There’s no gilt in wealth creation

At a board meeting in Mumbai last week, the discussion went beyond taking organisational decisions into the future of economic reforms. On top of the agenda was pension reforms. In any such discussion, faces usually light up, ideas begin to stream. But this time, in a matter of a few minutes, the faces were crestfallen, the ideas were conspicuous by their absence. I have yet to see a group of men, managing hundreds of thousands of crores, so pessimistic on the future.
With nobody else left to strike at, they blamed the reforms troika of Manmohan Singh, P. Chidambaram and Montek Singh Ahluwalia for backtracking on reforms. They said that despite having icons of liberalisation at the helm of affairs, reforms in the UPA administration have reversed; what the NDA had begun, the UPA has ended. Their conclusion: having reformists is no guarantee to having reforms delivered.

Opinion in The Indian Express, October 06, 2006

Handling the heights

At around $600 billion or Rs 27,46,200 crore, the total banking assets in India are about the same as the world’s 25th largest bank, the Rabobank Group. India’s biggest bank, State Bank of India (SBI), has assets of $107 billion. Still, it’s only the world’s 84th largest bank its assets are less than 7 per cent of Barclays Bank, the world’s largest.
In a business where size matters most, the Indian banking sector is small and scattered. As on March 2006, there were 218 scheduled commercial banks, of which, the top 25 accounted for about 85 per cent of assets. Of these, 18 have the same owner (the government) and do the same thing, but any move to merge some of them is likely to run into a wall of Left opposition.

Opinion in The Indian Express, October 03, 2006

Our own Gandhigiri

It’s not his non-violence. It’s not his vegetarianism or abstinence. It’s not even his Satyagraha. And while not undermining their strength and success, I find all these mere outer ramifications of the man’s inner actions. They are an extension, a reflection of Gandhi’s personality, his core. The core itself is one of great conviction, a swadharma — discovered and practised by himself — that led to swaraj, non-cooperation, Dandi march and all the other ideas we saw him wear, ideas that were as simple as his clothes and therefore startling in a complicated world. It is his swadharma, own becoming, that is the key to, and substance of, the man.

Opinion in The Indian Express, October 01, 2006

Multiplied by Ground Zero

I asked: “How can one say, ‘You’re either with us or against us?’” He answered: “Well, we have.”

On September 30, 2001, as I walked into the world’s holiday destination, I had to remind myself that I wasn’t here on a vacation. Even so, from a tame tour of the US, the Fellowship gathered a momentum of its own, as it attracted senior officials and soldiers from the Government and the military, businessmen, editors, academics, all targeting a new terminology, a new language, negotiating new words - and a new world of terror.

Opinion in The Indian Express, September 14, 2006

Wisdom of crowds, shared

There's something to be said about the saving and investing habits of Indians. Surprising as they may be, they have a logic that remains unseen in the short term, but when you zoom out and see the big picture, that logic, however peculiar, comes to life. Data in the Reserve Bank of India’s 2005-06 annual report released on Thursday is one such and I’m surprised it’s gone unnoticed, unreported.

Tucked away in the appendices are a set of statistics that reveal the mind of Indian investors. The percentage of household savings that went to shares and debentures in financial year (FY) 2006 rose from 1.1 per cent to 4.9 per cent. This 3.8 percentage point increase is the highest over the past six years. And the champagne corks are out in offices of non-UTI mutual funds whose share increased by 3.2 percentage points, the highest ever, though I suspect it’s more to do with smart marketing of NFOs than with great performance.

Opinion in The Indian Express, September 04, 2006

Cash and creed

The interference of religious leaders in softer and short-term issues like who should sing the Vande Mataram or which temple or mosque should be demolished to make way for development has been accepted by Indian society as a given. We are no longer shocked by restrictions on our freedoms governing marriages, processions, education. But when religious leaders issue a fatwa declaring insurance and earning interest on bank deposits as illegal, it’s time to take stock and realise that these fatwas are human interpretations that may corrode long-term security. Darul Uloom of Deoband, which was responding to a query, is looking at money through the prism of religion. I’d like to turn this around and view religion through the prism of money.

Opinion in The Indian Express, September 04, 2006

A meeting of fears

I’M sure the final number will be a multiple of this number, but at this minute I’m aware of 619 kinds of fear. From theophobia (fear of God) to satanophobia (of Satan), it seems for every thing and thought that exists, there’s a fear someone harbours. Often one man’s phobia is another man’s mania — caligynephobia (of beautiful women) or chrematophobia (of money), for instance. Show me a man who’s completely fearless and I’ll show you the face of God.

Opinion in The Indian Express, August 28, 2006