Let’s all share

But for a minor glitch, it could well be one of the best explained, best researched Sebi orders. Released late Thursday evening, this 94,473-word, 252-page order, that attempts to bring credibility and confidence in the capital markets, seeks to track down market and policy manipulators in the IPO sub-sector and hopes to deliver “demonstrative regulatory action”. Unfortunately, since under law all culprits have to be treated alike, the demonstrative impact may be shaved off when some depository and scam participants who have been prevented from dealing in the securities market appeal, the noises of which have already begun.

Opinion in The Indian Express, April 28, 2006

Fasten your seat belts

Having transited, duty-freed, coffeed, magazined, escalated, trolleyed, parked, taxied in 19 airports across 15 countries, excluding India, I can say with as much conviction as the family across the aisle that Indian airports suck. Just what are our benchmarks, the sheds of Addis Ababa, Kano, Islamabad? Why not the passenger traffic of Atlanta or Beijing, the cargo passage of Memphis or Hong Kong, the duty-free delights of Bahrain International Airport, the country window of the upcoming Suvarnabhumi Airport (Bangkok) and the smell of Starbucks at any international airport worth its airstrip? Not only in India, but across the globe, this humble hub of air travel, the airport, is the Big Story, binding cities and countries, investors and businesses, travellers and workers. Airports affect not just us consumers, but also employees, consultants, customs, immigration, regulators.

Opinion in The Indian Express, April 25, 2006

Fasten your seat belts

Having transited, duty-freed, coffeed, magazined, escalated, trolleyed, parked, taxied in 19 airports across 15 countries, excluding India, I can say with as much conviction as the family across the aisle that Indian airports suck. Just what are our benchmarks, the sheds of Addis Ababa, Kano, Islamabad? Why not the passenger traffic of Atlanta or Beijing, the cargo passage of Memphis or Hong Kong, the duty-free delights of Bahrain International Airport, the country window of the upcoming Suvarnabhumi Airport (Bangkok) and the smell of Starbucks at any international airport worth its airstrip? Not only in India, but across the globe, this humble hub of air travel, the airport, is the Big Story, binding cities and countries, investors and businesses, travellers and workers. Airports affect not just us consumers, but also employees, consultants, customs, immigration, regulators.

Opinion in The Indian Express, April 25, 2006

Why IPOs must not be rated

We have enough problems with the way stocks in general and IPOs in particular are seen and devoured by retail investors. Almost like fast moving consumer goods, IPOs have over the past two years been consumed at the speed of thought — a company only has to announce its IPO plan and it dreams of 100 per cent plus returns for Rs 1 lakh minus investors. The money pours in, the issue gets oversubscribed, and while listing gains have narrowed down and in some cases even fallen, the trend so far has been positive in a market that raised Rs 10,808 crore (45 per cent of all the money raised in the primary market) last year.

Opinion in The Indian Express, April 18, 2006

Market and mayhem in Meerut

The footage on TV and pictures in papers brought me head on with a past I had left 16 years behind. The same city. The same fire. The same bodies. The same mortuary. The flames claimed anything between 50 and 100 lives. Sixteen years ago, the extent of the inferno was larger, though the bodies were fewer. I had walked the brick-littered streets then; I walked this time on TV. If the Meerut riots on the 1991 election eve were a harsh slap that woke me up from my school-college, carefree-living slumber and introduced the real world, the Victoria Park fire is bringing to life memories of an India that lies beyond the metro malls. If election violence put me off political reporting, yesterday’s fire is a reminder that I can run but I can’t hide.

Opinion in The Indian Express, April 11, 2006

Today’s PEs, tomorrow’s profits

Beginning next week, corporate results will start streaming in, giving strength to a market that has almost quadrupled over the past three years --- from under 3,000 in April 2003 to over 11,700 today. If a person had invested Rs 1 lakh in the Sensex in 1979, when the index was conceived (it came into force in 1986, but with 1979 as its base), he would be sitting on more than Rs 1 crore today. Which means a return of over 19 per cent per annum.

Opinion in The Indian Express, April 05, 2006

Driving a turnaround

It’s difficult to even imagine, leave alone believe, that the Indian Railways, a Rs 54,700 crore giant, lumbering since 1996, has turned around over the past two years. What turnaround? The stations suck, the trains stink and let’s not even begin to talk about service. Yes, it’s difficult to visualise this turnaround. But if that’s difficult, let me increase the degree of difficulty --- the turnaround has been, and is being, driven by Lalu Prasad, the man accused of driving Bihar aground, single-handedly.

Opinion in The Indian Express, April 05, 2006

On track

A Rs 54,700 crore giant can’t rise up and compete, get customer focussed, generate record-breaking surpluses. An organisation whose costs increase at Rs 5,000 crore per annum, irrespective of whatever else it does, cannot turn around. An institution that has been diagnosed by economists as being in a “terminal debt trap” can’t be reformed. A state-controlled ministry carrying the financial weight of 1,422,251 staffers and 1,152,087 pensioners can’t execute productivity jumps. A perceivably somnolent rail bureaucracy can’t fight for market share from roads and air. Elephants don’t dance.

Opinion in The Indian Express, April 05, 2006

‘We’re only milking the cow’

Tracking Lalu Prasad is not an easy task --- you have to struggle through crowds, through security, through long queues of favour-seekers to get to him. We were lucky to get an inside view of things over the two days that we trailed him across three states in the Railway Minister’s Special Train. Excerpts from a series of interviews with Gautam Chikermane, held at Lalu’s new residence, in his special train, at various rallies and over quiet meals on trains, at stations and in the BNR House, South Eastern Railway’s heritage building on Garden Reach Road.

Interview in The Indian Express, April 05, 2006

Birth and death

Can prenatal babies understand? Can foetuses learn? Do they know good from bad, life from death? If science and its commercial manifestation of product sales are concerned, the answer is yes. There is a $199.95 prenatal education system in Australia that, according to its sellers, “helps kick-start learning for children still in the womb — by providing stimulating, rhythmic sounds that mimic their mother’s heartbeat. As the rhythms change, babies learn to differentiate the sounds, strengthening brain development”. Biological research is clearly indicating the presence of consciousness in the foetus, apart from life.

Opinion in The Indian Express, April 02, 2006