Give us a smash, not a lob, Mr Damodaran

That mutual fund distributors must be regulated is a foregone conclusion. This newspaper has been reporting, analysing, commenting and arguing for the need to regulate this sector of the huge and growing financial services industry for a long time. It included a series of reports, last July, on how mutual fund agents were getting investors to needlessly churn their money. Although it has taken almost a year for SEBI to react, last month it ended this dirty game by changing the rules to stop amortisation of new fund offer (NFO) expenses in open-ended schemes. But that’s just one solved problem; several others remain.

Opinion in The Indian Express, May 12, 2006

Caste myopia

To ascribe a precise state of consciousness to a particular community, race or religion and fix it into rigid clusters of misery is a needlessly short-sighted look at a vision profound. And India has been suffering from this myopia for centuries. It is today a part of a constitutional mechanism that seeks to “uplift” the socially downtrodden through a series of measures, including reservations, so that India moves towards being an egalitarian state, a nation where equal opportunities are not a theoretical construct but a practical reality.

Opinion in The Indian Express, May 07, 2006

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