire GDP of India.With that kind of deficit what will happen if situation does not improve after these bailouts as it has been happening till date and government is in no position to bail out further because of low availability of dollar. Even if that does not happen and bail outs work for now, US will generate such a deficit that it will have horrendous impact over its reserves and dollar itself which would give other competing currencies to built their supremacy over dollar.I think this situation is now quite apparent to Mr. President elect too and that is why he recently said that bailing out is not the solution to the problem and they will have to devise some better plan. Hope his economic advisory team which has the best of the minds and experience of the world would soon come up with something which would bring in much needed confidence among the consumers.