It has certainly made an impact amongst the minds of young Indians, not to mention the hype and the hooplah that it is getting in some of those weird news channels. Yes, the inflation is sub zero. Is it time to prepare for the doom? My relative innocuous conscience tells me that it is nothing to worry about. We are indeed sub zero but it is nowhere near to be termed as deflation. We should be happy to be sticking our neck out around the term Negative Inflation. The primary reason being, we are not yet witnessing any drop in demand and that is not going to happen anytime soon. So, deflation is ruled out. The second reason being, the WPI calculated YOY has a significant base effect. The crude that was around 130 $ last year, is around 70 $ today. To top it, we have seen a price decline most other goods, at least in the Wholesale markets. The monsoon has started playing truant and if it does not make its appearance then we shall certainly have a drop in food grain production that would lead to a surge in inflation again. For all I know, the CPI is still around a comfortable 9 percent. That makes the case in point.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Negative Innovation
The most beautiful thing about Sunday mornings is that they allow you to spend an extra hour or so on the bed, cozying up to the warm feeling of not having to rush to office. As usual, I woke up around 8 and took me sometime to get back to my usual self. It seems that the sleep had got better of me. But a cup of harmless platonic tea did the trick for me. As I glanced over the paper, this thought crossed over my mind. A few weeks earlier some of my colleagues in office went gung ho over a video that showcased an fingertip based web interface. It surely was a great technological innovation I felt but what disappointed me was the thought that, “ After all how many poor or underprivileged lives would this innovation help benefit?”. None, was the answer. Why do then people go crazy over such innovations? Well, as I was jostled back to reality, I decided to coin a new pseudonym for such inventions. I decided to call them “Negative Innovations”. Innovation for me is something that would help the larger mankind, something that would bring bring smiles to more faces, better more lives at the same cost. Micro Financing to me is one of the best innovations to have occurred to a country like India. We need more of such innovations. Designing an android to clean our house or designing a technology that helps use surfaces as touch screens is not the need of the hour for us. Till the day comes when our population is better served, can afford good food for three times a day and can avail of good education and housing, I would unwillingly have to call some of the innovations as Negative Innovations.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Random Musings
I am penning down a post after an eon. Not that I didn’t want to but just that my fickle self didn’t find me enough motivation to write one. Finally, the jinx was broken. In a short burst of 20 minutes, I was bombarded with a fusillade of thoughts that touched extremities. I usually find myself some time that I spend alone. Usually, the night works to my favor. When everyone’s asleep, I break free on my thoughts. I feel that’s the best time one can bring the best clarity to one’s thought. Today, I got this break while travelling in a BEST bus to my home. Travelling amidst the darkness and minor patches of lights in the woods of the Aarey colony, I was confronted with myriad questions.
Is there any pattern to things in life? This has been subjected to intense deliberation over time, but is still left to debate. To me, the entire universe is systematic as opposed to pure random happenings. The only difference being, no one knows the frequency at which things get repeated. At best, we can provide a guess as to how things would span out but cannot be sure on that. This is because each smaller pattern is embedded in a larger pattern, which in turn is embedded in still larger pattern. Stock Markets are in vogue again. We all talk about the recovery. Some say it is going to be a V shaped recovery and others are of the opinion that it shall be a W shaped recovery. Trend Analysis does help us quite a bit in this but nothing is devoid of serious shortcomings. What makes it difficult to predict things in the immediate short term is that there are quite a lot of unknown factors in play that affect the outcome. At the best, we can retrospect and find the hidden pattern in things. None of us know what tomorrow would have in store for us, but the larger picture in life is still clear to us. It is a great leveler to ensconce in the cozy confines of office or a friend’s car and be a part of the rushing crowd in Buses. It helps me to experience things without letting go off the reality. I read an article in the Guardian today regarding the sanitary conditions in our country and believe me it was shocking. What then is the purpose of our lives? To live selfishly or to live selflessly? I believe it is better to be selfishly selfless rather than being selflessly selfish. I didn’t find any answers to my questions at the end of the journey but I realized one thing. Just as we go with the fundamentals of a company to determine the expected return over a long term period, we should look at the ultimate aim of our lives to guide our action in each and every moment. Momentary deviations are part of the system and are just corrective measures that are bound to cancel out in the long term.
Hey, I have reached my bus stop. I am back to the chaotic world of randomness but am somehow trying to filter off the noise. In the meantime, I guess that our markets would trade flat for most part of June and thereafter the budget is going to guide the way forward for our nation.